Swine Flu Kills Obese People Disproportionately

Philip K Dickhead writes "Bloomberg is reporting that the World Health Organization discovered a single, surprising characteristic that's emerged among swine flu victims who become severely ill: They are all fat. Infected people with a body mass index greater than 40 suffer respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal. The virus appears to be on a collision course with the obesity epidemic. WHO officials are gathering statistics to confirm and understand this development. 'It's very likely that if we went back retrospectively and looked at people who did poorly during seasonal flu, what would shake out is that obesity would be one of the risks.' Fat cells secrete chemicals that cause chronic, low-level inflammation that can hamper the body's immune response and narrow the airways, says Tim Armstrong, a doctor working in the WHO's chronic diseases department in Geneva."

Comments

Well... yeh.

[yoursurrogategod]

Being obese is pretty much an invitation for all sorts of problems. I love my steak, fries, chocolate, soda and burgers, I just eat them once every other week in small quantities. It helps when I think of baby carrots and apples as snacks.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

Being obese is pretty much an invitation for all sorts of problems. I love my steak, fries, chocolate, soda and burgers, I just eat them once every other week in small quantities. It helps when I think of baby carrots and apples as snacks.

Now imagine trying to do that with severe cravings for the food. The kind of cravings addicts have for their poison of choice.

I'm fat. I'm able to avoid a huge variety of foods due to my wife's allergies. (If I've eaten the tiniest amounts of garlic, onion, capcicum, chilli, or a whole raft of spices one kiss from me could kill her. Do you have any idea how many different foods have trace amounts of these? I'm lucky if I can eat the fries at a fast food joint. If they use chicken salt, forget it). I don't have a simple issue with self control. If I did she'd be dead and I'd be up on murder charges. On the other hand I have a huge problem eating small portions. If I do I literally walk around voraciously hungry.

Oh and by the way I have an ankle so arthritic that I don't know how many more years I'll be able to walk for. At the moment if I had to run for my life I still could but I'd be paying for it with a couple of weeks worth of agony. Combine this with a desk job and yeah I _could_ try to make time for the gym (which I hate with a passion) but keeping up an excercise routine is to say the least problematic.

People who think it's a simple self control issue are idiots. Your makeup pre-disposes you to wanting to eat and to piling on weight. It's like looking at a dyslexic person and saying it's just a matter of self control when it comes to reading. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the issue.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have a simple issue with self control. If I did she'd be dead and I'd be up on murder charges. On the other hand I have a huge problem eating small portions. If I do I literally walk around voraciously hungry.

[snip]

Combine this with a desk job and yeah I _could_ try to make time for the gym (which I hate with a passion) but keeping up an excercise routine is to say the least problematic.

So, in other words, you have a complete lack of self control and are unable to motivate yourself to keep yourself healthy.

Losing weight is stupidly easy: eat less, exercise more. So you have a bad ankle, talk to your doctor to come up with an exercise routine that doesn't involve massive amounts of walking.

30 minutes a day. That's it. If you can't do that, then yes, it's a self control issue.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Now imagine trying to do that with severe cravings for the food. The kind of cravings addicts have for their poison of choice.

That usually (YMMV) means you're eating the wrong food. Your body tends to stay hungry until it has got what it needs. Eat something else and the craving remains.

> I don't have a simple issue with self control. If I did she'd be dead and I'd be up on murder charges.

That seems a little farfetched, unless you ate one of those things she is allergic to because you wanted her to die. I suppose you could be looking at involuntary manslaughter.

Re:Well... yeh.

[dfghjk]

"That usually (YMMV) means you're eating the wrong food. Your body tends to stay hungry until it has got what it needs. Eat something else and the craving remains."

Thanks for the old wives tale, AC.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

So, in other words, you have a complete lack of self control and are unable to motivate yourself to keep yourself healthy.

Not at all.

Losing weight is stupidly easy: eat less, exercise more.

That completely ignores the fact that people feel hunger differently, people lose weight differently, and that even those that have the ability to lose weight can work their arses off and still lose nothing in a week. If weight loss were as easy for everyone as you make it out to be we wouldn't have a problem.

So you have a bad ankle, talk to your doctor to come up with an exercise routine that doesn't involve massive amounts of walking.

Yeah because I'd never have thought of that you twit. There are only a handful of things that would work for me. Weight training isn't going to work now is it. That's great for bulking up. One thing that might work is swimming. If I could get to a pool 2 hours a day maybe I'd have a chance.

30 minutes a day. That's it. If you can't do that, then yes, it's a self control issue

Dude if 30 minutes a day worked for me, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The only couple of times I have lost weight in my life I lived on salad and lean meat/chicken in tiny portions and did AT LEAST 2 hours of heavy excercise a day. Anything short of that doesn't cut it. What's worse is when I've stopped it's taken a couple of months of eating reasonable portions and not excercising as much to put on all the weight I've lost over 6-8 months AND add some more kilos as the body overcompensates. Now you can choose to believe me or not. I'm guessing not. That's up to you. I happen to know for a fact that I'm not lying. Meanwhile I CAN'T keep that up while working 10 hrs a day 5 days a week plus some weekends, spending 3 hours a day in commute, doing chores till midnight when I get home and helping to raise a family.

See that's the trouble with morons like your good self. You think it's a simple case of self control and even when someone demonstrates that they have self control you're happier to blame the person for not making super human efforts and for having a body that doesn't react in the same way as theirs. You have no regard for their actual situation. You're just eager to place the entire blame on some moral or psychological defect. Ironically it's a "let them eat cake" solution that you offer.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

That usually (YMMV) means you're eating the wrong food. Your body tends to stay hungry until it has got what it needs. Eat something else and the craving remains.

I wonder how many more trolls are going to post as AC and refuse to acknowledge the fact that different people's bodies process food differently, or that different people's bodies have very different hunger mechanism.

That seems a little farfetched, unless you ate one of those things she is allergic to because you wanted her to die. I suppose you could be looking at involuntary manslaughter.

Well yeah that's much better, isn't it. If my wife died I'd feel so much better about being up on manslaughter instead of murder charges. What an asshole!

Re:Well... yeh.

[sopssa]

"That usually (YMMV) means you're eating the wrong food. Your body tends to stay hungry until it has got what it needs. Eat something else and the craving remains."

Thanks for the old wives tale, AC.

Eh? Thats the truth really. If you havent tried yet, try eating just foods with low amounts of carbs. Instead eat meat, fish and chicken. *without something that comes with carbs*. You'll notice how much longer you stay full. You can start by googling for "low carb diet". But dont just keep it as diet, keep it as a lifestyle. You'll notice the difference.

Re:Well... yeh.

[sopssa]

So, in other words, you have a complete lack of self control and are unable to motivate yourself to keep yourself healthy.

Not at all.

Losing weight is stupidly easy: eat less, exercise more.

That completely ignores the fact that people feel hunger differently, people lose weight differently, and that even those that have the ability to lose weight can work their arses off and still lose nothing in a week. If weight loss were as easy for everyone as you make it out to be we wouldn't have a problem.

You do understand that the different hunger feeling comes from the fact how much people have got used to eat, right? And also from what kind of food you eat. Carbs burn *fast* in your body, so stay off from bread, rice, potatoes and such. Eat high-protein and high-fat foods like meat, fish and chicken. They often also contain way less calories than the high-carb foods. Start by eating when you feel like so, as you're quite possible taking way less calories in that way anyways. Lower your amounts a bit all the time and you'll notice you dont really need that much food.

I feel you in that theres sometimes reasons people cant get their motivation up for that, being it work or anything else. I'm myself around the ~30 in charts. But I know the reasons for it and I know that I could make it better, instead of lying to myself that it's somehow not possible.

The only couple of times I have lost weight in my life I lived on salad and lean meat/chicken in tiny portions and did AT LEAST 2 hours of heavy excercise a day. Anything short of that doesn't cut it.

See this? That is the answer that I've already said and you've even noticed yourself. Hamburgers, bread and other such high-carb food is bad. Meat and chicken and fish is good. It's there by nature. Google for "low carb diet", go by that atleats 2 weeks and you'll notice how great it is. Then make that your lifestyle.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Killer Orca]

You don't have to swim for 2 hours to get any weight-losing exercise, I think if you signed up for some night adult swimming classes you would learn a few things that would help, specifically: improving your form, breathing, flip-turns (maybe not an option with your ankle), different strokes, etc. In fact they have even invented weights specifically for water based exercising http://www.saveonpoolsupplies.com/shopping/product.aspx?productid=SKU1217&scode=I9SOPSST&e7=Y&e8=T3335&pcode=101&keyword=T3335 if you want to add variety. Eating less is a harder problem, some people find eating their meals slower helps, not wolfing it down. Don't expect to lose weight after a week either, it can takes months to see an actual measurable and continual change.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in an office in NY. By no means am I the heaviest person there. But when I went to Japan in January, I realized that I stood out as being a HUGE westerner. It was kind of embarrassing.

So I go hold of a copy of 'Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle' (maybe there's a torrent out there? 'BTFFTM').

And I've been losing about 1 lb per week since then. Actually, now it's the Fat% I'm most interested in, since I no longer have a belly drooping over my belt (as I said, I was never mid-westerner sized, to take a stereotype).

Overall : eat many small meals. Exercise most days. But keep the calories /no/ /less/ than (500 below what your body needs). The pdf (or whatever) explains it pretty well. Much of the 'secret' is not to over-diet : you'll never be able to keep it going (and, also, the body defends itself from 'starvation', which pretty much defeats the effects of dieting, so you have to diet in a way that doesn't set your internal starvation alarm off).

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Successful troll is successful.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Ash Vince]

If I do I literally walk around voraciously hungry.

So? If you have all this self control it should not be a problem to feel hungry and not eat.

Maybe I do feel hunger differently but I do this all the time. I also have a desk job and work 10 hour days, although my commute is only 2 hours. I noticed I was putting on weight and I decided to change my diet, now all I eat for lunch is a salad sandwich. My work colleagues might give me shit over how dull my lunch is, but they all pay for gym membership which is something I refuse to do.

Re:Well... yeh.

[dr2chase]

not knowing much more about your situation, I might suggest biking. It has the advantage of you can get some use out of your exercise time (depending on whether it is practical for your commute, for your shopping, etc). It is lower impact than walking, higher impact than swimming, but you can monkey with lots of settings (saddle height/angle/fore-aft, crank length, "tread" or Q factor, foot position on pedal) to help your ankle out.

I should add, biking 50miles/week doesn't do that much for my weight, though I feel great. If I crank it up to 100/week (or more), I start to experience some of that craving you are talking about (ooooh, chicken fat, tasty, ummmm).

Re:Well... yeh.

[blahplusplus]

"and that even those that have the ability to lose weight can work their arses off and still lose nothing in a week."

I'm going to call bullshit on this, it's fucking impossible to NOT lose weight in a week if you are "working your ass off", you're certainly not working you ass off if you're not losing even half a pound or 1 pound in 7 days. Losing weight DOES require some amount of willpower and definitely requires a commitment hence (by and large) one is responsible for one's weight.

One cannot just excuse oneself unless one has a serious medical condition, but even those that are sick (your arthritis in your leg/angle) can do other exercises. For instance when I was lifting free weights and benching you still burn and awful lot of fat without having to move around that much. What matters is expending energy.

I walked at a leisurely pace 4hrs/day 7/days week and lost 10-12 lbs a month, it's a matter of *commitment* either you want to lose the weight or you dont, if you don't like high intensity you have to make up the lack of intensity with duration of time and distance for low intensity aerobics (like walking).

The biggest thing is monitoring your appetite, no amount of exercise will help if you're over-eating and taking in more energy then you're burning off. The army did a study a long while back that showed just this: Taking in too much energy negates the weight loss benefits of exercise and you don't have to starve youself either, just limit yourself to 1500-1800 cals/day and keep track of it on a site like http://www.fitday.com/

The truth is many people who are overweight have never been thin for most of their life and got fat fairly young and developed a victim psychology because of bullying/social prejudice.

There's only so much you can do to excuse yourself from being overweight.. I agree there are many different body types and some of us store fat easily on the smallest amounts of food, but many of us that store easily barely exercise.

The real issue though is not paying attention to how energy dense the food you're eating is, most people "wing it" when they eat they don't get rigorous ambout keeping track of the amount of food (see fitday.com), once you get rigorous and can see it on a chart, then you will realize that - yes, you are over eating!

I realized this when I started tracking what I ate @ www.fitday.com (a great site btw) and it is handy because it will show you the evidence and you can't just deny it anymore.

Most people live in the fog of their own mind never really looking hard at teh evidence in their own lives contradicting and lending support to the naysayers of "no willpower", the truth is it's more about being aware of your own bad/blind thinking on the matter of how you eat and live that is the root of the problem.

I know I went through it.

Re:Well... yeh.

[sjames]

Do you also believe people in wheelchairs are "just lazy"? If someone's choking do you proclaim that he'd cough it up if he had an ounce of initiative? When people drown was it because they were too weak willed to hold their breath?

Re:Well... yeh.

[torkus]

Anyone who "can not" lose weight is, quite simply, doing something wrong. Sure, they could be part of the .001% of people with a gland problem but let's be serious and talk about the overwhelming majority.

If you weight (far too many)lbs and restrict your dietary intake you WILL lose weight. It's pretty straight forward honestly. Exercise greatly helps of course. And for the 'my poor ankle' whining comes back around - there are people with NO LEGS that are still healthy. Clearly a bad ankle is not a barrier to avoiding obesity.

There are a TON of other excuses and all of them are just that - excuses. If you want to be healthy, in shape, or just plain old 'not fat' then make it a priority. If catching the new episode of MTV Real Life Ethiopia or the taste of a big mac are more important than losing weight then, chances are, it will not work.

As for the story - it's another amusing 'well duh'. Next thing they'll post that old and immunodeficient are more likely to die from the flu (oh, sorry...meant to specify swine flu even though it's nothing more than different strain of flu) and bla bla bla. Of COURSE less healthy people are higher risk. They're also higher risk for ... well most other things.

Someone get back to me when the swine flu deaths are more than 5% of total flu deaths or when the evil swine flu increases the overall number of yearly flu deaths beyond the usual year-to-year variances. The whole swine flu nonsense is manufactured news.

Re:Well... yeh.

[digitalhermit]

Dude if 30 minutes a day worked for me, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The only couple of times I have lost weight in my life I lived on salad and lean meat/chicken in tiny portions and did AT LEAST 2 hours of heavy excercise a day. Anything short of that doesn't cut it. What's worse is when I've stopped it's taken a couple of months of eating reasonable portions and not excercising as much to put on all the weight I've lost over 6-8 months AND add some more kilos as the body overcompensates. Now you can choose to believe me or not. I'm guessing not. That's up to you. I happen to know for a fact that I'm not lying. Meanwhile I CAN'T keep that up while working 10 hrs a day 5 days a week plus some weekends, spending 3 hours a day in commute, doing chores till midnight when I get home and helping to raise a family.

Interesting.

Here's something as interesting too. To lose weight, expend more energy than you take in. You don't need to hit the gym either, though some moderate exercise two or three times a week (or even once a week) can do wonders.

I understand what you're saying though. Ten hour days, five days a week, plus weekends is tough. I was in the same situation. In my IT desk job I had swelled to 230lbs.

But it struck me when I was spending $40 a day in food and coffee and taking the elevator up a single flight of stairs that it was time to change.

The first thing I did was to eliminate the Starbucks macchiatos and the morning Dunkin' Donuts run for coffee and a bacon and egg croissant. I replaced these with regular coffee and used a sugar substitute (yes, I'm aware of the dangers of sugar substitutes, but I'll come to that in a moment). I started eating two packets of oatmeal in the morning to stave off the craving. It took a while to get used to it, but I enjoy it now.

I started doing some treadmill and light weights. Despite misconceptions, doing weights is one of the fastest ways to lose fat. Muscle uses more energy for upkeep and is denser than fat.

I reduced my portion sizes. Previously I was eating a typical American portion. I.e., meat was the centerpiece of the meal. I changed to a more Asian diet with more vegetables. I also started bringing my own meals. (I also admit that this was partially motivated by finances).

After a couple months, I began to prefer just coffee with milk (no sugar). I also stopped drinking that horrible swill they served at work and started bringing in my own coffee. Funny thing is that I was using sugar to disguise the taste of the coffee from work. Now I spend about $10 every couple weeks and use a single cup coffee brewer (just a funnel that holds a filter that you fill with hot water).

I reduced my commute to work. This was a more drastic change and coincided with being diagnosed with high blood pressure. Though I love to drive, the commute was stressful and made my blood pressure worse.

The one health thing I'm trying to do is to get more sleep. I get around 4 hours a night, but I'm trying to get at least six.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, the "it's my glands" argument.

Eat less, it's your only option given your lame trotter. Eventually you'll get used to eating smaller portions. Snack on celery if you have to snack. Keep a food diary as well, with portion size.

Re:Well... yeh.

[yoursurrogategod]

If you can't control your cravings, then by definition that's a self-control problem.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Lunzo]

If you're serious about losing weight you should not take dietary advice from some random slashdot poster and see a dietitian i.e. a qualified professional. Low carb, high fat & protein diets are a recent fad. There are other diets which work, and are better for you. A professional will be able to pick something appropriate to your situation.

Re:Well... yeh.

[zippthorne]

Actually, weight training might help you quite a bit. Muscle burns food energy even when resting, so weight training to "bulk up" may very well result in some extra calories burned (and therefore fat loss) each day.

Now, the down side is that your biggest muscles that you can affect with weight training are in your legs, very near to where your arthritis is bothering you.

As for aerobic activity, a bum foot suggest time in the pool. And with a lot of fat, you're going to enjoy the pool: if you have to slow down, you're not going to just sink right away.

Anyway, the unpleasant fact is that if you're fat, then you have an m-dot problem. You need to find a way to eat less and poop more. It's possible, even likely, that your personal situation makes the things you would have to do to accomplish that unpleasant. Others might say it's "lack of self control" when it's easy for them to do. What they mean without realizing it is that you simply need more self control to do it than a "normal" person. But just because it's harder, doesn't mean you should give up on it.

But you can't do it for a month, or six, or a year, and then "switch to a reasonable diet." That so-called reasonable diet, you've claimed, caused you to put on even more pounds than before. It's patently UN-reasonable, by definition. Your new diet, whatever it is, needs to become your "reasonable" diet. If that means shoveling a bunch of low-calorie foods until you feel full, because your "full-meter" isn't working right, then whip out the extra glasses of water and the garden full of iceberg lettuce and go to town.

On the food side, though, I have a suspicion that your diet is, in fact, part of the problem. I've found personally that when I have to eat less flavorful food, I tend to compensate by eating more of it to become satisfied (except really flavorless food, like plantains.). Maybe the solution isn't to avoid rich, flavorful foods at all (except of course those which contain the spices your beloved cannot tolerate), but to go ahead and find rich foods and spices that you can eat without endangering your wife.

Re:Well... yeh.

[hattig]

$40 a day! Crikey!

I get annoyed when I spend over five quid on a typical work day (i.e., not going out after work). I often come in under £3. Yeah, I make sandwiches for work rather than going out to buy from the sandwich shop. Filter coffee is free at work, but I mostly drink water. Making decent food from scratch is cheaper than buying pre-made meals, and you can freeze loads for another day.

I'm still overweight though :-( - I don't exercise enough (I only walk a couple of miles a day to/from work) and occasionally eat too much (free cookies and chocolate bars at work). I'm 14st 3lbs (197lbs; did once get up to 15st during a previous job). Definitely want to lose a couple more stone, or that amount in fat (even if converted to muscle). At least I know I'm lazy in not doing more exercise and cutting down some portion sizes. It ain't my glands :-)

Sleep is one thing I'm good at getting, well, in the morning when I oversleep for work...

Re:Well... yeh.

[Artifakt]

Slashdot, where you can post as AC, put words in other people's mouths, and bash fat people and get modded up. Look, whoever you are and whatever you do, I guarantee you, just from reading what you have posted, you have an issue at least as large as the person you are attacking. Someday, when that problem has reduced you to a pitiful object of contempt and derision, you will look back and realize the compassion you aren't getting is the compassion you did not have. I don't expect you to believe this - part of the problem is you really can't bring yourself to think you even might have a problem bigger than the people you are picking out for your AC posts. But someday, it will hit you. It will hit you so hard that you will see every word of my post as clearly as you see it right now, and the words will echo in your head like thunder, even if it takes 20 years.
      As somebody who has gotten to the gym, who has run the laps and hiked the hills, who has gotten to a healthy body weight, and conditioning way beyond most, and who is currently controlling diabetes with just oral meds and diet, and working to get off the last remaining pill if posssible, let me say you are an asshole.
      I beat all the conditions you are feeling so superior for not facing. Every time I heard the shit you are pumping out, it was one more reason to give up, one more reason to feel inferior to all the people who made it seem so effortless. But I didn't, and one thing I learned is people never say the kind of crap you do to actually help. They say it to get a cheap feeling of superiority while bullying one of the few groups it is safe to bully. You should be posting as AC because you are a bully, and very much a coward.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Artifakt]

I'm happy to pay for a gym membership myself. In fact, I treated my Ex to one too, and we get along much better, in part because we are doing more things we both feel good about together.
    The best thing at the gym for me is probably the zero impact aerobics gadjets, particularly the ones that reproduce a natural running motion rather than a skying stride. When you get sore knees at the track, two weeks using them instead and you are through the problem without it turning into a real crippler. I could buy one, but I've only needed it a couple of times. You could build a very good set of weights at home, or have several machines if you have that kind of space, but there are always those odd exercises, such as doing alternate side crunches in a roman chair with a kettlebell in your lower hand, that all those machines wouldn't approximate. I have about 10 exercises I do three times a week, and I could do all of them at home, and sometimes do. But there are typically 10 more exercises I rotate into and out of my routine.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Swizec]

30 minutes a day. That's it. If you can't do that, then yes, it's a self control issue

Dude if 30 minutes a day worked for me, I'd do it in a heartbeat.

There are only two ways 30 minutes a day wouldn't work for a person:

1. They are already doing 30 minutes a day, and would need to up the ante to 60 minutes a day to make a ... you know ... difference
2. They aren't waiting long enough. For fuck's sake, you won't lose massive amounts of weight after three days of 30 minutes a day. If you want that then you need to slave your arse off for 5 hours a day for three days and even that won't be permanent weight loss. Work out moderately, or even very leisourly, for 30 minutes a day for a month and if you don't lose at least two kilo you're an idiot who eats far far far far far far far too much food.

Re:Well... yeh.

[scottv67]

Well said, Artifakt. Well said.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Immostlyharmless]

Absolutely agreed on this, low carb diets can cause your blood to become acidotic and thats a ballgame of pain you really don't want to get involved in. There's a reason all those fad diets only have you do the hardcore, no-carbs part for a week or two, anything longer than that *can kill you*.

Re:Well... yeh.

[speedingant]

I used to be massive. I used to think exactly those things. One day I got sick of it, and started changing my life. You don't have to change it much, and the weight will start coming off. DON'T DO DIETS. They don't work, and will leave you craving for un-healthy foods.

I just started eating normal meals. That is; normal portions, 4-5 times a day, and I took up biking. I had spine issues, but after exercising and building muscle with the riding I lost 40kgs in one and a half years and my back problems are gone. I even eat snack foods sometimes, no biggie. Just be aware of what you're eating.

Working in an office job sucks for your health, but now I can look forward to knocking off and going for a mad ride somewhere. Made heaps of mates and got into professional downhill. I'm the happiest I've ever been, and my body looks great.

Stop making excuses and just start doing it. It's hard, but so worth it. Find something that you enjoy, and stick with it.

Re:Well... yeh.

[ClosedSource]

Don't expect a serious discussion in response to your post. Although most people on Slashdot are smart and keep up with the latest technology, many have rather medieval attitudes when it comes to medicine.

Blaming the patient for the condition is one of those attitudes. Illness is like a "sin" to them, so the solution has to have some penance involved. "No pain, No gain" is one mantra of this religious belief.

Even the medical community has been guilty of this. Ulcers used to be all about stress and lifestyle until one doctor discovered the bacteria that was actually the cause. A simple triple antibiotic "no pain" solution worked while the "painful" lifestyle changes didn't.

Re:Well... yeh.

[rhyder128k]

Your ankle might preclude it, but consider cycling if at all possible. The great thing about it is that most people can work in into their daily routine without making any special effort for "exercise".

Re:Well... yeh.

[ClosedSource]

30 minutes of exercise a day will have a minimal effect on weight unless the exercise is very intense.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Rich0]

Keep in mind that people are all different.

Some people can maintain a light weight with no effort all.

Some people can maintain a light weight with a moderate effort.

Some people can work hard and maintain a light weight.

Quite a few people have to put in a huge battle and really not get anywhere with it - or they make progress only to lose ground.

Look, I suspect that most people, if they worked REALLY hard, could do as well in math as I do. I'm not a complete prodigy or anything. However, I don't consider people lazy if they end up getting 70s on tests that I score in the high 90s on - that's just how it has been for all of my life - I can cruise through tests that most normal people barely pass with a fair amount of study. However, why should they bother trying to reach my level of proficiency at math? They should just spend their time on something they're better at, and learn enough math to get by in normal life. (Yes - I realize that quite a few people who read this post could outperform me in math - that isn't my point.)

I'm hardly morbidly obese, but I do struggle to keep my weight down. Maybe that means I'll live ten years less than my peers - I'm willing to accept that. I do try to control my diet, but the fact is that unless somebody comes out with some kind of medical advance I'm not going to be average in weight without a huge amount of effort. I'm not sure that effort is really worth it - I'd rather die happy at 70 than suffer until 80. :) And if somebody comes up with better healthy ways to lose weight that don't involve huge amounts of self-deprivation, then that is just a win-win for everybody. Sure, maybe in the meantime I'll statistically cost society more to keep alive than the "average" person, but last time I checked I was paying far more in taxes than the average person and that's just how things work. In the meantime I'll keep working on my health, but if I can refrain from taunting people who weren't developing software in multiple languages in middle school in the 80s perhaps we can get beyond taunting people for having trouble controlling their weight?

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is amazing to see that some people have lost their feeling of "I've eaten enough". They go on, because there is still food, even if they are not hungry any more. They completely lost their instincts or don't feel them, regarding food. That includes taste too.

I can feel hungry but not eat, nothing special.
Other people get bad moods up to the point as to be social incompetent when they are hungry and don't get their meal.

We all are going to die, someday, everybody their own way.
When I don't feel like living any more, I will stop eating. And I suspect a lot of really old people try this trick. Besides the hunger-craving it seems to be painless.

Don't feed intravenous by force.

Re:Well... yeh.

[lena_10326]

Don't forget to add "victim" to your list of problems.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Gulthek]

Actually, losing weight has little to do with exercise. You exercise to be healthy, you eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight.

Hacket's Diet. Look it up, follow it, you'll lose (or gain, if you want) weight. It's the meta diet for all diets! With the hacker's diet you learn how your weight is completely arbitrary, you can weigh whatever you want!

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but all I hear from you is excuses excuses excuses. I weighed 280lbs at one point. I decided I was sick of my self image and through DIET ALONE, I am now down to 220lbs, and still decreasing a few pounds every month. This is while on medical steroids, prednisone, which increases your appetite. The only thing holding you back is excuses, and the fact you really don't want to try.

Good tip for you, South Beach Diet. It sucks the first 2 weeks (very limited diet, I lost 12lbs alone those 2 weeks), you're going to be starving about 40% of the day. But guess what? I later realized the need for the small portions of various things throughout the day, it was to keep my stomach always full, but with small amounts of food. I got used to having small meals this way and after week 3, I was no longer hungry between meals/snacks. It's an extremely easy diet to follow, anyone can do it.

Now here's the kicker, I haven't exercised a single day for the last 5 years. So if diet alone can allow me to lose 60lbs and going, while taking pills that greatly increase my appetite, and having a genetic disposition for heavy weight and heart problems, anyone can do so. It's just a matter of mental strength and finding a diet which actually works, and not making excuses for why you have to stop at Burger King because you don't have time to cook. I used to feel annoyed at myself because I couldn't lose weight, now I feel so much better, and am just annoyed at hearing other fatties complaining they can't lose weight because of XXXXX excuse.

I don't mean to be offensive, but rather encouraging. If a person in my situation can do it, you can too. It IS just a matter of self control, teaching your brain you don't need the greasy fast food, etc. It was so hard to stay on South Beach those first two weeks without swaying but now I'm glad I did. And after the first two weeks the food is actually so good, I've stayed on the diet by choice for a year and a half now. I'd say give it a try, you can always slightly adjust the spices/ingredients in a dish to avoid killing your wife.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

I'm going to call bullshit on this, it's fucking impossible to NOT lose weight in a week if you are "working your ass off", you're certainly not working you ass off if you're not losing even half a pound or 1 pound in 7 days. Losing weight DOES require some amount of willpower and definitely requires a commitment hence (by and large) one is responsible for one's weight.

EVEN on the nonsense reality TV shows contestants do work hard for the week (and are constantly monitored so cheating is unlikely) and STILL manage to sometimes put on weight. You can cry BS until you go blue but you've clearly never had major weight issues. You don't seem to understand that the body can use the few calories it gets a day first, and that some of the components of that energy burning come from water and air. It's not magic and these people don't violate conservation of energy. It's just that food - fat and carbs - is ONE component in the way the human body works. That's an evolutionary development. It takes a LONG time to starve. Your body doesn't simply give out in a day because you're not fed.

One cannot just excuse oneself unless one has a serious medical condition, but even those that are sick (your arthritis in your leg/angle) can do other exercises. For instance when I was lifting free weights and benching you still burn and awful lot of fat without having to move around that much. What matters is expending energy.

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI. You need a cardiovascular workout. To burn energy you need something that increases your breathing and makes you sweat and burn calories quickly. Suggesting benching weights as a way to lose weight is insane.

Now do I take some responsibility for my weight. Sure. Absolutely. Do I think that it's as easy for me to lose weight as a good portion of the population. Hell no.

The biggest thing is monitoring your appetite, no amount of exercise will help if you're over-eating and taking in more energy then you're burning off. The army did a study a long while back that showed just this: Taking in too much energy negates the weight loss benefits of exercise and you don't have to starve youself either, just limit yourself to 1500-1800 cals/day and keep track of it on a site like http://www.fitday.com/

Yes, and most of us want to join the freaking army, eat rabbit food and excercise 2-3 hours a day for the rest of our lives. Yeah, that's real sustainable.

You clearly know nothing about weight loss.

The truth is many people who are overweight have never been thin for most of their life and got fat fairly young and developed a victim psychology because of bullying/social prejudice.

Yet the bullying is socially accepted as you're proving right this instance. Not only that but as they get older they're preyed upon by the weight loss industry etc. In other words you're beating people down then wondering why they don't raise themselves by the bootstraps and make a huge effort just to lead semi-normal lives.

There's only so much you can do to excuse yourself from being overweight.. I agree there are many different body types and some of us store fat easily on the smallest amounts of food, but many of us that store easily barely exercise.

A doctor once was giving a talk about lecturing other doctors with regard to telling their patients they must lose weight to avoid the various complications that arise from being obese. He told them that they know about long hours and hard work, so they should strap an extra 20kg to themselves, and go about their 12-16 hour days, then when they get home try and put in 30-60 minutes of excercise and see how much they feel like excercise.

It's a viscious circle. The more weight you put on, the harder it is to start and continue a weight loss regime. And the older you get the more your body starts creaking (especially if you're unfit) responsibility you have and the less likely you are to k

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

Sorry, but all I hear from you is excuses excuses excuses. I weighed 280lbs at one point. I decided I was sick of my self image and through DIET ALONE, I am now down to 220lbs, and still decreasing a few pounds every month. This is while on medical steroids, prednisone, which increases your appetite. The only thing holding you back is excuses, and the fact you really don't want to try.

I'm tired of the "I lost weight therefore you can too or else you're a fat lazy slob stories". All it does is make stupid people feel good about themselves at the expense of others. Please take a look at the long term statistics for weight loss. Come back and tell me how well you're doing in 10 years.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

Anyone who "can not" lose weight is, quite simply, doing something wrong. Sure, they could be part of the .001% of people with a gland problem but let's be serious and talk about the overwhelming majority.

Take a look at the 5 or 10 year outlook for weight loss. It's certainly not .001% of the population that has a problem keeping weight off.

There are a TON of other excuses and all of them are just that - excuses. If you want to be healthy, in shape, or just plain old 'not fat' then make it a priority

If it were that simple there'd be a hell of a lot of people doing a lot better than they are.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anarchduke]

I want to weigh -10 kilos. Will it teach me to do that?

Re:Well... yeh.

[TimSSG]

Anyone who "can not" lose weight is, quite simply, doing something wrong. Sure, they could be part of the .001% of people with a gland problem but let's be serious and talk about the overwhelming majority.

I can say that I am NOT doing something wrong. My problem seems to be that I need to do more of the right thing. I need to exercise more, but it is very hard to exercise once you get out of shape. My asthma is one of several things (health type issues) that work against me. I seem to have hit a block that I am having problem getting by. My max weight was 265 lbs. currently 230 and I can not seem to get below 220 and stay there. Two weeks ago was at 225; then the whether changed. Now, just going outside makes my asthma act up. Note, for me dieting was never a way to lose weight. I always had to exercise. My diet was only good to prevent weight gain. Tim S.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Com2Kid]

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI.

It will also increase your metabolism, so that every action to take throughout your day will burn more calories.

EVEN on the nonsense reality TV shows contestants do work hard for the week (and are constantly monitored so cheating is unlikely) and STILL manage to sometimes put on weight.

Given that just the water content of our bodies can vary 3-5 pounds throughout the day, this is not too surprising.

I have a scale that graphs my weight over time (and costs no more than the other overpriced glass digital scales), allowing me to spot any trends in my weight over multiple days.

I can configure the graph to daily, weekly, or monthly. My weight almost always has a +/- 5lb variance within any given noticable trend, upwards or downwards.

In other words, a usual, TV is serves as an excellent example of how not to do math.

Yes, and most of us want to join the freaking army, eat rabbit food and exercise 2-3 hours a day for the rest of our lives. Yeah, that's real sustainable.

Removing all soft drinks and packaged snake food from one's diet IS very doable, as is ensuring all meals throughout the day have more veggies in them than meat.

Likewise, packing lunch everyday and not buying food from restaurants or cafeterias, and not going out to eat more than once or twice a week, and never hitting up fast food joints.

It really is quite easy. After cutting my American addiction to sugar I found that soft drinks are actually pretty nasty. Packaged junk-food snacks are loaded with so salt and fat I wouldn't want to eat anyway, and I happen to like fresh vegetables.

Admitedly it isn't easy since the entire American diet that most of us our used to does not actually have much in the way of vegetables in it, or at least not nearly enough.

Re:Well... yeh.

[spyder-implee]

Fat people are really good at making up excuses.

Re:Well... yeh.

[spyder-implee]

"eat less, exercise more." I disagree. I have found only the latter to be important. I eat pretty much non-stop, and whilst it's not junk food, it's not exactly healthy eating either. I ride to work every day, about 6 foot and weight doesn't get over 75kg. I am half way through a 200gram block of chocolate and it's only 12:30pm

Re:Well... yeh.

[im_thatoneguy]

When I climbed Mt Rainier I was in decent shape (after all I made it to the top.)

When I got back I stepped on a scale. I lost 10 pounds in 3 days. Probably mostly water. But I think it's still important to what you're saying. It's REALLY REALLY hard to work off weight. Like multi-day 12 hour a day grueling death march up the side of a mountain with 60 pounds of gear hard.

In contrast just not eating 10 pounds of fat in the first place is a cakewalk. No pun intended. It's easier to not strike a match than to put out a fire.

Exercise can be important but it's far more difficult.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing that you only focus on the one negative part of my post. This just proves you're avoiding what needs to be done, a proper diet. Also, why do you keep referring to people that were able to lose weight as stupid? That's just plain ignorance, and in fact, you would think they're the smart ones who got their act together and were able to find a solution instead of crying about being tubby.

Again I recommend looking into the South Beach diet, the books are cheap, you can probably find some PDF's maybe, it Will increase your cost of food. I used to eat big portions too, burgers, fries, steaks, the usual, and it still ended up costing me almost 3 times as much over a month for the South Beach food. Anyways this is my final reply as I'm not going to be bothered with reading another post that's likely going to be insulting and just show your ignorance further. I hope you luck, and lose some weight, tubs. :D

Re:Well... yeh.

[SlashDev]

Really? Self control? Food for an obese person is like a drug, self-control has nothing to do with it.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Hubbell]

Maybe you should get your fat ass off the couch and start working out. Who the fuck cares about BMI, it means NOTHING. Burning fat to build muscle IS A GOOD THING. You're a self absorbed fatty who refuses to get up and do something about it, and looks for every fault he can find in suggestions on how to lose weight to keep from actually doing something about it which would mean that you can't play the OMG IM A VICTIM card.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Belial6]

That is what we call an urban myth.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know, man. I think a lot of it is genetic. It really is extremely easy for some people to lose weight, or not gain it in the first place. I knew a guy in college who would eat nothing but pasta, greasy foods and dark beers, and he was thin as a rake. On the other hand I had more or less the same lifestyle and got substantially overweight. In response to this I started jogging every day for months. My legs got really thin but I never lost the gut. Meanwhile my friend, 4 years later, is still a rake and still eats more than I do, and doesn't exercise much. The rest of his family is the same way.

I think it's really unfortunate that people born with a good metabolism, and/or people with healthy lifestyles, are so judgmental of people who might have worse genes (not their fault) or a less healthy lifestyle (might be their fault, but once you fall into the trap it can be difficult to work your way out of bad habits). Sometimes I feel that these people haven't lived life in the shoes of someone who is trying unsuccessfully to lose weight. If they had been in that position, they might be a little more understanding and a little less harsh.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI. You need a cardiovascular workout. To burn energy you need something that increases your breathing and makes you sweat and burn calories quickly. Suggesting benching weights as a way to lose weight is insane

Actually, increasing muscle mass is an important step to losing weight in the long run. Muscles have a very high concentration of mitochondria, which control your metabolic rate. Given two people of equal weight, the one with more muscle mass (and I guess technically a higher BMI) will burn more calories at rest than the one with less. The more muscle mass you have, the easier it will be to lose fat. Don't equate increasing muscle mass with "bulking up", and also do not think that a proper weight training regimen cannot be extremely aerobic.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I may not be qualified to add to this discussion since my only "weight problem" is keeping enough weight on (I do triathlons) I do want to pass on what my doctor told an obese lady who declared she couldn't loose weight. His comment? You never see pictures of fat people leaving concentration camps. While not the preferred method of weight loss, his insensitive comment goes straight to the point. If your calorie output exceeds your calorie input every day, you-will-lose-weight. Maybe slowly but it will happen. It may be very hard for you. But last weekend it was hard for me to bike a total of 55 miles and run 10 miles straight.

Re:Well... yeh.

[tehdaemon]

It isn't the differences between people that matter here. It is the differences in peoples habits.

How many meals have you had in the last week? My total is about 15. I tend to skip meals - cause I don't want to take the time to fix something to eat.

Do you habitually take the stairs two and three at a time? I feel stupid taking them one at a time. Elevators are for when I have a cart of stuff to move.

Do you jog from the car to the door? I do about half the time.

These are the (bad!) habits of someone who has to work at it to gain any weight (you describe it as 'Some people can maintain a light weight with no effort all.') I am not going to claim that this is healthy - it isn't. But when it comes right down to it, the reason that you gain weight is simple, you eat more calories than you burn. That is it. There are some metabolism differences between people. These are mostly the result of years of habits, not genes. Change you habits. (Although, I'll admit, that part can be very hard.)

The reason you have to work hard to lose weight is because you aren't changing you habits. Your habits have you eating more calories than you burn. Those people that have been replying to you are essentially right - there isn't anything different about you that makes it hard to lose weight. You just eat too much/burn too little. If that seems a little redundant (I've said it 3 times so far) it's 'cause you haven't listened to it yet. THAT IS ALL THERE IS TOO IT. Once you get this, perhaps you will be able to look at your life and see what you need to change. Changing may be hard - but it is a one-time thing, not a lifetime of hard work.

T

Re:Well... yeh.

[D Ninja]

You say you lost weight when you ate "small portions." What's small to you may be what you SHOULD be eating to be healthy. (For example, at a restaurant, a 7-oz steak is the largest you should ever order. That's a good portion of steak. Most people get the 9-oz or 12-oz steaks.)

As for your workout routines, I don't know what you are and aren't doing. First off - weight lifting is NOT just for bulking up. I weight lift a lot, but I go for long, lean muscle (high reps, low weight) because I need stamina for the sports I do play - not strength. As for weight lifting itself, weight lifting builds muscle which allows you to burn more calories just by being alive. That's a good thing when you're trying to lose weight. Plus, who doesn't want to have a little more well-defined physique? I'm sure your wife (who you obviously love based on your earlier comments) wouldn't complain about that.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI. You need a cardiovascular workout. To burn energy you need something that increases your breathing and makes you sweat and burn calories quickly. Suggesting benching weights as a way to lose weight is insane.

BMI is really a very poor measurement for the exact reason you just mentioned. According to the BMI scale, I am almost obese. Anybody who has seen me knows that is most definitely not so.

Now do I take some responsibility for my weight. Sure. Absolutely. Do I think that it's as easy for me to lose weight as a good portion of the population. Hell no.

I hate to say it, but I don't see that at all. You've made up a lot of excuses, and you've attacked people who are sincerely trying to help. (Yes, there have been a few jerks, but they should be ignored.) It is possible to get yourself in shape and you really do just have to eat right and invest some time into exercise. It's that simple. You can argue all you want - it is the internet of course - but if you instead used that arguing time to go do some working out, you'd be in shape within a year.

Re:Well... yeh.

[kklein]

Meanwhile I CAN'T keep that up while working 10 hrs a day 5 days a week plus some weekends, spending 3 hours a day in commute, doing chores till midnight when I get home and helping to raise a family.

My (wholly unqualified) diagnosis: You have a poisonous lifestyle.

Look around and see if I'm right: People who work fewer hours (and ladies and gentlemen around the world, please hear me when I say that you need to count commute time as "work") are healthier. It sounds like your parenting partner is working too. Another problem, which likely means that your family is not eating as healthily as they should.

Now, I know what you're going to say: This is what you have to do to eat.

I do not know your situation, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you probably are not in danger of starving, even if one of you (whoever makes less) quits or moves to part-time work, or starts working from home or something. Anyway, your household needs to scale back the amount of time spent working. This will result in a drop in income, but it will likely result in an increase in quality of life. Fewer toys, smaller place, older cars, but better in all the ways that actually count.

Anecdotal evidence: My brother and I. My brother always made the money choice. I made the time choice. He used to freak out if he didn't have at least $10k a month coming in. I was happy as a clam with $4k. He drove a Saab and a Benz, both on loans. My wife and I have a kei car, paid for in cash. He bought a big house. We live in a small, but cozy, useful, and stylish apartment. He drove 1.5hr to work. I'm at my desk 8min from leaving the apartment. He declared bankruptcy when the mortgage business (his business) tanked because he suddenly found himself unemployed. I keep putting away almost half of my paycheck (I make more now, but have actually reduced my bills). Now he works for two non-profits doing light construction for those less fortunate, looks great, is happier than I have seen him since high school, and recently admitted to me that he doesn't even know why he needed so much money in the old days--that he wants for naught with the pittance he's making now. I said, "See?"

Seriously, look around. The healthy people are the people with lots of free time. I don't even think most of them use that time to exercise (my brother still goes to the gym; I hate the gym--it's kind of fun for the first few times, but then the boredom sets in--but I haven't noticed any weight change in my adult life, no matter what I do, so I quit). I think they just have more time to take care of themselves and those they love and less stress.

I'm sure you're going to jump down my throat for this, but I hope you at least look for more ways to reduce the amount of time you're spending on work. It really will do more for your health and state of mind than anything else.

As an over-rated, oft-cited American author famously wrote: "Simplify. Simplify."

PS: I'm not a hippie. I eat meat and shower and cut my hair and listen to angry music. I just have more time to do those things than most.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Xaositecte]

Weight training isn't going to work now is it.

Yes, it will.

Muscle takes up more energy than fat does, and growing muscle takes a tremendous amount of energy, so when you go to the gym and lift weights it will cause you to lose fat. If you couple that with a proper diet, then you're going to lose weight, AND become stronger.

This sort of plan isn't necessarily going to turn you into a thin runner type person. Body type does count for something, but it'll make you healthier, better looking, better feeling, and not obese.

Some people drew shit in the genetic lottery, and I feel sorry for ya, but nobody can blame genetic predisposition for obesity.

Re:Well... yeh.

[fractoid]

...and that some of the components of that energy burning come from water and air.

Well, the oxygen required for cellular respiration comes from the air, yes, but that's all. And since you can take in oxygen commensurate with requirements from an essentially unlimited source, your 'energy intake' is governed purely by your intake of carbohydrates, fats and to a lesser extent proteins.

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI. You need a cardiovascular workout.

