Students to Be Graded on Weight

[Cain]

Except that nothing you said after that contradicted me. You seem to think that because the body combats what it percieves as starvation, you cannot lose weight by moderate restriction of caloric intake and moderate increase in activity, when the evidence you presented says no such thing.

Not just by doing it once, like you've been saying. You need to keep doing it-- continually reduce your caloric intake and/or increase your activity. If you don't, then you *will* slowly regain the fat you lost. The body will act to preserve its fat stores.

Also, with all due respect, your target goals are way off. 2-4 lbs a week is insane, and cannot be maintained for any lengthy period, healthily. You can't burn more than 3.5 lbs of fat per week under a strict fast. If you're losing 2-4 lbs a week, it cannot all be fat-- and fat loss is the goal.

I say you can lose fat by not eating so much and by raising activity. [Actually, I say that as long as you take in less than you use, you lose fat.] If the problem you have with that is temporary plateaus and "what happens if you eat nothing up raw sugar," then I think my point stands.

The problem is that you can't just reduce your calories and increase your activity once. You need to keep doing it-- once you plateau, you need to alter things even more. Or, you can switch over to an even healthier diet, which promotes fitness over weight loss. At any event, you certainly cannot hope to maintain a weight loss of 2-4 lbs a week and expect to remain healthy!

Or having the willpower to not eat really quickly. That doesn't require a huge cultural shift; just willpower. I mean, are you really suggesting willpower isn't enough to lose fat because people cannot make themselves eat more slowly without shifting their entire culture?

Think if it this way. Everyone you know tells you to eat quickly. From an early age, we're taught to "eat up before it gets cold!" Media images have people eating quickly and going on the run. In short, our entire culture reinforces the idea that eating fast is a good thing.

Willpower alone cannot combat a huge cultural movement. If you want to take a full hour to eat your lunch-- the healthier choice-- and your boss tells you that you only have thirty minutes, how can willpower overcome that obstacle?

No, fat people are lazy. In 99 out of 100 cases, people are fat because they're too lazy to get off their fat asses and do something about being fat. People almost always know what they need to do, and it's not "plateaus" or "strict vegetarianism" that's keeping them fat: it's being fat lazy Americans. They sit on their asses, eat way too much really bad food, and then complain that losing weight is hard. Anyone who has walked an hour a day, every day, for six months, and not lost any fat [while maintaining a healthy diet] can come and bitch to me about how hard it is to stop being fat. Anyone else needs to put up or shut up.

*raises hand*

I train in martial arts. I also have a toddler, who seems to have skipped over walking and gone straight to running. I have to keep up with her, keep up my training, and keep up with everything else. My BMI is absolutely outrageous-- 39 or 40!-- but my body fat percentage is only 24%, which isn't that bad for a man my age. By the BMI standards, I'm grossly obese. By body fat standards, I'm somewhat overweight.

I've had nutritionists and dieticians go over my diet, and I've studied this subject extensively. (Got a perfect 4.0 in Nutrition, actually.) While there are many things I could do to improve my overall health, the fact is that I haven't lost much fat despite increasing my excercise and reducing my diet. And really, there's absolutely no reason for me to do so-- as long as I keep up my excercise, and maintain my level of fitness, I'll be better off than dropping a bunch of pounds only to put them back on later.

Isn't the added exercise exercise going to counteract the slowing metabolism?And doesn't it depend on how much you have cut your calories by? If you cut them from say 3,500 to 2,500, then it seems like you will be losing weight for quite a while till you get to the point where 2,500 is enough to meet your needs. You'd lose about 90 lbs anyway.

Ironically, the reverse is true. The more dramatically you cut your calories, the more rapid and extreme the fat-storage efforts become. The added excercise only counteracts the slowing metabolism to a degree-- it's the resting rate that matters, and that's the rate we spend most of our time at. You can counteract this by adding lean muscle, but that actually involves *gaining* weight.

As for 90 lbs... that's one hell of an unreasonable goal for most people. If you weigh 200 lbs and need to lose weight, you need to aim for a 5-10% loss in the first year-- in other words, about 10-20 lbs. That's less than a pound per week! You will lose more initially, then slow down a lot. For our hypothetical 200-lb individual, 5'0" with a target weight of 110 lbs, it should take at least 3.5 years to reach that point. (Possibly longer; at 10 lbs per year it could take almost a decade!) Nothing you have to do for a decade can be nearly as trivial as 32 makes it sound.

[Marius]

I'm sorry, but the biology of this is perfectly clear. You've got it wrong.

Let me pull out my Nutrition textbook... Okay, here we go. (For the record, this is from Understanding Nutrition, ninth edition, by Whitney and Rolfes.) After any weight/fat loss, the body is triggered to produce more Lipoprotien Lipase, which triggers the body to store fat. "People easily regain weight after having lost it because they are battling against enzymes that want to store fat." (p 271).

Your textbook gives a primary source for it's claim, right? You might want to tell us what it is, because it's probably going to need evaluation. I don't see a consensus about that. In fact, I see something that reads more like this:

After weight loss and a period of weight maintenance at a reduced body weight, there are variable changes in adipose tissue LPL activity. Some studies show that fasting LPL activity is increased in abdominal (ABD) and gluteal (GLT) subcutaneous adipose tissue of weight-reduced subjects (18, 33, 34), but others show no change or a decrease in LPL activity in the weight-reduced state (10, 17, 27, 30, 37).

This discrepancy among studies in the response of adipose tissue LPL activity to weight reduction may be due to differences in the amount of weight lost (35), the initial degree of obesity, or the initial LPL activity (10, 18). Subjects who lose less weight or have a low initial LPL activity are more likely to increase their adipose tissue LPL activity with weight loss (10, 34, 35). (Nicklas, BJ, Rogus EM, Berman DM, Dennis KE, and Goldberg AP. Responses of adipose tissue lipoprotein lipase to weight loss affect lipid levels and weight regain in women. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 279: E1012-E1019, 2000)

Their own study, which tested women participating in a "less in, more out" healthy diet and exercise intervention, found that, "On average, adipose tissue LPL activity, expressed per gram of tissue or per cell, did not change with [weight loss]..."

[crone]

Ironically, the reverse is true. The more dramatically you cut your calories, the more rapid and extreme the fat-storage efforts become. The added excercise only counteracts the slowing metabolism to a degree-- it's the resting rate that matters, and that's the rate we spend most of our time at. You can counteract this by adding lean muscle, but that actually involves *gaining* weight.

If you lose 5 lbs of fat, and gain 1 lb of muscle, you would be losing weight, and still raising your metabolic rate. Or not?

As for 90 lbs... that's one hell of an unreasonable goal for most people. If you weigh 200 lbs and need to lose weight, you need to aim for a 5-10% loss in the first year-- in other words, about 10-20 lbs. That's less than a pound per week! You will lose more initially, then slow down a lot. For our hypothetical 200-lb individual, 5'0" with a target weight of 110 lbs, it should take at least 3.5 years to reach that point. (Possibly longer; at 10 lbs per year it could take almost a decade!) Nothing you have to do for a decade can be nearly as trivial as 32 makes it sound.

Less than a pound per week is fine by me, and I don't think losing 90 lbs is trivial. But if we're talking about eating healthy and getting exercise, you might have to do it for your whole life, not just a decade . I'm just interested in this plateau effect. You seem to be saying it will kick in pretty quickly, or am I misunderstanding you? When I cut my calorie intake by 20% for 5 months last year, I lost weight and was still losing weight when I stopped. So I'm wondering what you mean by relatively quickly.

[Cain]

Your textbook gives a primary source for it's claim, right?

That particular paragraph isn't footnoted; but the whole section references PA Kern, "Potential Role of TNFa and Lipoprotien Lipase as candidate genes for obesity", Journal of Nutrition 127 (1997) 1917S-1922S; and MD Jensen, "Lipolysis: Contribution from regional fat", Annual Review of Nutrition 17 (1997), 127-139.

[Cain]

If you lose 5 lbs of fat, and gain 1 lb of muscle, you would be losing weight, and still raising your metabolic rate. Or not?

My texts don't break it down by poundage quite like that, but I'll do my best.

Pure fat has about 3500/kcal per pound, and pure protein has about 1800. Now, muscle isn't anything resembling pure protein-- one pound of muscle tissue is loaded with blood vessels, water, and various other stuff. So, gaining a pound of muscle involves quite a bit of stuff. Stored fat, however, is nearly pure fat.

Your metabolic rate alters itself constantly, but the resting rate is determined by lean muscle mass, height, age, diet, thyroid activity, and several other factors. So, adding a pound of muscle may or may not affect things in the way you describe. Adding a pound of muscle means you've added a lot of water, blood vessels, and so on; adding a pound of fat means you've added a full pound of fat.

