The Obesity Code - is it really new?

"The Obesity Code", a new book out, while saying it's the final solution to weight problems, is nothing new. And, people, tired of dieting, are buying it rapidly off the shelves, over the internet, or whatever.  I read a few reviews of it while deciding if I needed to add it to my always growing library on Weight Loss.

From what I can see, the meat of "The Obesity Code", pun intended, is intermittent fasting. You can fast...water only, or liquids or a bunch of ways. While I don't know what type of fasting is suggested in the book, it all amounts to basically no food... one day a week or one day a month or ?? 

That's supposed to keep off the weight forever. It's not new because I tried it in the 1970's. I lost about 25 lbs but eventually, I got horrendous cravings, couldn't stomach the fasting part anymore and regained the 30 lbs I'd lost and another 70, probably a result of a lowered metabolism and being really, over, fasting! :)

The only thing that really works to lose the weight and keep it off, is calorie restriction and portion control - for life. Staying away from calorie dense stuff like fast foods is a good idea or use the Gwen Schamblin method for fun foods, (from the book, WEIGH DOWN). That is, take one bite of a fun food, and chew it slowly, savoring it. Because as she rightly, points out, the first bite tastes the best and if we slow down enough to experience this, we can find out that this is very true.  Gwen has kept several pounds off for many years and she enjoys her fun foods also.

We all have to experiment with things and see what works the best for us. 

After trying just about everything else, I realized that calorie restriction and portion control is the only way that worked for me, to lose and keep off weight.  

 In 2008-2010 I lost 112 lbs, and have kept off 107 lbs ever since. I count my calories every day on My Fitness Pal, a great website which offers a free  calorie counter and found that a small bite of treats or even programming small amounts into my day, keeps away the cravings monster.

Eating big portions of veggies with no butter etc, fills you up and no one ever got a weight problem from too many veggies!

Every "diet book" claims it's new and revolutionary because the diet-fatigued, overweight public craves an answer that is easier than daily calorie counting or restricting food amounts in some other way... but in reality, "there is nothing new under the sun".

Surgery for weight loss

A sad thing for me is when weight loss surgery post ops come back and say "Oh Sue, I wish I'd listened to your warnings".

The warnings I've posted can actually be found on most weight loss surgeons' websites but they aren't in a very prominent place.

Moreover, people want to believe there is a quick way to doing this weight loss thing - so maybe many folks don't look for the small print like 1-2% of gastric bypass patients die within 30 days of surgery or like undermining the delicately balanced system we have for nourishing our bodies with the hundreds of nutrients we need on a daily basis, isn't a very good idea.   As one doctor put in it in a book I read in the 1970's, this type of thing is similar to trying to run our cars on French perfume... how long would they run? Sadly, we often treat our cars better than we treat our bodies! 

The body adapts in a way to various forms of starvation, but of course does not last very well in the long run as it starts to consume protein and macro nutrients from itself, like the brain, the heart, calcium from the bones etc.

It's meant as a short term way to survive a starvation period and not for something in the long term.

I remember when I started studying this stuff in 1990.  I called a medical provider, an intelligent well educated one, and asked him to tell me what he knew about the GI tract. He gave me a short basic explanation.  I asked for more details but he said that was all they got in medical school!

I ended up reading bunches of books and medical journals to get the rest of the information, a research which took more than 10 years of study (not counting the many books etc I read before my specific study on weight loss surgery - I'd been studying weight control since the 1970's and still am studying it).  Sadly, this is not easily available to the public and apparently many medical providers don't have the time or ? to study this in more detail.

Eating healthy and exercising at least 5 days a week (the only thing which strengthens our hearts is cardio exercise or as it was formerly called, "aerobic exercise") is the best way to go.  That's what they say if one studies the subject and I can attest from personal experience, it works.

Eating healthy usually means avoiding fast or fatty foods and eating mostly veggies and some fruits.

Not eating healthy and exercising raises our risks for heart disease, stroke, thrombosis and more.  I've lived through this thing of heart disease and clogged arteries - not in myself but in my hubby who never heard from a medical provider about a heart healthy diet or how important aerobic exercise is. I made him exercise daily but he only did 20 minutes most days.  Never-the-less, that 20 minutes is probably the reason why he's still living albeit required five major surgeries to fix his heart and clear out the clogging from his arteries. 

And all this, while seeing medical providers regularly and paying lots of bucks - where were the warnings he should have gotten?  

And basically, not looking for the quick way out of a weight problem because there is no quick way that is healthy and works.  Terminal cancer patients don't have a weight problem but I suspect most of us would not want to go there.  But having one's stomach and bowels cut up and/or rearranged in a very unnatural manner, as done in surgeries for weight loss, isn't a good idea either.

As Beverly Sills has said "there is no quick road to a place worth going!"