Why do you assume that free weights exercises are automatically anaerobic? You can make any exercise a heavy cardiovascular workout by simply reducing the weight involved and pumping up the reps. I bet most guys who can do 10 reps of 100kg could only do 30 reps of 50kg. Give them a 30kg bar and tell them to reach 100 reps, and I guarantee they'll have worked up a huge sweat. Once they're done with that, head to the seated row and do another 100 reps on that at 30kg.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Exception Duck]

Oh, come one. Like you need to see a f*cking expert to know what is healthy and not.

It's very basic, the more the food is processed, the worse it is.
Fish healthier than meat.
Carrots healthier than fries.
Water healthier than coke.

Eat a variety of vegetables and fruits, don't eat food from somebody serving nearly 47 million customers daily.

That will be 140$

Re:Well... yeh.

[Immostlyharmless]

Actually, its not a myth, its called metabolic acidosis. It can come about as the result of being a dehydrated diabetic.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_acidosisHeres the wikipedia link...its definitely NOT an urban legend, ask any ER/ED doc or nurse....

Re:Well... yeh.

[halfnerd]

Hacket's or Hacker's?

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meat *and* chicken, eh?

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

People who think it's a simple self control issue are idiots. Your makeup pre-disposes you to wanting to eat and to piling on weight. It's like looking at a dyslexic person and saying it's just a matter of self control when it comes to reading. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the issue.

Wanting to eat more and misreading words is entirely different.

Self-control can stop you from eating. I'm not saying it's easy, but that the issue is to stop doing something you are doing. You do have physical control of your body, you can stop yourself from getting and eating food. Again, not saying it's easy, but that it's straightforward.

Dyslexia isn't like that. You can't tell them to just 'stop misreading words', they need to instead read them correctly, which is a skill they lack. They can't read words correctly like I can't pole vault like an olympian.

Any overeater can stop eating for 15 minutes. But no dyslexic can read perfectly normally for 15 minutes.

Re:Well... yeh.

[serbanp]

Try adding raw fiber to your diet. Something like 2-3 tablespoons of psyllum every day. It will help tremendously with the hunger aspect.

Re:Well... yeh.

[blahplusplus]

"Exercise can be important but it's far more difficult."

Exercise becomes easy with commitment, and starting off with low key aerobics and working ones way up, you don't bite off more then you can choose all at once. One just needs to find good inspiration/support. I started my whole exercise program when I came across this guy.

http://www.johnstonefitness.com/php/pictures.php

He used to do a blog on his personal website and then a company wanted to sponsored him because he was so inspirational to a lot of people, look at the pictures and check out the story very interesting.

Once you start seeing the pounds drop off you it's a self-fulfilling feedback cycle, you get a "hit" for seeing the weight go down, especially when you chart it using a program like fitday, when I looked at the charts I was like "holy shit!!" and you start getting really really motivated to do it because the feedback is so in your face and direct.

Truth is once you lose the weight the ease of wich you get laid and your relationships with everyone improve and your life becomes 1000x better because the subconscious social prejudice and being ignored is severely reduced if not eliminated completely, people start to approach you of their own volition and smile more, you start getting noticed and you notice it right away, for people that have been overweight for a long time its like entering a completely different world they never knew existed.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, hell, try it with the insulin-generated cravings at the onset of Type 2 diabetes. A lot of the "obesity causes diabetes" is bullshit: Type 2 diabetes can seriously cause obesity, which aggravates the diabetes.

Re:Well... yeh.

[twostix]

You should submit yourself to the department of energy immediately.

Your bodies ability to create matter out of thin air and somehow ignore the second law of thermodynamics by burning more energy than you ingest is nothing short of amazing!

*Or* you're just making the same tired old excuses that those with some vice *always make*. You claim that your body is somehow special and refuses to burn the energy that you put in well guess what - that means you are going to have to eat 1/4 of what you do now for the rest of your life end of story (unless there's some medical "cure"). OR, you can be continue being fat and whinge about it on Slashdot for the rest of your (more than likely) short life...

You need to expend more energy than you ingest per day, no amount of moral indignation can change the laws of physics.

Otherwise if you already are ingesting less than you expend then you are a scientific marvel and for the good of human kind please get make yourself known to some scientists in the relevant field.

On a side note you're at +5 which means that you've got a pretty general support from the people on here, it's kind of amusing how the basic laws of physics and "personal responsibility" ideals that are usually worshiped with religious fervor around here are kicked to the curb as soon as it's useful to do so.

Glad to see the highly "logical" slashdot hordes - to borrow a clique, are just as prone to self delusion and excuses when it suits as the masses that are so often looked down upon here for doing exactly the same thing are.

Re:Well... yeh.

[American Terrorist]

Weight training isn't going to work now is it. That's great for bulking up.

So it's clear that you're not only fat but also retarded. Maybe you're just confused about a simple fact:
muscle != fat.
Muscle burns energy while at rest and active, fat stores the energy. Weight training bulks up your muscle, not your fat, and the larger your muscle mass, the less you need to exercise to shed fat. Here's a tip: your largest muscles are in your legs and ass, so buy an exercise bike and work on making them bigger. Hope that clears things up for you.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, people are just lazy. Look at you. You're so fat your ankles are buckling under your massive girth and you still make excuses.
Have fun with diabeetus! ;-D

Re:Well... yeh.

[johannesg]

I've read this whole discussion so far... Including the summary and article that come at the top. Unfortunately, while it mentions that the majority of deaths were obese people, there is nothing to indicate the extra risk that obese people run: is it only a marginally greater risk of death, or do they all die?

In your case, I sincerely wish you best of luck if and when the flu becomes a global pandemic. You probably still have a couple of months to try to lose some weight to prepare - because despite your words, you have a significant chance of losing weight if you want to. On the other hand, you probably don't have much chance of avoiding the swine flu when it really starts. We'll see if you are still posting come spring.

Re:Well... yeh.

[rtb61]

If you serious about losing weight, you can take this advice from anyone, eat healthy. No junk foods, no junk additives, unless you know and understand all the independents and, know them to be natural (as in really no just labelling) and safe (as in really no just marketing) do not buy it and do not eat it. The obesity problem is tied to the addictive nature of the neuro stimulants used to create perceptions of flavour and beyond the B$=PR marketing used to give that 'hit' to keep people coming back again and again, hell, they even brag about the addictive nature of junk food in commercials promoting them. Not to forget if it says 'diet' on the label, bin it, that is just code for junk additive plus.

On the flip side, if you have shares in junk food companies, sell 'NOW', if would appear their customer base is shrinking and not from dieting. Of course those additional helth problems might not just be from a weight problem but also from a health problem of ingesting too many chemicals pretending to be food.

Re:Well... yeh.

[gforce811]

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI. You need a cardiovascular workout. To burn energy you need something that increases your breathing and makes you sweat and burn calories quickly. Suggesting benching weights as a way to lose weight is insane.

I suggest www.stronglifts.com. I found it a while ago and it's been a great resource. There's some awesome success stories in the forums!

Re:Well... yeh.

[johannesg]

I'm hardly morbidly obese, but I do struggle to keep my weight down. Maybe that means I'll live ten years less than my peers - I'm willing to accept that. I do try to control my diet, but the fact is that unless somebody comes out with some kind of medical advance I'm not going to be average in weight without a huge amount of effort. I'm not sure that effort is really worth it - I'd rather die happy at 70 than suffer until 80. :) And if somebody comes up with better healthy ways to lose weight that don't involve huge amounts of self-deprivation, then that is just a win-win for everybody.

You know, as long as you think of it as suffering, you won't lose weight. Why not think of it as investing in yourself?

Occasionally I have these late-night eating-urges. I find that by ignoring them for ten minutes, and just focusing on something else, they go away. I'm sure that if I sat down and started feeling incredibly sorry for myself for allowing my poor body to starve, I'd be eating a lot more.

The other thing I do, and I find helps really well, is making sure my house is not stocked with snacks in the first place. If I wanted to snack _right now_, I would have to go to the supermarket to buy snacks first. Typically that barrier is enough to stop me from doing it. I do keep fruit around the house though - if the feeling of hunger has not gone away after ten minutes I eat an apple or a banana or something like that.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds to me like you're trying to cover up your own weak will with excuses. Face it, there's plenty you could do to help yourself. If you really believe that you can't, you're lying to yourself (whether conciously or sub-conciously) because you're afraid or resistant of the work involved. Nobody said it was *convenient* to lose weight.

You have to give up things you enjoy. You have so little to enjoy as is with your wife's allergies. I get that. That doesn't mean you can't do something about it. Your rationalizations boil down to "I'm happy being fat". If that's true, then just fucking say it and get it over with. That's something I can respect.

What I can't respect is you coming up with bullshit excuses left and right about how it's impossible when plenty of people (400lbs+) likely larger than you have lost significant weight. I'm sure you already have an excuse prepared about how wrong I am which explicitly states that this just isn't true *for you* and how *different* you are. Carry on.


P.S. I am not root.

Re:Well... yeh.

[johannesg]

Actually, losing weight has little to do with exercise. You exercise to be healthy, you eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight.

What have geeks come to these days... Ok, in your own words, you eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight. To lose weight, you can therefore do one of the following three things:

1. Eat fewer calories.

2. BURN MORE CALORIES.

3. All of the above.

The item under number 2, "burn more calories", is best achieved using exercise. Why you state that losing weight has little to do with exercise, and get modded informative for your efforts, is beyond me...

Re:Well... yeh.

[blahplusplus]

EVEN on the nonsense reality TV shows contestants do work hard for the week (and are constantly monitored so cheating is unlikely) and STILL manage to sometimes put on weight. You can cry BS until you go blue but you've clearly never had major weight issues. You don't seem to understand that the body can use the few calories it gets a day first, and that some of the components of that energy burning come from water and air. It's not magic and these people don't violate conservation of energy. It's just that food - fat and carbs - is ONE component in the way the human body works. That's an evolutionary development. It takes a LONG time to starve. Your body doesn't simply give out in a day because you're not fed.

REALITY TV is NOT REAL, in the real world you can't get past the laws of physica and biology, your body requires energy to move if you don't exert youself you will not lose weight, period. It's quite obvious you have serious self-esteem issues and psychological problems

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI. You need a cardiovascular workout. To burn energy you need something that increases your breathing and makes you sweat and burn calories quickly. Suggesting benching weights as a way to lose weight is insane.

I've done periods of just FREE weights over the months and benching by itself and *it works*, there are many ways to use free weights and you really REALLY look stupid, you're talking to someone who is the evidence. Everything I suggested to you I have done and tested myself. If you're going to try to convince all of slashdot that somehow magically your body does not work like the rest of ours through some painful intellectual gymnastics and bullshit writing, the people who are regular exercisers and were once overweight know full well you are full of shit.

Your posting just for the sake of posting based on your own heresay or what you read out of misinformed article or are taking me out of context and it is not a very wise thing to be doing. You're are making wild backwards rationalizations based on emotion, and attempting to bullshit your way through to look like you know what you're talking about, I've lived it.

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI. You need a cardiovascular workout. To burn energy you need something that increases your breathing and makes you sweat and burn calories quickly. Suggesting benching weights as a way to lose weight is insane.

Which means absolutely squat, doing freeweight exercises and expending energy means you will still lose weight, here's the evidence

http://www.johnstonefitness.com/php/enlarge.php?i=123.jpg

For those interested: John was an overweight computer tech/admin and he used to be thin and into sports when he was younger, when he hit his 30's he got fed up with being fat and started to do something about it and he recorded it on his personal blog. Check out the pictures section.

He took pictures of himself daily/weekly/monthly every single year and seeing them all collated is very inspiring and not to mention - it shows the progress that we can barely notice while doing it ourselves but it becomes amazing when you actually document your weightloss.

John was one of the people that originally inspired me to get off my ass and *do something* about my weight.

Now do I take some responsibility for my weight. Sure. Absolutely. Do I think that it's as easy for me to lose weight as a good portion of the population. Hell no.

Sigh, I'm not even going to say anything about this.

Yes, and most of us want to join the freaking army, eat rabbit food and excercise 2-3 hours a day for the rest of our lives. Yeah, that's real sustainable.

You clearly know nothing about weight loss.

It's clear that you are full of shit, anyone that exercises regularly can see through this malarky in

Re:Well... yeh.

[Yuuki Dasu]

Working up a sweat is not a reliable measure of how effective an exercise is. I can hop into the sauna for a few minutes and get plenty sweaty, without much meaningful calorie burn.

Your plan for aerobic free weight exercise is interesting, but is also not very effective for weight loss. Both you and the GP seem to be tied to the idea that anaerobic exercise, which creates muscle, is somehow contraindicated for weight loss; this could not be farther from the truth. It takes a lot of energy to rebuild muscle, and on that point alone the anaerobic exercise pulls ahead in value. Beyond that, though, is the fundamental fact that muscle increases metabolism, and increasing your metabolism is absolutely a better way to lose weight than trying to torture an overweight body into two hours of cardio a day.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else find it kind of suspicious that a killer orca suggests people go swimming?

Re:Well... yeh.

[rrohbeck]

Amen. Anybody who throws all carbs into the same bin doesn't know what they're talking about.
Simple carbs (sugars, white starches):bad. Complex carbs (fruits, vegetables minus potatoes and corn, whole grains):good.
Same thing with meats. Red meats:bad (too much fat) unless they're the highest quality lean cuts. Poultry and fish:good. Processed meats:really bad.
Same thing with fats. Trans fats:seriously bad. Saturated fats:OK in moderate amounts. Unsaturated fats:good.

Bottom line, people who argue that they can't lose weight eat the wrong foods. Simple as that. The traditional American meat-and-potato diet plus industrial junk food is a killer for anyone. Even when I ran competitively I couldn't have eaten that stuff. And now that I'm injured it's still easy to maintain my weight with a healthy (whole grain, dairy, vegetable and fish based) diet.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha you're fat.
Fattie fat fatty boom ba latty!

Re:Well... yeh.

[cats]

Dramatic much?

Re:Well... yeh.

[shking]

It's REALLY REALLY hard to work off weight. Like multi-day 12 hour a day grueling death march up the side of a mountain with 60 pounds of gear hard.

That's only half true: It's REALLY REALLY hard to work off weight QUICKLY, but it's easy to work off weight slowly. Unfortunately far too many people won't commit the time. They don't understand that getting to a healthy weight isn't about starving yourself in a semi-magical series of rituals, it's about how you live your life. The reality is that what you eat and don't burn gets stored as fat.

If you don't want to move and you want to lose weight, you go hungry. If you move, you burn more. If you eat for "comfort" and convenience, instead of for fuel and pleasure, you'll probably eat more than you burn.

Re:Well... yeh.

[davester666]

Score! This makes me feel better!

I just dropped 50 lbs over the last 6 months, moving my BMI from obese class 1 to just overweight.

Just by:
-walking a dog 3 or 4 times a day
-trying to eat slower (as before, I would just pig out super fast, having learned as a child that you may not get what you want if you don't)
-not having to finish everything on my plate if I already feel full

I think it is disingenuous for people to say that America's growing girth is mainly due to pre-disposition. It's happening too fast, to too many people. I would say the biggest thing is the mass production of good-tasting, cheap, unhealthy food. Second would be switching to a largely sedentary economy combined with more sedentary entertainment.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Will this post echo in my head like thunder in 20 years?
Hmmmmmm....lol u pay for ur ex's gym membership
Do you buy her bf's condoms?
hahahahahaha

Re:Well... yeh.

[fractoid]

True, but your sauna is providing the heat to cause you to sweat. I'd assumed a constant, comfortably cool environment without undue humidity (as you generally find in a gym). In such an environment, assuming that over the short term your metabolic efficiency stays roughly constant, your heat output is directly proportional to the amount of physical effort you exert. Hence, how much of a sweat you work up is a good indicator of how fast you're burning calories.

I guess the reason I focus on aerobic exercise is more that I'd assume an obese person already has decent-sized muscles in there, if only because they're carrying another 50+ kilos compared to me, all day every day. Also, just from personal experience, human metabolisms are really bad at recovering once you push them too far past aerobic levels of activity. I find I get a better 'duty cycle' and more overall energy burn from continuous moderate exertion than from peak exertion followed by periods of rest.

Then again, when I first started working out I just wanted to put on weight, any weight. It took me years to put on 10-15kg of muscle mass and I didn't put on a scrap of fat in that time, so I'd have to agree with your statement that muscle building burns fat in and of itself.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Yuuki Dasu]

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI. You need a cardiovascular workout. To burn energy you need something that increases your breathing and makes you sweat and burn calories quickly. Suggesting benching weights as a way to lose weight is insane.

The first half of this statement is true but irrelevant. You have a high BMI. You indicate that you're also, not to mince words, fat. Is your concern that you have a high BMI? Or that you're fat? I would assume the latter, as the former itself isn't particularly dangerous to your health. Hence, increasing your muscle mass shouldn't be an intrinsically bad thing.

Interestingly, rebuilding muscle is one of the best caloric expenditures you can choose. In other words, you burn a lot of calories due to lifting weights, not only during the physical movement but also in the 24-48 hours following. The increased muscle mass also helps increase your metabolism, which is absolutely the most important factor in your weight balance over time. Suggesting weight training as a way to lose weight is nowhere near insane.

The biggest thing is monitoring your appetite, no amount of exercise will help if you're over-eating and taking in more energy then you're burning off. The army did a study a long while back that showed just this: Taking in too much energy negates the weight loss benefits of exercise and you don't have to starve youself either, just limit yourself to 1500-1800 cals/day and keep track of it on a site like http://www.fitday.com/

Yes, and most of us want to join the freaking army, eat rabbit food and excercise 2-3 hours a day for the rest of our lives. Yeah, that's real sustainable.

Now that's not fair. He never said anything about joining the army, he made reference to a study by a professional organization for whom fitness is absolutely critical in order to bolster his point: if it's anyone's business to know how to get large populations in shape, it's their business. Also, he never said you have to eat rabbit food. You can get plenty full on 1800 calories a day if you cut out soda, fried food, and frequent huge carb fests (chiefly, pasta and pizza). I had scrambled eggs for breakfast, beef on a shallow bed of rice for lunch, and I'll be eating plenty of chicken (and, yes, some vegetables) for dinner, and I won't break 1600 calories today. If those things are your idea of rabbit food, good luck to you; I'd say there's a considerable range of foods you could eat. Also, I'll just mention GP said nothing about needing to exercise 2-3 hours every day forever - it has nothing to do with this conversation.

A doctor once was giving a talk about lecturing other doctors with regard to telling their patients they must lose weight to avoid the various complications that arise from being obese. He told them that they know about long hours and hard work, so they should strap an extra 20kg to themselves, and go about their 12-16 hour days, then when they get home try and put in 30-60 minutes of excercise and see how much they feel like excercise.

It's a viscious circle. The more weight you put on, the harder it is to start and continue a weight loss regime. And the older you get the more your body starts creaking (especially if you're unfit) responsibility you have and the less likely you are to keep it up.

This is exactly why hours and hours of aerobic training are so ineffective for the overweight. It forces you to force more stress on already-overworked joints and other body parts. No wonder people find losing weight so discouraging. Using a proper weight training routine doesn't nearly have the same problem. On the flip side, if you lose some weight, you may find your ankle to be in much better shape with less stress on it.

Most people I know when they hear about my wife's allergies say they "wouldn't give up food for anyone". Y

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

People who think it's a simple self control issue are idiots. Your makeup pre-disposes you to wanting to eat and to piling on weight. It's like looking at a dyslexic person and saying it's just a matter of self control when it comes to reading. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the issue.

i got arrested for possession of marijuana when i was younger. i told the judge "Your makeup pre-disposes you to..." he didn't want to hear any of that.

i also think your mention of dyslexia is a bit off.

these days it seems like we all have an excuse for our choices and it's a good one because there's an MD somewhere selling books about it.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Yuuki Dasu]

I agree with you on several things: one, that if your work isn't enough to make you sweat, you're not really doing anything; and two, that the obese often have a decent bit of muscle hiding on their frame to move around all that fat! It's really surprising to see the difference in weights used by beginners who are overweight and beginners who are underweight.

Can you explain a bit more what you mean when you say "human metabolisms are really bad at recovering once you push them too far past aerobic levels of activity"? If you're referring to the dangers of overtraining (peak-level exertion for multiple hours at a time) I completely agree, but I'm not sure that's what you're getting at here.

One last note, congrats on adding 15kg of muscle to your frame! That must've felt great.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Repossessed]

Something you might want to consider given your weight loss issue is egg white. The fake egg that comes in a carton. A quart of the stuff is only a couple hundred calories. Mix it with more normal portions of other things for nutrition and yyou can get a balanced diet despite your appetite. I lost 40 something pounds on the stuff.

Also look into multivitamins, sometimes appetite control issues are from a vitamin deficiency.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Belial6]

A) Your link does NOT in any way say that a low carb diet can kill you.

B) A low carb diet is not in any way related to being a dehydrated diabetic.

Your logic that being a dehydrated diabetic is deadly means that cutting most of the sugar from your diet is also deadly is simply bizarre. It is like saying that if A+B=C Then X+Y Must equal chicken.

So, yes. The claim that cutting sugar out of your diet will kill you is an urban myth. Conversely, I have met many people who have become very ill from an all carb diet. Usually, combined with a low calorie diet. You know, exactly what is commonly recommended by the "Eat Less, Exercise More" crowd.

Re:Well... yeh.

[CmdrGravy]

They aren't waiting long enough. For fuck's sake, you won't lose massive amounts of weight after three days of 30 minutes a day.

This is true, having spent all winter, and most of spring and last autumn, doing no exercise at all and eating lots I decided to start doing some exercise again 2 months ago. Now I do 2 hours swimming a week and around 30 miles cycling split over the week.

Day to day I've noticed no difference to my size/weight at all except that various muscles ache constantly. However I can now cycle and swim much further and faster and yesterday I could wear a pair of trousers which haven't fitted around my waist for years so the message is that even if you don't think it's making any difference so long as you keep it up it will make a big difference in a couple of months time.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Chenz]

Being obese is pretty much an invitation for all sorts of problems. I love my steak, fries, chocolate, soda and burgers, I just eat them once every other week in small quantities. It helps when I think of baby carrots and apples as snacks.

Now imagine trying to do that with severe cravings for the food. The kind of cravings addicts have for their poison of choice.

I'm fat. I'm able to avoid a huge variety of foods due to my wife's allergies. (If I've eaten the tiniest amounts of garlic, onion, capcicum, chilli, or a whole raft of spices one kiss from me could kill her. Do you have any idea how many different foods have trace amounts of these? I'm lucky if I can eat the fries at a fast food joint. If they use chicken salt, forget it). I don't have a simple issue with self control. If I did she'd be dead and I'd be up on murder charges. On the other hand I have a huge problem eating small portions. If I do I literally walk around voraciously hungry.

Oh and by the way I have an ankle so arthritic that I don't know how many more years I'll be able to walk for. At the moment if I had to run for my life I still could but I'd be paying for it with a couple of weeks worth of agony. Combine this with a desk job and yeah I _could_ try to make time for the gym (which I hate with a passion) but keeping up an excercise routine is to say the least problematic.

People who think it's a simple self control issue are idiots. Your makeup pre-disposes you to wanting to eat and to piling on weight. It's like looking at a dyslexic person and saying it's just a matter of self control when it comes to reading. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the issue.

Agreed, I come from a long line of fatties, I eat very little, exercise daily,and have a remarkable (yup the doc said so!) recovery time. It's very easy for a slim guy to point a finger and say 'just eat less' but there's a lot more to it than that.

Re:Well... yeh.

[fractoid]

I hear ya on the difference between overweight and underweight beginners. My first set of biceps curls I couldn't make 10 with a 10kg bar, and I couldn't straighten my arms the next day. :P When I stopped working out I could do 10 full reps of a 20kg dumbbell with each arm, and curl a 50kg bar.

Again, it's only in my experience, but I find that if I push myself much past my aerobic threshold, I go into oxygen debt or lactate buildup or whatever it's called these days. It then takes me a significant time to recover that I wouldn't need if I stayed around my aerobic threshold. So, for example, if I'm jogging, I can either run at ~60% of my top speed for a few hundred meters, then walk for maybe 100m, or I can just jog at ~40% for the whole distance and get there significantly sooner, and then keep going indefinitely.

That said, I'm measuring by average speed rather than measuring by amount of fat burned. I haven't done any kind of long term weight loss test but Wikipedia seems to support your statement about anaerobic exercise contributing to weight loss:

Anaerobic exercise in the form of high-intensity interval training was also found in one study to result in greater loss of subcutaneous fat, even though the subjects expended fewer than half as many calories during exercise.

(More info here.)

Going from ~70kg to ~85k felt like I'd upgraded my body from an econobox to a sports car. I could suddenly do things like lift a heavy bag with one hand, or climb a rope just using hands. The general feeling of ease throughout the day was well worth it. Of course, once I was happy with my body I stopped putting in the effort, and after three years of drinking beer, eating pizza and playing WoW I was up to 105kg with the beginnings of a beer gut. Since then I've been making a moderate effort and I'm back down to 95kg, but I could still stand to lose 5-10kg so I'm starting to ramp up again. :) I've definitely learned something about weight loss today too (it's time to get the dumbbells out again!) so thank you for the interesting discussion. :)

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it is the association with pleasure and comfort that is the problem. Same for anything that is "bad" for us, unless the consequences are fairly soon after the cause we tend to brush the problem aside (smoking for instance, ~20 years for the consequences to hit after starting)

Perhaps you need a buddy who if you go over your calorie daily level punches you in the arm... repeatedly :) Then you will associate binge eating with pain and thus then start to fear eating... :D

I myself was underweight for a long time and had to monitor my intake to make sure I ate *enough* (my weight is now up to a BMI 22 which is good). This is because I've not made the association with food with pleasure and comfort... it is just something I do at set times to stay alive!

It's at the end of the day all in the head, taking the first step to change your outlook and not blaming it on xyz factors is probably the hardest step.

Thanks

Re:Well... yeh.

[pseudopawn]

It's like looking at a dyslexic person and saying it's just a matter of self control when it comes to reading. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the issue.

I'm severely dyslexic and to a certain extent overcoming it is a matter of self control. Reading and writing were very difficult for me in elementary school but I overcame it to where I am a functioning member of society by years of hard work. Sure it is easy to make excuses for what ever genetic cards you were dealt but that really doesn't get you far in life.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Mexico and USA the % of fat people is larger than in Europe, whereas the % of intelligent people is not. This shows that the two cant be compared, as obesity has clearly something to do with the country you live in for example. Now, it has been proved many times that obesity is caused in america by factors such as poverty. In america when you are poor you only have access to fa(s)t food, whereas in europe eating fat actually costs more money. Also, vegetables and fruits are cheaper and more available. These are factors I believe are good candidates in explainig the situation.

But I'm not ready to believe that somehow in america some people grow with the inability to loose weight, whereas its not the case in europe. What I believe is that fat people either find excuses (bad ankle/gonna kill my wife/look at my life), or just don't know how to eat healthily. You say its too muh work for you, I say eat the same amount but replace potatoes/pasta by the same amount of vegetables, chocolate by fruits, and from time to time meat by fish. You'll be eating the same amount of food, but you'll eat healthily, and that doesn't require too much work now does it. I'm willing to bet my left testicle that the vast majority of overweight people would loose weight significantly by doing this alone.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Marcos Eliziario]

Truth is once you lose the weight the ease of wich you get laid and your relationships with everyone improve and your life becomes 1000x better because the subconscious social prejudice and being ignored is severely reduced if not eliminated completely, people start to approach you of their own volition and smile more, you start getting noticed and you notice it right away, for people that have been overweight for a long time its like entering a completely different world they never knew existed.

Disturbing to see how obese or even overweight people sometimes end up somehow thinking deserve to be treated badly, or that they are some sort of second-class persons.

Even more sad it is to see people, who are not obese and overweight and are, otherwise, sensible persons, treat overweight people badly, just because they are fat.

During ages, being overweight was seen a visual cue of healthiness, and it didn't stopped our ancestors to build a triving civilization. I can even assure that you wouldn't find to much skinny engineers building the LEM and Saturn V. Churchill was, by any acceptable criteria, fat, and had a "unhealthy" diet. Hitler, on the other hand, was pretty much healthy, didn't smoke or drink. Gandhi was skinny as someone can gets skinny, Stalin had a respectable abdomem. All of this is anedoctal "evidence", of course, but these facts are powerful hints that personal weight should not be seen as an indicator of inner values and character.

Telling people to exercise because it's good for their health, is ok. Telling them that they should accept the prejudice as a normal fact of life, and get thin fast in order to overcome it, it's probably as much wrong as suggesting that black people should try to look more "whitey" if they want to work in a investment bank, or even acchieving the modest goal of not being harassed by the police everyday just because they are black.

Truth is, no matter what you do, we are not going to live forever. You can get some 3, 5 or maybe 10 years more out of a healthy lifestile, but you could ruin any of those gains if you become stressed out of the fear of being singled out of society because you're fat or because you smoke. Death is an unavoidable result of being alive, period. You can delay it a little, but you can't escape it, no matter how hard you try. And on light of this, it strikes me as utterly neurotic that people become so obsessed with their bodies that they forget to clean up their minds of prejudice.

Re:Well... yeh.

[American Terrorist]

Dude just take his advice and STFU. My mom was fat my whole life growing up, she tried a million diets through the years then five years ago she went on the south beach diet and has remained skinny since... Her greatest regret in life is not knowing about the diet earlier. Stop whining about long term statistics for weight loss and look instead at the long term effects of being fat.

Sorry about your wife's allergies, why don't you try eating spicy food on weekdays and making out on the weekends? If I had to choose between a woman and spice, well, there's just no contest. But again, look on the bright side, it's really easy to accidentally kill her off if you get sick of her.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Gareth Williams]

Wow brave post; looks like you were really inviting trouble with these kind of statements :) I used to hold similar views, and I know it can be a hard position to defend. It's not my fault / I have a slow metabolism / I exercise all the time and don't lose weight / some people are just built differently / etc.

Back then I weighed 132kg and had been fat all my life. Today I weigh 91.5kg, fit into ordinary size clothes (read: M, L), and feel springy & full of energy after climbing a couple flights of stairs, instead of puffed & out of breath. The change came only after I saw through all of these excuses and changed my own attitude.

You are obviously proud of the self control you have developed thus far, and you should be, but I would suggest you need to develop it a little further. You can't prevent your brain telling you that you feel hungry, but you can recognise that it is malfunctioning and choose to ignore the signal; nobody is holding a gun to your head compelling you to eat large portions. Eat nutritious food in "moderate" (look it up, it's smaller than you think!) size portions, and enjoy the feeling of being "hungry" - that's your body running low on fuel and burning the reserves!

It's not a terrible thing to feel "hungry". Not the way people in rich western countries use the word (I'm from New Zealand). There are many people in the world who live with real hunger on a daily basis. Do not mistake "I feel like eating" for *hunger* - in your case & in mine it's really not that serious that it can't be overlooked :) After you get used to eating less, your brain will catch on and stop sending the "hunger" signals.

Also, don't knock weight training. Firstly, any kind of exercise is better than none. Secondly, if your body converts fat into muscle you may not initially lose weight (muscle weighs more), but you're already more healthy. Thirdly, having more muscle is like having a bigger engine in a car; you need more juice to run it, even just during daily tasks. In other words more muscle means your metabolism rises and you burn fat more easily, plus you feel like you have more energy and exercise becomes easier. Cardio training is important too, but you've gotta start somewhere - it's a momentum thing. The more you do, the easier it gets.

In short: you have to eat less (esp. less fat; going crazy with fruit & veg can't hurt) and exercise more. That's the only way, and it's damn tough, but it does work and when you get to the other side you realise it's really really worth it :-)

Your body simply can't construct fat cells out of thin air - you have to put the right things in to it to enable it to become fat. Whatever your makeup predisposes you to, what food you put inside your body is your always your own choice.

My 2 cents.

Re:Well... yeh.

[plastbox]

Why on earth is no one correcting the asshats claiming anaerobic exercise doesn't burn fat?! Aerobic workouts (running, stair-master, etc.) gets your system working hard for the duration of the workout. As soon as your pulse drops, the body's need for energy instantly goes back to normal maintenance levels.

Lift some weights though, and you hurt your muscles. The body needs to put in a pretty significant effort to repair this damage (the process that makes one stronger), and this generally takes 24-48 hours. Jog for 60 minutes with a slight incline and you burn something like 600 calories. Hit the weights hard for 60 minutes, and enjoy a raised metabolism for the following two days!

This sort of mis-information makes me sad. The problem is that the general public always has and always will choose the Opera special "Large and Beautiful!" over the asshole reaming you with a brutal reality check. Understandable, I guess... If my life had sucked as long as I could remember, if I had never been happy with my own body and was the "victim" of a myriad of health issues, and some guy slapped me across the face and told me "BITCH, it's your OWN damn fault! Fix it, it's as simple as (calories in - calories out)!" I'd be pretty hard pressed to actually admit that yes, the situation is my own responsibility.

On the topic of mis-information.. I am a type 1 diabetic (not the lazy fat-ass kind) and I happen to know a thing or two about ketoacidosis. Low/no-carb diets work because a number of cells in the body (like the brain) can only burn two fuels: glucose and ketones. Glucose comes from carbohydrates (and if you're mess up your eating, protein synthesis, the breakdown of muscle), while ketones comes from the breakdown of dietary and stored fat. If you cut your carbs and eat plenty of healthy, filling protein and fat, your body will have to break down fat to get energy for the brain.

And this is where it gets nice! The body doesn't need insulin to metabolize ketones. Insulin is the worlds most potent growth hormone(-like substance), but it promotes fat storage as well as muscle buildup. Without insulin you shrink. Quickly! Assuming you eat healthy, get enough protein and take your vitamins your body gets enough juice to run of ketones and as such you will not lose muscle mass despite the lack of insulin. Yes, severe ketoacidosis (acidity is a side-effect of the rapid breakdown of fat) will hurt your kidneys. Drink 3-5L of water a day and you should be safe though, specifically if you take into account the fact that if you are obese, you will likely get diabetes and that defect ain't kind to the kidneys! Also, I don't have the reference at the moment but I remember reading about research that clearly showed, time after time, that a low-carb/high-fat diet drastically lowered bad cholesterol and raised the good kind.

Final nails in the carb-nation-coffin:
1. Ask google about caveman diets. What do you think our predecessors ate? You know those hunter-gatherers who lived before the advent of huge industrial farms.. Drawing a blank? Ok, I'll tell you: Meat and fat, fish and fowl, and whatever berries and fruit they could find! See what kind of diet the caveman diet resembles..?
2. You know that despite the traditional eskimo diet consisting almost exclusively of seal meat, seal fat, fish, and some more seal fat, heart disease and obesity were pretty much non-existent until outsiders started trying to "save" them from the Evil Saturated Fat using the very carbohydrate rich foods that have shown to be so very good to our general western health.
3. Check your history. Obesity very nearly didn't exist until researchers found out that fat must be evil because it contains 9 calories per gram compared to carbohydrates which contains 4 calories per gram. Face the facts, humans were made to live of protein and fat, and to store as much energy as possible whenever carbohydrates were available (in case of food shortage etc.). Still think it's weird that 26% of the grand US-

Re:Well... yeh.

[IrquiM]

There are some conditions that are based on lifestyle. You cannot say that these should not be blamed on the patient!

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

> The item under number 2, "burn more calories", is best achieved using exercise.

I have found setting myself on fire to be way more effective and much faster too.

Re:Well... yeh.

[fractoid]

Actually, as I said in this post's second-cousin post, I stand corrected on the anaerobic vs. aerobic weight loss front, specifically for high-intensity interval training. This is good news for me because I hate aerobic exercise with a burning passion, but I quite like anaerobic exercise.

As for my "arguments(whining) about being fat and not being able to fix (or at least improve)" myself - I'm not sure what you're talking about. I was skinny, and therefore unhappy. I worked out until I was buff, and therefore happy. I was then lazy for several years until I was fat, and therefore unhappy. Now I'm working out and am over halfway back to being buff, and therefore happy, again. :) As anyone who knew me during the lazy stage will know, I openly admitted it. "I'm being lazy at the moment, when I get fat enough to piss me off I'll start working out again." And I did. :P

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey you fuck-wit - I've lost 100 pounds *3* times in my life. I've gone at times for over a year on lean protein. In a steel cage match of self control I'll un-eat you under the table. So get off your fucking high horse and kiss my big red ass.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

Maybe you should get a life and get a clue how to deal with people instead of playing the rather easy and obvious game of vilifying and fat bashing. Do you feel good about yourself playing the bully? Do you think I'm going to take advice from a self absorbed fool who gets his kicks putting down people because they are fat? Do you think I'm stupid enough or have low enough self esteem to care what someone that behaves as you just have thinks? If you cared a damn about my well being you'd never even contemplate being that way. You don't want me to play the victim. Fine. I won't. So go fly a kite, you loser.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Fishmoney]

I feel like a lot of people are missing an important detail - what you eat can be a lot more important than how much you eat. The 'voracious hunger' that a fat person might feel after a small meal is most likely a side effect of the type of food that they normally eat. Foods are like drugs, you're ingesting chemicals that have specific effects on your body.

I challenge you to cut about 90% of the meat out of your diet, replace it with vegetables and whole grains, and eat as much as you can. You'll feel better and you'll still lose weight

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

I've done periods of just FREE weights over the months and benching by itself and *it works*, there are many ways to use free weights and you really REALLY look stupid, you're talking to someone who is the evidence.

You're just another loser who thinks that everyone's body must work exactly as yours does and if they say it doesn't they must be lying. You want to feel good about what you've done. That's fine. But you want to put others down and feel superior for not managing the same. That's just weak.

It DOES NOT take a suspension of the laws of physics for people's metabolisms to work very differently. Food is very energy dense.

It DOES NOT take a suspension of the laws of physics for people's hunger drives to be very different. Hunger is a huge motivator. It has had to be for the human race to survive.

And who is RESPONSIBLE for being overweight?

Who's responsible for you having two arms and two legs? NATURE.

It's not a simple matter of responsibility. That's like telling an alcoholic to just get over it. Idiotic.

You are the one who must overcome your weaknesses, no one said it was easy but if someone has a tendency to murder, rape or kill, or has pedophelic tendencies, does that JUSTIFY them indulging in their weaknesses or are they held responsible?

So now you're comparing being overweight to being a murderer or rapist. Real nice.

The difference of course is that we all have to eat. You try telling an alcoholic that they have to have 1 and only 1 drink a day and see how far they get!

For that matter, try curing a murderer or rapist of the compulsion just by having them excercise some self control. There's a reason we lock these people up.

Your pushing the limits of your credibility with this paragraph, people who make excuses for things they have control over. The biggest barrier to get over is the psychological one, and doctors are NOT fitness buffs, or specialists. Doctors are not gods.

I'm only pushing my credibility with someone narrow minded, who thinks they know better than everyone else and has a chip on their shoulder.

Aparently you know more than doctors about the human body, weight loss and fitness, but _I'm_ the one without the credibility huh? You're the one reaching buddy.

Since we're deciding we're better than the professionals here's a little amateur psychology for you. The trouble with you is you use to hate yourself as a fat person so you feel the need to distance yourself by vilifying anyone else who hasn't chosen to do everything humanly possible to lose every bit of weight. Why else would you waste so much time arguing with me. Absolutely classic.

But here you go. Have a look at your future:
http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/6/620

Or just google long term weight loss. You'll find the only ones that claim to enable it have something to sell you.

I guess everyone with a weight problem is just weaker than you.

Re:Well... yeh.

[adamchou]

Your problem is mentally, you're a pussy. You don't need 2 hours a day. You just like to give excuses.

If I could get to a pool 2 hours a day maybe I'd have a chance.

WRONG. Let me fix this for you... If you wanted to get to a pool 2 hours a day, you would. You just don't care about that as a priority. And don't give me that crap about how you have to work so you don't have time. Either your work is a higher priority (which isn't necessarily bad) because you could make the time if you wanted to or you do have 2 hours of free time a day but you're just too fucking lazy to get off your fat ass. You tell yourself you're not lying but you know damn fucking well you're just lying to yourself. And whats this crap about a pool? There are elliptical machines and numerous other intense cardiovascular workouts you can do that is low impact on your joints. But again, you just make excuses for yourself because if you REALLY wanted to do it, you would have already researched what kinds of workouts you could do. You think I'm full of shit about you quitting and making excuses? Lets see...

What's worse is when I've stopped it's taken a couple of months of eating reasonable portions and not excercising as much to put on all the weight I've lost over 6-8 months AND add some more kilos as the body overcompensates

Now why the hell would you stop if this was really something that was important to you? OBVIOUSLY, its not.You can lie to yourself as much as you want but to the rest of us, its apparent whats going on. I'm somewhat sorry I'm being a complete dick to you but really, you deserve it. Being nice to you obviously doesn't work so someone has to give you the hard truth. Besides that, I hate the idea that you are perpetuation this bullshit mentality. Other overweight and unhealthy people see what you post and empathize with your falsities and use your post as an excuse. Point is... GET OFF YOUR FAT LAZY FUCKING ASS AND STOP MAKING EXCUSES FOR YOURSELF. If you really want it, you can get it. Eat 4 small meals a day that are less than 2000 calories and work out 30 minutes a day, 4 days a week. YOU WILL lose weight after months.

BTW, don't get me wrong, I don't think its easy for everyone to lose weight. I acknowledge the fact that it might be harder for you to lose weight. However, if this is really your priority, you would do it. But don't spew bullshit to us saying you want to but you can't. Come clean and admit that you don't care to because its too hard for you to do and we won't have crap to say to you. Don't give us bullshit excuses.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

You do understand that the different hunger feeling comes from the fact how much people have got used to eat, right?

No. It's not. When I lost weight and was having a large bowl of salad and a piece of lean chicken or steak (no bread or other carbs) I would always go around feeling hungry. ALL THE TIME. FOR MONTHS ON END. Now after a while your stomach can't take the food. If you eat a little more than you usually do, or if you eat anything with a tiny bit of fat or oil you feel ill the rest of the day. BUT YOU STILL FEEL HUNGRY. That's how it was for me. I kept that up for maybe 8 months. I took an extra day off work every week (Try working when you're hungry to the point of distraction).

I'm tired of fools who automatically assume every fat person that's had trouble simply hasn't tried hard enough.

Here are some long term stats for you:
http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/6/620

Re:Well... yeh.

[Tom]

I don't have a simple issue with self control. [...] On the other hand I have a huge problem eating small portions. If I do I literally walk around voraciously hungry.

So you do have an issue with self control, and you know it. You just can't admit it.

People who think it's a simple self control issue are idiots. Your makeup pre-disposes you to wanting to eat and to piling on weight. It's like looking at a dyslexic person and saying it's just a matter of self control when it comes to reading. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the issue.

Self control isn't always simple. But unless you have an actual medical condition, being fat is not comparable to being dyslexic. What it compares better to is the general amount of education that some people leave school with. Not doing your homework, not paying attention and not getting your info from some other place is also a matter of self control (as well as education, etc.).

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

Thank you! At least one other person here gets it!

I will reap the consequences of being fat whether I make another huge go at losing weight again. It's the long term consequences (putting it on and more) plus other priorities and responsibilities that make it hard to even contemplate. Regardless of what happens medically I could do with people not assuming I'm FAT because I'm lazy or stupid. Only idiots try to bully people into losing weight. Only uncompassionate morons have no sympathy for a person struggling with an issue just because it's easier than them. You've proven you're neither uncompassionate nor an idiot.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

Nah, people are just lazy. Look at you. You're so fat your ankles are buckling under your massive girth and you still make excuses.

Ironically it was an ice skating injury that caused my ankle to "buckle". Don't let facts get in the way of being an abusive troll.

Have fun with diabeetus! ;-D

Guess what, in 70 years you'll be just as dead as me. Have a nice life, tool.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

Sounds to me like you're trying to cover up your own weak will with excuses

Sounds to me like you don't have my interests at heart and you're just looking for an excuse to fat bash.

Face it, there's plenty you could do to help yourself. If you really believe that you can't, you're lying to yourself (whether conciously or sub-conciously) because you're afraid or resistant of the work involved. Nobody said it was *convenient* to lose weight.

Yes because long term weight loss is such an easy thing, isn't it.

http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/6/620

You have to give up things you enjoy. You have so little to enjoy as is with your wife's allergies. I get that. That doesn't mean you can't do something about it. Your rationalizations boil down to "I'm happy being fat". If that's true, then just fucking say it and get it over with. That's something I can respect.

So I'm suppose to give up even more in order to satisify someone like you that I'm doing enough. So do I have to go to a monastery, beat myself to keep myself awake, and be celibate to satisfy you too?

No one is happy being fat. It's a question of how difficult and how much you have to give up to lose the weight.

What I can't respect is you coming up with bullshit excuses left and right about how it's impossible when plenty of people (400lbs+) likely larger than you have lost significant weight.

Congratulations for being brainwashed by an industry that thrives on lies.

http://www.jacn.org/cgi/content/abstract/18/6/620 ...and congratultions for fat bashing. Hope it makes you feel like a big man....pun intended

Re:Well... yeh.

