It's that 'resolute' time of year again!

Liked this article, can identify with it, but too bad they didn't provide any real answer for us not naturally thin: like attempting low-carb eating, rather then just giving up the fight. Also took issue with dieting slowing down the metabolism.

http://theconversation.com/what-thi...t-dieting-86604

On a low fat but high carbohydrate semi-starvation diet of the type typically used, that drop in metabolism is exactly what happens as the body re-adjusts itself to the amount of fuel coming in so it doesn't starve and die during the perceived famine. Yes, I too wish the authors were familiar with the benefits of a low carbohydrate high fat diet, on which I was able to lose a substantial amount of weight without that drop in metabolism. So it's not inevitable or hopeless, but on the typical fat-shunning low calorie diet it unfortunately likely is.

I'm appalled (but not surprised) at the amount of anger and loathing towards the obese that is expressed in the comments following the article. It seems that everyone wants to believe that the obese are "at fault" for being obese and that thin people stay thin purely because they are "virtuous" in their eating habits.

I think it's reasonable for them to say that weight loss leads to a reduction in metabolism, there are anecdotes that low carb prevents this, and that David Ludwig study showing less reduction in metabolism on low vs. high carb, it's interesting but I'd like to see more studies there.

In at least one way I'd suspect a ketogenic diet to be just as "bad" as any other diet. Lose 50 pounds on the Ornish diet, or the Zone, etc., or lose 50 pounds on Atkins. Now switch to the SAD. The Atkins dieter might have an advantage while eating Atkins--but does this prevent a metabolic slowdown? Switch to the SAD, and my guess is that the difference disappears--there's a consequence to being at a reduced body weight, but how it manifests might depend on your most recent meals.



This comment--there's probably a latin phrase for this kind of fallacy. A genetic protection from the effects of an obesogenic environment or substance is going to be invisible until that environment or substance is present. My ancestors didn't need special genetics to keep a high sugar diet from making them fat, because a high sugar diet wasn't an option.

Exactly, as type of food consumed is part of our environment. When we change our environment, we can change how our genetics are expressed, for better or worse.

Why did most people in the world suddenly lose control of how much food they put in their mouth?

Not to mention their dogs and cats, too. Fido and Fluff just need to eat less/move more? How about their grain-filled commercial kibble?

After years of starving on HCLF diets, it wasn't until I went LCHF and stayed on it to maintain that I learned what "normal" people must feel like most of the time - not hungry and not thinking about or craving food 24/7.

I have a friend who has been very naturally thin all her life. We recently were discussing our eating habits. She doesn't eat breakfast because she's not hungry in the morning. Just wants a cup of coffee. When she does get hungry, she eat whatever she wants, paying no attention to how many calories, carb, or fat is in the food. It's what she wants, and she eats until she had enough and then she just stops. She doesn't eat more because it tastes good, or because she doesn't like to waste food, or any other reasons people have for overeating. She doesn't continue eating because the others around her are still eating, and she rarely takes the leftovers home. She's just done. Period. Never thinks about whether what she ate was "on plan" or "off plan." She doesn't "exercise." But she works on the second floor of a building with no elevator. She has to work with the people in the warehouse on the ground floor, and is up and down the steps all day with paperwork, etc. She walks her dog for an hour every night after work. Her lifestyle is completely different from mine. And so is her weight. I'm not saying that these things are the only things that are different. She comes from a family of smaller people, and I come from a family of bigger people. There ARE genetics at play, too.

I could have written a very similar post about my naturally thin friend.

She prefers to feel a little bit hungry all the time - and I think that's a huge clue as to how she stays so naturally thin all the time too. I can be a little bit hungry on LC and be fine, so I understand that feeling. But a little bit hungry doesn't even exist for me on a carb based diet - it's ravenous or stuffed to the gills, nothing in between.

No doubt there's genetics at work too - not only is everyone in her family thin, indicating "thin genes", but something in her genes makes it possible for her to eat a diet higher in carbs than I could, and still not be ravenous.

It's not that genes don't play a role in obesity rather that the current rise in rates of obesity can't be explained solely on the basis of genes. People haven't changed genetically in a few decades so something else in the environment must have triggered the rising rate, something that was not there before.

