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  #121   ^
Old Tue, Feb-09-10, 06:25
camaromom's Avatar
camaromom camaromom is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 5,280
 
Plan: Atkins/lowering cals
Stats: 187/143.6/135 Female 64
BF:35.2/ 20%/20%
Progress: 83%
Location: Lafayette, IN
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What I love about this topic of how, in maintenance, we choose to eat is that our answers really shine a light on how individual we are in what works for us. While I completely respect my reader’s view that for her no food is “bad” food, I’d be willing to bet that if I asked the same question a year from now that at least a few of you might have different answers than the ones you give today.

Quoted from above.
This is so true. As I travel along this path I find that there were foods that I could eat a year ago, that I just don't tolerate anymore due to sodium content/flavor etc. Maintenance means evolving.
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  #122   ^
Old Tue, Feb-09-10, 09:48
cnmLisa's Avatar
cnmLisa cnmLisa is offline
Every day is day one
Posts: 7,776
 
Plan: AtkinsMaintenance/IF
Stats: 185/145/155 Female 5'5
BF:
Progress: 133%
Location: Oregon Coast
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Don't mind me....just subscribing
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  #123   ^
Old Tue, Feb-09-10, 09:58
Judynyc's Avatar
Judynyc Judynyc is offline
Attitude is a Choice
Posts: 30,111
 
Plan: No sugar, flour, wheat
Stats: 228.4/209.0/170 Female 5'6"
BF:stl/too/mch
Progress: 33%
Location: NYC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cnmLisa
Don't mind me....just subscribing

Hi Lisa!

Did you know that....if you click on "thread tools" it has an option for you to subscribe to it without posting to that thread?
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  #124   ^
Old Tue, Feb-09-10, 13:16
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Quote:
February 09, 2010

Purely Observation

By Barbara Berkeley


If you’re a reader of these pages, you know that I like to write about science. Where weight issues are concerned, we tend to rely too much on claims of uncertain validity. Just because we’ve heard weight loss “rules” over and over doesn’t make them true. That’s where research comes in. A good research study can confirm or disprove a hypothesis and that helps. If a body of evidence shows that something we believed to be true is actually false, it’s time to move away from that belief.

But I’ve also written about the difficulty of doing good research where overweight and obesity are concerned. The best research is simple and controls all variables. Think 8th Grade Science Fair. A student wants to find out which commercial fertilizer makes a bean plant grow best. She starts ten plants, each from exactly the same kind of seed. She puts each one in the same container. She gives each the same amount of water and exposes it to exactly the same sunlight. The only thing she changes is the type of fertilizer she adds. In this experiment, everything is controlled except the element that is being studied. If one plant grows 5 inches taller than the others, you can be pretty sure you know why.

Imagine, though, the impossibility of making accurate studies about weight. Let’s take a simple example. Say you want to know if the Mediterranean Diet makes people leaner in the long run. You pick a group of people to study. You train them in the elements of the Mediterranean Diet. You ask them to follow that diet for six months and keep food records. You devise a control group that will eat as they always do so that you can compare the two. But problems immediately arise. Each person in the study is different and some may have medical conditions that affect their weight. Some of the people don’t show up for training. Others forget to submit food records. Of the people who do bring records, you can’t be at all sure if they are truly eating what they write down. You notice a few people are losing weight, but some of them have started exercising because they are inspired by being in a study. Is their weight loss related to diet or to more moving around? Two subjects develop the flu during the study period and lose five pounds each. How does that factor into your results? In other words, the variables are endless and impossible to control.

Despite these difficulties, research remains important. But it is equally important to look at studies critically and try to determine if they were done well. I am not an expert on this, but when I look at studies, I give it a shot. This is one of the reasons that we shouldn’t jump on every research study that is announced in the media. They aren’t all good. They aren’t all valid.

Dr Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health has written eloquently about interpreting studies. He reminds us that one study result does not make a truth. One study will usually spawn others which contradict its conclusions. Only when a mounting weight of evidence accumulates on one side can we say that the conclusion is likely true.

It is precisely because studies of overweight are so difficult, that common sense and observation become so vital. So let me use the rest of this post to talk about the behaviors that I observe most commonly in the successful maintainers I know. Recently, a maintainer wrote me about a book she had just read. The book pointed to many studies which showed that the biological deck was stacked against maintainers. “The conclusion one might draw,” she wrote, “is there is simply no way other than sheer, knuckle-gripping discipline to maintain a weight loss – that fat people are simply wired to be fat and nothing can stop that.” Studies may suggest this, but in fact, it has not been my observation.

What is missing from that final sentence makes all the difference. Fat people are simply wired to be fat indeed…WHEN CONSUMING THE MODERN WESTERN DIET. The major observation I have made about the maintainers I treat and that I’ve met is that they are actually NOT hanging on by their fingernails. While they carefully monitor the type and amount of food they eat, they probably wouldn’t describe themselves as tortured. And they are NOT inevitably regaining their weight. The major observation I have made about unsuccessful maintainers is that they ARE hanging on with white knuckles and that is because they are still attempting to eat some modified form of the modern western diet.

