I've observed rather different things. The people I know who eat the most meat are the Crossfitters around me. They are, in almost all cases, healthy.
I have a roommate who drinks fat-free milk and eats lots of salad and pasta, who avoids meat like the plague. He's been struggling with his weight for as long as I've known him. I drink coconut milk -- which contains nothing but fat -- and a meal usually consists of some randomly selected fatty cut of meat and vegetables fried in the drippings. That, or cheap canned fish. I lost weight eating like this. I fit in skinny jeans. I may with luck convince my almost-girlfriend to peg me. :3
But the important thing -- I don't advertise. I am not a walking bulletin of the health benefits of coconut and sardines. How do you really know about the diets of the people around you? I would say there are maybe four or five people around me whose diets I actually know well enough to analyze in any reasonable way.
Case A is a twenty-two year old recent Caltech graduate who is obsessed with freerunning and eats nearly-strict paleo. He can do a backflip. No further comments. We grew up together.
Case B is my roommate. He follows all the conventional advice to a T -- chicken, fish, whole grain, salad. Lots of "health food" products. Y'know, healthiest potato chips on the shelf. There is bread, there is soybean oil mayonnaise. It... doesn't seem to be working.
Case C is another good friend of mine. Eats a lot of processed cheap stuff; he's the sort that'll buy three pounds of animal crackers. When I first met him he was rather obese and said he was try'na learn to eat vegetables. He lost a lot of weight after we introduced him to ecstasy... and he's been eating healthier too. He's sloowly coming around; one of his recent facebook statuses involved making hard-boiled eggs. He looks better and seems happy. Score 281,443 for MDMA.
Case D is me. I'm kind of a dick, judging people like this. People who I like. I don't really know any other way to be honest about how I make decisions, though.
When I was eleven my parents tried to force me to switch from whole milk to 2%. I responded by walking two miles to the gas station to buy milk. I'm the only kid in my family who never had weight problems growing up.
Yep, after more than 10 years of eating "healthy whole grains", reduced fat, loads of fruit and veg and doing various different kinds of exercise -- all without seeing huge results -- I, my wife and several friends started eating in a much more primal/paleo style a year ago. All of us have seen major, effortless weight loss, muscle gain and all feel dramatically better. It's a no brainer.
So, because your body doesn't have the tendency to put on weight, you eat what you like. Your friends who tend to get fat easily watch what the y eat, but it's not helping them that much.
This really sounds to me like there are great differences in metabolism person to person.
I have always been skinny, and I eat a lot of whatever. I don't exercise much. I know people who are "big", but eat less than I do.
People don't have that much difference in metabolisms (unless we are talking about actual health problems or differences between severe overweight and athletes). What happens is most people don't know what they are eating.
BBC did a documentary where two friends, one skinny and one fat, swore the difference was due to metabolism, that the skinny one ate a lot and the fat one didn't. They tested it and found out that the fat one used more calories than the thin one, but also took a lot more calories per day.
The basal metabolic rate varies between individuals. One study of 150 adults representative of the population in Scotland reported basal metabolic rates from as low as 1027 kcal per day (4301 kJ) to as high as 2499 kcal (10455 kJ) [1]
Your metabolism also slows noticeably as you get older. In my 20s I could eat anything (and lots of it) without being able to gain any weight. Now in my 40s I have to lift weights (to increase metabolism) and watch what I eat to stop putting on fat.
According to the study, only 26.7% difference wasn't explained by age/sex/weight. Which means for almost 75% the values were somehow dependent on sex/age/weight.
And the difference between the top 5% and bottom 5% of the outliers was around 30% (which means for a 2000kcal average BMR, the bottom needed only 1700 and top 2300). This, in my opinion, is not enough for people to tout slow/fast metabolism for weight gain/loss as most people won't fall into the top/bottom 5%.
I'm not saying that eating 300kcal over daily maintenance everyday would not make you fat.
What I'm saying is that I really doubt the most of the people that are overweight/obese are eating according to what a BMR calculator says and because of slow metabolism they are getting fat. Also, body uses more kcals per day than BMR, you also have to take in account the activities per day.
Using Harris Benedict formula:
If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2
If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9
The thing is, most (and I know this is pure observational) people I know that are overweight/obese either underreport calories (they say they eat just a salad, but forget the 5 table spoons of dressing/olive oil they season it with) and over report activity levels (jogging is not moderate exercise!).
I know it isn't data, but my mother and my mother in law are some of the people that most annoys me related to this. They swear they don't eat treats (I see them eating on average 2-3 cake slices or ice creams per week) and they say they only dine salad (but include 2 loafs of bread and a lot of oil based seasonings) and complain they don't lose weight. And this is what I see in about 90% of the people I know that are overweight. Maybe it is cognitive dissonance/bias but some people just believe they can't lose weight, so they bend the truth to support that idea.
ps: sorry to be such a 'asshole' related to this. Fitness and nutrition is a passion of mine, and I hate when people use excuses for their lack of progress, or attribute 'genetics' or 'luck' to my progress (sure, they don't see me at the gym 1.5 hours every day working my ass off, or not eating bread for months at a time.)
