Declining Life Span In Women Confuses Scientists - Not Me

I just saw this news report this morning and just shook my head in disbelief:

Study shows declining life span for some US women
Mar 4, 4:07 PM (ET)
By MIKE STOBBE

NEW YORK (AP) - A new study offers more compelling evidence that life expectancy for some  U.S. women is actually falling, a disturbing trend that experts can't explain.

The latest research found that women age 75 and younger are dying at higher rates than previous years in nearly half of the nation's counties - many of them rural and in the South and West. Curiously, for men, life expectancy has held steady or improved in nearly all counties.

The study is the latest to spot this pattern, especially among disadvantaged white women. Some leading theories blame higher smoking rates, obesity and less education, but several experts said they simply don't know why.

I know why, and so does any fat woman in America today. There's a whole blog out there describing the treatment we get when we go to doctors with our medical complaints.  Everything is blamed on our fat. If we are above the "normal" BMI we're not taken seriously, and the treatment for our complaints is always "lose weight," whether we present with a broken arm or chest pains. 

Read the blog First, Do No Harm if you don't believe me. "Normies" will be aghast at the treatment those people received at the hands of their doctors while fat people will nod their heads and say, "Yep, that happened to me, many times." I can add a few stories of my own if I wanted to, most notably the cardiologist who told me I had a heart attack when I didn't because, he admitted, he thought hearing that would scare me into losing weight. Nice, especially when the cardiac problem I DID have was the result of the extreme stress I had in my life at the time. He didn't think the fat lady would have copies of all the tests he ran that showed what I did or didn't have so he couldn't bullshit me. He got mad at me when I refused to see his friend, the head of the bariatric surgery department of the hospital, for a consultation. And even though I had the lab work in my hands that proved it, he didn't believe I was following a very low fat, whole foods, plant based food plan prior to my hospitalization, because "vegans aren't fat."

These people in the study didn't die of obesity but of neglect and malpractice. There are thousands of doctors out there like that cardiologist.

People like those doctors make women afraid to see a doctor when something really is wrong. Women have died of heart attacks and ruptured aneurysms, ruptured appendices, various cancers, etc., because they were afraid to see their doctor when they had pain, because they knew it would be blamed on their weight and not given any diagnosis or treatment, so they lived with the symptoms. Until they didn't.

And what about the fat people who believe what their doctors tell them, that their fat is the cause of their ills, and go through desperate measures to get rid of the fat and die as the result? Women who take unsafe over-the-counter stimulants to "boost their metabolism." Women who over exercise and undereat and overstress their bodies which may lead to sudden death from heart attacks or electrolyte imbalances. Women who ingest tapeworm tablets. Women who have their healthy intestines and stomachs amputated in hopes that less digestion leads to weight loss. You know, weight loss surgeries. These procedures rob the body of needed nutrients, which lead to all sorts of medical problems, and for many, early death, earlier than if they just stayed fat in the first place. And don't forget those who die on the operating table or within the first 48 hours. Those are the only deaths counted as caused by the surgery itself. Statistics aren't kept on those who die months or a few years later from all the complications even if they're from the surgical procedure, such as ruptured suture lines, infections at the suture site that never healed because the body doesn't have the nutrition to defend itself, leaking of gastric material into the abdominal cavity from internal sutures or staples that weren't done right or ripped, etc. Those deaths are attributed to the person's fat, not the surgery.

On the opposite end of the weight spectrum are the anorexics and other women with eating disorders. The treatment failure rate is high, and many times leads to unnecessary deaths, all because they feared getting fat.

And let's not forget the young Type 1 diabetics who skip their insulin, not because they're tired of injecting themselves or have a death wish, but because they know insulin improves the metabolism of the food they eat, which leads to weight gain, so if they don't take their insulin they'll lose weight. 

Some women will do anything to lose a few pounds, even risk death. And scientists wonder why the death rate is going up in "certain" women, especially obese ones! Just look at how society treats us and they'll know why!

