diets in general

I love to hear different opinions... so I hope folks don't mind hearing MY opinion.... MEE not have an opinion? NAW.... *LOL*

OK, here goes.

The gospel according to me as it were.

First of all, I've studied a lot of diet books and just about EVERYONE regardless of WHAT diet they are on, says that they feel better on it.

I've come to the conclusion that the so called "American diet" which mostly consists of fast foods, junk foods, foods laden with chemicals, no veggies and lots of pop (which I've come to believe is a NON food) plus NON foods like donuts, well... all of this is SO unhealthy that just about ANYTHING someone switches to, regardless of whether it's the low carb, or the Maker's Diet or the Ornish low fat or vegan or ANYTHING is going to make your body feel better. Because most diets emphasize eating more veggies, NOT drinking pop, avoiding non foods like donuts and staying away from fast foods like Mickey D's and the non foods like junk food and potato chips and stuff like that.

So if people feel better EATING more healthy, it would stand to reason that they could do this and GET healthier WITHOUT the weight loss which is a strain on our bodies and organs and temporary for most folks. And in fact, a clinical study at the USC suggested just that - that folks on a healthy eating program and moderate exercise ended up (at the end of two years) healthier than those who dieted to lose weight! The program they were on is called HAES or Health at Every Size.

Second, the success stories we are constantly bombarded with on the media from ALL programs... you know the trip ... where they go on such and such a diet like Medifast, Slimfast, Jenny Craig, low carb, Weight Watchers, South Beach, the Maker's diet, Weigh Down or gastric bypass and lose all their weight to fashionably slim and tell everyone how wonderful they feel, how they can "buy their clothing off the racks", how they can "fit in carnival rides" (like we go to carnivals daily, right...) and all the usual catch phrases ... those success stories are a SMALL PERCENTAGE of those who go on whatever diet they are hawking.

They tell us that if we ONLY have the drive/character/guts AND we go on the "right program" (whatever program THEY are on), we, too, can lose the weight and enter the Nirvana of being slim for life.

The problem is that those who keep all their weight off through ANY program are NO MORE THAN 7 percent of the population and that's being generous.... 5 percent is the figure usually quoted, EVEN for the gastric bypass!

ALL studies show that 95 percent of us CANNOT keep off the weight and that it's all pretty physical. Fat people trying to keep a weight lower than their body desires start to exhibit the symptoms of starvation seen in normal people who are food deprived. Hunger, fatigue, obsession on food, BURNING 25 percent LESS calories per pound when they work out and more.

That's because the body produces a bunch of hormones to try and force us to regain the weight and one of these will make us fat REGARDLESS of what we eat.

Gina Kolata, NY Times science reporter who was one of the most ardent advocates of the diet industry, has written a book which is negative about dieting. Why? Because she researched it and found out the truth.

In her book, RE-THINKING THIN, Ms Kolata states that one of the things people trying to KEEP OFF their weight (through ALL methods) experience is what she calls "PRIMAL HUNGER", a hunger so strong that people are just about FORCED to eat something (she compares to breathing and how our bodies FORCE us to breath after we hold our breath for a while).

Most programs offer mind games to fight primal hunger. Gastric bypass patients tell themselves it's not REAL hunger because their bodies are just wonderfully happy on the restricted amount of calories they are eating per day - they call it "head hunger". Weight Watchers offers the 20 minute rule - if you want to eat something, wait 20 minutes and start doing something to heavily distract yourself from eating.

Weigh down tells people that when they experience this PRIMAL HUNGER, it's really that they need God and they are told to pray. The founder of Weight Down who keeps a very svelte figure, has written that she spends whole nights in prayer, fighting her body's desires to eat.

The bottom line of this is that when your body is THAT hungry and you force yourself, however you do it, to NOT eat, you end up spending all your time obsessing on food and the battle supreme to avoid feeding. And eventually, most folks get weary of the battle so they give in and eat.

They say being fat isn't a great quality of life but obsessing on food all the time, is LESS quality of life in my book. Afterall, "buying clothing off the shelf" (who cares) and "fitting on carnival rides" or even not asking for seat belt extenders when we fly.... these things aren't things we do every day. But we do LIVE every day and I don't know about you but I'd just as soon think about something other than food.

At 261 lbs I CAN think of other things... eating occupies a couple of hours of my day and the rest of the time, I ENJOY life, even BEING very fat.

Gina Kolata stated "if you are 75 to 100 lbs overweight, you probably will NOT be able to keep off the weight"

Rudy Leibel states that 95 percent of people cannot keep off the weight because of the "powerful biochemical system" which kicks in, defending the higher weight.

Bottom line - that we can control something which is apparently included in the "homeostatic"/ automatic systems of our body may be a myth... one many of us spend our lives chasing after .... (and spending mucho buckos on it). A myth which sometimes causes us to do unhealthy things to our bodies.

>>>Keep In Mind: Slender individuals have adult diabetes. Slender individuals have heart attacks. Slender individuals develop arthritis and have joint problems. Slender individuals have strokes and develop cancer. If obese individuals have these problems more commonly than the slender, it is because the same bad health habits just don't happen to cause obesity in some individuals "fortunate" enough to be slender no matter what they eat. They may be slender but they could very likely die just as early in life as someone who is overweight.<<<<

Kaiser Permanante Release form for gastric bypass/duodenal switch

sources:

Kolata, Gina: RE-THINKING THIN (NY, 2007)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10354959

Rudy Leibel information

http://healthread.net/obesity.htm

Release form for gastric bypass:

http://obesitysurgery-info.com/wls_release_form.htm
the HAES study at USC:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=25384