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Always Hungry? Here’s Why

nytimes.com

41–50 of 134 posts

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#41

Everyone wants to be told that it isn't their fault that bad things have happened. Its a pernicious, harmful urge most often on display in courtrooms and discussions on weight and diet. Unfortunately reality is what it is: if you eat without consideration and control in this modern world of low-cost calories, then you will get fat. Accepting and acknowledging that you are 100% accountable as to what and how much you…

> Everyone wants to be told that it isn't their fault that bad things have happened. Actually, the general cultural attitudes are to castigate overweight individuals for some sort of moral failing. In reality, it is substantially harder for different people with different genes to maintain a lower weight. Disregarding that is purely callous and is equivalent to denying the existence of phenomena like addiction. Peopl…

I think it's both.

I see both happening. I see major attitudes of helplessness or victim mentality. Or just ambivalence. Go to any mall. We all know this story.

But also, it then becomes a thing where those who do have their head in the right place to pursue health in a practical and beneficiary (edit: beneficial) manner, these folks often do turn around and moralize. It's too bad.

The real truth is, we need to forget about those types of things, for a little while at least, and concentrate purely on the facts. The consequences. What is actually occurring. Because in the end, it doesn't matter what peoples' intentions are, or motives, or desires, or anything else. What matters are consequences.

That said, of course it's incumbent upon anyone promoting health to offer a helping hand, only, and never anything else. Never any judgment. Because not one of us is "above it."

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#42
post #33
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The metabolic slowdown discussed in the article has marginal effects if any -- perhaps a couple hundred calories worth per day." I'm sorry, but that is not a marginal effect. That is the difference between weight gain and weight loss. Also, if you read the article you would have noticed that a calorie deficit is not the only thing that necessitates weight loss, in fact, it might not help at all. There are good calor…

I recently went from bulking to cutting and went from 3500 calories per day to 2000 per day. You are massively underestimating caloric intake shifts that are possible or necessary.

You are assuming that the average person is a weight lifter like yourself. Most people aren't, most people get very little structured exercise.

The truth of the matter is that most people don't have the time to go throw 45's around a gym for an hour a few times a week, and that diet and metabolism are the two main factors in a persons weight.

Edit: Also, most people aren't eating 3500 calories a day. They are probably eating maybe a couple hundred calories more than they should, but the calories that they are consuming is causing insulin resistance which causes your fat stores to take up additional calories. Even cutting out the extra calories won't help once insulin resistance happens. And here's the kicker, not everyone's body will exhibit insulin resistance, that is why there are people that seem like they can eat what ever they want and not get fat.

Here's my anecdotal evidence, I used to eat whatever I wanted, though I ate mostly (what I thought to be) healthy, eg: oatmeal, fruit, veggies, etc. But I hurt my back and all of a sudden, despite my reduced caloric intake, the pounds started being put on. It wasn't until I discover HFLC diets, and began to do my own research that I realized it wasn't how much I was eating, but what I was eating that was causing the weight gain.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#43

Everyone wants to be told that it isn't their fault that bad things have happened. Its a pernicious, harmful urge most often on display in courtrooms and discussions on weight and diet. Unfortunately reality is what it is: if you eat without consideration and control in this modern world of low-cost calories, then you will get fat. Accepting and acknowledging that you are 100% accountable as to what and how much you…

>Accepting and acknowledging that you are 100% accountable as to what and how much you eat is a necessary first step to avoiding that end state. You are technically correct, except in the case of children who were raised with terrible eating habits and found themselves with the same habits and damage in adulthood. In my (terribly uninformed) opinion, I think this is more common than we give it credit, and the behavio…

If you want to improve, you'd better take accountability.

Looking for places where to put blame is useless in situations where there isn't moral hazard, or where you are unable to punish the blamed. On those cases, you're left with the choice of accepting your part of the problem and correcting it, or keep suffering.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#44
post #16

Obesity rates in Europe (2008): http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50326000/gif/_50326564... Why Italians, that eat pasta (carbohydrates) almost every day are so thin? Goddammit.

Like the French, Italians also drink loads of Wine. There's some theory that this has an impact. They also walk a lot more than Americans.