Spring is Here; More Weight Rants

Well, since we were having spring-like temps throughout most of winter, I guess we went from autumn to spring. Not that I'm complaining!

I've been obsessing over my weight again and the lack of weight loss no matter what I do. I even spent a week eating nothing but fruits, beans and veggies, staying hungry the entire time (while awaiting "real" hunger, not the "toxic" hunger that comes from the body ridding itself from toxins) and besides being shaky, fuzzy-headed, paranoid, tense, and having chest pains from the stress of starvation, I lost a whopping - ready for it? - 2 pounds. I ended this failed experiment by making a pot of spaghetti and vegan meatballs. My husband was happy (He eats what I serve him for dinner and fills up on junk food later on) and my tummy was certainly happy.

I then started searching other web sites for other food plans to follow that might jump-start weight loss.

I glanced over my personal journal and saw that my weight has been stable, within the same 20 pound range, for almost 30 years, with only a few exceptions. Actually, it's been in that weight range since I graduated high school in 1971! I went up 20 pounds higher twice, after injuries that left me unable to exercise, and twice down only 10 pounds during periods of long-term semi-starvation on diets very similar to what I just experimented with and an hour of exercise daily. The weight never stayed that low for long and started coming back on immediately with no change in eating, usually because an injury that kept me from doing that much exercise.

It is so not worth it!!

I'm almost 60 years old. When will I stop behaving like an eating disordered teenager? I guess when society and the medical profession finally accepts the fact that you CAN be fat and healthy.

We Go to the Same Doctor!

Better Half comic 2/2/2012

Tao of Joy Every Day

I've been following the Tea House forums of Derek Lin's for a number of years now, and in the past bought every book he's put out. Last week I got this new one, Tao of Joy Every Day. Lovely book of Tao daily affirmations. So far it's a pretty fantastic book.

Here's the reading for today. I read this after a night of tossing and turning trying to decide what to do about my weight, since the food plan I've been following isn't giving me the results originally promised (The typical promise of 4 or more pounds a week. Oh, wait a minute, that's only in the beginning, that most people should expect a pound or 2 IF they stick to the more restricted version and get an hour of aerobic exercise daily AND they have no medical condition such as hypothyroid that would affect their metabolism) and I was thinking of switching to an even more restricted food plan, one that allows you to eat about a thousand calories of green and yellow veggies a day with a bare minimum of starchy foods. Sure, I would be hungry all the time, and yeah, I would be spending most of my days and nights in the bathroom, but won't it be worth it to finally lose this weight?

What idiotic thinking!!

Then I read this and decided to just take a deep breath and relax:


Day 360

The Great Vessel

Chapter 41 of the Tao Te Ching says: "The great vessel is late in completion." The meaning of this is the same as our familiar expression "Rome was not built in a day." A big, worthwhile goal takes time to accomplish and cannot be rushed. If you push yourself too hard, you will end up with not a great vessel but a leaky container.

This is why Tao cultivators do not stress themselves out. It is quite all right if they are not as successful as they want to be. They never stop taking meaningful steps toward the goal, but their attitude is one of relaxed optimism. This is contrary to our success-obsessed society, where people compare themselves with one another and feel upset of they think they are lagging behind.

In life, we see evidence of leaky containers all the time. They are the hard-charging, aggressive personalities who keep pushing themselves for the bigger paycheck at the expense of health, family, relationships, and peace of mind. By the time they realize the frantic rush does not work, their container of life is already broken into pieces. By then, it is too late.


The Tao Today

Heed the words of Lao Tzu and avoid the mistakes of others. Do not beat yourself up if you get to where you want to be more slowly than your peers. The important thing in life is not doing things quickly, but doing things correctly. Relax and take all the time you need to complete the great vessel of your own creation.

