I like that Tess Holliday's fat positivity gives support to a choice I made many years ago: to use the word "fat" as my tag for the topic of being fat. I've been criticized for using the word as if the word itself is an insult. "Thin" isn't considered an insult. Likewise, "skinny." Say "fat" for fat.
July 1, 2018
"Holliday identifies as a fat woman; we chose to give her a platform because she has insightful things to say about thriving in a world that devalues bodies of size."
I like that Tess Holliday's fat positivity gives support to a choice I made many years ago: to use the word "fat" as my tag for the topic of being fat. I've been criticized for using the word as if the word itself is an insult. "Thin" isn't considered an insult. Likewise, "skinny." Say "fat" for fat.
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222 comments:
1 – 200 of 222 Newer› Newest»If she didn't "identify" as a fat woman, how were the rest of us to know?
By the way, Althouse, I drew the line at "negro" for negro. This is in the 1970s. The loss of the word "negro" as a respectable was a line of demarcation.
If they give her a platform they better reinforce it.
"You don't know how healthy or unhealthy a person is just by looking at them..."
I am not a physician but I can play one on this blog. I suspect her ticker is working overtime. And there are only so many ticks in it over one's lifetime.
Good thing she identifies as FAT because the rest of us identify her as FAT also...even without her self identification.
In a world that devalues her sizeable body?....pshaw. When the zombie apocalypse happens her size will have a lot of value. She could feed a sizeable group of hungry people. (and I don't mean she is the one cooking the dinner)
If she ever does lose some of that fat, just think how weird her tattoos are going to look.
"Thin" isn't considered an insult. Likewise, "skinny." Say "fat" for fat.
Ann missed:
Likewise, "fatty."
If "thin" is OK means "fat" is OK, then "skinny" is OK means "fatty" is OK.
I wish that were Ann's position, because it would delicious in your face anti-PC, but unfortunately I doubt it. No one can get away with that anymore.
Monkey see, monkey do. Humans are monkeys. We live to delude each other.
This gross obesity is not a functional condition for the human animal. Adopting it as a desirable state is perverse.
This sort of article is pernicious. It assists thousands of over-weight girls rationalize their indiscipline.
When I saw the headline I thought that Tess was actually going to be a thin dude.
Actually, fat people should be called "skinny," since they have the most skin.
Will never understand why people who are not particularly attractive, comely to use an olden term, decide to reduce what attractiveness that they do have by putting tats all over.
Her "Miss Piggy" sleeve is a nice touch.
Gee, I wonder what her politics are. If the burden of being a fat woman ever get too much to handle, she can always self-identify as a skinny black man.
The correct term is "Morbid Obesity," which implies that she is unhealthy.
We live in an era of delusions. This is one of the most unhealthy.
Tailors use the term "Portly".
Actually, fat people should be called "skinny," since they have the most skin.
While the fat people may have the most skin by surface area and skin weight, they have the least skin as a percentage of body weight.
That's because surface area increases with the square of the dimensions, whereas volume increases with the cube of the dimensions.
Perhaps "skinny" should be reserved for those unfortunate ex-fat people who lose a very large amount of weight and have large sheaths of hanging skin.
Perhaps this person should be considered a "skinny." An example of a "skinny:"
https://www.menshealth.com.au/media/3858/170kgwl.jpg
If her health is none of my business, may I assume she favors risk adjustment in health insurance and opposes community rating?
How about Party Size, as opposed to Fun Size.
OK I confess I like to watch My 600 Lb Life. My husband is appalled. But I need to remind myself what insanity looks like. Same with Hoarders. That's it, right there: denial, delusion, disorder = insanity.
Although these ladies often compensate well with good makeup and wardrobe.
"You don't know how healthy or unhealthy a person is just by looking at them..........."
Yahbutt
I do know that if I have to sit next to you on a plane your fat lard ass is going to take up half of my seat and your sweaty flab is going to be all over me.
I do know if you came to my house I would be mortally afraid for my furniture if you decided to sit down.
I do know that if you sat in my car the springs and shocks on your side would be straining to keep the car level.
I do know that if we went out to dinner the restaurant would have to make special arrangements to find seating for your gigantic ass. No booth for you!
Please don't use my toilet. I can't afford a new one.
I'm OK with her life style decisions. I don't even care that they may someday create a slightly higher burden on the health care system.
But, if history is a guide, I shall soon be required to FIND her desirable, have my TV and movies populated with people that look like her in romantic roles and my grandchildren will be forced to date a certain percentage of people with similar BMIs.
Oh, no! 'People of Color' now 'Bodies of Size'. The next protected group. She is disgustingly fat and, while she is entitled to respect as a human being, that is nothing to be proud of.
Finally found something that disgusts Tank.
Reminds me of Benny Hills fat, tattooed Bianca Malone.
The perfect wife: "heat in the winter, shade in the summer, and moving pictures all the year round. "
John Henry
A lot of people are revulsed by obesity, and that makes stuff like this a challenging and interesting aesthetic. But most morbidly obese people will suffer by middle age and have a very reduced quality of life beyond. Human joints and skeleton are not made to bear this kind of weight over time, and there are many other systemic challenges - hormonal, fat in and around the organs, exhaustion and more. If I could wave a wand I would have society accept, respect and appreciate every body in its current state, but continue to hold a body with a healthy BMI as aspirational.
Comes down to the old, basic question of what we are here for.
Someone like that is convinced that she is here for her own sake.
No duty to family, clan, tribe or posterity.
She is, or certainly will be, one of the reasons insurance premiums are high. She has chosen to be the way she is. She is happy with it. Fine. The results are well known.
I too watch the Hoarders show every now and then. It motivates me to do a purge of my office.
The risk to the person is the least of it.
We are here for a purpose, and comfort or personal survival aren't it.
The risk to ones ability to carry out ones duties is everything.
As a self-identified old person and about 45 pounds overweight (according to my WiFit, I'm 5'11" and should be 156), I'm not going to stop harping on the health problems of carrying around 45 pounds of fat without developing the muscle to bear it.
Her knees feel it. Her back feels it. It's a constant burden and health-damaging.
Pointing that out is not concern trolling: It's reality.
"Hey, hey, hey!"
"Fat" was good enough for Albert, back in the day.
Why does she "identify" as fat?
I thought people used that word when they were pretending to be something they're not.
Bruce Jenner "identifies" as a woman but is actually a man.
This woman IS fat. If she weighed 120 lbs, then saying she identifies as fat would make sense.
And if it's none of our business why does is she on the cover of a magazine.
John Henry
@ Michael K Certainly the adjective "morbid" hints at things too come.
Alcoholism is a disease, but Carbohydrate addiction is to be applauded. What a world!
The health costs of carbohydrate addiction are enormous.
Holliday identifies as a fat woman....
When I read that, I thought it was obvious she is fat so the "identifies" part must refer to being a woman. At first I thought it was implying she had been born a male.
"A lot of people are revulsed by obesity, and that makes stuff like this a challenging and interesting aesthetic."
I honestly never understood the need to épater la bourgeoisie, even when I was young and stupid and voting for Walter Mondale.
I watch Hoarders as therapy. My mother is a level 4 or 5 hoarder, and when I was younger and didn't know it was a thing I thought if I looked in a million houses I wouldn't see another one that looked like my mother's. Recognizing it as a thing that happens to other people too has helped me internalize the fact that it is not a part of me, that my mother's disorder does not reflect on me and that my inability to effectively help her over the years is not my fault. Yay Hoarders!
Interesting fact: Most crematoriums won't accept bodies above a set weight. The larger human bodies have too much fat and do not burn properly. The use of more gas may be needed, and then it just becomes too expensive for the customer.
Also large bodies (such as the one in the photo) can be dangerous to move, and OSHA safety harnesses and chain/rope thickness becomes a concern. People have been killed by large caskets, and it may not be legal to use pall bearers. You will need the right lift for the job.
In many cases you can have a fake ceremony with a smaller casket filled with sand bags, and then a dump truck can be used for the real body after the ceremony is over.
becauseIdbefired said...
That's because surface area increases with the square of the dimensions, whereas volume increases with the cube of the dimensions.
I was gonna say that, but now that someone else said it, I'm going to say that it's wrong.
