Tue, Jul-02-02, 08:31
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Senior Member
Posts: 2,193
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Plan: mostly paleo
Stats: //
BF:also don't care
Progress: 100%
Location: West Coast, USA
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If you're interested, Levi, read Adiposity 101, on the web. Also hunt down articles by David Garner, Susan Wooley, other so-called "anti-diet" researchers.
The main non-glandular cause of childhood obesity is overeating, often on the heels of horrible physical or sexual abuse (sometimes living in the face of drug addicted parents can "do it" for sensitive children), In effect, children numb this unthinkable pain with the brain chemicals that sweets produce.
The main cause of adult obesity is low-cal dieting. Every low cal diet lowers metabolism. Every inevitiable regain of weight on the heels of one adds fat cells (the only time you can add fat cells other than 0-3 years, puberty, and pregnancy).
this last ends up being pretty ironic. Most of the fat people you see got there not through a dirth of dietary self-control, but through too much. Like me, they probably have lived years and years on 500 calorie/day diets or less. This is REALLY hard to do--try it for a couple years and see!--and all it does is change your set point weight up by X pounds (probably differs from individual to individual) per year while lowering your metabolism permanently.
For me, I'd say my set point went up by 5 pounds per year of VLCDs. And my metabolism lowered, so that now, any calorie intake over 1600, even doing two hours of exercise per day, even eating low carb, causes weight gain. I'll be interested to see the long-term effect of this. It's quite possible that steady low-cal eating can extend one's lifespan. If the cardiac damage I did myself with those diets doesn't catch up to me, heck, I might live to 140! (er, must go re-calculate retirement planning)
HTH. There's some great medical journal reading out there (not the popular press stuff, which is bullshit), and if you want to educate yourself, that'd be wonderful. I love to see folks educate themselves out of whatever sorts of prejudices they have. It gives me faith in a better world.
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