We are overweight in America and in increasing numbers all over the world because our entire concept of diet is so reckless and unexamined. It’s impossible to completely figure out what part of the western diet is so toxic. It’s probably a whole lot of things. As a result, the maintainers I know have all seemed to come to a similar conclusion. They have junked the whole SAD and have started at square one: primary foods (foods as they come direct from nature). They have built up from there, figuring out what each might be able to add or tolerate. Anything goes, as long as it works for that person, but most people seem to find that they can’t tolerate many excursions into the SAD world.

In my book, I suggest that new maintainers put themselves on a 3-month OptOut. This means that they almost completely abstain from SAD (Standard American Diet) foods during this period and play with the idea of eating anciently. “Play” is the operative word. It should be interesting, scientific, and fun. An OptOut isn’t the only way to go, but it gives you the idea. Each maintainer I know has a definite framework for how he or she eats. It’s a kind of eating constitution that is specific to each one. Each of us has made a commitment to this constitution and is proud of it. It’s not a matter of white knuckles when you’re defending the territory you love.

So even though I will continue to write about science I want you to take all research conclusions with a healthy grain of salt. Where weight maintenance is concerned, you can learn more from observing those who have been successful than from all the scientific studies in the world. There is a wealth of information residing right here, in the lives of Lynn and the many other maintainers who read this blog. Feel free to pose questions and we’ll post them to the community.
http://refusetoregain.com/refusetor...bservation.html
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  #125   ^
Old Tue, Feb-09-10, 22:10
cnmLisa's Avatar
cnmLisa cnmLisa is offline
Every day is day one
Posts: 7,776
 
Plan: AtkinsMaintenance/IF
Stats: 185/145/155 Female 5'5
BF:
Progress: 133%
Location: Oregon Coast
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Originally Posted by Judynyc
Hi Lisa!

Did you know that....if you click on "thread tools" it has an option for you to subscribe to it without posting to that thread?


I've been here how long and never knew that--as you can see
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  #126   ^
Old Wed, Feb-10-10, 00:06
SidC's Avatar
SidC SidC is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 1,960
 
Plan: Atkins
Stats: 160/103/115 Female 62 inches
BF:
Progress: 127%
Location: Edmonton, AB Canada
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Quote:
Originally Posted by camaromom
What I love about this topic of how, in maintenance, we choose to eat is that our answers really shine a light on how individual we are in what works for us. While I completely respect my reader’s view that for her no food is “bad” food, I’d be willing to bet that if I asked the same question a year from now that at least a few of you might have different answers than the ones you give today.

Quoted from above.
This is so true. As I travel along this path I find that there were foods that I could eat a year ago, that I just don't tolerate anymore due to sodium content/flavor etc. Maintenance means evolving.


I've found that as well, and I have to say that is is frustrating. Just when you think you've got it figured out and are on an even keel, things change. We change with age, noted, but we also change with our tolerances based on diet. It is a journey, and one that the books only give you an intro to. From there, it's fine tune all the way for what works for you.
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  #127   ^
Old Thu, Feb-18-10, 05:29
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Quote:
February 17, 2010

Heavy Kids May Die Young

by Barbara Berkeley


Between February, 1966 and December, 2003, children living in Arizona’s Gila River Indian Community were part of an ambitious study. Nearly 5,000 kids born between 1945 and 1984, were examined and followed. The question under study was this: To what extent would obesity, glucose problems, blood pressure, and cholesterol effect the lifespan of these children? Specifically, which factors would be associated with death before the age of 55?

During the study period, 559 of the subjects died prematurely. The strongest predictor for dying young was obesity. Kids who had been at the highest weights had about 230% the chance of dying early than did kids at the lowest weights. Blood sugar and blood pressure in childhood also raised the risk of dying young, but not as much. In addition, these two factors were almost exclusively tied to the degree of obesity. An interesting sidebar was the observation that childhood cholesterol elevations did not effect the risk…at least in this population. Cholesterol levels tend to be lower in Native American populations in general which may have explained this finding.

The new England Journal http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/362/6/485 references similar childhood studies conducted earlier in the 20th century. One of the problems with these studies is that they didn't have enough heavy kids to follow. In a study done in Wales, for example, just 4% of the children had a BMI that was higher than the 90th percentile. The Arizona study, on the other hand, looked at a population in which 28.7% of the children were obese. This is because the Arizona researchers studied Pima Indians, a group which is particularly susceptible to the harmful effects of the western diet. The Pimas’ problems with obesity go back many decades.

In the United States, the current prevalence of overweight and obese kids stands at 15%. This is TRIPLE what it was in 1960. The news is worse for African-American and Hispanic kids, who have O and O rates that are similar to those of the Pima.

These data are extremely important for readers of this site. The tendency to react poorly to the American diet is a reflection of genetics. This is clearly demonstrated by the Pima Indians. It is also clearly demonstrated in the tendency of families to become overweight and develop related illnesses. Unfortunately, this genetic intolerance to the SAD has gotten muddled up with a lot of pop science and magazine talk. We are searching for the cause of our problem in bizarre explanations that range from broken metabolisms, to infectious causes, to lack of running the marathon.