I'm just interested in this plateau effect. You seem to be saying it will kick in pretty quickly, or am I misunderstanding you? When I cut my calorie intake by 20% for 5 months last year, I lost weight and was still losing weight when I stopped. So I'm wondering what you mean by relatively quickly.

Depends on the person, really. I'd estimate about a month or so, but that could vary. Don't forget, though, that I'm only referring to fat loss-- losing weight is somthing different. You lose some muscle by dieting (although excercise does comensate for this) and a lot of water. I mean, we're what, 90% water? In order to lose that pound of fat, you end up losing quite a bit of water as well.

I suspect that you probably noticed the greatest loss fairly rapidly, with the loss rate slowing down within a month or so. If you didn't increase your excercise, you probably lost some muscle or bone mass; you probably also lost some water weight.

[Marius]

We're about 60% water.

[Cain]

We're about 60% water.

I stand corrected.

[crone]

OK, thanks, Cain.

[3278]

..

[3278]

And I think that's his point: that you can't simply cut calories by 20 percent, increase activity by 20 percent, and expect to continue losing weight for very long, because your at-rest calorie requirements will plummet when your metabolism begins to slow and your body starts trying to store more fat [thinking that you're starving because your calorie/work ratio has changed].

So you have to counteract this by increasing your levels of activity to compensate, or reducing your intake further [which is probably not a good idea at this point]. That seems simple enough to me, but is another of the complications that Cain feels makes this more than just "eat less, work more." And he's right: if you just "eat less, work more," without any thought behind it, you'll likely not lose that much fat [although I think most fat people can achieve significant loss even by random hacking about at their diets and walking more].

When it comes down to it - and I've seen nothing to contradict this [yet] - it still boils down to what I said first: use more energy than you take in, and you'll lose fat. I believe Cain's point is that for maximum effect - and under some circumstances, for any effect at all - you cannot just randomly reduce your caloric intake [cutting out spinach in favor of raw sugar, for instance] or increase your activity [because 1/2 hour of walking a day may not result in enough output to counteract your input].

Most people tend to stick pretty close to the same weight for long periods. If they gain or lose, it's comparatively slowly. So for most people, if you can remove one or two high-calorie, low-nutrition foods from your diet - say, pop [soda], for instance - you'll likely lose weight - and more importantly, fat - just by doing that. You'll do so pretty slowly, but it'll happen. If you take in 500 calories a day in soda - one liter of Mountain Dew - and you remove that from your diet <i>without altering your diet in any other way,[/i] you will lose something like a pound a week.

As Cain says, at some point, your body starts to suspect that it's not going to be getting any more, and lowers your metabolism to compensate. Now, that point is different for everyone: I know many people who have lost over 30 pounds of fat in six months doing nothing but cutting out one bad food. [500 calories a day, 3500 calories a week, 3500 calories per pound of fat, 26 weeks = 26 pounds lost.]

But some people - particularly inactive people - need to raise their level of activity to compensate, which is what I suggested anyway, since overeating isn't so much the problem for most people as underaction. So, like I say, start walking. If you can only walk a half-hour a day, fine. Just keep walking as far as you reasonably can each day. And you don't have to do it all at once, although there are benefits to that: you can just park further away at the grocers, walk across your office more, things like I mentioned earlier. Times of the day you'd sit on your ass reading, go for a walk and read. The important thing is to /move./ American life allows for very sedentary lifestyles, and most of us have them. If you want to lose weight, you have to counteract that.

Anyway, I don't see any of this as being rocket science, which is what I mean when I say it's easy. [Nearly] anyone can lose fat, provided they make the right decisions. Your weight is completely under your control; perhaps it's influenced by how fat your mom is, or the bad eating habits your spouse encourages, or the baby you just had, but the fact is, you can control how fat you are. You can overcome genetics and disease and your body's desire to maintain an unhealthy status quo. It doesn't even require very much work. Eat well, and stop spending your whole day on your ass. I think that's pretty easy; some people feel that, itself, is quite complicated, or difficult.

[3278]

Whoops. That post was in reply to something Crone said, it turns out, many posts ago, toward the end of the first page. My mistake.

[3278]

Except that nothing you said after that contradicted me. You seem to think that because the body combats what it percieves as starvation, you cannot lose weight by moderate restriction of caloric intake and moderate increase in activity, when the evidence you presented says no such thing.

Not just by doing it once, like you've been saying. You need to keep doing it-- continually reduce your caloric intake and/or increase your activity. If you don't, then you *will* slowly regain the fat you lost. The body will act to preserve its fat stores.

Okay. Well, I don't get the impression that I've been saying that, but if your statement is that one needs to continue increasing activity to continue losing weight, I have no real problem with that, and in fact, it's what I said, so I think it's a great point of view.

Also, with all due respect, your target goals are way off. 2-4 lbs a week is insane, and cannot be maintained for any lengthy period, healthily. You can't burn more than 3.5 lbs of fat per week under a strict fast. If you're losing 2-4 lbs a week, it cannot all be fat-- and fat loss is the goal.

Well, I've had no problem losing 2-4 pounds a week, but my experience with weight loss is minimal; I've really only needed to lose a lot of weight once [after I stopped drinking; as it turns out, drinking a fifth a day makes me fat]. 2 pounds a week is easy and had no negative effects I could tell; in fact, I felt much better and had much more energy, doing nothing more than getting 500 calories a day more exercise, and dropping 880-1000 calories a day from my diet. [Those calories being Mountain Dew. I don't think I'd want to drop 1000 calories of, say, lettuce or pasta from my diet.] My father has lost as much as eight pounds a week with no deleterious effects, although that's quite rare and most certainly atypical.

Anyway, what I should be saying is this: I didn't say 2-4 pounds a week was my "target goal." What I said was: "Most people I know can lose 2-4 pounds a week just by cutting out pop and walking an hour a day."

At any event, you certainly cannot hope to maintain a weight loss of 2-4 lbs a week and expect to remain healthy!

Well, unless you're really, really fat, I wouldn't expect most people to be able to lose 4 pounds a week for six months and not be dead. That's 130 pounds. I think a pound a week is perfectly laudable and achievable, and that's more like 30 pounds in six months, which I've advocated previously and which no one seems to object to.

Willpower alone cannot combat a huge cultural movement.

That's absolute and complete bullshit.

[3278]

I train in martial arts. I also have a toddler, who seems to have skipped over walking and gone straight to running. I have to keep up with her, keep up my training, and keep up with everything else. My BMI is absolutely outrageous-- 39 or 40!-- but my body fat percentage is only 24%, which isn't that bad for a man my age. By the BMI standards, I'm grossly obese. By body fat standards, I'm somewhat overweight.

You have to understand how dubious I am of this. I have no idea how anyone could be even remotely active, maintain a sensible diet, and still be "grossly obese." I actually had to stop and do some reading before replying to this, because it seems so counter-intuitive. Now, I don't know what your diet is like, and "martial arts training" doesn't tell me much about your level of activity [I mean, it could be Tai Chi for 15 minutes, or Jeet Kun Do for 3 hours], but the laws of physics suggest that you're eating a lot more than you need to be. Entre:

I've had nutritionists and dieticians go over my diet, and I've studied this subject extensively. (Got a perfect 4.0 in Nutrition, actually.) While there are many things I could do to improve my overall health, the fact is that I haven't lost much fat despite increasing my excercise and reducing my diet.

Then you're not increasing your exercise [and I also have no idea how you managed a 4.0 in nutrition and still didn't learn how to spell "exercise"] or reducing your diet enough. I'm absolutely certain that you know more about nutrition than I, but the laws of physics are pretty clear when it comes to energy and matter and the creation or destruction thereof.

I do not believe that you are grossly obese despite a healthy diet and moderate activity. It's obvious - to me - that you need to increase your level of activity fairly drastically, and do some serious reconsideration of your diet. I think it's pretty clear that your nutritional knowledge and the running after your daughter aren't doing enough.

At least now I understand your reticence to admit weight loss is easy. No one wants to admit that they're fat when they don't have to be.

And really, there's absolutely no reason for me to do so-- as long as I keep up my excercise, and maintain my level of fitness, I'll be better off than dropping a bunch of pounds only to put them back on later.

Or, better yet, change your lifestyle now, for good, and work up to a point where you're taking in 1500-1900 decent calories a day, and exercising for 10-15 hours a week. It is outside the realm of possibility that if you do that, you will continue to be grossly obese.

[3278]

As for 90 lbs... that's one hell of an unreasonable goal for most people. If you weigh 200 lbs and need to lose weight, you need to aim for a 5-10% loss in the first year-- in other words, about 10-20 lbs.