Because they get fat in two dimensions, not three (like a set of cylinders of fixed length, not like a sphere), so skin area ~ size (radius) and volume ~ size^2.
But area/volume ~ 1/r in both cases, so fat people still have lower skin/weight ratio, not taking into account the overhanging globs and such.
I know a very dear, sweet lady that is about this size. She is kind. She is funny. She is the best mother she can be on limited funds.
However, the father of her children, her husband, divorced her. She hasn't been able to work for almost six months beacuse carrying all that weight destroyed her back and knees. She lost her car and faces eviction every month. She would be out on the street without the help of her family and friends.
She could have back surgery, but no surgeon will touch her until she loses at least 75 pounds. And now that she can barely move, she is gaining weight. Her medical care consists of unpaid emergency room visits.
I need to lose ten pounds and I find it enormously difficult. I cannot imagine her life.
Please do not celebrate morbid obesity.
Does anyone remember the movie, What's Eating Gilbert Grape? Johnny Depp plays a young man whose mother is so fat she is unable to leave the house. Her children are her extensions, carrying about all necessary tasks at home and in town. When she dies the children realize that she would have to be removed with a crane and rather than embarrass her in that way, they set fire to the house.
To be fair. (I know. Surprise!)
Fat does creep up on you. It takes time to accumulate those pounds and over time you often don't notice, especially if you are the kind of person who don't weigh yourself daily. That extra 10 pounds and your pants are just a little tight. Hmm...maybe they shrunk in the wash.
Pretty soon it is that extra 20 lbs, maybe with that baby weight gain... and you need to go up a dress or pants size. Until one day you actually look at yourself in the mirror, see a photo taken of yourself, a video and go OMG!!!! I'm fat and need to lose weight.
Taking the pounds off also takes time. Lots of time and lifestyle changes.
However, to get to the enormous size of this woman takes a huge amount of denial and actual effort (unless she has some sort of medical glandular issue). At what point do you realize you no longer fit into your clothing, or any clothing? No longer can fit into normal sized chairs. When does it dawn on you that the standard things of daily living like: going to a movie, visiting a restaurant, walking! are now out of your reach because you have ignored and denied your own body?
So instead of facing her own failures and her own culpability in creating her jumbo sized body, she wants everyone ELSE to fall into her imaginary world where she should be considered normal.
Fat chance.
Does anyone (like our resident docs here) know what percentage of obese individuals are due to true medical issues? I hear people talk about this a lot, but I really don't know if there are these conditions and, if so, how common they are.
Today's reminder that we do not live in a serious society.
Wednesday's will be 'celebrating "Independence" while being trillions in debt to communists'.
Also, 'bodies of size'? 'People of color'?
More like 'words of pretension'.
If they are going to start featuring fat women on magazine covers, I predict a dramatic fall off in sales.
we chose to give her a platform because she has insightful things to say about thriving in a world that devalues bodies of size.
"If she was just a regular, off-the-street, non-insightful lard-ass, us mean girls here at Self wouldn't give her the time of day..."
Dust Bunny Queen said...
To be fair. (I know. Surprise!)
Fat does creep up on you.
And it doesn't take much.
3500 cal ~ 1 pound fat.
Cookie ~ 100 cal.
100 pounds of fat = 350000 cal = 3500 cookies ~ one extra cookie a day for 10 years.
I'm surprised that so few people are fat.
I think the "medical issues" come after the weight gain, and compound the difficulty in losing it. E.g., bad knees.
I completely understand what DBQ says. Over the years my weight crept up a little each year. Nowhere near what this woman weighs, but enough I found myself with high blood pressure and less energy than a woman my age should have. I found the right doctor and the right lifestyle change for me, and two years later I weigh what I did when I got married 45 years ago. I'd like to say losing 50 lbs was hard work, but it wasn't. It was just a matter of eating less and moving more. No counting anything. No expensive gym memerships. Smaller plates and a dog who loves to go on long walks. It took me 45 years to gain the 50 lbs, which isn't much extra weight a year, but it added up over time.
American Indians, and Pacific Islanders cannot process the same foods as white Europeans.
The other big thing, is the global change to fructose as a sweetener, as the sugar is for ethanol, and is too valuable to waste on people.
"Does anyone (like our resident docs here) know what percentage of obese individuals are due to true medical issues? I hear people talk about this a lot, but I really don't know if there are these conditions and, if so, how common they are."
Living life as a morbidly obese person is full of so many constant negative consequences that I think logic should dictate that about 100% of cases are due to true issues, medical or psysiological or psychological or otherwise.
Eleanor said...
Smaller plates and a dog who loves to go on long walks.
How'd the dog taste?
There is a reason it was a digital cover - no one would buy it if it was the print copy.
Pacific Islanders cannot process the same foods as white Europeans.
I've been on flights that routinely screen off seats because they can't carry all the avoirdupois of many Samoans. Such flights will routinely have more than 10 people in wheelchairs too waiting to board.
I would not want to be thought "special" or magazine cover-worthy because of my weight. I'd prefer to get there via my brain.
@ Eleanor
I also had lost some significant weight that I gained over the years by using your same method including walks and gardening as exercise. Due to a minor medical issue some years back I had to change. I ate smaller amounts, small bites, chewed slowly and thoroughly, completely eliminated carbonated sodas. Other than that I didn't change our food or diet choices.
As a result I gradually lost weight and feel great about myself. How I look. What I can wear. More energy. It took a couple of years to finally get to the weight I wanted, also my wedding weight :-)
The funny part was that I didn't notice the weight gain so much and didn't notice the weight loss either for some time. One day I noticed my jeans were too big> Shirts and dresses that I used to wear, were hanging off my body . Time to purge the closet and buy new clothes!
This woman (again, unless she has a medical glandular type issue) could do the same. She doesn't want to.
"I would not want to be thought "special" or magazine cover-worthy because of my weight. I'd prefer to get there via my brain."
I think she's there for both. Most fat women are ashamed, and she rejects that state of mind for herself. She rejects the validity of gratuitously negative judgment. That's not an ordinary fat woman brain.
Fat DOES creep up on one, but there are 'milestones' along the way that should be very very hard to cross - such as when one can no longer wipe one's own ass, unassisted by device. I have always wondered what people are thinking when they cross that particular Rubicon.
I have a friend who was grossly overweight, but due to a medical condition, which she took care of through surgery and lifestyle changes. And she had the issue with excess skin, but solved it with plastic surgery, and donation of the excess skin to a skin bank for grafts for bun victims, etc. So some good can come of it.
Fat positivity activist. Jesus f'ing Christ.
"This woman (again, unless she has a medical glandular type issue) could do the same. She doesn't want to."
Her experience isn't your experience though. She was obese as a child. She didn't just have a few creep on her as an adult. It is reasonable to assume her whole physiology is different from you. Her gut bacteria is different, her brain chemistry is different and her sense of self will be entirely different.
That does it. Today I start my diet. I'm going to lose weight. This time I mean it.
Also large bodies (such as the one in the photo) can be dangerous to move, and OSHA safety harnesses and chain/rope thickness becomes a concern.
We had a 700 pound guy come in as a trauma case. We had to use two operating tables, side by side, to fix his fractures. Can you imagine the load on those healing fractures when he began to bear weight on his legs ? As I recall, we also had to use two ICU beds side by side.
I can't remember of he survived. He would be a walking talking pulmonary embolus.
"Does anyone (like our resident docs here) know what percentage of obese individuals are due to true medical issues?
I did weight loss surgery for a few years. One theory is that morbidly obese people have a problem with calorie counts in the brain. There was a study years ago, in which college students signed up for an experiment. They agreed to drink a liquid diet for all their food intake. There were dispenser machines like those that dispense milk in dining halls.
The research involved varying the calorie content of the liquid diet. The volume each student used was recorded by having them punch in a code to access the drink.
Very obese students did not seem to have a good way to sense the calorie load. Students with normal BMI would vary the volume to keep the calorie intake about the same. The very obese students were all over the place in calorie intake.
Morbid obesity kills anybody who gets a serious illness or injury. They just don't do well with injuries that normals tolerate without much trouble.
That's interesting Michael. There have also been some encouraging experiments recently where scientists are causing mice to become either thin or fat by only switching their gut bacteria.
