Obese Man to Sue NHS for letting him get fat.

[mistermack]

OK, so how are you going to do that? Entirely apart from the expense of controlling the behaviors of a large sample of people, how are you going to measure the calories in shit? It isn't an easy thing to do, nor is it obvious which way to do it.

Estimates of calories in food come from burning various food components in calorimeters, calibrating from particular foods that are known to be high in one thing or another (dried egg whites, for example, are almost entirely protein). Shit, however, is a mixture of so much stuff that it's very hard to tell how much of it is not only calorific but consists of calories that could have been digested in other people. At the very least, you'd have to have some fairly massive and meticulous processing of large quantities of shit.

You might be able to control for this somewhat by giving the people a diet extremely low in cellulose, but since such a diet is viewed as extremely unhealthy, how are you going to get your experiment reviewed and passed?

Well, I'm not a shit technologist, but I would not process ALL the shit, I would simply WEIGH all of it, and take regular tiny samples.
Dry them out, burn them in controlled conditions, and measure the heat output.
No need to seperate it out, you just want an average calorific value per gram of shit.
X 1000 gives you calories per kilo.
That's enough for me. I'm not obsessed with shit, just curious about whether some people could extract a significantly higher proportion of the stored energy in food than others.
.

[JimC]

So can obsessive jogging, cunnilingus and flying in a hot air balloon. It doesn't make calling them addictions helpful in any way

Well, I'd say the exact opposite.
It's hard to get an alcoholic to fight his addiction, until they admit to themselves that they are actually addicted. Once you get your head round the fact that you are out of control, you stand a chance of beating it.
While you keep kidding yourself that you can lose the weight "if you really wanted to", you don't stand much chance of making a change.

I'm not offering addiction as some sort of excuse here. That picture in my avatar isn't actually me, you know!
(it's my little brother)

I agree, mostly. Even if it is not technically addiction, and we call it a compulsion to eat, it has many of the same effects. You have to address this personal aspect first, or all the cool, logical advice in the world, no matter whether it would work perfectly when followed, will have no effect at all...

[Warren Dew]

I am willing to bet, though, that for all his debunking of 100 years of modern nutritional science, he never tells us that there are foods we can eat 4000 calories a day of, lay around on our asses, and still lose weight. I'll wait to see if I'm proven wrong on that.

I haven't read this book of his yet, but based on his previous book and lectures, one example would be that you can eat a pound and a quarter of bacon a day including the drippings, which will come to over 4000 kcal, and not gain weight - as long as you don't eat any other foods to go with it. What's more, some people have actualy tried that experiment - substituting butter for some of the bacon drippings - and been successful.

I suspect the reason this works is because a significant fraction of the excess fat gets excreted in the absence of carb driven insulin spikes to get the fat cells to absorb it. Dr. Michael Eades thinks it's because body metabolism increases to burn the excess fat, again because of the absence of insulin spikes to drive fat storage. Either way, it's an example of how eating more calories does not necessarily result in weight gain, even with no change in exercise.

As for Taubes' articles, please link one. I'm willing to bet I can show you in a quote where he is giving away "the secret", as you put it, and you just didn't notice it because you ignored it.

[Warren Dew]

While I don't disagree that he ate way too many calories, I am going to start taking issue with your claims (which you have made numerous times in the McDonald's thread) that the key to losing weight is simply eating less calories or burning more calories. I can't go into great detail now as I am still reading the book, but there was, and is some good science that shows this is not the case.

Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It

May I offer an early welcome to low carbs.

Of course, if the NHS could be sued for ignoring that advice, every overweight person in the UK would probably have a case.

[Coito ergo sum]

So can obsessive jogging, cunnilingus and flying in a hot air balloon. It doesn't make calling them addictions helpful in any way

Well, I'd say the exact opposite.
It's hard to get an alcoholic to fight his addiction, until they admit to themselves that they are actually addicted. Once you get your head round the fact that you are out of control, you stand a chance of beating it.
While you keep kidding yourself that you can lose the weight "if you really wanted to", you don't stand much chance of making a change.

