Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes & Obesity

Okay, so I can't stop thinking about weight loss diets cold-turkey. I had this book ordered via inter-library loan for a month and it just came in yesterday. I haven't stopped reading it since it got picked up.

The book in question is Taubes' Why We Get Fat book, very pro-low carb, specifically Atkins type high fat low carb. Loads of good points he makes that I'm trying to ignore, because although I know deep-down inside that eliminating the majority of carbs will certainly help in weight loss, I still feel that eating high fat meats will not be beneficial to cholesterol levels, even though he shows study after study that show it's the carbs, not ingested fat, that raise cholesterol levels. The low-fat high starch veg docs can show even more studies to prove their way is best.

Anyway, near the end of the book, where he starts talking about what type of food plan really should be eaten, he mentions this little ditty on page 205:

"Physicians who have treated patients by prescribing carbohydrate-restricted diets for a decade or longer and published discussions of their clinical experiences - the British physician Robert Kemp, for instance, who began doing so in 1956, and Wolfgang Lutz, an Austrian physician, who began a year later - have reported that a small portion of their obese patients failed to lose any significant fat though they faithfully avoided fattening carbohydrates (or at least they said they did). Women failed more than men, and older patients more often than younger ones. The more obese the patients, and the longer they had been obese, the more likely they were to remain obese. However, as Lutz said, this doesn't mean 'that the carbohydrates were not responsible for the disorder (obesity) in the first place. It is quite simply, and sadly, that a point of no return has been reached.'"

Gee, NOW someone believes us (I think. He did seem kind of smarmy at the "they said they did" remark) when we say we stayed on the food plan strictly and lost nothing! Of course, he still wants us on that strict super low carb food plan of mostly red meat, poultry, fish, butter, and green & yellow veggies.

Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture

I'm glad I ordered the book Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture by Amy Farrell yesterday. I've been putting off buying it for a few weeks but my husband told me to just go ahead and put the order in for that, and a few other books.

She did an interview with Steve Colbert a few weeks ago:

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Sure, he didn't give her much chance to talk, especially about the book itself, but at least her name and the book got out there to the general public.

And now this morning I log in and see there's a thread on the Big Fat Blog about it, too.

I'm glad the regular television season is over - I have way too many good books stacking up that need to be read!

Another Reason Not to Even TRY to Lose Weight

I never heard of Dr. Sharma or his blog before today, but what he writes here makes perfect sense and goes along with my declaration earlier today that I'm no longer even going to try lose weight. He's talking about a lecture he had attended.

Here's the blog post, and here is an excerpt from it:

One of the key underlying problems is that when people lose weight, their energy expenditure does not simply fall to that of the energy expenditure of a person ‘naturally’ at that lower weight - it drops to levels far greater than expected.

Thus, a formerly-obese person burns 20% less calories than a never-obese person of that lower weight - or in other words a 200 lb person, who loses 40 lbs burns about 20% fewer calories than someone who is 160 lbs, but has never been obese. On top of this, the formerly-obese person experiences hunger, cold intolerance, and other behavioural and metabolic changes that make sustaining this lower body weight difficult.

Size Serenity

On the Yahoogroup SizeWisePlus, someone asked for another phrase to describe how we feel about our fat bodies, and long-time member Liz suggested "size serenity."

Yeah, that sounds good.

And here's our theme song to go with it:

Random Blog Name Generator by Jennette Fulda

Jennette, formerly known as the Pasta Queen, has a new blog. In real life she's a computer geek, and her old blog for her weight loss (and the basis for her book, Half-Assed) had cool graphics on it. On this new blog I see she added a random weight loss blog name generator.

Here are a few I was given:

Empress LaPotato Chip

Diva of the Muffin Top

Quest of a Roly Poly Princess

Lardy O'Cracker Jeans

Okay, I liked that last one, but for now I'll stick to Suzy's Search for Sanity.

Got Fat Feet?

Then you'll love these 2 videos by Kim Brittingham, author of Read My Hips: How I Learned to Love My Body, Ditch Dieting, and Live Large. You need to watch both videos to get all the info this Jersey Girl has to offer.

and

Turning Back the Clock for Sanity's Sake

I quit!

No more diets. No more daily weigh-ins. No more agonizing over eating one cookie or a slice of pizza.

I'm going to follow Margaret Cho's philosophy and just say Fuck it!

I may not lose any weight, will probably regain some that I already lost - multiple times - but I'll regain some sanity in my life.

And that's what this blog is about - my Search for Sanity - right?