If you weigh 200 pounds, and your target weight is 180, and it takes you a year to get there, you're doing something terribly wrong. That's something like 200 calories difference per day! 20 pounds in 52 weeks is less than half a pound a week, less than .4 pounds per week. I see no reason whatsoever that a 200 pound person could not lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks, and do so healthfully.

Nothing you have to do for a decade can be nearly as trivial as 32 makes it sound.

Spending a decade losing 90 pounds is called "lazy." In any case, part of the joy of doing things "my way" is that you /don't/ have to do it all quickly. If you can lose a pound a week - and you can; any one of us can, easily - then you can lose 90 pounds in vastly less than a decade, and you don't have to crash-diet or break your back doing it! Let's say you want to lose 90 pounds; at a pound a week, that's two years, and all you have to do is cut a few crappy things from your diet and start getting more exercise.

That's not "hard." Oh, sure, maybe it's strenuous to have to walk a whole hour a day, but it won't be strenuous for long, and soon you'll find you can run for an hour. Or cycle for two or three hours. And lift some weights. And stop driving everywhere. By spreading the weight loss out over a longer period, you have to make a less drastic change in your life, which means it's easier to stay with it, and not just burn out like most yo-yo weight loss people do.

I didn't get a 4.0 in nutrition. I didn't even take it. So maybe I'm totally off my nut when I say it's easy to lose a pound a week. All I can tell you is that I found it easy: no Mountain Dew, no liquor, drink half-a-gallon of water a day, and spend my smoke breaks walking. I lost 1-3 pounds a week for several months; I may have plateaued at some point, but it's hard for me to know, since I don't weigh myself very often [so these are averages, understand]. And I did so without any damage to my health that I could discern. It takes willpower, but that's it. You don't have to overhaul your diet or change your lifestyle, although most people should really do that anyway. It's simple, and it works, and as long as you keep it up and don't cheat or wimp out, you'll lose fat and keep it off.

I personally suggest /not/ weighing yourself every week. People seem to get thrown off by the lack of weight loss; my father lost eight pounds the first week of his most recent diet, then 2 the next, then 2 the next, and then gave up. Instead, don't focus on weight or immediate results - which everyone, it seems, does. Just trust in the plan, keep your diet /exactly the same,/ your portions /exactly the same,/ with the exception of the removal of, say, 500 unnecessary calories, and start walking an hour a day. If, after six months, you haven't lost weight, then you've either been cheating, or your body is in violation of the laws of conservation of energy. [Or you've been so darned fat for so darned long that your metabolism is barely ticking over, in which case, you really need to do something a little more drastic, like /get rid of your car, fatty./]

[3278]

My BMI is absolutely outrageous-- 39 or 40!-- but my body fat percentage is only 24%, which isn't that bad for a man my age.

These numbers just now really hit me. A BMI of 40 on a man who's 5'10" is, like, 280 pounds. 24 percent body fat percentage is only one percent away from clinical obesity. Really, you shouldn't weigh that much; it's really unhealthy.

[Cain]

Well, I've had no problem losing 2-4 pounds a week, but my experience with weight loss is minimal; I've really only needed to lose a lot of weight once [after I stopped drinking; as it turns out, drinking a fifth a day makes me fat]. 2 pounds a week is easy and had no negative effects I could tell; in fact, I felt much better and had much more energy, doing nothing more than getting 500 calories a day more exercise, and dropping 880-1000 calories a day from my diet. [Those calories being Mountain Dew. I don't think I'd want to drop 1000 calories of, say, lettuce or pasta from my diet.] My father has lost as much as eight pounds a week with no deleterious effects, although that's quite rare and most certainly atypical.

Anyway, what I should be saying is this: I didn't say 2-4 pounds a week was my "target goal." What I said was: "Most people I know can lose 2-4 pounds a week just by cutting out pop and walking an hour a day."

Okay, after reading over all your posts, I think I see the issue. You've mistaken an overall weight loss of 2-4 lbs to mean an overall /fat/ loss of 2-4 lbs. That's partly my fault, for not stating my view strongly enough. If you lose a lot of weight, on the whole most of it was water.

If you drop, say, 1000 calories a day from your diet, that means you've got a net defecit of 7000 calories per week. Since fat is about 3500 calories per pound, in theory that means you've lost two pounds of fat. In practice, you've probably lost a lot of water (we're 60% water, remember-- you lose proportionate water mass along with body fat) and your body cannot possibly make up all it's needs from fat, so you've likely lost some muscle and bone mass as well. So, we're talking about a maximum of 1.5 lbs of fat per week on such a diet, initially. If you lost more than that, it wasn't fat weight-- which is also why people seem to regain weight so readily, they're concerned about pverall poundage and not actual weight loss.

You can lose *weight* readily. Losing fat is a more difficult proposition.

You have to understand how dubious I am of this. I have no idea how anyone could be even remotely active, maintain a sensible diet, and still be "grossly obese." I actually had to stop and do some reading before replying to this, because it seems so counter-intuitive.

Actually, that's more a comment on the fallacies of the BMI system. It gauges obesity solely on a height/weight ratio. {BMI= Weight (kg)/Height (m)2, if you want to calculate it yourself. I prefer to use the charts, but you might have fun with it.) As you can tell, it makes absolutely no allowance for body structure or muscle/fat ratio. It allows for a "healthy range", unlike the old Met tables, which only had one healthy weight per height and sex. (Interestingly, the BMI tables don't make allowances for sex, either.) I weigh 250 lbs, and I'm 5'8. Any BMI over 30 is considered to be obese; if you get close to 40, you're grossly obese.

Now, a much stronger (but harder to measure) standard is body fat percentage. My body fat percentage is only 24% (measured by impedance and fatfold calipers) which isn't too horrid for a man my age. A healthy young man, is expected to have a fat percentalge of 15-20%. By the more accurate standard, I'm not super-healthy, but I'm not remotely "grossly obese"-- just a little overfat.

This is partly why I think simple weight records are not a good idea-- to many people don't realize that overweight! = Overfat, and overfat is the issue! I agree that for most, they're concurrent; but there's an awful lot for whom it isn't true.

I do not believe that you are grossly obese despite a healthy diet and moderate activity. It's obvious - to me - that you need to increase your level of activity fairly drastically, and do some serious reconsideration of your diet. I think it's pretty clear that your nutritional knowledge and the running after your daughter aren't doing enough.

At least now I understand your reticence to admit weight loss is easy. No one wants to admit that they're fat when they don't have to be.

And this is the same argument I have with a lot of doctors and medical specialists. It's clear to anyone who sees me that I cannot concieveably be "grossly obese"-- that's "So fat that you can't fit in the door" obese. I've demanded repeated impedance tests and fatfold measures, and every time, they've come back at about 24% body fat. (Some fluctuations, but nothing major; I range from 22 to 26% depending on the day and whos' doing the test. I haven't gone for hydrosenisometry yet, but there's really no need.)

Now, let's do some comparisons, so you understand what I'm talking about. A healthy BMI should be between 19 and 24, which means by the BMI standard, I should weigh no more than 162 lbs to be considered healthy-- I need to lose about 90 lbs! But by the fat percentage standard, only about 63 lbs of my weight is fat. So, realistically, even if I lost *all* of my body fat, I would still be overweight by the BMI standards! (And if I lost all of my body fat, I'd be dead; 63 lbs might sound like a lot, but your body actually needs quite a bit of that.)

By the fat percentage standard, I need to lose about 4% of my body weight in fat, or about 9 lbs. Since some of that is going to be water loss, I need to aim a bit higher; 15 would be a better goal. That's well within 10% of my current weight, so it's a reasonable goal for a 6mo-1yr plan. And quite frankly, if I maintain my fitness level, there's absolutely no need for me to even bother!

I'm absolutely certain that you know more about nutrition than I, but the laws of physics are pretty clear when it comes to energy and matter and the creation or destruction thereof.

Yes, and the laws of biology are pretty clear as well. Weight loss!= fat loss.

Or, better yet, change your lifestyle now, for good, and work up to a point where you're taking in 1500-1900 decent calories a day, and exercising for 10-15 hours a week. It is outside the realm of possibility that if you do that, you will continue to be grossly obese.

No, it is not. Even if I lost 25 lbs, the most fat I can safely lose, I would *still* have a BMI of over 30, and be considered obese.

Spending a decade losing 90 pounds is called "lazy." In any case, part of the joy of doing things "my way" is that you /don't/ have to do it all quickly. If you can lose a pound a week - and you can; any one of us can, easily - then you can lose 90 pounds in vastly less than a decade, and you don't have to crash-diet or break your back doing it! Let's say you want to lose 90 pounds; at a pound a week, that's two years, and all you have to do is cut a few crappy things from your diet and start getting more exercise.

But that pound-a-week isn't all fat! Honestly, if you manage to lose a half-pound of pure fat per week, youre doing fantastically!