Here’s the point. If you are a maintainer and have struggled with weight throughout your life, it is highly probable that your kids (even if currently skinny) will be in the same boat eventually. As parents, you can prevent this. You can give them the best odds of living long and healthy lives. All you need to do is to promote the very diet that you consume as a maintainer. Whatever diet has enabled you to keep weight off is a healthy variant of the SAD. That diet is likely to be the one that will prevent gain in your kids.

This stuff is for real. Each of us can build a healthier America by working family by family. If we do, we won’t have to worry about a bankrupted health care system or a country in which life expectancy plummets for the first time. Let’s spread the word.
http://refusetoregain.com/refusetor...-die-young.html
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  #128   ^
Old Sun, Feb-21-10, 06:35
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Quote:
February 20, 2010

From Coke to Chardonnay

by Barbara Berkeley


Successful maintainers are inevitably people who have rebuilt their dietary habits. This kind of reconstruction is obligatory. It seems to be a process that most of us intuitively discover some time during the first year of weight stabilization. In the best of all worlds, the months of weight loss would serve as a time for dietary demolition, a preparation for future rebuilding. Unfortunately, this is not what happens. The vast majority of dieters, are changing habits temporarily and are eagerly anticipating a return to some modification of their previous eating plan. This, more than any other factor, dooms them to weight regain.

As I often tell my patients, the Standard American Diet (SAD) is like a poorly built house. What most dieters do is to attempt to redecorate that house. They move the furniture around; change the pictures on the wall. That doesn’t do anything to shore up a weak and leaky structure. During the weight loss phase, dieters should be thinking about completely tearing down their house so that a new one can rise in its place. What will this new house need? It needs to be strong, healthy and livable. It also needs to offer a strong wall of protection against the temptations of the SAD.

Want another analogy? Moving to a new, clean way of eating is like going from being a Coca Cola drinker to a wine connoisseur. The SAD is like cola: overly sweet, fizzy, advertised everywhere, fun and eminently consumable. It’s easy to love Coke because it’s simply pleasurable. On the other hand, most of us can remember our first reaction to wine. Remember when some adult offered you a sip? It was strong, flavorless and bitter. There was nothing good about it. You even might have wondered how grown-ups could drink the stuff. But as you experienced wine over the years, you likely came to appreciate its nuances; its subtleties. Enjoying wine takes more than just taste buds. It’s an adult pleasure that’s hard to enjoy until you are, in fact, an adult.


If you are making an honest effort to rebuild your dietary house, you will undoubtedly go through a Coke to Chardonnay experience. Initially, your new diet of clean, healthy foods will seem a bit tasteless, a bit repetitious, a bit depriving. Where is that old zing? That fizz? That thrill? But slowly, over time, the pleasures to be derived from your new menu begin to assert themselves. The subtle flavors of real foods—unadorned and unfusssed with---start to speak. In time you find that you are attuned to the underlying notes, ones that—in the past--- would have been covered up by sauces, salt, or breading. It is this transition period from deprivation to enjoyment that takes time. And it is during this transition that maintainers are most vulnerable. If the old fizzy, sweet, fun flavors get into the mix at this crucial moment, they are likely to overwhelm. Once that occurs, any hope of maintenance is gone.

But many of you have progressed far past that point. For those who have crossed the dietary Rubicon, the rewards are sweet. The houses are strong. In the new land on the other side of the river, the pleasures of food have a new meaning. Wine flows and an apple sings a song both eloquent and luscious.
http://refusetoregain.com/refusetor...chardonnay.html
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  #129   ^
Old Sun, Feb-21-10, 13:22
Judynyc's Avatar
Judynyc Judynyc is offline
Attitude is a Choice
Posts: 30,111
 
Plan: No sugar, flour, wheat
Stats: 228.4/209.0/170 Female 5'6"
BF:stl/too/mch
Progress: 33%
Location: NYC
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I've gotta say that its about time that Barbara has addressed this.... and I happen to think that she is right on the money with it too.
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  #130   ^
Old Fri, Feb-26-10, 10:58
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Quote:
February 25, 2010

“No thank you. I stay here.”

By Lynn Haraldson-Bering


My 2-year-old granddaughter is nothing if not polite. Even when she’s on the brink of a hissy fit and her mother asks, “Do you need a time out?” she replies, “No, thank you!”

Yesterday, Cassie and the grandbabies were here for a few hours to drop off their dog on their way to State College for a night. When it was time for them to leave, I said to Claire, “Let’s get your shoes on,” to which she replied, “No, thank you. I stay here.”

The girl knows what she wants, and for the most part is nice about it.

After they left, I thought how Claire’s statement, “No, thank you. I stay here,” applies to maintenance. I’ve often said “No, thank you” to a party host or family member who offered me food I didn’t want to eat; “No, thank you” to offers of diet “shortcuts” and lose-weight-fast snake-oil salesmen; and even “No, thank you” to my own body when, for no good reason, it wants to stay in bed rather than work out.

And why the “No, thank you”? Because my goal is to “stay here” – here as in this scale number, this regimented attitude about food, this maintenance plan, this “Green House” lifestyle (See Barbara’s and Lynn’s maintenance philosophies).