I think fat sounds better than obese.
That's all well and good, just don't expect me to look twice at her with any interest, though there are plenty of guys that will, apparently. We she my daughter, don't expect me to not try to help her overcome her, dare I say it?, problem.
I recall reading that fat can be considered another organ because of the fact that it’s not inert. It’s actually more like an huge endocrine gland and secrets inflammatory and other substances that are not at all beneficial. Plus there’s new research that indicates that fall cells release a “signal” called microRNAs that communicate with other organs. High levels of these microRNAs have been shown to correlate with the presence of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. So if you have a lot of body fat, your body fat is working hard to make you even fatter and worse.
DBQ observes: So instead of facing her own failures and her own culpability in creating her jumbo sized body, she wants everyone ELSE to fall into her imaginary world where she should be considered normal.
This seems to be the ploy with every abnormal group in the US today.
Fat does creep up on you. It takes time to accumulate those pounds and over time you often don't notice, especially if you are the kind of person who don't weigh yourself daily.
One reason I do weigh myself daily is that I don't want it creeping up on me. Just trying to lose ten pounds is hard. I can't even imagine trying to lose a hundred.
Also interesting Inga!
@Snark @Fernandistein - I am no dietician, but the numbers that Fernandistein puts out there are irrefutable. A very small percentage of incremental intake adds up. It is much smaller than can be judged by eye. I feel pretty sure we did something to our gut bacteria back in the late 1960s. Mama Cass was a shocking rarity back then.
My friend who retired from physical therapy retired partly because there was too much danger of physical injury to herself from dealing with the increasing number of very obese patients. That being said, I'm not going to judge this woman because I don't know what physical and psychological issues she may be dealing with. However, I'm not going to "celebrate" her condition and say she doesn't need help either.
Did you ever notice that American Pickers is just Hoarders with barns?
“But I need to remind myself what insanity looks like.”
Which is why I enjoy The Nation and other prog websites.
“Very obese students did not seem to have a good way to sense the calorie load.”
Obese people have abnormal levels of the hormones ghrelin, the hormone that increases appetite, found mainly in the stomach and leptin a hormone that regulates appetite. Adiponectin, found in fat cells, is a hormone that regulates metabolic processes, is abnormally low in obese people. Healthy thin people have high levels of adiponectin.
I wonder if overeating is a type of self-medication. Food as a drug?
Fernandistein Sez:
Because they get fat in two dimensions, not three (like a set of cylinders of fixed length, not like a sphere), so skin area ~ size (radius) and volume ~ size^2.
I was thinking the model is more akin to a big ball, centered in the midriff, like Violet in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.
Is this too mean? Note, I've had my issues with weight, and if someone wants to call me fat, at various times in my life, it's merely a fact. Facts, while often unpleasant, are usually better than the sustaining lie.
There have also been some encouraging experiments recently where scientists are causing mice to become either thin or fat by only switching their gut bacteria.
Yes. Those are very interesting. You can do a fecal transplant from thin mice to fat mice and the fat mice lose weight.
Even more interesting is the effect of gut bacteria on diseases like lupus.
This article focuses on what is known about the role that gut microbiota can play in the pathogenesis of non-intestinal autoimmune diseases, such as Grave's diseases, multiple sclerosis, type-1 diabetes, systemic lupus erythematosus, psoriasis, schizophrenia, and autism spectrum disorders. Furthermore, we discuss as to how metabolites derived from bacteria could be used as potential therapies for non-intestinal autoimmune diseases.
This and genetics will dominate medicine the next 30 years.
So if you have a lot of body fat, your body fat is working hard to make you even fatter and worse.
Sentient fat trying to maintain the host body! This could be the premise of an interesting and creepy sci-fi/horror story. Where is Rod Serling when we need him?
Reminds me of a short story I read years ago about a man who thought that the bones inside his body were an invading parasite and was horrified about his own skeleton. I don't remember the particulars of the story but the result was that he was successful, through some sort of black magic, in eliminating the horror of the parasitic bones.
As a result he was found on the floor of his apartment, alive but as a boneless bag of skin containing the gelatinous boneless interior.
Now I am envisioning this woman with her living, sentient, evil fat as a giant glob plotting to take over her body. It appears that it has succeeded.
Her vaginal access is likely hindered but she wears compensating alternative folds.
Laslo would have a name for that.
Fat does creep up on you.
I quit smoking, and it didn't creep, it grabbed me from behind and dragged me into the bushes. Two months, 15 lbs. I'm getting it off again, but it was a surprise.
If her health is none of my business, why is she on the cover of a magazine?
The best diet I ever went on was at OCS Quantico: 10 weeks, 20 pounds, doing all kinds of fun stuff!
I recall reading that fat can be considered another organ because of the fact that it’s not inert. It’s actually more like an huge endocrine gland and secrets inflammatory and other substances that are not at all beneficial.
To be serious. This is a good point and probably why it is very very difficult for the morbidly obese to lose weight. The fat resists.
However, at some point before the person has crossed the fat Rubicon, there might have been a time when the physical ability to lose weight was a bit easier. The problem is that with someone like in this photo, that tipping point seems to have been some time ago. And that the will to lose wasn't exerted.
Often that Rubicon occurred in childhood and was abetted by the parents.
Roly Poly Daddy's little fatty Texas SWING! Dance to that and some of the calories might fall off.
What one sees at the supermarket says a lot. It's not the slender folk at the pastry counter or with carts full of potato chips and rolls.
Ann Althouse said...
“Actually, fat people should be called "skinny," since they have the most skin.”
Well played.
“I do know if you came to my house I would be mortally afraid for my furniture if you decided to sit down”
Better than 40 years ago, I tried selling insurance for Mutual of Omaha, which meant more health ins than anything back then. In any case my direct boss was about 6’ and maybe 400 lbs. his younger brother was several inches taller, and was north of 500 lbs. both needed to have special built cars. The younger one was fairly good salesman. I really wasn’t. So older brother had younger brother take me out on some sales calls to see how it is done. And the answer was that the customers were so desperate to protect their furniture that they would sign almost anything to get him out of there.
Several years after I left the business, I heard that younger brother had died (in his mid 30s), and been buried in the obligatory piano case. The good news was that the older brother got religion, lost enough weight to get down to maybe 200 lbs, and was alive last time I heard into his 60s.
“We had a 700 pound guy come in as a trauma case. We had to use two operating tables, side by side, to fix his fractures. Can you imagine the load on those healing fractures when he began to bear weight on his legs ? As I recall, we also had to use two ICU beds side by side”
When my partner was going through a lot of (mostly back) surgeries, her back surgeon would periodically switch hospitals. (He had a good amount of volume, which the hospitals liked, but didn’t like how demanding he was of the OR staff). For awhile, he operated at a small hospital where their other volume surgeon did a lot of lap bands, etc. It was a good marriage. He brought in a lot of volume, and they provided overbuilt operating tables, gurneys, beds, etc. Not sure if they could handle your 700 lb patient, but apparently routinely handled some in the 500-600 lb range.
Ever notice how this is always a woman thing? Men are never the poster children for fat positivity. There is no Men Are All Handsome movement in parallel to the All Women Are Beautiful movement that is thrust down our throats 30x a day. This of course means that it doesn't have anything to do with fat at all, not really.
Annie C said...
Does anyone (like our resident docs here) know what percentage of obese individuals are due to true medical issues? I hear people talk about this a lot, but I really don't know if there are these conditions and, if so, how common they are."
An internist I know tells me morbidly obese patients of his are quick to blame their thyroids. But most of the time, their thyroid panels come back normal.
Or else they blame genes. Now that has some truth because throughout most of human history, the masses lived at close to starvation level. Those who survived famines were those who were able to store fat. Burning calories at a high metabolic rate puts you at an advantage in America in 2018, but was not helpful if you were a peasant in Ireland in 1848.
But to simply say "I've got 'fat genes' while polishing off a pint of Ben and Jerry's, is, of course, a cop-out. White and black Americans are much fatter than Europeans and Africans. It's amazing, is it not, that all those "fat genes" were smart enough to get on the boats and come to America, the land of opportunity, while the people with skinny genes stayed in the Old Country? Yeah, no.
