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The Weight I Carry

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Weight I Carry

#11

Post by rhcom2 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6
amriksohata wrote: post #3

Watch the Fed up documentary, explains it so well that no matter how much we try, exercising and eating less wont work. Our environment is saturated with products now which almost all have added sugar, only way is to look at ingredients and change your environment, dont bring these things home and instead bring better stuff home thats not got added sugar.

> no matter how much we try, exercising and eating less won't work How can that be? If you burn more calories and you take in less calories, then surely at some point your body must start to lose mass. At very least is the equation that you're breathing out carbon and you're not getting that mass back from anything apart from what you eat.

Logically it's the answer, just like drug addiction is solved by stopping the use of drugs but of course knowing that alone doesn't really help.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#12

Post by growlist »

nxc18 wrote: post #4

Being significantly overweight is really tough. Body issues and shame make it so much harder. I wish people would understand that better. There’s a pretty nasty cycle of looking in the mirror, feeling like shit, eating to not feel like shit (the key problem step - note that it never actually works), looking and feeling like shit because you eat too much. I’ve lost 70 pounds in the last ~7 months. 50 pounds to go. I’m…

I find protein bars are pretty good at fighting my hunger pangs.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#13

Post by bko »

I found this study from 1973 interesting where an extremely obese individual performed a supervised fast for about a year and dropped from 456 to 180 pounds.

> A 27-year-old male patient fasted under supervision for 382 days and has subsequently maintained his normal weight. Blood glucose concentrations around 30 mg/100 ml were recorded consistently during the last 8 months, although the patient was ambulant and attending as an out-patient. Responses to glucose and tolbutamide tolerance tests remained normal. The hyperglycaemic response to glucagon was reduced and latterly absent, but promptly returned to normal during carbohydrate refeeding. After an initial decrease was corrected, plasma potassium levels remained normal without supplementation. A temporary period of hypercalcaemia occurred towards the end of the fast. Decreased plasma magnesium concentrations were a consistent feature from the first month onwards. After 100 days of fasting there was a marked and persistent increase in the excretion of urinary cations and inorganic phosphate, which until then had been minimal. These increases may be due to dissolution of excessive soft tissue and skeletal mass. Prolonged fasting in this patient had no ill-effects.

> During the 382 days of the fast, the patient's weight decreased from 456 to 180 lb. Five years after undertaking the fast, Mr A.B.'s weight remains around 196 lb.

I don't know why I haven't seen more studies where extremely obese individuals just stop eating.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495396/pdf/pos...

Re: The Weight I Carry

#14

Post by joeskyyy »

nxc18 wrote: post #4

Being significantly overweight is really tough. Body issues and shame make it so much harder. I wish people would understand that better. There’s a pretty nasty cycle of looking in the mirror, feeling like shit, eating to not feel like shit (the key problem step - note that it never actually works), looking and feeling like shit because you eat too much. I’ve lost 70 pounds in the last ~7 months. 50 pounds to go. I’m…

> Exercise to get healthy, treat the metabolism boost as a bonus. Exercise does not cancel out foods

Thank you! Exercise should be completely supplemental to overall health, not to lose weight. The amount of times I've seen people eat an awful meal while trying to lose weight because they "worked out extra hard" is astonishing.

Losing weight is almost completely related to what you put in your body. While you can certainly lose weight from exercise, it's by far not the most profound way to do so.

Congrats on your weight loss by the way, former fat kid myself, I know it's not an easy process and keeping it off is just as hard!

Re: The Weight I Carry

#15

Post by paulcole »

jki275 wrote: post #9
paulcole wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that no matter how much we try, exercising and eating less won't work Definitely disagree here. These are the only things that work. How else can you lose weight other than by moving more and eating less?

The key is that people actually don't eat less. They feel more hungry when they exercise, which drives them to eat more , which pushes the vicious cycle even further.

That's like saying, "Cars don't work on roads" but conveniently forgetting to add, "...if you don't step on the gas."

