Seriously, how is anyone dumb enough to be fat?

[Cato]

I had an early dinner after a movie yesterday:

Bruschetta.
Half rack of ribs slathered in a spicy barbecue sauce.
Belgian fries.
Washed down with a milkshake containing candied bacon and a full shot of bourbon.

Despite the fact that it's a law here to print calories on menus, I have no idea what my caloric intake was. More importantly, I don't care. The meal was fabulous, a real treat.

[Aractus]

You have a law requiring calories are printed on restaurant menus? Where do you live? Nannystate central?

[Cato]

You have a law requiring calories are printed on restaurant menus? Where do you live? Nannystate central?

Nannystate is an apt description; New York City.

[KichigaiNeko]

Thought this was rather close to the truth and relevant



No matter what you do.......you are going to die, slowly or quickly; painfully or blissfully and there isn't any deity that can make it any better.

[Foxaèr]

No matter what you do.......you are going to die, slowly or quickly; painfully or blissfully and there isn't any deity that can make it any better.

Indeed, eat whatever one wishes, but make certain it is in moderation or at least according to one's metabolism. Of course, one who has a slow metabolism is not going to be able to shovel in forkfuls of food and expect to maintain a healthy weight, sometimes not even with the aid of exercise.

I have stated it before, and I will state it again, because this is very important. The three square meals a day nutritional mantra is a myth. If I ate three meals a day, even with my daily jogging regiment, I would still be shoveling in more calories than I burn. Eating less is the key.

[MJ the Skeptical]

The thread starter is a douchebag, but I thought I'd share how one of my ex-girlfriends' Atheism helped her lose weight. She was kinda fat when she was a Christian, but then when she became an Atheist, she shrunk to about half her size and looks even better now. My Ex and Dusty Smith (CultOfDusty from youtube who was also a fat Christian turned skinny Atheist) have the same answer on why that is that they changed. Basically, being a Christian killed their will to care about themselves physically since they were just thinking they were going to go to heaven for eternity and live happily ever after. But once that illusion was gone, they knew they had this one life to live and decided to buckle down on a diet and they likely extended their lifespans because of it.

[Aractus]

I feel like there's a lot of misconceptions about eating healthy and losing weight. To lose 1lb a week I can eat roughly around 2,100 calories a day. I go with a 40-30-30 diet, which is 40% of carbs, 30% of fat, 30% of protein. To even hit this goal I actually have to force myself to eat more. This is 212g of carbs, 71g of fat, and 159g of protein. To eat healthy isn't to eat little but to pick better options and to hit your macros to support your bodies needs.

Bolding Mine

This is the main thrust of my argument Asimm. You can have all the stats in the world, and it STILL comes down to you understanding your own body and adapting you dietary intake to keep that body going at peak efficiency.

There are two sides to the coin on this Kichi, yes it does come down to your own understanding of your body's needs, but the science behind it extremely strong so the clinical view that an average man needs 2500 calories a day and the average woman needs 2000 calories a day is extremely accurate, and the specific needs for almost anyone can be calculated with a high degree of accuracy.

Try this BMR calculator here to calculate your needs.

Here's mine: Weight: 77kg/170lbs, height: 5'11, age: 30, male. calculated BMR - 1822.8. Lifestyle (presently) is somewhere between lightly active to moderately active, my requirements based on lightly active: 2506 calories/day or moderately active: 2825 calories/day.

Of course it'll be different if you're quite short or tall, try this: Female, 30, 5', 99lbs. BMR: 1226.65, daily calorie needs based on lightly active would be: 1687 calories/day (well below that 2000 average).

While it's true that some people have a slightly slower or slightly faster metabolism, it's only a one part of the overall equation and it can be compensated for.

For Zen and me, we don't need the high caloric (kilojoule) intake that Daniel is utilising. yet we are capable of much physical activity...such is how OUR bodies work. WHY? Haven't a clue but am suspecting DNA/ genetic background holds more answers than anything WHO can come up with.

Over the past 50 years WHO (World Health Organisation) has determined that humans should not eat anything (because of cancer) and certainly should not breathe (because of Oxidising cancer) so one gets to the point of disregarding anything WHO comes up with. Their Idea of an epidemic seems to constitute a paltry 1% of the population of 7.5 billion. WHO really are a useless organisation along with the UN. (imho)

Even if I agree with you to a large extent on WHO, it doesn't change the fact that this science is not fabricated by WHO it is in fact developed and researched independently in labs all across the world and put through the same peer review process that you would expect. Furthermore it's not new, and it's quite highly developed.