I will celebrate my 3-year maintenance anniversary in a few weeks. Looking back, I see how each year has brought a new maintenance perspective to the table.

“Now what?” was the question for Year 1. I was lost when I got to goal, especially as I lost 10 more pounds during the year. I felt even more disconnected from my body than I had at 300 pounds. My body had a mind of its own and I had a mind of my own…the two didn’t gel. I muddled through, but it was not easy. I understand why so many people gain weight back after reaching goal. My saving grace was a fabulous maintenance group and Barbara, who patiently answered all my questions that were wrapped in confusion.

Somehow came Year 2. I felt guarded but gradually more at ease with the mechanics of maintenance. I started to think that maybe I really was a person who could maintain. God knows I’d failed miserably in the past. I always succumbed to the “Yay! Now I can eat normally again!” syndrome whenever I made a weight goal (obviously counter to what it really takes to maintain a healthy weight). Year 2 cemented in my head that everything I previously thought about food – physically and emotionally – was backward. The changes I made had to be permanent. I knew this…peripherally…in Year 1, but part of me was hoping I could be “normal” again. And we all know what “normal “means. And it doesn’t work.

Year 3, I got bold. I’ve spent the last year looking almost microscopically at the details of maintenance. “So THAT’S how sucrolose affects my body!” ( I had to curb my gum chewing.) “Wow, eating too many potatoes in a week really shows up on the scale!” (I still eat potatoes…they are a treasured treat…only not as often as before. I find butternut squash and rutabaga fit the craving quite nicely.) “I need to sneak in more protein.” (I am still perfecting vegetarianism.)

Perhaps the most profound realization in Year 3 is that I don’t need to eat more food even when my caloric intake chart says I’m “allowed” to eat more calories. If I’m not hungry, I don’t eat. I’m listening to my body more now than ever. That Year 1 body/mind disconnection was pretty much conquered in Year 3. My body and mind seem to get along quite well. (I only hope Congress can do the same!)

While chapter Year 4 is yet to be written, I can’t wait to live the story. I move around in maintenance with much more ease and am comfortable living in my Green House. It provides me shelter and security. Food pushers, predators and naysayers are just outside the door. But in Year 4, I know what I want, just like 2-year-old Claire. And I can say boldly and loudly to those predators and naysayers and my own inner voice that once in awhile says I can’t succeed, “No, thank you. I stay here!”
http://refusetoregain.com/refusetor...stay-here-.html
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  #131   ^
Old Fri, Feb-26-10, 11:11
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Quote:
Somehow came Year 2. I felt guarded but gradually more at ease with the mechanics of maintenance. I started to think that maybe I really was a person who could maintain. God knows I’d failed miserably in the past. I always succumbed to the “Yay! Now I can eat normally again!” syndrome whenever I made a weight goal (obviously counter to what it really takes to maintain a healthy weight). Year 2 cemented in my head that everything I previously thought about food – physically and emotionally – was backward. The changes I made had to be permanent. I knew this…peripherally…in Year 1, but part of me was hoping I could be “normal” again. And we all know what “normal “means. And it doesn’t work.
A very timely post for me, as I'm 'celebrating' my two-year maintenance anniversary today. For me, Lynn's description of Year 2 was exactly how I would have described it too, and it's looking like I really am a person who can maintain.

However, I am NOT going to allow myself to become complacent. That definitely leads to the slippery slope Lynn defines as the “Yay! Now I can eat normally again!” syndrome! And there's no way that I'm ever going back there again! Never ever!
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  #132   ^
Old Mon, Mar-08-10, 16:13
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Quote:
March 08, 2010

BMI: Tool or Tyranny?

by Barbara Berkeley, MD


The patient in front of me is Mr. C, a 308-pound man who has been sent by one of my favorite referring doctors. This doctor truly cares about the health of his patients and it shows. In fact, Mr. C’s physician is a triathlete, eats for health and practices what he preaches. He’s never been overweight. His clients are devoted to him and Mr. C is no exception. But Mr. C. is worried. He genuinely wants to lose weight but the doctor he so much wants to please has told him that he needs to reach 170 pounds: the white or “healthy” zone of the BMI chart. “Doc,” he says earnestly. “Is that possible? I’ve never been that light, not even in high school.”

Twenty years ago,the term BMI was part of the foreign language of doctors, a measurement that was recorded on the chart and remained obscure to patients. Today, nearly every dieter understands, (and sometimes obsesses about), his or her niche on the BMI chart.

BMI, or Body Mass Index, is a shorthand that describes the relationship between your body height and weight. The measurement first saw the light of day in the mid 1800s, invented by a scientist named Adolphe Quetelet. In order to compare peoples' masses, Quetelet proposed a method which divided weight by height squared. Current BMI figures are still based on the same equation: weight in kilograms/ height in meters squared. Today, high BMIs denote overweight and obesity. The cut-offs are as follows: BMI of 25 or less = normal, BMI of 25 to 30 = overweight, BMI of 30 to 35 = obese, BMI of 35 or greater = morbid obesity. On many BMI charts, the obese weights are colored red, the overweight weights yellow and the normal weights white. (You can find a typical BMI chart on my practice's website: www.weightmp.com).