[plastbox]

Illness is not a sin, not being able to control what you stuff in your piehole and staying inside with a box of doughnuts whining about exercise being hard work instead of getting some exercise, though...

I don't get how people can keep making excuses! I mean, I get the motivation. It's so much easier to just claim the "I'm special, the rules don't apply and you don't understand my woes!"-excuses so readily employed by fatties than to do something.

Absolutely. Worst. Case. Scenario:
You actually have a metabolic disease that makes your metabolism, say, 20% (pretty damn far fetched!) lower than what is normal and it's not treatable (a pure lie). The maintenance level of a normal person your height/size might be 2500 calories. How on earth does this mean you should stuff your face with whatever you feel like and whine when you get fat? Your illness puts your maintenance needs at 2000 calories, so 1500 calories a day means you will drop a pound a week of pure fat! Add a bit of exercise and your weight loss increases even more. 1500 calories a day means you can eat plenty of food, if you eat right, and you'd lose weight and never go hungry.

Get the point..? The number of people who actually have a sickness that screws up their metabolism that bad is roughly equal to the number of people who have actually seen Bigfoot or Nessie. Even so, should you happen to be that one-in-a-gazillion guy who has a metabolic defect faaar worse than anything normally diagnosed, you still don't need to be a lard-ass. Besides, there are about 300 million americans at the moment, right? At >26% obesity, that means you've got 78.000.000 people who are obese. This is not counting people who are simply fat, we're talking 78 million need-custom-built-air-plane-seats fatties! How the FUCK is that not a sin?

Re:Well... yeh.

[adri]

As a nerd who has just lost 35kg (thats > 70lb for you americans); I'd just like point out that the resultant physical changes from weight loss and exercise are not unencumbered.

I'm now angrier; I'm now constantly hungry. I have no energy. I can't focus. I'm not getting the stupidly large amount of calories that my body is used to and there's nothing I seem to be able to do to compensate at the moment besides eating more cheap calories. My work and personal life are suffering all because I decided to put the food down and start jogging.

And yes, I'm scheduling time to see a doctor and all of those specialists which I'm sure I'll be referred to. The fact still remains - I may look better, but I feel like shit.

Re:Well... yeh.

[wye43]

I completely agree. People are different regarding this matter. A LOT.

I have 4-5 monstrous meals a day, with many of them involving scary(for most people) stuff like 1-2 pounds of meat/fat and tons of other unhealthy (but delicious) threats. I spend all my day in front of a computer both at work and at home, I make no exercising at all. I'm the very definition of laziness.That is my last 15 years of life, and I'm 20 pounds UNDERWEIGHT.

I guess its easy for skinny people to criticize fat/obese people. Oh, and btw, this story is an flamebait.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Ihlosi]

I'm now angrier; I'm now constantly hungry. I have no energy. I can't focus.

Ever get yourself checked for adult ADHD?

Re:Well... yeh.

[LizardKing]

Now imagine trying to do that with severe cravings for the food. The kind of cravings addicts have for their poison of choice.

If you just diet your body will rapidly adjust to the change in your intake of nutrients. Your metabolism will slow, and you will not lose a significant amount of weight unless you're pretty much starving yourself. Hence the hunger pangs when you diet enough to lose a noticable amount of weight. What you need to do is combine a better diet with exercise, and forget the excuses. Bad ankle? Swim. Ignore the weight training machines, you want to be pushing your body with cardiovascular exercise. You can get away with quite short sessions, as long as you push yourself hard for the duration of them.

As for diet, try to do a 50-30-20% balance between your intake of calories from protein, carbs and fat. Do not cut carbs (like the Atkins diet suggests), as that will leave you with liver problems. Do not cut fat entirely, as our body needs to get some of its calorific intake in that form, but try to avoid foods with crap like palm oil or hydrogenated vegetable fat in them. If you drink coffee, have it with skimmed milk and try to limit yourself to one a day. Replace soft drinks (including fruit juices) with water, as sugar is a little like cocaine, providing a very short boost in energy levels and then a craving for more sugar.

Never forget though, that exercise is the most important thing about losing weight ans staying in shape. I'm fundamentally a lazy person, but I get such a kick out of working out that I enjoy it and look forward to it. Perhaps with a few months effort (it takes at least three months to have a major impact), you'll feel the same.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Tom]

Some people can work hard and maintain a light weight.

Quite a few people have to put in a huge battle and really not get anywhere with it - or they make progress only to lose ground.

The fault in your equation is that you are assuming it's a single-player game.

It's not.

A whole industry - a lot larger than the music, movie and gaming industries combined is fighting on the other side. They're telling you to eat as much as possible, of the cheapest (for them) possible stuff.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Xest]

"People who think it's a simple self control issue are idiots. Your makeup pre-disposes you to wanting to eat and to piling on weight. It's like looking at a dyslexic person and saying it's just a matter of self control when it comes to reading. It shows a profound lack of understanding of the issue."

So please explain why America has such a high level of obesity when most Americans are of African or European descent and where they don't have such an issue?

The only difference is cultural. Are there people with genetic traits that make them pre-disposed to greater weight gain? Sure there are, but it's certainly not everyone whose obese that suffers it and it's certainly not as common as many overweight people would have us believe.

I don't disagree that doing what it takes to lose weight is hard, I'd probably be unable to entirely give up the internet voluntarily, but that doesn't mean I think it's genetic. I'm not skinny anymore, although I'm certainly not fat yet, however it's creeping that way so should probably consider exercising more but simply cannot be arsed because I'm too knackered to bother when I get home from work, have studying to do and games I want to play. I sympathise with your situation, but I disagree with your reasoning.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Eudial]

So, in other words, you have a complete lack of self control and are unable to motivate yourself to keep yourself healthy.

Losing weight is stupidly easy: eat less, exercise more. So you have a bad ankle, talk to your doctor to come up with an exercise routine that doesn't involve massive amounts of walking.

30 minutes a day. That's it. If you can't do that, then yes, it's a self control issue.

You're basically on the right track. Walking is a good way to keep reasonably fit.

But it isn't just as easy as eating less, it's often more effective to eat better than to eat less -- having regular meals (and not skipping meals), getting enough dietary fibers, maintaining a level blood sugar, etc.

In fact, eating too little will trigger a starvation "mode" in your metabolism, which in turn will make you add even more weight.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, low carb diets date back to William Banting's Letter On Corpulence, published in 1863.
Its the low fat diets that are a recent innovation.

Re:Well... yeh.

[L4t3r4lu5]

I have a friend with poly-cystic ovary syndrome. A side-effect of this is issues with her thyroid gland which causes her to hold excess wait.

She's tried an aggressive exercise regime Atkins diet, crash diet (which added further complications), diet shakes, suppliments, and other methods of weight loss. She's stuck with a BMI over 30, and nothing helps.

You assume too much, and to assume make an ass out of you.

Re:Well... yeh.

[LizardKing]

Just to back up what you've said, it's worth noting that some of the most famous body builders of recent years use low weights and a massive numbers of reps. This gives them great muscle tone as well as size, meaning that they don't have to do so much of the "cutting" before competitions that the more traditionally minded body builders have to do. Personally, I like pyramiding the weight more dramatically than most people. For instance, bench press 30lb for 30 reps then immediately jump to 100lb for 10 reps, 120lb for 8 reps 140 for 8 reps and push to collapse on 160lb (normally takes two to three reps). Most weight training books will recommend a much more conservative increment for the first set, but overall you'll lift more weight per session using a low weight/high rep approach.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Steak doesn't make you obese, at least if it's lean meat. Quite the opposite - it's a great source of protein, and if you're working out regularly, eating steak (and other lean meat) is good for you.

Similarly, soda isn't actually that bad depending on how much you drink. The coke we've got here in Europe (made with cane sugar, not HFCS) has about 10 grams of sugar per 100 ml - a lot, admittedly, but surprisingly many fruit juices have similar amounts, for instance. Just don't drink liters of the stuff every day.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that's it then. I am losing this weight. When a pandemic has your name on it you rethink things.

guess cheese-steaks are now a once per month treat.

Re:Well... yeh.

[j_sp_r]

Skipping meals is the best way to get fat. It makes your metabolism go crazy and stuff.

Re:Well... yeh.

[beckett]

by "very intense", it doesn't mean killing yourself it means "target heart rate". between target heart rate and maximal heart rate is the fat burning zone. the eliptical machine tells me this on the little electronic graph when my fat hands sweat onto the galvanic bp reader.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ulcers used to be all about stress and lifestyle until one doctor discovered the bacteria that was actually the cause. A simple triple antibiotic "no pain" solution worked while the "painful" lifestyle changes didn't.

Which is crap too. Bacteria are one cause of ulcers among many. The others include, wait for it... stress and lifestyle. As a consultant told me at great length when he pointed out that bacteria had bugger all to do with my ulcers.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell that Ethiopians.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

From your own article:

25% were maintaining a weight loss of 10% at 7 years.

Additionally: It's easy to find abstracts which seem like they agree with you. Science is a constantly changing field and one abstract does not open or shut a case. You responded pretty well exactly like I thought you would. Nothing but excuses about how hard it is and overexaggerations about how much work it would be.

These are nothing more than deflections which you're using either conciously or sub-conciously to avoid the effort actually involved. It's not that hard to work out and eat less. It's not rocket science. I have not bashed you for being fat and I don't care to. I have plenty of fat friends and have no problem with them.

What I do have a problem with is people who come up with bullshit excuses rather than just admitting they're too lazy to actually fix things. Man up and admit you don't care to lose the weight. Don't go on about how it's fucking impossible. There's millions of former fat boys out there who disprove this theory.

I do not hate you. You are not a victim of fat bashing. I would think you just as weak willed if you went on about how absolutely hard it is to gain computer skills at age 40 and then linked me to a study where 25% of the participants succeeded.

Hope you can see past your anger to understand what's actually being said here.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't read words correctly like I can't pole vault like an olympian.

That is just because you are lazy. Anyone can be an olympic pole vaulter. It is easy, all you need to do is train for it. If you can't put in the time to do it, then you are just a lazy bastard whom no one should feel sorry for. You are just as bad as these fatties who eat and eat and cry, "boo hoo, people make fun of me 'cause I'm so fat." You people really make me puke. I wish laziness like this was criminal. Between you lazy porkers eating all the food, especially when there is rampant starvation all over the world and then bankrupting every country on earth just keeping your fat asses alive, it would just be easier and better for society to round you all up and shoot you all.

I hope all you fat fucks burn in hell.

Re:Well... yeh.

[adri]

That is partly why I'm heading to the doctor. There are other possibilities too which I'm happy to entertain.

The point is "It is not as easy as eating right, getting up and going for a run" and the results are not always as positive as people spin it.

Personally, I think this is a whole interesting side of human evolution and adaptability which we're only really recently starting to understand.

Re:Well... yeh.

[adri]

I should also say I lost 35kg in 4 months.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

25% were maintaining a weight loss of 10% at 7 years.

So 1 in 4 managed to keep off 10% after losing over 30kg. Think about that. People like you wouldn't even notice the difference if an obese person lost 10%

Additionally: It's easy to find abstracts which seem like they agree with you. Science is a constantly changing field and one abstract does not open or shut a case.

Well take a look. Find some more. There are very few long term weight loss studies. You can't sell weight loss products by telling people they'll fail after all that hardship. The few that exist and aren't sponsored by a weight loss company, gym manufacturer etc. show terrible results.

25% of the participants succeeded.

Your definition of success is asinine. 1 in 4 barely making a difference to their weight sounds like a fucking dismal failure to me.

Hope you can see past your anger to understand what's actually being said here.

I'm not angry. I'm frustrated at the stupidity of people allowing the weight loss "industry" milk them while whipping themselves for a condition that they have very little control over while people ridicule, belittle, criticise and bully. it's pathetic.

I do not hate you. You are not a victim of fat bashing.

Pure horsehit. Fat people are an easy target and get fat bashed all the time. We've made progress on women's rights, gay rights, race issues etc. But it's still the popular misconception that fat = lazy and stupid. It's still completely acceptable in most circles to make fat jokes.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep lying to yourself then. I'm sure no matter what anyone sent you you'd still go on about the weight loss industry, your poor ankles, your wife your job, or any number of excuses of why you can't succeed at losing weight. When people equate fat people as being lazy it's because people like you who can do nothing but make excuse after excuse after excuse about why they just can't workout and eat less.

PS: 10% in a 200 lb person is 20lbs. 10% in a 300 lb person is 30 lbs. That's a pretty noticable shift for this small sample size.

Anyway, go ahead. Keep deluding yourself. Life is just so hard.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Fjan11]

Exercising, while healthy and beneficial for several reasons, does not contribute significantly to losing weight. Your burn about 10%-20% more if you exercise half an hour a day. If you have a problem with exercising, or just don't feel like it, just eat 10-20% less. Lots of skinny people do no exercise at all. Overweight people have a hard enough time to muster the self-discipline to eat less, it is not a good idea to make it harder on them by telling them they should exercise if that will make them abandon the effort entirely.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Opportunist]

It doesn't help at all. I think of baby carrots and apples as snacks all the times.

I guess I'd have to eat them too instead of eating all the greasy stuff as snacks while thinking of baby carrots and apples.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Ihlosi]

I guess I'd have to eat them too instead of eating all the greasy stuff as snacks while thinking of baby carrots and apples.

Even better: Just think of baby carrots and apples, and don't eat anything as snacks.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://ftp.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

A couple of my friends have now followed it with good results, don't expect a miracle cure though!
oh, and it's also free.

Re:Well... yeh.

[psergiu]

replaying to undo wrong moderation.

Mod parent up - he's right - that was exactly how i felt when i decided to lose some weight.

Re:Well... yeh.

[yabos]

"People who think it's a simple self control issue are idiots."

Sorry but it is self control. Yes you are right it's like a weak drug addiction with some people but like drug addicts you have to want to stop to get better. At first it will be hard as hell(maybe even last weeks) but pushing through it with will power is possible. There are plenty of examples of really huge people getting down to a healthy weight through will power alone. If you're walking around hungry as hell all the time then you're not doing it right.

You should first cut 500 calories per day from your maintenance calorie level and slowly reduce it over time. Your body is used to eating a certain amount of food and you need to retrain it not to be. Almost every person I see trying to lose weight cuts their food down to almost nothing and of course they're starving all the time and then give up.

Re:Well... yeh.

[johannesg]

> The item under number 2, "burn more calories", is best achieved using exercise.

I have found setting myself on fire to be way more effective and much faster too.

Whatever works best for you. Really, I'm not picky.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Ihlosi]

Whatever works best for you. Really, I'm not picky.

Paraphrasing Razor from Jagged Alliance 2, when an enemy gets his head blown off: "That's one way to lose a few pounds."

Re:Well... yeh.

[Bongo]

The only couple of times I have lost weight in my life I lived on salad and lean meat/chicken in tiny portions and did AT LEAST 2 hours of heavy excercise a day. Anything short of that doesn't cut it. What's worse is when I've stopped it's taken a couple of months of eating reasonable portions and not excercising as much to put on all the weight I've lost over 6-8 months AND add some more kilos as the body overcompensates.

I don't know if you've tried the Paleo lifestyle. Basically is says that processed carbs are not a natural food for humans (they've only existed since agriculture was invented 10,000 years ago, a mere blink of an eye as far as our bodies are concerned). The processed carbs, that's pasta, bread, rice, cereals, etc. just mess with our hormone and insulin levels and bloat our guts. Our guts are small, suggesting anyway that they are meant for meat. Eat as much meat and fish, and natural carbs in the form of vegetables and fruit (but not potatoes) as you want to feel satisfied.

Because it is not a starvation diet, you can just continue doing it as a lifestyle, and gradually your weight normalizes. And because it is not starvation, or restriction, you can keep doing it indefinitely. The trick is to stay off those processed carbs, and let your body return to normal.

Also, it is the carbs that increase appetite, whilst meat and fat are very satisfying. You may end up eating fewer calories or more, but who cares that's not the point. The point is that the high insulin messes with your body and causes fat accumulation. Insulin is a hormone and as such its job is to control bodily processes. There was one study quoted by Gary Taubes where they put a certain animal on a starvation diet. The animal was at a point in its life where it was programmed to put on fat before hibernating, but here it was being fed way too little, so what the animals' body did was it became fat whilst on a starvation diet.... by eating up its internal organs. The animal died fat and of organ failure/starved.

So we have to go with our natural body's system and what it does and doesn't need. Carbs are looking more and more like the culprit. Unfortunately there's been a 30-year anti-fat consensus, and when the data shows that people don't lose weight despite the "best advice", instead of questioning the theory, the consensus blames people for lack of will-power. It is pretty sickening really.

The carbs jack up insulin, and the insulin tells your fat cells to store fat. Eventually people become diabetic, and obese. If you simply cut the carbs out, you can stop counting calories. Appetite normalizes, wight normalizes, and people report other things like their minds become clearer, their emotions become more even. Speaking for myself I always had a vague depression and I usually woke up in the morning foggy and groggy. That lifted as soon as I cut carbs and ate lots of meat and fish and veg. No rice, no pasta, no bread, no cornflakes. Fruit is OK but avoid fruit juice.

Re:Well... yeh.

[that IT girl]

You do understand that the different hunger feeling comes from the fact how much people have got used to eat, right?

Sure, but you can train yourself to eat less. I did it, and effectively shrank my stomach. You eat until just *before* you feel satisfied, and do this each time for about a week or two until you are comfortable with smaller amounts. Sure, it takes willpower and self-control, which aren't things society programs people to have anymore, but it's totally worth it.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Bongo]

Well, the idea that low fat is good for you is a recent fad--only 30 years or so.

Before that people thought differently. And if you go waaaay back, what were our hunter gatherer ancestors eating? They had no access to bread, pasta, rice, cornflakes. They had access to meat, and fish, and some fruit and veg.

Re:Well... yeh.

[that IT girl]

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI. You need a cardiovascular workout. To burn energy you need something that increases your breathing and makes you sweat and burn calories quickly. Suggesting benching weights as a way to lose weight is insane.

Fuck BMI, it says that body builders who are in fantastic shape are overweight/obese and unhealthy. Why even pay attention to numbers on a scale? If you are losing fat, you will be able to tell. If you are gaining muscle, you will burn fat even more quickly and you can gain total weight while still making overall great changes in your body. Suggesting one shouldn't put on muscle just to avoid nudging the numbers up is just stupid.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Nofsck Ingcloo]

This kind of self righteous thinking makes me furious. I try to lose weight, I fail, I ask for help, and I am told, "Go thou and sin no more." The medical community seems to have decided that obesity is a character flaw.

Well, screw that. How about the medical community getting off their high horses and treating this wide spread and serious condition as a medical problem. Create a National Obesity Society, get some funding, do some research, figure out a treatment.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Faerunner]

I am one of those people who gets cranky as hell when I don't get fed. I'm also very thin and "graze" instead of eating big meals (probably the only reason I didn't put on weight in college when my calories started coming in the form of Ramen and dining-hall chicken nuggets). So I get hungry relatively often (every few hours), eat something small (apple, banana chips, carrot sticks, granola bar), and do 2-3 bigger meals for breakfast and lunch/dinner. I can't say that plan will work for everyone but I have heard some success stories using grazing as a way to avoid the ravenous hunger that people often feel when changing their diet. Healthy snack foods are easy to come by, if you have a few extra dollars for fruit and nuts each week.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Dogtanian]

Benching weights increases muscle mass which will actually raise your BMI.

Yeah, but that's missing the point. Mainly because you're taking the literal meaning of "losing weight" rather than what most people (slighly inaccurately) use it to mean- i.e. losing fat. For the most part, gaining muscle isn't a bad thing, regardless of whether it causes you to gain "weight".

And worrying about its effect on BMI is putting the horse before the cart for the same reason. Anyway, BMI is a crude and very badly designed metric that doesn't take build into account, scales incorrectly to heights significantly smaller/taller than average and doesn't account for muscle vs. fat.

The truth is many people who are overweight have never been thin for most of their life and got fat fairly young and developed a victim psychology because of bullying/social prejudice.

Yet the bullying is socially acceptedas you're proving right this instance. Not only that but as they get older they're preyed upon by the weight loss industry etc. In other words you're beating people down then wondering why they don't raise themselves by the bootstraps and make a huge effort just to lead semi-normal lives.

Your interpretation of his comments as "bullying" might prove his point.

*Some* of the comments certainly have been dickish- but not all of them.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Bongo]

The truth is many people who are overweight have never been thin for most of their life and got fat fairly young and developed a victim psychology because of bullying/social prejudice.

Well, be careful there. I lost weight recently, and kept it off, and feel much better for it, but I didn't follow conventional wisdom, ie. the food pyramid + low fat + exercise. I followed the Paleo diet/lifestyle. And it was effortless. And most people would dismiss it as being a "fad" or being contrary to established dietary advice... but so what, it worked very well for me. Not just weight, but energy and mental clarity and mood. If it is a bad diet, after a year and a half, I'll be surprised that my body is fooling me so well.

Anyway, the point is, it makes conventional advice very suspect if not downright wrong. If you tell people to eat low fat and exercise more, and then they are still fat, then what do you do? Blame people for lack of will power? Or maybe perhaps the advice you gave them was wrong? Maybe it is more about the kinds of food that you eat than the amount, and maybe the carbs, even in small quantities like in a small bowl of "healthy-carb" pasta, are actually doing serious damage to the body's hormone balance which would otherwise be regulating fat better?

People think it is simple laws of physics, like the energy balance equation. Well what's the equation for what ends up in excrement? Your body is not a closed system. It is a highly complex system. And hormones play a big part in its regulation. If the kinds of food you're telling people are "healthy" are actually upsetting the hormone system in ways it was never designed to deal with, then yeah, your advice is bad, even wrong, and people can't be blamed.

I'm well aware of the victim mentality. In the case of food though, we need to redo the science before we blame people because our own theories didn't work.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Ihlosi]

They had access to meat, and fish, and some fruit and veg.

And access meant several hours of walking each day for them, with success not being guaranteed.

Want to emulate a hunter-gatherer lifestyle? Throw out your fridge. Don't buy any food with preservatives in it (not because they may be bad for you, but because our ancestors didn't have them, maybe with the exception of salt). When buying food, use a non-motorized mode of transport (walk for the real experience, but biking counts, too). See how quickly you'll be fit and lean like caveman.

Re:Well... yeh.

[yabos]

There are many people that do the ketosis diet which is almost no carbs and then you have a carb refeed day about once per week. Ketosis diets are pretty close to Atkins but it does work very well for lots of people. I'd say it takes even more effort at first than losing weight any other way because it's a big change for your body to go through. The reason for the carb refeed is to replenish your liver glycogen. You do need glycogen but your body can get by without any dietary intake for a while. I don't think anyone is saying to stay on no carb, high protein, high fat diet for your whole life. It's VERY useful for lots of people for losing fat, particularly people that are very sensitive to carbs.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Bongo]

Don't expect a serious discussion in response to your post. Although most people on Slashdot are smart and keep up with the latest technology, many have rather medieval attitudes when it comes to medicine.

Blaming the patient for the condition is one of those attitudes. Illness is like a "sin" to them, so the solution has to have some penance involved. "No pain, No gain" is one mantra of this religious belief.

Even the medical community has been guilty of this. Ulcers used to be all about stress and lifestyle until one doctor discovered the bacteria that was actually the cause. A simple triple antibiotic "no pain" solution worked while the "painful" lifestyle changes didn't.

Personally I think it is very true. Gary Taubes makes this point also, that according to his reading, the medical research community has known for years that the low-fat + exercise mantra hasn't worked, and that people don't do well on it, but rather than revise the science, even when alternatives are out there like low carb, and people are using those and having success (like me on Paleo), the doctors and scientists just blame people for lacking the will power.

The moralising "no pain no gain" and "everybody is lazy" is used as an excuse for why the advice isn't working. Well I am an very lazy person physically, and my energy and weight improved significantly (I wouldn't go back to my old habits ever) once I adopted the Paleo lifestyle. And it was effortless. And I enjoy food much more now. If someone says that pasta, in any quantity, is part of a "healthy complex carb balance", I just laugh.

It is odd. Many geeks pride themselves on the power of having the right information. And yet when it comes to diet, the notion that the info might be suspect is unacceptable, and instead they say it is about "pain" and "discipline".

Re:Well... yeh.

[yabos]

Well it seems there is much you need to learn about losing fat. The fact is that lifting weights helps tremendously with losing fat. 1 lb. of muscle tissue burns 4x as many calories AT REST than 1 lb. of fat tissue. Fat is useless in modern countries unless we have some huge catastrophe and food is scarce. If you have a bad ankle, most likely it's because of being heavy for a long time. At least that may have lead to it's wearing out faster. My dad had knee and hip joint replacement at 54 because he's been >300 lbs. for most of his adult life.

You also seem to be pretty defensive which I've noticed with almost all overweight people including my dad. Most overweight people don't seem to want anyone to give them advice which is so strange because they(in general) have no clue. If you want to lose weight it's up to you so stop defending your reasons for being over weight and figure out what you need to do. There are lots of online resources, and here is the point, it will take a commitment of the rest of your life to be thinner. Your commitment is to maintaining weight for the rest of your life. It gets much easier once you make progress and the body adapts.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I love your self promotion.

Oh, and if you get morbidly obese, even obese, prepare for your health to plummet in the 40s. You sure as hell won't die happy in your 70s. For the next thirty years you will see the onset of type II diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, joint pain, loss of mobility, kidney failure, and then they start cutting your limbs off. Guess what I used to do? I actually had several patients request I help kill them.

That said, having a little weight on you in your older age actually offers several benefits, especially against fractures.

Re:Well... yeh.

[skrolle2]

I've read a bunch of your posts now in this thread, and you continuously assert that you are somehow a special case, yet from what you write, you behave *exactly* like the typical diet-failure case.

1) You claim that it is impossible for you to lose weight. This is not true. I'm sure it's harder for you than for most people to lose weight, but by claiming it's impossible, you've resigned yourself to useless victimization.

2) You claim that since the long-term results are so bad, you might as well give up already. It is true that many who "go on a diet" return to their original weight afterwards, when they resume their original eating/exercising habits. This is obvious, it is exactly those habits that made you gain weight in the first place. Most people fail to achieve permanent weight-loss, because they fail to realize that the changes to their eating and exercising habits has to be equally permanent. The ones that succeed are the ones that realize this.

3) You say you have such a busy schedule that you don't have the time to lose weight/eat right. That's fine. It's perfectly ok to value your job and your family higher than your weight, and for you to choose to spend time on that instead of yourself. But be honest about it. Don't play the victim by blaming all sorts of other things. "I don't have time to exercise because I'd rather spend that time with my family" is perfectly fine. "I don't exercise because it's impossible for me to lose weight" is not fine. It's a lie.

4) You say you did maintain a strict diet and exercise routine for 8 months and that you hated it. Then you're doing it wrong. To achieve permanent weight-loss, you have to change your lifestyle permanently. Noone can live a lifestyle they hate, that's just a giant setup for failure. You have to change your diet and your exercise habits into something you actually enjoy. Talk to a doctor or dietitian to get help finding what's right for you. You can get inspiration and ideas from random idiots on the internet like me, but don't trust us, you have to find out for yourself what works for you.

5) You are very frustrated by the weight-loss industry. That's understandable, but not very useful. The entire weight-loss industry is one giant scam. They cannot help anyone lose weight, and they're not interested in it either. Ignore it. There are no magic pills or diets or exercises. There is only this: Eat less. Exercise more.

Finally, start small. Pick one thing to change at a time. Drop sweetened beverages for mineral water. Switch fries for carrots. Eat fruit instead of candy. Just do one small thing at a time, and only do things you are comfortable with sustaining.

Re:Well... yeh.

[SCHecklerX]

Yeah, really. I have a bad ankle too. I've broken it twice, multiple surgeries. It hurts pretty much all the time. I also tore my hip a couple of years ago, so I'm no stranger to serious arthritic pain. I'm heavier than I'd like to be (5'11", 240lbs), but far from obese. If not for the ankle problem, I'd definitely be lighter, since I'd be able to jog a bit. But life is what it is.

To the GP: Get a bike and tool around town each night. You might even want to try mountain biking. Good stuff. When active, take a couple of Aleve in the morning. Obviously eat less. That is easier when you are active, as exercise acts as an appetite suppressant.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Larryish]

Sounds like you need to reset your thyroid. I think the massive amounts of chemicals in food may have knocked your body chemistry out of whack.

Check out the Kevin Trudeau book "Natural Cures".

You can get it from Amazon.com for 1 cent with $3.99 shipping:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0975599518/ref=sr_1_olp_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247490143&sr=8-2

Yeah it has some infomercial-sounding crap in it, but there is a lot of good info as well.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Swine flu? Piggy flu? Fatty flu? Anyone else think its ironic "Swine" flu kills mostly fat people?

Re:Well... yeh.

[Larryish]

Since your ankle is keeping you from walking, have you considered hitting the track in a wheelchair?

That sounds bad, but hear me out:

I have an uncle who only has 1 leg. He hops most places, even though he has a prosthetic to wear to business meetings, etc.

He gets his cardio from a wheelchair. He runs all over his subdivision in it and I have seen him when he gets through with his "run". He is red-faced and sweating and can hardly move, says he gets the same endorphin rush that most people get after a good sprint.

Just a thought.

Re:Well... yeh.

[guyfawkes-11-5]

Well, the idea that low fat is good for you is a recent fad--only 30 years or so.

Before that people thought differently. And if you go waaaay back, what were our hunter gatherer ancestors eating? They had no access to bread, pasta, rice, cornflakes. They had access to meat, and fish, and some fruit and veg.

Yes, but you forgot the other side of the equation. Our ancestors were not desk jockeys, they were much more active, and needed all the calories they could take in. They also had a shorter life expectancy, whereas today, heart disease tends to strike in middle age and beyond. In short, Hobbes said it best, life back then was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short"

Re:Well... yeh.

[wisdom_brewing]

Excercising ==> More muscle mass.

Muscle mass burns calories...

More muscle mass ==> Can increase calorie intake to maintain weight.

At my physical peak I needed ~4500-5000 calories a day to keep my weight constant... Two rugby sessions, two gym sessions a week.

I currently need ~2500-3000 calories a day. I did NOT burn 14,000 calories in the 4 occasions I actively excersised but I did have a lot more muscle than I do now...

The key is balance...

Re:Well... yeh.

[Jason Levine]

As someone who lost 80 pounds while not exercising much and having a desk job, let me tell you that it can be done. If you don't mind a few pointers:

1 - Drink lots of water. A lot of times when you think you're hungry, you're actually thirsty. Get one of those 32oz Nalgene water bottles, fill it up, bring it to work, and drink as needed. (If you have a water cooler at work, refill it as often as needed.) I've actually gone through 100oz of water some days. Water is very filling.

2 - Eat high fiber foods. Foods higher in fiber will make you feel fuller. These can be fresh fruits/veggies or prepackaged high fiber bars. Chocolate Chip Fiber One bars are great. Find ways to add more fiber to your foods. For example, if you're eating Chinese Food, bring in some Fiber One cereal (great BTW, never thought I'd say that about a fiber cereal) and mix it in the Chinese food instead of those fried noodle things. It'll provide a satisfying crunch *and* add fiber to your diet.

3 - Find lower calorie/fat alternatives for the foods you crave. Ignoring cravings is a recipe for disaster. If you ignore your craving for ice cream, you'll just wind up at Friendly's ordering the biggest sundae they make. Instead, find foods that fit those cravings but with fewer fat/calories. A few of the ones I've found: For an ice cream craving, try Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches of Blue Bunny fat free frozen yogurt. For a brownie craving, make a batch of No Pudge Fudge. For a chocolate craving, put a Hershey's Kiss in your mouth but don't bite it. Just let it slowly dissolve.

I'll admit, I didn't have to deal with food allergies, but while it does post a complication, it shouldn't be a show-stopper. It sounds like pre-packaged foods are the biggest issue, so forget about them. Instead, make your own meals at home from raw ingredients and leave out the garlic/onion/etc. Find which brands of which foods you can use and then search through Allrecipes.com for recipes to fit those items.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Kashgarinn]

"Keep in mind that people are all different."
- When "people" say that "people are different" most of them mean that there's some pigeon-holes between different types of people and you can't go from one pigeon-hole to another. They make the difference sound impossible to overcome.
- The truth regarding food and lifestyle choices is that people are different because they have made different choices than you, and you yourself can make those same choices to change your lifestyle, they're not closed to you because you have created a wall you think you can't climb over.

"Some people can maintain a light weight with no effort all."
- and some people can maintain a light weight with a lot of effort
- and some people can maintain a light weight with some effort
- and some people can maintain a light weight with X effort (X being {0,-})

What is it that is the same between these imaginary people who all are able to maintain a light weight? They all made the effort. Why aren't you?

"Quite a few people have to put in a huge battle and really not get anywhere with it - or they make progress only to lose ground."
- Let me guess, you put yourself into the big anonymous pile of "we give up". Am I right?

"I'd rather die happy at 70 than suffer until 80."
- well, this pig flu shows you that you could die at 20, given you're fat enough.

What you need to do is to start thinking about food, you need to start thinking about what's good food, what's bad food, and how do you tell them apart. And guess what, good food isn't only good tasting food and bad food isn't only bad tasting food, when you realize that, you should be on your way, but changing your mind about food by thinking about food is a great first step.

- I don't blame you not thinking about this, I had to have a serious bout of Gastroesophageal reflux to start thinking about this, but the sooner you realize how lucky you are to have no problems, and the sooner you realize you should try and maintain this by doing a little every day or every other day, the better your life will be and the more chance that you'll feel fine until the day you die.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Bongo]

you're just making the same tired old excuses that those with some vice *always make*. You claim that your body is somehow special and refuses to burn the energy that you put in well guess what

Yeah but what's going out in your pooh?

The body is not a closed system. A friend of mine says I eat like a pig. I have always been fairly thin. Meanwhile he has gained considerable weight and is now diabetic. The energy balance idea is one part of the system. Yeah, eat more, and there is more available to store as fat, but the body's genetics and hormones and so on decide what to store when, and what to eliminate as waste. That's not to say that people who are fat shouldn't do something about it, the problem is the medical advice for the past 25 years has been for the most part wrong. But instead of revising the science, they've just blamed the patients for being "lazy". It is interesting how the low fat advice/consensus kicked in just as obesity rates started to go up, and meanwhile I can very easily do a low carb lifestyle, but still eat as much as I want, and end up losing weight. To lose this much weight I should have been eating nothing but broccoli and going to the gym every day. I did neither.

Re:Well... yeh.

[wisdom_brewing]

Not forgetting the point that if you DO increase muscle mass beyond the "normal" higher BMI becomes more or less meaningless as body fat relative to muscle mass.

Having a high BMI when you have 5-10% body fat is not a negative indicator as to health...

Re:Well... yeh.

[wwfarch]

Actually weight training may help lose weight significantly. Adding muscle will increase your metabolism at all times of day, even while resting, so you will be burning more calories even while not exercising. That's actually one of the biggest myths and problems that a lot of people have while trying to lose weight. As others have mentioned though I would see a dietician and see if they can devise a good diet for you.

Re:Well... yeh.

[shiftless]

If weight loss were as easy for everyone as you make it out to be we wouldn't have a problem.

Nobody said it was easy, fat ass. You see what your problem is? You, like many others, only want to take the easy way out. It doesn't work like that. Losing a bunch of fat takes a lot of work. It takes research to understand why your current diet and habits are wrong, and it takes willpower to make corrections.

It's easy to just blame it on your genetics, but you know what? I've been all over the world and seen a lot of different kinds of people. Right now I'm sitting in Afghanistan. When I see a fat ass walking around here, 100% of the time it's an American. You know how many fat ass Afghans I've seen? None. Kuwaitis? None. Germans, French, Brits? None. Egyptians, Romanians, Bosnians, Polish, etc? NONE.

Are Americans (and Saudis) the only populations on the planet with these so-called fat ass genes? Of course not. It's your EATING AND EXERCISE HABITS that are at fault here, stupid, not your genetics, and it's your lack of willpower/desire to place the blame elsewhere that is keeping you fat and unhealthy.

Meanwhile I CAN'T keep that up while working 10 hrs a day 5 days a week plus some weekends, spending 3 hours a day in commute, doing chores till midnight when I get home and helping to raise a family.

Well maybe you should change your career then. In 20 years when you're laying on your deathbed due to your poor lifestyle choices, who're you going to blame then?

Re:Well... yeh.

[grub]

The fact still remains - I may look better, but I feel like shit.

Look at the bright side: you'll live longer to feel shitty!

.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

I never once asserted that I was a special case. You've clearly either read nothing or your comprehension skills are lacking. My entire argument is on the premise that fat people are fat because they have trouble losing weight, and worse the long term success rate for those that do manage to get it off in the first place is abysmal.

Attitudes need to change so that a fat person doesn't come onto a site like /. and read that perhaps if more fatties drop dead due to swine flu it'll provide incentive for them to lose weight. Nor do fat people need to be guilted into extreme diets and excercise that only serve to waste their time and money. I have no idea what you think you're defending but all I see is a bunch of horseshit from people that should know better.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

So I go hold of a copy of 'Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle' (maybe there's a torrent out there? 'BTFFTM')

There are indeed a couple of versions of the ebook via Mininova. Search for the full title. :)

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

...and you keep posting as AC and rubbishing people you don't know. Have fun. Must be a pathetic life if that's what floats your boat.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Japie_H]

Eating slowly definitly helps you to eat less. Small bites and chew each bite 30 times (which is a lot...).

This is because the reaction of your body to your food takes a while to get going (something aroung 15-20 minutes). So you don't
feel like you've eaten untal 15 minutes after your first bite. Furthermore we have some sort of "bite counter" so
taking lots of small bites and chewing each of them very well not only increases your eating time, but also
your bite counter. You'll also be able te taste what your eating a whole lot better

Losing weight is a very hard problem, look at the sheer amount of diets there are. It's a pity none of them work.
The only thing that will cause you to lose weight and not regain it is a lifestyle change. When your're on a diet
and eating very little your body goes into survival mode and holds on to everything you eat. The results of this
is that after the diet you're body is still in survival mode and you'll regain the weight you lost really fast.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

So everyone that I know that claims to be a fat person that's lost significant weight is full of shit? Every "FFB"(Former Fat Boy) out there is just a shill for the weight loss companies? Nobody can ever keep off their fat?

I mean afterall: It's damn near impossible for a fat person to lose weight and keep it off. It's fucking miraculous if they can do more than 10%. What's it matter anyway, they'll just pig out and get fat again later.

You're just deluding yourself man. I can accept that fat people may get back into old habits that get them fat again, just like drug addicts and alcoholics. Using that as an excuse to not even bother quitting though? Should every alcoholic say "fuck it man, I'm just going to relapse anyway"?

Re:Well... yeh.

[plastbox]

Heh, I get a bit.. ranty when people are discussing stuff like this. I don't think I was accusing you of being unable to improve yourself. If that part was aimed at anyone in particular, it'd be poor syousef who is completely unable to lose weight and be healthy, even though his inability to do so means his wife who he loves will be left alone for 30 years after he shuffles (or rather, rolls) off this mortal coil.

Have a nice day! I'm heading home for some eggs or cod filét, then it's off to the gym for my almost daily Endorphin rush! =D

Re:Well... yeh.

[Hurricane78]

On the other hand I have a huge problem eating small portions. If I do I literally walk around voraciously hungry.

Because it's so totally incredibly *wrong* to eat small portions. It only makes you fatter in the long term.
There are rules to a diet:
1. Never do a diet. Do a *change in diet*. For the rest of your life.
2. It *has* to taste *great*. It has to taste better that what you ate until now. Because obesity is mostly a psychological problem. Luckily, you can get used to nearly any food, so that it will taste great after you are used to it.
3. You have to be able to eat as much as you like. Which means it has to have a low energy density. Look up the glycemic load (Not the index. The load!) in a table. The reason is, that when you are hungry, you *will* get a ravenous appetite. There is no way around it. Also your body will switch to "emergency mode", transforming parts your main organs into energy. That this is not healthy should be clear. Simply put: The slower your food releases its energy, The better.
4. Vary your food. Or else you will get deficiencies of vital substances (not only vitamins & co.) and become sick in ways that will show years later, with no way to trace it back to the original reason. Processing of food is essentially the opposite of diversifying, because it refines the food, removing all the vital substances.)

So in a nutshell: Eat the least processed, most tasty, most diversified food with the least amount of energy released per time. And eat until you feel full and happy. For the rest of your life.
And you will not only reduce your weight, but in the process become more happy any more healthy too.

Now the catch: To get used to your new diet, you have to go trough the natural phase of inertia. Just like when you change the direction of your car. Which means it will be painful (slowing down the car) at first, but you have to go trough it, like with everything that you change in your life. But as soon as you are over the "hill", you will go faster and faster.
You notice that you are over the hill, when you begin to miss your new diet when you are not eating in that way. Just as you missed your old diet before.

Oh, and learning to cook is a huge helper. And I mean to *really* cook. Not put some bag of ready-made something in a pot and heat it. I mean seasoning things like an artist. I found it to be great fun, and now Italian girls tell me that my "ragù alla bolognese" is better than that of their grandma/ma.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if you'd be so self-righteous if you found yourself tied to a soul-killing job, trying to keep up the mortgage payments on a house and support a wife and kids, AND ALSO weighing 300 pounds, with all the physical and mental abuse that brings in this fat-phobic society.

Put yourself in the guy's shoes, moron. You life that life, day in and day out, and THEN you sit there and tell me what you told him, in the same self-righteous judgemental ABUSIVE tone of voice. Then maybe you'd learn a little compassion.

But somehow, I doubt it.

Re:Well... yeh.

[grub]

Well said.

All the "my body is special" whining won't change the fact that you don't see many fatties in the old folks' homes. Most of them were planted years before old age.

.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude if 30 minutes a day worked for me, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The only couple of times I have lost weight in my life I lived on salad and lean meat/chicken in tiny portions and did AT LEAST 2 hours of heavy excercise a day. Anything short of that doesn't cut it. What's worse is when I've stopped it's taken a couple of months of eating reasonable portions and not excercising as much to put on all the weight I've lost over 6-8 months AND add some more kilos as the body overcompensates. Now you can choose to believe me or not. I'm guessing not. That's up to you. I happen to know for a fact that I'm not lying. Meanwhile I CAN'T keep that up while working 10 hrs a day 5 days a week plus some weekends, spending 3 hours a day in commute, doing chores till midnight when I get home and helping to raise a family.

Your metabolism is all fucked up. I bet you eat 3 meals a day, but they're huge meals, right? Eat smaller portions but much more often, and it will speed up your metabolism. 3 set meals, with snacks all day in between.

See, if you go for a long time between meals, your body thinks food is scarce and slows your metabolism, no matter how big your meals are. If you snack a lot, your body thinks food is plentiful and your metabolism speeds up.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to thank you for referencing fitday.com. I had been looking for a decent tracking site (even started writing my own in frustration) but this site fits the bill! Thanks a million! My gf and I just signed up now.

Re:Well... yeh.

[drewtheman]

If you're serious about losing weight you should not take dietary advice from some random slashdot poster and see a dietitian i.e. a qualified professional. Low carb, high fat & protein diets are a recent fad. There are other diets which work, and are better for you. A professional will be able to pick something appropriate to your situation.

I hope you do know that for millions of years humans did not consume anything with a lot of carbs in it? No grains, no potatoes and no HFCS and the fruits were quite subpart to what we know now. I've been reading on all of this for 2 years and I think that the dietitians are full of it. A specie does not evolve eating tons of meat with all the fat that come with it to replace that no problem with carbs. So no, eating low carbs diet is no recent fad, it's 3 millions of year life style and evolution. Ten thousands years of gradual ramping up of agriculture will not change that. It's simple logic, no need of a dietitian for that.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Two points.

First its is true that Americans in general can not tell the difference between hunger and thirst. Surprised? You shouldn't be, your body does extract fluids from various foods so it does sate that urge but the extra calories and carbs obtained also need to go somewhere. Whereas just drinking a LOT will fill you up. Try drinking a gallon+ of water a day and then see if your able to stuff in any food after that. Water is VERY easy for the body to unload, either through sweat or just through urine. Unlike fat cells which need to be broken down first and then converted into energy.

Second is the speed of eating. Ever notice if your having a deep conversation with somebody for a long time over dinner you have a harder time finishing your plate? Your stomach has about a 30 minute delay before it tells your brain your full. And often in the obese people they have trained this reaction to be suppressed entirely so they end up always feeling hungry. This is more like a bad habit like smoking than a purely genetic condition. You get a psychological addiction. Try eating smaller portions very, very slowly. I go to a buffet and I do not load my plate up, I have a couple of items with space between them. Thus I don't feel any psychological urge to clean my plate even if I'm full. (The whole starving children in Africa bit)

Re:Well... yeh.

[dwpro]

Most of the suggestions are, eat moderately, exercise, have accountability for yourself. These are not "medieval" attitudes, this is good advice. Your contemporary "take medication for whatever ails you" attitude isn't helping until we find a pill that fixes all of the health problems associated with obesity. Until then, we can do like we did with ulcers and treat the symptoms, so to speak.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

No offense, but after your tear-jerking ego-booster that you use to prove to yourself that you have self-control, you go on a large rant that is full of nothing but excuses.