Looking at the UK and Ireland, my few times in those countries (especially Ireland) showed me that fast food and a lack of veggies is pretty common, especially out in the local villages. There were a few entire days while traveling throughout Ireland (as a visitor) where my choices for food in some local village were basically the local fish & chips/pizza place or the pub and that was it. The local children were pretty hefty, but the farmers and other locals were about as fit as that kind of life can make you. I did manage to find a few great local restaurants, but the meals were basically local pork in cream sauces and potatoes with a few greens. It was great food if you're working a farm or something similarly labor intensive, but sedentary lifestyles are not compatible with it.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#45
post #31
post #30

The stomach is not a good judge of whether you should be eating more or less food. For whatever reason, some individuals may be prone to overeating or undereating. If your natural eating tendencies have caused you to be over- or underweight, common sense says that you should stop listening to those natural urges. The key to successful dieting is to transform eating from a biologically-mediated process into a cognitiv…

"The metabolic slowdown discussed in the article has marginal effects if any -- perhaps a couple hundred calories worth per day." I'm sorry, but that is not a marginal effect. That is the difference between weight gain and weight loss. Also, if you read the article you would have noticed that a calorie deficit is not the only thing that necessitates weight loss, in fact, it might not help at all. There are good calor…

200 calories a day equates to one pound loss every 16 days, but to reach that level of metabolic slowdown, you need to be thin, and you need to cut your caloric intake down by about 1000 calories a day.

So yeah - it's a marginal effect.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would it be going too far to say the type of person who would most benefit from the nutritional advice of this column is also unlikely to be the type of person who reads the New York Times. Um, yes. I don't at all understand your point. That's the most ridiculous point I've heard in a long time. Are you somehow insinuating that overweight people are not well-read or intelligent? The many, many overweight NYT reader…

> That's the most ridiculous point I've heard in a long time. How is it ridiculous? It's not a personal slur on you. Do you deny that people from lower socio-economic backgrounds generally suffer more from overweight issues and obesity? Wouldn't you say that people from this type of background are less likely to consume their mass media in the form of the New York Times? > Being overweight is in no way equivalent to…

> How is it ridiculous?

Because you're taking a correlation and eliminating the lower data point. Yes, people with better educations tend to eat better, but not by much. In fact, for adult males there is no correlation between education and obesity prevalence. [1]

I, and the many other overweight NYT readers, certainly exist. We could also benefit from this article. Should we not get access to it because of your faulty moralistic viewpoint?

> Should I not take responsibility for this? If I can't stop smoking is it "out of my control"?

Of course it is partially in your control, but you totally missed the nuance. It would probably be much harder for you (as a smoker) to choose to not smoke a cigarette today than for me (as a non-smoker). That doesn't make me better than you, it's just an acknowledgement of addiction as a phenomenon. Acknowledging it helps us to build better for strategies for helping people to make good choices.

Also, two individuals who have the exact same diet and exercise can weigh very differently depending on their genetic makeup and background. How is that their fault?

> The food and quality of food that is available to many people is a factor, which is could be said is generally out of their control. I don't think it's helpful to blame the individual as we are all part of systems.

What the fuck? I didn't even say that. Way to put words in my mouth.

1: http://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2012/p0516_higher_educatio...

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#47

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTuJ6r1F2hA I've been helping my family and friends with this recipe, and it's changing lives. Literally. My father, who I taught how to eat vegetarian, has stopped needing insulin! (After heading steadily down the standard American road...sad...) If you add this smoothie to your daily life, and change nothing else, you will feel better. A lot better. You can still eat bacon and eggs f…

I don't think you are getting downvotes because developers don't care about their health. It's because you are saying that ONE smoothie is changing lives... which is a ridicolous statement. And it honestly sounds like an attempt for self promotion.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#48
post #3

There seems to be a pervasive unwillingness to understand the nature of positive feedback cycles, and instead we're just continually hearing "fat because of intake" and "intake because of fat" arguments that try to fall on an extreme interpretation of simplified causality. This article belongs to the very few that actually do a job of describing a feedback cycle, but then it falls short and does the popular simplific…

There's a wealth of information on ketogenic (low to no carb) diets: http://www.reddit.com/r/keto Everyone serious about this understands that carbs are the problem.

I came here to post this. I wish people knew more about keto.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#49
post #47

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTuJ6r1F2hA I've been helping my family and friends with this recipe, and it's changing lives. Literally. My father, who I taught how to eat vegetarian, has stopped needing insulin! (After heading steadily down the standard American road...sad...) If you add this smoothie to your daily life, and change nothing else, you will feel better. A lot better. You can still eat bacon and eggs f…

I don't think you are getting downvotes because developers don't care about their health. It's because you are saying that ONE smoothie is changing lives... which is a ridicolous statement. And it honestly sounds like an attempt for self promotion.

It is not a claim about the future. It's a fact, referring to the past. Of course I will not, but I could easily fish out thank you letters and comments about positive change from a private forum.

I promote your health, sir. Not myself. Forget about me. Think about you. And in particular, note that I don't have any ads on my video. It's really about you. If you can believe that. Sometimes people try to do good for its own sake, even in this day and age. Crazy, huh?

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