Another Wacky Diet Drug

My comments after the article

~~~

Experimental drug takes pounds off overweight monkeys

Success of Adipotide in lab tests could lead to breakthrough in fight against human obesity

BY Afp/relaxnews

Friday, November 11 2011, 1:23 PM

An experimental drug helped obese monkeys lose 11 percent of their extra weight in a month, a promising sign in the hunt for obesity drugs that could apply to humans, US researchers said.

The drug, known as Adipotide, works by attacking the blood supply of a certain kind of fat, known as white adipose tissue, that tends to accumulate under the skin and around the belly.

Most other obesity drugs focus on either reducing appetite, boosting metabolism or preventing the absorption of fat.

The research, led by the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, offers a potential new pathway for treatment and has also shown effects in mice who lost 30 percent of their body weight during treatment.
"Most drugs against obesity fail in transition between rodents and primates," said co-senior author Renata Pasqualini, whose study appears in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

DO THE MATH: WEIGHT LOSS TIP
"We're greatly encouraged to see substantial weight loss in a primate model of obesity that closely matches the human condition."

The monkeys in the study were spontaneously obese, meaning they overate of their own free will, avoided exercise and therefore had packed on extra pounds.

Their weight declined for the first three weeks of treatment, though a small uptick was seen in the fourth week. The average weight loss during that span of time was 11 percent of their body weight.

The drug designed by the MD Anderson group "binds to a protein on the surface of fat-supporting blood vessels," and contains a "synthetic peptide that triggers cell death," the findings said.

"Their blood supply gone, fat cells are reabsorbed and metabolized."

Clinical trials of the drug on obese men with prostate cancer are planned next, in which human subjects will get daily injections of the drug for 28 days.

"The question is, will their prostate cancer become better if we can reduce their body weight and the associated health risks?" asked co-author Wadih Arap, a professor in MD Anderson's David H. Koch Center for Applied Research of Genitourinary Cancers.

Another promising sign was that monkeys treated with the drug showed an improvement in their resistance to insulin, suggesting it may help ward off the development of type 2 diabetes.

However, it was seen to have some damaging effects to the kidneys, which could be lessened by administering the drug in smaller doses.

The journal noted that Arap, Pasqualini and some other researchers involved in the project own equity positions in two drug-development companies working on the research.

Those positions are "subjected to certain restrictions under institutional policy. MD Anderson manages and monitors the terms of these arrangements in accordance with its conflict-of-interest policy," it said.

Funding for the research came from grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Cancer Institute and several other foundations.
AFP/Relaxnews
~~~~~
So, you take this injection which somehow kills off the blood supply to only a certain kind of cell, causing those particular cells to be killed off, giving you about a 10% weight loss in the first 3 weeks, BUT you start to regain by week four AND it starts to destroy your kidneys by that time, too?


And somebody thinks this is a GOOD idea??


Besides, is there anyone left on earth that doesn't know you can lose substantial amounts of weight in the first few weeks of any weight loss scam but it immediately starts to come right back on unless you take further steps, such as exercising more and eating even less?


I think I'll avoid this drug, TYVM.

Weight Truisms from Weighty Matters Blog

An obesity medicine doc from Canada has a blog called Weighty Matters, and in this blog post he has "Twitter sized weight management truisms."
 This one is my favorite of them all:

Your best weight is whatever weight you reach, when you're living the healthiest life you actually enjoy.

Now THAT is what the Health At Every Size movement is all about!

Will Losing Weight Make You Fat?

Will Losing Weight Make You Fat?

An excerpt:

"I often joke that the easiest way to gain 25 lbs is to lose 20!"

"Unfortunately, this may not be much of a joke, as there is mounting evidence that intentional weight loss may indeed be an important driver of long-term weigh gain."


Even though Dr. Sharma is an obesity expert and even proposes WLS for some people, reading through his site is such a breath of fresh air! Just about everything he has said about the effects of dieting rings true in my own life.

Telling it like it is

Today's Thin Lines comic strip. Fantastic!

Quote of the Day

Or, "Why I know I will NEVER be able to lose any weight."