You could make time for the gym? Then do so. If that's too hard... simply start walking more. Got a spare 20 minutes? Walk somewhere. Make it a brisk walk, a power-walk even.

But the number one tip is going to be... PUT DOWN THE FORK. You'll be very hungry? DUH! Years of over-eating have stretched your stomach. You need to -stop- eating large quantities so that your stomach can begin to shrink down to its proper size. At first, you'll be starved all the time... then you'll start to find it takes less and less to fill you up.

Of course, these are all things any personal trainer (or for that matter, anyone with 30 minutes and a web browser) could tell you. Maybe if it bothers you that you're fat, you should talk to one? Otherwise... enjoy your damn flu.

Re:Well... yeh.

[electrosoccertux]

I'm not doing 2hrs/day of excercise, I only work out about 2x a week for ~an hour. It's more a hang out time really.

If you can eat less for about a week, it becomes exponentially easier. I use to eat so much-- I'm 22, and started getting the love handles. Now I just eat a PB&J sandwitch for lunch (with a lot of peanut butter, on whole grain/high fiber bread-- protein and fat and fiber are filling and stay with you) and smaller portions for dinner. It was hard for about 3 days. Your stomach lining replaces itself every 3 days-- if you can keep up the eating less for a week or two, it will take less to make you feel full. The stomach shrinks. It's harder to eat like I used to.

When you eat the high protein and fiber stuff and start eating less of it, you can fill up on water to deal with some of the emptiness feeling that's there for the first few days.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, weight training could help you quite a bit. No matter what you do fat just sits there on your body contributing nothing. Muscle, on the other hand, is a mass of living cells that needs constant nourishment. Even at rest, the more muscle you have the more calories you will be burning. Yes, it is called bulking but overweight people lose weight for a while first.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, I am skinny. I lift weights 6-8 hours a week and eat 4-5 times a day and I still haven't broken 150 pounds. I'm the opposite side of the same coin, you struggle to lose it, I struggle to gain it. If either of us relaxes and slips back into old routines we lose whatever gains we've made.

Re:Well... yeh.

[saleenS281]

Not only are you unmotivated, you're ignorant as well. Weight training isn't "just for bulking up". In fact, I do barely any cardio nowadays, maybe a couple runs a week in the summer. Nearly all of my time is spent in the weight room, and if you utilize the proper workout techniques, you *WILL* lose weight.

Weight loss IS as easy as he makes it out to be. People, just like you, are just too busy making up excuses as to why it's "too hard" or they "just don't like it". You said it yourself, you have a bum ankle so you won't do the walking. And you "hate" the gym so you refuse to workout. Those are excuses, and they aren't very good ones. Apathy on your part just further proves it's a lack of willpower on the part of obese people.

I personally lost 40lbs when I started getting back into the gym after being a lazy SOB for nearly 6 months. I'll be the first to admit it was ENTIRELY my fault. Now, I could've continued being a lazy SOB, and continued to pack on the pounds. Fortunately, I don't make excuses, and I don't walk around feeling sorry for myself. I got off my ass and did something about it.

Hell, I watched my cousin-in-law drop over a hundred pounds in the same fashion I dropped 40lbs. He was *ALWAYS* the "fat kid" growing up. Shockingly enough, he got tired of it, started working out religiously, stopped eating like a pig, and now has what most would consider an athletic build.

Now that I'm done with the berating, here's a good place to start. And you can skip the leg workouts and replace them with pool time, and use an elliptical for your cardio days. http://www.abcbodybuilding.com/13weekfatburningworkout.pdf

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Move along, move along. Nothing to see here. Just another fat ass in denial. Move along.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Hijacked Public]

That is something along the lines of what Dan Duchaine describes in his book Body Opus. Essentially Atkins priciples applied to athletes who aren't 'fat'.

It is very useful for reducing body fat while maintaining muscle mass, or at least for me it was. Several friends and I did cycles of his diet for months on end while in the USMC and none of us suffered for it. We weren't diabetics of course but our blood ph never wacked out.

Re:Well... yeh.

[electrosoccertux]

Yes we all are different. I am not as smart as most of the other guys in my class. I go to one of the top 5 engineering schools and am enrolled in the supposedly first-or-second-most-difficult-engineering major there.

However, it's still my responsibility to pass and learn the material. Am I going to tell the job recruiter "well they're smarter than me, I'm just not that way, but you should hire me anyways"?

At the end of the day, there are people starving in Africa, and there are people who not only can't control themselves enough to restrict intake, they try to pass the blame by saying it's not possible and that they're genetically deficient.

I am responsible for me. You are responsible for you.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, perhaps you're obese because you have an overly active appetite, which may be the result of a number of other factors. But the vast majority of people are not like you. They are fat because they, since childhood, have formed positive associations with eating, or negative associations with exercise (not gym exercise, I'm talking about sweeping out the garage or walking around the yard kind of exercise). They are fat because they have little concern for themselves, and the ultimate cost burden that it places on everyone else's healthcare.

I'm short. I'm not tall. No matter how hard I try, I can't make myself taller. So if I'm going to live in a house with 10' ceilings, and if my top cabinet height is 8', then I'm going to have to own a step ladder. My aunt's boyfriend is nearly 6'10, and he can reach the top shelf with ease, but I can't. It's my plight in life.

Yours is that you're fat. So maybe you don't get to eat like some other people do. Your plight is obviously a bit more difficult to live with than mine. But that doesn't make it any less YOUR problem and not MINE. However, I'm expected to bear a disproportionate amount of YOUR healthcare costs. That's how the current insurance system works.

I'm happy to see something that kills fat people more quickly than fit people. If something comes along that disproportionately kills short people over tall people, I'll smile alongside Darwin. It's called Natural Selection for a reason.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Evtim]

That was fast! Maybe too fast? I lost 15 kilos in 6 months simply by cutting the fuzzy drinks to zero and 2 times a week 1 hour in the gym. Despite the gradual loss of mass I did have a period with similar complaints as yours. My character did change, I became more nervous and edgy. I felt underpowered, my hearth was weaker and so on...however, this passed after a while and I stabilized at my optimal weight. I have struggled with those excessive 15-20 kilos for almost a decade and every time when I lost mass too fast I gained it back. Not now though; 3 years later I am still stable. There was something I remember seeing on a BBC documentary about the fat deposits in the body. The conclusion was that after a certain threshold you simply couldnâ(TM)t get back to âoenormalâ. I think it was because the fat capsules once created never disappear, only shrink and expand. The bottom line is never allow yourself to become too fat; itâ(TM)s a one way road. I hope they are wrong, for the sake of the people who have this problemâ¦. Sorry for the extremly stupid question, but how do you create a new paragraph in a post? I tried /n - well you can see the result...ohh shit, the rest is also messy, quatations, strikes, parences. HELP please, where is the f...ing manual, I must be the only one around who haven not red it...

Re:Well... yeh.

[Kismet]

In my somewhat un-researched and largely intuitive opinion, the most religious medical arguments on the planet are just opposite what you have described. I find it difficult to swallow the notion that so much pathology is completely unrelated to environmental causes, including those causes that we have significant control over. Oddly, the only cures for these no-fault maladies are synthetic substances invented by scientists in some pharmaceutical laboratory. It strikes me that, if this is our modern fatalistic view of human health, it's a miracle we're even here as a species. Biological evolution has largely failed us by leaving out so many important defenses that we only now can artificially provide for ourselves. No, I claim that illness is largely a human art. All of the great plagues and diseases might have been mitigated with better hygiene, better nutrition, and fewer risky habits. If we were less urban and less artificial, I think our health would greatly improve. It appears that artificial medicine is merely a reaction to artificial living. Like many of our great social and economic machines, the medical establishment tends to be a self-regulating, self-preserving entity. The medical industry requires adequate input in order to maintain a healthy, robust profitability. We can be assured that it will continue to provide us with ample synthetic treatments for all of our ailments without actually threatening the supply of invalids. Rather, it will ease our symptoms and make us into satisfied repeat customers. A core belief in this religion of medicine, is that there is great difficulty in prevention and cure. Whatever happens to our bodies, at least we will know it probably wasn't our own fault (and so why worry about it?). A second article of faith possibly states that what we can do for ourselves will be artificial and costly. Ours is a reactionary, last-things-first system with built-in excuses: wait until you get sick (unavoidable), then require a highly trained medical team with state-of-the-art synthetics and equipment. We are now such deluded adherents of this format, that we begin to say it is our natural right to such artifice. And we begin to plan how we are going to provide everyone with last-things-first medicine.

Re:Well... yeh.

[steelfood]

The only couple of times I have lost weight in my life I lived on salad and lean meat/chicken in tiny portions and did AT LEAST 2 hours of heavy excercise a day. Anything short of that doesn't cut it.

There are other factors that you might not be considering. If you want to lose weight that badly, as somebody else said, you should consult a nutritionist. A nutritionist will take your entire daily routine into account and give you advice specifically targetted to you and your body. They'll catch even the most mundane things, like the condiments you use. Anywhere else, you'll just hear a lot of generalizations, which may or may not work for your specific body type.

But as everybody's offering advice, here's a few simple things that will help you lose weight, though it may or may not result directly in weight loss:

1) Stop consuming sweets. Soda, candy, etc. Completely eliminate sweets from your morning dosage of caffine. Don't even add the aritificial stuff. Use soy, low-fat, or skim milk as creme, nothing else. Drink water, bottled or tap, in place of soda. Cut snacks, period. Freshly squeezed, unsweetened juice is OK in place of water, but you should really eat fresh fruit.

2) I assume you drive everywhere. Don't use drive-throughs, and park as far away as possible while still in the same lot. Yes, you have a bad ankle, but that's not an acceptable excuse. Just pace yourself, resting your ankle as you deem necessary. Use braces for support if you need to.

3) Cut your proportions. If you're eating the same stuff every day, from the same place, try to leave a small amount of food uneaten each time. Slowly increase the amount of food you leave on your plate (this should be done over weeks or months, not in a day). It's wasteful, but necessary. Maybe you can give it away. Don't take it home, unless you've left enough for a second meal, in which case, the next meal should be purely those leftovers.

4) Try to get up every hour or two at work and walk around. You don't have to have a purpose to walking around. Say hi to your coworkers. Don't go to the snack machine, the coffee machine, or whatnot during these walks. You can get some water though if you're thirsty. In fact, if you're one of those people who have water bottles that you fill up once and then sip for the rest of the day, replace it with a smaller mug.

And then try to fit in an exercise routine and look for a specific diet plan as time and opportunity permits. But there's no reason you can't do at least the first three of the above. All four have minimal impact to your health, financial, and time situation, so if you're serious about losing weight, there's really no excuse to not doing these. As I said, you might or might just lose weight as a result of doing these things, but they will help a huge amount if you decide to go on a certain diet or start a routine workout.

Re:Well... yeh.

[mblase]

It's like looking at a dyslexic person and saying it's just a matter of self control when it comes to reading.

Dyslexics can and do learn to read. They just need to be taught in a different way, because the written-letter-to-phonetic-sound connection most people make easily has so be learned explicitly. With the right method, they can read as well as anybody.

Similarly, obese people can and do lose weight. They just need to develop a different outlet for their cravings and make a conscious, calculated effort to stop eating at a certain number of calories.

Every human being is predisposed to want to eat and pile on weight. It's a survival tactic that all animals have to prepare them for lean times, which, despite what some people think, still exist for humans in abundance. The trick is to use your human intelligence to keep it under control.

For some people, this is easy--they feel more pressure from friends to be thin than they feel from their own bodies to get fat. Or they've learned to get their dopamine rush from work or sports rather than from sugary and fatty foods. Or they've developed a drug habit which satisfies them without calories, although that's only a solution from a cosmetic point-of-view.

Remember, rich fatty sugary foods are good for you, as far as your body is concerned, because your body assumes they are in limited supply and wants you to be at an advantage when winter comes around. Your body is a simple chemically-driven animal. Your brain knows better.

It's not a matter of self-control, but of lateral thinking. Figure out what your body is really craving and figure out another way to get it. So what if it's harder for you than for other people? Take it from me, nobody cares about that part except you.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, until someone comes up with a pain-free way to avoid the inevitable: Let's toast to fast people dying young, so that we don't have to pay for their healthcare indefinitely!

Re:Well... yeh.

[eth1]

Dude if 30 minutes a day worked for me, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The only couple of times I have lost weight in my life I lived on salad and lean meat/chicken in tiny portions and did AT LEAST 2 hours of heavy excercise a day. Anything short of that doesn't cut it. What's worse is when I've stopped it's taken a couple of months of eating reasonable portions and not excercising as much to put on all the weight I've lost over 6-8 months AND add some more kilos as the body overcompensates. Now you can choose to believe me or not. I'm guessing not. That's up to you. I happen to know for a fact that I'm not lying. Meanwhile I CAN'T keep that up while working 10 hrs a day 5 days a week plus some weekends, spending 3 hours a day in commute, doing chores till midnight when I get home and helping to raise a family.

Eating those "tiny portions" for that long might have been part of your problem. If you run a large calorie deficit for too long (3-4 days), your body starts compensating by lowering your metabolism. This results in a plateau and overcompenstation like you mention. Ironically, you might have had better success if you were eating more during your diet. You don't really want to run more than about a 500 calorie deficit per day, and every fourth day or so, you should try to break even or run a small surplus to keep your metabolism from crashing. To do this, you need to figure out what you're actually burning, and may need the help of a doctor/dietician to determine this with a sufficient amount of accuracy. Two pounds a week is about the fastest you can lose weight healthily and long term. Anything that advertises "10 lbs in a week" or whatever is bullshit.

You should also do enough resistance training to avoid losing muscle mass (or even add it). Add cardio to burn extra calories. 2 hours a day will probably just result in over-training. 20 minutes of cardio before and after a 30 minute resistance workout every other day is probably plenty, but everyone's different.

Finally, it has to be a permanent lifestyle change, not a "diet."

Maintaining a healthy weight is simple, but I would never claim it's easy. :)

Re:Well... yeh.

[avandesande]

One thing exercise does do though is make you more aware of your body as a 'machine' and make you generally more interested in eating quality foods. Do something that is mildly (or more) competitive also helps.

Re:Well... yeh.

[blahplusplus]

I agree! I was just saying that you can't avoid people's prejudice, especially in this society with the media and whatnot we can't change other people's opinions but we can chance ourselves as to avoid their stupidity. It's an imperfect world.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to think like that too- but I now think that body type is extremely important. I eat A LOT. I mean when I make food its generally a two person portion, and I'm pretty slender, I've never ever put on weight in my life.
I love food and there's no way I'm going to criticise someone for being fat until I've tried going hungry, because I'm not sure if I could do it. And if you tried it and found it bearable, that could be just how you're made.

And as for 30 minutes a day to get slim? That's laughable. That's not "stupidly easy", that's just stupid.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

What about your wife or girlfriend? It seems like bettering yourself for her would also help you get motivated. Hell maybe she will want to exercise with you.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very basic, the more the food is processed, the worse it is.

so bacon is healthier than V8 juice!

Re:Well... yeh.

[James McGuigan]

The problem is that unless you are going to do fairly significant amounts of exercise on a daily basis, your will only burn a small number of extra calories compared to your base metabolism.

For a medium frame man, 6ft tall, you will burn through metabolism around 2059â"2574 calories without significant exercise.
http://ftp.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/rubberbag.html

An hours worth of walking will burn an additional 300 calories, swimming 500, and a hour of jogging will burn 700 calories.
http://ftp.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/exercise.html

To gain a pound of fat, you need to eat and accumulate about 3500 calories above your metabolic rate. To lose a pound of fat, you need to burn an additional 3500 calories beyond your food intake. A quick google suggests the figures for muscle are 3500 calories to gain, and 600 to burn (though not sure how accurate these are - though muscle is far denser than fat).

So to answer your question, exercise can make you lose weight, but its going to take 5 hours worth of jogging to lose a pound of fat, assuming that your weight is already stable and your food intake is balanced with your metabolic rate. An hour a day for a month, will burn about 6 pounds, but that assumes you don't get lazy and start skipping days.

However reducing your calorific intake and getting feedback by measuring the results (using a weighted average), will over a period of time, produce results with far less effort. This is what is meant by exercise is for keeping healthy, and dieting is for losing weight.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Marcos Eliziario]

Sadly, I have to concede you're right on the point.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post start off helpful, but then we get to this.

I'd rather die happy at 70 than suffer until 80. :)

You're obviously part of the problem. If you have health issues now (overweight, smoking, poor diet, etc.) you will not die happy. The 10 years of suffering you're expecting to avoid will happen between 60-70 instead of 70-80.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

This may sound like a joke, but its not.

I've watched my wife gain significant weight over the last ten years. Between four children and a genetic predisposition to being overweight, she now tips the scales over 300 pounds. I'd guess her bmi is pushing 50.

The most frustrating thing for me is the ignorance she expresses as she suffers through increasing major medical problems. Last year, she had surgery to relieve pinched nerves in her ankles. She wants her tonsils removed because they are causing her to snore. Then there was the cold that became pneumonia and eventually caused an enlarged heart.

Every issue can be directly attributed to her weight, yet she is in denial.

Re:Well... yeh.

[jbssm]

Well, unfortunately there are LOTS of crippled people in many African nations because of landmines or because of mutilation (some conflicts are so savage that they actually mutilate the civilian population in order for them not to be able to handle a gun).

Now tell me, do you see them getting fat?

No, because they have very little to eat ... and they surely don't have any Coka-Cola or any sweets.

So, sorry if I don't believe all that crap that so many obese people constantly tries to sell ... if you are obese, even for people that don't have the time/physical conditions that allows them to exercise more, it's because of their own self control. Eat less and mostly, eat better!

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

>Actually, losing weight has little to do with exercise. You exercise to be healthy, you eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight. ... and exercising means you're burning more calories. See how that works?

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anon for privacy reasons.

I'm overweight. No, I'm fat. Also, I'm on a permanent diet of 1600 calories, under medical supervision. I don't cheat on the diet. I exercise everyday, with an hour of high intensity cardio and an hour of easy weight training (not bulking up at all).

And here's the kicker: I'm still gaining weight! 310 pounds and counting.

I can't eat less or I'll faint. I can't exercise (much) more because I have a fulltime job in addition to the two hours of training each day.

In short, yes, I believe your story. Some people can't lose weight if their life depended on it. Too bad the skinny people can't see it isn't always so easy as they think it is.

Re:Well... yeh.

[kbielefe]

Those who are naturally skinny have never had to exercise real self control where food is concerned, and you're right, they don't understand the voracious cravings. I know, I used to be one until around 12 years ago, after which a change in my health and appetite left me 120 pounds overweight, despite my best efforts. Suggestions that you should just "decide" to eat less are laughable at best. Self control is useless if applied in the wrong direction.

Finally I learned the right direction to apply my self control, and have lost 77 pounds since last October, and it is by eating whenever I get the tiniest bit hungry, and eating foods I crave before the cravings get too big. The difference is that I fill up on foods with low calorie density and keep the portions low on the rest. Eating a big salad, waiting 20 minutes, then a small serving of ice cream is much more satisfying than either only eating the salad or only eating ice cream. With small enough portions on the unhealthy stuff and big enough portions on the filling foods, I can eat ice cream and fast food every day (and I pretty much do). Any craving except for breath can be put off for 20 minutes.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

You extrapolate from your own situation. That is not a valid method.

As told above, I'm under medical supervision, eat 1600 cals/day and do heavy exercise for two hours each day. Done so for years. And I'm gaining weight.

It isn't always a case of "put down the fork".

Re:Well... yeh.

[HiThere]

I'm sure that avoiding junk food is good advice...but it sure isn't sufficient.

Re:Well... yeh.

[JumpDrive]

I would normally agree with you here, but my wife (allergic to gluten) was told by a hospital nutritionist that oat meal would probably be okay. Well it wasn't and I had to listen to her all night barfing and moaning.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

about as tired as every fat fuck blaming everybody and world instead of them selfs.

There is also a difference between overweight and being FUCKING FAT. The first you can see outside of the USA, the later by going to Publix or Walmart.
While your 24/7 hunger may cause you to be overweight is is what you eat that turns you into a fat slob.

Re:Well... yeh.

[blahplusplus]

"Well, be careful there. I lost weight recently, and kept it off, and feel much better for it, but I didn't follow conventional wisdom, ie. the food pyramid + low fat + exercise."

Yes but few people are willing to radically change their diets. Diets matter no doubt about it, but exercise (even small to moderate amounts) is the key to overall better health (and I doubt you would dispute that)

You can eat healthy food + moderate amount of "bad food" once you lose the weight, most people gained weight in their youth and live with being overweight for a long period of time.

You can take it all off at once quickly with commitment over a period of a few months to a year (depending on how overweight one was) and then just do moderate maintenance (a few hours a week of walking/weights or whatever) and plus walking is healthy for anyone, bloodflow to the brain is increased and I do some of my best thinking walking for a few hours listening to songs and sometimes just shutting off songs and getting lost in deep thought.

The big thing is changing your habit, at first when you start to exercise it seems like a chore, but your body will physically adjust to your new routine once you've gone past roughly 2 weeks straight of doing it daily.

And once you see results and your entire life improves because of it (people treat you better all of a sudden, and you start really getting noticed) it keeps you from slipping.

The big thing is support hence I recommend to people to check out http://www.johnstonefitness.com/

For advice on the forums and whatnot, one can do it the diet way but most people are not willing to give up certain foods regardless they want to "live", since we are all dead in the end anyway, even the person who ate perfectly is going to die from contingency of physics and biology of aging whether that is damage or pre-programmed aging and cell death.

Re:Well... yeh.

[HiThere]

You don't understand what a complex system the body is.

E.g., I once went on a total fast (well, I allowed myself water) for a week. I gained weight. Measured on the same scale.

Now I didn't gain much, just about a half pound, and it was probably mainly water...but I *did* gain.

Recent research seems to indicate that a lot of the variations in weight loss/retention stem from the bacterial culture of the guts. I don't know if this affects feelings of hunger, and how and when they arise or not.

Re:Well... yeh.

[HiThere]

You *DON'T* cost society more to keep you alive. Society just doesn't keep you alive quite as long.

Actually, people who die sooner, on the average, cost society less. (Yeah, there are exceptions.)

Re:Well... yeh.

[DeusExMach]

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like a psychological issue...

Re:Well... yeh.

[HiThere]

So you're rich, and probably a teenager. This doesn't cause me to respect your opinions.

If you aren't a teenager, why haven't you learned anything in the intervening years? If you weren't rich, you wouldn't presume that everyone had access to a pool. (Admittedly, I do. I just hate the narrow lanes. They design them for people shorter than I am...or at least who have shorter arms. But MOST people don't have access. And of that MOST, a large proportion don't have the spare cash to be able to afford access.)

I'm a lazy bastard, and it's my fault I don't exercise more than an hour a day...less when my wife will occasionally let me get away with it. (She makes it up on the next day, though. Last night was over two hours.) And I've lost my taste for junk food over the last few years...got out of the habit (again thanks to my wife). But I do like to eat. More precisely, I have a mild compulsion to eat which I can trace back to my childhood. (Nevermind the details.) But if I avoid food, I don't tend to think about it. And I'm not a vegetarian...but I don't eat beef, pork is less than once every other week, and chicken is steamed and any broth used is skimmed. So it's portions...and starches. And I know.

But the idiots who say it's all will-power are still just idiots.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

While eating the correct amount and exercise are definitely part of the equation, they also need to find the right kind of food to eat.

It's not just about eating less, it's about eating the right things and what is right for one person is not the same as someone else. A large part of it depends on your genetics.

Some people come from tribes that mostly ate meat, if they eat even a slight amount of carbs then they get very fat. Other people have the reverse. Some need lots of grains or certain types of grains. Some tribes went for months with no food then gorged at certain times whereas others ate smaller amounts over a long period of time.

It's very variable and usually takes a good bit of work to figure out if you're already in a bad place (ie. you're already doing the wrong things). There is no one diet that works for everyone. "Eat less and exercise more" is not a viable solution. Our modern society has corrupted our diets. Maybe it's just part of evolution, maybe the surviving future generations will be made up of people who can either stay thin and healthy on a McDonalds diet or people who can stay healthy while still being grossly overweight.

Re:Well... yeh.

[euxneks]

How much did you weigh and how quickly did you lose that weight? I lost about 50 lbs over 2 years, going from 260lbs to 210lbs, and I feel great. I feel healthy, I have vigour and a lust for life. I've started to do more things now than when I was chubby. I enjoy the foods I eat and I feel great going for a walk. I like the fact that I'm not constantly out of breath, I like the fact that I can bike for hours on end.. It's a great feeling and it's puzzling to me why you don't feel that way either.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would always go around feeling hungry. ALL THE TIME. FOR MONTHS ON END. Now after a while your stomach can't take the food. If you eat a little more than you usually do, or if you eat anything with a tiny bit of fat or oil you feel ill the rest of the day. BUT YOU STILL FEEL HUNGRY. That's how it was for me. I kept that up for maybe 8 months.

I would always go around wanting a cigarette. ALL THE TIME. FOR MONTHS ON END.
How did I quit? DID NOT F***ING SMOKE. Dude it is hard. You have to be harder. After 15 years, I still on occasion want a smoke, especially at parties with Cuban Cigars. It really is a choice.

Re:Well... yeh.

[adamchou]

Rich? Hardly. In fact, I'm pretty damn broke. I don't have a pool at my place but I don't need one. Most cities have city pools that are available to use for a relatively low price. Then there are local private pools too that are also available but slightly more expensive. Then you have gym's too. Many gym's have membership plans that cost a little more than a dollar a day. Like I said, if he really wanted to do it, he could do it. Its just not in his priority list to get complete.

As for me being a teenager... why? because I flamed him? If you'll re-read my post, you'll see why I flamed him. I can't stand people that lie to us but more importantly, lie to themselves about why they can't do something; ie: making excuses. Perpetuating that mentality is even worse. I also brought up some very strong points as to why he's full of it. So I think I have a valid reason to flame him and tell him to stfu

As for your idiotic perception that its not mind over matter... You're an idiot for thinking its not. You're an idiot for thinking that just because you can easily deal with the hunger that someone else should be able to too. You're an idiot for thinking that just because you don't think about food all the time everyone else is just like you. For those people that are addicted to eating, they think about it constantly and for them, it is way more about mind over matter than anything else.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Fyz]

Have you considered that dieting just isn't the way to go? What you need is probably a shift in lifestyle and eating habits. It's a fact, like your link indicates, that crash diets just don't work in the long term. Almost any dietist will tell you that slow and steady is the one thing that actually works. It sucks, but if you want it bad enough, it's doable. Better, anyway, than convincing yourself that your problem is unsolvable and striking out at anyone who dares to tell you otherwise.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

Re:Well... yeh.

[holmstar]

Its true, but I've always noticed that it makes me active rather than hungry.

I notice it most often on Saturday mornings... If I eat breakfast, I tend to loose motivation to get things done around the house: in other words, I just don't feel like doing anything. And that can be a large hurdle to step over, even if it is only a mental one. If I skip breakfast, I seem to have unending ambition.

It makes sense from a biological perspective. If you are a hunter/gatherer, when you get up in the morning you have to go find your breakfast, it isn't just in the cupboard in the kitchen. If you don't go out and find it, then you will go hungry. So before you eat you have lots of ambition. Once you found your breakfast, you body wants to to slow down to digest and conserve energy (why expend energy if you already ate?).

For this reason I usually avoid breakfast on weekends. I get WAY more done if i do.

Re:Well... yeh.

[holmstar]

The other thing I've noticed is that if I'm working hard (physically) i don't tend to feel hungry, even if I haven't eaten in several hours. I DO tend to feel hungry if i stop working and take a break, but as long as i'm moving, it seems to suppress feeling of hunger.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Optimus6128]

Yep, I just have to agree on that. It's similar to some dude who just quit smoking and now goes bothering the rest of the smokers that it's not good.

There is one thing I can understand. All those people who say they went through the same thing too, shouldn't they still have awareness what a huge thing that was and how hard it was to overcome it? I mean, if I ever manage to do a much better effort and actually loose that weight, will I forget the struggle and simply come back and bitch other fat people? I see this attitude very frequently, not only in weight loss problems, and I don't get it..

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those things you listed are all choices. Quit the job, divorce the wife, etc. No one is forced to be fat. People choose to be and then act like they didn't choose the life they are living.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

What you aren't getting from him, is the simple difference in viewpoints.

He has a family, he has other things of importance to him. Now, I'm sure you are single, or if you are dating, you definitely don't have a kid. Because only someone without others to be responsible for could speak in absolutes.

I'll tell ya, I've done things that are extreme in my life. Years ago. I agree with the statement that if your main goal in life is to lose weight, you will lose weight. But what about a real life? Not the one you live, with few if any attachments to any human being besides yourself (I bet you can't wait for the next paycheck to come in to get some toy). What about when you have a kid at home, who needs to learn algebra, or even just wants to be around you? What about when you have a wife that needs your help to even be able to get dinner on the table for the kids?

You are speaking from a mindset that cannot and will not understand his. And that's just the fact.

Re:Well... yeh.

[drerwk]

...and that some of the components of that energy burning come from water and air.

Well, the oxygen required for cellular respiration comes from the air, yes, but that's all.

It's even better, one breaths in O2 and out CO2. So that weight loss with every breath. He just need to breath more. Oh, and not eat so much.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Spy Handler]

People who think it's a simple self control issue are idiots.

Just as an anecdote: fat kids who get drafted into the army (I'm using South Korean army as an example, but probably applies to most non-western armies) shape up fast. They are only given the same standard rations as everyone else, and you have 10 minutes exactly to eat your food. Haven't finished your meal yet? Too bad, mealtime is over. Sneaking out some Twinkies to snack on later? Get caught and you'll get beat up. Literally, the sergeant will beat the crap out of you. Too tired, can't keep up with the rest of the platoon on the 5 km march? More beating (*SLAP*).

Yes, it IS a self control issue. When control is imposed on them from outside (with physical pain as punishment), the fat kids all lose weight. After they leave the army, they fall back to their old ways again and gain the weight back, usually. Some don't though.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Odin's Raven]

I should also say I lost 35kg in 4 months.

You mentioned up above that you'll be consulting with a doctor, and that's an excellent idea - the sooner the better, in fact. I can almost guarantee that s/he'll tell you that you're losing weight far too quickly.

Obviously you should take the advice of your own physician over a random /. person like myself, but basically you're starving your body right now - and that's not good for either your short- or long-term health. The general heuristic I was given when I embarked on my own weight loss program was to start the cutbacks gradually, and work up to an average reduction of around 0.5-0.75 kg/week, and to avoid dropping more than 1.0 kg/week.

Now everbody's different, but I've lost about the same amount of weight as you did (35kg), but I followed my physician's advice and I spread that out over an entire year - and I've been much happier with my day-to-day life than you seem to be. I don't crave extra food for no reason. And I've got more energy than ever. I still have another 5-10 kg I'd like to take off, and I'm absolutely looking forward to doing it. As in so many things, moderation can be important. Ramping up the weight loss gradually will help tone down those cravings for large amounts of extra calories, and also help you fine-tune your food intake requirements as you reach a safe and healthy weight loss rate. What I used to consider a "normal" meal a couple years ago is something I couldn't even finish now, at least not without feeling uncomfortably overstuffed/bloated. (And I'm sure that what I consider "normal" now would've seemed horribly meager a couple of years ago.) Make changes gradually and your body will adapt more easily than if you try to impose extreme changes in your food intake all at once. Gradual adaptation means less withdrawal issues, less withdrawal means happier overall lifestyle.

Keep with the weight loss, just go at it a more gradually - it's not a race, there's no prizes for finishing fastest. :-)

Re:Well... yeh.

[skrolle2]

The long term success rate is bad, not because cosmic rays or fairy dust makes people fat again, but because people stop caring about their weight again, and go back to the same old bad habits that made them fat in the first place.

Your argument is fatalistic, you say that since the statistics show that long-term weight loss is so rare, you might as well not even try in the first place. But that way you've just set yourself up for failure again. Long-term weight loss is possible for everyone, but it requires effort and determination not luck to beat the statistics.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm now angrier; I'm now constantly hungry. I have no energy. I can't focus. I'm not getting the stupidly large amount of calories that my body is used to and there's nothing I seem to be able to do to compensate at the moment besides eating more cheap calories. My work and personal life are suffering all because I decided to put the food down and start jogging.

And yes, I'm scheduling time to see a doctor and all of those specialists which I'm sure I'll be referred to. The fact still remains - I may look better, but I feel like shit.

Mate, you need to take up smoking. It'll calm you down and suppress your appetite.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

> My work and personal life are suffering all because I decided to put the food down and start jogging.

Have you tried doing activities that are more social than jogging? Tennis, soccer, ultimate frisbee, martial arts, etc, can be laid back and fun (maybe not martial arts for laid back :P ) but still involve lots of exercise. Try going to your local community college and taking a beginner [any sport that sounds fun to you and has other people it in] class. You'll have fun trying to improve your technique or get the ball before it goes out of bounds, talking and laughing with new people instead of feeling bored. Exercise is supposed to be fun, but it's sad how many people think of going to the gym with headphones as a default.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Rich0]

I suspect we don't really know the reasons for the national differences. Some of the recent studies on epigenetics suggest that what your parents/grandparents eat can impact your risk of obsesity. Perhaps some kind of food was popular in the USA 50 years ago and we're paying the price for it now? With WWI/II I wouldn't be surprised if nutrition levels in the US were much higher than in Europe for a significant portion of the first half of the century.

My concern with all of this is that everybody has an "explanation" for what the problem is (genetics/willpower/culture/evil-mcdonalds/etc), but there is little in the way of scientific evidence supporting any conclusion. It is almost impossible to do a controlled study on human diet, and the length of any such study could be measured in many decades if you want to look at epigenetic factors. Sure, any data is better than no data, but I'm very skeptical any time somebody has an easy answer.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Rich0]

The truth regarding food and lifestyle choices is that people are different because they have made different choices than you, and you yourself can make those same choices to change your lifestyle, they're not closed to you because you have created a wall you think you can't climb over.

Oh good - we have somebody offering "the truth." Can you care to indicate where this truth comes from? Was it given to you from on high? Did somebody actually do a controlled study to demonstrate conclusively that the only difference between people who are thin and fat is a matter of choice, and that it is equally easy for everybody to be thin?

What is it that is the same between these imaginary people who all are able to maintain a light weight? They all made the effort. Why aren't you?

I suspect I make as much effort to maintain weight as anybody who isn't neurotic about it. The one thing I love about the internet is that it seems to give people unique insight into the personalities of people that they've never met. :)

Let me guess, you put yourself into the big anonymous pile of "we give up". Am I right?

Nope - I try to regulate my eating, and often end up being hungry as a result. Sure makes life uncomfortable, but I can't see how it is doing my weight much good.

well, this pig flu shows you that you could die at 20, given you're fat enough

Somehow I doubt it would make much difference at my weight - I'm only moderately overweight and I'd have been considered downright normal at other times in history. However, I could die every time I climb into my car, and I'm ok with that.

What you need to do is to start thinking about food, you need to start thinking about what's good food, what's bad food, and how do you tell them apart.

Oh good. That's all there is to it! Everybody agrees that good food is good and bad food is bad. Of course, no more than maybe 2/3rds of the experts out there can ever agree on what belongs in what class. The complete lack of well-controlled studies on diet (you can't put people in cages like mice) doesn't help either.

Don't get me wrong - I'm glad that hard work seems to be paying off for you. I certainly am not claiming to have all the answers. The fact is that I have no more scientific evidence to back up my ideas than those proposing contrary views. My objection is that somebody does some study that shows some sign of a correllation between two variables and suddenly we finally understand the obesity problem. No nation on earth has been able to stamp out smoking and that isn't even controversial and isn't rooted in a basic biological need. Short of some kind of advance in knowledge or medicine that makes it easier to lose weight than to gain it, I doubt that the obseity epidemic is going away anytime soon.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Rich0]

Your post really amounts to a tautology. You suggest that we ultimately have to bear the consequences of who we are and what we do. Couldn't agree more. However, that doesn't really do much good for somebody who is geneticly disposed to be morbidly obsese any more than it helps to point out that somebody who is mentally retarded isn't going to end up being an engineer.

Why do you think so many people are obsese today? Do you think it really is because nobody is responsible these days? Why is it that we still are able to build bridges? Doesn't that take responsiblity as well? And why is it that many engineers are obese?

Re:Well... yeh.

[adri]

As I said in other posts - I wasn't intending to lose weight. I just stopped eating junk food and snacking on carbs, and started jogging a bit. The rest took care of itself.

I thought it was as easy as that. It turns out its much more difficult. :)

Re:Well... yeh.

[adri]

I weighed ~110kg to ~120kg beforehand, and now I weigh 85kg.

I don't get out of breath anymore. I enjoy the fact that I -can- jog for 30-60 minutes whilst just getting slightly sore. None of this makes me feel better about life. I'm a musical type; creative problem solver and a tinkerer, that's what I get pleasure out of.

Re:Well... yeh.

[fractoid]

You'll note that, because mass is proportional to height cubed, being tall naturally gives you a higher BMI than your build would suggest. By my BMI, I was borderline clinically obese back when I was at my peak fitness, but I don't think I've ever seen an obese person bench 15kg more than their body weight. :)

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

> Yes, and most of us want to join the freaking
> army, eat rabbit food and excercise 2-3 hours
> a day for the rest of our lives. Yeah, that's
> real sustainable.

Actually, that *is* sustainable. But losing weight doesn't require that, and the poster was not suggesting that it does.

Why is it that you resist the notion of personal responsibility here? You said yourself that you successfully lost weight once, but that the effort was not worth the cravings you had to endure.

There are plenty of ways of dealing with the hunger pains. If you are intent on eschewing pharmaceutical remedies, there are many simply eating tricks that fill you up with water and/or fiber so that you don't eat so much.

And there is always vigorous outdoor activity like hiking and biking, and great sex, both of which not only are more enjoyable the less weight you are carrying, but also help to keep the weight off in the first place.

Sounds to me like you've made a choice, and are trying to justify it by insisting that you had none. You have a choice, man. It's your life.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Mr. syousef, continuing rants like yours make me wish /. had a moderation option called -1, Pathetic, because all the time you spent in this discussion typing comments, you could have moved your *ss and burnt some calories. At least get a gymnastic ball for the long hours in your cubicle, you know, the ones you can sit on. It will keep you in motion and activate some of the stabilizing muscles deep within.

Anything that follows will be up to you. Get rid of sugar in your diet, especially anything that refers to corn starch and syrup, get off the train one station earlier and walk some more each day. If I read someone's posting "Come back and tell me how well you're doing in 10 years." I know they never even meant to give it a try.

Re:Well... yeh.

[TheLink]

FWIW the Inuits (Eskimos) have managed to live quite well on a low carb diet (same for other hunter gatherers in places with low carb foods).

So much so that I think after so many generations on low carb diets, the Inuit "breed" of humans is more likely to have big problems with high carb diets (when all you have is a low carb diet, you're not going to kill off people who get mutations that make it harder to deal with carbs). Put them on a diet that includes fries+cola and they'll keel over faster than the average person.

Re:Well... yeh.

[manicmike66]

I had "swine flu" a few weeks as have most of my colleagues (Melbourne, Australia - work for large, boy-coloured U.S. corporation): How do you know you have had this without seeing a doctor? It was announced last week that 99% of all flu this year in Australia has been swine flu. Also that symptoms are "flu like" but not as bad as a regular flu (that's flu with the body aching and vomiting, as opposed to a head cold which isn't even close). Doctors have said that the regular flu kills more people than swine flu. When I got infected, the medical clinic receptionist said to stay in bed and sleep it off (presumably they had patients who were actually sick to worry about and not a swine flu hypochondriac). Was bed-ridden for 24 hours (slept the whole time) then fine. The only hangover symptom was the need for more than usual amount of sleep for weeks later. Nearly all sufferers have been in Melbourne, and symptoms are usually mild. From what I know, in all previous pandemics the people who caught the first wave usually survived (great plague of 1664-1665, 1918-1919 flu pandemic). Not sure if the increase in fatalities here is that the number of sufferers has increased so much or that the strain is mutating, but getting in early has historically been a good defence. Oh, and yes, everyone who has died here of it has been morbidly obese. Losing weight is easy if you have the right attitude. Everyone in my family's fat except me (but I grew up fat). Carbs are a drug. More accurately they cause a drug (insulin) to be released (to turn the sugar in the blood into fat or energy), which in turn makes you hungry. A good analogy to the addiction is alcohol: If you see that you're drinking more each night and where it's heading, you'd stop drinking for a while. A few days later you don't get the urge to drink. Carbs are the same. Going on a low G.I. diet stops the insulin production and the cravings go away. From experience it's about a week. All of this is well documented, so good luck northern hemisphere: You have a couple of months to lose weight or the swine flu may well kill you.

Re:Well... yeh.

[WCLPeter]

Two words for you: Gastric Bypass...

Its drastic yes, but my sister had symptoms very similar to yours. She would eat like a rabbit, exercise like crazy, and *still* gain weight. The doctor had her on every diet you could think of, even top dietitians took a shot at it; nothing worked for her. She's just over five feet tall, so you can imagine how big she looks. She knew she was in serious trouble when she got close to 375 and couldn't walk five feet without the urgent need to sit down, if she had to go farther she'd have trouble breathing. She would break down and cry all the time because of the way people looked at her, they way she was treated, but mostly because she couldn't even take her kids to the park. Then there was the guilt because, despite her weight and how bad it made her feel, she felt hungry *ALL THE TIME*; sound familiar?

Anyway, her knees were bad, she slipped a disk because of the weight gain and her life was miserable. When her breathing troubles began, she already had bronchitis, she became seriously worried about not being able to watch her children grow up. So she went to the doctor and asked if there was *anything* they hadn't considered yet, she had honestly tried everything else, so the doctor suggested Gastric Bypass. She thought over it long and hard, discussed it with all of us, and decided to go for it. She drew up her will and powers of attorney, which is the first step in the process since the surgery does have *some* risks. Next came the dietitians, they had to show her the diet she would be living on for the rest of her life. Then came the psychologists, was she mentally prepared to handle the quick changes that her body would experience? Did she truly understand the lifelong changes she will have to make, the foods she will have to give up? To prove that she understood it, and that she was serious about making the change they asked her to loose 25 pounds, she lost thirty.

Having been given the go-ahead for the surgery, she wasn't allowed to eat any solid food for 30 days before it. So on her birthday, September 1st, knowing it would be her last time to eat a steak, we went to her favorite steak place and I bought her the largest porterhouse they could find, blue-rare just the way likes it, and watched her savour every bite over those next few hours. There was lots of crying, because she was giving up on her old life that day, but also laughing and tears of joy as she knew the choices she had made were worth it to have the opportunity to see her kids grow up with a mother they could be proud of.

On my birthday, Halloween 2008, she had the surgery.

Nine months later she simply couldn't be any happier. She's lost over a hundred pounds, down to about 245 now, and lost more than 15 inches off her waist; you should have seen how happy she was when was able to buy new clothes in the smaller sizes. The best thing for her though, she can run with the kids in the park without get winded nearly as quickly. The slipped disk in her back causes problems still, so she does have to sit down from time to time, but when she looses about another 50 pounds the doctors said they'll operate on that to fix it. Despite the pain in her back, she pushes through it and is much more active and feels really healthy. So much so, her family joined the "YMCA" and three times a week they all go swimming. While she's off doing her water aerobics, Dad plays with the kids.

The nicest effect from the surgery? She *NEVER* feels hungry anymore! She eats six *small* meals every day, her stomach was reduced to the size of a small peach, and gets full quickly.

If you truly have given everything else a shot, then talk to your doctor about this. It might not end up being right for you, but it never hurts to ask your doctor and see what your options are.

If you determine this won't work for you, then I encourage you to go and read up on how to live as a Diabetic. I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes last year, so I know quite a bit about "carbs, low fat,

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Acknowledging that fact doesn't help your argument the slightest, your body is still a function of your will, for the most part. You overconsume and don't move enough. You can't troll that away.

As for me, I'm not a bully, but I've seen enough people die because of obesity, read: cardiac arrests, severe asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, strokes, arthritis (sometimes people just fall from the sofa while trying to get up, break their leg or hip, and die because nobody finds them before the next day or two). Many of these would probably still be alive if they hadn't been addicted to food. So, if that's the path you're willing to choose, ok, my empathy is all yours, but just don't complain any more than smokers should when they are diagnosed with lung cancer.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Exception Duck]

Damn you!

Re:Well... yeh.

[electrosoccertux]

Ever notice that the obesity rates started trending up the moment we adopted the food pyramid? Grains and pastas should NOT be the majority of our calories. No high-glycemic index food should be.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

So everyone that I know that claims to be a fat person that's lost significant weight is full of shit? Every "FFB"(Former Fat Boy) out there is just a shill for the weight loss companies? Nobody can ever keep off their fat?

How many of those people did so 7-10 years ago?

