OT:Good Calories, Bad Calories....

[hades161]

To weigh in, I am 600 pounds currently.

My first "diet" started when it was found I had allergy's A lot of them. It was told to my mother I was allergic to her own breast milk. I spent the first 2 years of life in the hospital. I was also very asthmatic so the time was spent in an O2 tent. I was put on Soy milk as it seems this was tolerable. At least this is what I have been told by my mother and family. My first memory is of being in an O2 tent playing with a batmoble car.

I have been on "diets" of some form, off and on ever since. I have researched and tried many "diets" both Clinical(doctor supervised) and Fad. I have tried the pills such as Fen-phen and Meridia. I have been to more then one seminar for Gastric Surgeries and talked to people who have done the RNY and Gastric Sleeve. Of the 3 I talked to who did the RNY, 1 had died, 1 is dieing of stomach cancer with complications related to the RNY, and the youngest one is currently fighting Vitamin absorption issues. The youngest one did the Gastric Sleeve to lose enough so they could finish with the full RNY. Gastric Sleeve is sometimes used as a first step in very large individuals to get them to a safer operating weight as it's basically the first step of an RNY and then later they do the full RNY.

The most successful diets I have tried have been based off the Atkins diet which actually goes back much farther then what he put out. On Atkins I lost over 100 pounds with ease as compared to some of the clinical diets I have been put on. I have had success with the "Mainstream" Nutritional approach but not as easily as the Atkins type diets. On both counts for various reasons I stopped doing them, IE funds, a gallbladder surgery, and homelessness. I am currently forming a "new" strategy to try. I am interested in Juice Fasting, Vegan-ism, The Paleo Diet, The China Study, Sugar Busters, and the Taubes Books, the issue for me is the spin on everything that muddies the waters. For every study, there is a counter study and without being a chemist, doctor, surgeon, researcher, nutritionist, and have full understanding of these fields it's very easy to be mislead or misinterpret the data. Also sometimes when digging for medical data it is barred from you online, so you have to hit the books, sometimes those books aren't in your library.

From my experiences so far in 40 years I believe in these things: (though I am guilty of not doing them)

Limit or Exclude toxins from non-organically grown foods
Limit or Exclude processed foods
Limit or Exclude processed sugars in any form

As far as Meat vs Veg, I still am not sold on the idea that one or the other is the single answer. Honestly, if I could I would, grow my own fruit & veggies, raise my own meat, grow my own herbs, and be a bee keeper with about 6 to 8 hives for my only sweetener. But I am so big now, mobility to do those things is an issue, as well as funding them. I am not looking for a "diet". I am looking for a way to "live".

To me a diet is for someone who wishes to get into 1 size smaller for that big date or event 2 or 3 weeks from now.

Let the Lazy, Weak Willed, Stupid Fat Man stereotype flames begin.

[portiemom]

This is all soooooooooo confusing, just when I've made up my mind about a certain eating plan, another study disputing it rears its ugly head. I do know that first I am a sugarhalic, second I feel lousey all the time, and third I AM CONFUSED as to which eating plan works best for me. About 2 years ago, I ate all the peanuts and diet coke I wanted, and maybe 2 to 3 times a week I included a McDonalds chicken wrap, I lost 68 pounds in 8 weeks and developed a severe autoimmune diffencey problem. Every cold was bronchitis, every change of season brought about a burn-like rash, and I spent the next entire year miserable and flushed at the least bit temperature change. My OSA remained constant regardless of the weight loss. I only learned one thing, this path of peanuts and coke was not a good choice. That said, I did enjoy it, it made me skinny, and I was never hungry. Now, I need to feel better, eat better, and need to lose about 25 pounds, how to do it, that is what I am most unsure of. So someone PLEASE make some sense of all this. Moderation does not work for me, I've given Weight Watchers too much $ over the years and they are giving us less and spending more on "Famous" folks to tout their program. IMHO.

[Janknitz]

If you're wondering about the latest red meat scare "Red Meat will Kill You", take a look at this http://www.marksdailyapple.com/will-eat ... z1p7expKQG.

Critical thinking is crucial. Don't choose your diet by bullet points and headlines!

Hades, you have a rough road, no doubt about it. FWIW, this is my way of life this day and every other day of my life. I know I will never be able to go back to grains and sugar. This is how I will have to eat from now on. It was tough in the beginning just to give up the things I love, now they don't even seem appealing to me.

I'm trying to slightly up my carbs by adding in some starchy veggies to see if I can break a stall and possible thyroid issue. A small regular potato seemed so sweet (and yummy) to me, a sweet potato almost gagged me with its sweetness. A cookie would put me in a coma! So doing this for the rest of my life doesn't seem hard or a deprivation at all any more. I'm satisfied, not craving, not hungry. I can do this forever.

[Lizistired]

To weigh in, I am 600 pounds currently.