Said by a 30-something person who exercises a few hours per day:

"I learned years ago I am one of the very unlucky ones -- to maintain weight I cannot eat over 30-40 TOTAL carbs and not more than 700 calories! "

Why Dieting Makes You Fat - a.k.a. Setpoint Theory

The article in this link on the Big Fat Blog is one lady's opinion, one that I, and thousands of others like me, subscribe to. Dieting Makes You Fat! Period!

More "Childhood Obesity Epidemic" Stupidity

It was bad enough when they wanted to put fetuses on diets by giving overweight mothers a diabetes drug to reduce the amount of nutrients the growing baby gets. Now they want infants and toddlers to exercise excessively! Yes, INFANTS!

To fight obesity, even babies should exercise
Jul 11, 1:54 PM (ET)By MARIA CHENG

 

LONDON (AP) - Preschoolers, even babies, need daily exercise, the British government says in its first-ever exercise advice for its youngest citizens.

In a new campaign against obesity, Britain issued guidelines on Monday saying that children under the age of 5 - including babies who can't even walk yet - should exercise every day.
The new guidance from the British health department said kids under 5 who can walk should be physically active for at least three hours a day. Officials also said parents should reduce the amount of time such kids spend being sedentary while watching television or being strapped in a stroller.

Pudgy toddlers are also a big concern in the U.S., where the Institute of Medicine last month issued diet and activity recommendations for youngsters. It said preschool-aged kids should get at least 15 minutes of exercise for every hour they spend in child care and suggested the US government create dietary guidelines for babies from the time they're born until they are 2 years old. About a third of American adults are obese.

Like the British, American experts say parents should limit the amount of time babies spend in swings, bouncy seats or other equipment while they're awake.

In the U.K., officials said the recommended three hours of activity for kids under 5 should be spread throughout the day. Officials said the children's daily dose of exercise is likely to be met simply through playing but could also include activities such as walking to school.

For babies who can't walk yet, the government said physical activity should be encouraged from birth, including infants playing on their stomachs or having swimming sessions with their parents. It said floor-based play encourages infants to use their muscles and helps bone development. The government said children's individual physical and mental abilities should be considered when interpreting the advice.

"It's vital that parents introduce children to fun and physically active pastimes to help prevent them becoming obese children, who are likely to become obese adults at risk of heart disease, diabetes and some cancers," Maura Gillespie, head of policy and advocacy at the British Heart Foundation, said in a statement.
Nearly a quarter of British adults are obese, and experts estimate that by 2050 about 90 percent of adults will be heavy.
According to a 2008 health survey that used devices to measure how much people actually exercised, officials found only about five percent of Britons meet the government's minimum physical activity advice - about 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise every week, including some every day.

For children aged 5 to 18, Britain recommends at least one hour of exercise, but that should include intensive activities to strengthen muscles and bones.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises children and teenagers to get about one hour or more of physical activity every day.

Another Boring Update

I'm sorry of my blog is beginning to look like it's just a collection of videos gathered from various web sites, but I really have nothing new to say.

Each day I debate over what food plan - if any - to follow, from Dr. Fuhrman's very restricted Eat to Live program to the very liberal and freeing  Overcoming Overeating's philosophy, and everything in-between. It doesn't make a difference on the scale. I've gained weight some days I followed Eat to Live and lost weight on days I ate everything not tied down.

I'm still getting in as much aerobic/cardio exercise as my sciatica allows, a minimum of a half hour a day. Out of the last 6 weeks I did not exercise only 4 days. Burn out? Possibly, but my doctors insist I exercise that much for heart health and their futile hopes I lose weight by doing more than they tell other patients to do.

A new injury to my every growing list is a tendinitis or ligament injury on my left hand from twisting it weirdly while carrying bags of groceries up the three flights of stairs to my apartment. It first happened a few weeks ago, and this weekend it happened again, and again with grocery bags. I feel guilty making my husband and son carry everything, but I guess I'll just have to sit back and let them do it all for a while.



