Obesity returning due to feeling safe

[excreationist]

I mean

Obesity returning due to feeling safe with fat (or feeling vulnerable being thin)

Since the 1980s there has been a program for obese people in Southern California. Often it involved supervised fasting for months. Some became thin but then they put the weight back on for what seems to be psychological reasons. There is a journal article about it here:
https://www.thepermanentejournal.org/issues/pdf-archives/132-obesity-problem-solution-or-both.html

There's a book called "Lost Connections"
https://thelostconnections.com/
which is an investigation into the causes and possible solutions about depression.

Also in one of the chapters it talks about that obesity program and some of the chapter is quoted here:

Feeling safe with fat

Anyway I thought it was surprising - I thought all the formerly obese people would be glad to be thin rather than being "thrown into a brutal depression, or panic, or rage".

 

[gmbteach]

I am obese! I know it, my Hubby knows it, my doctor knows it. I have been told to focus on the rest of my health and don’t worry too much about the weight.

All I do now is make sure I don’t put it on and celebrate with a cheer when I do lose a bit. I am not consciously trying to lose weight, but am watching what I eat, and how much of it I consume. I find this contributes more to my general well being overall.

 

[excreationist]

.....I have been told to focus on the rest of my health and don’t worry too much about the weight....

That happens to be what the Facebook advertising guidelines say...

https://www.facebook.com/policies/ads/prohibited_content/personal_health

"...This image implies weight loss and would be non-compliant if used to promote a diet or weight loss product...."

"....This image promotes healthy eating habits and is compliant...."

".....This image focuses on physical fitness and is compliant....."

"...Ad content must not imply or attempt to generate negative self-perception..."

i.e. not pointing out that you might have too much weight on.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Best advice is to focus on healthy and excercising habits and not on weight gain or loss.

 

[excreationist]

Best advice is to focus on healthy and exercising habits and not on weight gain or loss.

Fasting vs. Eating Less: What's the Difference?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APZCfmgzoS0

The video shows that just eating less can be very hardly to maintain.

But I've heard that after about 2 days the hunger when fasting can end (especially if you're having black coffee [which has no calories])

In that program they were able to lose their fat while fasting but the problem came when they were allowed to eat food.

It would take a lot of self-control to eat healthy... and then there is the issue of many very obese people feeling vulnerable when thin - where being thin is a problem no matter how they ended up becoming thin.

Also fasting can involve burning fat for fuel while just eating less can cause muscle loss.

 

[Bronzeage]

Many years ago, I was sitting in a locker room with a bunch of naked men. Two of them were talking about fat, namely the fat in their diet. They were runners and were pretty sure that body fat was extra weight, and they could run faster, if they were carrying less. To to this, they carefully examined the nutrition label on all packaged food to see how many grams of fat it contained.

I turned to a friend and said, "You know, in evolutionary terms, we're in much better shape than either of them."
How is that, he asked.
"We've made it through the winter with our precious fat reserves intact."

In the history of human kind, the leading cause of death has been starvation, or at least the complications which result from not enough food. A world where food is abundant enough for humans to eat more than needed to maintain their daily activities is a fairly new thing. We haven't really figured it out.

The goal of most living creatures is to live as long as possible. Every animal has a natural life span. If not eaten by a predator, stricken by disease, struck by lightning, or starved to death, eventually the body simply quits functioning. Humans have created a world where leopards, disease, adverse weather events, and starvation, have been minimized.

Whether excess food consumption and the resulting excess body means body functions break down a little sooner, is subject for debate. Who really wants to live forever?

 

[excreationist]

....They were runners and were pretty sure that body fat was extra weight, and they could run faster, if they were carrying less. To to this, they carefully examined the nutrition label on all packaged food to see how many grams of fat it contained.....

It is intuitive that eating less fat would mean carrying less body fat but these days many diets, such as the ketogenic diet, involve having a lot more fat (healthy fats) and a lot less carbs. I think there are "essential" fatty acids and "essential" amino acids (protein) - but no essential carbs.

BTW some top athletes stay lean by only having one meal a day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEv3n44vPVQ

These videos are about people who want to show their muscles by having a very low body fat percentage - some are using intermittent fasting to burn fat for fuel

About a comedian who is very muscular:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW_99QcCTzE

A muscular guy who helps people getting a good physique:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-n-9DgqyWY

Fast runners do have a pretty low body fat percentage - you can tell because often their abs show.