I mean afterall: It's damn near impossible for a fat person to lose weight and keep it off. It's fucking miraculous if they can do more than 10%. What's it matter anyway, they'll just pig out and get fat again later.

I see you understand the concept of sarcasm. now do you understand the concept of a year? Can you count to 10?

You're just deluding yourself man. I can accept that fat people may get back into old habits that get them fat again, just like drug addicts and alcoholics. Using that as an excuse to not even bother quitting though? Should every alcoholic say "fuck it man, I'm just going to relapse anyway"?

Funny that some people need to do NOTHING to maintain their weight, but you're happy to ridicule and berate those that have a struggle on their hands. You could possibly compare it to alcoholism, except that I'd like to see how many alcoholics would last having to drink an exact number of drinks per day and no more. Abstinence from food is not an option.

I'm sorry you don't have either the compassion or empathy to get it, but that's YOUR issue.

Re:Well... yeh.

[syousef]

The long term success rate is bad, not because cosmic rays or fairy dust makes people fat again, but because people stop caring about their weight again, and go back to the same old bad habits that made them fat in the first place.

Please explain why some people don't need to do a damned thing to maintain their weight. Others in the meantime have to keep up super human efforts or you'll ridicule them.

Your argument is fatalistic, you say that since the statistics show that long-term weight loss is so rare, you might as well not even try in the first place. But that way you've just set yourself up for failure again. Long-term weight loss is possible for everyone, but it requires effort and determination not luck to beat the statistics.

Oh I see why I've failed to win lotto all those times. It's because I've been "fatalistic".

What a pure busload of BS. Facing reality isn't "fatalistic" its "realistic". You have no right to expect any fat person to lose weight. Nor do you have any right to judge them if they choose not to, or don't manage to. You're just looking for an excuse to fat bash. Blaming someone for something they have limited control over is stupid. One day an excessive apetitite and a metabolism that won't shift weight will be seen for the diseases they are, instead of just some fatties making excuses for having no self control.

You should be grateful if you don't have a weight problem, and more understanding if you do or have had one.

Re:Well... yeh.

[ukyoCE]

You forgot high-fiber foods, like whole grains and vegetables.

People think Atkins and the like means all carbohydrates are bad. The real problem is highly processed and refined carbohydrates that have 0 fiber and leave you feeling hungry again 30 minutes later.

A high protein and hight fat diet is just begging for acid reflux, osteoporosis, and numerous other health problems. Even Atkins advocates whole grains and vegetables after the initial starvation period gimmick that makes you lose a bunch of water weight (if you actually avoid carbohydrated ENTIRELY and your body goes into ketosis).

Of course, not like anyone actually reads the Atkins diet book, they just hear "eat meat and ice cream and lose weight!" and give it a super-half-assed attempt while claiming to everyone they're on a diet and trying to lose weight...

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly, Inuits also have a very high rate of Osteoporosis. This is because osteoporosis is caused by excess protein, not inadequate calcium. Hence why milk has never been shown to reduce osteoporosis, despite it having a lot of calcium added. It's the amercan all-meat-and-dairy diet causing osteoporosis.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cutting sugar from your diet and cutting all carbs from your diet are two very different things. It sounds like you're very confused.

Re:Well... yeh.

[ukyoCE]

There are a lot of things you can do to decrease hunger, if you're honestly feeling hungry all day. High-fiber and high-fat foods are good. Not getting calories from drinks (soda/juice and milk) also helps.

And this isn't very common diet advice, but drink coffee. Caffeine is an appetite suppressant, and it actually works really well. Even just 1 cup in the morning will decrease your appetite until lunch time or later. Great for those of us who sit behind a desk and don't burn enough calories to eat "normal" food portions.

Another caveat is that exercise increases appetite, so it's not a straightforward way to lose weight. Decreasing hunger and portions is much more reliable. But getting in exercise to increase you metabolism (and general health) is still a very good idea.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course I don't know the details of your situation, but people always say my wife "eats like a pig" too. She's 5'9" and always struggled to be 100 or 110lbs or so, which is technically an unhealthily low BMI.

But really, most people only saw her eat at restaurants and other events, and were "surprised" she ate about the same as they did. They don't tend to notice that she didn't drink soda or beer or other drinks with calories. And they don't know that she would typically skip breakfast and have a TINY lunch, and almost never eat snacks during the day.

Meanwhile the people around her who are fat and diabetic eat a huge breakfast, drink soda all day (even if its diet, diet soda still makes you gain weight), have whole bags of chips, cookies, etc., eat a huge lunch (an entire burrito from Chipotle, for instance), and then have beer or soda with a huge dinner.

Step 1 is always to count Real and Actual calories. Most people have no clue how many calories they're actually getting, nor how many they SHOULD be getting. For my desk job and lack of exercise, I have to avoid all soda+beer (except on occasion), I skip breakfast, and if I eat out, I can only eat about half a meal (For american-sized portions). Otherwise I gain weight. And this number of calories is still barely keeping me at a stable weight.

Re:Well... yeh.

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds like a pity, but you left out some important information: since when are you on that program? If it's only for some weeks or even months, keep going, it will show results sooner or later! Your gaining weight might well be due to new muscle tissue, and that will turn the process around soon (e.g. you'll start burning fat eventually).

Second: are you absolutely sure of those monitored 1600 calories? What about the little snacks during worktime, what kind of beverages do you drink? Have all those extras been taken into account? Try getting by with just water and / or black coffee during those hours.

Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[EQ]

BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[aristotle-dude]

BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.

So are you telling us that you are just big boned?

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Bromskloss]

BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.

What is the correlation between BMI and fraction body fat?

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[CyberSlammer]

"I'm not fat I just haven't grown into my body yet!!" - Eric Cartman

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[hedwards]

Actually in this case it's a perfectly valid way of looking at it. BMI was created for statistical analysis. And that's what it's being used for.

With the relatively small number of people that have died as a result of the H1N1 it's much easier to detect whether or not it's accurate for the group. But when doing models of how this is likely to shape out, the BMI is a perfectly legitimate way of doing it. The only other measure that's reasonable to consider is the waste to hip ratio, and that's not really designed for this.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Ironsides]

Or big muscled. According to this site, Hulk Hogan has a BMI of 31.9 The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) has a BMI of 34.3 Both of them fall under the BMI obese category. Seriously, The Rock is not fat.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[tomhudson]

Nah, they're going to blame it on the economy - you know ... inflation.

Or they'll just say that it's environmental - they live in the South

Why Are Southerners So Fat?

People from Mississippi are fat. With an adult obesity rate of 33%, Mississippi has gobbled its way to the "chubbiest state" crown for the fifth year in a row, according to a new joint report by Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Alabama, West Virginia and Tennessee aren't far behind, with obesity rates over 30%. In fact, eight of the 10 fattest states are in the South.

Another example of how you are what you eat ... and another reason to keep your BMI below 25.

The BMI is a useful tool in the sense that it helps get people to actually discuss the issue. Of course, the real test is with calipers. Can you "pinch an inch?" If so, you're carrying excess fat. If you have to use the jaws of life to remove the calipers, you're obese. If the calipers strike oil, you're a Southener.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[shadylookin]

BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.

for the vast majority of people who aren't body builders it's fine and it's easier to calculate than body fat percentage.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Threni]

"It's a huge problem." according to TFA. Only person in the UK has died from Swine Flu with no 'underlying health problems' - perhaps they were being polite and they were lettuce dodgers?

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[maxume]

Wikipedia puts Dwayne Johnson at 6' 4", 225 lbs, for a BMI of 27.4:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwayne_Johnson#Training_and_Rocky_Maivia_.281996.29

I'm not sure the Hulkster has ever been real healthy.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[antifoidulus]

Right, in all cases. Meaning measuring BMI isn't necessarily useful for an individual(esp. very short and very tall individuals), however for macro evaluations of a population's obesity rate BMI can be very useful, largely because its incredibly simple(and cheap) to measure.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but one would probably know whether one's high BMI is due to much muscle or not.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Hillman]

"The BMI can also be used as a predictor for BF%. Several studies have demonstrated a good relationship between the BMI and the amount of body fat if age and sex are accounted for. When using such age- and sex-specific equations perfect body fat can be predicted with an error of 3-5%, an error comparable with the prediction error of skinfold thickness of impedance measurements."
Handbook of obesity: etiology and pathophysiology
George A. Bray, Claude Bouchard

I don't know if the BMI in the article accounted for sex and age. But the correlation between BF% without age sexe varies between 0.6 and 0.8. High enough to take in consideration.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Broken scope]

BMI is a perfectly equitable measure for a society which predominantly sedentary, however it has been misused and abused on a regular basis.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Overzeetop]

BMI is a good measure of a population as a whole, but not necessarily applicable to individuals. Body fat is a better measure, but is significantly more difficult to measure accurately, and accurate methods are not economical for regular (semi-weekly) tracking of your condition.

It is, sadly, fairly accurate for most people (I'm presuming better than 80%), but it has been modified for many reasons. Most people would say that (as of a year ago) my BMI of ~27 was far from obese (6'-0", 202lbs, 35"-36" waist). I was not in good physical shape, but was moderately healthy and I ate reasonably well (for an American). I was incredulous of my obese status. Now, over a decade ago, that was considered normal. About ten years ago, I became "borderline". Four or five years ago, I was reclassified as obese. As I understand it, the traditional BMI crossover from normal to obese was 27.2, but that's "too hard a number to remember" so they (WHO, I think) changed it to 25 so that the health care professionals could remember the right number easier. I feel feel sorry for all the doctors and nurses who can't seem to memorize a number of equal difficulty to their area code.

About 8 months ago I started working out. Slowly. In those 8 months, I've dropped 15 pounds, increased my stamina to swimming a mile twice a week, and do light lifting (my 7 year old likes to sit on my back and have me do push ups). I'm still overweight by BMI standards...and I've realized that I _am_ still a bit overweight. I've still got a roll around my middle that's not exactly attractive. An "ideal" weight for me, I think, would put me close to 180, or a BMI around 24.5. When I drop another 7 lbs (prob 8 lbs of fat and add a lb of muscle), I'll be pretty happy. My wife's Wii Fit wants me to be 162 (BMI-22). 162lbs would likely take some hard training and I'd be back to doing triathlons on a regular basis (which I did at 195lbs 15 years ago). At 40, that's not going to happen.
almost certainly overweight. If you're over a BMI of 25 and you think you're in such good shape that BMI is bullshit, you probably know your body fat percentage, so BMI doesn't matter since you have a better index.

Sadly (for most people), the BMI is a valid statistical tool for judging populations. It's taken me almost a year to open my eyes and realize that I fall withing the typical body type demographic.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Quothz]

BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.

Bogus, no; misleading, sometimes. Someone with a BMI over 40 is always fat, however. Even a 7-foot tall, heavily-muscled man cannot achieve that without huge rolls of fat or a stomach full of ball bearings.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[BikeHelmet]

You mean waist.

Waste to intake ratio might actually be be another way to chart it. We'd have to do it, to find out. ;)

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[blind biker]

BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.

I generally agree that body fat percent is way more sensible, but at BMI of 40, we're talking about evident obesity. That, or phenomenal muscle mass, which wasn't the case here.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[nevurthls]

Glad they set the cut-off at 40 then, honestly there is nobody in the world with a bmi that high who is not extremely fat.
There are no borderline cases anymore when you get beyond 35.
Bmi is a bad measure for individual cases, because healthy muscularly people might fall into the wrong category, but when we are talking a population and we are talking a bmi of 40 there is no discussion.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

There aren't correlation. BMI is the relation between your weight and the square of your tall. Muscle weighs more than fat, because of this somebody can have more than a 25 BMI and not be obese.
On the other hand fraction body fat is, obviously, the fraction of your weight that is fat.

Sincerely, sorry for my English. I hope nobody want to kill me before this comment...0:-)

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Tubal-Cain]

For figuring out if someone is obese? Yes, it's a poor indicator.

But we're not trying to determine whether one is obese. We're trying to find a pattern for "Who is most likely to get horribly sick from swine flu". Apparently, BMI is a reasonably good predictor of this.

Though I agree that there will likely be a better correlation with those that have high % body fat than high BMI.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Calithulu]

I agree that Waste : Hip ratio and body fat percentage are the only other valid measures. If we got a body fat reading at yearly physicals (the same time that BMI is reported) we'd have better individual models.

However, given the low number of people I don't think we have enough of a population with H1N1 yet (though in September we might) to know whether or not the illness is actually killing the obese or if it is killing athletes. Granted it would be difficult as Hell to be in shape and have a BMI of 40+ so perhaps the point is moot.

For example, my bodyfat percentage is 20% but my BMI is 30.3. So apparently I am not a part-time athlete but am instead obese according to the CDC. By their standards the virus might have an increased effect on me, though I am in no way overweight. Once we have a higher population of people with that have been diagnosed statistical outliers like myself should just disappear in the results.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[FullBandwidth]

I agree - the fact that BMI was used at all in the so-called "study" means it has zero credibility and apparently wasn't performed by anyone with a medical or epidemiological background. There is no science at all behind BMI - read Devlin's history of it (linked in slashdot about two weeks ago) at www.maa.org/devlin

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

but if they stopped training 30 hours a week they are highly likely to lose muscle mass and become fat.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[benjamindees]

BMI is inversely proportional to height. So, I think you mean a 5-foot tall, heavily-muscled man.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

"what would shake out"...
How very scientific. Is the person who said that a scientist? Unbelievable.

Swine flu is a load of bullshit - there is no such thing - only NORMAL flu. There is 'pandemic', no 'epidemic', just renaming conventional flu as some kind if 'deadly' virus, to make billions of dollars for the scum in the government and their cronies in the 'vaccine' industry. Read Dr.Hadwen's speeches on the fraud of Jenner and 'vaccines'...

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[DerekLyons]

Seriously, these examples (from the far right hand side of the bell curve) say little about the general usefulness of of BMI in the general population.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Quothz]

I think you mean a 5-foot tall, heavily-muscled man.

Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. Just had it turned around backward in m'head.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[ClosedSource]

If the purpose is to determine if somebody is fat, then looking at them is probably just as good an indicator. On the other hand, if the intent is to tie the measure to a disease, then these measures probably don't mean anything at all.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Your high BMI is Gods gift to you, and one day you'll be _JUST_ like the Hulk. Don't let anyone tell you any differently!

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anarchduke]

Mississippi also is a relatively poor state. I tell you what. Why don't you try and house, clothe, and feed a family of four on a salary of 8 dollars / hour. Or lets say you and your spouse is working, and each person works at around 8 dollars / hour. If you are only working 1 full time job each, that puts your weekly gross income at 640 dollars / week. After taxes and insurance (if you are lucky enough to afford health insurance) you are probably pulling in about 500 / week. So you are getting around 2000 per month. A 2 bedroom apartment (if both children are the same sex) will cost you what, 700 a month? If its a 3 bedroom you can expect 850? so you have between 1300 and 1150 a month left. I am going to say there is 1225 left and split the difference.

Then there are utilities. Lets say electricity eats another 200 a month, and water about 75. Now you are down to around 950 a month left. Telephones? another 30 a month. Down to 920. Car payment, can't afford one, lets say you have a 20 year old clunker. Gasoline, how about 100 a month in gas. Down to 820 dollars. Or about 200 a month per person. We haven't considered car insurance, clothing, cell phones, cable or internet. Or credit card bills or anything else you may want to buy. Or any of the million emergencies that can eat up that remaining 800 dollars you have left.

Now, how much more expensive is healthy food that cheap junk food. Pasta is cheap. So you eat a lot of pasta. Do you remember all the Ramen you ate in college?

Researchers discovered to no one's surprise that a healthy diet can cost up to 10 times more than the crap food, junk food diet that the vast majority of people eat. So, is it any wonder that obesity is a problem? People buy lots of carbohydrate foods because they are cheap. That allows them to stretch their meager food budget to the end of the month, with only an occasional stop by the church food pantry to beg.

People, obesity is a problem because a lot of people eat crap food. As a result, they are hungrier more often and their body stores the crap food as fat. And when people are poor, they buy crap food. Mississippi is a relatively poor state.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

They're hardly representative of the general populace...hell, they're probably on steroids, or have been, in the past...

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[rattaroaz]

Or the BMI is being used without any context, and I'm not sure if that is ever a good idea. If anyone looks at The Rock, looks at his BMI, and calls him fat, I think the problem is with that person, and their lack of insight, not the BMI. BMI is simply a tool to be used in correct context. That does not make it useless, just useless out of context . . . just like everything else.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but supporting that level of muscle is not healthy either, right? I mean bodybuilders and professional wrestlers aren't known for their athletic prowess or longevity. Instead the insane amount of effort required to make that much muscle nearly kills them in the end and puts huge strain on their heart, just as if they were overweight with fat. Maybe more so!

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[tomhudson]

WTF are they running that electricity is costing $200/month? That must be one bad-ass 65" plasma TV. I thought you said they were poor?

There's no reason to eat just crap on $32k/year in a poor state where costs and taxes are lower than the more expensive states.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[jawahar]

Try percent body fat instead.

I agree. Healthy person's Low-Density Lipoprotein aka LDL is less than 160.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[cats]

Yeah it's not like Jack La Lane lived a long healthy life or anything...oh wai...

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[IrquiM]

No correlation exist

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[IrquiM]

Ok - I'm not going to argue that 40 in BMI is anything but obese, so in the extremities of the scale, BMI can be a valid measurement.

However, when you start to look at BMI around 30, you'll have to ignore the BMI results.

I've got a BMI of 29.something, but a bodyfat of 17%. A doctor told me to lose 25kg, which would give a good BMI, but an unhealty bodyfat percentage.

For extremities, BMI can be used as indications of over/underweight, 15-30, not at all.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[kamochan]

According to BMI, my wife is underweight and I'm overweight. She's structured like a bird, I'm structured like a bulldozer, and we both wear slim cut clothes... yeah, the BMI is a gross generalization, and should be treated as such.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[BlueParrot]

In the words of my doctor:

"BMI is mainly useful to diagnose underweight and detect anorexia. For obesity waist measurements are better."

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

BMI is a bogus and misleading measure. Try percent body fat instead.

What is the correlation between BMI and fraction body fat?

r = 0.7

So it's about right 70% of the time, wrong 30%.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[plastbox]

First of all, I assume you are a man. Values for bodyfat and such change drastically if you're not. =P

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a bastard here but I just have to say something. A BMI of 30.3 is achievable without being overweight, though the only person I have ever met who can claim this is a professional bodybuilder.

That being said, I kind of have to piss on your parade a bit. I don't know what the standards are over there in America, but in the rest of the world 12-18% bodyfat is considered the healthy range. I was at 16% this Christmas and had a bad "oh MAN!" moment when I realized it no longer helped much to hold it in. I still had handles, I still had a belly visible through a t-shirt. Again, I am terribly sorry for bringing this up, but at 20% bodyfat you either have a broken measuring device or you are, not only by my definition but by medical definition, overweight.

I'm currently at roughly 83kg, 11% fat, 25.6 BMI, which means I am packing at least a bit of muscle. Those numbers mean ~73kg lean body mass. If I had 20% bodyfat that would put me at about 92.5kg, or a BMI of 28.8. So congrats on having more lean body mass than me (damnit) but I was fat at 86kg, 16% fat. At 92.5kg, 20% fat I'd not freaggin leave the house! Sorry mate, now go to the gym and work all that muscle mass you have! =D

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[xaxa]

Researchers discovered to no one's surprise that a healthy diet can cost up to 10 times more than the crap food, junk food diet that the vast majority of people eat.

The words in bold are important there.

Just changing from chips (en_us fries) to boiled potatoes would make a meal healthier, but I still see people buying big sacks of frozen chips. I see people buying cigarettes and alcohol too, so their health (and their children's health) obviously isn't a priority. A pint of beer in a pub here is about £2.50, that goes a long way to improving a meal.

A bag of crisps (en_us chips) costs about 30p. An apple or orange costs about 25p. Both are common for a snack for children -- but most children seem to be given the crisps.

The cheapest burger in McDonald's is something like £1.20. That'd buy some pasta, an onion, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of chick peas, a pinch of herbs and spices, and serves two (sure, fresh tomatoes and another vegetable would be even better, but the burger has hardly any vegetables).

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Faerunner]

What about the far left side? I'm 5'9", 107lbs. My BMI is somewhere around 15.5. If you looked at me through a BMI chart, and not through my lifestyle, you'd think I was anorexic or seriously ill.

Now, I know I'm hardly a weight-lifting goddess, but I'm healthy. I can maintain a decent activity level. Even at my fittest and most muscular (running 20+ miles a week, cross country racing, weight training and swimming on the side) I was only 120lbs or so. According to the BMI calculators I need to be somewhere in the area of 140lbs to be "healthy"... uh, what? I have a smaller bone structure than some. My wrist measurements can prove that - I can't even wear most adult watches without taking links out of them. My personal goal is to hit 120 again and maintain that muscle mass... if I get higher through the exercises I'm doing, I'll be surprised. Never will I use BMI as an indicator of how healthy I am.

Fact is, BMI only works for the "average" people on the bell curve. I'd go so far as to say it's pretty out-of-whack if you're more than one standard deviation away from the mean, which means it only works for 68% of the population. That's an awfully shaky standard to base your lifestyle or dietary goals on.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Faerunner]

Here is a rough formula that will give you a relatively close estimate of your body fat % from your BMI: http://www.halls.md/bmi/fat.htm It correlates for sex and age. It isn't perfect (if you have a lot of muscle, or if you're like me and look anorexic, it'll be off by a small amount) but it correlated with another body fat calculator I found that used wrist/hip measurements to predict body fat percentage, which leads me to believe it'll be accurate for most of the population.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

Athletic builds are not held to the same standard as fatties.

You'd know this if you weren't "pleasantly plump," as they say.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[JobyOne]

There isn't much of a correlation. That's exactly the problem with BMI.

I'm a pretty lean guy, with about 9% body fat, but my BMI consistently hovers right on the border between normal and overweight, just because I'm also denser than most people. If I judged my fitness by BMI and acted accordingly I'd probably wind up hurting my overall fitness and general health by starving myself into losing muscle mass.

I think a lot of people do.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Calithulu]

I think you missed the point:

1) It is my belief, given the relatively small number of reported cases, that we don't know if the H1N1 virus is really killing the obese at higher rates.

2) From personal experience I can state that where BMI would indicate I am obese, I am not. If I had died from H1N1 it would have been chalked up to "it killed an obese person".

3) Thus, until we have a larger population diagnosed with H1N1 we can not necessarily determine that it is actually killing the obese. Granted a 40+ BMI is just about impossible without being obese.

That said, I never claimed I was not overweight. When I reach my target body fat percentage I will be somewhere in the mid-twenties for BMI. I apologize if I gave the impression that I was bragging, I assure you that this is not the case. At 20% body fat, though, I do happily leave the house. :)

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[nahdude812]

BMI is much easier to measure than % body fat. Accurate BMI measurements exist for pretty much every patient, while accurate body fat percentage exists for a very tiny fraction of patients. It is likely such a low percentage that it's plausible very few to none of the patients with swine flu have a recent value for this on record unless they were specifically involved in a medical study or are a fitness fanatic (neither is likely to be a representative sample).

The only reasonably simple BFP measurement is NIR, and that requires subjective responses from the patient such as activity level to complete the calculation. It also typically only measures a single site (such as the bicep), which can lead to a fairly low accuracy rate overall.

Most patients are not going to want to pay for DXA tests to accurately measure body fat unless it has specific relevance to treating them, and few are willing to undergo a submersion test.

BMI is not a good predictor (especially on an individual level; which is its typical abuse [such as for insurance calculations]), but it is still relatively effective for the purposes of statistical analysis (the percentage of people with high BMI as a result of substantial exercise vs obesity should be reasonably representative for a sufficient population size).

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, these examples (from the far right hand side of the bell curve) say little about the general usefulness of of BMI in the general population.

You would be surprised. Most average "everyday" people also fall into that category as well. The key is height. If your over 5'8, your BMI will be wildly off. (Same if your under 4'4). BMI is utterly useless for a good portion of people in the world.
[Slight Tangent] Not to mention the general size increase of the average human since BMI was invented (Hormones perhaps?) It also doens't take into account Muscle/Fat.
Doesn't count for ethnicity (Different people from different parts of the world are, gasp, different)
Doesn't count for age (Look at general BMI masses for age, notice a trend there?)
Doesn't count for sex. (Women are more on average "overweight" by BMI.)
Doesn't count for Location. (Those in colder climates tend to have more body fat. Those in warmer have less. Both are necessary for good health)
Doesn't count for ... ANYTHING

Read up on it.

I'd hope we'd come up with a better indicator than something developed by a bad mathematician in the 1830s while creating an equally BS theory of Social Physics.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[BigGar']

Not quite true, Noah Steere 6'6 - 350lbs = BMI of 0.4
http://www.wholefitness.com/biggest-bodybuilder.html

Though granted he's an anomaly; he is an counter example to your statement of "someone with a BMI over 40 is always fat."

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[daveywest]

As part of a weight loss initiative, the local hospital offered body fat tests for only $50. You must be under 300 pounds just to take the test. I know someone who wishes she could just find out what her body fat percentage is.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just incorrect bullshit. Muscles is denser than fat, and so it's easier to raise your BMI number with muscle than with fat. Over 40 is not "always fat". You can be over 40 with a body fat percentage under 10 percent. That's not fat.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

Or big muscled. According to this site, Hulk Hogan has a BMI of 31.9 The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) has a BMI of 34.3 Both of them fall under the BMI obese category. Seriously, The Rock is not fat.

Believe it or not, most slashdotters with a 30+ BMI aren't likely to be body builders and such. We know - BMI, in isolation, is not a good statistic to solely rely on because of some edge cases. But for most people out there, BMI is a decent indication on relative health.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[Anonymous Coward]

For most people, BMI is a perfectly accurate and useful measure of fat. It is annoying how people desperately cling to the exceptions in order to disprove the general. What was the name of that logical fallacy again....

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[antek9]

That crap food is not all that cheap at all when you consume tons of it each month. The Japanese and others prove that you can have a healthy diet of just rice, some fish and seaweed, which costs next to nothing. The poor getting fat is not an income issue, it's a social and an education issue.

Re:Dammit, BMI != fat in all cases

[plastbox]

That said, I never claimed I was not overweight. When I reach my target body fat percentage I will be somewhere in the mid-twenties for BMI. I apologize if I gave the impression that I was bragging, I assure you that this is not the case. At 20% body fat, though, I do happily leave the house. :)

Never accused you of bragging either, but in the middle of my own braggy rant I discovered that you have a good bit more lean body mass than I do, soo..

Ok, so I might just have overdone the part of not going outside, heh. My point was that at 16-17% bodyfat I did not feel comfortable at all because I knew people who saw me in a t-shirt would think I was out of shape (which I was). The leap from that to 20% is such that though I'd of course go outside, I'd never ever feel good about my apprearance. Of course, at BMI=30 and 20% bodyfat I assume you look pretty buffed as opposed to someone having the same BMI and 25-30% bodyfat. So go outside and enjoy summer to it's fullest! I know I'm trying hard to do just that, no matter how unhappy I am with my belly even at ~11% bodyfat. ^^

Oh, and on the actual topic of the story. =P The flu kills people. Infants, elderly, fat and others already weakened by some factor or other. Whatever the fatties preaching tolerance towards "their kind" say, having a BMI of >40 is not, cannot be healthy no matter how you look at it. With a disease which has the potensial of killing you if your immune system/heart/lungs ain't working as it should, it isn't exactly a groundbreaking discovery that all else being equal, fatties have a greater chance of dying from the flu.

Newsflash

[Mendoksou]

Obesity is bad for you. More news at 11.

Re:Newsflash

[Kell Bengal]

Indeed; this is 'Calling Captain Obvious' material.

Morbid obesity is called morbid obesity precisely because there are one or more co-morbidities exhibited by the patient. That means there's already something wrong with you as a result of the obesity; combine that with yet another risk to the system and it's no surprise people have a higher incidence of greater illness.

This isn't just because the patients were overweight - it's because they're so overweight that they were already sick. A BMI of 40 isn't a bit of chub, it's pretty severe.

Shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Protect Stallman at all costs!

This is just wrong...

[glitch23]

"Morbid obesity is one of the most common findings turning up in severely ill patients," said Nikki Shindo, who is leading the investigation of swine flu patients at the WHO in Geneva. "It's a huge problem."

That is just wrong.

Re:This is just wrong...

[yoursurrogategod]

I *ROFLed*. /i got my ticket to hell looooooooooooong ago

Re:This is just wrong...

[martas]

seriously, that's funny... but i have to say, the only "informative" thing about your post for me is that you noticed it ;)

Re:This is just wrong...

[T-Kir]

Sounds like you got the skinny on the whole situation.

Re:This is just wrong...

[zogger]

They got down to the meat and potatoes. Everything else is all gravy.

Re:This is just wrong...

[univalue]

Those insensitive clods.

Re:This is just wrong...

[TimSSG]

Please, just the fats.
Tim S.

Darwinism is Finally Back!

[Anonymous Coward]

After a long stretch of reverse Darwinism, it's good to see natural selection finally culling the herd as it should.

Re:Darwinism is Finally Back!

[VMaN]

Please don't use "Darwinism" when referring to evolution.

Re:Darwinism is Finally Back!

[Concerned Onlooker]

I agree. We've used science to keep people alive that just should have died off a long time ago. People like Stephen Hawking, for instance. What a drag on the gene pool he's been.

Re:Darwinism is Finally Back!

[DarkOx]

I think you intended to say evolution rather than Darwinism. Darwinism implies a social policy of letting evolution run its course in human society unhindered rather then the natural process of evolution itself. Darwin probably would not have supported such a policy himself.

I also take issue with your implied assertion that the process has been running in reverse. I don't think the process can run in reverse. The fittest always are more successful at procreation than the unfit. Its a matter of being fit for the particular situation. It so happens that I and again I would suppose you based on your comment don't approve of the results. Sadly I think living in our society makes a your typical lard ass perfectly fit or at least no less fit as a result of their obesity.

Now if some new forms of disease we can't easily and cheaply treat start attacking people with more fat cells then the obese will again be less fit in the new situation, and we probably will see a trend to slimmer folks again.

Re:Darwinism is Finally Back!

[PatrickThomson]

Hawking and feynman are irreplaceable human beings. Smart AND randy. Look it up.

Re:Darwinism is Finally Back!

[lxs]

Are you implying that a thorough understanding of black holes is essential for the evolutionary success of the species?

Re:Darwinism is Finally Back!

[Anonymous Coward]

this is not funny !

Re:Darwinism is Finally Back!

[Artifakt]

Yes, if this is a matter of fat people acquiring pig characteristics from their diet, that would be Lamarckian evolution, not Darwinian at all.

Re:Darwinism is Finally Back!

[Rich0]

If your timescale is long enough, perhaps it is. :) Not sure if there is any escape from the heat death of the universe (or the death of our sun well before that), but somehow I doubt it involves being better at spearing gazelles.

Re:Darwinism is Finally Back!

[bh_doc]

Score:5, Funny. /. confirms it.

Re:Darwinism is Finally Back!

[quadrox]

It wouldn't even be Lamarckian. Lamarckian evolution is about offspring acquiring traits that their parents acquired during their own lifetime and by their own doing. For example fat parents getting fat children, war veterans getting children with the same war injuries as their parents etc. My examples are oversimplifications, but Parent post is quite incorrect.

Yes, that's you!

[oldhack]

Put down that nacho. Now!

Hm... How many fatsos does it take to make a pig fly?

Makes me hungry.

Re:Yes, that's you!

[Shark]

Interestingly enough, I was eating a nacho when I read that post, but my body fat 7% so I'm probably safe.

Re:Yes, that's you!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmm nachos

Re:Yes, that's you!

[Deliveranc3]

5.7 biotch! And 58% body muscle! Woot!
Tell ladies about the second one :) They'll be impressed! Gentlemen by the first one. Of course if you're a femme with 7% you're um... dead.

It's not news that fat is harmful

[drinkypoo]

So why is this considered news, let alone for nerds? I understand the nerd appeal all too well, although crawling under my truck to install my lift kit (half done so far, my back is killing me dead) led to the realization that I can fit into my coveralls again... so I'm in about the best shape I ever have been, since childhood anyway.

It is interesting to me however that fat cells secrete nasties. I wonder if there's any benefit to those secretions, perhaps helping you live through winters or something.

Re:It's not news that fat is harmful

[satoshi1]

News for nerds. Stuff that Matters.

Re:It's not news that fat is harmful

[xlv]

So why is this considered news, let alone for nerds?
[...]
It is interesting to me however that fat cells secrete nasties.

Well it looks like you changed your mind as you were writing the post as the second paragraph implies you learned something reading the summary...

Re:It's not news that fat is harmful

[babyrat]

led to the realization that I can fit into my coveralls again... so I'm in about the best shape I ever have been, since childhood anyway

or at least the best shape since you bought the coveralls...

Swine flu kills porkers

[bitemykarma]

Isn't that redundant?

Re:Finally!! A Cure For Obesity!!

[sopssa]

Pig flu affects fat persons.. I didn't see that one coming!

Overweight is symptom, not cause

[SuperKendall]

This surprises me not at all - people who are overweight generally are not eating that well, and also not exercising a lot.

I've been lucky to have a good metabolism and never really had weight issues. But I used to drink a ton of soda, and not eat that great... I was having combing down with the cold and flu multiple times per year.

Now I'm eating much better, drinking mostly water, and exercising a few times a week. I get at most about one cold a year now, and even that is not as bad as the worst of the colds I used to get.

One aspect of the flu I did think was odd was how so many cases were in Mexico... when I feel like I'm perhaps going to get a cold, I often eat spicy food and it seems to knock it out of me. I would think they have a lot spicier stuff in most Mexican's diets than elsewhere.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

This surprises me not at all - people who are overweight generally are not eating that well, and also not exercising a lot.

You can't assume that. People who are fat shits are eating more than they burn off, in general. Chances are it's a diet of aspartame "diet" sodas and other crud, but clearly there are lard-asses that are very wealthy that eat quality food every day. They just have an inability to stop, and are bone-idle they never exercise.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[syousef]

Now I'm eating much better, drinking mostly water, and exercising a few times a week. I get at most about one cold a year now, and even that is not as bad as the worst of the colds I used to get.

I too have been through years without so much as a sniffle, and had years where I've been struck down repeatedly by colds and flus. It hasn't correlated with what I ate. Correlation isn't causation is overused on /. but in this case I think it's appropriate. That doesn't mean that you're wasting your time eating and drinking better. In the long run it will probably make you live longer and healthier. It's just your use of colds and flu as an indicator that I find completely bogus.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[yoursurrogategod]

I dunno... The obese *do* have greater rates of illness. However, if there is a particularly bad flu season, even if you're an Olympian, you're not guaranteed to be save.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[DMUTPeregrine]

Capsaicin (the stuff that makes spicy food spicy) doesn't have any known immune-boosting effects, but the reaction to the spice can help clear the sinuses. The increased tear duct activity & mucous production can help loosen mucous in the nose (it's more liquidy). Mexico has poor overall sanitation, so while their food may be helpful in treating the symptoms the risk of contracting a disease is higher.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[dunkelfalke]

Not really. Once you are fat, it is very difficult to get rid of that fat, no matter what you do because the metabolism really slows down a lot.

I am very fat, probably 60 kilos too much weight. It wasn't always like that. It used to be only 15-20 kilos too much and i felt fine. Then I stopped doing Judo and had a lot of stress and so I got really fat. The problem is, I am eating more or less healthy - no fast food, cooking for myself, drinking only tap water or tea (without sugar because it kills the taste of a good sencha), walking a lot for a guy with my weight, doing as much weight lifting as my RSI allowes but still, the best I manage is to keep my weight.

The only thing that helped me to lose some fat was ephedrine, but the stuff is now forbidden everywhere.

Trust me, I would give a lot to weigh "just" 110 kilos - I miss Judo, I miss swimming, I miss biking, hell, I miss the ability to walk 10-15 kilometers without any pain in the knees and in the spine.

If you are so clever, help me! Tell me how I can be fit again and stay fit!

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are so clever, help me! Tell me how I can be fit again and stay fit!

Easy, start eating right.

The problem is that everyone assumes eating right is the same for all individuals. In reality it's not. Odds are you are eating something that is killing your metabolism and that's why you cannot lose weight.

If you have the money, find a doctor that will give you an IgG and HgA (I think those are the right letters) food sensitivity tests. They will tell you most foods you need to avoid. It's possible the tests will miss a few, but once you cut out the majority of things you shouldn't eat, you should start to get better. Once you get better, you should be able to tell when you are eating something you shouldn't.

If you don't have the money, you can use the heart rate trick to figure out if you are eating something you shouldn't. Get your resting heart rate before you eat. Eat. Find your resting heart rate again. If your heart rate is significantly higher after eating, you ate something you shouldn't have.

It also helps to keep a food diary and keep track of how you feel in it as well. Eventually you should be able to notice correlations between how you feel and what you eat. Stop eating the things that make you feel poorly. Be aware, in my experience, it can take up to three days from the time you eat something until you notice a problem. You will likely also not notice feeling poorly until you start to get better.

If you're serious, pick one starch, like rice, one meat, one fruit, and one vegetable. Eat only them for a couple of weeks and then start adding back other foods to your diet one at a time. One word of warning, the foods that are the worst for you, are likely the ones you like the best and crave the most. It's some perversity of bio-chemistry.

Finally while you do all of this take vitamins that will support your metabolism. Large doses of all the B vitamins are important, and just in case you have mal-absorbtion, consider sub-lingual vitamins where possible.

To speed weight loss, there are two exercise options. One is easy long workouts that will burn fat. The other is short intense work outs that can increase your metabolism. The best option is to start with the easy long workouts until you have lost enough weight that short intense work outs are safe. Of course check with your doctor before making any significant changes to your exercise regime.

I lost 75 pounds (about 35kg) this way. The first 50 dropped off as soon as I changed my diet without me doing anything else.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[dunkelfalke]

Capsaicin is not that good for clearing the sinuses. Horse radish, on the other hand, works much better.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody ever got fat from not eating.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[elucido]

if you want to lose weight, eat less and exercise. But don't immediately starve yourself, try fasting for a few months and record how much weight you lose in that time. Exercise first thing in the morning, that will boost the metabolism and then wait until dark to have dinner and or snacks. It's that simple.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[ClosedSource]

Yes, It's hard to gain weight when you're dead.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[tchuladdiass]

There's another factor at work when losing weight. Lets say you are 40 pounds over weight. That is 40 pounds additional that you are carrying during your normal daily activities. Now if you start exercising, change diet, etc., you may lose 20 pounds, but then stop losing weight. That's because when you aren't working out that is 20 pounds less that you have on you when, say, walking form the couch to the fridge, etc. So you won't be able to lose that extra 20 pounds unless you work out even more. This will apply to anyone who is over weight, but at a stable weight (i.e., they never go above X pounds over their ideal weight).

So here's my thought. What about wearing a weighted belt. Whenever you drop 5 pounds, add a 5 pound weight to the belt. This way you are always carrying that extra weight with you, so your body will stabilize at a lower number.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[im_thatoneguy]

I agree. I used to ride 100 miles a week on average. Eat almost entirely vegetarian food which was low in fat. Rock climb every day during lunch. And get sick like 5 times a year.

Now I only ride about 30 miles a week. Eat fast food every other day. Drink coffee more regularly and almost never get sick.

The change? I stopped spending time around sick people and get more sleep. School is the perfect storm for illness. Stress and Exposure.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

except all those African kids.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[quenda]

Three words: Calorie controlled diet

And remember. The obesity epidemic is related to lifestyle changes in society.
If you are still very stressed, take action to change that.
BTW, why can't you swim or cycle? I can understand no jogging.
Many people find that regular aerobic exercise helps in controlling excess eating.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[Faerunner]

Spicy foods can definitely help with cold symptoms but a flu is a different kind of bug entirely. I've used capsacin (hot pepper!) and garlic in tomato juice (for the vitamin C content) to ward off nasty sinus infections and colds, but it never worked for the last flu I had, except to clear up my nasal passages so I could breathe a little easier.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[dunkelfalke]

The problem is, since I cook for myself, I cannot be sure about the calorie intake. I even make joghurt by myself (please, no jokes about jerking off).

Swimming and cycling are... well, I am too weak to cycle where I live now (a village in a mountain, more or less) and about swimming... I am ashamed of my body fat.

Cannot change anything about the stress either, lost my job a month ago, my relationship is almost broken, too.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[enoz]

That's not "fat", that is bloating due to malnutrition.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[quenda]

The problem is, since I cook for myself, I cannot be sure about the calorie intake.

If you are geek enough to read /. , it can be done.
Get some accurate electronic scales. Dealextreme have a nice 3kg one us$17 posted from HK.
    Make a list of joules/g from the 'net of your main ingredients. (Don;t worry about the minor bits).
Compare original to cooked portion weight, and you will get a reasonable idea. You may get a surprise about where the calories come from when you add it up. then it becomes a game to cut it down, or cook to a calorie budget.
    The key is to manage your servings. If you know you served a decent amount, no excuse for seconds. If you still think you are hungry, fill up on water, then eat some carrots or fruit.

I even make joghurt by myself

German yogurt?

If you can't walk up the hills, you should consider a low-geared mountain bike. It will help.
  Good luck.

Re:Overweight is symptom, not cause

[dunkelfalke]

Thanks, I will try.

Oversensitive, in this case it works

[SuperKendall]

Come on, the BMI they are recording is over 40 - categorized as "morbidly obese". The only people not actually very overweight that would hit that would be professional weight lifters...

For just seeing if someone is a touch overweight it's not a great tool. But in this case the observation is perfectly valid.

Re:Oversensitive, in this case it works

[Opportunist]

For just seeing if someone is a touch overweight it's not a great tool.

Then for what is it good if not for the "borderlines". I don't need a BMI or any other scale to know that someone of 6 feet height and 400 pounds weight is a wee bit on the chubby side. I can just effing LOOK at him!

Re:Oversensitive, in this case it works

[droptone]

Because recording objective features (height and weight) provide a better way of operationalizing the concept of "overweight" than sending undergrads and grad students out to just look at people.

I would like to know if you have hard data on the irrelevancy of BMI at the middle. I suspect at the population level these effects are minor. Most people don't have dense bones. Most people who have BMIs of 27.5 are not build like Lebron James. Sure, BMI isn't the best measure of abdominal fat, which is seems to play a larger role in negative health outcomes than other forms of fat. But that doesn't seem relevant for a broad health measure like BMI. Doctors who take BMI to be the be all and end all of health measures do not understand what they are talking about (like the person elsewhere in the thread who mentioned that their doc told them to lose some weight to achieve a better BMI even though their body fat percentage was ~19; though, 19% isn't particularly lean either). That's on the doctor, not the measure.

Re:Oversensitive, in this case it works

[Anonymous Coward]

(like the person elsewhere in the thread who mentioned that their doc told them to lose some weight to achieve a better BMI even though their body fat percentage was ~19; though, 19% isn't particularly lean either).

Well according to this chart of recommended body fat percentages, ~19% is either and acceptable level for men, or a fit level for women (I know unlikely on Slashdot, but possible). In either case there shouldn't be any weight related health concerns.

Of course, I have personal reasons to dislike and distrust the BMI index. I'm a guy who is 5'4.5", and for anyone who is that far from the statistically norms for height the BMI chart gives absurd results. Let me be clear though, I do know I am overweight but it's my 36" waist that tells me that not the BMI chart. However, at my fatest I was 214 lbs (rounding up) and my percentage body fat was tested at a gym, yeilding ~28% (i.e. I had ~59.92 lbs of fat). Thus, if I lost 30 lbs. (which I'm still working on) I wouldn't have to gain any lean muscle to get within a healthy range. However, according to my BMI, I would have to be under 150 lbs to be "healthy", even though I would have to lose not only all my fat but a good portion of my lean muscle to accomplish this.

Back on topic, BMI gives meaningful results when used for statistical analysis (as in TFA). However, unless you are an average* person, and honestly I've never in my life met a truly average person;), don't bother to use it for determining if you are overweight.

*"Average" as in the statistical sense.

Cost of subsidies

[yoursurrogategod]

Makes you wonder just how much this nations spends annually on corn and soy subsidies and just how much we will pay in the future as more and more people become sickly due to the low price of the poor nutrition that they are often offered. What if we got rid of those agricultural subsidies? How will that affect the cost of McDonalds', Wendys', etc. foods?

Re:Cost of subsidies

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Silence! Obesity is caused exclusively by poor character, and our gigantic farm subsidies are there to Protect America's Family Farms(tm), not Archer Daniels Midland.

How dare you question America? Also, while I'm at it, corn is by far the most efficient source of ethanol, unlike sugar cane, which is for communists.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[yoursurrogategod]

Err... lets not do either. Look at Brazil's sugar cane farms and see how many piss-poor agricultural workers are needed to make your ego-pleasing 'green' utopia. http://www.grist.org/article/slave-ethanol/ I want a nuclear reactor in my back yard (the French deserve accolades for doing this) and a car that I can charge at night (gimme a range of over 300 miles while I have the AC on full blast and not driving 'optimally'.)