Still not getting along with the elderly relative with early Alzheimer's disease. The last time we visited I walked out, telling my husband I'll meet him at the car, when every 2 minutes she would moan loudly begging Jesus for death, complaining she's so lonely, yet refusing to have people over, locking out the homemaker, and the few people who do visit her (us, mainly) she makes their lives a living hell. Yesterday again she refused to open the door to let the homemaker in (but still has to pay for the whole 3 hours), and before he even heard about it my husband was discussing with a co-worker that he's ready to just hand all her paperwork back to her, get our names off the bank accounts and power of attorney forms, and let her do what she wants, since she refuses to do anything that needs to be done or we suggest she have done.

And before I start getting nasty-grams about caring for the person-with-AD, let it be known that aside from her short term memory loss, this woman has been like this her entire life! Her own mother used to cringe when she heard she was coming for a visit and would sometimes leave the house rather than be home and let her in. Her sister (my m-i-l) would end every phone call in tears. Her own husband waited as long as possible to take his retirement (was forced to go, actually) then immediately got himself part time jobs so he would be out of the house when she was home because even he couldn't stand being with her for hours at a time. She has alienated every other family member and any local acquaintance she ever had. One woman, a bit younger than her but in bad shape medically, has complained that this aunt has the nerve to insist she do her shopping for her, that she take her places in her car at a moment's notice. She as happy when her doctor told her she could no longer drive because now she had an excuse to tell this aunt NO! It's the antics of this aunt that put me in the hospital 2 years ago with stress cardiomyopathy!

ARGH!

So, nothing new, just SSDD, as the gang in Stephen King's Dreamcatcher would say - Same shit, different day.

I'm Gonna Live Forever!

Slow metabolism linked to longevity

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Joel Fuhrman

 

An excerpt from the middle of the article:

 

Metabolic rate and lifespan
A study on thyroid function published last year further supported the idea that a slower metabolic rate could prolong lifespan.  Now, a new study has measured resting metabolic rate directly and come to the same conclusion. 

Another One Bites the Dust II

I know I said I was going to stop obsessing over my weight and what I eat, but as I also said, it's hard to break a decades-old habit. Since I started reading the new book by Gary Taubes, Why We Get Fat, I've been thinking about dropping all the healthy carbs the McDougall program says to eat and start loading up on animal products.

Then I saw a few posts from adamant low-carbers saying that while the food plan may work quite nicely in the beginning for weight loss (as most weight loss food plans do), eventually the weight loss stalls and regains happen. It happened to the #1 low-carber in America Jimmy Moore, according to this blogger, and back in 2009 the blog called Diabetes Update said the same thing.

Those of us who had been dieting for weight loss for decades KNOW that this happens, no matter what food plan is followed. Calories in/calories out doesn't account for the metabolism slowing down to accomodate the lower amount of calories to maintain homeostasis, that as time goes on, if we want to continue to lose weight we must eat even less, exercise even more. For those of us who have to eat 1000 calories and under plus exercise an hour or more a day just to lose 1 pound a week, it's impossible to eat less, do more, than that. Already at that level we're running into nutritional deficiencies and the long term problems that go along with them, as well as setting ourselves up for musculo-skeletal system injuries. Recent articles on-line are saying how my generation, the Baby Boomers, are getting joint replacements in record numbers. Yeah, it's my generation that's over-working our bodies in the quest to lose weight, to stay young!

Doesn't it just make more sense to follow the Health At Every Size guidelines and just stay off the scale?

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.

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.

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?

International No Diet Day

Today is the day we fat people are supposed to proclaim in one loud voice that we will no longer be pushed around by society, that we love our bodies as they are, that we realize the futility of starving ourselves in the name of weight loss and will not do it any more!

So why am I more obsessed than ever today with the scale and my food plan?

Why did I weigh myself as soon as I got out of the bathroom and do a silent cheer when the number was a pound lower than yesterday, which unfortunately was a pound higher than the day before and 12 pounds higher than January 1st?