My first "diet" started when it was found I had allergy's A lot of them. It was told to my mother I was allergic to her own breast milk. I spent the first 2 years of life in the hospital. I was also very asthmatic so the time was spent in an O2 tent. I was put on Soy milk as it seems this was tolerable. At least this is what I have been told by my mother and family. My first memory is of being in an O2 tent playing with a batmoble car.

That's interesting. My Dad, born in 1935, had asthma and had to drink Goat's Milk as a child. There aren't alot of details from then. Makes me wonder...

[jnk]

Good post, Hades161.

It was Buggstzer who recommended myfitnesspal.com in the fruit/WeightWatchers thread. (Thanks again, Buggstzer.) Coincidentally, today between my last post in this thread and this post, I got my annual physical from my primary doc. I showed him my paperwork from myfitnesspal.com, and he was very interested--asked if he could keep the charts, etc.

I think people have to eat what works for them. If you find what you're eating isn't working for you, find a way to make a healthy change. But don't expect medical studies to be able to prove to you conclusively how you should eat, because pure science ain't got that figured out just yet. I'd listen to Grandma before I'd listen to a news item reporting a study. After all, any study attempting to prove the effects of limiting a certain kind of food, and that alone, would have to, for example, make sure everyone ate the same amount of everything else and the same amount of calories while doing it, or else confounding factors would cloud the entire point. No one can afford to do that kind of study for decades with the needed supervision of the participants, and there wouldn't be any participants willing to submit to that anyway.

I say: Eat a reasonable amount of a variety of foods with a variety of nutrients and try not to be sedentary. An easy life surrounded by foods that have had most of the beneficial stuff processed out of them is not likely to be the healthiest way to go. It is a battle to take the time and to put in the effort to make our meals more healthy than spam-and-cheeze-whiz-on-wonder-bread, but it likely pays off. And if you aren't working as a ditch-digger or physical laborer of some sort, you probably aren't getting enough physical activity to lead a normal human life unless you are working hard some other way to make up for your lack of blue-collaredness.

Other than that, I ain't much convinced of nuthin'.

[SMenasco]

I happen to like eating most all things that have a mother. I've never had a steak that had no face. PETA wants me to eat what my food eats.

[Kiralynx]

BTW, has anyone here who advocates a low carb diet stumbled across ANY studies they think are valid support of the lipid theory or the traditional food pyramid? Are they ALL bad science? Conversely, has anyone here who has rejected a low carb diet done so because they believe they have encountered empirical evidence refuting the validity of low carb diets?

You might find this article of interest on fats.

http://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-f ... of-america

[PST]

Let the Lazy, Weak Willed, Stupid Fat Man stereotype flames begin.

I honestly don't think that will happen, but time will tell. This place has a strong ethos of mutual support.

The Taubes book was a real eye-opener for me. I believed in the naive calories-in = calories-out model, with the implication that only my lack of moral fiber stood in the way of permanently getting to the weight where I thought I belonged. The book makes a good case for why it is a mistake to regard quantity consumed and exercise as the independent variables to be dispassionately set at optimal values by force of will, which can work in the short run but comes a cropper for most of us given enough time, and look at them instead as dependent variables influenced substantially by what you eat. When I was eating lots of refined carbohydrates, I could be ravenously hungry even when seemingly full, yet simultaneously too enervated to lift a finger. I thought it was psychological, maybe depression. The insulin spike and lipid storage model makes sense of this. You understand why the Girl Scout Thin Mint you just ate is never enough and the next one and the one after that will just make you want another. I feel so much more energetic now that it simply feels natural to walk instead of take a cab, take the stairs instead of the escalator, and there is no endless follow-on eating if you don't start on the things you have a hard time stopping.

It does worry me, though, when I hear about people who have dropped a hundred pounds and then get it back. It's the oldest story in the book. I've lost 60 and the pace has slowed. I could easily stand to lose another 60. Will I start back up instead? I hope not. Low carb still feels like something that I can stick with over the long haul. That represents a new equilibrium instead of a doomed attempt to buck equilibrium.

[Muse-Inc]

OK, my 2 cents worth with yrs of eating low- to ultra-low carb. The prob with red meat appears to be the additives to the diet, hormones, antibiotics, etcetera. I've not seen a single study and I've hunted that used pasture-grazed beef as the beef source. Those durned additives to the grain and soil are really damaging to tissues, the cows and secondarily us. Beef is a good protein, buy natural if you can afford it to avoid the stuff that I believe is giving beef a bad rap in these mostly observational (read as unreliable self reporting) studies.

A VAT cholesterol test showed virtually all of my LDL is the large fluffy sort that is healthy and my Apo-A is an impressive 6 even if I am still obese, eat a high saturated fat (butter from pasture-grazed cows, coconut oil organic refined & unrefined), only exercise mildly these days, work a high-stress job, and don't get enough hrs asleep.

I recommend cardiologist William Davis' Heart Scan blog for great info.