I am speaking as someone who has lost about 75-100 pounds (no clue I was too ashamed to step on a scale) and kept it off for 10+ years. I can guarantee you that exercising more and eating less works even if it's not what anyone wants to hear.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#16

Post by citizen_e »

blah blah, fatty is sad. Why don't we have such sympathy for smokers, who are targeted with something which is at least as addictive, and more deadly? It's because we recognize it's something indulgent and destructive, you reap what you sow and all that. This guy deserves to die early.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#17

Post by johnkpaul »

bko wrote: post #13

I found this study from 1973 interesting where an extremely obese individual performed a supervised fast for about a year and dropped from 456 to 180 pounds. > A 27-year-old male patient fasted under supervision for 382 days and has subsequently maintained his normal weight. Blood glucose concentrations around 30 mg/100 ml were recorded consistently during the last 8 months, although the patient was ambulant and atte…

Because 1) doctors are typically against this 2) when eating carbohydrates regular this is extremely extremely difficult today. I have discussed it many many times with my doctors and they have all talked about "starvation mode" and all of these things.

I currently intermittently fast very frequently and that has helped immensely with my weight. I have never done more than a 5 day fast, but even that much can do great things in combination with almost-0-carb.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#18

Post by cflewis »

neaden wrote: post #7
johnkpaul wrote: post #2

I've been 400 pounds most of my life. I empathize with every single sentence in this article and cannot imagine making myself write something like this. The vulnerability is incredible. I'm really glad that exercise is being called out as useless to treat obesity more and more. I hope that trend continues and things like Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaigns never happen again. Carbohydrate addiction is no joke, ev…

While I agree exercise isn't very effective to treat obesity, it is still healthy for you to exercise, even if it's not going to help you lose weight. There are a lot of people who are overweight who have healthier hearts and lungs then normal weight people due to exercise.

I can not give you more +1s. If your goal is to be healthy, and not necessarily be pretty, exercise is integral. You can be skinny and be unhealthy. You can be overweight and be heart-healthy, if you exercise.

I am obese according to the BMI, but I run 3 times a week and my resting heart rate grazes into the "athlete" territory. My doctor is very happy. But I don't look it, that's for sure. I do not like running. I see it like brushing my teeth. I don't like it, but I do it because I have to if I want to maintain my body.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#19

Post by hombre_fatal »

I found one of his fears interesting:

> I’ve never been anything but fat. Is there something in the fat version of me that also makes me likable and creative and a decent human being? Are the best parts of me all knotted up with the worst? Is there some way to untangle it and keep just the good stuff? Most of the time I think of my fat as a husk—something I have to shed so the best part of me can come out. But sometimes I wonder if I’m more like the shells you find on the beach, where the outer part is the attraction, and the animal inside is dull and shapeless.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#20

Post by danans »

chrisseaton wrote: post #6
amriksohata wrote: post #3

Watch the Fed up documentary, explains it so well that no matter how much we try, exercising and eating less wont work. Our environment is saturated with products now which almost all have added sugar, only way is to look at ingredients and change your environment, dont bring these things home and instead bring better stuff home thats not got added sugar.

> no matter how much we try, exercising and eating less won't work How can that be? If you burn more calories and you take in less calories, then surely at some point your body must start to lose mass. At very least is the equation that you're breathing out carbon and you're not getting that mass back from anything apart from what you eat.

> How can that be?

All else equal, you are right, but practically, for most people who aren't young, or athletes, hard endurance physical exercise triggers eating behavior that overcompensates for the number of calories burned.

Sure, if you force exercise upon and deny the extra calories to someone, they will lose weight, but that's not a desirable solution for most, sustainable for the individual, or scalable in today's society.

Solutions that acknowledge the existence of and work with human eating behaviors are needed.

IMO that would involve reconfiguring our society to enable people to have quotidian implicit forms of exercise (vs dedicated gym sessions), like walking as part of their commutes, or gardening, and of course reducing the amount of sugar in the food environment.

But that's a challenge because the current environment that most people inhabit is configured to encourage the opposite. There certainly appears to be a statistical correlation between car based commute frequency and obesity rates in a given area:

https://www.fastcompany.com/1679157/mapping-the-link-between...

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