Lots of cheap, easily available food, oversized portions and sedentary lifestyles. And I say that as someone who enjoys food and cooking and is prone to gain weight. I'm 10 pounds heavier than I would like, but I know I could easily be much heavier if I didn't exercise and watch what I eat. I love bread and pasta and I can't eat bread and pasta because I immediately start packing it on if I do. The rare plate of linguine with clam sauce or piece of cake is so heavenly!
I've been overweight for at least 45 years or so. Tried many times to lose the weight, none of them with much success.
A couple years ago during my annual physical at the VA Clinic, the doctor told me, again, that I was overweight and asked if I would like to see a nutritionist. I said yeah and set an appointment. Still at the VA Clinic.
So I go to see the nutritionist and she gave me a big sheaf of papers with daily diets and a whole bunch of other stuff. Then she told me that it really didn't matter much, from a weight standpoint, what I ate. Healthy food is better, of course but she told me the trick is to count calories. She recommended an app My Calorie Counter for my phone and told me to stay below 2100 daily calories.
I set a target on the app of 1900 and logged everything. In 18 months I went from 290 to 240lbs and size 40 waist to 36.
Without dieting. Without paying a lot of attention to what I ate but paying attention to how much.
I still need to lose another 20 or so lbs. Or grow another 2-3 inches.
For the vets here, in spite of all the horror stories about VA hospitals and services, I have had top notch treatment at the San Juan VA hospital clinics and the Ceiba satellite clinic. If you have not tried the VA, you should give it a shot.
You do not need to have a service related injury, though you do have to pay if you do not. Fees are extremely low compared to what a regular doc would cost, though. It is a really great deal.
Sometimes I wonder if all the bad publicity is a ploy to keep usage down? Others I have talked to have been happy with services at other VA facilities. I am sure there are some horrible ones but there also seem to be many good ones.
John Henry
Blogger Khesanh 0802 said...
The best diet I ever went on was at OCS Quantico: 10 weeks, 20 pounds, doing all kinds of fun stuff!
Opposite effect for me at Great Lakes. I was 150#, 6'2" when I went in. Positively emaciated.
I gained about 25# in basic training. I needed it and it was probably mostly muscle.
John Henry
she told me the trick is to count calories.
Jennie Craig does that for me. I like the food and my wife is a great microwave operator.
Periodically, I fall off the wagon on trips, etc.
I need to lose 25 and am working on it. Lost about 23 so far,
Lots of cheap, easily available food, oversized portions and sedentary lifestyles. And I say that as someone who enjoys food and cooking and is prone to gain weight
I think that is true of ordinary people like you and me. I like to cook but gain weight when I do.
The morbidly obese do have a medical issue. The old intestinal bypass worked great but about 10% got liver failure. I have had patients who had one and insisted I leave it alone if I did surgery for some other reason. Most of them do not look obese at all and they love the procedure. The few that had fatal problems made it unacceptable.
The gastric bypass surgery also works but is less pleasant. It is an enforced diet. If they eat too much they vomit.
I did some of the gastric division surgeries using staple lines and they would over eat and pop the staples.
They are really not normal.
" Men are never the poster children for fat positivity."
A friend of mine, who did obesity surgery, had a patient who weighed 700 pounds. After the surgery, he went down to about 200 and had a severe psychological response. His friends did not recognize him and it freaked him out.
The heaviest I have ever been was 45 pounds overweight. I got that fat back in the mid '90's when I quit smoking.
It was not only incredibly depressing to go shopping and find that I had moved up 3 dress sizes (and the "Women's Department" was filled with dowdy, old lady clothes) but it was harder to do everything. I ran out of breath going up stairs. I had acid reflux (something that stopped when I lost weight and has never again been an issue). I tired easily. Getting down on all fours to scrub the kitchen floor or clean the bathroom was a bigger chore. My knees hurt. And I wasn't yet 40!
It was so damned uncomfortable. I worked very hard to lose the weight and vowed I'd never get back to that place ever again, because it felt so very good to able to do things like climb stairs, take long brisk walks and chase my nieces and nephews around the yard without becoming winded.
I can't imagine the discomfort of carrying around 100 or 150 extra pounds, of being trapped in a wall of flab. I can see where some people simply think of how much they have to lose and despair of ever getting there. But to pretend that it is a positive, beautiful thing is very dangerous and delusional.
To lose weight and keep it off, one needs to question everything conventional.
3 meals a day? Says who?? Instead, pick about a 4 hour 'window' and only eat within it. This will give you a 20 hour fast every day, and you will experience high energy and little if any hunger.
Balanced food groups? Says who?? Cut carbs as much as you can. Of the 3 food groups, carbs are the only one that you will NOT die from if you eat zero of them.
The above simple but counter intuitive facts will work every time. And best of all, they will work whether or not you believe in them.
People get the results they want. There is much happiness gained from eating food. There is happiness gained from being thin.
Some like the happiness from food better.
I am constantly starving. It sucks.
It doesn't suck as much as being fat and weak.
Laslo would have a name for that.
Cushion for the pushin'?
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...
To lose weight and keep it off, one needs to question everything conventional.
3 meals a day? Says who?? Instead, pick about a 4 hour 'window' and only eat within it. This will give you a 20 hour fast every day, and you will experience high energy and little if any hunger.
I tried that. Maybe you have to stick with it more than a month.
My guess is it is different for everyone.
I constantly eat food but I never eat much and I never let myself get "full."
The no carbs/sugar is a no-brainer. You get all the carbs you need from stuff you put on meat to make it tasty.
The best argument for not using the word 'fat' to refer to an over-weight person, is because 'fat' is also the name of one of the food groups, and it all to easily leads to false phrases like "eating fat is what makes you fat". In fact, fat (the right kind) is good for you. Carbs will make you fat.
One of the things I like about life in China versus life in the US is the absence of obesity. Indeed, every time I return to the US I am shocked at how many obese people there are in the US. In China - and I'm not talking about the poor countryside but the prosperous coastal regions filled with hundreds of millions of middle class and upper middle class people - you just don't see many fat people. College girls are almost all skinny. Even many middle-aged women have figures many 20-somethings in the US would die for. One of the reasons for this is shaming. Chinese people have no problems telling anyone they're too fat, whether it's their 21-year-old daughter who's gained 5 pounds or a neighbor's wife. My bottom line: We need more fat-shaming in the US.
"I tried that. Maybe you have to stick with it more than a month.
You do it more or less permanently. It is not a "diet'. It IS your diet.
"My guess is it is different for everyone."
No. It will be different in only rare exceptions.
But don't believe me. As I said, it matters not whether you believe in it or not. That's kinda how we found out it was true. :)
Weight loss may reverse course of atrial fibrillation, study says - UPI H/T Instapundit.com
I lost about twenty pounds, with the help of Jenny Craig, and by cutting out any drinks with more than ten calories that don't contain alcohol. I only drink straight liquor, and focusing on watching the calories in by simple rules, like the liquor one, but not counting them. And my A-fib sure seems better. I feel ten or twenty years younger, but that could just be being retired and free to do as I like. The biggest adjustment was that I had to cut my blood pressure meds, and before I did that, I was dragging worse.
Now that I read about the A-Fib study, I will go for ten more. Oh yeah, 20 miles a week of walking.
I'd hit that.
“3 meals a day? Says who?? Instead, pick about a 4 hour 'window' and only eat within it. This will give you a 20 hour fast every day, and you will experience high energy and little if any hunger.”
Almost exactly what I do. I usually have a two hour window and fast for 22 hours. It’s much easier than one might suspect. I eat whatever I want (getting in nutritious foods plus a dessert, most days) in whatever quantity I want. You’ll find you simply cannot overeat, your satiety hormones start working correctly after a few weeks. If you have a dinner out with family or friends, you simply just adjust your eating window. Human growth hormone levels spike up during the extended fast and there are other numerous metabolic advantages to fasting everyday for at least 16 hours. Non insulin dependent diabetics find their blood sugars improving and some actually came off oral meds. Look up OMAD: One Meal A Day.
The Carbohydrate Addicts Diet is worth a look. When I had my ass planted in front of a computer for 40-60 hrs a week, weight was a problem, and that helped. It's this:
No carbs for breakfast, but eat as much as you feel like eating.