[Serious Paul]

I wonder where Daki is in all this?

Initially what you'll lose on any given day is water weight. Starting any initial diet or exercise program should see some real impressive initial results (If you are putting put more than you're taking in.) as you lose water weight. This only last a few weeks at best. OSme people, like me, lose water weigth real fast. After a week I can most of it off.

Everyone loses weight at a different pace, and from different things. What is one persons healthy weight loss, isn't anothers. I have easily shed 30 pounds in a months time while working out. I admit it was at the time a pretty extreme work out-5 hours of lifting and cardio on top of my every day physical requirments as a Marine. I can do 15 pounds a month standing on my head.

A pal of mine can't lose much more than a pound a week. Thats on special liquid diets and everything. It comes down to knowing your body, and its limitations. And being honest with yourself.

Are you fat like me because you're just lazy? I could do more. I don't. I am fat. Do you have to compensate for some sort of medical condition? My cousin has thyroid problems. She packs on an unhealthy amount of weight easily. But she did somethign about it. SH egot medication, and eventually surgery. (All of which she paid for herself, as she has no medical insurance, no job, and no desire to ever work.) So are you doing something about it? If not I don't feel sorry for you. Honesty is essential to a successful program.

Often we don't know our limitations because we've never pushed or been pushed that far. I think I have a fair idea of my own.. But I had Uncle Sam's Misguided Childern pushing me.

Its not easy, because it requires effort. And in todays society we're able to get away with not working. We can drive our cars to MCDonalds, we can get behind a computer screen, and play video games. Technology is a double edged sword. Why eat healthy when McDonalds is so cheap? And so tastey!

I know a lot of people seem to wrap their self esteem up in their image-even I am guilty of it to a point, but we shouldn't. It just isn't healthy to set those sort of arbitrary standards. We're not all going to be Brad Pitt's or Demi Moore's. We just can't be. But we can be healthy. And thats okay.

[3278]

If you drop, say, 1000 calories a day from your diet, that means you've got a net defecit of 7000 calories per week. Since fat is about 3500 calories per pound, in theory that means you've lost two pounds of fat. In practice, you've probably lost a lot of water (we're 60% water, remember-- you lose proportionate water mass along with body fat) and your body cannot possibly make up all it's needs from fat, so you've likely lost some muscle and bone mass as well. So, we're talking about a maximum of 1.5 lbs of fat per week on such a diet, initially. If you lost more than that, it wasn't fat weight-- which is also why people seem to regain weight so readily, they're concerned about pverall poundage and not actual weight loss.

I disagree. I have no problems losing 2 pounds of /fat/ a week. Remember, I don't measure each week, but over long periods. I also specifically address water intake, and you'll notice that part of my own diet was to eliminate caffeine [in the form of Mountain Dew]. If I'd cared enough, I'd have taken creatine, too, to reload my muscles with water. Anyway, on the six-month scale, water-weight isn't a significant factor, and nothing I've seen or read so far suggests that it's difficult or impossible to lose 2 pounds of fat a week.

Actually, that's more a comment on the fallacies of the BMI system. It gauges obesity solely on a height/weight ratio.

Not every BMI is so simple; most physicians, for instance, take into account build, musculature, gender, and so on. [Heck, most online ones do, too; I'm sure your Nutrition text does so, also.] In addition, since we're talking about you, specifically, the flaws of the BMI - and I agree they are many - aren't the issue, since you're only just barely not obese on the body fat percentage scale. You can push this off on the BMI, but the fact is, you're really pretty fat.

I weigh 250 lbs, and I'm 5'8. Any BMI over 30 is considered to be obese; if you get close to 40, you're grossly obese.

At 250, being 5'8", I'd say the nomenclature - overweight, obese, really really fat - doesn't matter; you have a serious health problem, on par with my smoking, for instance.

But that pound-a-week isn't all fat! Honestly, if you manage to lose a half-pound of pure fat per week, youre doing fantastically!

No. Consider the possibility that you're just telling yourself that so you don't feel so bad about being so fat. [And don't think I'm only being merciless to you: I'm this straight with Paul, my parents, and even - on rare days - myself. But you're /really fat,/ and you have control over that. If you don't want to be really fat, you could stop being really fat in a few months, with only minor adjustments to your lifestyle. [Just like I could - and should! - quit smoking.]

And this is, ultimately, my problem: I hear a lot of people talking about how hard it is to lose weight, but they're only saying it because it justifies to them how really, really fat they are. The medical fact is that nearly anyone can lose enough weight to be healthy, and do so in less than "a decade," and do so without doing much more than just having a healthy diet and returning your body to the level of activity it has evolved for.

[3278]

I really am being kind of a hard-ass about this, Cain, and I'm sorry. I think I'm mostly just very surprised. I'm two or three inches taller than you, and I've never weighed over 260, even at my largest. And I'm a decent-sized guy. When I was at my largest, I was what I now consider mindnumbingly fat, and that doesn't fit my mental perception of you [which until now, I realize, was of a skeletally-thin bald monk in street clothes, for some bizarre reason]. It's just an incredible surprise that you're so much bigger than I expected, so much bigger than I used to be when I was humiliatingly overweight. I think of myself as being incredibly overweight now, and I'm under 180 at 5'11"; the downside, I suppose, of spending so much time around skinny euros.

[Cain]

I disagree. I have no problems losing 2 pounds of /fat/ a week. Remember, I don't measure each week, but over long periods. I also specifically address water intake, and you'll notice that part of my own diet was to eliminate caffeine [in the form of Mountain Dew]. If I'd cared enough, I'd have taken creatine, too, to reload my muscles with water. Anyway, on the six-month scale, water-weight isn't a significant factor, and nothing I've seen or read so far suggests that it's difficult or impossible to lose 2 pounds of fat a week.

I'd wager that you lost quite a few inches, but that's not the same as fat, either. Unless you had an impedance test done, you couldn't realy tell how much fat you lost. It is extremely difficult to lose 2 lbs of fat per week, although losing a lot of water mass is trivial.

(Incidentally, Creatine does nothing for muscle gain or energy. Creatine phosphate is a quick-recharge molecule for ATP, but ingesting it will only result it in being digested into amino acids. It's not possible to increase your CP reserves by ingesting creatine. This public service announcement has been brought to you by Cain's diet debunking service. )

Not every BMI is so simple; most physicians, for instance, take into account build, musculature, gender, and so on. [Heck, most online ones do, too; I'm sure your Nutrition text does so, also.] In addition, since we're talking about you, specifically, the flaws of the BMI - and I agree they are many - aren't the issue, since you're only just barely not obese on the body fat percentage scale. You can push this off on the BMI, but the fact is, you're really pretty fat.

The healthy range for a male in his 20's is 15-20%; the obscenely unhealthy range is somewhere around 30+%. For a man my age, 22% is perfectly acceptable. I'm actually not very fat at all; anyone who sees me might think: "He needs to lose a few pounds", but never "Dear gods, hide the chips now!"

At 250, being 5'8", I'd say the nomenclature - overweight, obese, really really fat - doesn't matter; you have a serious health problem, on par with my smoking, for instance.

Actually, i don't-- and that's the part that flabbergasts most people. I'm not a bodybuilder, but I should point out that virtually every NFL player also qualifies as obese under the BMI standards. I *do* have big bones, and I have the impedance tests to prove it. (Plus X-rays, plus some other tests. My body fat percentage completely floors most people, so they made me retake a bundle of tests to make sure it came back right.)

The health principles of this are very clear. I only need to lose 9 lbs of fat to be considered "healthy". I can't express the biology any more clearly.

Now, I will grant that for more people than not, my height and weight would mean that they're obese. I'm a little unusual, but I'm not that odd-- I'm just built like a defensive lineman. I actually *do* have a lot of lean muscle mass, and acceptable levels of body fat. My fitness levels aren't extraordinary, but I can survive an extended sparring session without dying from exhaustion. In short, like most people, I need to focus more on fitness and less on weight loss.

I really am being kind of a hard-ass about this, Cain, and I'm sorry. I think I'm mostly just very surprised. I'm two or three inches taller than you, and I've never weighed over 260, even at my largest. And I'm a decent-sized guy. When I was at my largest, I was what I now consider mindnumbingly fat, and that doesn't fit my mental perception of you [which until now, I realize, was of a skeletally-thin bald monk in street clothes, for some bizarre reason]. It's just an incredible surprise that you're so much bigger than I expected, so much bigger than I used to be when I was humiliatingly overweight. I think of myself as being incredibly overweight now, and I'm under 180 at 5'11"; the downside, I suppose, of spending so much time around skinny euros.

No worries. I'm not nearly as big as you think; I'm big-shouldered, but my waist isn't that large. I'm just one example of how the BMI is incredibly limited in scope and use; which is part of why I think it's a poor standard to use for kids.

