Overweight question

Off-topic Chatter
1

Diet is a subject that interests me. Without making this post any longer than it needs to be here is my question and it needs people who feel they are overweight and well as those who don’t feel they are overweight to respond…

What do you eat or rather what does your diet consist of?

I think that most people are reasonably active (regarding exercise) and most people don’t eat massive amounts of food (and I’m including those who feel they are overweight).

I think most people eat when they are hungry and stop when they are full.

It seems to me that the only difference is what they are eating. When you eat protein, high quality fats and low sugar fruits you can eat all you want and are satisfied easily and don’t consume excess calories.

When you eat a large proportion of your diet in sugar and other carbs these are high in calories and they aren’t satisfying in the sense that they usually make you hungrier the more you eat such as pizza, potato chips, cookies…really any bread, rice and pasta.

Are any of you who feel that you are overweight on low carb diets (and still overweight)?

Are any of you who aren’t overweight over the age of 40 and still eating all the carbs you want?

I hear about the obesity epidemic and how complicated a problem it is but I’m wondering if it’s actually as simple as just reducing carbs.

From what I know about how the body works it seems to be almost that simple. When carbs trigger the production of insulin our bodies don’t burn excess fat. When we don’t use all the glucose that we produce while eating carbs it gets turned to fat.

Therefore people diet, exercise, reduce their calories (temporarily) but unless they stop eating sugar and most carbs they still don’t get rid of excess fat…just water weight from the body trying to burn muscles mass.

Have any of you struggled with weight loss over a period of years primarily though periodic calorie reduction and increased exercise only to not be successful?

Have others not focused on exercise and reducing their food intake but just reduced sugar and calories and had lasting success?

2

I'm 38 years old.

I eat whatever I want, and as much as I want, including plenty of carbohydrates.

I don't exercise that much.

And I weigh a normal amount for my height.

Some people just don't get overweight. :)

3

All sorts of diets have been popular, low-carb, high-carb, low-fat etc. , it is all a lot of talk, but in the end it just is a matter of how many calories go in and how many go out, choose whatever diet/exercise makes you do that best.

What helps maintaining my weight (I'm a always bit overweight, not too worrying) is that I'm a bad sleeper (I burn more calories that way), and that I care less for eating when I'm worried about things. Not very positive methods, but at least it keeps the weight down . Oh, and I cycle 2xhalf an hour to work and back daily.

4

Plenty of skinny folk have high cholesterol, and blocked arteries etc.

5

Yep, you just cannot sit on your ass. The arteries will glog up even if you are skinny! Physical activity is the key to a healthy long life, diet is just some help to loose weight

6

I think if you eat to get full, you will spiral out of control in your eating. You can become overweight on veggies just like you can become overweight on carbs or fatty foods. It really is a simple math equation. You’ve got calories in and calories out. When I was younger, I was very active all the time and kept my metabolism high. I didn’t do anything special to keep it that way, it just was, because I was always moving. I could eat all the pizza, or hamburgers or anything else that I wanted and not gain very much weight. As I grew older, and got a job that was less physically intense, my metabolism has gone down. I could feel the difference as it was happening. I started eating less, because I knew I didn’t need as much. That was a choice I made. Sometimes I stopped eating while I was still a little hungry, because I knew I didn’t really need it. I still eat whatever I want, but my body has adjusted to want less. If I had just ignored the changes in my metabolism and kept eating the same amounts of everything, I could have done it easily, but I would have begun to gain weight fast, and I knew I didn’t want to do that.

I’m still moderately active, but not nearly as much as I used to be. I’m 40 years old. I’m a little over my “ideal” weight, but my weight is stable and I think I look healthy. Making drastic changes to your eating habits will only end in disappointment for most people. Cutting out one particular element of your diet completely, like the no-carb diets (previously the no-fat diets), is not recommended by most doctors. Find out what your body needs and give it that. Eating only vegetables may work to make you skinny, but I’ve never yet seen a vegetarian that really looked healthy to me. My diet is mostly carbs, next dairy, then meats/proteins, then vegetables, lastly fruit, in order of how much I eat in general. I eat what I feel like eating when I feel like eating it. I eat from early in the morning to fairly late at night.

Edit: I know it may seem that “Some people just don’t get overweight.” as raccoon city said, but I don’t think that is all the story. I think some people just have an intuitive understanding of their dietary needs, and follow that. Also, some people eat less than their body needs, and stay skinny, but not healthy. Then, there are those who just have a very high metabolism or an overactive thyroid, who can’t gain weight because of it. That’s the dangerous place to be, because if that stops and you don’t adjust your eating, you’ll become very overweight very quickly. I’ve seen the results of that.