Re:Cost of subsidies

[maxume]

Not very much. The actual ingredients aren't that big a chunk of the overall cost of prepared food.

Some sort of estimate is possible; assume McDonald's pays $3 a pound for beef (I expect they pay quite a bit less than this, $3 is close to the retail price for 80/20, which is apparently what they use). Assume that they make each regular hamburger with 1/10 of a pound of meat (it is probably closer to 1/12) and the cost of the most expensive ingredient is $0.30. Double the price of beef and the cost of the burger goes up $0.30 (at most, probably less).

So how does the price of corn effect the price of beef? It looks like 20 pounds of corn for 1 pound of beef is a nice safe high estimate of the amount of corn involved, so at $0.066 per pound of corn (56 pounds per bushel, $3.67 per bushel, the July), each pound of beef consumes about $1.30 of corn. So if the price of corn tripled, the $3 beef might then cost $5.60, pushing the price of the burger up $0.26.

That's probably a pretty simplistic view of how the different parts are interrelated, but I don't think it is completely ridiculous, and there is a good chance that it is an overestimate (because I tried really hard to make it an overestimate).

Re:Cost of subsidies

[rm999]

I completely agree with you; the subsidies the US provides do not encourage a healthy American diet. They have drastically affected the supply/demand for a lot of commodities, like sugar VS corn.

But to put it into perspective, US subsidies only equal about 15-25 dollars per person per year (it varies every year, as different farm bills are passed), or about 1% of total food expenditures in the country. Corn and wheat are cheap for several reasons. First, they grow well in the US. Also, the farming system is highly efficient; the sheer magnitude of food that is grown and transported is amazing. For example, a bushel of corn (which I think is around $3.50 right now) weighs 56 pounds. And yes, they are cheap because the US does provide some subsidies, but these subsidies are less than 10% of the current costs.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

Those fast food chains generally import their meat from 3rd world countries don't they? I'm not sure if getting rid of subsidaries would do ANYTHING to them other than make them import even more stuff.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[yoursurrogategod]

Hmm, interesting. I've never heard of this, but am open minded enough to look at it (I've heard the exact opposite based on what I've read.) Still, this might be a good thing in the long run, even if the bonus or reduced obese people is measured in a few percentiles.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[rm999]

I'd be interested in what you find if you look into it more. I am basing my information off conversations I've had with some economics people plus some quick Google searches on current prices and subsidies.

The whole topic is pretty controversial, so there's a lot of misinformation out there. I do believe subsidies need to be severely reduced. I just think that the magnitude of the problem is overestimated. Perhaps the current system is pretty close to the optimal arrangement without any subsidies. For example, can our country actually import enough sugar economically to replace corn syrup?

Re:Cost of subsidies

[plasmacutter]

Makes you wonder just how much this nations spends annually on corn and soy subsidies and just how much we will pay in the future as more and more people become sickly due to the low price of the poor nutrition that they are often offered.

What if we got rid of those agricultural subsidies? How will that affect the cost of McDonalds', Wendys', etc. foods?

It would cause famine whenever the climate so much as sneezed, because over-production is the only way to get around that, but it will not happen without subsidies.

On the other hand, if the government mandated a larger fraction (larger than current) of this extra food be shipped overseas for aid or stored for a catastrophe it would have the same effect you're looking for without putting the US under threat of famine.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[yoursurrogategod]

By contrast, fruits and vegetables are considered "specialty crops" by Congress and ineligible for subsidies. The price of produce has continued to rise.

"We need to create an environment where it's easy to eat healthy. Right now, if price is your chief concern, the rational choice is to eat crappy food," says Dr. David Wallinga, director of the food and health program for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Minneapolis.

http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/2007/07/farm-bill-will-shape-what-we-eat.html

=====================

And as Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma," has written, farm subsidies contribute to obesity, rising healthcare costs and early death by subsidizing corn and soy (from which sugars and fats are derived) rather than healthier fruits and vegetables.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jul/24/opinion/oe-riedl24?pg=1

Re:Cost of subsidies

[yoursurrogategod]

I would like to add that in order to power our cars using ethanol, we'll need to clear large quantities of land in order to grow all of that stuff. This means we will clear forests and threaten even more environmental habitats (we've already done one of the worst mis allocations of resources in this country by moving into suburbia, lets not do something equally moronic.)

Re:Cost of subsidies

[yoursurrogategod]

When was the last time you've seen a family in this country? People are having shorter life-spans, but not because we don't have enough chow. Furthermore, if climate change really does happen that critically affects our food supply, you're just doomed irrespective of how much you produce.

Now, if you want to stock-pile food for a catastrophe, then that's a different story. But then, instead of subsidizing, you could just buy it, driving up prices and demand and yes, people will produce in order to meet the demand.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[yoursurrogategod]

family = famine

Ooops.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[3doghouse]

Subsidies stink, but corn and soy... McDonald's and Wendy's...

Re:Cost of subsidies

[yoursurrogategod]

Not really. The US actually exports food.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[maztuhblastah]

Makes you wonder just how much this nations spends annually on corn and soy subsidies and just how much we will pay in the future as more and more people become sickly due to the low price of the poor nutrition that they are often offered. What if we got rid of those agricultural subsidies? How will that affect the cost of McDonalds', Wendys', etc. foods?

Maybe I'm showing my age here, but I remember a time when we [as a society] considered adults to be responsible for their own nutritional choices.

Yes, yes... I know that it's all somehow the fault of a faceless corporation that so many people are fat -- but the truth is, self-control has a lot to do with it too. It's not hard to eat healthy food even on a budget. All you have to do is forgo the convenience of having everything prepared for you and be willing to spend 20 minutes shopping for your own ingredients, plus a bit of time each day to prepare yourself meals. I've managed that very feat for many, many years, including several years as a near-broke college student.

Sure it's convenient to grab a burger and fries, but it's not any cheaper than preparing your own dinner (it's almost certainly more expensive to buy prepared food than to do your own cooking) and I guarantee it's not as healthy as cooking your own meal.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the problem has more to do with eating things never meant to be considered food. But, we live in a fast-paced society, and it's easier to buy certain things rather than making it ourselves. And of course, government and businesses will cater to our desires to a certain extent.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[Rich0]

IANAF, but isn't the point of subsidies to pay people to make LESS food, thus driving UP prices? Or at least some subsidies. Things like tax breaks make it cheaper to grow food (or not grow food as the case may be - the more land you can buy the more food you can not grow and thus the more you can be paid to not grow it). No, this post doesn't make any sense, but I didn't invent the USDA and the tax code...

Without subsidies the cost of food could go either up or down. There are factors that would push it both ways. Somebody who knows more about this stuff could probably say for sure which way it would go.

The reason your cheeseburgers are so cheap aren't really subsidies, but the invention of fertilizer and farm equipment.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[ClosedSource]

"Maybe I'm showing my age here, but I remember a time when we [as a society] considered adults to be responsible for their own nutritional choices."

I must be older. I remember a time when nobody would know what the phrase "nutritional choices" meant.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[yoursurrogategod]

Indeed! There was a time when you made decisions and slept in the bed that you made (although we're not at a point where we have completely abandoned these values.)

However, there are other factors. Such as the fact that subsidies (there was also a time when these did not exist and everyone who got into a business was expected to make or lose depending on the market) do in fact shift prices unfairly. Subsidizing corn and soy makes certain products cheaper than others, making these alternatives more attractive to healthier options (we humans will often go for what's most satisfactory in the short-term, heart disease doesn't seem too terribly gruesome and quick way to go.) This is especially the case for those that are poorer (not to blame those folks, but when money is tight, you tend to go for the stuff that will give you more bang for buck, which is why wealthier people tend to have better nutrition.)

Re:Cost of subsidies

[yoursurrogategod]

... yes. What about them? If some lose business since their products are now more expensive and fewer purchase them, then so be it.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[xtal]

Fast food's dangers are overblown, the propensity to overeat is not.

Various times in my life I basically live off McDonalds, Wendys, and coffee, and beer for weeks at a time. I'm too lazy to manage groceries while working 12-14 hours a day, and when I come home, I want to sleep.

I'm not fat. If anything I am skinny. (165-170lb, 6'2). My cardio is good. My blood chemistry is fine. I get a extensive medical every two years. No problems.

Fast food is cheap and tasty.. just don't eat too much.

As far as agricultural subsidies go, you need to make it worthwhile for farmers to produce crops for national security reasons. It's a real bad idea to let the markets run those things, and this is a view widely accepted by economists. YMMV.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[Fred_A]

How dare you question America? Also, while I'm at it, corn is by far the most efficient source of ethanol, unlike sugar cane, which is for communists.

Damn, I read too fast and was wondering how obesity could be transformed into ethanol.

And I was willing to subscribe to your newsletter too.

- disappointed.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[kamapuaa]

Silence! Obesity is caused by big corporations and the American government! On Slashdot, everything can be blamed on them!

Re:Cost of subsidies

[jackbird]

Actually, that's no longer the case. Remember the tainted pet food with bad Chinese wheat gluten from a couple of years ago?

Re:Cost of subsidies

[Threni]

The key word in all that is 'easy', and by 'easy' it is usually implied that it must be as easy to get fruit, veg, and carbs as it currently is to get fried meat, salt and fat. It's just not going to happen. You're going to have a minority of people who eat properly, and then a large majority of people who are essentially stupid and/or lazy and eat whatever is within reach.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[LizardKing]

The only answer is population control to the point where we massively lower the number of humans. I always assumed US gun laws and foreign policy were a step in that direction.

Re:Cost of subsidies

[Anonymous Coward]

Silence! Obesity is caused exclusively by poor character...............

Fungus, as in your name, your statement is fuzzy. Maybe you know corn, but you know very little about why people gain weight. "Poor character", as you put it, may have something to do with a medium percentage of why people gain weight, but there are a lot of other reasons. Illnesses, medications, stress, depression,even lack of sleep, just to name a few! Granted! Most people do gain weight from overeating, but that does not apply to all cases.

Confuses cause and effect

[Captain Kirk]

Swine flu is a serious thread to people who are already chronically ill. If you are seriously ill, you are likely bed ridden and pumped with cortizone, steroids and other drugs. And as a result, of course you have a poor body mass index. Its a miracle you are even alive. Swine flu comes along and is the final straw, your body can't take another illness.

 

Re:Confuses cause and effect

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it doesn't. Read the article.

They ran tests on mice and proved that it's just being overweight that's the factor. If you read the article, you'll note that all the deaths that didn't involve chronic illness have one common factor: the people who died were obese.

Re:Confuses cause and effect

[Tubal-Cain]

Swine flu is a serious thread to people who are already chronically ill. If you are seriously ill, you are likely bed ridden and pumped with cortizone, steroids and other drugs.

At one point I lost 10 pounds after being hospitalized for a week or two.

Re:Confuses cause and effect

[Anonymous Coward]

[quote]Swine flu is a serious thread to people who are already chronically ill.[/quote]

You are unwittingly getting caught in the hype-machine.
Swine flu is hardly a serious threat to anyone.

Re:Confuses cause and effect

[LizardKing]

If you are seriously ill, you are likely bed ridden and pumped with cortizone, steroids and other drugs.

I've got TB, but I'm still working and got to the gym three to four times a week. Despite that, if I get swine flu it will likely kill me as the medication I'm taking impairs my immune system. So, I'm seriously ill (without completing the course of medication I'd likely be dead in twelve months), but definitely not bed ridden. Similar for many others with immune systems impaired by illness or event from nothing more than a bad diet.

Sorry not newsworthy.

[w0mprat]

Newsworthy? Morbid obesity increases chance of death or a serious brush with it for, well gee, just about any disease. High body fat messes with a long list of metabolic processes which have to do with staying alive. Being overweight can be considered a merely symptom of the actual metabolic problems going on.

Re:Sorry not newsworthy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, it's all the "metabolic problems" fault ...

It doesn't cease to amaze me how fat people always find excuses to convince themselves and others that their obesity is out of their control.

We humans have to adjust out food intake to our metabolism. Fat people don't have a metabolic problem, they have a problem with food quantities and/or exercising.

Obesity = Bad general health?

[grassy_knoll]

Perhaps it's not so much that H1N1 affects obese people more than others, but that obesity is a sign of bad health generally?

If so, then the correlation would be "unhealthy people more likely to develop respiratory complications that are harder to treat and can be fatal".

Doesn't roll off the tongue like "swine flu kills fatties" though.

Re:Obesity = Bad general health?

[drinkypoo]

Obesity causes bad health causes obesity causes bad health causes someone to want to stab me if I keep this up.

Seriously, though, it's not a surprise that fat people are unhealthy, or that being unhealthy makes you fat. We truly live in the postmodern age, where the majority recite statistics as they become one. Unfortunately, it's not enough to realize that you've got a problem, you have to do something about it.

Re:Obesity = Bad general health?

[markringen]

fast food industry is really not to blame again? with their illegal workers and 3$ an hour jobs? how strange people come work when their sick.... nobody here, wonders why America is the ONLY capitalist country in the world without even basic health care for all..

Re:Obesity = Bad general health?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about "You just got Darwined"

The story title is wrong ...

[tomhudson]

It isn't killing them disproportionally - it's killing them in direct relationship to their proportions :-)

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[sopssa]

Obesity is something you *can* fix. It's not like cancer or something else where you have little to nothing control over it. You can just do it, if you really want to.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in all cases, just most. Former athletes and cheerleader types can be hit with the glandular problem. It's very sad for those afflicted with it, there's nothing that can be done. Still, 99.999% of fat sods are troffers, so don't hold back.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not in all cases, just most. Former athletes and cheerleader types can be hit with the glandular problem. It's very sad for those afflicted with it, there's nothing that can be done.

Do they also suffer from big bones? Maybe they just never worked off that baby fat.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, and manic depressives should just cheer up, 'cos they could if they wanted to.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[vivian]

Losing fat comes down to a simple equation.
If calories in is less than calories burnt, you WILL lose weight. Its as simple as that.
No amount of "glandular" problem is going to make you put on weight if you are eating less calories than you use in your daily activites.
So you need to either eat less, or do more ecercise, or both. Exercise helps because as you get fitter and have more muscle, as just having more muscle makes you burn more energy - so in that respect it is easier for a fit person to stay slim, but there is no reason in the world that anyone needs to be fat, regardless of any "glandular" problem.
Getting more excercise is trivial too. It takes no more 5 minutes to do 30 pushups and 60 crunches - you can do them last thing at night before going to bed.
Likewise, you can get off the bus/train one stop earlier ( or walk to the next stop along from where you get on) and easily get a 15 to 30 min walk in a day. Losing weight doesnt have to mean hours and hours in the Gym - just a bit of self motivation to be a bit more active in your daily routine.
One other thing - Diet drinks - stay the hell away from them. Ever see slim people in the supermarket buying diet coke? no - its always the huge people. Diet drinks have less calories, but there's an interesting littlel experiment they did, where two groups of rats were allowed to eat as much as they wanted - one group was given diet drinks, and the other normal non diet drinks. The ones on diet drinks porked up. The theory: The sweetners give your body signals to get ready to deal with a lot of sugar. When the sugar doesnt arrive, your body goes "Holy crap - we're starving! better eat more!"
So diet drinks may actually make you fatter by making you have a bigger appetite. Here's a not very authoritive link http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/06/its_been_recognized_for_a.php to one article about this - Im sure with a more thorough search the actual paper would turn up somewhere.

Hopefully this latest news about swine flu will be that final bit of motivation a lot of people need to actually do something about their weight.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[mazarin5]

Obesity is something you *can* fix. It's not like cancer or something else where you have little to nothing control over it. You can just do it, if you really want to.

Depression is something you *can* fix. It's not like cancer or something else where you have little to nothing control over it. You can just do it, if you really want to.

A toaster is something you *can* fix. It's not like cancer or something else where you have little to nothing control over it. You can just do it, if you really want to.

Wait, were you disagreeing? I can't tell.

If you're depressed or fat, and don't care for it, go get help.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, people who lost loved ones should quit whining .. cuz if they really cared they ... they would not have allowed the loved one to die in the first place ... yap, we have it figured all out .. YOU CAN DO IT IF YOU REALLY WANT TO. fucking egofascist society.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[vivian]

Of course the best action is to not drink sugary drinks at all - but if you absolutely have to have that Coke, then have one with real sugar in it - and be aware of the additional calories you are eating. At least it wont make you hungrier, as the artificially sweetened drinks do, according to that study I linked.

The zero calorie drinks dont give you calories directly - but they apparently do make you hungrier, which in turn makes you want to eat more. Read the link.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[phantomfive]

Replacing a word in a sentence isn't much of an argument. Sometimes it works, but you can also completely change the meaning of the sentence.

You would do better if you identified that actual fallacy instead of randomly hoping all moderators will figure out what you are trying to say.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Brain Damaged Bogan]

I don't know how this got modded insightful.
Some people have metabolic problems to blame for their size and no matter how little they eat and how much they exercise they don't shed the kilos.
not to mention that there are 3 seperate body types and if you are of the larger persuasion naturally there isn't any way you are getting tiny enough to fit into a small shirt.
add to that that the BMI is absolute bunkum because it doesn't take into account muscle mass and this story turns to complete bullshit.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[baileydau]

Apparently not according to you. Since you claim zero calorie drinks cause you to gain weight.

Actually, that's not what the GP said.

He said that the zero Calorie drinks had a side effect of causing the rats to eat more (and thus increase their Calorific intake)

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[sopssa]

Those metabolic problems are really, really minotiry. Maybe 0.001% of people. And those who have them probably know not to take the usual weight losing tips personally to them. But the fact is, its just math for most people. Burn more calories than you eat daily. If you feel hungry, eat meat or something that makes you feel full for longer time. If you just eat hotdog or hamburger you'll probably will be hungry in 2 hours again. After a few days getting used to it, one chicken leg and water was enough to keep me full. Stomach will get used to it really quickly, even tho that is somewhat extreme example and not good in long run. But the point is; choose your food by proteins and fat, not by fast burning carbs.

Yes, there are 3 separate body types, some are a bit heavier than others and muscle mass counts in body index too. But BMI 40 *is not right*.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I've heard this many times before and it's been reported among my friends that also free run.
BUT, if you know simple self-control and keep track of your calories it is a great way to make eating healthy a bit more tasty. I know I get tired of water after a few days of it.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[dgatwood]

Artificial sweeteners (and some non-artificial sweeteners like fructose) are believed to do two things:

1. They cause your brain to expect an insulin response that never comes, thus causing you to perceive that you still need to consume more calories to be "full". If consumed in the form of sugary or starchy foods, this creates more energy than your body needs in the short term, so it stores the excess as fat that never gets used because you never take in too few calories. Fructose is a particularly bad in this regard because it doesn't produce the insulin satiation but it is still metabolized into energy.
2. They slow down your metabolism, thus reducing the number of calories used by your body, causing the calories you do consume to be more than what is needed.

The statement about calories in vs. out does hold true, but there are foods that change the amount of energy that your body actually uses (both increasing and decreasing it), which complicates the equation greatly---sugars (both natural and artificial), caffeine, tryptophan, calcium, magnesium deficiency, etc. Caloric intake versus typical calorie use is still a pretty good predictor, though.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[ArTourter]

and muscle mass counts in body index too. But BMI 40 *is not right*.

Well yes it counts but not in the right way. As in it makes no difference if your BMI is 40 and you are all muscle or if you are all fat, . In both cases you are labelled obese and this is wrong. There is nothing scientific or medical about the BMI. it is just a meaningless made-up value created to dispense the medical professionals from actually doing their job and save money at the expense of the patients. It is much easier and cheaper to say, "your BMI is too high, go on a diet before I actually check you up... next!"

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[dgatwood]

Parent might be a troll, but depression is anything but off-topic. Depression is a major risk factor for obesity. It has often been observed that depressed people are more likely to fall victim to binge eating, which is a major cause of obesity. Depression can also be a symptom of hypothyroidism, IIRC, which causes low metabolism and can lead to obesity. The links between depression and obesity are not completely understood, but it is quite likely that reducing the incidence of depression will also reduce obesity.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[ClosedSource]

In the context of his claim "It's as simple as that" there's no difference between direct and indirect causes. If some calories cause you to eat more, then his simplistic theory is ignoring relevant 2nd order effects.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[ClosedSource]

I don't know if these "beliefs" are true (the whole brain scenario sounds like hand-waving speculation to me), but if they are his claim that "Its as simple as that" is wrong.

Some people just don't want to believe any explanation that doesn't allow them to feel morally superior.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Rob the Bold]

Losing fat comes down to a simple equation. If calories in is less than calories burnt, you WILL lose weight. Its as simple as that.

This is widely accepted conventional wisdom about losing (or gaining) weight. And it does just seem right. After all, you're punishing two of the seven deadly sins (gluttony and laziness) in a most fitting manner. People who can't control their lust for food and their own laziness get what they deserve. It is just so.

Science magazine reporter Gary Taubes published an article the New York Times Magazine titled: "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?" He later expanded that article along with others he wrote (including an analysis of the science and politics that resulted in current U.S. Government dietary advice) in a book titled Good Calories, Bad Calories. Spoiler Alert: According to the book, the calorie balance hypothesis is wrong. Numerous studies over the years failed to link high-calorie diet with weight gain, but this fact was overlooked because it challenged nutritional and medical orthodoxy. The real culprit, as the title suggests, is the composition of the diet, not the absolute calories it contains. It's a fascinating read, well researched, and worth the trip to the library.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[orasio]

Of course the best action is to not drink sugary drinks at all - but if you absolutely have to have that Coke, then have one with real sugar in it - and be aware of the additional calories you are eating. At least it wont make you hungrier, as the artificially sweetened drinks do, according to that study I linked.

You have no idea.
Lots of fat people suffer from insulin issues, so actually they (us) shouldn't eat sugar at all.
In my case, I had dieted a lot, and tried exercising, but just reducing intake wasn't doing the trick.
I started an Atkins-style diet, with a lot more calories than I was used to, and now I am 50 pounds under my original weight, and 40 pounds above my ideal weight.
I also drank LOTS of diet coke.
The thing is that fat people bodies work differently. You need to understand _why_ you are fat, and then fight it.
In my case, it is high insulin production, and after losing 40 pounds I started medical treatment with metformine, which helps me a lot against rebounds.

That idea of reducing calorie intake seems like a good idea in paper, but I don't think it works in practice.
The human body is too complex. It doesn't respond well to uninformed direct manipulation. The best thing is to get an endocrinologist, and do as they say.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[dojat]

Yes, if you have less calories coming in, you should be able to lose weight. One way to eat right, and still lose weight, is to eat more protein, and less carbohydrates. Eating low fat types of protein, including meat, chicken, fish, milk (milk products have protein and carbs, perfect if your blood sugar is low), will make you feel full longer, and you will feel less hungry. Carbs = sugar. Soda with sugar, that candy bar to tide you over till the next meal, fruit juice, donuts for breakfast, potatoes - all equal sugar. When you eat all these carbs, the extra carbs turn into fat. Extra protein turns into muscle. Read the labels on stuff you buy at the store. You'd be amazed at how much stuff has sugar in it. Stick with more protein, it really works. A person can do this without buying one of those diet books, or paying to join an online weight loss group. Yes, exercise is important. If you can walk places, park further away, take the stairs, this all helps. Doing stretches helps with muscle tone too. Our way of life now, compared to 20 or 30 years ago, is much more convenient. Getting food delivered. Driving two blocks to pick something up, shopping online. No need to leave the house anymore, except to go to work, unless you work from home. Yes, it's up to the person. Looking at the population now, looks like almost everyone could stand to lose a few pounds. But, what is the ideal? Is that a subjective view? If indeed the swine flu is giving obese people a harder time, now is the time, before the flu season starts, to do something about it.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[hofmny]

The real culprit, as the title suggests, is the composition of the diet, not the absolute calories it contains. It's a fascinating read, well researched, and worth the trip to the library.

Mod the parent up. This is absolutely true. You can eat as much as you want and lost weight or maintain your weight. Stop eating high fructose corn syrup, fatty foods, processed foods, and white processed grains. Eat as much as you want of everything else and stay active, and you should have no problem with weight.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[fractoid]

Spoiler Alert: According to the book, the calorie balance hypothesis is wrong. Numerous studies over the years failed to link high-calorie diet with weight gain, but this fact was overlooked because it challenged nutritional and medical orthodoxy. The real culprit, as the title suggests, is the composition of the diet, not the absolute calories it contains. It's a fascinating read, well researched, and worth the trip to the library.

Uhh... I'm pretty sure if you can burn more calories than you consume, while still gaining/maintaining weight, then you could quite comfortably claim the Randi Challenge prize. And then you could sell your body to science for billions.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Runaway1956]

Vivian, slashdotters are prejudiced, I think. I've posted the same info you did. The forum on which I posted that information, modded me as a troll.

Maybe I shouldn't have posted at a liberal political action site where phat broads were rallying? Seems two phat broads were excluded from a crowded night club, and they want to sue the owners, AND have a law passed. Something like "Phat's Phine with me!!".

There are strange people in this world....

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is widely accepted conventional wisdom about losing (or gaining) weight. And it does just seem right. After all, you're punishing two of the seven deadly sins (gluttony and laziness) in a most fitting manner. People who can't control their lust for food and their own laziness get what they deserve. It is just so.

Yeah, the Laws of Thermodynamics are full of shit!

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[FatdogHaiku]

If only there were a virus would kill in proportion to how big an asshole you are.

Wouldn't that be Goatse Flu?

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[spydabyte]

I'm glad you were able to sum up the complex cellular relationships within our bodies into a simple equation. I'm so glad you've solved the world's nutritional problem.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[HoppQ]

Um, losing weight can be simple, but generally the "exercise more, eat less" argument will fail. If you want to lose weight, keep in mind the following:

• Increase your fiber intake. Don't eat potatoes, white rise, white pasta or white bread (well, actually, there are fiber rich white breads out there now, so check the nutritional value information if you want some of that). Go for the fiber rich alternatives.
• Eat small meals, often. You should have small snacks several times during the day (something like one banana is a small snack). Eating a few big meals is bad for you (well, your dentist would have a different opinion, actually, but we're going for weight loss here, taking care of your teeth is easy, xylitol products to the rescue).
• If you must have sweets (and hey, who doesn't), eat less of them. Even going from a 400g bag of sweets to 200g bag of sweets a week is something that will show in a few months time. Again, it's better to have a sweet after every meal than to try to suppress your sweet tooth and then gobble up everything in one go when that fails.
• Find opportunities for utility exercise (e.g. walking to the store instead of taking the car, biking to work).
• Don't torture yourself. If you hate the stuff you're doing for exercise, find some other form of exercise that you can enjoy (or at least, tolerate). The world is full of alternatives when it comes to forms of exercise.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[rizole]

It takes no more 5 minutes to do 30 pushups and 60 crunches -

Damn...it's taken me over 40 years to manage that many!

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't respond well to uninformed direct manipulation.

You have obviously never watched the home shopping network. Why would the TV lie to me?

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Hognoxious]

[whiny voice] but I've got a slow metabolism *munch* *munch* It's my glands *munch* I don't eat anything *munch* [/]

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Hognoxious]

But you can't install Linux on a depression.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Hognoxious]

Some people have metabolic problems to blame for their size and no matter how little they eat and how much they exercise they don't shed the kilos.

Ever looked at photos of the POWs liberated from the Japanese? Or Auschwitz?

I guess they hid all the fat ones at the back.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Kryis]

That sounds a lot like a convoluted way of saying "I have Type 2 diabetes"

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Fred_A]

You're doing it wrong...

A toaster is something you *can* fix. It's not like cancer or something else where you have little to nothing control over it. You can just do it, if you really want to.

A car is something you *can* fix. It's not like cancer or something else where you have little to nothing control over it. You can just do it, if you really want to.

There, that's a proper /. analogy.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Tom]

Interesting point.

One more that I picked up when my girlfriend studied the stuff. Many artificial sweeteners are actually pretty much the same thing, as they're broken down into glucose inside the body - same as sugar. In other words: The first step is different, everything else is identical.

"Diet" stuff is a big lie, start to finish. The only thing it's good for is people with diabetis.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Inda]

I have Type 2 diabetes... brought on from eating too much sugar.

I have Type 2 diabetes... because one birthday cake just isn't enough.

I have Type 2 diabetes... and I know how to treat my body. (Why do all fatties say this?)

I have Type 2 diabetes... but it's not my fault...

I need 2,000 calories just to sit on my arse all day. Forget the extra I need for light exercising. If I eat less than 2,000 calories per day, I will lose weight. On paper, in my head, typed into a spreadsheet and printed on gold fucking toilet paper - it all gives the same result.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Ihlosi]

Many artificial sweeteners are actually pretty much the same thing, as they're broken down into glucose inside the body - same as sugar.

Which ones would that be? Sucralose is not metabolized, aspartame is broken down into amino acids instead of sugars, aspartame has almost no food energy.

Also, most artificial sweeteners are sweeter than sugar, so less of them is needed to achieve the same sweetness in the food. Usually, in order to simplify preparation, manufacturers add a tasteless carbohydrate (usually maltodextrin) ... hence many "sugar-free" products have almost exactly the same amount of calories as their sugared counterparts.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Hognoxious]

Yes, there are 3 separate body types

Do you believe in physiognomy and astrology too?

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[orasio]

Well, my doctor said: You have hyperinsulinemia. It's keeping you from losing more weight. But if you don't lose weight, you will develop Type II diabetes.
And here's this magic pill, take it, and you will lose weight, regardless of dieting. He was true, only that now, when I diet, I actually lose weight. When I don't diet, and eat all I want, I just lose less weight.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[orasio]

I don't care about your diabetes.

Calories are not a scientific way to estimate the impact of food on body weight.

It's not the same to eat 2000 calories of fat than 2000 calories of high fructose corn syrup. And it's not the same to eat those 2000 calories at breakfast than to eat them in the afternoon.

The problem with reducing calorie intake is that most low calorie diets are poor on fats and high on carbohydrates. Plus, lots of the "light" alternatives replace real food with processed stuff, than can help you gain weight, regardless of the calories.

In my case, if I need 2000 calories a day, I could easily put some weight eating less than that. The human body is smart enough to keep its reserves. Of course, performance does suffer, but the weight can be kept easily, with a reduced calorie intake. Only as an added bonus, it's easy to stay hungry all day with a diet like that.
On the other hand, you can go to the doctor, who can find the source of the problem, and tell you how to deal with it.
In my case, _when_ I diet, I eat a lot more food than when I'm not, specially beef, and it's very easy to go beyond the 2500 calories.
So, I don't agree with you, calorie intake and body weight are not related scientifically. There are no actual studies that correlate them. Real doctors nowadays don't say that reducing calorie intake is going to make you thinner. Anecdotal evidence doesn't show examples of people losing weight and staying that way through reduced calorie intake.
Listening to your doctor and eating according to your needs seem a lot more sensible than just puting your faith in plain arithmetic for a medical issue. And exercise can't hurt, of course.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Bongo]

Uhh... I'm pretty sure if you can burn more calories than you consume, while still gaining/maintaining weight, then you could quite comfortably claim the Randi Challenge prize. And then you could sell your body to science for billions.

The point is that the energy balance equation is way oversimplified for a human biological open system. It leads people to the wrong conclusion. A study found that schoolchildren given less exercise at school, ended up doing more at home. Other studies find that when people eat less, they move less. So you have to look at the whole system, and understand what's going on. The restricted carbohydrate hypothesis is basically that before the invention of agriculture just 10,000 years ago, our bodies were not subjected to huge quantities of carbs like bread, pasta, cereals, rice, and so on. All that stuff is not a natural diet for human type bodies in the last million years. And what they do is they massively increase the amount of sugar in our bodies (carbs turn to sugar) and the hypothesis is that the high sugar raises our insulin and raises the rate at which we put on fat. It is a hormonal control system, like, because your body's hormones are a control system for what your body should be doing, and the carbs increase sugar which send your hormone insulin way out of whack, and your fat cells get told to open up and store more. I call it a hypothesis but since I started using it, I have lost 10% of my weight, and I wasn't fat to start with, just a bit of belly fat. My stomach is flat, my waist has shrunk, and all without making any effort to exercise. The energy balance equation puts too much emphasis on exercise--you don't need any, you just need to not eat processed carbs, and stick to meat and veg and fruit and as it is a more natural diet, the body does well on it.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[yabos]

Actually, it seems to be true that artificial sweeteners cause people to eat more. There are many recent studies on it
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=diet+soda+weight+gain&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Ihlosi]

The restricted carbohydrate hypothesis is basically that before the invention of agriculture just 10,000 years ago, our bodies were not subjected to huge quantities of carbs like bread, pasta, cereals, rice, and so on.

You mean the time when getting food either meant spending a long time each day walking and gathering it, or tracking it, chasing it down, killing it and carrying back to the camp? And that success in actually getting any food wasn't guaranteed each day?

Yes, certainly exercise and reduced availability of food didn't have anything to do with people being leaner back then.

If you want to eat like a caveman, try throwing out your fridge. Better yet, don't store any food at home (that'll reduce the temptation too). And use a non-motorized means of transport to fetch food. Yes, even if you live ten miles from the nearest supermarket. You'll be lean and fit like a caveman in less than a year.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[MightyYar]

And use a non-motorized means of transport to fetch food.

Walk around New York City, and you'll eventually realize that the only truly obese people you see are tourists. This despite a culture highly reliant on high-calorie restaurant meals.

Certainly it helps that the culture here is not very accepting of fat, but I think it is more related to the fact that most people don't have a car.

As for the Atkins low-carb hypothesis... I want to know why Dr. Atkins thought that human evolution suddenly stopped at the introduction of agriculture? The ability to digest lactose is just one adaptation that I can point to off the top of my head.

I suspect the success of people on Atkins diets is due to the fact that they've cut all their "empty" calories from things like sugar and white flour. Our great great grandparents knew that sugar isn't good for you - it's not exactly groundbreaking that people who restrict their sugar intake lose weight.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that explains why one third of the Jews in concentration camps were so fat. They were one of the three body types that can magically consume less calories than they expend, and still stay fat.

Hey, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say that you're also fat, and making crazy rationalizations about how it's not because you regularly fill up on fucking beer and Cheeseburgers.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[that IT girl]

Just to play devil's advocate... there actually is something you can do about cancer...

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[wurp]

Weight gain is *mass* in minus *mass* out. Now, how much of the mass of what you eat sticks with you may be related to the calories in it. In fact, it seems downright likely. But it is not the end-all.

This notion of "duh, OBVIOUSLY if you consume more calories than you burn, you'll gain weight" is pseudoscientific thinking. Calories are a measure of the chemical energy in your food. Whether your body can access that energy, how it stores it, how the food affects your metabolism, and a whole host of other things will affect weight gain.

I have no special training in food science or metabolism, but the "obvious" platitudes spouted off here wrt weight gain are obviously wrong.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Larryish]

Diet coke?

Aspartame is the sweetener in that stuff. Aspartame makes people fat and stupid.

http://nukesylo13.com/component/content/article/21-health/1337-artificial-sweeteners-can-make-you-sick-and-fat

Fat people: don't drink diet drinks. Not diet coke or crystal light or any of that crap.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Its more a case of the wrong composition of diet undermining the body's normal appetite management feedback system leading to overeating.

Eating less calories than you burn over time will lose you weight.
That does not mean that everyone with a weight problem got there by forcing themselves to eat too much on purpose.

However, a combination of poor diet and insulin resistance leads to a vicious circle in which the body will store what you eat preferentially as fat rather than use it, leaving you with low energy and making you hungry again more quickly.

so poor diet + insulin resistance leads to lack of exercise, gaining weight and overeating.
The overeating is a symptom, not a direct cause.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[GargamelSpaceman]

If you can find a person who eats less calories than they burn, then the other robot overlords and I are going to breed such people, in tanks of pink slime hooked up to brain implanted VR in order to provide electricity for our robotic civilization.

Now, there may be a way to tweak your diet so that you metabolize less of the calories you consume - for instance, eat Hay. Goats can grow fat on a diet of Hay proving that hay contains plenty of calories, but lucky us, people can eat all they hay they want and not put on a single pound!

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[thasmudyan]

Numerous studies over the years failed to link high-calorie diet with weight gain, but this fact was overlooked because it challenged nutritional and medical orthodoxy.

Are you serious? I hope not. The fact that high-calorie diets lead to consistently fat animals in testing is the basis for most obesity-related research. For example, this is what scientists do when they need, say, ten overweight mice: they put them on a high-calorie diet. Ten out of ten mice get fat from high-calorie diets.

And the same goes for humans as well, by the way. Obese people eat a lot of food. I know, because I eat a lot of food.

There are exactly two reasons why we need food: first, to extract the chemical energy needed for driving our metabolism. Second, we need a lot of chemicals to keep our cells going - mainly in the form of organic compounds that consist to a large part of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen. Now, obesity is caused by a very simple process. Whenever we absorb more chemical energy than we actually need, our body stores it in the form of a high-energy substance called fat.

It doesn't actually matter how you acquired that chemical energy, be it through the uptake of sugar, fat or proteins. While those three categories have different energy conversion efficiencies, it's still the overall amount of usable energy contained in them that matters. So a reduction in energy uptake will eventually cause your body to start burning those reserves. It's what fat storage cells are for.

There are a few other factors to consider. The energy demand of your body varies with age, weight, lifestyle, genetic background, gender, illnesses, et cetera. Certain foods also alter your "energy settings". And to make matters even more complex, reducing your energy uptake can put your body into one of several possible energy conservation modes.

Granted, it's a lot to think about, but as cybernetic mechanisms go, it's not all that mysterious. It's certainly not mysterious enough to invoke some kind of vast medical conspiracy over.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Jason Levine]

One of the things I've found is that reducing your calories too much is counter-productive. Remember that our bodies evolved over millions of years where food supplies weren't constant. The body has to be able to deal with lack of food without completely failing. So, when you radically cut your calorie intake, your body senses this as a famine. It then reduces your metabolism to conserve energy. You burn less calories and retain more fat. During an actual famine, this is a good thing. You certainly don't want to burn off that one meal quickly if it is the only meal you can scrounge together for the whole day. During a modern times diet, however, it is a bad thing. It means that you will need to work out harder, and diet more just to drop a few more pounds.

This is one of the reasons why people find themselves yo-yo dieting. They go on a diet and lose some weight. The body senses the weight loss as an impending famine and reduces the metabolism. The dieter then goes off their diet and resumes their normal eating patterns. Unfortunately for them, the increased calories in coupled with the decreased calories burned results in rapid weight gain.

I lost about 80 pounds a few years back and one of my secrets was completely revamping how I looked at/considered food. I went on an "unofficial Weight Watchers" program. (Unofficial in that I did all the calculations/tracking myself and didn't join up with Weight Watchers.) Food was no longer just some tasty thing that I stuffed in my mouth. It had a number value ("points") attached to it representing how much Calories, Fat and Fiber were in it. Calculating this number turned out to be a perfect fit for my inner math nerd. Eventually, I would see at a tasty looking donut and not think of how delicious it would taste, but of how many points it was. Sure that donut would be tasty, but it just wasn't worth the huge points hit when other treats would suffice for much less. I didn't stop eating food, I just changed what foods I was eating. This shift in thinking helped me keep off my weight even after I stopped actively tracking my points. Yes, I still gain weight from time to time and go back on the program to take the weight back off, but my weight gains are much slower (30 pounds in a year, if that) and are much easier to catch early on.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[grub]

Ha ha ha ha, thanks for my Monday morning laugh. :)

.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[sckeener]

slightly incorrect...instead of "If calories in is less than calories burnt, you WILL lose weight." It should be 'if energy in is less than, energy burnt, you will lose weight.' Calories are a nice tool, but everyone derives different amount of energy from them because their intestines are able to process the foods differently. I can't eat anything with milk and if I do, it goes straight through me. It takes about 20 minutes for me to clean myself out. That isn't enough time to get all energy from it. If I have a full meal right before I have some milk, it'll be out my system in 20 minutes too.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[grub]

I dunno... I love spicy food but sometimes I overdo it. Not sure if the Ring of Fire really is preferable to cancer... :P

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[iamhigh]

In my case, if I need 2000 calories a day, I could easily put some weight eating less than that. The human body is smart enough to keep its reserves.

Riddle me this... Why does it keep a reserve if you can never eat little enough to force your body to use said reserve?

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[steelfood]

Except most soft drinks don't use sugar in the US, they use high-fructose corn syrup, which has the same effects as artificial sweeteners.

People who are looking to lose weight just shouldn't drink soda, period. Stick with water and occasional juice. Better yet, brew and drink tea, no sugar or milk added, but that might be too much to ask for. If they can't follow something so simple as laying off the soda, then they're not really serious about losing weight.

And lay off the beer too.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[amoeba1911]

Here's a car analogy for exercise:
The other day I was filling up my gas tank and it started overflowing! So I brought my car to the mechanic and he said my car wasn't getting driven enough for the amount of gas I was putting in. I'm very used to putting in exactly 20 gallons per week, and I wasn't about to change that, but I took his advice and I've been driving around the city for about an hour every day and I have seen considerable improvement, my gas tank is not overflowing nearly as much as it used to.

Doesn't it want to scream "Put less gas in there you fucking moron!"

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[steelfood]

Well, it's simple mathematics that if somebody consumes less calories, there would be less calories to burn. The complication usually occurs when people go back to their original diets, when they want to stop "suffering" after a week or two of a low-calorie diet. In which case, they will balloon back up.

The other way isn't so simple. Calorie burn rate isn't constant. Just because people eat more doesn't mean they'll store the extra. For a lot of people with so-called high metabolism, the more they eat, the more they burn. This happens automatically, and can't really be controlled. In fact, if they just sit around and don't move after a big meal, they'll end up burning the extra calories with their brains, whether they know it or not.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Rob the Bold]

Are you serious? I hope not.

I am only serious to the extent that Taubes' book and the research he cites say these things. None of this is my own research.

And the same goes for humans as well, by the way. Obese people eat a lot of food. I know, because I eat a lot of food.

Ah, here's another interesting point he challenges: that eating more makes you fat. Taubes suggests that perhaps this finding confuses correlation with causation (a favorite point of ours here on Slashdot). He suggests that research is needed to confirm whether eating too much (and of what) and being too sedentary causes us to be fat, or whether being fat causes us to eat too much (and of the wrong things). Still, not my research. And I'm not pimping a bookstore or even a purchase here, go to the library and check out this volume. Even if you disagree with it it's a fascinating read and a real page-turner. It also has a bunch of interesting stuff on the history of treatment of heart disease and diabetes.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[T Murphy]

Sloth as one of the seven deadly sins was originally meant as apathy, not laziness; the translation is ambiguous between the two words and somewhere along the line the laziness one stuck.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[alien9]

I'm pretty sure the amount of 'calories' contained in a cup of gasoline will give you a nice boost of 'energy'. The idea that complex reactions involved in such a complex process as nutrition could be simplified to 'burning things' is pseudo-science. I can't find any citations from the process of measuring the energy of food (calorimeter?) and the whole idea of calories as an absolute value of nutrition (2000 calories of.... lettuce? whisky? crispy bacon?) is useless.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Rob the Bold]

Sloth as one of the seven deadly sins was originally meant as apathy, not laziness

Whatever . . . I don't care.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[avandesande]

The problem is that we don't really know how your body uses calories. By definition a calorie is the amount of heat created by burning a sample in an oxygen bomb.
In real life though it is not as simple as that- your food is really digested by billions of bacteria in your gut and label calories do not necessarily correlate to metabolized calories.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[thasmudyan]

I am only serious to the extent that Taubes' book and the research he cites say these things. None of this is my own research.

This isn't my field of research either, but I am a scientist and I do know from first hand observations (such as characteristic tissue staining for microscopy) that fat cells contain mainly one thing: fat. In fact, they contain so much fat that most of them have just one big fat-filled vacuole which makes up most of their mass. I also do know the high energy content of the lipids involved. I know the basic metabolic pathways that derive energy from sugars, fats and proteins (some of which I did experiments on), in addition I know how the body in turn synthesizes these substances for its own use and the mechanism that leads to both glycogen and fat deposits.

I don't mean to come across as a know-it-all asshole, but all of this knowledge doesn't really leave much room for speculation...

He suggests that research is needed to confirm whether eating too much (and of what) and being too sedentary causes us to be fat, or whether being fat causes us to eat too much (and of the wrong things).

It is true that fat cells and their supporting tissue "infrastructure" do require additional energy to sustain themselves. It is also true that they tend to give off all kinds of chemical signals, some of which might very well lead to additional increase in food uptake. However, there is no doubt whatsoever where these fat cells get their content from. It's chemically impossible to make fat without having the energy to assemble those lipid molecules. We get that energy directly from our food. If we had chloroplasts, exposure to sunlight would make us fat as well.

The psychological reasons for overeating vary with each individual, and some people clearly have hormonal imbalances that predispose them to consuming way too much. Sure, it also makes a difference if they eat a thousand kcal worth of sugars as opposed to, say, the same amount of proteins (because their metabolic pathways have different yields). But all in all, obesity is a direct function of energy intake. Otherwise, and I'm repeating my mantra here, it would be scientifically impossible to produce the fat to begin with.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[nikanj]

You might not gain weight by overeating, but you're sure as hell going to lose it by undereating. The laws of physics tend to ignore the debate and controversy.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[fractoid]

Walk around New York City, and you'll eventually realize that the only truly obese people you see are tourists. This despite a culture highly reliant on high-calorie restaurant meals.