Think of it this way-- would you classify a bodybuilder as obese? I know quite a few who are shorter than I am, and heavier! They're practically bulging with muscles, can run marathons, and they're classified as even more obese than I am!

Yes, I could stand to lose a few pounds-- 9, to be precice. But I don't need to dramatically lose a lot of weight to be healthy (and in fact, my remaining body fat stubbornly refuses to go away. Since I started training again, I gained three pounds!)

You said it yourself-- we need to focus on fitness, and not weight or shape. Finding out my weight has created a particular shape in your mind, and a fitness level. Now, what won't surprise you too much (especially since you thought of me as a shaven-headed monk) is that I can squat almost 400 lbs on a max-out, (or I used to, it's been a while) and that I can regularily snatch coins out of people's hands, when they're warned and ready. In certain situations, I use my size to fool people into thinking I can't be fast, or strong, or fit. When you're sparring, that can translate into a huge advantage.

Are you fat like me because you're just lazy? I could do more. I don't. I am fat. Do you have to compensate for some sort of medical condition? My cousin has thyroid problems. She packs on an unhealthy amount of weight easily. But she did somethign about it. SH egot medication, and eventually surgery. (All of which she paid for herself, as she has no medical insurance, no job, and no desire to ever work.) So are you doing something about it? If not I don't feel sorry for you. Honesty is essential to a successful program.

I agree that in many cases, there's more that individuals could do; but there's a whole hell of a lot that we as a society need to do as well. We live in a toxic food environment, focusing on cramming nourishment down our gullets so we can ge back to stressing ourselves out. I mean, 30 minutes is just barely long enough for your stretch receptors to signal fullness. If we took a full hour to eat, from start to finish, we would eat a whole lot less. But most places only give you a half-hour for lunch-- which includes five minutes there, five minutes back, and five minutes reheating your food! No amount of willpower can overcome that sort of obstacle.

[Serious Paul]

I'd say that most serious Body Builders (At competition levels) are as unhealthy as obese people, only in a different way. They're certainly as mentally screwed up in my opinion as most fat people are attributted with being.

[3278]

It is extremely difficult to lose 2 lbs of fat per week, although losing a lot of water mass is trivial.

Okay, well, I was here, and you weren't. Perhaps my definition of "difficult" is quite different from yours; I can't speak to that.

(Incidentally, Creatine does nothing for muscle gain or energy.

I didn't say it did. I use it to replace the water my muscles have lost through exertion, which it does quite handily. Oh, and pumping my muscles full of water seems to do a nice job of increasing my muscle bulk and strength.

I'm actually not very fat at all; anyone who sees me might think: "He needs to lose a few pounds", but never "Dear gods, hide the chips now!"

Right. Well, if you're 5'8" and 250 pounds, I would certainly think it's time to hide the chips. Perhaps you carry it well, but unless you're much more muscular than 24 percent fat would indicate, you're real fat.

I'm not a bodybuilder, but I should point out that virtually every NFL player also qualifies as obese under the BMI standards.

Yeah, but you yourself pointed out the BMI sucks, so I'm not sure why you're using it as evidence at this point. Instead, look at your body fat percentage, and you're one percent away from "clinically obese."

Look, it's none of my business if you're fat or not, but if 24 percent of you is fat, I think you should stay away from comparisons to NFL players.

I actually *do* have a lot of lean muscle mass, and acceptable levels of body fat.

What was that you said? 22 to 26 percent? So, overweight to obese. That's not "acceptable." What bothers me more than people being fat is people who are fat saying they're not. [Particularly after they've been explaining how fat they are.]

I agree that in many cases, there's more that individuals could do; but there's a whole hell of a lot that we as a society need to do as well.

Fuck that! Why? It's not society's job to make sure you're not fat!

I need to calm down now.

There's nothing that "society" needs to do that an individual can't do for him or herself. The notion that /your/ fitness necessitates alterations to /everyone else's/ society is selfish, unfair, and indicates the avoidance of personal responsibility.

But most places only give you a half-hour for lunch-- which includes five minutes there, five minutes back, and five minutes reheating your food! No amount of willpower can overcome that sort of obstacle.

Bring your lunch, then. Personally, I find 30 minutes to be plenty of time, but I rarely eat more than, say, 30 bites of food. Even in 15 minutes, I have no problem eating slowly and completing my entire meal. But if you eat so much volume that you simply cannot healthfully get it down your throat in 15 minutes, just bring food with you.

I don't deny there are challenges to losing weight, but they can all be easily and simply overcome with willpower and intellect, and probably some good, old-fashioned /work./

[Marius]

Creatine phosphate is a quick-recharge molecule for ATP, but ingesting it will only result it in being digested into amino acids. It's not possible to increase your CP reserves by ingesting creatine.

I don't know where you heard that, but it's very false.

[Serious Paul]

What he said.

Also, I don't get a lunch break. I work a straight eight-I can eat at the convicts chow hall, if I want to eat their food. I bring all sorts of food for myself. Snacks sometimes, etc...Its all in what you're willing to do for yourself.

[Crazy Elf]

TLM, regarding gaining weight. It really depends on what you're after. If you just want weight weight, then if you eat lots of carbs before you go to sleep, it's going to get converted to fat for the most part and then you'll gain some weight. Ideally, that's probably not what you're after, in which case you're going to want to use some basic body building principles.

Start lifting weights, it's one of the more healthy ways to gain weight, despite what some idiots are saying about bodybuilding being as unhealthy as being overweight (because we all know that bodybuilding is one of the leading causes of death, right? Not obesity). You'll need to increase the amount of protein you're taking in, which just means diet modification... and considering your body type, which I'm going to assume is ectomorphic, you'll probably need to add protein shakes and powders to that.

On the up side, your training would be much more simple than someone who was endomorphic (prone to getting fat), as you'd just need to lift heavy weights to promote muscle growth, and would hardly need to look at all the cardio training that would have to be put into an endomorphic's routine. Low reps (yet still to muscle failure) and long breaks.

But, it really just depends on what you're after.

As for Cain, 24% body fat! Holy mother of god man, that's fat! You may not think that you're fat but IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT YOU THINK! YOU'RE FAT, RUN!

[Cain]

Right. Well, if you're 5'8" and 250 pounds, I would certainly think it's time to hide the chips. Perhaps you carry it well, but unless you're much more muscular than 24 percent fat would indicate, you're real fat.

Where are you getting your charts from? The ones I have indicate problems for a man a few years older than I am, 24% isn't bad at all. This site is pretty close to what I've got in front of me; I think you're reading the standards for a 20-something male.

There's nothing that "society" needs to do that an individual can't do for him or herself. The notion that /your/ fitness necessitates alterations to /everyone else's/ society is selfish, unfair, and indicates the avoidance of personal responsibility.

So, do you think that if the American diet weren't so toxic and loaded with quick foods, we'd have the obesity problem that we have?

You seem to be saying that our society has no influence on our fitness level-- something inherent to Americans makes them fat; even if our culture pushed for us to eat nothing but the healthiest of foods in reasonable quantites, we'd still be an obese nation.

Bring your lunch, then. Personally, I find 30 minutes to be plenty of time, but I rarely eat more than, say, 30 bites of food. Even in 15 minutes, I have no problem eating slowly and completing my entire meal.

And right there's the issue I've been highlighting! Why do we need to complete every meal? Americans have been conditioned, since the Depression, to "Clean your plate" at every meal. This hasn't always been the case-- in the early 1900s, the tradition was to leave some food on your plate, to show your hosts they had provided more than enough-- the phrase: "Leave a little for Miss Manners" stems from that era. Eleanor Roosevelt was responsible for changing that tradition; a good idea at the time, but now carried too far.

We *shouldn't* be trying to complete a meal in 30 minutes! We should be aiming to eat about 50% of it in that time! Even you mention how you can easily finish-- the problem is that we finish so quickly!

And don't forget the obesity problem that started this debate centers around kids. Even you admit that kids have a vastly reduced (or nonexistant) amount of personal responsibility that can be assigned to them. Kids are taught to "hurry up and clean your plate!"; to hurry through the lunchline, and get done quickly so they're not late for the important things. This needs to change.

Now that I think about it, maybe extending lunchtimes would be a better solution. We allocate an hour-and-a-half to lunches. And instead of giving them one tray so they can get through the line quickly, we only give them a single entree each time. The first time, they get veggies and whole-grain bread. The second, an additional serving of whole-grain carbs. The third, fruit; fourth, they get the protein "Main" entree, and finally they get something sweet for dessert-- more fruit or yoghurt. Kids will eat less, because they're encouraged to eat more slowly.

[crone]

-- I'm just built like a defensive lineman.

Do Americans use the phrase "built like a brick shithouse"?


