61–70 of 89 posts
Perhaps the focus should be on the 140-150 pounds of annual per capita sugar consumption in the US.
Source? That's over 6 ounces of sugar per day, or 611 kcal. Are you including general carbohydrates?
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Not just fructose. In fruit fructose is fine. High fructose corn syrup is different and became prevelent in the 80's because of the sugar tariffs in the late 1970's in the USA.
Fruit fructose is just as bad as the fructose found in HFCS.
That's roughly equivalent to 7 apples, every day of the year. That's way, way above our actual fruit consumption levels.
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Bad/good. Forget those descriptors. Fructose found in fruit is indeed no different. But it is in fruit, bound up with fibre, protein, and many enzymes. In HFCS it's just fructose. The delivery mechanism is more important here than the lab breakdown.
not really, fructose no matter the form is ot broken down in the gut so its shunted to the liver (much like other toxins). There it does all sorts of crazy stuff. Modern fruit (due to selective breeding) is ultra sweet with what I can assume were pretty bland flavored fruit back in the day. Natures Candy.
My experience is that supermarket varieties of fruits are bigger and look better than local, traditional produce, or are more practical in other ways (thinner skin, less or no seeds) but are often insipid in comparison.
On the other hand (and this is just speculation), in the northern hemisphere most fruit is naturally available in the fall season. Fattening prior to winter was probably a desirable effect.
The trouble with this subject is that everybody, including commenters in this thread, thinks they already know what the solution is, even before they have a good grasp of the problem. I recommend reading Gary Taubes ("Good Calories, Bad Calories", "Why We Get Fat"), not because of what he thinks that the solution is, but to understand the range of facts that a theory of obesity must explain. When Taubes starts to pro…
I haven't read anything recent from Taubes but is he still peddling the Atkins diet or has he moved on to the Paleo diet?! I find it irritating that Taubes ends up cherry picking data to support his hypothesis. But then I subscribe to the Lyle McDonald-Mark Rippetoe line of thought when it comes to nutrition-fitness ideology. . Edit:If it interests anyone, here's a transcript from a Larry King Live episode hosted by…
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That seems counter-intuitive to me. Do you have a source?
I don't have a source, but when I worked construction during the summers, I would get fatter while also gaining muscle mass. I always felt hungry after working during the day and would consume massive amounts of calories.
Here's the funniest thing, and the prime reason why the BMI is totally useless for measuring obesity. I immigrated to Canada, and passed a full physical. My pulse is 60bpm (I actually hit full-blown bradycardic of I can lift 200+ lbs, I can climb a 20' ladder without getting out of breath when most skinny people I know get out of breath going up a flight of stairs (incidentally I live on the 11th floor of an apartment building and I started running out of breath at the 7th floor racing with my dog).
I can eat a double bigmac, large fries, large drink and two burgers off the dollar menu. I can do it regularly and it doesn't effect my weight. I've gone on diets eating mostly salad and calorie restricting myself, and it doesn't effect my weight. The only diet that genuinely works to make me lose weight has been the Atkins, and even coming off of the diet, my weight remains stable at that point like I reset my weight slider or something.
I get told by doctors who are flabbier than myself that I need to lose weight and all I can think is "I can Hulk-throw your fat ass out of your office window and you're struggling walking around the exam table with a coffee".
The obesity epidemic is a product of medical organizations adopting the BMI as a weight reference when it was deemed too inaccurate to study the weight changes in soldiers and was dropped. That was a height and age restricted group, and the BMI couldn't produce usable results to demonstrate fitness. So why medical organizations around the world have adopted it as a holy grail just clearly demonstrates their incompetence.
The other factor is increased sedation, but this isn't necessarily causing obesity. This is causing a general and whole shift in our society to being fat. I'm not talking obesity as a contagious disease, I'm talking that people are probably on average 30-40lbs heavier than what they should be.
Although, it should be noted that most western societies are facing a much more frightening anorexia and bulimia epidemic. Why is it more frightening? Because I'm 80lbs over the male long held 'average' of 180lbs, and likely 120+lbs past what my ideal is allegedly for my height. I can't go 80lbs below my ideal weight, and I certainly can't go 120lbs below my ideal. However I can quite easily go 200, 300, 400lbs above my ideal and have virtually no long term health complications for staying there for a decade and losing the weight. If I was at 60lbs, I would likely be dead or do serious permanent damage to my heart and organs even if I was only there for months and regained the weight.
We wholly don't understand weight in humans. We've got 7 year olds who are anorexic and 7 year olds who are morbidly obese, and no one is doing anything but blaming society when it's happening throughout dozens of cultures.
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Flours today are more refined and more likely to be bleached. Extended with fillers and soaked in sweeteners is stated to be how "grains are typically available to us." Wonderbread is a fair example, and the "standard" muffin that typically has 30 or more grams of sugar is another. Oatmeal today, in its most common presentations, will have a great deal of sugar.
What does "more refined" mean in this context, and what makes that bad? In other words, is flour simply ground to smaller sizes, chemically altered to remove certain elements, ...?
Refined flour has a high glycemic index, so do starches like potatoes.
It spikes your blood sugar levels very quickly.
We spend enormous amounts of mental energy thinking about types and combinations of calories, but not much time burning them. We pay huge signup and monthly fees to gyms that we never find the time to visit, meanwhile we never walk our streets.
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I don't have a source, but when I worked construction during the summers, I would get fatter while also gaining muscle mass. I always felt hungry after working during the day and would consume massive amounts of calories.
I work in construction, my weight is currently balanced at around 260lbs and I'm around 5'9". By body mass index I'm way beyond morbidly obese. By waist-to-hip ratio for a man I'm way past what's recommended for men - I'm way past on the healthy side. Here's the funniest thing, and the prime reason why the BMI is totally useless for measuring obesity. I immigrated to Canada, and passed a full physical. My pulse is 60…
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Fruit fructose is just as bad as the fructose found in HFCS.
Yes, it's a matter of quantity, not quality. An Apple contains something like 7 grams of fructose. One can of soda contains 25 grams of fructose. According to the National Soft Drink Association, average consumption in the U.S. is nearly two cans of soda per day. (One can per day is enough to add 16 pounds of fat per year) That's roughly equivalent to 7 apples, every day of the year. That's way, way above our actual…
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I work in construction, my weight is currently balanced at around 260lbs and I'm around 5'9". By body mass index I'm way beyond morbidly obese. By waist-to-hip ratio for a man I'm way past what's recommended for men - I'm way past on the healthy side. Here's the funniest thing, and the prime reason why the BMI is totally useless for measuring obesity. I immigrated to Canada, and passed a full physical. My pulse is 60…
I agree that BMI is problematic, but that extra weight catches up to you sooner or later. Its extra stress on organs and joints.
Obesity puts too much pressure on your joints negating the lubricants. But underweight reduces the lubrication in your joints. Overweight seems to be the ideal, as it has for thousands of years.
Obesity is correlated with higher LDL cholesterol, and underweight is correlated with low levels of cholesterol overall, which can reduce vitamin D production and in turn increase your risk to virtually every disease and cancer out there.
For my body fat percentage, I sit in the low 20's, which puts me into the overweight category. Which, incidentally means I'm likely at a reduced risk of stress on my organs and joints, as I've seen little to no evidence of a correlation between muscle mass and arthritis or other weight-related disease.