PS check out Linus Pauling & Mathias Rath's theory of plaque...eye opening, you'll read today's cholesterol hype much differently. I've taken an L-Proline, L-Lysine, Vit C combo for yrs. My mom had caroid artery plaque, 18 months later having taking my combo daily no more plaque...ta da, I really got 'religion' about this !

[ozij]

Well said, PST

The Taubes book was a real eye-opener for me. I believed in the naive calories-in = calories-out model, with the implication that only my lack of moral fiber stood in the way of permanentlattesting to the weight where I thought I belonged. The book makes a good case for why it is a mistake to regard quantity consumed and exercise as the independent variables to be dispassionately set at optimal values by force of will, which can work in the short run but comes a cropper for most of us given enough time, and look at them instead as dependent variables influenced substantially by what you eat.

For me too.

See here for another good formulation of the issue. http://waroninsulin.com/nutrition/the-g ... disconnect

It does worry me, though, when I hear about people who have dropped a hundred pounds and then get it back. It's the oldest story in the book. I've lost 60 and the pace has slowed. I could easily stand to lose another 60. Will I start back up instead?

How many of them have regained their weight because they thought the change in the way they eat is temporary, and that now, once they've lost weight they can go back to their former way of eating? How many of then bought into the "lazy greedy" paradigm? How many of them were taught that their hunger is a physilogical issue and they are driven to eat more by the effects of what they eat on their metabolism?

I'm sure most of us can't get as thin as fashion dictates - but we can get much healthier and thinner than where a carb loaded diet has driven us.

Years ago, forum member "felineperson" defined sleep with cpap as having to learn "a new way of sleeping". Many of us also have to learn "a new way of eating". Low carb is not a diet in the sense of "temporary change in how I eat that will make me lose weight. Low carb is a way of living.

Hey Muse, , it's good to hear you're doing well!






I hope not. Low carb still feels like something that I can stick with over the long haul. That represents a new equilibrium instead of a doomed attempt to buck equilibrium.[/quote]

[Slartybartfast]

That's a great link. http://waroninsulin.com/dr-peter-attia

Another medical professional who "gets it." All too rare. Looking at his bio, he's way out on the right side of the bell curve. We need people like that to get the information about the actual factors surrounding the epidemic of obesity and its related conditions in front of as many people as possible.

[Slartybartfast]

To weigh in, I am 600 pounds currently.

[snip]

Let the Lazy, Weak Willed, Stupid Fat Man stereotype flames begin.

Anyone who thinks you WANT to be that way is out of touch with reality. I don't think you'll have a problem with the folks on this forum. We all have, or have had, our challenges.
Tom Naughton explained the phenomenon of insulin induced overeating in his video Fat Head the Movie. http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/about/ and http://www.hulu.com/watch/196879/fat-head
Gary Taubes and others have written about the same phenomenon, and Robert Lustig, a pediatric endocrinologist, says the same thing here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Insulin metabolism seems to be the culprit.

[RocketGirl]

Another one who explains this well from a biochemical (but in layman's language) standpoint is Jon Gabriel. He uses his own history as an example. His book made a great deal of sense to me when it came out years ago, and while he's now built a minor industry out of his program, I don't grudge him the success at all. The book is really good and he does also create some very nice low-carb recipes

[Janknitz]

I recommend cardiologist William Davis' Heart Scan blog for great info.

.

Ditto on the Heart Scan Blog. (http://www.trackyourplaque.com). It's got good, sane info with almost no hype (unlike the wheat Belly Blog). Dr. Davis is a practicing cardiologist. It's been going since 2006 and I've worked my way through the archives. At first he recommended against saturated fats, but as more evidence in their favor has come out he now recommends healthy fats.

[hades161]

It does worry me, though, when I hear about people who have dropped a hundred pounds and then get it back. It's the oldest story in the book. I've lost 60 and the pace has slowed. I could easily stand to lose another 60. Will I start back up instead? I hope not. Low carb still feels like something that I can stick with over the long haul. That represents a new equilibrium instead of a doomed attempt to buck equilibrium.

Of the 3 times in my life I have adjusted my weight by over 100+ pounds, the low carb was the easiest to follow but sadly had the greatest and fastest backlash. The only advice I have for all the people doing a form of low carb eating is to NOT ever and I mean EVER stop. Once you get back into the Carb/Sugar boat, your sunk. The massive cravings that hit after you fall off the low carb wagon as least for me, simply never stopped. I have tried 3 times to get back onto the Atkins diet I did so easy and well on and it's simply not the same now. Maybe I am too big now or there is some other factor. I have been tested for All the usual suspects, Diabetes( both fasting and A1C ), Thyroid, Liver, and Kidney functions, as well as my heart and I even got tested for Celiac Disease. All tests came back normal except my heart is now starting to enlarge but they are not sure 100% on how much because they had penetration issues doing the Echo.

I do believe low carb is a major part of the answer though.