Why did I then drag open my food journal and menus to see how I can tweak things today to make sure I lose another pound instead of regaining that same one back? In fact, since February I’ve been bouncing up and down the same 5 pound range, whether I follow the food plan strictly and drown myself in water or eat pizza and bakery Texas-sized muffins, sometimes losing on pizza days and gaining on green/yellow veg only days.

Why did I forgo the very low impact workout I had planned because my sciatica has made all movement this week painful, thanks to 11 hours of standing in a hospital ER Sunday with the elderly relative, for a faster, high impact one that’s supposed to burn off more calories? And why did I already choose which strength training video to do tomorrow so I could add a fourth toning day, because as we all know, the more muscle the more calorie burning?

Why do I even want to lose weight now? Studies done show that it’s really not healthy for women over age 50 to lose substantial amounts of weight.

The data show that for these adults there is little relation between weight and mortality, except for those with a very low weight (BMI of 20 or below), who have higher death rates. A low BMI was associated with mortality even after control for a wide variety of measures, including short-term unintended weight loss. A high BMI showed no association with mortality, and the variables considered had little effect except that long-term weight loss had a profound effect on results. People who lost 10 percent of their body weight after age 50 had a relatively high death rate.

So why bother? Even my primary care physician hasn’t mentioned my weight the past 3 visits, after almost 30 years of harping on me about it. My cholesterol and glucose levels are the envy of his practice, even though I have a BMI in the 40’s. I follow a healthy, low-fat starch-based (veg) food plan 95% of the time and get in at least a half hour of exercise daily. The only times I go off the plan are when I get frustrated at the lack of weight loss, then pay the price with achy joints and swollen sinuses. This is better than most Americans of any size do.

So why do I care what the numbers on a piece of machinery say?

Today, I’m going to enjoy my food. I just got 2 new books in the mail – Happy Herbivore    and Unprocessed    – both full of recipes geared towards the McDougall food plan. I already found loads of new things I want to try from both books, although I found Unprocessed to have a large amount of raw recipes and way too many sweets and nuts than any sane McDougaller should even consider eating. Still, now and then as a treat they should be fine, if I can convince my husband to have some with me so I don’t eat too many and work my way into hypoglycemia again.

And I’m going to try get rid of the scale again. I can’t get rid of it completely, as my son and husband do climb on it occasionally, but I want it in a place that’s hard for me to get to so I’m not jumping on it every morning. This way I can concentrate on being a health fatty instead of trying to make this already healthy body thinner.

Ancel Keye's Study on Psychology Today's Site

Published on Psychology Today (http://www.psychologytoday.com)

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Dieting Can Make You Lose Your Mind

By Emily Deans, M.D.

