<p>Under 100 lbs at 5’2", is underweight and doesn’t allow for much muscle. </p>
<p>You must have very petite bones.</p>
<p>That’s the thing, though. It is “easy” for some people to control their eating, exercise, and weight. There are real physiological and genetic and hormonal factors that make it easy for some and difficult for others, just like it’s easier for a greyhound to be lean and fast, but impossibly difficult for a basset hound. Willpower is not usually very effective if the current you are swimming against is too strong. So, the real interesting stuff deals with how to change the hormonal and other regulatory factors to make it “easy” to be less slothful and gluttonous. </p>
<p>Another way to look at it is that people who are programmed to not store fat are driven to exercise because they MUST burn all the calories they consume. People who are programmed to store fat can’t exercise because much of the fuel they consume goes towards fat storage. Lustig’s big contribution to the science was s research project at St. Jude’s Childrens Hospital. Kids with a particular kind of brain tumor became morbidly obese after the surgery to remove the tumor because it screwed up one of the brain’s hunger receptor pathways. So Lustig put them on a medicine that blocked insulin secretion. With no prompting, they all began to lose fat and eat less. Lustig kind of expected that, but what shocked him was parent after parent calling to say that their kid had suddenly, out of the blue, taken up sports or begun exercising. He basically triggered the release of fat stores chemically and that led to a surplus of calories that the kids were “compelled” to burn off.</p>
<p>I believe that it is ineffective to treat smoking as a problem of willpower. It’s a drug addiction with incredibly strong brain chemistry changes that demand the drug. I strongly suspect that there are phsiolgoical/hormonal underpinnings to obesity. The difference in the way insulin resistant people and non-insulin resistant people responded to the low carb diet in the Stanford A to Z study is pretty striking. That’s not differences in gluttony and sloth.</p>
<p>What is the name of the drug used in the study that blocks insulin secretion, interesteddad?</p>
<p>Do you have a link to a discussion of that section of the Stanford A to Z Study, about the difference in the way that insulin resistant people and non-insulin resistant people responded to the low carb diet?</p>
<p>My daughter is dealing with PCOS, which causes metabolic syndrome. She is on metformin to stabilize her blood sugar, therefore insulin secretion. Has lost some weight, but it is very very slow despite a very low carb diet and heavy heavy exercise. Her estrogen levels are still too low, too.
Her PCOS was triggered by a drop in estrogen (relative to normal testosterone) caused by the discontinuation of birth control pills used for acne and cramps, which were probably a sign of low spectrum PCOS all along.
She was also just diagnosed with low thyroid, which can also lead to metabolic syndrome in causing weight gain and so forth.
This all occurred in spite of her being a daily heavy exerciser (she is a varsity athlete) and very controlled eating habits.
Messed up hormones can cause a LOT of problems… </p>
<p>Have you ever heard of BYETTA?</p>
<p>@ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad</p>
<p>There’s a lot of US based FF places in Europe now, but the portions have not gotten bigger over time. In the US (specially Texas) they seem to be growing bigger every year.</p>
<p>If anybody wants to watch a really good movie about this watch: Super Size Me</p>
<p>And they really need to do away with the outdated BMI system. Only way to truly measure a persons physical shape is to measure their bodyfat % (Accurately as swell. The electrical impedance apparatus and the tanita scales are not accurate). A person can easily be skinny fat. (Normal weight but high % of bodyfat)</p>
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<p>That’s at the borderline of being underweight, which is unhealthy. You may want to try increasing muscle weight with strength exercises.</p>
<p>Here is an interesting study of epigenetic effect on fetuses of undernourished pregnant women:
"The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study, carried out by the departments of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Gynecology and Obstetrics and Internal Medicine of the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, in collaboration with the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit of the University of Southampton in Britain, found that the children of pregnant women exposed to famine were more susceptible to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, microalbuminuria and other health problems.[4]</p>
<p>Moreover, the children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children grew up and had children those children were also smaller than average.[citation needed]