3278, I figured you were talking to me before. That's not quite what I meant to ask, though. I am wondering where willpower and self-control fit into this for you. I think that maybe you use those words differently to the way I do. You said something really interesting:

But since the attempt is, itself, practice, I think it's perfectly possible to change.

I have never encountered that idea before - that it is possible to train your willpower. I'm wondering, how do you do that?

[3278]

Right. Well, if you're 5'8" and 250 pounds, I would certainly think it's time to hide the chips. Perhaps you carry it well, but unless you're much more muscular than 24 percent fat would indicate, you're real fat.

Where are you getting your charts from? The ones I have indicate problems for a man a few years older than I am, 24% isn't bad at all. This site is pretty close to what I've got in front of me; I think you're reading the standards for a 20-something male.

I'm using the DoH standards, which I found somewhere around this internet thingie. They don't adjust for age, possibly because the notion that "being in your 30s" isn't a good reason to be obese.

There's nothing that "society" needs to do that an individual can't do for him or herself. The notion that /your/ fitness necessitates alterations to /everyone else's/ society is selfish, unfair, and indicates the avoidance of personal responsibility.

So, do you think that if the American diet weren't so toxic and loaded with quick foods, we'd have the obesity problem that we have?

No, I don't. [We'd be Europe!] But the choice to /eat/ those toxic foods lies with us, and more significantly [since it's less the American diet and more the American activity leel that's the problem] it's our choice to sit on our butts.

You seem to be saying that our society has no influence on our fitness level-- something inherent to Americans makes them fat; even if our culture pushed for us to eat nothing but the healthiest of foods in reasonable quantites, we'd still be an obese nation.

No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that the /responsibility for fitness/ is personal, and not societal. Crappy food is an option for us because we exercise it; McDonalds sells crap because people will buy it. When people decide it's time to eat better, McDonalds sells salads. The burden for being not-fat is on the owner of the body, not on the nebulous "society" that provides him or her with the food and conveniences that make obesity possible.

Bring your lunch, then. Personally, I find 30 minutes to be plenty of time, but I rarely eat more than, say, 30 bites of food. Even in 15 minutes, I have no problem eating slowly and completing my entire meal.

And right there's the issue I've been highlighting! Why do we need to complete every meal? Americans have been conditioned, since the Depression, to "Clean your plate" at every meal.

Cain, I make as much food as I need to eat, and then eat it all. I don't think eating all 30 bites of my meal is a bad idea. I understand the notion you're highlighting, but it's simply not applicable in this case.

We *shouldn't* be trying to complete a meal in 30 minutes! We should be aiming to eat about 50% of it in that time! Even you mention how you can easily finish-- the problem is that we finish so quickly!

No. 30 bites in 30 minutes? 30 bites in 15? Don't you think 30 seconds is enough time, on average, to chew and swallow? For me, it is. I know my body, and I know how quickly to put food in it, and I don't have any problem getting the small meals I eat into me in a reasonable period of time without gorging myself.

You brought this up because you feel the American lunch [half]hour is too short, but when I suggest the notion of bringing your own food - usually less expensive and better for you - your reply is that we shouldn't try to finish all our food and do so in 30 minutes. That's silly.

[3278]

-- I'm just built like a defensive lineman.

Do Americans use the phrase "built like a brick shithouse"?

Yes, although bricks aren't normally 24 percent fat.

But since the attempt is, itself, practice, I think it's perfectly possible to change.

I have never encountered that idea before - that it is possible to train your willpower. I'm wondering, how do you do that?

I don't have a much better answer than I gave before: that simply by constantly /trying/ to have more willpower, you'll gain it, if you want to. And that may not work for everyone. But I used to not have the will to not-drink. Then I decided to stop, and all I did was decide not to - sometimes after much consideration - whenever I was given the option. After a time, the "not-drinking" became simply another thing I did, like breathing.

Since I have the willpower of a housefly, it's quite possible I'm the wrong person to ask, though.

[Serious Paul]

Start lifting weights, it's one of the more healthy ways to gain weight, despite what some idiots are saying about bodybuilding being as unhealthy as being overweight (because we all know that bodybuilding is one of the leading causes of death, right? Not obesity).

Yeah there is no injuries related to weight lifting, or people dieing as a result of their twisted mental drive to push their body to extreme limits. And we all know there are so many healthy suppliments out there pushing these guys to their increased size.

Weight lifting is not always healthy. There is a limit, just like anything. Obesity is a bigger problem by far-I never suggested otherwise.

If you pick a few issues of Flex or some of the other body builder fag mags you'd easily see some of the associated risks with lifting at that level. None of us who post here, as far as I know, are in any danger of being there anytime soon.

[Cain]

I'm using the DoH standards, which I found somewhere around this internet thingie. They don't adjust for age, possibly because the notion that "being in your 30s" isn't a good reason to be obese.

Link, please? And where on earth did you get the notion I'm in my 30's?

Let me try a different example. You say that, at 5'11 and 180 lbs, you feel that you're "incredibly obese". All right, I'll start at the same place I started with myself-- the BMI tables. At the absolute high end of the healthy ranges for a man your height, the safe weight is 172 lbs. If you're a healthy man in your 20's, or close to it, at most your body fat percentage should be 20%; so of that weight, 34 lbs of that is fat. If the BMI tables are correct, and you're not of an unusually skinny build, we'll assume that the remaining 8 lbs of your weight is pure fat. (Honestly, by the BMI tables, a set of standards that are too harsh, you come in at only about a BMI of 25-ish. If you're "incredibly obese", you've got to be really damn scrawny, or have a seriously mixed-up idea about what constitutes obese.)

So, roughly 42 lbs of your body is pure fat. That puts *you* at about 23% body fat; and what's more, I can show that for you (assuming you've got a more normal body type than I do) it's barely over the top of "overweight".

At my weight, body fat percentage, and age; just off these numbers I can show that I've got a hell of a lot more muscle mass than you do! Suprising for a man my age, isn't it?

No, I don't. [We'd be Europe!] But the choice to /eat/ those toxic foods lies with us, and more significantly [since it's less the American diet and more the American activity leel that's the problem] it's our choice to sit on our butts.

So, Americans would inherently "sit on their butts" even if our food and cultural environment were much better? Something about being American makes us inherently lazy and prone to eat toxic foods? Or is it because Americans have the worlds most overblown sense of personal responsibility in order to evade any sense of cultural responsibility?

I understand the notion you're highlighting, but it's simply not applicable in this case.

I wasn't specifically referring to you, although I do see how I could have given that impression. I think we agree that taking longer to eat is a good thing, though.

30 bites in 30 minutes? 30 bites in 15? Don't you think 30 seconds is enough time, on average, to chew and swallow? For me, it is. I know my body, and I know how quickly to put food in it, and I don't have any problem getting the small meals I eat into me in a reasonable period of time without gorging myself.

Well, that would depend. Not knowing you, or the average size of bite you take, or the relative size of your mouth, it's hard for me to say. I know several people who can eat an entire cheeseburger in one bite. I'd wager that a full McDonald's meal should take us a full half-hour to "complete"-- not meaning "eat every damn bite", but "eating slowly and waiting a bit between mouthfuls"-- just to make sure the stomach has a chance to feel fully satiated.

It takes about ten minutes for peristalsis to bring the food to your stomach, and an additional ten minutes for the stomach to signal satiety. So, if it takes you ten minutes to eat, food hasn't even reached your stomach yet! You honestly need to wait for about 30 minutes, from the time of first swallow, to see how full you are.

[3278]

I'm using the DoH standards, which I found somewhere around this internet thingie. They don't adjust for age, possibly because the notion that "being in your 30s" isn't a good reason to be obese.

Link, please? And where on earth did you get the notion I'm in my 30's?

Oops. My fault: not the DoH, but the "American Council on Exercise." In any case, their tables - and some others - can be found <a href="http://www.vegetarian-diet.info/body-fa ... m">here</a>. On all of those scales, you're borderline obese; even on the age-ranked one, you're not considered healthy. I don't know your actual age, any more than I know your actual [former] job; we just have to guess about these things. Even if you're in your 40s, though, you are - listen closely here - way too fat. Listen to the Elf: run.

Let me try a different example. You say that, at 5'11 and 180 lbs, you feel that you're "incredibly obese".

No. Please don't use quotation marks unless you're actually quoting me: what I said was that I feel "incredibly overweight."

All right, I'll start at the same place I started with myself-- the BMI tables.

Knock knock. Who's there? The BMI tables again. What? I thought we'd agreed they weren't useful?

So, roughly 42 lbs of your body is pure fat. That puts *you* at about 23% body fat; and what's more, I can show that for you (assuming you've got a more normal body type than I do) it's barely over the top of "overweight".