Created Mar 24 2011 - 12:58pm

So you have some pounds to lose. Wedding coming up, or a class reunion. I know. I've been there. Goal pants in a special place in the closet, a measured scoop high fiber cereal every morning with skim milk, salads for lunch, apple and string cheese snack, fat-free yogurt, a sad hunk of boneless skinless chicken breast and steamed vegetables for supper. Better yet, two or three calorie-controlled pink or brown diet shakes throughout the day followed by a "sensible dinner." The sauce on the turkey in that 230 calorie microwaveable meal has such a unique taste. Four or five days a week at the gym, walking or running or elliptical or aerobics. It's exhausting, but you tell yourself you feel good, and for a couple months, success. Pounds come off, closer-to-goal pants come on - right up until you crack and end up face first in a plate of warm brownies one time too many. The next year you make the same New Years Resolution and lose the same pounds again.This perpetual insanity is simply the result of following the government advice for weight loss. Calories in = calories out. Basic physics. Scientists probably researched this stuff, right? Obesity and diabetes and metabolic syndrome and heart disease are such big health problems these days. All you need is the right formula, the right calculation, enough exercise, and the willpower to make it through.
Why is it so hard, though, to keep off the pounds? Is it the huge restaurant portions? Is it all the food everywhere? Brownie advertisements? Video games?  Somehow, even with our big brains and computers to do the simple work of tracking exercise and calories, we can't seem to get it together enough to prevent the obesity and the diabetes. But look out the window - you never see that family of squirrels with brains the size of your thumbnail (and an all-you-can-eat buffet of acorns) waddling through the yard, stricken with morbid obesity.
Scientists have been studying obesity and weight loss for generations. One of the most famous calorie-restriction studies was done on conscientious objectors during World War II by Dr. Ancel Keys. 36 healthy young men who had been excused from armed service for ethical objections agreed to a year long diet of sorts. It would include 3 months of preparation, 6 months of semi-starvation (designed to make the men lose 25% of their body weight), and then 3 months of refeeding. The purpose of the study was to determine how people would react under such conditions, and also to learn how to safely and successfully refeed starving populations. The men were highly motivated for the study, as their purpose was to help their country and the men fighting overseas who might face starving conditions themselves.
The young men lived in a dorm at the University of Minnesota, and in addition to their restricted diet, they were required to walk 22 miles a week. All their food was prepared in a dormitory kitchen, and once the starvation began, each man's calories were adjusted every Friday to meet a weight loss goal of 2.5 lbs (1.1 kg) per week. Their average daily calories during the semistarvation period was about 1600 calories a day (they ate approximately 3200 calories daily before the study). I find the number 1600 calories especially compelling, for a standard weight loss diet recommended for a woman is usually about 1200 calories daily. Their food consisted of what might have been available in war-torn Europe at the time - potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, dark bread, macaroni, small glasses of milk, chicken, toast with a small smear of jam, those kinds of things.
What was it like for them? Well, horrible. They described lethargy, irritability, anxiety that approached each time they were to learn how much they were allowed to eat the following week. They had to institute a buddy system so that none of the men were allowed to leave the dormitory alone, as one man went off diet and had to be excused from the study. They had dizziness, cold intolerance (requesting heavy blankets even in the middle of summer), muscle soreness, hair loss, reduced coordination, edema, and ringing in the ears. Some had to withdraw from their university classes because they did not have the capability to concentrate. Their sex drive disappeared. They became obsessed with food, eating with elaborate rituals (which eating disorder patients also do) and adding water to their plates to make the food last longer. Many collected cookbooks and recipes. One man, tempted by the odor from a bakery, bought a dozen doughnuts and gave them to children in the street just to watch them eat. Originally, the participants were allowed to chew gum, but when many of the men went to chewing about 40 sticks a day, it was decided that gum would affect the experiment and it was disallowed.
Only 32 of the original 36 completed the semistarvation period. One man who broke diet admitted to stealing scrapings from the garbage cans, stealing and eating raw rutabagas, and stopping at shops to eat sundaes. Two of the men suffered severe psychological stress - one became suicidal, and another cut off three of his fingers in an act of self-mutilation. Both men were taken to a psychiatric hospital.
The 3 month refeeding period involved trying several different combinations of protein, vitamins, and levels of calories. Dizziness, apathy and lethargy improved first, but persistent hunger, weakness, and loss of sex drive persisted for several months. The men described "a year long cavity" that needed to be filled. The day after they were finally released from the study, one of the men was hospitalized to have his stomach pumped after binging. In the aftermath of the study, "many, like Roscoe Hinkle, put on substantial weight: Boy did I add weight. Well, that was flab. You don't have muscle yet. And get[ting] the muscle back again, boy that's no fun." None who were interviewed in their 80s felt there was any lasting medical harm, once they'd recovered.
What strikes me the most about this study is how close it is to the standard recommendations for weight loss today (500-1000 calorie deficit daily for goal of 1-2 pounds lost a week, plus moderate exercise). The difference is by degree (1700 calorie deficit daily for goal of 2.5 pounds lost a week), and the fact that the men were normal weight when they began the study. But this strict diet sent 6% of the participants to the psychiatric hospital - and these were highly motivated, healthy young men! There is also a marked contrast between the psychological states in this long-term semi-starvation and reports of shorter-term water fasts. All told, prolonged semi-starvation on turnips and dark bread is not something I would recommend for anyone, if you can avoid it. Perhaps Mrs. Ancel Keys said it best, when she described the effects of the experiment on her husband: "Mrs. Keys said that Dr. Keys went through terrible times during the experiment as we lost weight and became gaunt and so on. And he would come home and say, ‘What am I doing to these young men? I had no idea it was going to be this hard.'"
What if, instead, we take a cue from the squirrels, and throw out the packaged meals and shakes, and eat the food our ancestors ate for thousands of generations. Those ancestors who likely never struggled with obesity or diabetes. We can even look at studies of the modern-day Kitavans, who eat starchy root vegetables, coconuts, and fish and seaweed, seem to have plenty of food, don't exercise all that much, but remain effortlessly slender and free of diabetes and the other diseases of civilization. Maybe a calorie isn't just a calorie. Maybe novel food products cause inflammation and irritation, leading to changes with insulin, leptin, and other appetite hormones. Perhaps that explanation would make more sense than the current one that, somehow, in a few generations, the majority of Americans have become hopeless gluttonous sloths.
Instead we keep running on the same treadmill, the same calorie counts and fat-free food. Along with obesity and diabetes, binge eating disorders and bulimia have increased over the years, and the population suffering from all these conditions keeps getting younger, and younger, and younger.
Don't lose hope. Hop off the treadmill and go for a long walk outside. Consider eating the food our ancestors ate (ditch the processed food, the sugar, and the grains for a while) and see what happens.  You might find yourself eating the calories you need to sustain your particular physical activity level, and even burning some of your own fat to a new, lower bodyweight set point.  Only domesticated, grain-eating animals have problems with obesity, after all.  Let a little bit of of the wild back into your routine and habits.  Your health might improve for it.
More articles like this one at Evolutionary Psychiatry.
Photo Credit
Copyright Emily Deans, M.D.