Therein lies the rub~! I'd be certain that if you *drive* around New York City you'll see a LOT of fat people. Of course, correlation does not imply causation...

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[urbanRealist]

This is widely accepted conventional wisdom about losing (or gaining) weight. And it does just seem right.

Not only does it seem right, according to the laws of physics:

mass can neither be created nor destroyed

from http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/conservation-mass-d_182.html

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[onemorechip]

It has to do with glycemic index. GP is not saying you can take in more calories than you expend without gaining weight. If the calories are in the form of a high-GI food then they will be converted to fat fairly quickly, and will be harder to burn off. If they are in the form of a low-GI food then they will be absorbed slowly and the body will be able to expend more of those calories through normal metabolic processes. If identical twins try two diets with the same caloric intake, one with high GI and one with low GI, then this theory says the twin with the high GI diet will end up fatter than the other twin.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[onemorechip]

I was going to write a long critique of your apathy but decided it was too much trouble.

Is that apathy or laziness?

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[onemorechip]

Except most soft drinks don't use sugar in the US, they use high-fructose corn syrup

Er...fructose is a sugar.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[MightyYar]

I'm not sure I understand... I've done a fair amount of riding in taxis and buses here... even drive about once a month. The people pretty much look the same whether you are walking or driving.

I'm not trying to claim anything scientific - the last city that I lived in was Philly. There are a lot more obese people in and around Philly. A trip to a suburban mall is very interesting. Things have changed quite a bit since I was a kid... I mean, in those days, we had a fat kid in the school. One fat kid, who was teased mercilessly. Now when I see elementary school kids it's like a cattle ranch. I don't know what has changed - it's not like there was a shortage of processed food or television in the 80s.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[fractoid]

Sorry, I was making a joke... that the reason you don't see a lot of morbidly obese people is self-selection, due to the fact that you're walking. The implication was that all the fat people are sitting in cars, NOT walking. :P

As for the change in kids' waistlines, sure, there was no shortage of TV and junk food. But kids got to watch an hour or two a night, and 'fast food' was a treat for once or twice a week; these days kids spend a lot more time playing video games and are a lot more sedentary generally, and some families eat out every night. I'd also bank on it being something to do with a lot of households these days having two working parents, compared to the 80s when as I recall it, most families had a breadwinner and a homemaker, and the kids spent a lot of time being a lot more active.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[dgatwood]

It's definitely hand waving, insofar as the specific mechanism of causation isn't known. The studies just show what happens, not why it happens. :-) That said, hunger does definitely have a psychological component, so it's certainly not implausible that this effect might be entirely psychological in nature. It's hard to say. That's more of a hypothesis than anything else.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[urbanRealist]

Really? accepted conventional wisdom over the laws of physics? really? I quit

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[MightyYar]

I kind of thought you were being funny, but you never can tell on Slashdot :)

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Hognoxious]

a sugar != sugar.

Sugar in this context means table sugar, sucrose.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Hognoxious]

I have no training at all in chemistry, physics or biology. But it's obvious that those who do are all wrong.

Yeah, whatever. Send me a postcard from Stockholm.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"And lay off the beer too."

NNNnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

Next thing you'll tell me it to stop with the whiskey.

There's a better chance I look into this "exercise" thing I keep hearing about. Does that mean I'll have to go where the scary yellow eye looks down half the day? Surely I can do this "exercise" here in the basement, where it's safe.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[wurp]

Actually, I have a BS in Physics and Math. I said I had no special training in food science or metabolism, not that I'm an uneducated idiot.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[orasio]

Endocrinology is not the same as plain logic.
Nobody said you can't eat little enough for it to start burning fat.
There _is_ a threshold under which the body won't be able to compensate the decrease in calories.
The thing is that in many cases it's just too slow, or too unhealthy to be the reasonable thing to do.
Other than complying with some wacky ascetic ideals, I can't think of a reason why you should have a 800 calorie diet, if you can lose more, in a healthier manner, and faster, with a tasty 2000-2500 calorie diet. As an added incentive, you will feel better through the day with the latter.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[quantaman]

Losing fat comes down to a simple equation.
If calories in is less than calories burnt, you WILL lose weight. Its as simple as that.
No amount of "glandular" problem is going to make you put on weight if you are eating less calories than you use in your daily activites.
So you need to either eat less, or do more ecercise, or both. Exercise helps because as you get fitter and have more muscle, as just having more muscle makes you burn more energy - so in that respect it is easier for a fit person to stay slim, but there is no reason in the world that anyone needs to be fat, regardless of any "glandular" problem.
Getting more excercise is trivial too. It takes no more 5 minutes to do 30 pushups and 60 crunches - you can do them last thing at night before going to bed.
Likewise, you can get off the bus/train one stop earlier ( or walk to the next stop along from where you get on) and easily get a 15 to 30 min walk in a day. Losing weight doesnt have to mean hours and hours in the Gym - just a bit of self motivation to be a bit more active in your daily routine.

I do think this is a bit deceptive, there is a significant genetic component and in my experience the people who claim that weight loss is simply some relatively simple triumph of will are generally the ones who are naturally skinny.

Now I'm definitely not obese but am a bit overweight (6ft & ~190lb). I've always eaten relatively healthily and tried to eat reasonable amounts. The problem is hunger. If you are hungry you will eat, as it happens some people get hungrier than others, these people tend to be larger as they have to eat to make the hunger go away.

Physical activity helps and I've always been fairly active but it's not the only factor, I was 195 and went from running ~20k/week to 45k/week, I'm not a great runner but I did a sub 4hr marathon which is respectable enough. This made absolutely no difference to my weight, I simply get hungrier and eat more.

For the last 6 months I've gone up to 60km/week (~37 miles), for the first three months this made absolutely no difference to my weight, again I simply ate more because I was hungrier. Finally I figured out that olive oil works as a decent appetite suppressant (or the Shangri-la diet is actually legit) and have been able to reduce my appetite enough to go down 5lbs in the last 3 months (probably looking at a 3:20 marathon now).

Yes diet makes a difference, as does exercise (during one period with very poor exercise and diet I hit 205) but if I can stay 30lbs over my desired weight while watching my diet and running 60k/week than I'm willing to believe that larger people might be doing a lot of work while still staying large.

One other thing - Diet drinks - stay the hell away from them. Ever see slim people in the supermarket buying diet coke? no - its always the huge people. Diet drinks have less calories, but there's an interesting littlel experiment they did, where two groups of rats were allowed to eat as much as they wanted - one group was given diet drinks, and the other normal non diet drinks. The ones on diet drinks porked up. The theory: The sweetners give your body signals to get ready to deal with a lot of sugar. When the sugar doesnt arrive, your body goes "Holy crap - we're starving! better eat more!"
So diet drinks may actually make you fatter by making you have a bigger appetite. Here's a not very authoritive link http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2008/06/its_been_recognized_for_a.php to one article about this - Im sure with a more thorough search the actual paper would turn up somewhere.

This is more useful advice (though I don't drink diet drinks), really I think weight loss needs to focus less on willpower and more on hacking the bodies appetite mechanisms.

Re:The story title is wrong ...

[quantaman]

Spoiler Alert: According to the book, the calorie balance hypothesis is wrong. Numerous studies over the years failed to link high-calorie diet with weight gain, but this fact was overlooked because it challenged nutritional and medical orthodoxy. The real culprit, as the title suggests, is the composition of the diet, not the absolute calories it contains. It's a fascinating read, well researched, and worth the trip to the library.

Uhh... I'm pretty sure if you can burn more calories than you consume, while still gaining/maintaining weight, then you could quite comfortably claim the Randi Challenge prize. And then you could sell your body to science for billions.

Wow, it never occurred to me that everyone on /. needed a lesson on basic thermodynamics!

It has to do with hunger, I don't care what you think you have for willpower or if your spreadsheet says no more calories today, if you're hungry enough you're going to eat. Any weight loss strategy should remember that fact.

Karma?

[WoRLoKKeD]

Well, this is just helping back up my ideas.

I previously believed Swine Flu was created by pigs to get revenge for people eating too much bacon. Now it's confirmed. Can I have a Nobel Prize now?

It's called "swine flu" for a reason ...

[tomhudson]

It kills people who eat like pigs.

Re:It's called "swine flu" for a reason ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, step out of America and some of the west, and it is called the Mexican Flu, since that is where it was first detected. Of course, enough evidence has come forth, that it appears that it originated in China, but that is a different issue. That matches up with earlier naming conventions:

1. Spanish Flu
2. Asian Flu
3. Hong Kong Flu

Or they are labeled by the year (1918 flu, 1956 flu, and 1968 flu).

Re:It's called "swine flu" for a reason ...

[drinkypoo]

By the same token, I found the subject/headline a bit ironic. It sounds to me like the swine flu kills obese people proportionally. The article even discusses approximately what the proportions are, and about what proportions you have to have to qualify (usually due to pro-portioning at the buffet...)

Re:It's called "swine flu" for a reason ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't it only ultra-religious types in Israel calling it Mexican Flu?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/swine-flu/5240868/Swine-flu-Israel-row-over-non-kosher-virus-name.html

Superstition is a funny thing at times.

Re:It's called "swine flu" for a reason ...

[IrquiM]

It's still swine flue in Norway

Re:It's called "swine flu" for a reason ...

[IrquiM]

flu - sorry!

swine flue is used for something else!

Re:It's called "swine flu" for a reason ...

[Fred_A]

Actually, step out of America and some of the west, and it is called the Mexican Flu [ ... ]

Here (France) it is refered to as the "A" flu, or sometimes H1N1 as per WHO naming conventions.
The "pig flu" nickname regularly persists in everyday conversations though.

Re:It's called "swine flu" for a reason ...

[pjt33]

Here in Spain the name given varies. Just the other day I saw a new poster in the airport which called it "H1N1 flu of porcine origin".

Re:It's called "swine flu" for a reason ...

[LizardKing]

Superstition is a funny thing at times.

Very true. I was in the local corner shop (convenience store) at the weekend, and as I was queuing at the counter I noticed they stock pork scratchings. They're pig skin covered in seasoning and then deep fried. I added a pack to my shopping, but as the guy behind the counter went to pick them up to scan them he pulled his hand away with a disgusted look on his face. Now, I know they might not be to everyone's taste, but it seemed like an extreme reaction. Turns out he's a strict Muslim, and doesn't eat pork. But he chooses to sell pork scratchings in his shop, and can't bring himself to touch the sealed packet. Weird.

only one thing to say

[gEvil (beta)]

I've got only one thing to say: pigs.

A reasoned discussion

[girlintraining]

I would be going to be very politically incorrect here, but people that are medically obese suffer a wide variety of ailments. If swine flu is what finally motivates these people to seek and complete treatment, why is this a bad thing? Or shall we continue to scream about the oppression of our right to be fat, forgetting that the virus doesn't give two sh--s either way.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[syousef]

If swine flu is what finally motivates these people to seek and complete treatment, why is this a bad thing?

Well there's a long list of reasons, but here are 2:

1) It takes a long time to lose weight if you're morbidly obese. Months or years. Forget the "biggest loser" style shows designed to sell weight loss products. That kind of weight loss is much less healthy than having the weight on in the first place. Epidemics on the other hand move much more quickly.

2) Some of the people we're talking about are morbidly obese because of other underlying illnesses. If you're expecting someone with chronic respiratory problems to get up and jog 5 kilometers every morning you're smoking crack

Or shall we continue to scream about the oppression of our right to be fat, forgetting that the virus doesn't give two sh--s either way.

How about you walk a mile in the shoes of someone fat before you start mouthing off? This isn't a case where a few extra kilos in most cases makes the difference between life and death. We're not talking about the beauty and fashion magazine kind of fat you're thinking of. The virus might not give two shits either ways, but perhaps we or more specifically YOU can. It's not about being politically correct. It's about having some god damn compassion instead of an attitude that those disgusting fatties can go lose some weight - it's all their own fault.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

1) It takes a long time to lose weight if you're morbidly obese. Months or years.

It takes months or years to become morbidly obese in the first place. Cry me a fricken river. The longer you wait to take action, the longer it'll take.

2) Some of the people we're talking about are morbidly obese because of other underlying illnesses.

And that's a valid reason. However, since that's a fraction of a percent of obese people, it's really not worth considering.

If you're expecting someone with chronic respiratory problems to get up and jog 5 kilometers every morning you're smoking crack

How about walking 10 minutes every couple of hours, then? There are low-impact ways to exercise. Find them out.

It's about having some god damn compassion instead of an attitude that those disgusting fatties can go lose some weight - it's all their own fault.

Maybe because for the vast majority of obese people, it in fact is their own fault?!

It takes years to go from a bit chubby to morbidly obese. That's years of ignoring the problem, years of refusing to take action. It doesn't just suddenly happen.

I don't have compassion for people who whine about how tired they are after staying up watching movies and drinking all night. Their choice, their consequence.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[syousef]

It takes months or years to become morbidly obese in the first place. Cry me a fricken river. The longer you wait to take action, the longer it'll take.

Well I got obese around the age of 3 asshole. You going to hold a child accountable for that? Even holding the parents accountable has its problems. Not all our bodies work the same way dipshit.

And that's a valid reason. However, since that's a fraction of a percent of obese people, it's really not worth considering.

Of course you know everyone's complete medical history and have statistics to back up your abhorrent decision that this "fraction of a percent" of people isn't "worth considering". Your choice to ignore those who most need help is repugnant and a general indicator of your lack of compassion. Fuck you.

How about walking 10 minutes every couple of hours, then? There are low-impact ways to exercise. Find them out.

Yeah that'll work. You wanna be the one to explain to my boss what the fuck I'm doing. Asshole.

Maybe because for the vast majority of obese people, it in fact is their own fault?!

So what you're saying is that a huge percentage of the population are just weak willed. Doesn't the fact that it's such a wide spread thing that goes across all demographics when it comes to socio-economic status and education tell you any fucking thing? Are you really that obtuse?

It takes years to go from a bit chubby to morbidly obese. That's years of ignoring the problem, years of refusing to take action. It doesn't just suddenly happen.

I don't have compassion for people who whine about how tired they are after staying up watching movies and drinking all night. Their choice, their consequence.

Well it's clear that you have no compassion period. Why don't you post with your actual name instead of being such a coward to boot? Trying to explain anything as complex as how to change a tyre on you is clearly wasted, let alone how and why people "allow" themselves to put on weight.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I got obese around the age of 3 asshole. You going to hold a child accountable for that? Even holding the parents accountable has its problems.

How is it a problem? They apparently either didn't take you to a doctor or did and ignored his advice. Apparently they overfed you. Most childhood obesity problems can be traced to poor diet, which would be (or should be, at least) the parents' fault.

Not all our bodies work the same way dipshit.

Yeah, I know. However, we're talking about morbid obesity, not the fact that not everyone is going to be an Olympic gymnast.

Of course you know everyone's complete medical history and have statistics to back up your abhorrent decision that this "fraction of a percent" of people isn't "worth considering".

Yes, because when talking about a problem, you always talk solely about the edge cases and never the vast, vast majority.

Yeah that'll work. You wanna be the one to explain to my boss what the fuck I'm doing. Asshole.

Really? Shit, man, you need a better job. The place where I work has a gym for employees along with a walking program. Management discovered that healthy workers tend to be more productive.

So what you're saying is that a huge percentage of the population are just weak willed.

No, just that the percentage of the population that are huge are weak-willed.

Well it's clear that you have no compassion period.

OK, fine, let's go with the car analogy. Someone doesn't bother repairing their car or changing their oil or doing even the least bit of maintenance. As a result, their engine seizes, and they start complaining about how much money it's going to cost to repair.

How much compassion do you feel for someone who just is too lazy to do the simplest things to keep themselves healthy?

Why don't you post with your actual name instead of being such a coward to boot?

Sure, syousef, no email or website given. Since you apparently care so much about usernames, I'll go with "root."

Re:A reasoned discussion

[sjames]

And that treatment would be?

So far the best they have is exercise 3 times more than people who are naturally thin and disregard the 3rd strongest human drive. (where first is breathing and second is drinking).

Re:A reasoned discussion

[syousef]

Yeah, I know. However, we're talking about morbid obesity, not the fact that not everyone is going to be an Olympic gymnast.

Yeah we're also talking about bodies that work very differently.

Yes, because when talking about a problem, you always talk solely about the edge cases and never the vast, vast majority.

Have you taken a look at the stats? We're not just talking about edge cases. THAT is the problem. THAT is why obesity itself is being called an epidemic. Don't let facts distract your ranting though.

How much compassion do you feel for someone who just is too lazy to do the simplest things to keep themselves healthy?

Your car analogy stinks. People are not cars, and if they were they wouldn't be the same make model and wouldn't require the same fuel or maintenance. People who go to great lengths to be healthy are often thwarted by things beyond their own control including their lot in life (circumstances) and their own biology. YOU have a body that works well and no issues with apetite or excercise so you refuse to even consider that others might find it not only more difficult but near impossible.

Sure, syousef, no email or website given. Since you apparently care so much about usernames, I'll go with "root."

STILL posting as AC. And still coming up with this. Then you're casting aspersions because I won't give you my home address. You're completely irrational and unreasonable.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[yoursurrogategod]

Your job has what? Where do you work?

Re:A reasoned discussion

[Stickerboy]

>Well I got obese around the age of 3 asshole.

I hate to just jump in, but have you had your thyroid function checked? It takes a lot of effort to make a physiologically normal child at the age of 3 obese. One of my classmates went from skinny to super obese at around 2nd grade; it wasn't until he went to a new doctor in college that he got his thyroid function checked and found out that his wasn't working normally.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[KozmoStevnNaut]

I'm not the AC you adressed, but my job has a pretty good gym which you can get unlimited access to for ~$20/month.

Most employees have full 24/7 campus access and loads of people show up to work out before beginning work. Even more people go there right before they go home, it's a great way to fit in an hours worth of excercise 2-3 times per week. Working hours are flexible enough that you don't have to worry about spending too much time in the gym, too.

For reference, I work in the IT department of a major telco in Denmark.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[Faerunner]

Since you're attacking root's AC posting (strawman!), I might as well let you flame me directly. The car analogy fits perfectly.

There are preventative measures everyone can take to keep their car running, regardless of make and model. Some models run longer than others on less maintenance, but eventually every one needs an oil change and tires rotated, or it will break down. You can't expect your Jeep (as awesome and hard-working as they are) to keep running forever without a tune-up, even if it doesn't need as much maintenance as someone's Corvette. Similarly, if you own a certain kind of car you should be expected to look up the basic facts about that car. You can't go to the gas station and fill up the tank if you don't know how much the tank will hold. You can't change the oil if you don't know what kind and how much to put in, what kind of filter to get... even if you pay a professional to do this for you (mechanic), you should be asking questions about what they do and why, to gain a better understanding of the necessary maintenance and what you can do at home. It's no different than taking yourself to the doctor, nutritionist, or gym/personal trainer to help take care of yourself if you don't have the time/energy to do it for yourself at home. There will also be times when your car will seize up for no "good" reason, or come with defects from the manufacturer (which may not show up until years later, like door lock failures). Maybe you were t-boned and now you can't open the passenger door, or maybe the door lock failed suddenly. Either you fix the door, or you learn to use the other doors in a more effective manner. The only difference is that when cars get too smashed up to work, most people can go get a new one. You can't really do that with yourself, so you need to take better care of your body than you do your car.

I'm with root - I don't care what "reasons" people have for becoming overweight - there is no excuse for not attempting to get that weight off, and trying until it either comes off, or you learn to live with it and stop screaming at everyone who pokes you in the tummy. Hell, I'm gaining fat around my middle pretty rapidly the last year or so, and as tired and stressed and poor as I am, I'm still finding ways to exercise. Screw the excuses. Even those who have been laid up and gained weight due to forced inactivity should be able to drop it when they are allowed to move again. If you can't use one ankle, make use of the other one, the rest of your legs, your arms and your core muscles (lower back, obliques and abs). Do modified yoga poses, do pilates, swim, fidget at your desk with a weight around your good ankle. Stand up for breaks (good for you if you're in an office 10 hours a day anyway!) and do calf raises. The cubicle divider makes a great place to hang on to and take some weight off that bad ankle if necessary. If you absolutely can not keep the weight off by yourself, get help and get a lap band. I guarantee it will take care of your hunger problem by making it physically impossible for you to eat too much, and between a guy with a lap band and a guy with a salad, I'll put my bets on the lap band working better for longer in most cases.

The bottom line is: Keep trying. I am not trying to be disparaging, but you sound like you're getting very defensive over your inability to do something that in all likelihood you are quite capable of, once you get past the initial pain of it. I do this to myself a LOT and I recognize the signs. Don't let your fears keep you from success. If you have lost weight in the past, you can do it again. Talk to your doctor (seriously!) and start charting your diet for starters. If you hate fitday.com, use dailyplate.com or one of the million other meal-trackers. You CAN do it. The question is whether you really want to ask for help - and the answer should be "yes", because if you can't do it alone (as your argument seems to indicate), then there's no reason to be ashamed of asking for help. Hell, I'll even make you a deal - for every pound you lose, I'll run another mile. Think you can get me into a marathon by next year?

Re:A reasoned discussion

[Faerunner]

You don't have to disregard your drive to eat in order to maintain a healthy weight... you just have to manage it. If it's broken, you need to see someone about 'fixing' it either through diet, drugs, surgery or a combination thereof. I'll agree that the human drive to eat unhealthy things (it's been proven that fats are somewhat addictive) is a terrible evolutionary holdover, but with all the knowledge out there, what's stopping people from learning enough about their bodies to understand their cravings and treat them as cravings, instead of as a nutritional guide? I'm sure our ancestors craved sugar just as much as we do... they just didn't have boxes of Twinkies lying around. Sweet tree sap and flower nectar don't come in the same volumes as chocolate milk.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[plastbox]

Yeah we're also talking about bodies that work very differently.

Where do you get the idea that your body and mine, the day we were born, worked so very differently? Knowing how the body loves to store excess energy as fat, how the stomach expands to accommodate whatever amount of food one stuffs into it, and how the carb-rich foods that permeate every grocery store everywhere makes one feel full for a total of 15-30 minutes before cravings start again... Are you going to tell me your out-of-this-world hunger pangs that no one is equipped to comprehend but you absolutely could not be the result of a life of bad nutrition? If the cycle of eating too much (expanding the stomach) and eating poorly (creating constant hunger, and fat storage) started when you were 3 years old, I feel sorry for you and can easily see how it could be a difficult cycle to break out of. Also, sugar is in fact addictive, just in case someone didn't know already.

Have you taken a look at the stats? We're not just talking about edge cases. THAT is the problem. THAT is why obesity itself is being called an epidemic. Don't let facts distract your ranting though.

Which are these facts you speak of? Do you have a working knowledge of genetics? If there was in fact a selection of mutations that removed all hope of being slim and healthy, I'd back off and bow my head in condolences to the sufferers. However:

1.Being overweight is not healthy. Statistically, healthy equals sexually attractive. Honestly.. I can't think of a great many things more off-putting (sexually) than an overweight woman both because of the appearance, instinctive attention to health issues and disgust at the lifestyle she most likely continues to cultivate. Ergo, these fantasy genes that makes one overweight beyond hope would not have any chance of suddenly spreading throughout the gene pool.
2.Even if a mutation appeared that somehow made the recipient hopelessly fat AND ragingly sexually attractive, it would take that mutation a lot longer than 2-3 generations to spread to 1/4 of the 300 million Americans alive today!

The way I see it, from a logical point of view, there is no way 78 million Americans can get away with blaming genetics. Yes, there will always be the odd case, but what is your reason for believing that a mutation causing morbid obesity would occur more often and spread more efficiently than one causing extra limbs, missing limbs, or whatever else would give you an obvious disadvantage in the reproductive "arms race"? (not comparing you to someone missing a limb, this is a theoretical comparison between existing mutations and the "fat beyond help"-gene you claim exists)

Your car analogy stinks. Blah blah

Again, the point I am trying to get across is that in normal people, the basal metabolic rate (relative to bodyweight/body composition) varies at most 5% either way. Again, some people, for example, have thyroid problems but this is easily diagnosed and treated. The fact stands that when it comes to metabolism there is very little variation within the norm, and most all those who genetically or because of disease or accidents fall outside the norm are diagnosed and treated. So where is your evidence supporting this condition where no matter what one eats, one gains weight despite this being impossible? Where is the genetic marker responsible for making people pile on lard no matter how hard these poor, poor people work? One would think that with 78 million obese people to treat, there would be a lot of money flowing into finding this malfunctioning gene and creating and selling a cure for fatness.

I'll tell you why, and I hope you don't get even more provoked than you already are (not trying to provoke anger, rather discussion and thought). The vast majority of overweight people, whether they have 5kg too much or 150kg, are the way they are because they ingest more calo

Re:A reasoned discussion

[sjames]

Diet is just a word for disregarding what the body drives you to eat and substituting something else or nothing.

Appetite is not a simple thing. Some people do develop cravings for unhealthy food for various reasons, and their body can be retrained not to crave those things, but that is not the whole of the issue.

The surgeries carry risks as great or greater than those of being active but overweight. Drugs available certainly carry more risks than being overweight, they're inevitably stimulants.

You're also assuming that appetite is the crux of being overweight, either simply eating too much or eating the 'wrong things' but that is not necessarily the case. It is also a matter of metabolic efficiency. You can take a 'normal' person and an 'overweight' person and serve them the same amount of the same food, then put them through the same exercise program move for move and at the end of the program, the 'overweight' person will weigh more than the 'normal' person (though you could, depending on the program end up with an 'underweight' person and a 'normal' person).

Meanwhile, the 'official' advice on what is the right thing is conflicted and changes like the wind. For every claim that fat must be eliminated from the diet, there's another that doing so will result in never NOT being hungry.

For quite a number of people, they can eat less than normal, be more active than normal, eat absolutely no desserts, processed foods, or added sugars and the result is that they will be a very physically fit overweight person.

As a result they will still run across people who habitually wolf down any food that is near them and sit on their ass most of the time who quack on (and on and on) about how if they would just exercise more and get some will power they wouldn't be fat, ugly slobs.

I'm not saying that people who are overweight should do nothing, just that they probably shouldn't expect the result to be 'normal' weight. That expectation is just a setup to sabotage the whole program. They can expect to be physically fit as a result.

I find it amusing that you imagine that you know how fat our ancestors were (or not). Other than a small sample who ended up in peat bogs, we have no evidence whatsoever that there weren't fat cavemen. Soft tissue decays and gets eaten by animals. It would be quite remarkable if there were no fat cavemen since there have been fat people (both otherwise healthy and not) for the entirety of recorded history.

If you reflect on that a moment, you may realize the strength of the bias against fat people.

Note that for years our ancestors were thought to have a hunched over posture. It turns out that the bones we studied to conclude that just happened to come from someone who had advanced arthritis and for that matter, Neanderthal probably isn't our ancestor.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[Faerunner]

Way to read too much into that!

Citation needed for: "Drugs available certainly carry more risks than being overweight."

Bias against fat people? There's a bias against anyone who doesn't fit the current standard of beauty, in case you hadn't noticed. Fat people are just the ones currently being railed on. Give it a couple of years; the fat mass will become the majority and people will start wailing about anorexics instead.

Note to Mr. Historian: The beginning of recorded history happened around the time our ancestors stopped hunting and gathering and started settling in to grow crops and developed specialization of the work force. Before that it's anyone's guess whether there were fat people, and my guess is NO. Hunting and gathering is a rough lifestyle and one that does not lend itself to gaining weight, unless you have one of those rare glandular problems and you're not constantly moving (ie, you're a second wife to someone). Go ahead and find me a picture of one of those "untouched" Amazonian rainforest tribes that features a clinically obese person.

Diet is not simply about disregarding cravings or substitution. It's about everything you take in, whether or not you crave it and whether or not you do anything about that craving. If you choose to eat rather than go hungry - that's a part of your diet. If you crave ice cream and eat it, that's also a part of your diet. If you mean dieting, that's another thing altogether.

Oh, and I never said that diet alone would kill off your fat cells, or that managing your appetite is easy. Hence the quip about treating cravings as a nutritional guide. People clearly do have the information available to make informed decisions about what they eat though, and it's certainly not going to hurt you to avoid large volumes of any food (I live by "Everything in Moderation", and it has served me well). Even if you are "overweight", a healthy diet can keep you more physically fit, and as far as I'm concerned if you're 300lbs and can bench your own weight, jog every other day and don't get out of breath climbing stairs, you don't need to be thin. Health comes in all sizes... but people who can't functionally move around, or get winded because of their size and lack of exercise are not healthy.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[boarder]

It's true, fat people are more stupid than the rest of us.

How's that for a generalization? If every fat person talked like you, that would be the stereotype.

It's unbelievable how unbelievably stupid you are.

Let's break down YOUR arguments, since you think that's the way to win:

At the age of 3, who controls what goes into your body? Your parents. Yes, it is completely their fault you got fat. Here's the thing: just because your body works differently than mine or theirs doesn't mean they couldn't react and change your diet. If I had a kid and saw he was becoming obese at THREE YEARS OLD, I would be all over that shit trying to figure out why. Is there a medical condition? Am I feeding him too much? Is he eating the dog's poop? Now, is it their fault you stayed fat? No.

You insult him by saying he has no numbers to back up his claim that only a small percentage of morbidly obese people are that way because of obscure medical issues, but then you don't provide any numbers to back your own argument up. You are just as bad as him. You insult him for ignoring people who most need help, but there you are being a huge fatty and ignoring your own problem. Once again, you are just as bad as him.

You ask him to explain to your boss "what the fuck I'm doing." You do realize that your boss is legally required to let you take that break? Just like your boss is legally required to let smokers take 5 min smoke breaks every hour, you are allowed to take 10 min walk breaks every 2 hours. Dumbass.

Yes, what he is saying is a huge percentage of the population is weak willed. I will agree with that 100%. How many people smoke and know it's bad for them? How many people have cheated on their wife/husband and felt bad about it? How many people drive the speed limit? How many people recycle everything, walk to the store instead of drive, reuse cloth bags instead of plastic bags at the grocery, turn down their AC to save energy, drive smaller cars, and all the other major inconveniences that everyone knows would help the environment? HUMANS ARE LAZY! It's a fact. I'll even repeat it for you: HUMANS ARE LAZY! Even the people who work their asses off usually do it because they get some enjoyment out of it. Obviously, there are some people who just work hard because they know they should or to obtain a certain goal, but they are the rarities. If a huge percentage of the population weren't weak willed, we wouldn't have a housing crisis or a credit crisis. Humans being weak willed also works when looking at this crossing all those demographic areas that you pointed out.

I'm not posting anonymously, because if I saw you in person I would quite literally shudder. Shudder at the kind of personality that has no care for keeping themselves healthy. Also, shudder at the sweaty fat rolls and Cheeto breath. So go ahead and explain something complicated like the venting and pressurization system of a liquid fueled rocket, and I'll probably correct you.

Google the laws of thermodynamics. If you can't lose weight by eating less and/or exercising more, then you are a medical miracle.

Re:A reasoned discussion

[sjames]

Way to read too much into that!

Whether you realize it or not, you broadcast a great many unspoken assumptions between the lines. Between suggesting that it can be trivially fixed with drugs or surgery to suggesting that fat people eat whatever comes to mind to the idea that it's the availability of "twinkies" (also suggesting a simple lack of will power), there was a lot to read in!

Citation needed for: "Drugs available certainly carry more risks than being overweight."

Have a look at: this. Note the number of them that have been banned or fallen into disuse due to potentially fatal side effects. Many are amphetamine analogs that turned to be just as healthy as any long term use of amphetamine (that is, not at all).

Then there's the infamous Fen-phen which caused EKG abnormalities in 30% of it's users and resulted in several deaths and several more heart-lung transplants and valve replacements. The lawsuits are still in the courts and of course, it's withdrawn.

A number of others on that list are simple analogs to Fen-phen and so may be expected to have similar effects.

Others work on serotonin levels in the brain. A number of those were withdrawn from the market for causing suicidal ideation (and a number of suicides)

phenylpropanolamine caused hemorrhagic strokes even when used as a decongestant (implying a shorter term and lower dose than the weight-loss usage). The FDA requested that it be removed from the market.

The few that remain are only to be used short term and only in the most morbidly obese (that is, people who can no longer get up without help) beacuse that's the only group where the benefits might outweigh the risks, but even then, only short term.

Most of them have only a modest effect on weight even if they were safe.

As for OTC products, hydroxycut was just withdrawn for causing rhabdomyolysis and liver damage. It was also never shown to have anything more than a mild appetite suppressive effect (if that) in the first place.

Another popular one was ephedra, which was banned by the FDA because the massive chronic overdose required to have any useful weight loss effect caused cardiomyopathy and strokes.

So, I stand behind the argument that there are no safe and effective drugs for weight loss.

Go ahead and find me a picture of one of those "untouched" Amazonian rainforest tribes that features a clinically obese person.

Assuming you mean contacted but not westernized since otherwise photos are out of the question, how about this guy?

I'm sure obesity is less common since they don't do desk jobs, but the idea that it's non-existent is shown false. While he was the best example, a cursory google image search for amazon tribe shows a few others who are at least what would be called "overweight".

The various venus figurines thought to have been created 40,000-25,000 BCE are not skinny. The idea of a fat person was clearly not alien to the sculptors. Those, of course, pre-date recorded history.

If you crave ice cream and eat it, that's also a part of your diet. If you mean dieting, that's another thing altogether.

Since you mentioned fixing overweight by diet, I think dieting would be what YOU meant and what I responded to. At least I assume you don't mean eating ice cream whenever the craving comes up as a way to fix overweight.

While I don't jog, and probably can't bench my own weight anymore, I am in decent shape overall. Stairs aren't a problem.

someone had to say it...

[tpjunkie]

God hates fats!

waste : hip

[Anonymous Coward]

"waste to hip ratio?" Is that measured in grams of feces per day over number of Apple products owned?

Re:waste : hip

[Anonymous Coward]

AKA Courics/Jobs

Re:waste : hip

[Anarchduke]

OMG dude that is about the funniest post I have read all day.

Re:waste : hip

[Fred_A]

"waste to hip ratio?" Is that measured in grams of feces per day over number of Apple products owned?

Shouldn't it be iPod / MacBooks trashed vs. iPod / MacBooks bought ?

It hasn't been found in pigs

[Colin Smith]

This particular flu hasn't been isolated in pigs, or any other animals so far.

http://www.oie.int/eng/press/en_090427.htm
and
http://www.oie.int/eng/press/en_090611.htm

So it's origins are currently unknown.

e.g.
http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/bild-english/world-news/2009/05/14/swine-flu-shock-claim/expert-says-virus-created-in-lab-by-vaccine-scientists.html

 

Re:It hasn't been found in pigs

[Hadlock]

What about the pig farmer in Alberta, Canada who gave the flu to his pigs? This is not the punchline for a bad joke, it actually happened - Farmer was in the US, flew home to canada and accidentally infected most (all?) of his herd(?) of pigs.

By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

BMI is an incorrect way to deteremine a persons immunity defense and state. A immunity, white blood and t-cell count is the correct way.

You can be skinny and have a poor immune system just like you can be fat (not morbidly obese, less then 30lbs over weight) and have an extremely healthy immune system.

Re:By Neruos

[tomhudson]

BMI is an incorrect way to deteremine a persons immunity defense and state. A immunity, white blood and t-cell count is the correct way.

Whether they're DEAD (like in the article) is the correct way. The article never said BMI was the way to determine whether their immune systems worked or not.

Not all

[AlpineR]

Summary: "They are all fat."

Article: "They are fat. [...] In Canada's Manitoba province, three out of five people treated for the new flu strain in intensive care units are obese."

If this virus killed only fat people that would be astounding. If it kills more than it's share of fat people, that's still interesting (despite all the "being fat is bad duh!" comments here) but less flashy.

Re:Not all

[Anonymous Coward]

If it killed ONLY fat people I'd fuck a pig and hang around my local McDonald's for a few days.

Re:Not all

[that IT girl]

Agreed... to me this just seems really basic. Eating well and having a healthy metabolism are very important to maintaining the immune system. Even in the office where I work, the bigger people are the ones who catch every little cold and bug that goes around. Overweight = less healthy = more severely affected by illnesses.

Not such bad news, since i'm thin

[physburn]

Wouldn't you hate it if, Swine Flu killed models but left fat people alive.

In Other news the mortality rate of H1N1 has apparently stablised at 0.45% so it not that deadly really.

--

Flu Feed @ Feed Distiller

Re:Not such bad news, since i'm thin

[tomhudson]

Wouldn't you hate it if, Swine Flu killed models but left fat people alive.

Good thing that swine flu isn't democratic - there are more fatso's around than skinny models.

Now, since swine flu kills fat slobs, we could say that it's actually anti-entropic (fewer slobs around == less disorganization == lower entropy)

Lower entropy means more energy potentially available to be converted to work ...

Swine Flu is the new perpetual energy source!

Re:Not such bad news, since i'm thin

[Anonymous Coward]

The Spanish Flu of 1918, which was a H1N1 strain as well and killed more people than WWI, came in two waves, the first starting in spring with a low lethality and the second bad one in August.

If this one evolves in a similar pattern the worst might be yet to come, I however think that even in that case modern medicine and communication will save us from the worst.

Re:Not such bad news, since i'm thin

[Anonymous Coward]

Of the cases diagnosed, which is a figure many orders of magnitude smaller than the people infected.
It has about the same prognosis as being exposed to pneumonia bacteria. Everyone is, only people with compromised immune systems die.

Re:Finally!! A Cure For Obesity!!

[sopssa]

Pig flu affects fat persons.. I didn't see that one coming!

I like it how this got modded down as troll and flamebait :)

fyi, i'm somewhat fat myself. but atleast I see the reality and admit its not good, instead of modding down :)

without dying?

[eyeverve]

The ad to the right of this article said "Lose weight without dieting." I read it as "...without dying." and had to do a double take. Fitting nonetheless...

And cue the fatty bashing

[JakiChan]

Here they come out of the woodwork, those who like to improve their low self-esteem by bashing on fat people. I'm sure we'll get plenty of quotes of the laws of thermodynamics and the like. Anyone want to place bets?

But while you're sitting on your high horse, you might want to go read something like _The End of Overeating_ so that instead of just assuming fat people are morally inferior you might get a clue about what's *really* going on out there. Just a thought.

Re:And cue the fatty bashing

[Digital Pizza]

What dumbass modded you Flamebait??? I wish I had mod points right now so that I could correct that.

I looked up that book on Amazon and it looks very interesting - think I'll pick up a copy. Thanks for the tip!

Re:And cue the fatty bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people here aren't saying it's morally wrong. Most people here are just saying it's unhealthy. I have no problem with fat people, but you can't deny that obese people are less healthy than more fit people.

Re:And cue the fatty bashing

[twostix]

Well I weighed 70kgs (140lbs) as an 18 year old, 130kgs (260lbs) as a 22 year old then worked like crazy and weighed 80kgs (160) as a 25 year old.

So I'll call fatties fat if I wish.

And I know! There's *nothing* worse than a reformed fatty or reformed smoker - which I am as well (I'm like a double barrelled shot gun of moral superiority these days!).

And yes my horse *is* very tall, thanks for asking...

Re:And cue the fatty bashing

[JakiChan]

(I'm like a double barrelled shot gun of moral superiority these days!)

If you haven't grown beyond the need to belittle others then you're not morally superior at all. I'd suggest that you're physically healthier and mentally more diseased. Which will make you happier in the long term? Dunno. But I have a guess.

"Swine" flu targets the obese?

[ZosX]

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves.

Hold on a sec, Captain Obvious

[brusk]

What isn't clear from TFA, and seems to be the crux of whether this is a story or not, is whether this particular flu is affecting obese people disproportionately as compared to similar influenzas. If all strains of flu have the same pattern and are more severe (by whatever measure) in obese people, then there's nothing interesting here. If, on the other hand, the correlation between BMI and severity is much higher for this H1N1, that's a potential clue, one that might tell us something about (a) how this particular virus works, which could be useful in developing treatments for everyone, and/or (b) how obesity affects immune response, which could be helpful in the treatment of other infectious diseases. But, alas, TFA gives only anecdotal evidence so we can't even speculate.

I have one word for it........

[Anonymous Coward]

Darwin

Genius!

[jaypifer]

Clearly this is a terrorist act targeting Americans!

Re:Genius!

[yoursurrogategod]

Yeh and big agriculture is the new Osama.

Re:Genius!

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly this is a terrorist act targeting Americans!

Well, at least they're targeting /. readers

ACLU to sue..

[devleopard]

the virus. For being bigoted. Also on the same docket is the sickle cell case.

stop using the term swine flu

[Eugene]

the term itself is misleading, the virus strand might have originated from swine, but the current flu has nothing to do with pigs. The proper term should be Influenza A (H1N1)

Re:stop using the term swine flu

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish they'd call it "pork flu". Cheap bacon for all!

Re:stop using the term swine flu

[bloobloo]

And Spanish Flu had nothing to do with Spain, yet that's what the 1918-20 outbreak of Influenza A (H1N1) is still commonly called.

Re:stop using the term swine flu

[Grim Leaper]

the term itself is misleading, the virus strand might have originated from swine, but the current flu has nothing to do with pigs. The proper term should be Influenza A (H1N1)

Swine flu : two syllables[1]
Influenza A (H1N1): nine syllables

Concise usually beats accurate. Such is life.

[1] Give or take. I'll never understand diphthongs.

Re:stop using the term swine flu

[ukyoCE]

The name isn't misleading, it's a name. As long as it uniquely identifies something (in this case a flu outbreak) it's a good name. H1N1 does NOT uniquely identify this particular outbreak.

Since the name Swine Flu is already widely used and recognized, it would be stupid and futile to try to make up some other name to replace it.

Piggy dies!

[mds820]

Ahah! Methinks pigs got sick being disproportionately consumed by fatties and this is their revenge. The fatty always dies.

No, they aren't *all* fat.

[John Hasler]

A disproportionate number, yes. But not all.

Super Lame!!

[zmollusc]

My only chance is to filter my air through this huge pile of empty pie wrappers!

Volumetrics

[Anonymous Coward]

Dr Barbara Rolls. No BS, no magic, no fads, no pills. Just eating right.

Re:Volumetrics

[yoursurrogategod]

Baby carrots are even more awesome. Even better is when you walk that 2.2 miles to and from the store with your backpack carrying a pound or two of those suckers and then munch on them while reading slashdot or playing games.

"...Disproportionally"

[SunnySideLeft]

So...as opposed to just killing them it kills them, takes their money and calls them names?

Given the appearance of pigs...

[macraig]

... and how really obese people superficially resemble them more than, say, Sylvester Stallone, it stands to reason that a swine flu virus would just feel more at home in an obese human, right? Hugely fat people have better accommodations for picky little swine flu viruses who don't want a room at Motel 6, they want the honeymoon suite at the Ritz.

illegal immigrants fast food.

[markringen]

i was never sick when i was fat and i'm never sick when i am thin, i think there are more things than just being fat. like illegal immigrants working in the fast food industry in America... and of course poor hygiene control and wages which are too low, a isn't it nice to be a fatty in America?

Re:illegal immigrants fast food.

[oldhack]

Your tinfoil hat is too tight - loosen it two notches.

Re:illegal immigrants fast food.

[markringen]

there is a brown goo coming from your trousers! been to McDonalds again?

Convenience itself

[wampus]

You gotta give it to nature. Two birds with one stone.

The WHO's Nikki Shindo nailed it...

[macraig]

... when she describes it as "a huge problem". I wonder if she moonlights doing stand-up?

Persistence

[Anonymous Coward]

Persistence is the key to losing weight (or put more appropriately: losing fat).

I recognize what you are saying about hunger. Whenever I'm at a longer visit at my parent's place, or when I'm lacking sleep and eat lots of fast food in order to get a project done on time, or when my GF gets into a long cooking spree... In all those cases I will quickly get used to eating a lot. Like 4000+ kcal per day! It's a miracle I'm not fatter than I am. (I am 26. I know my system will become less forgiving with time, but that's not the point.)

The point is that when I go back to eating a normal amount of food, my body still craves that same level of food that I was recently on. And it goes on and on craving it. It can easily last for two months. And it is sometimes hell. Like when I have eaten my 2500 kcal, and then some, and I feel like I'm starving! It feels almost as if every cell in my body is screaming in panic for energy.

But then after a while I become strict and forbid myself sweet food and drinks (no beer :-(). I replace all potato-based food and all pasta with rice. And I count calories, and drink plenty of water to fill my stomach at times when I know that it is about to start screaming for food. And I try to get as much sleep as possible, since one isn't hungry in one's sleep.

After a few weeks of that self-torture, the craving always gives, and I'm back down on my normal level of 2500 kcal. Well fed and happy. That is usually a good time to start with some mild exercise.