I think we basically agree, it's very easy to miss high calorie foods that can totally throw your calculations out.
And you shouldn't use a slow metabolism as an excuse for accepting a certain state, maybe that's easy for you and me to say as we both seem to be lucky enough to be healthy.
But since you can alter your metabolism it can be a useful tool as part of weight loss. Do weights, increase muscle mass, increase metabolism, lose weight. In terms of time spent weights are very effective as well - 3-5 workouts of 45mins per week is plenty.
Actually, and that is my point entirely, luck isn't the word. I have shitty genetics (I think on both sides, for the last 2-3 generations my family has been overweight/obese). Heck, during my wife's pregnancy there were complications, and due to stress + bad food + no exercise I ballooned up 9 kilos (20 pounds) in about 2.5 months. If I don't take care of myself, I gain weight quite easily.
And not to try to be the naysayer, but the effect of muscle on calories burned at rest has been quite the myth floating around. Check the references at the bottom of http://www.lanimuelrath.com/blog/calories-burned-by-muscle-v... and you will see that 10 pounds of extra muscle will burn at most 60-70 more calories than fat at rest.
Apart from that, I agree, do weight training 3-5 days a week. move around, eat healthy. That should be enough to at least get you to the normal weight range.
"Eventually"? That's putting on 30 pounds a year, assuming it's all about (caloriesIn - caloriesUsed) / 3600 = poundsOfFat.
Of course, anyone who has dieted long term knows that that's not the whole story. You might cut your calories in half and still plateau within a few months.
As you put on more weight the amount of calories you need increases.
I don't think cutting your calories in half would result in a plateau within a few months in most cases. That's quite a major reduction, pretty much a starvation diet.
As you put on more weight the amount of calories you need increases.
The initial claim was about 300 kcal more than you need, though.
My experience suggests plateau happens every time, without regard to the type of dieting done, unless it's quite literally a starvation diet. The only time I've manage to lose more than 100 pounds was on a diet of about 400 kcal a day. Reducing my diet from about 3500 kcal/day to half that (by the simple method of not eating every other day) worked really well for about two months, and then plateaued; total reduction, about 50 pounds. I've resigned myself to losing in bursts and concentrating on not putting much back on in between.
Of course, my sample size in number of people is low... :)
Ah ok, 100 pounds would be quite a challenging target. As I understand it though starvation diets don't work long term as they train your body to deal with food shortages by storing energy as fat.
Losing in bursts doesn't sound like it would be a healthy option for the rest of your body as well.
Do you include exercise at all? From what I've researched, and what trainers have told me, weight training is the most effective way to lose weight - when combined with calorie monitoring and some cardio.
Unfortunately skinny does not imply healthy. I am also skinny with high metabolism, but that doesn't mean it's okay to eat whatever you want and forego exercise as your internals could be like those of a much older individual (heart, lungs, etc).
Freerunner here. Most of my diet consists of peanut butter and blueberry jam on toasted bread, yogurt, chicken, eggs, rice, protein powder, cottage cheese, and hummus.
Oh yeah, and sometimes I buy a giant can of mixed fruit and eat the whole thing. It's like dessert.
Your diet sounds like a lot of the 'low carb' ones.
I personally try to eat a paleo/keto-ish diet which mainly consists of eggs, meat, veggies and a bit of fruit and nuts. In general anything that doesn't contain sugars or things that get metabolized into sugars (carbs, starches, sugary stuff itself...)).
I lost 12 kg while eating tons of meat. For me the 'just don't eat a lot of carbohydrates' part of it really works.
I don't think I'd advocate the E plan diet as a healthy weightloss program!
Coconut is another food that's been demonised. Supposedly it actually encourages weight loss - and is a super food. I only wish it were cheaper here in the UK.
Well Ecstasy as an alternative to alcohol might actually be good for your overall health. I seem to remember that epistemologically it's one of the safest of the recreational drugs; safer than alcohol, tobacco, speed etc.
I don't think that the associated brain damage linked to ecstasy makes it that safe in either form. Scientists can't assertain just yet as to whether the damage is human repairable or not.
I hadn't heard of the brain damage link. When searching for information on it, however, I mainly came across references to a study last year that said it is does not, in fact, cause brain damage. Additional mystery ingredients might be another story.
Moderation is often a side effect of paleo diets, isn't it? Traditionally structured diets with high carbs, moderate protein, and low fat, similar to "Case B" can work well too (see: Japan). However, it's easy to overeat on such a diet compared to paleo.