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Source URL: http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/57568

 

Healthful Health Q & A

I first read these way back in 1992 when I used my IBM PS/1 computer to access Prodigy and bulletin boards. These are as funny today as they were then.

Enjoy!

HELPFUL HEALTH Q&A 

Q: I've heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?

A: Your heart is only good for so many beats, and that's it...don't waste them on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up your heart will not make you live longer; that's like saying you can extend the life of your car by driving it faster. Want to live longer? Take a nap. 

 

Q: Should I cut down on meat and eat more fruits and vegetables? 

A: You must grasp logistical efficiencies. What does a cow eat? Hay and corn. And what are these? Vegetables. So a steak is nothing more than an efficient mechanism of delivering vegetables to your system. Need grain? Eat chicken. Beef is also a good source of field grass (green leafy vegetable). And a pork chop can give you 100% of your recommended daily allowance of vegetable products.

 

Q: How can I calculate my body/fat ratio? 

A: Well, if you have a body, and you have body fat, your ratio is one to one. If you have two bodies, your ratio is two to one, etc.

 

Q: What are some of the advantages of participating a regular exercise program? 

A: Can't think of a single one, sorry. My philosophy is: No Pain...Good. 

 

Q: Aren't fried foods bad for you? 

A: You're not listening. Foods are fried these days in vegetable oil. In fact, they're permeated in it. How could getting more vegetables be bad for you?

 

Q: What's the secret to healthy eating? 

A: Thicker gravy. 

 

Q: Will sit-ups help prevent me from getting a little soft around the middle? 

A: Definitely not! When you exercise a muscle, it gets bigger. You should only be doing sit-ups if you want a bigger stomach.

 

Q: Is chocolate bad for me? 

A: Are you crazy? HELLO ...... Cocoa beans ... another vegetable!!! It's the best feel-good food around! 

 

Well, I hope this has cleared up any misconceptions you may have had about food and diets. Now go have a cookie...flour is a veggie!