This data suggested that the famine experienced by the mothers caused some kind of epigenetic changes that were passed down to the next generation. "</p>
<p>Point is that what pregnant women eat makes a difference in the kids ways of dealing with food. Obese, insulin resistant pregnant women are part of a cycle… the epigenetic cycle.</p>
<p>And obese people and people who eat lots of processed and fast food may not be getting good nutrition.</p>
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<p>We can’t agree on that. At least, we shouldn’t agree on that, because it isn’t true. Look at American-born Chinese and Japanese kids. They’re just as tall as their Caucasian classmates.</p>
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<p>Gardner discusses several studies and his own results on insulin resisance starting at the 39 minute mark:</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - The Battle of the Diets: Is Anyone Winning (At Losing?)](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo)</p>
<p>Basically, the effect of the low carb diet was masked. Even though it produced more weight loss over all, that wasn’t the whole story. The insulin resistant cohort lost substantial weight on the low carb diet. The non-insulin resistant lost very little.</p>
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<p>Oh, lord. I’d have to go back and listen to a podcast interview of Lustig to get the name. It’s largely irrelevant because he said it is a drug with serious side effects that could never be used for this purpose outside of a study. In other words, it’s not something that is approved for prescription for this use and never would be. He was using it on a special population of kids who had brain tumors surgically removed.</p>
<p>Of course, the easiest way to reduce insulin secretion is a low carb diet. Although protein can trigger insulin releases, the primary cause is rising glucose levels. Flour and starches are converted immediately to glucose in the body. Interestingly, rapidly falling glucose levels (as the insulin does its job) is a key hunger trigger, so avoiding the big blood sugar spikes helps on several levels. There’s also research that shows high intensity exercise decreases insulin resistance almost immediately.</p>
<p>I don’t believe it’s fair to judge “healthiness” based on height and weight. I’m 5’7" and just over 100 pounds but I eat a LOT of junk food, I definitely don’t consider myself to be a healthy person.</p>
<p>Wow, interesteddad. I watched the section you talked about. The Stanford speaker says numerous studies have shown that for people who are insulin-resistant, a low-carb diet works way better than a low-fat diet for weight loss. Way better.</p>
<p>But for people who are insulin-sensitive, both diets work about equally well: a low-carb diet worked a tiny bit better, but the difference was something like a pound of weight loss over four months.</p>
<p>Did they actually delve into how much fat they actually lost?</p>
<p>Because “weight loss” is not a very relevant statistic.</p>
<p>I can make myself lose 12lbs of “weight” in about 1 week by doing a Keto diet and completely depleting my stored muscle + liver glycogen.</p>
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Perhaps, by US standards. I’ve been under 100lbs all my life except during my pregnancies. Both my kids had birth weight >7lbs 11oz.</p>
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Yes, I do that 3-4 times a week at the gym along with cardio exercises. I’m aware I’m prone to osteoporosis but bone density studies indicate I am fine.</p>
<p>
jsanche32:
Weird coincidence but I watched that movie just last night before this thread was started by the OP.</p>
<p>I don’t think the movie proves much of any point other than if one wants to, it’s pretty easy to eat too much in quantity and to eat foods high in fat, sugar, carbs. One can do that at McD’s, almost any restaurant in town, and at home from food they buy at the grocery. They also don’t have to reply “yes” when McD’s or other places try the upsell to the supersize (which I’ve heard they don’t do anymore).</p>
<p>There are lots of McD’s and other FFs around - I pass multiple of them every day but I don’t stop at them. Why? - because I know it’s not good for me if I do it more than occasionally (and that would usually be measured in at least months for me) and if I was to get FF I’d rather get something better - like In-n-out (I read “Fast Food Nation” as well - scary).</p>
<p>The guy who did the movie went to an extreme that few people go to, he ate the largest meals McD’s has for breakfast, lunch, dinner every single day for 30 days and always responded ‘yes’ to the supersize question. He did this to the point of throwing up at some points. It wasn’t a typical or balanced view at all and basically was just sensationalism. If he wanted to be somewhat fair and balanced he should conduct another similar experiment only this time opt for reasonable portions (i.e. the portions he normally ate before this last experiment) and the least harmful and possibly even healthy foods available at McD’s and see how it goes. If he normally drinks water at home don’t order a half gallon of sugared Coke but rather, the water (0 calories). He could order a regular burger or chicken sandwich, or some other items by paying attention to the nutritional info that’s available if one cares to read it. If he were to do this I think he could manage to get through the 30 days with much less in the way of a negative impact.</p>