 

[Bronzeage]

....They were runners and were pretty sure that body fat was extra weight, and they could run faster, if they were carrying less. To to this, they carefully examined the nutrition label on all packaged food to see how many grams of fat it contained.....

It is intuitive that eating less fat would mean carrying less body fat but these days many diets, such as the ketogenic diet, involve having a lot more fat (healthy fats) and a lot less carbs. I think there are "essential" fatty acids and "essential" amino acids (protein) - but no essential carbs.



Fast runners do have a pretty low body fat percentage - you can tell because often their abs show.

In the sport of weight lifting and the culture of body building, one thing is constant. There is always a new hypothesis of the best way to get stronger, bigger, or just show more muscle fiber through the skin. Each is replaced in turn.

Body shape and fat percentage, and fat distribution maybe be genetically determined, but there is certainly an environmental element. This is to say, whether a person's body naturally retains more or less fat may be influenced by their diet at a very young age, is not fully understood. It's easy to assume body shape and appearance is inherited, but since children tend to eat what their parents eat, genetics may not be the determining factor.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Have you tried just saying no to food? No eating anything for a couple months will have a dramatic effect on your weight.

 

[excreationist]

Have you tried just saying no to food? No eating anything for a couple months will have a dramatic effect on your weight.

From Feeling safe with fat quoting Lost Connections by Johann Hari

"What if these severely overweight people simply stopped eating, and lived off the fat stores they'd built up in their bodies until they were down to a normal weight? What would happen?"

Some of them stopped eating for several months....

 

[repoman]

....They were runners and were pretty sure that body fat was extra weight, and they could run faster, if they were carrying less. To to this, they carefully examined the nutrition label on all packaged food to see how many grams of fat it contained.....

It is intuitive that eating less fat would mean carrying less body fat but these days many diets, such as the ketogenic diet, involve having a lot more fat (healthy fats) and a lot less carbs. I think there are "essential" fatty acids and "essential" amino acids (protein) - but no essential carbs.



Fast runners do have a pretty low body fat percentage - you can tell because often their abs show.

In the sport of weight lifting and the culture of body building, one thing is constant. There is always a new hypothesis of the best way to get stronger, bigger, or just show more muscle fiber through the skin. Each is replaced in turn.

Body shape and fat percentage, and fat distribution maybe be genetically determined, but there is certainly an environmental element. This is to say, whether a person's body naturally retains more or less fat may be influenced by their diet at a very young age, is not fully understood. It's easy to assume body shape and appearance is inherited, but since children tend to eat what their parents eat, genetics may not be the determining factor.

Are those body builders wearing down their joint cartilage too quickly?

Does not seem like a good trade.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Have you tried just saying no to food? No eating anything for a couple months will have a dramatic effect on your weight.

From Feeling safe with fat quoting Lost Connections by Johann Hari

"What if these severely overweight people simply stopped eating, and lived off the fat stores they'd built up in their bodies until they were down to a normal weight? What would happen?"

Some of them stopped eating for several months....

There's a documentary where a gentleman named Joe Cross does exactly that, except he only does liquids, fresh juices specifically, and while on doctor's care. he is obese and chronically ill and wishes to cure. It works for him. "It's called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead."

I'm just vane and don't want to look bad, so the fat stays off and I manage to stay fit with a good diet and lots of activity and good company.

There is definitely a psychological component to overeating. Being obese is like smoking, it's unhealthy.

 

[excreationist]

Have you tried just saying no to food? No eating anything for a couple months will have a dramatic effect on your weight.

From Feeling safe with fat quoting Lost Connections by Johann Hari

"What if these severely overweight people simply stopped eating, and lived off the fat stores they'd built up in their bodies until they were down to a normal weight? What would happen?"

Some of them stopped eating for several months....

There's a documentary where a gentleman named Joe Cross does exactly that, except he only does liquids, fresh juices specifically, and while on doctor's care. he is obese and chronically ill and wishes to cure. It works for him. "It's called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead."

I'll check it out. Though the diet he went on (juice fasting) can be somewhat expensive and doesn't cause weight to come off as fast as water fasting. In water fasting you can't have any calories but water, black coffee and plain tea are ok. For fasts longer than a couple of weeks you need to have supplements otherwise you will die.

Wikipedia calls juice fasting a "fad diet"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juice_fasting

In the following video, Joe Cross says that 30% of the weight he lost was muscle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6uPN3iN9aY&feature=youtu.be&t=273

His two films:
https://vimeo.com/147549662
https://vimeo.com/96242283

 

[Bronzeage]

Have you tried just saying no to food? No eating anything for a couple months will have a dramatic effect on your weight.