The problem is that it only takes one and a half weeks of eating xmas food and candy to get into a craving period that lasts many weeks. I have to be incredibly persistent in order to get back into that normal mode again. If I let myself eat too much for one week in spring and one week in autumn and one week in summer, then my whole year is more or less ruined by periods of strong hunger.

These last three years I've consciously accepted a weight gain of 45 pounds, just to be able to focus 100% on my career. Some two months of hell is waiting for me in the near future. But I don't think there is any other way, unfortunately.

umm here piggy piggy

[Anonymous Coward]

*Swine* Flu. you know for those who shit where they eat [on earth].

How about this for stimulus plan?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish the government just gave people 100% rebate on their Gym membership if they actually go and use the gym. It's amazing the results you see after just 3 weeks of regular gym visits.

Another thing. People have trouble understanding hunger. You are not "hungry" when you don't feel full. And being actually physically hungry (nothing in your stomach) is about as painful as exercise. So people who don't exercise and eat too much probably have very shitty tolerance for pain.

Wake up too yourselves !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay so all you smart people think its easy to lose weight and Fat people are poorly motivated losers.

You need to think again I personally had surgery to help with this issue ( So yeah I tried hard ) and most doctors who specialise in Obesity will tell you Human beings will never lose more than around 10KG without some kind of help.

I suggest that you don't deserve an opinion if you have never been overwieght by more than 10% your body wieght as basically you have no idea how hard exercises is for someone who is morbidly obese. Now i'm not giveing anyone a free pass but don't comment unless you been there because to be honest with you normal/thin people have absolutley no idea about the issues involved.

Re:Wake up too yourselves !!

[Anonymous Coward]

10%? You should have stopped fuckin' gaining weight at 9% then! You fuckin' moron.

Re:Wake up too yourselves !!

[justinlee37]

and most doctors who specialise in Obesity make money by encouraging you to pay for their treatment

Fixed.

Re:Wake up too yourselves !!

[TheDugong]

Excuses, excuses. A load of crap. You just took the easy option end of story. If there was a famine would you not be able to lose weight? No. You eat too much and exercise too little. End of.

Just over two years ago I was 96kgs = BMI 31. Being saddened greatly by this I joined my local gym which has cheap personal-ish training. 6 months of 3x30min sessions a week later I had lost between 6-11 kgs. I cannot remember exactly) as I was more concerned with general fitness. At this time I also started cycling the 16km/10 mile round trip to work (with ~250M of climbing there and 50M back) as well. This definitely got me down to 85kgs, so there is your 10kgs, Plus one more.

Just over a year ago my place of work moved so I now have a 50km/32 mile round trip which I cycle almost every day. I have been hovering between 75-76kgs BMI ~= 24 for the past 3 weeks or so. This includes going from 80kgs in late November back up to 85kgs until I started to get rid of that again in January.

So... I am less than 4/5s of the man I used to be with very little help.

You could say that the PT was "a help", but he did not force me to go to the gym and did not force me to do what he told me to do while I was there. Nobody forces me to cycle - in fact most people seem to want to force me off the road with their cars :(.

I also eat loads (of good stuff) and rarely feel hungry. The ride means I can eat between 1000-1500 calories extra *a day* without putting on weight and it takes me about the same time as driving my car to work through rush hour traffic.

Following the same logic

[ClosedSource]

A self-control problem can't be solved by the self by definition.

So don't feel bad if you have a self-control problem, it's not a fault and the lack of the problem isn't a virtue either.

The Pleasure Trap

[Paul Fernhout]

This book might help:
    "The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force That Undermines Health & Happiness" by Douglas J. Lisle
    http://www.amazon.com/Pleasure-Trap-Mastering-Undermines-Happiness/dp/1570671508

The central idea is that we get desensitized to the varied nuances of plain food by eating a lot of stuff that is very salty, sugary, fatty, or in other ways intense. Once we are desensitized, eating foods that are not so good for us brings us no more pleasure than we used to get from plainer food. The book talks about ways to get back to a more basic diet with more vegetables and fruits and complex carbohydrates. The book also talks about fasting as a way to reset your expectations of food. Fasting is a complex subject that one should learn a lot about before trying, especially for anyone loaded up on toxics from a Standard American Diet, perhaps requiring building up to longer fasts; you can also look up "Eat Stop Eat" as an alternative to longer fasts. One simple tip from the book is to prepare meals that either have veggies and carbohydrates, or veggies and meat, but never meat and carbohydrates at the same meal. One thing this book does not talk about is how different there might be different body types with different nutritional needs (Dr. Mercola has written about this).

By the way, of course you know this, but allergies can be symptoms of different underlying issues (including stuff like Lyme disease). Omega-3s (fish oil) may help with the joint pains, although again they could be related so something like Lyme. Chinese herbs, Yoga, and so on can help with that too -- a good book to explore is "Healing Lyme" by Stephen Harrod Buhner.
    http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Lyme-Prevention-Borreliosis-Coinfections/dp/0970869630
These things can all interact.

Good luck to you and your wife. I know how hard it can be to deal with extra pounds.

The Swine Flu Pandemic - Fact or Fiction?

[Paul Fernhout]

Pandemic means spread, not severity. Dr. Mercola suggests concerns about the swine flu may be overblown. See:
    http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/04/29/Swine-Flu.aspx
"To put things into perspective, malaria kills 3,000 people EVERY DAY, and it's considered "a health problem"... But of course, there are no fancy vaccines for malaria that can rake in billions of dollars in a short amount of time ... As of June 12, 2009, 74 countries have officially reported 29,669 cases of influenza A(H1N1) infection and only 145 deaths in the ENTIRE world from this illness. The United States has had 13217 confirmed cases, and 27 deaths. Mexico has had less cases but still has the majority of the deaths at 108. ... BUT to keep this in perspective the regular flu, not the swine flu, has killed 13,000 in the US since January. But there is strong support that these types of figures are grossly exaggerated to increase vaccine sales. However, the fact remains that the regular flu at this point in time is FAR more dangerous than the swine flu and were you worried about the regular flu before the media started talking this up?"

So in other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fat, lazy sack of shit looking to blame his problems on any cause outside himself.

point of information

[fishbowl]

Everything kills obese people disproportionately. Heart attacks, liver disease, cancer, pneumonia, you name it. Flu is just one more thing, and Swine Flu is just one more flu.

On the upside...

[rekinom]

> Swine Flu Collides With Fat Epidemic ...could mean a significant decrease in methane emissions, and possibly even a measurable reduction in global warming.

This just reminds me of another reason...

[RavenousBlack]

...why I don't understand how people don't believe in natural selection.

Re:The Americans are wrong..

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure what the hell diet coke has in it there.. but here (AUS).. it's fair dinkum..

Cola: Sugar versus High Fructose Corn Syrup

[hofmny]

Soda tastes better in Europe.

Pepsi and Coke use High Fructose Syrup to sweeten their drinks in the US, but in Europe & Mexico, they use cane sugar. It's due to some stupid (and perhaps outdated) restriction on how much cane sugar can be imported or something like that. Not to mention that diet drinks contain aspartame which is a dangerous and once banned chemical that has clearly (in many, many many scientific studies) been linked to brain tumors and other issues. The United States Air force forbids it's pilots to drink diet drinks 2 hours before a flight due to risk of dizziness and seizure. In fact, between 78% and 85% of all FDA complaints were about aspartame ( http://www.janethull.com/askdrhull/article.php?id=043 ).

If you want to drink soda, go to Whole Foods or Trader Joe's and buy the more expensive (and a lot more tasty) Cola made with sugar cane. they're great as mixers too! :)

The sky is falling...

[alaffin]

Really. Did anyone, even the submitter, read the article? Stupid question in these parts, but come on - this is science. We're nerds. Where's the critical thinking people? First off, they are not all fat. The only numbers they quote in the article is 3 of 5 seriously ill people in Manitoba who are obese. 60% != 100%. Not by a long shot. The article goes on to say that the evidence is anecdotal and cites the very specious fact that the first two people to die of swine flu in Europe were from Scotland and Scotland is the most obese country in Europe. Lovely. That evidence can also be used to support my theory, which is that swine flu only affects peoples with difficult to understand accents. Manitobans, Mexicans, the Scottish and children from New York. And while I'm at it correllation does not imply causation. Although they mention it briefly in the article they downplay it as much as possible. To say nothing about stuff like sample size. But hey, what the hell. Who needs stuff like science! What's that ever done for us?

40 other warning signs you're at risk from obesity

[tomhudson]

I hope someone you love balloons out and dies of a stroke, you insensitive clod.

If they eat too much, balloon up and die of a stroke, that's a lifestyle disease death, same as smoking ... there's no justification for either behaviour.

40 ways to tell that you might be fat enough that you're at risk of dying from swine flu

1. You know you're fat when Sarah Palin says she can see you from her front porch.
2. You know you're fat when the funeral home refuses your cremation pre-arrangement plan because you'd generate too much creosote.
3. You know you're fat when elevators don't, because they can't.
4. You know you're fat when you complain about how BMI is totally inaccurate.
5. You know you're fat when you wear sandals because you can't reach down to put on socks.
6. You know you're fat when people can see you on google maps - and you're REALLY fat when you're geo-coded.
7. You know you're fat when going to the toilet disturbs the GPS system.
8. You know you're fat when you're suntanning and people ask where the smell of bacon is coming from.
9. You know you're fat when your bellybutton changes from an insie to an outsie, and you can't tell if it's bigger than your penis because you haven't seen your penis since 9/11.
10. You know you're fat when you finally get some sex, and you have to tell the guy "wrong hole" ... and you're referring to your bellybutton.
11. You know you're fat when FEMA designates you as a portable levee.
12. You know you're fat when astrologers start assigning you phases.
13. You know you're REALLY fat when astronomers start assigning you phases.
14. You know you're fat when you notice "Kilroy was here" was spray-painted on your ass ... 5 years ago.
15. You know you're fat when you go to Omar the Tentmaker for your shirts.
16. You know you're REALLY fat when Omar the Tentmaker stops taking your calls for a new shirt.
17. You know you're fat when you wear a green-and-white striped shirt and people start taking pictures of you for Guiness Worlds Largest Watermelon.
18. You know you're fat when you get a job down at the docks - not as a dock-worker, but as a dock.
19. You know you're fat when you can't see in the sun because of the glare off your chubby cheeks.
20. You know you're fat when you begin racking up base jumper fatalities.
21. You know you're fat when CBS, NBC, and ABC all lease space on you for repeater towers.
22. You know you're fat when terrorists try to crash an airplane into you.
23. You know you're fat when you walk and you make that corduroy rubbing together sound - but you're naked.
24. You know you're fat when people start searching your skin folds for spare change.
25. You know you're fat when there are no more all-you-can-eat buffets in town because you bankrupted them.
26. You know you're fat when you have your own micro-climate.
27. You know you're fat when Jackie Chan uses you as a movie set.
28. You know you're fat when even Chuck Norris can't fell you with a roundhouse kick.
29. You know you're fat when you can't use a stand-up urinal because your stomach gets in the way.
30. You know you're fat when you can't use a toilet because your back fat won't let you sit on the throne.
31. You know you're fat when you can't read a newspaper in the toilet because you block out the light.
32. You know you're fat when you're the cargo in one of those "biggest payload in it's class" commercials.
33. You know you're fat when, instead of tampax, you just use a roll of Charmin.
34. You know you're fat when you're 8 months pregnant, and people still can't tell the difference.
35. You know you're fat when squirrels nest in your bellybutton.
36. You know you're fat when mold grows on one side of you.

its new

[circletimessquare]

that makes it important

neither you, nor i, nor the cdc, nor the who, really knows what will happen in the fall, or how many it will kill. could be a couple hundred, could be couple hundred thousand. if you find someone who can tell me for certain how many will be killed, i'll show you a liar. that kind of unknown makes it newsworthy and genuinely important

the flu always explodes in the late fall, and this is a new bug. its a significant unknown, and that matters

its not hype, its a genuine concern

Re:its new

[twostix]

The EXACT same thing was said about winter "It's not Autumn (fall) that's a problem...it's *winter*".

It's now winter here in Australia and it hasn't made a difference to the numbers.

And no it's not a genuine concern, it's hype just like Bird Flu was. There are *many* people working in their own interests that make a shit load of money pushing fear and hype as a product - the media are somewhere at the bottom of that list if ordered by profit, government agencies in the middle and Roche (in this case) are absolutely at the top.

I've worked for federal government agencies and currently work closely with Roche, Merck and Novos marketing depts, pushing stuff like this into the media and keeping it there is just business...

P.S

Your continuing lack of anything resembling capitals still disturbs me even after all these years...

Re:its new

[ledow]

So what you're saying is that we should have genuine concern (fair enough) over anything that's new (eek!) to people. That's a recipe for trouble, if nothing else.

Flu, especially swine flu, isn't *all* that serious in terms of pretty much any measure you want to put out there. It really isn't. Let's say that this one particular strain (which has, inevitably, grown from the usual strains with a slight mutation and which we expect to happen VERY quickly to ALL such viruses, every single day) will *kill* your "couple of hundred thousand" in, say, the next year and pick some completely random passages from Wikipedia on death rates (I leave actually verifying those data to other people... never trust another person's data). Hell, compare it to a MILLION swine flu deaths within the year, if you want.

"Of the roughly 150,000 people who die each *day* across the globe, about two thirds 100,000 per *day* die of age-related causes." (that's 36.5m a year, and those people might have swine flu and will thus be included in swineflu statistics for no reason other than they "had" it near the time of their death).
"One such disease is tuberculosis, a bacterial disease which killed 1.7 million people in 2004." (Note the year - TB killed MORE people in a very recent year despite being around for decades - did you panic about that at the time?)
"Malaria causes ... approximately one to three *million* deaths annually." (see above)
"AIDS death toll in Africa may reach 90-100 million by 2025."
"Tobacco smoking killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century and could kill 1 billion people around the world in the 21st century, the WHO Report warned." (One billion in a century - that's 10m a year and we're talking about THIS century, when everyone is "giving up" smoking for health reasons).

So let's say that the above are "true" and that your hypothetical scenario where hundreds of thousands of people across the globe start dying within the YEAR of swine flu (an increase of several orders of magnitude over the current scenario). That's absolutely NEGLIGIBLE (don't try for the "human" aspect - of course any single death is devastating, but you have to put these things in context) in the grand scheme of things, even against diseases that we have perfectly good existing medicine for and also those conditions that are currently incurable.

Swine flu is, statistically speaking, an interesting little blip on the low end of the radar - the rest of the signal is almost 99.9% diseases that are much more scary, prevelant, existing and that we know *lots* more about - some are even man-made problems like tobacco smoking. You've fallen for statistical propoganda with zero understanding of statistics. It's nothing to be ashamed of, so has *everyone* else I've heard mention swine flu in the last few months.

Just for fun:

http://news.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=2500903

67,000 people are injured each year trying to peel the cellophane off a packet of sandwiches, open a ready meal or open a ring-pull can.
More than 150 people a day - have accidentally stabbed themselves when trying to prise the top off a jar or opening a ready meal with a knife
A total of 379,000 injuries caused by trainers, high heels, sandals, platforms and countless other types of footwear.

I'll leave you to read through the rest of the statistics in that article and I'm fairly sure a lot of them are UK-only statistics.

FFS... THIRTY SEVEN PEOPLE were injured by tea cosies in 1999, so seriously that they were admitted to hospital. Do you know what a tea cosy is? It's a woolen warmer for a teapot. More people were injured by tea cosies in the UK than have died from swine flu here so far. Does that put it into perspective for you?

actually, if it kills fat people

[circletimessquare]

swine flu is the perfect thing to call it

swine as in human oinkers

BMI is perfectly valid

[circletimessquare]

because its easy to come by. percent body fat is a lot harder to measure. the point is to get a meaningful number in front of people to help them control their weight as easily as possible. an overly anal retentive emphasis on a marginally more exact measurement, arrived at through a much harder measurement process, is obviously stupid

if you have the build of arnold schwarzenegger, of course BMI has no meaning. but if you have the build of arnold schwarzenegger, you are obviously way fucking more into your percent body fat and a proper measurement of such. no one muscular is going to see a high BMI and go "i'm fat", so please: stop being overly anal retentive for the sake of moronic grandstanding

here's the big secret:

[circletimessquare]

eat less

exercise more

that's it. that's the magic. everything else is bloviating

everything else is a giant game of rationalization, victimization, and other psychological manipulations, internal and external

again: eat less, exercise more. end of story

cut the fat, in your thinking as well as on your body

Re:here's the big secret:

[syousef]

eat less
exercise more
that's it. that's the magic. everything else is bloviating

Translation: I have no trouble losing weight so I'll make the assumption that you're lying when you say you do.

Take a look. I'm not the only one having trouble losing weight. Do you have any freaking idea what the stats on long term weight loss (5 years, 10 years out) are like? No I didn't think so.

Go fly a kite.

Re:here's the big secret:

[jbatista]

cut the fat, in your thinking as well as on your body

I think this is key. People think of weight as a measure of body fat. But if you go on a "crazy diet" you lose both fat (a little) and muscle and bone (potentially enough to make you really sick on other accounts). So it's important to cut on fat-rich foods. Sugary substances (which sometimes mimick the fruit sugars that our body tries to absorb as much as it can); fat (which our body also absorbs, "for times of famine"). But keep things like protein and vitamins which are essential for your metabolism.

If your drive is to ingest large ammounts of food (volume) then try to replace it low-caloric foods.

It also helps if you're stressed enough that your focus is elsewhere. Sure you fill lousy, but the key is not gourging after the stress is passed but rather maintaining your normal eating habit (if it's healthy enough).

Google around for "the hacker's diet" for some ideas. It includes some "shock treatments" such as fasting or barely eating for 1-2 days maximum, just enough so that you don't get really sick. But it *IS* a question of self-control.

Re:here's the big secret:

[TheLink]

You're forgetting one major factor.

How many calories you excrete e.g. how much is left in the feces.

There can be a significant difference, and that's why some people eat the same amount, exercise the same amount, but still put on the pounds.

Re:here's the big secret:

[Fjan11]

We can reduce that a bit further:

Eat less

Exercising is healthy but it only helps with losing weight if you spend at least half an hour a day on it, and then only contributes about 10-20%. So forget about the exercising if weight is your problem, just eat less.

Re:here's the big secret:

[kieran]

Speaking as someone who has been in the process of trying to do this for years, it's not as easy as it might sound.

Every exercise program, no matter how carefully I take it and how much I stretch, seems to trip up on some kind of injury (ankle, knee, shoulder, knee again, back - what next?).

Eating less (and eschewing carbs for a zone-like diet) is doable when you're well motivated, but at other times can lead to misery - and frankly, I'm not yet at the point where misery is preferable to obesity.

Every time it seems to be going well, something throws a spanner in the works.

I still hope I'll make it someday. Preferably soon.

Re:here's the big secret:

[Carik]

Yup. Some of us just need the "exercise more" part (that would be me), some need just the "eat less" part, and some need both.

On the other hand, you could easily say to a cigarette smoker "It's simple. Just stop smoking, and you won't have this problem anymore." It's really not that easy.

I think the real trick to find exercise you enjoy: take up a martial art, buy a good bicycle, start swimming, join a local adult sport team (or form one!), something like that. It makes the willpower easier, though still not easy.

Re:here's the big secret:

[Optimus6128]

About most of the above replies:

It's not easy. Don't be too easy on blaming. It may look simple and practical but someone who is into it from childhood has to change a whole mindset. I myself am addicted to food and at the same time I am too lazy to exercise. Nothing works because I can't even make plans. I start with a diet/exercise plan and then I abandon it. Not only because I don't like this lifestyle but because I generally have an impulsive personality and tend to do what I like right at the time not what is written on the plan. I don't think I will find a sollution any soon (except if it is to accept that the only way is to change my lifestyle into something not currently desired)

The problem is psychological, it's a state of mind but it's not easy and someone shouldn't just blame people not following the right path. It's like someone is getting drugs and you are telling him that drugs are not good. He fuckin knows it!!! You are telling him the obvious..

It's the same when I watch skinny people who constantly tell me that they really want to gain weight but they can't. I am buffled, I say what? You wanna gain weight? To my view this is the easiest and funniest thing in the world! You just have to eat tons of juicy tasty food and that for the great good. However, for these people somehow it's too hard (psychologically) to eat. I may not get it as a person who loves food but it's the other side of reality.

If it was as simple as a diet/exercise plan then obesity wouldn't be a problem.

Re:here's the big secret:

[TheRaven64]

I'm replying to you because you seem more in need of this than the grandparent, even though it's the grandparent who is wrong. Eating less is not the answer. Eating correctly is. You feel hungry because your body is short of something that it needs. If every time you feel hungry you eat something that doesn't provide whatever it is that you are short of, then you will still feel hungry.

If you want to lose weight, make sure that you are getting your recommended daily allowance of everything you need, including fat and carbohydrates. Once you've done this, you can reduce your fat intake without reducing anything else; you'll still feel hungry (because your body is burning its reserves), but not nearly as much as you would if you are also short of some amino acids, vitamins and so on.

Re:here's the big secret:

[nrlightfoot]

Yeah, it does sound like it's difficult to lose weight once you get fat, so you are probably screwed now, I'm sorry. Some people just don't win the genetic lottery. People didn't used to be this fat, but they didn't gain the weight in the first place, it's not like it has suddenly become harder to lose weight. I suspect it's much easier to keep the weight off in the first place, and that's what I plan to do.

I check my weight fairly frequently, not that it has been out of the same 5 pound range for the last 3 years since I lost 5 pounds (not something I was trying to do) while traveling/living in South America for a 6 months. I think that may have come from climbing mountains. Not that you probably have time or the physical conditions to climb mountains, but if you do go up to fairly high altitude, maybe 12 thousand feet or higher, you will lose your appetite while you are there. When I was climbing mountains, I ate maybe 500-1000 calories in a day, and that was somewhat forced. Parents should monitor their children's weight too, it's no good letting a child get fat before they can take responsibility for themselves.

If you are always hungry when you diet anyway, you could try fasting for a week or 2, I've heard (though I've never done it myself for more than a day) that hunger goes away after 3-4 days as long as you aren't eating anything, though it comes back as soon as you do eat something.

Re:here's the big secret:

[Zancarius]

You're forgetting one major factor.

How many calories you excrete e.g. how much is left in the feces.

This is a really good point. There are some individuals on the other end of the spectrum (eat a lot yet still suffer from malnourishment) because of intestinal uptake issues.

Executive summary: It's possible to be thin and still have weight-related life-threatening conditions.

Pretty obvious

[Mystery00]

Survival of the fittest.

Doesn't seem like much of a breakthrough

[Qrlx]

Is this really that surprising a revelation? Don't we already know that being fat is bad for your health?

Or are we trying to out-evolve the flu here, by using our technological edge to artifically create people so fat in numbers never seen before that they serve as a sort of "leading edge" of the frontier of the genome wars?

Our Advanced Medical Technology keeps alive not just morbidly obese, but all the outliers who would have died off -- presumably of "natural causes" -- in previous generations. They are the DEW Line, and the honeypots where future attacks can be contained and analyzed more safely. :)

Re:Doesn't seem like much of a breakthrough

[HikingStick]

Sure. It's no surprise that fat people have more health problems. But that does not decrease the significance of the identified relationship in the data. For me, that's enough bad news for the short term that I might be able to shed the 100 lbs. I yet need to lose (I'm down almost 70 already, but have been stuck at this plateau for a few years). I figure I have just under six months to lose 60 pounds. In the short term, I want to live through the next round of N1H1. In the long term, I want to be able to live a longer, healther life. For me, this news is a catalyst.

Flat or Slim, Health is Better

[sophialxw]

Some ladies are on diet crazy without considering the body health, they are ruining their life. http://www.lifting-anchor.com/

That explains why

[Anonymous Coward]

That explains why it is called the American Flu in some other countries.

irony: pig flu spreading to pig-like humans

[thecaem]

finally! a cure for the cellulose of epic portions!

Finally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nature seems to be correcting itself.

I am a pphysicist so I would like to say : COE

[aepervius]

You are clearly understating the size of the portion you are eating (willingly or unconsciously). Conservation of energy (and therefor conservation of mass since no nuclear process is involved) tells me that the fat/weight you accumulate is directly linked by the amount of nutriment you are extracting from food, minus what you use up during the day and/or exhale and execrate. So yes, if you are eating what people call MODERATE portion, and have even a sedentary life, maybe you would take on weight but very slowly. Over 6 months for example I took in the last 10 years in average half a Kg to a Kg. So yeah over ten years I became slightly overweight (90Kg instead of my preferred ~80Kg). But after losing weight, getting back the same or more than that over 6 month with moderate portion is not possible. Once can only guess that what you call moderate is not what the average person would call moderate.

let's break down your argument

[circletimessquare]

assume you are correct: it is easy for me to lose weight, and hard for you

ok. where does that leave you? you still have to lose the weight. now all you have is the need to lose weight and a helping of victimhood, envy and whining. you've just made the job harder for yourself. how has the observation helped in anyway except a rationalization for you to give up and quit, which is obviously what you want to do?

furthermore, WHY is it harder for you to lose weight? well, if its easy for me, maybe its because i just go and do it. there's pain involved for me to, but i just charge through. what do you do? you blame, you rationalize, you suffer, you bloviate, you whine about your sad existence. in other words, its self-fulfilling prophecy, like so many other situations in life about hard work for gain

if you think you are loser, you become a loser. plenty of people who think of themselves as winners also still lose, but no one ever won, and thought themselves a loser in the first place

i appreciate that some people have different metabolisms, different biochemistry, different genes... BUT NOT ONE OF THEM IS WHINING AS MUCH AS YOU, thats a fact

furthermore THEY ARE IN THE MINORITY OF CASES (and probably still manage to lose weight anyways!)

no, the ironclad truth is this, for the majority of people, if you are having trouble losing weight: your mouth is moving 100 mph on the issue, your rationalizing your own helplessness

the fault for you not losing weight, the majority of cases, is simple weak character. i didn't say this syndrome, or that disorder, or that lack of receptors in the brain, all fucking bullshit attempts at avoiding responsibility. i said the reason was: WEAK CHARACTER

shut the fuck up, buckle up, and lose the fucking weight

Low metabolism my a@@

[jotaeleemeese]

People that are monitored properly are shown just to be eating too much, not bullshit metabolism excuses.

The problem is that people don't know how to eat (that half kilogram fruit salad in the morning isn't good for you, it is a sugar cocktail with goodness know how many calories).

Facts:

- Protein will make you less hungry (that is the only thing good Dr Atkins got right). Add a bit of protein to each meal (lean meat of any kind, an egg).

- Fact you have to move. Anything will do. But for the life of the bunnies, move! Walk around the block. Go for lunch to a place a bit further away. Go for lunch and take half of your time actually walking. Just move!

- Soups. Soups take longer to digest, and thus you feel full for longer. Half a litre of soup fits the same volume as a serving of fried potatoes, but has far less calories and lasts longer. Make a potato soup with the same amount of potatoes. Take half the amount of french fries, mix them with tomato juice or soup, and enjoy. You will not touch the other half anytime soon.

- Diaries: you will excret more fat if you eat diary products. Skimmed milk and yoghurt, lof fat cheese: you want lots of those for a while.

Re:Low metabolism my a@@

[dgatwood]

Metabolic differences aren't excuses. Reducing your caloric intake does not produce weight loss unless you can force yourself to maintain the same level of activity in spite of feeling like crap. That's what makes dieting hard---the lack of energy you feel while burning calories primarily from your own fat makes you tend to be more sedentary, which reduces your metabolic rate, at which point you are consuming more calories than you are using once again.

Two other things worth noting:

• Dietary fiber increases the speed at which food moves through your digestive system and can reduce caloric absorption. Increasing dietary fiber even without changing anything else in your diet can produce weight loss.
• Dehydration may be a factor as well. I find that I eat more when I am dehydrated. YMMV.

40 BMI is wrong.

[jotaeleemeese]

No matter if it is muscle or fat.

That does not mean it is wrong for the same reasons, but it is not healthy either way (now please who me somebody with a BMI of 40 obtained only by extra muscle, lets see how the poor bastard looks ...)

Why small portions?

[jotaeleemeese]

Eat as much as you want of the right kind of food.

Tell us something, how much soup can you have? Any nice vegetable soup, or perhaps chicken soup.

I reckon that after 2 litters you would be begging not to have more. Well you will have eaten far less calories and you would feel full for longer.

YOu really have to talk to your nutriologist and ask him what science has actually found about food in recent years. Small portions is not the full answer (it certainly may be part of it, it seems like if you eat in smaller plates we tend to eat less).

Atkins is dead.

[jotaeleemeese]

Both the diet and the man.

High fat foods is a highway to a painful and early death, but feel free.

The only thing the good Dr got right is that protein suppresses appetite, that is a scientific fact, but the high fat nonsense is hocus pocus.

You also need carbs (it is where you get your energy from), but you can get them from wholegrain bread and rice, sweet potatoes and any other foods with low glycemic index (which release carbs slowly, and thus don't promote cravings).

Uhm, at the end it is a matter of physics.

[jotaeleemeese]

The extra weight does not appear magically there.

You have to puts that food in your mouth.

You could chosse to put some other foods (lots of them by volume, and thus as filling), but the problem is that we are not thought how to do this.

Eat vegetable soups (as much as you like: how much can you realistically have?) with a bit of lean protein (a bit of lean meat of any kind, a handful of nuts, one or two eggs) and a roll of wholemeal bread (witha little bit of olive oil or perhaps cottage cheese).

Those food will not only keep you full, but will tell your brain you are full.

its a new strain

[circletimessquare]

that makes it important and interesting

it really isn't any more complicated than that

paranoid schizophrenia is not a valid replacement for critical thought

People addicted to food....

[jotaeleemeese]

... can't be helped.

Like any addict really.

So we can point all all the reasonable advice at hand and people that are fat will no practice it, because first they need to touch bottom.

I used to give the same excuses, until I decided enough was enough (i touched bottom).

Then I began exercising. I am not even trying to eat properly, just exercising. I know it is not enough, I am trying to change my diet, but I know that the answers are with me and only me alone.

Yesterday I ran 10km in one hour. Nothing to write to home about. Enough to have stopped me ballooning out of control.

Last year I ran several 10k and one half marathon (2:20 if you must know).

The good news is that you don't have to do all that. 30 minutes a day doing pretty much anything will be enough. Tweak a bit your diet and you will be fine. The problem is that nobody is teaching people how to do this and we have lots of scams around (Atkins diet, I am amazed how many /.ers believe that bullshit).

I have posted some tips about what actually works, proven scientifically, under controlled conditions: soups and liquids, protein, low release carbs if you don't exercise much and low fat diary.

Think about this: I burned around 1200 calories yesterday, after the race I ate a burger with fries (and diet drink). That may well be approximately the same caloric content. So I actually lost weight yesterday once all things are considered.

I know it is not easy, because nobody like to hear one is lazy or weak, but most of us are just that, for those of you that really have underlying problems (like depression or similar affections) I am sorry about you. Still, you could put those trainers and walk around the block...

 

It is a good trending tool.

[jotaeleemeese]

Look, if you are fat (and you know if you are) BMI gives you a trending tool about how your weight is doing.

It is simple and straight forward to measure, and it related to your size and structure.

so it may be an imperfect tool, but it is a useful one.

you have asperger's

[circletimessquare]

you honestly believe all that matters in terms of importance is body count. you can't imagine, gee, i dunno, a couple of hundred other factors? like, gee, i dunno, PREVENTABILITY? or howabout NEWNESS?

you're autistic, or you have asperger's. you have a genuine deficiency in your reasoning abilities if you think simple body count is the only factor involved. on the edge of your imagination, you can't think of some other factors that might play into valid rationale for concern about one threat versus another?

dude, try to recognize that you have some mental shortcomings. your post above is embarrassing, that you should be so woefully out of touch with how your fellow human beings think (or that your way of thinking is somehow superior, by any measure)

Re:you have asperger's

[ledow]

Pillock. Someone doesn't read, and you've also managed to push various opinions on my persona without checking whether they are true or not.

Are a few swine flu cases in ANY WAY comparable to *completely preventable* diseases which millions of kids die from (e.g. diarrohea, etc.)? Nope. Is swine flu treatable? Yes, in the VAST majority of cases - look at the percentages. Therefore, by your reasonsing, is swine flu any more or less "important" than diarrohea?

The ONLY thing that you, I or medical personnel can go by are the statistics. That's what happens EVERY DAY in emergency rooms and other medical locations... And swine flu is about as negligible and "important" as a particularly serious tea-cosy accident. LET'S BAN TEA COSIES, HAVE A FUNDRAISER, CURE TEA-COSY-ITIS. This is how ridiculous it's been blown out of proportion. If from there you want to claim lack of compassion, that's your (pathetic) link to make and only serves to explain your poor grasp of other statistics (correlation does not equal causation, etc.).

Flu Tracker Map

[wesborgmandvm]

This website is tracking H1N1 using Google maps: http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/

The research doesn't support you...

[Fished]

I'm sorry, but although many doctors will repeat the same things you say, you're simply wrong.

Study after study has shown that the whole "calories in, calories out" notion is not the whole picture. There are some very complex metabolic processes involved which affect both how hungry you are and what your body does with what you eat. And, in the words of Richard Feinman (the well-known biochemist, not to be confused with Richard Feynman, the well-known physicist whom my father was a TA for) "you aren't what you eat, you are what you're body does with what you eat."

The key issue seems to be insulin levels, and the way in which the typical American diet with it's enormous quantities of cheap, processed carbohydrates way over-stimulates insulin production. This in turn stimulates a hormone that causes blood glucose to be stored as body fat, which in turn causes low blood sugar and--you guessed it!--hunger. The "low fat" diet just makes things worse by encouraging over-consumption of carbohydrates, which raise blood sugar and insulin levels.

The solution? Cut back on your carbohydrate intake. You don't need to go to Atkins levels for this to be effective--cutting back to around 100g carbohydrate per day will help, especially if you eliminate all processed fructose (i.e. processed sugars, high-fructose corn syrup, and fruit juices--raw fresh fruit is fine) from your diet. (Beyond the issue of Insulin levels, the process of metabolizing fructose has all kinds of nasty toxic side-effects. Our bodies weren't designed to do it in large quantities.)

I speak from experience here. Three years ago I was diagnosed with type II diabetes, and I spent two years treating it according to the "fat is bad, carbs are good" hypothesis. My diabetes got worse and worse, with my A1c levels approaching 10%, and I was going to have to go on insulin as nothing else was effective. Finally, I got fed up and took charge of my own health, fired the "Certified Diabetes Educator", fired the American Diabetes Association, fired the "calories in, calories out" crowd, and went directly to the medical journals for the newest information. My blood sugars are now normal, I'm off all diabetes medications, my lipid panels are "excellent" (my doctor's words, not mine), I've lost over 120 lbs. in less than a year, and I feel great for the first time since I was in my twenties. And, just for the record, I was never hungry.

There is one caveat. You can't look at this as a "diet"--i.e. you can't see this as a temporary lifestyle change that you will do for a while, lose weight, then go back to your supersize fries. If you do, then you will promptly gain all the weight back and undo all the health benefits, plus 10%. This is the way your body was designed to eat for the rest of your life. This is the way hunter gatherers ate (no, Virginia, hunter-gatherers didn't have sugar cane and wheat fields!) The "diet" attitude is why people who did the low-carb diet craze a few years back will tell you it didn't work.

Re:The research doesn't support you...

[drerwk]

When was your dad at Tech?

you're right, it is more complicated than that

[circletimessquare]

but i wasn't really talking about the problem in general, i was talking pointedly at this self-loathing overrationalizing type for which it IS a lot simpler than they portray in their giant web of learned helplessness

Just a suggestion...

[Fished]

Okay, I've been there done that... My starting weight was 410 lbs., and after a year I'm at 290. May I suggest you try another approach?

It sounds to me like you may be one of those people who tried to do a "low-fat, low-carb, high-protein" diet. I can tell you from both research and experience that that approach doesn't work, any more than "low-fat, high-carb, low-protein" does. May I suggest a low-carb, high-fat, moderate-protein diet? Believe it or not, it won't kill you, your blood lipids will improve, and you may find that it's surprisingly easy to lose weight. Fat is the key to satiety.

I can't go into all the science here, but take a look at "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes for an exhaustive discussion.

You shouldn't be so harsh.

[Optimus6128]

You shouldn't be so harsh! I don't understand but most slashdot users here are critical, they think it's all about excuses, well it could be but how would you like it if I said that people who take drugs, smoke, drink alcohol, depressive, bipolar, obsessive compulsive, autistic, aspies, etc etc are all making excuses and are simply morons?

Duh. I hate that pure logical thing: overweight = you just eat too much and no exercise and are making excuses. I was listening to such pure logical things all my life and what they only managed to do is degrade me and not helping me with my problems, breaking down my self-esteem, thus not actually helping me overcoming all that things that actually made me succumb into passions as food and other things. All those people come with a strict look, start blaming and they are telling me they are here to help. But they are doing just exactly the opposite.

Let them give you excuses. Why do you care? Do you REALLY want to help those people? Or do you want to proove your ego that you are better over something? It all sounds like hate and loathing, not understanding. These people want understanding. Or if you can't give that just shut up!

Re:You shouldn't be so harsh.

[adamchou]

I never said that he was a moron. I may have called him fat and lazy but I didn't say he was a moron. But honestly, what he said was pretty stupid. And if You decided to call people addicted to anything stupid, lazy, and full of excuses, then more power to you. Because honestly, they are. I smoke and I'll admit that I'm addicted. But I haven't quit yet because I don't want to deal with the withdrawls and because I don't have something high on priority list that makes me want to quit. See, I understand my situation and I don't lie to myself about it. Thats the difference between me and the other guy.

Now as for calling autistic people that kind of stuff, thats just plain wrong. There's nothing they can do about their situation so your argument is pretty flawed with respects to those people.

And you're right, I don't really care to help that person in particular. Had he been my friend, it would have been a different story. But him, I think he's lazy and pretty pathetic for lying to himself and all of us. And as I said in my earlier post, another one of my issues is that he's being modded +5 which just reinforces his mentality and perpetuates it to everyone else that has his condition. Spreading that type of mentality is spreading a disease. Thats my biggest issue with him.

As for understanding, I completely understand where he's coming from. He's over weight, lazy, and full of excuses. Prove my ego? I'm not trying to prove any ego. I'm calling out his bullshit for what it was. Why do I need to be nice to someone that spews lies like that? Did you read everyone else's post that tried to reason with him and not be abrasive? He just came back with more excuses. Let me see him refute any of my points. He can't and he won't

seriously lacking reasoning and social skills

[circletimessquare]

its not even worth arguing with you, as that implies i can make some sort of impact. i dont think you have the mental capacities to be improved

so i'll just play your moronic game

you know, millions die in traffic accidents every year, so we shouldn't worry about tuberculosis

you know, millions die every year of malaria, so we shouldn't worry about bioterrorism

you know, millions die every year of heart attacks, so we shouldn't worry about murder

zzz

this is retarded

Bullshit

[spectro]

"Fat cells secrete chemicals that cause chronic, low-level inflammation that can hamper the body's immune response and narrow the airways, says Tim Armstrong, a doctor working in the WHO's chronic diseases department in Geneva."

[Citation Needed] Where is the peer-reviewed study proving this assertion?

Doctors have the tendency of coming up with big pieces of bullshit out their asses without any scientific proof for them... they recommended the food pyramid without being able to prove the dogma that "a high-carb, low fat diet reduces body fat and cholesterol".

Doctors all over the world keep saying "fat is evil" without any proof when recent studies of human metabolism are showing the human body seems to function better on a high-fat, low-carb diet.

Also stop watching TV

[blue_teeth]

Stop watching TV and get off your ass. You don't know what you are missing (both physical and mental health).

swim once a week

[fantomas]

See if you can get to a swimming pool and swim once a week. Ok so every day might be super cool but really even if you can have a weekly swim it will be good for you. Once a week is also a nice break from your normal routine rather than a daily grind. Do an hour to start with, that's plenty enough till you get into it. Swimming is great exercise for folks with ankle issues - I took up swimming after I ripped all the ligaments on one ankle- I was convinced I'd broken it the pain was that much when I went to the hospital the next morning (no point trying to go to my local hospital on a Friday night, way too crazy unless you're actually dying of something).

Swimming over the next three months really built the strength up in it again - it was great because when I started and was hobbling I could swim without using the ankle at all but rather the rest of my leg muscles. So if you've got to take it easy on your ankle you'll be able to use the rest of your muscles and still give yourself a great work out.

When I started swimming it was the first time for 20 years so I was rubbish and splashed around until I was puffed out but each time I'd try to do a wee bit more and by the end of three months I was feeling pretty good about the amount I could do, I really did improve. I am sure you will as well. Don't get freaked out by nutty slashdot posters who tell you it's not worth it unless you're doing hours each day and thousands of laps of the pool or millions of sit ups. Just try to do enough that's pushing you, you know when you're working hard, and try to up your laps or whatever every week by a bit and you'll find you'll impress yourself after 3 months, you'll be doing way more than when you started.

I went one day a week and it really improved my strength and got me into shape, and I always slept like a baby the night after I went swimming, really worked out the mental stress of the day.

Good luck with it.

Re:Finally!! A Cure For Obesity!!

[doti]

Go, swine flu, go!

!!! WHOA

[MushingBits]

For us US-ians that's 77 lbs in 4 months, or around 4.4 pounds/week. Standard advice is to aim for 2lb/week max so I'm not surprised you're feeling crappy, and if your docs haven't caught on to this yet they should probably be replaced. Your body is trying to tell you that dropping 4.4lbs/week simply isn't sustainable in the long run.

My very non-pro opinion would be to up the calories, especially in the form of lean protein, and cut your (understandably protesting) body some slack. Weight loss will be slower but you'll keep more lean muscle and feel a whole lot more human.

I know we're all in a hurry, but the transformation you're looking for is going to require patience and a lasting lifestyle change unless you want to end up right back where you started.

Re:!!! WHOA

[adri]

I've stopped losing weight, thankfully, and am hovering around the 85kg mark. Yes, I've been upping the amount of food i'm eating. Part of that difficulty in eating more is mental (holy crap, I'm almost 30 and developing an eating disorder!) but part of it is just having a lack of appetite. The appetite has been returning though.

The interesting bit here is that I ate -what I felt like I needed to- whilst I was losing weight. I wasn't intentionally starving myself. I simply ate when I was hungry and didn't eat junk.

It certainly has been an interesting trip.

(Should I mention I did this whilst holidaying in the USA? :)

Preaching

[Spy Handler]

...but there is no reason in the world that anyone needs to be fat, regardless of any "glandular" problem.

Easier said than done. You can also say there is no reason in the world why anyone needs to be a drug/alcohol addict, or a smoker, or (insert nonoptimum behavior)

BEST NEWS IVE HEARD ALL DAY

[xmvince]

Maybe there is a god? I WISH I could gain weight! Been 150 pounds forever

Missing the point though

[TheLink]

Sure it's a matter of physics, but what a LOT of people miss out is that some people are more efficient than others.

For example, some people just shit out more/less calories than others. Yep many so-called researchers don't measure the calories left in the feces - that's like financial advisers not taking into account differences in tax rates. Or a physicist doing thermodynamic calculations without taking into account heat leaking out.

So they could eat less, exercise the same amount, but still be fatter.

Don't believe me? In one study involving mice, there were fewer calories in the feces of obese mice. In another study, mice without gut bacteria remained slim eating the same stuff and doing the same things, then when they were given gut bacteria from the controls, they gained 60% more body fat on the same diet and apparently no change in activity was observed.

So obesity is not a simple problem to fix and _keep_ fixed.

Yes some people do choose to eat a lot (they just don't care and they like eating). Some have a strong urge to keep eating (much of this is related to bad diets, but not all). But some don't actually eat a lot - they're just more efficient - they fidget less, they waste less in their shit. If you shit out 20% less calories than some skinny guy, given the same food intake and daily activity, you'd probably be fatter than the skinny guy.

Thus saying "eat less, exercise more" is not helpful for many overweight people.

I'm a fairly skinny guy (doctor said I was underweight), if I were told to eat 20% less calories and exercise more to become lighter and keep doing it for the rest of my life to maintain a lighter and healthier weight, it could be pretty hard and I might need some help to do it without feeling miserable and not be malnourished.

Don't think that that's healthy for normal people to do? Studies have shown that for very many animals a 20% reduction in calorie intake = increase in lifespan with no increase in mortality to infectious diseases.

So before you say "eat less" to obese people. Why don't you try it yourself? Eat 20% less calories for health reasons but maintain the same activity. There is at least one researcher trying it on himself (he wants to live longer :) ).

Don't want to go through all that trouble just to live longer and avoid earlier onset of various diseases? Well many fat people are having to go through that trouble.

Natural Selection

[darrellt]

Isn't this just a classic example of natural selection; survival of the fittest? We all have life choices, the majority of the world's population can choose to eat a more healthy diet and exercise more, but if they choose not to then they have to accept the consequences. Nobody is forced to eat more than their body needs nor to exercise less, it's a personal choice in the main.

Unlucky America

[DanJ_UK]

Unlucky.