Same for lunch.
Eat whatever you feel like for dinner, as long as you eat it all within a single hour. This means that if you see a donut during the day, you can buy it and eat it with dinner.
It works because you eat less. The trick though is to make sure you are not eating when you don't really feel like it. The theory is that your pancreas has been conditioned to overproduce insulin and it averages the last three meals, so you begin to be less hungry.
The biggest problems I ever had with diet was social pressure to eat. If I was alone for a month, I would always lose weigh, I don't mind being alone, or get lonely, but it's nice to just eat how, when, and what I want.
Here's another thing you are not going to believe. With the eating process I mentioned above, you do not need to do any exercise. You will still lose the weight. This is especially good news for those who are too over-weight to be safely exercising.
Once you get your weight under control and down to 'normal', should you exercise? Absolutely! There are many benefits in doing so. It's just that it is NOT necessary to 'help' in losing weight, despite what you have heard/read.
One more thing. If that still bothers you, here is a bonus. Once well into the eating process I mentioned, you will feel such excesses of energy that you will naturally LOOK for opportunities to 'burn it off'. Really. Like going for a walk. Taking the stairs. Parking a ways from the storefront. And this will be the only 'exercise' you need worry about during the weight loss phase.
Mrs Magoo is willing to help us all with our diets by driving us from eating in public.
Exercise is like a thumb on the scale, my BIL lost 40 lbs without doing any, but he dieted hard.
“Mrs Magoo is willing to help us all with our diets by driving us from eating in public.”
One can eat in public, you doofus. Your eating window, as I said, can be adjusted to accommodate social gatherings and dinners. I guess you don’t read very well.
“If you have a dinner out with family or friends, you simply just adjust your eating window.”
”3 meals a day? Says who??”
Do people really eat 3 meals a day? If I have 2 I gain weight.
Kevin wrote "Men are never the poster children for fat positivity"
--
Nah. They're just, you know..positively fat.
"you don’t know what their health goals and priorities are"
(When I went to the link, a big banner ad for Heinz mayonnaise was at top)
https://www.self.com/story/tess-holliday
“In the beginning I used to say, ‘I’m healthy, my cholesterol’s fine, I don’t have high blood pressure, I don’t have diabetes,” she says. But now she takes a different approach. “By telling people that you see a doctor, and telling people that you're healthy, it's perpetuating the abuse against bigger bodies and the mindset that we owe it to people to be healthy. The reality is I don't owe you shit and I don't have to prove that I'm healthy or not, because it is nobody's business.”
The enraging and obvious fact about concern trolls is that they are not actually concerned about your health at all. Nevertheless, the knee-jerk defense against a concern troll is to tell him that his concern is misplaced—actually, I’m healthy, thank you very much. But Holliday’s philosophy is to refuse to play along at all. Don’t treat it like concern, because it’s not. It’s abuse.
One example from Holliday’s life, out of too many to count: “When I got pregnant, I was flooded with a bunch of stuff,” she says. “I was flooded with, ‘You're gonna kill your baby because you're so fat,’ and ‘your baby's gonna come out deformed,’ which is awful to say. Then there were other people that were saying that I wouldn't live to see my child grow up, which is stupid because I think any of us could get hit by a car and die.”
See? Abuse.
“I just refuse to go down that road, and to feel like I need to prove my health and my worth to people that don't care,” she says. “There's a famous quote, I don't know who said it but I use it all the time: ‘Never waste your time explaining yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you.’”
Holliday is mostly in good spirits at Disneyland. She’s recovering from a bout with the flu, but she’s no longer contagious, and this is her happy place. There was a time, she says, when her oldest son was small, that she wouldn’t visit amusement parks for fear of not being able to fit on any of the rides. She has no such complaints at Disneyland.
Her life story is compelling enough to write a book about, and she did. In The Not So Subtle Art of Being a Fat Girl: Loving The Skin You’re In, Holliday writes about her often traumatic childhood with a verbally abusive father, bullies at school, a disabled mother—her mother was paralyzed after being shot twice by a significant other—and moving 40 times before she was 10 years old. Growing up, Holliday loved fashion and beauty and dreamed of becoming a model, although the particular pains of her childhood led to her channeling that energy into becoming a makeup artist, instead. But she never gave up on her modeling dream, and uploaded some modeling photos to the social networking site Model Mayhem, where a producer for the 2011 A&E television show Heavy discovered her. Holliday became the face of the show in a promotional campaign that followed. Around the same time, she became a finalist for Torrid’s House of Dreams model search. That’s how Ryann Maegen Hoven became Tess Munster, and later, Tess Holliday.
--
To assist with these life changes and help herself feel better mentally, Holliday has also begun eating differently. She worries that her fans and followers might take this shift the wrong way, and is quick to clarify: “I'm still gonna eat Cheetos and all of that.” She understands that a brand built on self-acceptance, and a supportive community built around that ethos, might question changes in her lifestyle if they come across as abandoning this core philosophy. It’s complicated.
“I feel guilty,” she says. “The amount of people [who] get thrust into the limelight and they're plus size? They lose weight. The more successful they get, the more weight they lose. It's hard because those people don't owe staying fat to anyone. It's their body and what they want to do, but there is also a sense of betrayal that [people with] bigger bodies feel, and it's hard because you're in your head. I've [thought this about] many people, where you're like, ‘Is it their choice? Were they pressured [into losing weight]?’”
Holliday sees the irony in this line of thought, given her aversion to concern trolling and questions about health being directed at her.
Article author:
http://www.ashleycford.net/bio/
A family friend, an ER doc in Milwaukee, has been eating one big meal a day for years and he is a slender, healthy energetic man and is all for daily fasting. It does not down regulate metabolism as was previously thought by the medical professionals.
Eat more - exercise more, but never exercise less. Jogging is the best exercise, walking is the second best, bicycling is the third best. At least three times a week (2 miles each session), or you are wasting your time.
The object is to move your ass over a couple of miles and jiggle all your guts around so they don't stick together.
If you don't have to have a bowl movement after exercise, then you aren't doing it right.
The same people who demand universal health care are the very same people saying obese people's health is none of our business?
Got it.
Darkisland is right: It's all about calories. I have to maintain a 1200 calorie diet to avoid gaining weight. Much as I'd like to eat more, I cannot. I'm too cheap to buy a whole new wardrobe, so...
and then..
https://www.self.com/story/skinny-shaming-is-not-the-same-as-fat-phobia
Woke Words bonus therein: "food policing"
I take Metformin now and I'm one of the lucky people who experience weight loss taking Metformin. I can gain weight but it's so easy to not over eat and it's great not to be starving for food all the time. The downside is a lot of food doesn't taste good, I've become a picky eater for the first time in my life. I probably have a couple of lbs of belly fat yet to lose. I just wish my previous Dr would have prescribed it years ago.
And there is an added benefit. In a study of diabetics taking Metformin and non-diabetics not taking it, the diabetics lived longer than the non-diabetics not taking it. Also, some longevity scientists are taking it.
I read a piece recently on the advatages (weight, glucose levels) of limiting eating to a 6 to 8 hour daily window. It’s what I do naturally and it keeps my weight down and glucose OK (my family is prone to diabetes, so “OK” is good). If I stray from this and eat 2 meals daily, I gain weight.
I’ve been skeptical that 3 meals a day is the norm, but I don’t know any actual statistics.
I took off twenty pounds subsequent to an arthritic knee. I sometimes think that a life without BBQ is not worth living, but my knee aches less........In youth and even middle age, instead of having such ephemeral gifts as athletic ability or good looks, I had a durable back and the kind of metabolism that allowed me to eat prodigious amounts of food without ever gaining weight. My life was blessed and I never even knew it.
A childhood friend was obese. In high school he decided to lose weight. He had the self-discipline to stick to his diet and lose weight. By high school he was a good cook, and went on to base his career on writing about food- including some cookbooks. In the ensuing decades he has kept his weight off. Exercise has helped.
And the answer was that the customers were so desperate to protect their furniture that they would sign almost anything to get him out of there.
Now that's a unique approach. Body odor might work, too.