Given your lack of actual facts - you've somehow managed to come up with a BMI and body fat percentage for me based on nothing but my height, my weight, and some really weird assumptions - you've got it horribly wrong.

At my weight, body fat percentage, and age; just off these numbers I can show that I've got a hell of a lot more muscle mass than you do! Suprising for a man my age, isn't it?

I would be in no way surprised if you had more muscle mass than I do. While I'm a fairly large guy, I'm not active, and I'm not [what I would consider] fit. If you want to make this into a "which one of us is fatter and weaker" thing, I think I can probably clear it up: you're fatter, I'm weaker. [My muscle mass being not only probably not as great as yours, but also quite possibly less toned.] And it's not really too surprising: my father's muscle mass is greater than mine by a much larger margin than yours, and he's much older than you.

No, I don't. [We'd be Europe!] But the choice to /eat/ those toxic foods lies with us, and more significantly [since it's less the American diet and more the American activity leel that's the problem] it's our choice to sit on our butts.

So, Americans would inherently "sit on their butts" even if our food and cultural environment were much better?

...did I say that? What I said was that it's not our "environment's" job to make us fit; it's ours. Your body, your responsibility. If you have the rights to it, you have the responsibility for it. My weight, my right, my responsibility. Simple. [To me.]

The other factor is this: "society," that great bogeyman, is made up of /people./ If "society" needs to change, that means individuals need to change. Saying that "society" needs to better favor good health is absurd; who do you appeal to? The National Board of Society? Of course not. What's needed is for people to stop eating crap; they can't sell crap, they won't /make/ crap. It's very, very obvious that the market responds to the populace; if nothing else, look at the sudden rush of low-carb foods. So society will change, if we do.

It takes about ten minutes for peristalsis to bring the food to your stomach, and an additional ten minutes for the stomach to signal satiety. So, if it takes you ten minutes to eat, food hasn't even reached your stomach yet! You honestly need to wait for about 30 minutes, from the time of first swallow, to see how full you are.

I don't pay attention to that. I've been eating for about 28 years now, and I have a decent idea of how much I need to be full. I don't need my stomach to tell me when it's had enough; I eat what I eat. I think people who eat until they're full usually end up fat. I maintain a fixed diet, and thus a fixed caloric intake. I prefer for my brain to do the decision-making; my stomach is better at simply digesting.

[Crazy Elf]

Weight lifting is not always healthy. There is a limit, just like anything. Obesity is a bigger problem by far-I never suggested otherwise.

If you pick a few issues of Flex or some of the other body builder fag mags you'd easily see some of the associated risks with lifting at that level. None of us who post here, as far as I know, are in any danger of being there anytime soon.

I agree that there are risks that can occur due to weightlifting. However, as you yourself said, it's unlikely that anyone here is at risk of any of those associated risks, yet there are several Bulldrekers who would be at risk of obesity related health problems. As that is the case, I'll push the lifting.

[Serious Paul]

On that part we agree heartily!

Now back to the name calling and dick swinging!

[Big Jim]

32, instead of easy would you be willing to say it's simple? Because I'm already in ok shape, and trying to lose weight and get more fit is not easy. There are simple steps I can take, I know, but none of them are easy.

[Szechuan]

I agree that there are risks that can occur due to weightlifting. However, as you yourself said, it's unlikely that anyone here is at risk of any of those associated risks, yet there are several Bulldrekers who would be at risk of obesity related health problems. As that is the case, I'll push the lifting.

Hear, hear!

[Cain]

Oops. My fault: not the DoH, but the "American Council on Exercise." In any case, their tables - and some others - can be found here. On all of those scales, you're borderline obese; even on the age-ranked one, you're not considered healthy

Um... here's the first table from that link:

1. Body Fat Guidelines from American Council on Exercise
Classification Women (% Fat) Men (% Fat)
Essential Fat 10-12 percent 2-4 percent
Athletes 14-20 percent 6-13 percent
Fitness 21-24 percent 14-17 percent
Acceptable 25-31 percent 18-25 percent

So, by that standard, I'm "acceptable". All those tables are somewhat contradictory, you realize.

Knock knock. Who's there? The BMI tables again. What? I thought we'd agreed they weren't useful?

No, they're overly harsh and not diagnostic. That's somewhat different than "not useful"; for more people than not, a high BMI means high body fat. But not all, and there's an awful lot of exceptions.

Given your lack of actual facts - you've somehow managed to come up with a BMI and body fat percentage for me based on nothing but my height, my weight, and some really weird assumptions - you've got it horribly wrong.

BMI only requires height and weight, which is why it's not diagnostic. (And why it's such a bad idea to use it to "grade" kids.) However, the assumptions I made were that you had a high body fat percentage (no, I can't tell that without meeting you; but you've assumed I must be incredibly obese based solely on my height and weight without any other cited evidence) based on the fact you feel "incredibly overweight". Actually, you're not "incredibly" overweight by even the harshest standard-- the BMI. You're barely overweight, and the BMI does have some validity, which is why it's so popular.

...did I say that? What I said was that it's not our "environment's" job to make us fit; it's ours.

Okay, let's dissect that statement. There are two major factors that control our behavior-- environment and heredity. Clearly, Americans have entirely too much heredity in common with everyone else for obesity to be genetic to Americans only. So, that leaves environment. Something about the environment must be pushing Americans to eat poorly, and it's overridden the "free will" factor by a lot. But since you calim it's not the action of the environment, it must somehow be our genetics, and I cannot concieve as to how that could be possible.

As sentient beings, we have the ability to alter our environment. It's clear that the current American environment is somehow promoting obesity, despite popular images promoting unhealthy slenderness. Attempting to affect individuals is futile; that would be like trying to treat radiation sickness among people living near Hanford by giving them medication. What you need to do is clean up the environment, first.

You ignored my earlier point-- Americans overblown sense of personal responsibility acts to absolve us of any sense of collective responsibility. "If it's not my fault, why should I pay for it?" is a very common question. Do you not agree with that? America, as a society, needs to admit error and act collectively. We cannot push this off onto individuals so our society can escape blame.

Oh, and who do we appeal to? Unfortunately, in a practical sense, we have to appeal to the government. Right now, they're the only ones who have the ability to act. And they are doing so, although they could do much better. The government could do a lot of things-- require healthier foods to be served in schools, restrict food stamp programs to healthier foods, and increase education. I don't think you really object to any of those, so what are we arguing about?

[Daki]

I wonder where Daki is in all this?

Daki was too busy to check most of the threads for the weekend and have LOTS of reading in this thread to catch up on before I make full comments. Let me say this right now since, when I was skimming, they seemed to be comments points of contention.

BMI - As a baseline reading for those who are not phsyically active it is a decent measure to get a general idea about your status. Those who are physically active can tell the BMI to fuck off.

Oh, as just a statement, I am 6'4 and currently weigh 225 pounds. My last body fat test put me at 10% (this was months ago befor my more recent rush to lose weight). This leads nicely into...

Losing weight and keeping it off. I lost a total of 60+ pounds (71 at max). After reaching a weight of 214 pounds, I left the diet but kept the exercise at a <b>maintaining</b> level. I have kept the weight off with a minimal effort in the gym needed (1 day per week in the gym is what I need to do to maintain).


More later when I have a chance to read everything up to this point but I should say it is kind of pointless to quote "authority" books on health and fitness because there is no one single authority. There are some decent guidelines, but not set in stone, "This is healthy but any more than this is bad".

Example: 23% body fat is okay, but 24% is dangerous. Wut? It's a one percent difference. Sure, you could say, "according to this book I am within acceptable ranges since I'm only 23%"... but you're still 23% and close to a "standard" for being in a danger area. This is assuming you want to use that standard as a guideline.

Meh... sorry, this is a jumble of ideas at this point. Forgive me if anything has already been covered. Clearer post later.

[Serious Paul]

I don't think you really object to any of those, so what are we arguing about?

There's a really funny joke that belongs here....

[3278]

32, instead of easy would you be willing to say it's simple?

And therein lies the problem. When I say "easy," there are so many things I could mean, and so many of them are wrong. When you're fat, walking for an hour is /not/ "easy." Even making the /decision/ to walk for an hour isn't "easy." But the steps you need to take to get where you want to go are, indeed, "simple," so I would submit that's a better word to use.

I use "easy" because it's not "complex." Anyone can do it; you don't have to know a lot or have a lot of training or ability to do it. All it takes is the decision that you want to do something badly enough that you're willing to do what you need to do to accomplish that goal.