Jean

I just had a lovely salad, chock full of things that are good and good for me, with a side of chicken gizzards baked in chicken fat. About half of the food is sitting on the plate beside me, and I'm full. It was my first meal of the day, and will likely be my last--unless, of course, I get hungry, in which case I will eat unless it's so late that the idea of food in my stomach before I go to bed is unappealing, and then I will calmly wait until tomorrow. I think it's unlikely, because right now the thought of more food makes my stomach do a mild pitch-and-yaw. I didn't count down the hours until I could eat that meal, or weigh or measure my food, or practice any kind of portion control. (Clearly, that would have helped me avoid the waste. O well.) Blue cheese dressing? Plop it on there. Grated cheese? Gimme. Avocado-broc-spinach-full fat cottage chees-kale-red-pepper? All sounded good at the time. But now I am full, and I am done. How have I transformed myself to eat like your `genetically thin' friend? I just don't eat my trigger foods, esp. refined carbs. That's it in a nutshell.

The thing that jumped out at me from that article is the use of the word `dieting', which, in the linked articles, meant caloric restriction. Poor folks in those studies were probably HUNGRY! Fry them up some bacon and eggs, dollop on some sour cream and salsa. Feed them up so they can lose some weight and not be hungry all the time, and the H-kisses will probably lose their come-hither power. I think if they had done studies of people in POW camps who were calorically deprived, they would have been hyper-aware of the Hershey's kisses by Niky's desk as well, even though they're not fat. Body says eat when deprived of what it needs. Give it what it needs and it wanders off and finds another way to stay amused.

That "demoralizing and all-encompassing battle" against my desire to eat when hungry sounds really horrible. I dread that, I really do. [yawn] I watched a TED-ish talk by the physician about whom the article was written: same thing--the weight just mysteriously `came back' like an abandoned puppy that found its way home. His treatment of choice? Optifast and a few cups of veggies. Maybe it's not the DNA, people! Maybe it's the way you're trying to treat it!

So really what do these studies prove? Oh, yeah--dieting and caloric restriction don't work. Extreme caloric restriction extremely doesn't work.

I am borderline-ranting a bit here because I can empathize with people who read these kinds of articles and think, "This is hopeless. I am doomed and destined to be fat," and surreptitiously dump the candy bowl of Kisses into their pockets. Later, Nicky's workmate will look at Nicky and think, "This is so not fair on so many levels."

I have this scenario playing out within my own house. My wife and youngest are exactly like this. They eat when they are hungry and they stop when they've had enough - even if they are only half way through a plate of their favorite food. They have no problem sliding perfectly good uneaten food into the trash can. They get "full" from whatever they eat - be it healthy LC food or the junkiest sort of sugar sweetened processed food. My youngest prefers to "eat healthy" like her father. She is just as happy to eat good food as she is the tasty junk food. My wife, on the other hand, prefers eating junk along with any other healthy food that I cook. She loves her sweets. While my wife is not exactly skinny or healthy, she is within her normal BMI.

On the other had, my oldest daughter is exactly like me. Eating carbs we are ready to eat at all times. We have weak satiety signals eating good food and none at all eating carby junk. We were both heavy at an early age. We both developed binge tendencies as the backlash to resisting our near consent desire to eat. I could tell from an early age that she was exactly like me. My middle child is somewhere in the middle. She is heavy and eats too much junk food. However she can feel full, stop eating, and toss the rest of the food on her plate. My older daughter and I are "finish all the food on our plate" kind of people and if you don't want yours we'll finish that too.

I was the fat kid in class in 1969 -- back when there was only 1 or 2 of us in an elementary school classroom. That was before the food pyramid. That was before they took the fat out of everything and replaced it with sugar. It was even before they messed with the wheat to get larger yields. I got fat on normal, 1950's style American food. So yes, I believe that I am genetically predisposed to gain weight on a diet where carbohydrates contribute a significant percentage of the daily calories on a year-round basis. It is just that I got fat on bread and potatoes. When our food environment shifted towards less fat and more sugar, that just pulled more people into my category of those who struggle not to overeat.

My family is exposed the same food environment. When we all ate the SAD, two of us struggled with rapid weight gain and a near constant desire to eat. Two of us didn't have a problem with overeating at all. One of us started off OK - relatively thin, but gradually put on excess weight over time. When we all eat low carb the disparity is less, but my oldest daughter and me can still eat too much if we don't put on the breaks. We like to eat and we don't have strong satiety signals. We can do well if we watch our diets, but it is still not automatic.

I never had a weight problem until I married DH and adopted his high carb WOE. He doesn't gain anything. My off switch broke and I was always stuffed when meals were over, and sometimes continue eating. He is still a carboholic and this is something I will always have to work on.

It was my genetics which made me pear-shaped in adolescence as my hips grew faster than my bust, just as my nose grew faster than the rest of my face. By the time "all the contents" had settled, I had developed an eating disorder from stress and poor body image.

You can't separate nature from nurture

One of the fantastic things about low carb is that it gifts me the ability to eat like a "normal person."