I like how the cover proclaims that her health is "none of your business." Fair enough. But that being said, we should not be suggesting to people that you can be really overweight without any adverse health consequences. The number of people having to get liver transplants because of fatty liver is through the roof these days. I have a friend who is so overweight that he blew out his knees and he doesn't qualify for knee replacement surgery because he is so overweight. And don't tell people that they've being bigots if they don't find you physically attractive if you're massively overweight. Some people have a fetish for that; most people don't.
“And there is an added benefit. In a study of diabetics taking Metformin and non-diabetics not taking it, the diabetics lived longer than the non-diabetics not taking it. Also, some longevity scientists are taking it.”
Because Metformin is an AMPK activator and humans want AMPK activation. A natural substance that does the same thing that Metformin does and activates AMPK is Berberine. Some diabetics take it along with their Metformin, but be cautious, Berberine actually works almost as well as Metformin and BGs can go too low. Berberine might be a very good supplement for pre diabetics.
...has been eating one big meal a day for years and he is a slender...
Aha, but...
Being slender is not a measurement of physical health. Slender people have many health problems.
The best stuff to read about food is the stuff they develop for type-2 diabetics. This is the adult onset, non-supplemental insulin type. These guides are great.
The gist of it is, that you want to eat small meals, and you want to time your meals so that the body never attempts to store excess calories. Also, don't fast, as the body will consume muscle before it consumes fat.
There's plenty to suggest not all calories are equal..due to glucose/insulin issues and related ability to adhere to it.
A lot of nutritionists are stuck on the old food pyramid model.
I remember my folks going to a local nutritionist to lose weight..and their feeling discouraged when they found her to be very overweight. Oh..but they didn't know her goals, her journey.
Metformin, am insulin regulator (and Rapamycin)is thought to have calorie restriction effects.
I forgot to post this in my comment earlier.
https://www.wired.com/story/this-pill-promises-to-extend-life-for-a-nickel-a-pop/
If you are fasting, then you better be in a Mosque or a Church, on your knees and pointed toward Mecca, or Jerusalem.
Otherwise, eat your peas, and drink your coffee.
“Being slender is not a measurement of physical health. Slender people have many health problems.”
True enough, but that’s what labs are for. Get a Lipid panel, an A1C, a CRP, a CBC with diff, Basic Metabolic panel, TSH, get your yearly physicals.
"Berberine might be a very good supplement for pre diabetics."
I'm pre diabetic so thanks for the info, I'll check it out.
"Skinny" used to be an insult. In the movie To Have and Have Not, Bogart calls Bacall, "slim." She responds that she doesn't like it because she is too skinny to take it kindly.
“Otherwise, eat your peas, and drink your coffee.”
I eat my peas (with butter!) during my eating window and black coffee during my fasting hours, so I’m covered, lol.
"One of the reasons for this is shaming."
There are more than one reason.
When my daughter was with friends in Shanghai, they went out to get breakfast, They told her "Don't eat those fluffy looking muffins. They put detergent in them to make them fluffy."
She is the same one who went to Ecuador.
”If you are fasting,...”
Define fasting.
“Metformin, am insulin regulator (and Rapamycin)is thought to have calorie restriction effects.”
Indeed, Metforim and Berberine have been referred to as “fasting mimetics”.
The old joke is that being poor is not a disgrace but might just as well be. If you're poor, people do not, by and large, shame you for being poor. They don't have to. You shame yourself........I don't think there's any disgrace to being fat. There's lots of factors that go into it, and my guess is that moral turpitude is rarely the dominant one. Fat people should be treated with dignity and respect, but most of the fat shaming is an interior monologue.
" Instead, pick about a 4 hour 'window' and only eat within it. This will give you a 20 hour fast every day, and you will experience high energy and little if any hunger."
https://youtu.be/uxM_CLsvieE?t=8848
I've been doing this for about 6 months and it's been an eye opener. It takes some getting used to as around late afternoon I'd get some serious food cravings, but then it's really a matter of asking yourself "Am I really hungry?" 9/10 I'm not, and it passes. You also need to plan your meals and have your spouse and kids resent the fact that you're not eating dinner with them, even if your sitting with them.
I also removed all alcohol from my house. That surely eliminates late night drinking which packs on calories. I just go out now when I want a drink. It's more expensive, but I drink less and I'm more social.
> I gained about 25# in basic training.
My dad gained 30# when he enlisted in the summer of 1941. It wasn't the exercise, he didn't have enough to eat growing up.
“Define fasting.”
No eating or drinking any beverage that has even a tiniest bit of caloric content, no artificial sweetener either. The brain thinks the sweetness of a non caloric sweetener is real and tells the pancreasto pumpout insulin in response. You want your insulin levels to be low and remain low during your fast.
Drink water or non flavored sparkling water, during the fasting period. The brain even thinks flavored water is real and tells the pancreas to secret insulin in response to the fruity flavor.
No, I meant I don’t consider limiting eating to a daily 6 hour period as “fasting”. Are people calling that “fasting”?
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...
Once you get your weight under control and down to 'normal', should you exercise? Absolutely! There are many benefits in doing so. It's just that it is NOT necessary to 'help' in losing weight, despite what you have heard/read.
What about BCAAs? I know one friend who has succeeded in making this work. He is into body building and he takes BCAAs during the fasting period.
What are the caloric intake levels during the eating period?
Grove's Tasteless Chill Tonic
"Makes Children and Adults as Fat as Pigs"
“No, I meant I don’t consider limiting eating to a daily 6 hour period as “fasting”. Are people calling that “fasting”?”
Anytime you are eating nothing longer than 8 to 12 hours, your body considers it a fast, it doesn’t care what you consider if to be. Science calls it a fasted state.
Well then, from my reading and from my own experience, fasting is good.
Of course the longer you’re in a fasted state the more metabolic benefit your body gets. Fasts longer than 48 hours won’t give you added benefit from what I’ve read.
“Well then, from my reading and from my own experience, fasting is good.”
Yes indeed it is!
Black coffee doesn’t count, right?
Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.
In that spirit . . .
What about BCAAs?
Not necessary. Forget about it.
What are the caloric intake levels during the eating period?
Don't worry about it. They will naturally be low enough, if you just use some common sense and limit carbs. It won't take long and you just will not be hungry enough to worry if you are over-eating.
1. 4 hour window
2. Easy on the carbs
That's it. Well, one more thing. Every 2-3 weeks, take a day where you eat 2-3 meals just like you have done most of your life. This brief interruption to your normal new routine will keep your body on it's toes, so to speak, so it will not get into a rut and take counter-measures to what it thinks is a predictable routine.
Here's what you will find when the 3 meal Days come around. You will have to FORCE yourself to eat the 'extra' food.
“Black coffee doesn’t count, right?”
Right. However if you want to sleep at night, don’t drink it all day. I get jittery if I drink more than three cups, even if it’s weak. I love non flavored sparkling water during the fast, or unflavored teas. (No fruity teas).
Only in the morning.
During your eating window, enjoy whatever beverages your heart desires, but it’s a waste of calories to drink heavily sugared drinks.
Tim in Vermont: Have you tried ablation or cardioversion?
I got A-Fib and tachycardia after a nasty fall from an extension ladder and hit my chest on the corner of a building frame 2x4. This caused heart failure (EF of 20-25%) so bad, I wore a shock vest for a month until the amiodarone worked it's magic getting the EF up to 40-45%. Eight cardioversion attempts couldn't get me back to sinus, stayed on amiodarone building up my strength for 4-months, then started getting nasty bouts of tachycardia to go with A-Fib. Went to a young Stanford trained electro-cardio specialist and he shocked me into sinus after 4 tries. Weaned off of amiodarone, then the A-Fib came back occasionally along with tachycardia.
Had standard ablation last fall that killed the A-Fib, but made the tachycardia worse that the maxed out meds couldn't touch, sending me into heart failure again. The second ablation in December was an exploratory mapping of the heart and found the damage a couple millimeters from the SA node and he burned it, immediately stopping the tachycardia.
Been slowly building back up the heart function and feel great at about 90% of full capacity. The two things that disagree with my heart are sugar and alcohol. THC is definitely out because it causes tachycardia in normal people. CBD is well tolerated, it did calm down the A-Fib a bit (there are some peer review studies on CBD and A-Fib) but is was a temporary fix that allowed me to get some sleep. CBD did nothing for tachycardia.