Because BMI looks at weight without distinguishing whether it is coming from fat, bone, or muscle, people with denser bone structure or those with large muscles masses can have high BMIs. I am frequently asked by patients whether a weight that increases or fails to drop might be coming from a new muscle-building gym regimen. Alas, the answer is generally no. Unless you are built like Dwight Howard or Arnold Schwarzenneger, the amount of muscle you gain in the average gym is not causing your BMI to rise. This is especially true for women, who can get great toning and definition from lifting, but are generally not capable of building large amounts of new muscle mass.

However, the major problem with BMI is not that it is inaccurate for the Greek gods among us. The major problem is in its low end, where it sets the bar for “normal”. The BMI chart, with it’s white, yellow and red sections shouts unequivocally that certain weights are unhealthy. These arbitrary divisions are at odds with the advice that obesity societies routinely give patients: that weight loss of 5-10% of current poundage can greatly reduce medical risk. So which is it? Do we need to lose just a bit or do we need to get ourselves all the way to the Promised Land….the white zone???

In my book, Refuse to Regain, I reference the work of Dr. Walter Willett of Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Willett has been in charge of the comprehensive Nurse’s Health Study for some years, a study which shows that the risk of diabetes, hypertension, gallbladder and coronary artery disease starts to rise at BMIs that are far below the 25 we consider “just overweight.” Dr. Willett has said that this data was known, but ignored when committees set the “normal” cutoff for BMI. He believes that the reason is simple. If normal BMI were lowered to somewhere around 22, the vast majority of America would be classified as overweight.

While Dr. Willett is one my dietary and medical heroes, I have a somewhat different take on BMI. Yes, we know that weight gain impacts our health negatively. We know that even small amounts of weight gain put us at risk. But what happens once the horse is out of the barn? Once we have gained that weight, incurred that new risk, what then? Are the rules for “healthy” BMI the same after gain has occurred? This question brings us to a larger and more fascinating issue: Is there some permanent change that occurs within us once we have been overweight that changes those rules?I believe the answer is yes.

What I call POWs (previously overweight people) seem to be quite different from NOWs (never overweight people). As someone who was a NOW in my earlier years and is now a POW, I can attest to the fact that my physiology has changed. Can I prove this scientifically? No. We have now crossed over into the area of observation and opinion. Read on with that knowledge.

In my view, weight gain occurs when the normal mechanism that controls and stabilizes weight is damaged by over-exposure to elements of the SAD (standard American diet). Once the damage is done, I believe that we remain prone to weight gain. We can prevent this by avoiding the foods that caused the damage in the first place, but we must be extra careful. Most POWs cannot eat mindlessly anymore.

This tendency to weight regain may also have to do with fat cells which remain in the body, but which no longer contain fat. No one knows if depleted, empty cells signal the brain or cause other kinds of hormonal havoc. So what does this have to do with optimal BMI? When we gain weight, the body has to manufacture new fat cells to store the oily triglycerides which are being created. These cells are supported by a scaffolding of connective tissue and muscle. After weight loss, the fat cells are emptied, but some of the tissue may remain. Many POWs find that they simply cannot lose enough weight to reach the white area of the BMI chart. This may well be because the BMI chart is based on the weights of those who have never been heavy, in other words, the weights of NOWs. Since they have never manufactured new fatty tissue, their baseline weights are lower.

I love what I do, but I have written before about the one part of my job I don’t enjoy. That would be the very last phase of a patient’s weight loss. Almost without exception, my patients are unhappy with their final weights. This happens even when they have lost 60, 80, or 150 pounds. Each one longs to to get down “just a little more!” Each one feels like a failure for not reaching the white zone. This is the point at which BMI charts become tyrannical, and for no good reason. The rules for optimal BMI in the POW are different, just as pretty much everything else is different for POWs. Since there are no established guidelines for optimal weight in the POW, I can only offer my own take.

1. If you have been significantly overweight, a loss of 20% of your pounds is highly successful and is what I usually target. If you’ve lost more, great!!

2. Your optimal BMI should be the one at which you have eliminated or greatly minimized any weight related medical issues (especially blood pressure, diabetes, and lipids). In some people, remnants of the problem will remain, but the vast majority can expect significant improvement and decrease of medications.

3. Your optimal BMI should be one at which you can comfortably maintain.

Number three is probably the most important guideline, because weight loss is of no consequence if it ends in regain. POWs who push themselves to very low weights often do so at the expense of muscle tissue. If you start to look wasted, your vital muscle mass may be dissipating. At such low weights, and without muscle to help out with calorie burning, you will have to make do with what I call “two peas and a bean”. That’s not fun, that’s not life, and that’s not sustainable.