7

Genetic matters the most, and that cannot be modified.
Then lifestyle in the whole of course: diet, phisical activity, habits and work.
Diet plays a key-role but it’s not the only one.
Some people tend to be VERY stable at a weight (I do, whatever I eat or don’t).
Pursue health: walk more, avoid junk-food and industrial beverages (with or without sugar), avoid animal products totally or as much as possible, focus on foods that activate your metabolism. Eventually excercise, try something fun and rewarding to keep motivated.

Carbs are not an issue. Things just aren’t that simple.

8

“Junk” food, industrial beverages, and especially “animal products”, are also not the problem. Things just aren’t that simple. :wink:

9

About being overweight, we could agree. But I stated: pursue health.

10

Well, then, I guess it comes down to definitions, and yours are different than mine. That’s fine. :wink:

11

I think there is a little misleading when people focus too much on the “weight” itself.

Whether a person is overweight or not, we usually refer to the BMI reading . But when a person BMI is higher than what to be considered as “normal”, is he/she really considered to be “obese”? In this case it is more important to know what makes this person overweight - Is it because he has too much fat (bad thing) or he actually has more muscle mass (good thing) that makes up his weight?

The explanations in this source has pretty much explained it all. I am not really good in explaining things so I would just quote one of the answers from there:
“Because muscle weighs more than fat, the BMI is not a good indicator of being overweight or obese for athletes and body builders. For body builders a direct measure of body fat with calipers or a special scale would be more appropriate as a measure of fitness.”

So we should stop focusing too much on the weight scale, rather than that we should look at how our body look (muscle vs. fat) and how do we feel.

About the diet part, ideally we all should consume more protein and minerals than carbs, for instance carbs should only be consumed at 30% of our daily consumption, and we should consume more protein and minerals for the rest - Well, this is an ideal plan and that’s all. In reality sometimes it can be difficult to follow this “formula” strictly, because a lot of modern working people simply don’t have the time to cook and prepare for 3 meals in a day (and everyday!) by themselves just to eat clean and control what they eat. Beside that most high protein and minerals rich food (i.e. chicken, fish, beans and peas…) are expensive in comparison to carbs like rice, bread and noodles, and there are a lot people who simply can’t afford to consume fish everyday in every meal. In this case the only way out is to do exercises consistently, and it’s more practical to plan for your exercises according to your goal.

12

Protein, carbohydrates and fat are macronutrients, minerals and vitamins are micronutrients, let’s not confuse people any more than we have to.

13

Mmm ….donuts…

14

When I want to lose weight I just eat less. I’m too lazy to exercise. Oh and I try to limit the intake of copious amounts of icecream.
Edit: I see what you did there EF.

15

Ok I appreciate the advice, but did I say anything wrong in my comment that confuses people? I wasn’t trying to explain the difference among protein, carbs and minerals anyway.

16

You kept saying protein and minerals. Minerals are inconsequential in weight loss or gain. Someone who wants to lose/gain weight only needs to adjust between the three macronutrients.

17

Firstly I wasn’t really stressing on the weight loss/gain in my comment, but I was talking about how to eat healthy and balanced. Most people are trapped in the “only weight matters” misconception, and in my comment I said that we shouldn’t focus too much on the weight scale itself but instead we should have a check on our body fat and muscle, that is what matters. And to make sure that our body can maintain this we should consume less carbs, and more protein and mineral rich food. Maybe you are right that minerals and protein aren’t in the same category, but that is not my concern, at least not in my comment above.

Secondly minerals can indirectly affect your muscle growth, for example magnesium can help to maintain your muscle function and iron can help you to reduce fatigue during your workout session, and other minerals can indirectly help your muscles to absorb protein, therefore it is still somewhat related to your body weight concern, be it significant or not. Look, I didn’t go out and tell the people that “You should consume more minerals to cut your weight!” - No no no it doesn’t work like that, I did not say that minerals can help you to cut weight directly. Sorry but I think you are the one who is confused.

18

Yes, but I’m not typical. My father and I are both skinny (6’, ~145#). I work a very physical job and run marathons.

I eat pretty balanced meals at home… veggies, meat, carbs. Relatively little pre-packed food; more from scratch. While working, I’m keeping a steady stream of clif bars and gatorade between meals.

One thing in this whole food debate that has interested me is the early research by Dr Tim Noakes that suggests that some in the population are carbohydrate intolerant. (That is, carbs = obesity.) I don’t know where he is in the research/publishing cycle yet, but I will be interested to see what comes of it.

19

might be useful to watch some of the documentaries like Food Inc, Fed Up, Killer at Large…

if we go back a couple hundred years, only rich people were obese. Now it’s completely opposite.

20

Just make sure that your meal has all of the 4 food groups like this Jet 10. :stuck_out_tongue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit-style_pizza