My electrocardio says now he thinks heart failure should not be exclusionary for ablation because a normal, slow sinus rhythm helps buils back up the EF.
I wish you all the best
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jun/06/tess-holliday-first-size-26-supermodel
We’re in a cafe, finally sitting down after a six-hour shoot that’s had Holliday traipsing blocks in oppressive heat and then a rainstorm. Throughout, she’s been a hilarious corrective to the notion of models as mute and biddable clotheshorses. At one point, an African American guy, middle-aged, said something appreciative as he walked by. “What do guys think they’ll achieve by yelling something?” she asked, shifting her weight and adjusting the cape primly. “They’re like: ‘She’ll love this, I’ll definitely get her number.’” A pause, and then she added, with some satisfaction, “I do admit that black men love me. I always forget that, and then I come to a black neighbourhood and I remember.” And no one quite knew what to say.
---
“I was like, this guy’s never going to give me a chance in hell because he’s so hot. Because I’ve never really had good-looking boyfriends before. My friends would always tell me, ‘There’s no way you’re going to get a nice guy and a hot guy – you’re fat, you need to settle for one or the other.’ I told them, I deserve both.”
“Every 2-3 weeks, take a day where you eat 2-3 meals just like you have done most of your life. This brief interruption to your normal new routine will keep your body on it's toes, so to speak, so it will not get into a rut and take counter-measures to what it thinks is a predictable routine.”
True! And I enjoy the heck out of those days, I can’t fit in a third meal no matter how hard I try on those days though.
Even many middle-aged women have figures many 20-somethings in the US would die for.
Yeah, I don't know about that. Most East Asians have zero curves. Yuck. I don't want to look like an adolescent boy.
"The first body-positive superhero is coming to a movie theater near you"
Faith is a very popular character in the comic world, because she represents something that a lot of people haven't seen before — a plus-size superhero who is happy, capable, and bad ass!
If you want to get fat, eat grains. That's what they feed cattle before slaughter. It causes their pancreas to shoot insulin all through the meat and make it fat.
Grass fed beef doesn't have all the fat. Just add your own fat in the form of butter.
Interesting fact: Slaughter without the 'S' is laughter.
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...
Don't worry about it. They will naturally be low enough, if you just use some common sense and limit carbs.
I am not actually trying to lose weight. I am going for and am well on my way to single digit body fat % if not there already. I was more interested in maintaining strength and making sure I got enough protein/nutrients.
It won't take long and you just will not be hungry enough to worry if you are over-eating.
1. 4 hour window
2. Easy on the carbs
What about caffeine? I have tried going without it. The constant mental stress/output I am dealing with now make it necessary.
I drink a 0 calorie 0 sugar 0 carb preworkout with caffeine and b12 and stuff in it that I buy in bulk at Costco.
Coffee tastes like butt.
Achilles,
Although I do love coffee and it's jolt, I've found green tea to be a more even keeled stimulant..better for acuity.
What about caffeine?
I drink lots of coffee.
Achilles, you probably would not like my simple plan. There is probably not enough feedback and ritual for you. You seem to like to do things like take supplements, and I bet monitor calories and body statistics. Those do no harm, but are probably more psychologically satisfying than actually necessary. To each his own. :)
The side-boob shot is udderly disgusting.
Went to a young Stanford trained electro-cardio specialist and he shocked me into sinus after 4 tries. Weaned off of amiodarone, then the A-Fib came back occasionally along with tachycardia.
I had episodes of PAT that got so frequent and severe that I had a "cardiac physiologist" who looked like a mad scientist do an endocardial mapping and he found an aberrant pathway and zapped it. That was the end of PAT. That was 25 years ago.
A Fib is more complicated. The original treatment was the Maze procedure, which was open heart surgery. Then the endocardial guys started doing the same thing with RF catheters that created the same pattern of cuts in a pattern of squares to interrupt propagation of impulses. It's now pretty well understood that A Fib originates in the pulmonary veins entrance to the left atrium.
The procedure is not 100% successful but if you have someone who knows that stuff well, it is pretty much worth doing if the drugs don't work.
@Walter
"She was sassy and sexy and people noticed her, and she was big and she didn’t care."
She's talking about a puppet for Christ sake. But whatever, if it works for her, I don't care.
Because Metformin is an AMPK activator and humans want AMPK activation. A natural substance that does the same thing that Metformin does and activates AMPK is Berberine. Some diabetics take it along with their Metformin, but be cautious, Berberine actually works almost as well as Metformin and BGs can go too low. Berberine might be a very good supplement for pre diabetics.
This is good info to have.
My weight had crept up over the years along with other bothersome things such as extreme fatigue, newly irregular periods and issues with my hair, and after seeing an OB who blew me off ("eat less, move more, honey") for years I finally switched to one who took all my symptoms seriously and diagnosed me with PCOS. Blood sugars were prediabetic (it does not run in my family, had never been an issue for me before and I had never had gestational diabetes) so she put me on metformin which was a miracle drug for me. It took the edge off of my exhaustion --> instinctive eating carbs to counter exhaustion --> blood sugar spike and crash cycles so that I could gain control of my eating again. Kept my blood sugar steadier so I didn't feel compelled to the eating behaviors that go along with insulin resistance. Metformin + reducing artificial sweeteners + three/four cardio workouts a week + making sure I ate protein and fat at every meal + almost eliminating refined carbs = 50 pound weight loss in about five months. I felt like a completely new person, regained my fertility (I had almost completely stopped ovulating) and felt WONDERFUL. Doc told me to be really careful in maintaining new healthy weight because even another 5 pounds of fat could start goofing up my hormones again because of course fat produces them.
The bad news is that with my two recent pregnancies a lot of that weight has made it back on and it's REALLY hard for me to lose weight while breastfeeding. I need to lose about 35 pounds and I'm recognizing a lot of the same issues/symptoms I had before when my PCOS was not in control. My wonderful, supportive OB who diagnosed me in the first place, guided me back to health and then through two late-thirties pregnancies is retiring, and I'm worried about finding another who is open to using metformin to help manage PCOS. I will look into Berberine as a supplement just in case.
”Then the endocardial guys started doing the same thing with RF catheters that created the same pattern of cuts in a pattern of squares to interrupt propagation of impulses. It's now pretty well understood that A Fib originates in the pulmonary veins entrance to the left atrium.”
My lab had a big research project developing mapping procedures. We developed 3D imaging techniques without gantry rotation. Challenging problem.
Howard
I think it usually takes two ablations to get it right, especially if you were resistant to cardioversion.
“The bad news is that with my two recent pregnancies a lot of that weight has made it back on and it's REALLY hard for me to lose weight while breastfeeding. I need to lose about 35 pounds and I'm recognizing a lot of the same issues/symptoms I had before when my PCOS was not in control. My wonderful, supportive OB who diagnosed me in the first place, guided me back to health and then through two late-thirties pregnancies is retiring, and I'm worried about finding another who is open to using metformin to help manage PCOS. I will look into Berberine as a supplement just in case.”
Have your doctor do a TSH, it’s not all that uncommon after a pregnancy to become hypothyroid.
My first ablation included a medical trial involving the Vein of Marshall. I was not supposed to know I had that add on but it is pretty hard to ignore three wounds instead of two and the surgeon confirmed it later. A team of docs from Houston flew in to observe. The overall procedure worked for about three months and I had a second a few months later which two years later is working perfectly. Early reports are the Vein of Marshall procedure is not worth the effort.
As for breastfeeding and taking Berberine, I’d talk to the doc first.
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...
What about caffeine?
I drink lots of coffee.
Achilles, you probably would not like my simple plan. There is probably not enough feedback and ritual for you. You seem to like to do things like take supplements, and I bet monitor calories and body statistics. Those do no harm, but are probably more psychologically satisfying than actually necessary. To each his own. :)
I am very much bottom line. I train for the day someone tries to kill me.
I don't do any body composition tests or any competitions. But in the gym I naturally catch the eye of the power lifters and the body conformation competitors. And they are good spotters. If I stop working out I lose weight.