Are BMI charts important at all? Yes. They remain vital for judging the weights of NOWs, like our kids, young adults and that minority who remains at normal weight. If we can prevent them from converting to weight gainers, they will not have to deal with the permanent changes that dog the rest of us. As parents, educators, doctors and public citizens, this is a worthwhile goal and one that our health care system should be targeting. But for the rest of us? Shoot for maintenance, comfort, health, mobility. These will stand you in good stead whatever your zone or color.
http://refusetoregain.com/refusetor...or-tyranny.html
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  #133   ^
Old Tue, Mar-23-10, 03:53
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
Posts: 26,664
 
Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Quote:
March 22, 2010

The Faulty Metabolism Myth

By Barbara Berkeley


“Why can’t I lose weight? There must be something wrong with my metabolism. “

This question and its seemingly logical answer must be among the most commonly stated beliefs of overweight people. But an answer that appears to be correct is not necessarily so simply because it has been stated repeatedly. As long as we keep asking this question and answering it in the same way, I believe we will not move an inch toward solving our obesity problem.

What if we looked at this question in an entirely new light, starting with a different kind of assumption? What if we began with the fact that the act of trying to lose weight intentionally is most likely an unnatural behavior for humans.

Why do I say this? Until very recently, there was arguably no time in man’s history when he would have thought of forcing his body to give up fat. Since humans lived close to nature, their relationship to food was more like that of other living creatures out in the wild. Fat storage, if it occurred, would have been beneficial, an insurance for lean times. There are very few lions on weight reduction plans.

The evidence for the unnatural nature of forced weight loss can be seen in our body’s response to calorie restriction. When we stop eating, our body does not just start happily burning fat. What it actually tries to do is to avoid losing weight. It does this by going into a sort of “economy” mode. To better understand this, imagine a situation in which you were cash poor with a cold winter approaching and a full tank of heating oil sitting in your backyard. Eventually, the cold sets in. You have that tank of oil, but you’d rather not use it since you are facing a winter of uncertain length. So you wisely decide to go into economy mode. You turn down the heat in your house and wear sweaters instead. You close off some rooms rather than burn fuel to keep them warm. You wait and hope that winter will pass. Meanwhile, your storage tank stays untouched, a hedge against true emergency.

This is exactly what your body does when you try to lose weight. Your genes don’t know that the food shortage they are experiencing is called “Weight Watchers” or “Jenny Craig.” They only know that they are suddenly facing a famine. Ancient responses shift the body into economy mode, dialing down the energy used for heat (the reason many dieters feel cold) and slowing down less vital processes. We call this “lowering the metabolism”, but basically it is the body’s attempt to keep weight stable during a food crisis.

Doesn’t the body want to rid itself of harmful fat? Paradoxically, the answer seems to be no. There is a perplexing propensity for the body to ignore its fat, almost to fail to realize that it’s there. Overweight people experience this every day when they deal with elevated levels of hunger. Why should the body continue to generate strong hunger signals when it is full up with fuel? The answer appears to lie in a disconnect between fat and the brain. Signals which should tell us that we have enough stored fat and that we should stop eating, simply fail to reach their mark. Something inherent in the very process of gaining weight acts as a disruptor to the normal signals that control fat and appetite. When it comes to weight loss, the body seems relatively determined to avoid burning its stored calories unless it is really pushed.

We are taught that the fundamental truth of weight loss is: burn more calories than you take in and you will lose weight. We are told that this is an immutable law of physics and that if it isn’t working, we must be doing something wrong. But all dieters know that this central tenet of weight loss is simply wrong. Adding more exercise often doesn’t lead to weight loss, nor does restricting calories. What is the problem here? The answer is quite simply the body’s ability to change the game by shifting into economy mode. This is maddening for dieters who often feel unable to lose an ounce when they cut back on food. But that problem reflects a simple truth: when you eat less, your body will run on less. A lot less. This is the beauty of our construction, a metabolic balancing act that allowed us to survive for millions of years. Yes, it’s frustrating. But here’s the good news. A solid understanding of this bodily behavior can help us figure out how to get around the problem.

In my experience, the biggest impediment to successful weight loss is something I call “calorie summarizing.” Americans are hooked on calorie theory, which is peculiar because calorie counting is nearly impossible and doesn’t work very well at all. But more on that another time. When people diet, they tend to look at days or weeks as a block. At the end of each block, they summarize what they ate. They see that, when the days are lumped together and on average, they ate far, far less than what they had been eating before their diet. They exercised far, far more. According to prevailing calorie theory, this should guarantee weight loss. Then they get on the scale. Shriek! They’ve lost a couple of ounces, or nothing at all. They throw up their hands and let out that eternal wail: “There’s something horribly wrong with my metabolism!” Often, they abandon their attempts to lose weight. How could they possibly succeed when they are so metabolically challenged?

But what has really occurred? Far from being metabolically flawed, their bodies have simply been doing their job, protecting their clients from the ancient threat of famine. From the point of view of the dieter, the problem was an inconsistent attempt to “scare” the body into using its stored fuel. On one day, this dieter ate more because she’d been good on another. Because she was so strict all week, it seemed fine to have that piece of birthday cake or that dinner out. Because the week’s total calories were lower than they had been, it seemed fine to have a treat here and there. In doing this, this dieter played right into her body’s hands. She gave the body just enough to get by in economy mode and too much to force it into significant fat burning.