The true fact is that most people who blame not being able to lose weight on having a low metabolism actually have no clue as to dietary calorie needs, or as to how many calories that they're actually consuming.

The other aspects I brought up which is the healthy or ideal body fat range and the recognition of diabetes and obesity as epidemics are unchanged and not unique to WHO. The science behind BMI is more than 150 years old, and while it's true that it's not the most accurate calculation of body fat percentage it is very simple and easy and works "well enough" for most people who aren't body builders or stacking on muscle.

The healthy body fat amount is also an old science too. It's based on association of body fat amounts with disease, disorder and other bodily functions changing. If a person becomes obese for instance, they permanently alter their metabolism. Their metabolism has to speed up while they're larger to cope with the body's size, but when they loose the weight and return to normal it is now slower than it was before they gained weight and stays that way researchers think until you die. The opposite effect happens to underweight people - if you become underweight your metabolism will slow however it should return to normal when you return to a healthy weight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcAHgrWveX8

[KichigaiNeko]

And my argument is that you should not take anything as gospel Daniel. Yes, the current science is available AND is being questioned and found lacking.

"Rule of thumb" is that anything excessive is not good for the human body. Even excessive exercise. What disturbs me is the ease of obsession one can achieve by 'calorie/ kilojoule counting', 'meat/ non-meat' eating, gym/ non-gym exercise.

Seriously, how can anyone be dumb enough to give themselves and obsession? What is so wrong with just eating enough of what you like to eat? BMI has been discredited as an inaccurate "golden rule" and is viewed more as a guide line. There is of course the emotional eaters. How does the WHO doctrine account for them?

77kg on 1600 calories a day? Good grief Charlie Brown! My father would think his throat was cut!

[Clueless Morgan]

Easiest way not to get fat? Eat what you want, eat it slowly and enjoy every mouthful, then stop eating as soon as you're full. That's eat. Eat pizza, chips, burgers, curries, cakes, cookies, Chinese food, whatever you want. Just stop when full. Simple as that.
Except it's not really as simple as it sounds when we're all brainwashed when it comes to food. Adverts for unhealthy foods all over the place, more adverts for diets which shame you for even looking at the other adverts. Then you might have been shamed into clearing your plate at meal times by parents who wouldn't let you leave the table until you'd finished your dinner, or told you you were somehow disrespecting starving children in Africa by not eating all your food. As a result of all this people can easily develop a tendency to eat past the point when they are full. Especially when it's something unhealthy and your obsession with good food vs bad food causes you to binge and possibly eat a whole pizza when you were actually full after the first slice. A bulemic person would purge after such a binge, but others will just sit there feeling guilty and wonder why they did it, or even come up with excuses for it.

While I agree with the sentiment of eating what you want and stopping when you're full, I don't think hunger and the drive to eat actually works that way, and it's definitely not just advertisers making us want to eat sugary, fatty, unhealthy food. There's also an aspect of what we have evolved eating and what our bodies reward us for eating. Sugar and fatty foods often have higher calories, but were also harder to get or more scarce when we were hunter/gatherers, and those foods tend to be food we crave to eat: sweet, sugary, fatty, savory.

We also don't have a well developed sense of when to stop eating. Our bodies reward us for eating, and unfortunately it rewards us for eating things that aren't that great for us to be eating all the time.

With that said, there's definitely an aspect of commercializing food that's pretty awful in that many really unhealthy foods are cheap and healthy foods are expensive so families on a budget often have to sacrifice health and nutrition for the sake of saving money or getting the best bang for the buck.

You have a law requiring calories are printed on restaurant menus? Where do you live? Nannystate central?

Why is this "nannystating?" I don't mind knowing how many calories are in the food I'm eating and it can help people make better choices by simply giving them the information. If they don't care about calories they'll ignore it, if they do they'll appreciate it.

Giving information isn't being a nannystate - what's being a nannystate is legislating the maximum drink size. Now that's some bullshit right there.

I'm all for giving people the information regarding caloric intake of what they eat and drink* but it's crossing a line to force a thing like drink sizes on them. Let people make their own bad choices, all that means is that they'll learn more from that choice when they see the consequences.

* A major pet peeve of mine is Nutrition Information boxes on foods and drinks. I think it should be a requirement, especially with drinks, that the Nutrition Information be given for the bottle, as well as the serving size, not just for a serving size and then tell you that there's actually three servings in the bottle knowing full well that the person is going to sit there and drink the whole thing. I think it's hugely misleading for them to do it by serving size only. I think this could easily be extended to all foods where Nutrition Information is required as part of their packaging.

[KichigaiNeko]

Oh and one point. No matter what my actual body fat is... my BMI is in the 20-22 range. go figure.