Weight is only one indicator of health. Gain or loss in weight is related purely to calorific intake, nothing to do with whether what you eat is good for you.
Your answer:
"It's due to too many people inside. Simple as that."
Real answer:
There is a popular band inside, which has caused more people to walk into the building in a given 3 hour period than leave it.
The "too many calories" people (you are one of them)all think that the effect of a bad diet (which is often bad caloric partitioning in the body, causing plummeting energy levels as fat cells steal nutrients from the rest of the body, causing a fat person to feel tired and hungry) is also the root cause.
Do kids grow because they eat more? No. They eat more because they are in a growth spurt. Obesity works the same way. A bad diet wreaks havoc on the endocrine system, mainly with insulin levels, causing excessive fat accumulation due to calories being partitioned to fat cells at the expense of the rest of the body. If a person with this kind of caloric partitioning doesn't eat excessive amounts of calories, they will feel tired. If they continue to eat the wrong kinds of foods (foods which continue the bad endocrine reaction) they will continue getting fatter in a feedback loop.
But hey, with advice like yours, you should really go and help others. Go to an insomnia board, and when someone complains of being tired, just say "Insomnia is because you don't get enough sleep. Simple as that."
yea, there may be reasons why they eat too many calories (they eat the wrong foods so eating less leaves them tired), but they gain weight because they are eating too many calories. it truly is that simple, however as i think you pointed out, truly fixing the issue is going to be more work than simply saying "eat less" and requires a lot of (re)education
What evidence do you have that too many calories dont result in weight gain?
I bet you that if eat 5000 calories of "healthy" food and your daily requirement is 3000 you will gain weight, and if you eat 2000 calories of "bad" food you will lose weight.
"What evidence do you have that too many calories dont result in weight gain?"
You should read the parent again, more carefully. The point is not that that is not a true statement, the point is that is a vacuous statement, and therefore, the wrong question. It is not controversial that things that cause weight gain cause you to gain weight, but it's not a useful statement for either science or engineering, and we have collectively wasted an awful lot of time and research while laboring under the delusion that this was some sort of actual explanation, rather than a mere restatement of the problem.
As you can see from the number of comments on this subject there is a lot of confusion subject. We make things difficult by talking about bad foods, partitioning, healthy food, etc. People get fat from eating more calories than they burn.
...healthiest potato chips on the shelf... ...bread, there is soybean oil mayonnaise...
All of these are fairly high calorie foods, even if you buy them in a health food shop. You'd need to have a fast metabolism and be pretty active to get through all these.
If you eat more calories than you burn you will put on fat.
I think metabolism is a huge factor when considering the above examples; the guy that eats only healthy foods might not have an efficient metabolism and be doing enough exercise to burn off the calories he is taking in.
Also, the big guy that takes loads of pills (e's) and eats what he wants... I don't think this is a good example at all and it sounds like you also take them too (perhaps an explanation for you and your skinny jeans?).
I have a roommate who drinks fat-free milk and eats lots of salad and pasta, who avoids meat like the plague. He's been struggling with his weight for as long as I've known him. I drink coconut milk -- which contains nothing but fat -- and a meal usually consists of some randomly selected fatty cut of meat and vegetables fried in the drippings. That, or cheap canned fish. I lost weight eating like this. I fit in skinny jeans. I may with luck convince my almost-girlfriend to peg me. :3
But the important thing -- I don't advertise. I am not a walking bulletin of the health benefits of coconut and sardines. How do you really know about the diets of the people around you? I would say there are maybe four or five people around me whose diets I actually know well enough to analyze in any reasonable way.
Case A is a twenty-two year old recent Caltech graduate who is obsessed with freerunning and eats nearly-strict paleo. He can do a backflip. No further comments. We grew up together.
Case B is my roommate. He follows all the conventional advice to a T -- chicken, fish, whole grain, salad. Lots of "health food" products. Y'know, healthiest potato chips on the shelf. There is bread, there is soybean oil mayonnaise. It... doesn't seem to be working.
Case C is another good friend of mine. Eats a lot of processed cheap stuff; he's the sort that'll buy three pounds of animal crackers. When I first met him he was rather obese and said he was try'na learn to eat vegetables. He lost a lot of weight after we introduced him to ecstasy... and he's been eating healthier too. He's sloowly coming around; one of his recent facebook statuses involved making hard-boiled eggs. He looks better and seems happy. Score 281,443 for MDMA.
Case D is me. I'm kind of a dick, judging people like this. People who I like. I don't really know any other way to be honest about how I make decisions, though.
When I was eleven my parents tried to force me to switch from whole milk to 2%. I responded by walking two miles to the gas station to buy milk. I'm the only kid in my family who never had weight problems growing up.
Eyes optional.