A terrific study that appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine a few years ago supports this hypothesis. In this study, researchers compared average weight losses after one year on a number of different diets, including Atkins, Weight Watchers and the Zone. They showed that the average loss was quite small, just a few pounds. Initially, that looked pretty discouraging. But on closer inspection, researchers noted that not every dieter was average. Some actually gained weight, while some lost very large amounts. What differentiated them? In a stroke of brilliance, the researchers decided to look at their data through a new lens. They asked each subject how consistently they had followed their diet on a scale of 1 to 10. What developed was a perfect curve, the same for each and every diet that was studied. Weight loss began to occur at compliance levels of 5 or better. The largest amounts of weight loss were seen in those people who had been almost perfect in following their diet plan.

It probably matters very little which diet plan you follow as long as you don’t try to alter or make up the rules yourself. What seems to be fair, what seems to be scientifically correct, what seems to make sense, is often not the case during weight loss. What is the case is that your body will economize and run itself on less until you force it to do otherwise. Consistency, toughness and sticking with the plan – not just most of the time, but 90-100% of the time – are the behaviors that work. We must respect the fact that we are asking our body to do something it would rather not do. All the diet commercials in the world can tell you how easy it is, how you can lose weight without really dieting, how you can do it without giving up the foods you love. None of these assurances provide a hedge against the facts of life.

Please note that this particular post is not a maintenance post. While consistency remains very important in maintenance, some degree of off-plan eating can be offset by exercise. This is not the case during weight loss. Unless you are very big (people with lots of fat to lose will generally lose weight with less effort, at least at first), complete consistency is the key. Now you know why. If you have been trying to lose weight and have been bemoaning your slow metabolism, try rededicating yourself to the project by assessing your success from moment to moment rather than summarizing calories over time. Keep food records and measure yourself by how well you stuck to your guns each and every day. Convince your body that there is serious and ongoing food shortage in its environment and it will burn fat to take care of you.
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  #134   ^
Old Thu, Mar-25-10, 03:27
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March 24, 2010

Stuck on Fill: The Faulty Metabolism Myth, Part Two

By Barbara Berkeley


In my last post, I tried to debunk the idea that those who have trouble losing weight have something wrong with their metabolisms. Even if that information struck a chord with you, you might have been left wondering the following: “Your explanation tells me why I can’t lose weight, but what about my tendency to gain if I do so much as look at a doughnut? If I don’t have a damaged metabolism, why do I gain weight so easily ?”

When I suggest that most overweight people have normal metabolisms, I’m often met with angry and dismissive responses. Of course there’s something wrong, I’m told. Actually, I completely agree. There is something very wrong, it’s just not metabolism.

Part of the answer lies in our misuse of the term “metabolism .” This word has become something of a catch-all that is employed by just about everyone without much of a definition. What’s generally meant by “I have a slow metabolism” is “There is something really wrong with the way my body reacts to food.” Since we don’t have a specific explanation for what that “something” is, we tend to chalk it up to metabolism.

In medical terms, metabolism refers to the number of calories your body burns each day. These calories are expended by your daily life processes, things like breathing, circulating your blood, digesting, and the microscopic work of cells. Calories are also burned when you move around. It takes fuel to to walk, run, shiver, blink and so on. If we measure only the calories that are burned in basic work, we are measuring Resting Metabolic Rate. When we add on the calories burned with physical activity, we are calculating Total Metabolic Rate. Most studies of overweight and obese people confirm that, far from burning fewer calories, they actually burn more calories than normal weight people. In the graph below, from The Obesity Society, you can see this demonstrated.



Why would this be? First, because large people have more mass that needs to be carried each time they move. They therefore burn more calories in doing so. An SUV is going to burn more gas than a Mini Cooper. Secondly, calories are burned more actively by muscle tissue and overweight people have more muscle. This muscle is gained when new fat tissue is manufactured. It provides the scaffolding that holds up that tissue. The greater muscle mass is responsible for a larger daily calorie burn.

So, for most overweight people, there certainly is a problem with the way their bodies react to food, but it’s rarely “metabolism” as we know it. It’s actually more of a food partitioning problem, a derangement in the way the body stores food calories. For lack of a better descriptor, let’s call this “Stuck on Fill.”

When we are confronted with food, our body has a choice as to what to do with the calories. It can burn them (generally by sending them to muscles and other active tissues) or it can store them by filling up the fat cells. This is meant to be a subtle balancing act that works perfectly without our knowledge or intervention. (I’ve written about this before in a previous post on IBM.) Every element that we take into the body is controlled by a similar balance mechanism. Unless some piece of the balance machinery gets broken, the mechanism will continue to work seamlessly.

Here is an example. A huge overdose of potassium can stop your heart, but you can eat bananas and other high potassium foods day and night without being endangered. A silent mechanism is measuring, balancing and correcting your blood potassium from moment to moment. The ability of the body to control all of its elements within a narrow range is called homeostasis. Our bodies have insistent demands regarding balance. Homeostasis keeps us alive. But one of the components of the balance mechanism for potassium is the kidney. The body relies on the kidney to either hold back or excrete more potassium depending on levels in the blood. If the kidney fails, potassium balance also fails. Suddenly, we humans have to take action by measuring and checking potassium and by adding medicines to control it.