<p>The only way I’d blame the FF places for any of this is if they were fraudulently representing their products - i.e. if the nutritional info is wrong. </p>
<p>People need to think for themselves and exercise some self-control. They can do what I do and just pass those FF places right on by and head home and eat something decent. If they really want some FF for the convenience aspect they can get something reasonable and not go hog wild. One can get a grilled skinless chicken breast at KFC - 160 calories, a ranch snack wrap at McD for 270 calories, salads (real salads - without the bacon, meat, and bad dressings), skip the fries (people wouldn’t usually eat fries for lunch at home so why insist on them at the FF place?), etc. And when they hit the FF place they can do it only occasionally rather than frequently.</p>
<p>I don’t think I should blame the FF down the street from work for somehow ‘causing’ an obese person at work to stop there every single day for their large breakfast (probably at least 700 calories) when almost every single other person at work drives right on past it and doesn’t stop there every morning. While I’m working out every day at work like clockwork there’s another obese person I see out the window walking from his car to his office building always, without fail, carrying his ‘breakfast in a bag’ from a FF place along with the giant coffee which alone is probably hundreds of calories. Again, is the place that sells it to him to blame for his habit or is it him?</p>
<p>People need to understand we live in a land of plenty with even the poorer members of our society capable of buying high calorie/fat food and drive a car rather than walk. We have not only FF places everywhere but we also have a grocery store nearby, usually multiple, that sell all kinds of stuff geared to out fancies and our innate desires to consume calories. We can’t control the world (i.e. limiting accessibility) but we can control ourselves and limit what we put in our mouths and most of us can opt to perform some physical activity rather than next to none.</p>
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<p>Yes. They tracked body fat percentage, all the lipid markers, glucose levels, and so forth at 2 months, 6 months, and 12 months.</p>
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<p>Because everyone else is just like you, and has just exactly the metabolism and the hunger that you have? I think not. That reminds me of people who contend that they have no trouble not having sex with people of their same gender. Yes, sure, but other people have urges you don’t have. Easy to resist temptation if it isn’t strong. Try taking one of those drugs that increases appetite, and see how well you do. Now consider that some other people’s bodies act as if they were already taking drugs like that.</p>
<p>It’s too bad they don’t track leptin levels in weight loss studies more often as IMHO it’s one of the more important factors when it comes to understand dieting and energy expenditure.</p>
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<p>Right. And this wasn’t even a particularly low carb diet. The low-carb cohort was eating 29% of the calories as carbs at 6 months and 34% at 12 months. That’s more carbs than I eat and is only borderline “low-carb”. That would be at or above the maintenance level on Atkins. Of course, the low fat diet in the study wasn’t particularly low fat, either!</p>
<p>This insulin resistance thing is not really surprising. Low carb is pretty well known to work well for type 2 diabetics – a disease that is basically the result of insulin resistance. But, it really underscores why some people see dramatic results on low carb diets, while for other people, a calorie is just a calorie and it makes no difference how they cut their calories.</p>
<p>I think it also goes a long way to explaining how some people can literally go on a semi-starvation diet (caloriewise) and not lose weight. If an insulin resistant person is eating carbs and nothing but carbs morning, noon, and night, on a “healthy” low-fat diet, their body simply may not let go of the stored fat. And because they are starving, their hunger will be through the roof. The crazy thing for me is that I’ve been on a restricted calorie diet for 16 months and just not experienced much hunger. It’s not willpower, I’m perfectly content to eat what I’m eating. To be sure, there’s a behavioral component. I mean, I don’t buy the junk food, but I’m not hanging on the refridgerator door or trying to make “low carb” waffles and stuff.</p>