I have a ton of shit to do every day. My questions revolve around the logistics of actually making it happen.
I am genuinely interested. It would be a massive adjustment. There will probably be more questions in the future.
For example do you drink coffee all day or just during the 4 hours?
" I will look into Berberine as a supplement just in case."
I will have to research this. I have never heard of Berberine.
That last stubborn 10 lbs that refuses to get lost annoys me, although I don't think it makes much difference healthwise.
Pants, I just looked up breastfeeding, pregnancy and Berberine. No, don’t take it until you’re done breastfeeding and surely not when you’re pregnant.
For example do you drink coffee all day or just during the 4 hours?
I drink it throughout the day, along with sugar-free anything-I-want. I want my lifetime eating and drinking habits to be easy to do, not rigid so unexpected occasions can be fit in without the "oh, I can't . . . I used up my totals for the day already" moments.
In other words, enough rare bending of the rules to enjoy my life and without wasting any mental effort on counting or weighing. It's very freeing, and very easy once you get used to it, which doesn't take long. Weight loss/maintenance, energy levels, and clear headedness just happen automatically.
So one 4(to 6, actually when desired) hour window. Low carbs. Occasional 'cheat' day. That's it. If folks did this, away would go Weight Watchers, NutriSystem, Jenny Craig, and Type 2 diabetes - and, for that matter, inflammatory diseases of all sorts of types.
Hi Michael and Doc Mike: I saw a guy who was going to perform a modified Maze endoscopically, but insurance wouldn't approve it because "experimental"... they would have approved the chest crack version, but me and the docs agreed that was not a good idea.
The first fixed the A-Fib and I've been in sinus ever since. The second was to fix the tachycardia, which fortunately worked, otherwise I would have ended up with a pace maker.
I was awake for the second ablation because the doc didn't want the anesthesia to "fix" the tachycardia during the procedure. It lasted about 4-hours. I was miserable and in considerable pain but was always bright and cheerful for the doc so he wouldn't stop before he found the problem.
I drink one very strong cup of coffee in the morning with approval from the doc. He says coffee is OK but alcohol is the worst because it causes both A-Fib and heart failure. The one nice thing about this experience is that the angiogram showed the pipes to be so clear the tech said I'm good to go with bacon and pulled pork!
Blogger Khesanh 0802 said...
The best diet I ever went on was at OCS Quantico: 10 weeks, 20 pounds, doing all kinds of fun stuff!
I went from beach buff 206-lbs (@6'4") to a 185-lb psychotic weakling in 12 weeks at MCRD Hollywood. We ate "duck" a lot. The takeaway is stay active all day forces you to eat light.
SomeoneHasToSayIt,
I think you're right.
The trick is to figure out enough satisfying low carb foods and preparations (at home or out) to cut down on the sense of restrictions. Then...when you encounter something really compelling, you can better weigh (and appreciate) the indulgence.
At what point on the obesity continuum do you quality for social security disability, food stamps and a free scooter? Serious question.
Tess Holliday is right, but only for now. If as a country we lose our minds sufficiently to introduce single payer, then her health becomes the government’s business.
I don’t/didn’t eat low carb at all in my eating window. I eat bread, rice, pasta, starchy veggies as well as non starchy veggies and meat, as well as dessert if I still have room after my meal. I’ve lost 45 pounds and am now maintaining.
Low carb diets will drop weight like gangbusters, however low carbing has some drawbacks, one is that it messes up your gut biome. Your gut needs some carbs. No getting around it. Secondly it negatively affects LDL-p. Strict low carb diets have been around for enough years now that there are many accounts of this happening. I ate low carb for over two years and my LDL-p went through the roof and my digestive track went to hell
I was awake for the second ablation because the doc didn't want the anesthesia to "fix" the tachycardia during the procedure.
When I had my ablation I was still in practice. One of the nurses in the cath lab (which was new and built just for him by the hospital) said, "This is how we like our surgeons, Naked and tied down." She had worked in the OR but moved to the cath lab as less night call (zero).
I don’t/didn’t eat low carb at all in my eating window. I eat bread, rice, pasta, starchy veggies as well as non starchy veggies and meat, as well as dessert if I still have room after my meal.
Sure, that works too. You are essentially relying on the total calories and 20 hour fast to do all the work. I only mention low carb as an addition, because it will speed things up and helps work against the development of insulin resistance, which is a real problem for some folks.
“You are essentially relying on the total calories and 20 hour fast to do all the work. I only mention low carb as an addition, because it will speed things up and helps work against the development of insulin resistance, which is a real problem for some folks.”
True. I get in 22 hours of fasting, most days. I was prediabetic, with fasting BGs around 114 for several years. I’ve been doing the OMAD for about a year now, lost the 45 pounds in about 6 months. My fasting BGs are now in the 90’s. All my siblings and both parents were/ are diabetic, so I’m very happy to have my cake and eat it too, so to speak. My last A1C completely normal.
Sorry, I looked at my journal, I lost the 45 pounds in 8 months, not 6.
There is a lot of variability to this...
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/low-carb-diets-and-cholesterol#section1
https://www.hyperbiotics.com/blogs/recent-articles/why-paleo-and-ketogenic-diets-are-great-for-your-gut
”She had worked in the OR but moved to the cath lab as less night call (zero).”
I didn’t understand this at first. I’m guessing you’re referring to an EP lab.
A really informative article from Chris Kesser.
Soluble fiber is really important (especially when eating low carb) and I know when I ate low carb for those two years, I wasn’t getting nearly enough of it.
From Chris Kesser also, very long read, but very informative.
“What happens when someone goes on a keto diet and their LDL particle number goes up to 3,500? Is that necessarily a good thing? Maybe they lose weight and their blood sugar improves, but their LDL-P goes above 3,000, then that person’s going to require a more nuanced approach. It’s not just simple heuristics that we can rely on in those cases. I agree. I mean, that’s what you get when you’re a clinician and you’re working on the front lines. You actually see that, and so it becomes a lot more difficult to stick to a certain belief system when you see evidence to the contrary every day.”
https://chriskresser.com/what-the-heck-should-we-eat-with-dr-mark-hyman/
Jumping in here rather late regarding diet and weight loss.
We have been eating a modified diabetic diet for quite some time now, as my hubby is type 2 and controlled with just a pill (no insulin injections)
Basically balanced meals relatively low in carbs but not carb free. We eat bread, rice, pasta, grains in moderation along with the protein, fruit and vegetables.
Typical day
Breakfast: eggs scrambled, bacon, oatmeal with fruit. Or cheese omelet, whole wheat toast, fruit. Or just plain old raisin bran. Coffee!!!!
Lunch: small sandwich (half a sandwich for me), fresh vegetables in season: like baby carrots, broccoli and a dip like ranch dressing. Or a cobb salad. OR more likely some leftover last night's dinner. Ice tea. Ice water. Milk for him sometimes.
Dinner: Last night. Shrimp scampi and Pasta Primavera (snow peas-because we are sick of broccoli, matchstick carrots, diced red pepper, mushrooms all sauteed in an olive oil/butter/chili pepper flake/basil mixture. Tossed with penne pasta. Ice tea or wine.
Tonight. BBQ chicken thighs. I'll have almost one. He might have one and a half. Sliced tomatoes, fresh basil, olives in an olive oil marinade with coarse sea salt, 1/2 of a corn on the cob each. The other 3 thighs are for lunch the next day or chopped up in a salad or something.
Maybe some dessert. Small bowl of ice-cream...or Fruit juice Popsicle...or Jello with fruit. Our favorite is a slice of ricotta cheese pie with pineapple topping in a graham cracker dusted pie pan. Light, low cal and easy peasy to make.
Hubby needs to have snacks during the day between meals so he has nuts, granola trail mix, beef jerky, hard boiled egg, mozzerella stick. Whatever he can carry with him in his truck or lunch container. I eat those too if I am hungry. Usually I just have more water or tea.
We eat at 7 or 8 am. Noonish and about 6pm. Fasting from 6pm to breakfast.
We feel we are getting plenty of food to eat and as a result, we have lost weight. We don't deprive ourselves, feel full and have a big variety of tastes.
Can't remember the last time I had a soda, chips, pretzles or other snack foods like that.
Lots of surface area for her tats.
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