HAES "health at every size"
 

Is anyone a proponent of this here?

I took a nutrition course from a Dr. Linda Bacon (great name yeah for a nutrition Ph.D right!!??), a front-runner for the movement and a professor at San Francisco City College a few years ago and believe wholeheartedly in the philosophy of listening truly to your body and what it tells you that you need...if you really learn to listen properly. That has been my goal and well, it tells me I don't have cravings for sugar or carbs anymore. Weight has been less an issue for me and more health, just wondering if anyone else has felt the same, because of HAES or because of any other reason.

If anyone doesn't know what HAES is I'd be happy to provide some more info :)

Very interesting. Don't know anything much about it, but what you say does make sense. Sounds almost like mindful eating, which I think can be very helpful. For me though, I don't think I should accept my size, losing weight long term does seem to be very difficult, but so is feeling fat. I hope it works out for you as we are all different. :)

I read Linda Bacon's book a few years ago. What I remember about it is that I thought she got the psychology right but a lot of the science wrong when it came to eating, especially when it came to food choice. I would have to reread it to recall exactly, but from what I remember now she was not an advocate of low carb and that I found her way of deciding what and when to eat not ideal. My memory is hazy on the details so I might not be getting this entirely right.

Jean

Mice and rats don't have a lot of other options besides instinctive eating, and put them in the wrong environment, and they'll get sick from their food. Best way to get them diabetic is a high sugar, high fat "cafeteria" or buffet sort of diet, in that situation, they'll optimize for sickness. On the other hand, take a diabetic animal, and offer them fat, protein and carbohydrate separately--and they'll manage their own blood glucose by preferring fat and protein over carbohydrate. I think the key point here is that instinct doesn't get you past ice cream, or oreos. If my body craves fat, even if rightly so--the sugar will still make it more enjoyable, it's liable to be the cookies or the ice cream that gets my attention. Butter wins if you take out the unfair competition.

HAES is a self-delusion pipe dream. Some sizes are objectively unhealthy.

I think the trick is to "listen to your body" after we eat.

How does it make us feel? How's our blood sugar, blood pressure, and CRP? Do we have a working system or a lot of tummy aches and gas, bathroom troubles and heartburn?

How do we sleep? How do we play? We have to look at the whole picture.

Before Atkins, I would battle through my afternoon feeling like someone had shot one of those sleepy darts into my back. Turns out, that was entirely due to what I ate for lunch. It didn't matter so much what I was in the mood for. I was tired of eating something that was trying to knock me out like a Mickey Finn.

This is a really good way of putting it. :thup:

Another point: listen to your body after you've eliminated unacceptable options. I think there could be something to the idea that you crave foods that contain certain nutrients that you might be lacking, but without limits, the sensible voice is going to be drowned out by the screaming of your inner two-year-old who just wants a party in his/her mouth and wants it NOW. So just like you were parenting a two-year-old, you need to set limits and allow choices within those limits.

I think a key to my success at LC eating has been to always have lots of acceptable LC foods on hand. In that context, yes, I "listen to my body." Maybe I planned on having chicken and broccoli for dinner, but what I'm really in the mood for turns out to be salmon and mushrooms. Okay then.

Similarly, I get what I call anti-cravings. There are foods I normally like, but I'm turned off by them, for whatever reason. *shrug*

I believe in health at every size this far--even if weight loss is for some reason very difficult, there are still often things that can be done to improve health. And for a lot of people, a low carb diet or paleo etc. can give health improvements (or at least things that will lead to better health) immediately--lower or even normalized blood glucose, lower insulin, lower blood pressure, improved blood lipids, before much if any weight has been lost. But saying that increased body fat in and of itself can't have some direct adverse effects on health really just isn't true.

Anti-cravings... alcohol becomes sort of yucky when I go more keto, I get a real aversion to it.

I'm not. Came to LC six years ago after reading the chapter in Gary Taubes GC, BC on Cancer and Dementia,and there has been nothing but many more studies in those six years since linking obesity and cancer. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27168354
Taubes has a similar chapter in his new book, The Case Against Sugar, starting with the 2003 CDC report that overweight men and woman have a 50-60% increased risk of many common cancers. So no, there are sizes that are unhealthy...maybe not at age 30 but in a lifetime.
http://www.obesity.org/resources/fa.../cancer-obesity

I completely agree with the HAES concept of "acceptance," because bigotry is always wrong.

But there's a tinge of fanaticism; there's a blog of a lady who had to lose weight because of a health condition, and found a way to do so; but instead of supporting her, she was viciously attacked.

That's a warning sign of NOT acceptance.

Several years back I spend a fair amount of time exploring the fat acceptance folks. They tend to confuse the social justice aspect of things, with which I entirely agree, with the scientific/medical aspect of things. I noticed the same thing, if anyone lost weight they were villified whatever the reason for the weight loss and whatever the method.

Jean

This is personal to me, and right now, too:

I was a great success on Atkins, but a few years ago my health took an endocrine downturn and (proof of concept!) I gained back some of what I lost.

I finally got a grip on it all, which means I can now start losing weight again. None of this is my fault; none of this has anything to do with who I am as a person; and it sheds no disservice on low carb.

In fact, without low carb and what I have learned about health and nutrition here... I wouldn't be here on Earth at all.