Funny you should say that.

I have a good friend who has been Obese all his life. He's about 6'3" so when he was younger, he could carry. 280 pounds didn't look a lot different from 230 pounds. We probably had more lunches together than either of us has had haircuts. At every sitting, he easily consumed three times as much food as me, and I have a good appetite. There used to be a beer commercial honoring the inventor of the 3700 calorie taco salad. That was his go to lunch special at the Mexican place. Don't even ask about Chinese buffet.

As the decades went by, 280 slowly became 380 and then tipped 400. This eventually led to medical complications including diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney and liver function, and gout. Like any good Trump supporter, he turned to the government for help. He has been on Social Security Disability for the past 5 years.

Last year, Medicaid paid for a stomach reduction surgery. We had lunch yesterday and I watched him eat a chicken wing (one) and about a tablespoon of coleslaw. He has lost 85 pounds up to this point.

It's sort of like Dorthy and the ruby slippers. The solution to his problem was there all the time.

 

[Bronzeage]

In the sport of weight lifting and the culture of body building, one thing is constant. There is always a new hypothesis of the best way to get stronger, bigger, or just show more muscle fiber through the skin. Each is replaced in turn.

Body shape and fat percentage, and fat distribution maybe be genetically determined, but there is certainly an environmental element. This is to say, whether a person's body naturally retains more or less fat may be influenced by their diet at a very young age, is not fully understood. It's easy to assume body shape and appearance is inherited, but since children tend to eat what their parents eat, genetics may not be the determining factor.

Are those body builders wearing down their joint cartilage too quickly?

Does not seem like a good trade.

There's a reason I called weight lifting a sport and body building a culture.

Competitive weight lifting has long term effects similar to hard manual labor, but all manageable with proper caution.

Competitive body building is not a healthy life style. The diet required to reduce over all body fat, while maximizing muscle mass is a toxic formula. The training and the diet must be mapped out about 3 months in advance of a tournament, with the goal to peak at that time, and then take a long rest while your body functions recover. The history of professional body building is littered with stories of people who peaked a week too soon and crashed before the contest, suffering liver and kidney damage. There are serious long term health effects for those who get it wrong.

 

[excreationist]

....Last year, Medicaid paid for a stomach reduction surgery. We had lunch yesterday and I watched him eat a chicken wing (one) and about a tablespoon of coleslaw. He has lost 85 pounds up to this point.....

So then he won't be able to binge eat like many obese people do after losing weight.

 

[Bronzeage]

....Last year, Medicaid paid for a stomach reduction surgery. We had lunch yesterday and I watched him eat a chicken wing (one) and about a tablespoon of coleslaw. He has lost 85 pounds up to this point.....

So then he won't be able to binge eat like many obese people do after losing weight.

That doesn't seem to be possible.

 

[excreationist]

....Competitive body building is not a healthy life style. The diet required to reduce over all body fat, while maximizing muscle mass is a toxic formula. The training and the diet must be mapped out about 3 months in advance of a tournament, with the goal to peak at that time, and then take a long rest while your body functions recover. The history of professional body building is littered with stories of people who peaked a week too soon and crashed before the contest, suffering liver and kidney damage. There are serious long term health effects for those who get it wrong.

In the past it was difficult for body builders to stay shredded but this guy has been at a 6-8% body fat percentage while having big muscles for a couple of years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UapGxr6a3lk
I think he has a very healthy life style.

 

[Bronzeage]

....Competitive body building is not a healthy life style. The diet required to reduce over all body fat, while maximizing muscle mass is a toxic formula. The training and the diet must be mapped out about 3 months in advance of a tournament, with the goal to peak at that time, and then take a long rest while your body functions recover. The history of professional body building is littered with stories of people who peaked a week too soon and crashed before the contest, suffering liver and kidney damage. There are serious long term health effects for those who get it wrong.

In the past it was difficult for body builders to stay shredded but this guy has been at a 6-8% body fat percentage while having big muscles for a couple of years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UapGxr6a3lk
I think he has a very healthy life style.

He's pretty, but wouldn't place in a body building competition.

 

[excreationist]

He's pretty, but wouldn't place in a body building competition.

What about Terry Crews? Wikipedia says he mocks "the stereotype of the gym-obsessed body builder"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW_99QcCTzE