The evidence for a homeostatic mechanism regarding weight is all around us. Just look at the people you know who have never been heavy. With few exceptions, they do not monitor calories or record exercise minutes. How is it that they can weigh the same on December 31st as they did on January 1st? The answer must be that the body is silently and elegantly making decisions that keep weight stable. It is burning more calories on one day and filling the fat cells on another. Just enough to keep things steady.

What about the easy weight gainer? If we think of the burn/fill mechanism as a switch, it is my contention that they are “stuck on fill .” Their bodies have lost the ability to efficiently burn calories and instead are sending mostly everything into fat storage. This may look like a slow metabolism, but it’s actually quite a different problem.

Since insulin is the mega-hormone that deals with burning and storing calories, it makes sense to look for a failure there. What we know about insulin dovetails neatly with the “stuck on fill” hypothesis. We know that it is very common for people on western diets to develop insulin resistance, a condition in which the muscles stop listening to the signals sent by this hormone. Essentially, the burn part of the equation gets shut down. We also know that people who are insulin resistant are still able to make a lot of fat. Essentially, things are tilted toward fill. Insulin resistance develops with increasing age and gets worse as people get fatter. The heavier you are, the more resistant, the less you can burn. Eventually, your lever gets stuck on fill, and most food is going into storage. It’s a vicious cycle unless you can figure out a way to unstuck the switch.

So how do you fix the problem? By looking at the elements of the mechanism that are broken and the parts that are amenable to repair. Here’s what you can do…and these fixes really do work:

1. If we force the body to lose weight, it becomes less insulin resistant. Once insulin starts working properly, there is a better burn/fill ratio. (But to lose weight, you must be tough and consistent. See my last post).

2. Exercise helps sensitize the muscles so they can “hear” insulin better. It gives us a hedge against resistance and is very important, particularly for maintainers.

3. (And most controversial). It is my firm belief that the switch gets weakened and finally stuck when insulin is asked to overperform day after day, and year after year. As most of my readers know, I believe that our obesity epidemic comes from eating a diet we weren’t genetically designed to consume. The largest difference between our modern diet and our ancient one is the huge load of insulin-requiring foods that we eat. In order to keep a damaged insulin switch oiled and supple, we need to cut back on these foods. The amount of cut-back has some individual variation, but the foods we need to be concerned about are starches and sugars, including bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, cereals, grains, honey, syrups and sugars of all kinds. If you find yourself becoming “stuck on fill” after a weight loss, look to a reappearance in your diet of these foods.

Why am I making a big deal about all of this? Because there is nothing you can do about a “slow metabolism .” It’s simply something you’ve inherited and there’s nothing to do but curse your bad luck. On the other hand, if your problem is a stuck switch, you’ve got some exciting repair work to do. Loosen up that switch by vastly taking the load off insulin, forcing your body to lose pounds, and exercising faithfully and vigorously on most days. Let me know how it goes.
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  #135   ^
Old Fri, Mar-26-10, 07:40
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Demi Demi is offline
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March 26, 2010

Better Ways to Help the Public Lose Weight - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com


Quote:
It’s More Than Personal Responsibility

Kelly D. Brownell, a professor of psychology and epidemiology, is the director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University.

Much of the national debate on obesity hinges on the meaning of two words: personal responsibility. Evoked by the food industry as an argument against government action, these words are used intentionally to shift blame to individuals with the problem rather than the conditions responsible for it. Are rising rates of obesity in every corner of the world due to irresponsible behavior?

Public action to promote better foods in schools and less marketing of unhealthy foods is needed.

This stance has many problems. Most notably, it is wrong. Individuals in the U.S. are behaving more responsibly in many areas of health (mammograms, prostate exams, smoking, drinking, using seatbelts, etc.). Americans who otherwise are behaving responsibly, however, are not consuming healthy diets, showing how dire the food environment has become.

Modern food conditions are toxic and exposure to them reliably increases obesity rates. This was seen first in the U.S. and other developed countries and now is clear even in unlikely places like India, China and Brazil. There are many facets of this food picture. Huge portion sizes, economics that make healthy foods cost too much and unhealthy foods cost too little, ubiquitous access to high-calorie foods and relentless food marketing are a few examples.

Until recently, government has reacted to this reality by playing cheerleader, doing little more than imploring from the sidelines for people to exert more effort and lose weight. That picture has now changed, sometimes at a dizzying pace, and elected officials at all levels of government are taking action.

Personal responsibility is important and everything possible should be done to enhance it, but how can the nation reach this goal? It starts with a philosophy in which Americans, children particularly, deserve better nutrition conditions, ones that make healthy choices more likely. Better foods in schools, less marketing of unhealthy foods, economic policies that change prices of healthy and unhealthy foods,and crackdowns on misleading nutrition claims on packages are examples of constructive and needed public action.
via roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com

This short piece says it all for me. Most discussions about controlling overweight focus on scolding or penalizing those with the problem. Thus far, there has been no serious effort to take to task those who provide and encourage a highly unhealthy food environment. We need to change American food consumption behaviors by targeting multiple areas, but without addressing the food culture that permeates our world, we will never have a fair fight. Barbara
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