[Daki]

(Incidentally, Creatine does nothing for muscle gain or energy. Creatine phosphate is a quick-recharge molecule for ATP, but ingesting it will only result it in being digested into amino acids. It's not possible to increase your CP reserves by ingesting creatine. This public service announcement has been brought to you by Cain's diet debunking service. )

And this public service clarification public service brought to you by Daki. Creatine most certainly does help with muscle gain. Creatine stimulates your body with the amino acid used in one particular phase of muscle metabolism. The layman's version: it makes your body pull moisture (more oxygen) from your body and into your muscles(*). Combined with regular exercise, it leads to additional small gains in daily lifts, thereby working the muscle past failure and leading to gains in strength and growth (weighed more heavily towards the growth in size).

(*) NOTE: This is why you must drink water while using creatine. It will dehydrate your body if you don't and push yourself too much.

Also, regarding water weight... You sweat, you lose water weight. When you re-hydrate, you gain that weight back. The actualy weight loss (either from muscle or fat loss) will not occur until a few hours after your workout while your body starts metabolizing faster to feed muscles. Fat is broken down to shift nutrients to the muscles(*).

(*) NOTE: This is why starvation diets will cause weight loss but fat gains. Working the muscles will cause the fat to break down in the absence of calories in order to feed the muscles. If the body has no calories and the muscles aren't needing the excess, your body will actually start to break down muscle since it is easier to metabolize that rather than fat.


If you want to reduce your typical water weight at any one time (i.e. - not holding so much water in the body), drink a large amount of water during the day. At least one gallon is a good amount. Your body will become accustomed to the excess water intake and will no longer store up as much believing there is a ready supply at all times. This also means that you must drink at least 1/2 gallon per day to keep from having early dehydration signs from popping up.

[3278]

On all of those scales, you're borderline obese; even on the age-ranked one, you're not considered healthy.

Um... here's the first table from that link:

1. Body Fat Guidelines from American Council on Exercise
Classification Women (% Fat) Men (% Fat)
Acceptable 25-31 percent 18-25 percent

So, by that standard, I'm "acceptable".

No, by that standard, you, with a body fat percentage of "22 to 26%" are on the borderline of "acceptable" and "obese," which is why I said, "borderline obese." Your stated average - 24 percent - is one percentage away from "obese," which is why I said, "borderline obese."

Knock knock. Who's there? The BMI tables again. What? I thought we'd agreed they weren't useful?

No, they're overly harsh and not diagnostic.

I, being of a somewhat scientific bent, consider things which are "overly harsh and not diagnostic" to be not "useful." Since there's another standard - body fat percentage - which you feel is more accurate, I believe we should use that.

Actually, you're not "incredibly" overweight by even the harshest standard-- the BMI. You're barely overweight, and the BMI does have some validity, which is why it's so popular.

Aww. Thanks, man. You're still obese, though.

You and I don't agree on responsibility. You believe society has more responsibility than the individual, and I believe otherwise. I don't think our respective opinions on that are likely to change today. [Or, as I once memorably told my arch-nemesis english teacher, "I can't change your mind, and you can't change reality." ;) ]

[Serious Paul]

"So let me get thi sstraight, we're done? we aren't going to do anything but sit here for the rest of the semester?"

"Yeah dude."

"Dude you broke him."

"I think its because he thinks I'm sticking it to his duaghter...."

[Daki]

I'd say that most serious Body Builders (At competition levels) are as unhealthy as obese people, only in a different way. They're certainly as mentally screwed up in my opinion as most fat people are attributted with being.

You would be absolutely correct.

EDIT: Needed to put that in the proper terms. As a bodybuilder, they are unhealthy in what could potentially happen to them. Pro-bodybuilders put on more bulk muscle than their body can naturally support. When they are not training to compete, they do very radical shifts to their diet and exercise programs to actually burn off that excess muscle because it will turn to fat deposits without the level of workout they were maintaining. Suddenly they go from 4-6% body fat to 14-18+%.

Unhealthy in my book (again, referring to pro bodybuilders) also includes increased chances for tear, deep muscle bruises, and constricted nerves/burners. The risks of all of these are elevated for a pro bodybuilder.

[3278]

And my personal favorite, "bone shear."

[Cain]

No, by that standard, you, with a body fat percentage of "22 to 26%" are on the borderline of "acceptable" and "obese," which is why I said, "borderline obese." Your stated average - 24 percent - is one percentage away from "obese," which is why I said, "borderline obese."

Actually, the borderline would be 24.5 or so; the chart only goes by intergers. 24% is perfectly acceptable. (Incidentally, the variation is due to the inaccuracies of calipers; impedance tests and other measures placed me firmly at 23.8, which I rounded up. I've probably lost a bit since then-- imedance tests aren't easy to come by, you know. Exactly how you managed to measure your fat loss is beyond me-- did you use calipers or impedance tests, or did you just measure inches and overall poundage?)

I, being of a somewhat scientific bent, consider things which are "overly harsh and not diagnostic" to be not "useful." Since there's another standard - body fat percentage - which you feel is more accurate, I believe we should use that.

The BMI is actually quite useful, it just has a hell of a lot of exceptions. The problem is that a lot of people misunderstand how it was derived, and what it means.

The BMI standards were devised by calculating the height/weight ratio of the healthiest Americans, and coming up with ranges where the rate of disease altered significantly. Which is accurate enough as far as it goes; the problems that emerge are that the healthiest people tend to be athletes, so it doesn't function exceptionally well as a baseline. Also, it's a correlational measure, and correlation does not mean causation. The most unhealthy people could be genetically predisposed to a lot of disorders, obesity being one of them.

Incidentally, the average BMI for most Americans is 26.5. Your BMI is *lower* than average, so there's no way you could be "incredibly overweight".

You and I don't agree on responsibility. You believe society has more responsibility than the individual, and I believe otherwise. I don't think our respective opinions on that are likely to change today.

Actually, I believe society has more responsibility towards the society. When widespread issues emerge, they're collective problems and need to be solved collectively. Once the collective issue is solved, the remainder then becomes an individual issue.

For example, smoking used to be a collective problem. Our culture encouraged smoking; the concept of "non smoking" areas was virtually nonexistant. In some churches and schools, you can still find ashtrays! You know as well as I do that secondhand smoke can be addictive, so we were literally setting ourselves up to be smokers. Then, the culture changed. Dedicated anti-smoking campaigns got off the ground, backed by the government and solid information. As a direct result, smoking became less popular; until it reached the point we're at nowadays, where smoking is largely an individual issue instead of a collective one. (For anyone your age and younger, at least. There are some older Americans who still have some cultural issues, but those are vanishing as time goes on.)

I can't change your mind, and you can't change the facts. But we sure as hell can have fun discussing them, ok?

[Van Der Litreb]

You know as well as I do that secondhand smoke can be addictive ...

Whoa! Sorry, maybe I missed something, but when the hell was that established?

[Daki]

And my personal favorite, "bone shear."

*Recalls the scream of the juicer that did that* Yeah. I didn't need to remember that.

Incidentally, the average BMI for most Americans is 26.5.

And America is on average overweight and getting worse with each passing year. Not exactly a good point to make when trying to prove that point.

[3278]

No, by that standard, you, with a body fat percentage of "22 to 26%" are on the borderline of "acceptable" and "obese," which is why I said, "borderline obese." Your stated average - 24 percent - is one percentage away from "obese," which is why I said, "borderline obese."

Actually, the borderline would be 24.5 or so; the chart only goes by intergers.

I'm sorry, but when I say "borderline," I mean, "Verging on a given quality or condition." If there's some technical definition of "borderline" I'm not aware of that means "halfway between two inte[r]gers which divide a value," you should probably let me know.

24% is perfectly acceptable.

It's really not. Not by any standard of the word "acceptable."

The BMI is actually quite useful, it just has a hell of a lot of exceptions.

That makes it not as useful as the other measure, so let's not use it.

Incidentally, the average BMI for most Americans is 26.5. Your BMI is *lower* than average, so there's no way you could be "incredibly overweight".

Unless the average American were also incredibly overweight. Look, if you re-read my statement, I mention that I'm considering my weight in comparison to europeans, who aren't, as a rule, obese or even overweight. I consider myself "incredibly overweight" because I weigh a great deal more than I would like to, a great deal more than I feel I should. I'm not making some kind of diagnostic statement; I'm saying that I, personally, think I should lose some serious weight, in the 30-40 pounds or so area.

[Cain]

It's really not. Not by any standard of the word "acceptable."

Dude, that's what your own chart said. "Acceptable" was the term they used!

That makes it not as useful as the other measure, so let's not use it.

I can't use much else over the internet. Have you taken an impedance test or hydrosensiometry? Those are much more accurate. CAT scans can do the job as well, but I don't happen to have one handy.

The point I'm trying to make is, your expectation for weight loss is totally unrealistic. I'll let Daki give you the full lookover; but my guess is that you probably only *have* 40 lbs of body fat! Dropping your weight by 10 pounds will firmly place you in the "healthy" category; attempting to lose 40 lbs may land you in the hospital!