I'm not offering addiction as some sort of excuse here. That picture in my avatar isn't actually me, you know!
(it's my little brother)

I agree, mostly. Even if it is not technically addiction, and we call it a compulsion to eat, it has many of the same effects. You have to address this personal aspect first, or all the cool, logical advice in the world, no matter whether it would work perfectly when followed, will have no effect at all...

50 years ago, Americans were generally not overweight - maybe about 15% of the population, as I recall. Today, 65% of the population is overweight. What happened? A genetic mutation en masse making most of us addicted to food or contract an obsessive compulsive disorder?

Isn't it just possible at all that what happened is that the culture changed, and the average number of calories people eat per day increased, while the number of calories we burn per day decreased (due to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle), and lo and behold the percentage of overweight people increased? After all, the numbers back that up. It's a straight line correlation better than the "hockey stick" global warming graph. Our food intake started going up about 50 years ago, and that's also when television watching and other non-active activities went up as well (reducing the amount of calories we needed to burn to move around). Lawnmowers changed from non-powered push-cutters, to power drive mowers to riding mowers. Walking to school went away. The video game was invented in the 70s. Outdoor activities steadily declined over time.... eat more...exercise less..........gain weight..... isn't that a simpler explanation than arguing that 1/2 the population contracted an addictive/obsessive disorder when previously only a small fraction of the population suffered from that disorder?

[Coito ergo sum]

I am willing to bet, though, that for all his debunking of 100 years of modern nutritional science, he never tells us that there are foods we can eat 4000 calories a day of, lay around on our asses, and still lose weight. I'll wait to see if I'm proven wrong on that.

I haven't read this book of his yet, but based on his previous book and lectures, one example would be that you can eat a pound and a quarter of bacon a day including the drippings, which will come to over 4000 kcal, and not gain weight - as long as you don't eat any other foods to go with it.

Easy theory to test. A clinical study of 50 volunteers should do it. I wonder if anyone has done that?

That may work given some mechanism in the body that blows out most of those calories out the rear blow hole, or some way the body keeps from using the material to build mass. However, nobody is going to go through life eating only bacon. So, even on the chance that there is some mechanism triggered by depriving the body of needed carbohydrates and other materials besides fat and protein, that causes the bacon to shat out, it's not something that is particularly helpful given the negative health impact.

What's more, some people have actualy tried that experiment - substituting butter for some of the bacon drippings - and been successful.

I find anecdotes interesting, but when it comes to diets and exercise, people quite often do not accurately report their own behaviors. They don't always purposefully lie, but rather they under-report calories in and over-report exercise.

As for Taubes' articles, please link one. I'm willing to bet I can show you in a quote where he is giving away "the secret", as you put it, and you just didn't notice it because you ignored it.

Believe me - I read a couple of his articles in great detail. I'm not out to "ignore" anything. Google Taubes and words like diet eat gain etc. Some will come up.

Don't just look for claims, though. Look for proof.

[Sisifo]

carbohydrates are not needed. Protein, yes. Micronutrients, yes. Fat (essential fatty acids), yes. If you lack any of those, you die. Skimos, Masai and some other ethnic groups have not a gram of carbs in the diet. The ketogenetic diet necessary in some cases for epileptics, has lminuscule carbs.
Calories are just a measure of energetic potential. It is a substance (and not its burnning potential) and its storage potential according to many transformation processes which are determined by the levels of other substances (sugar, ketosis, glycogen...) what creates mass in the body, or eliminates it.

[mistermack]

50 years ago, Americans were generally not overweight - maybe about 15% of the population, as I recall. Today, 65% of the population is overweight. What happened? A genetic mutation en masse making most of us addicted to food or contract an obsessive compulsive disorder?

Isn't it just possible at all that what happened is that the culture changed, and the average number of calories people eat per day increased, while the number of calories we burn per day decreased (due to an increasingly sedentary lifestyle), and lo and behold the percentage of overweight people increased? After all, the numbers back that up. It's a straight line correlation better than the "hockey stick" global warming graph. Our food intake started going up about 50 years ago, and that's also when television watching and other non-active activities went up as well (reducing the amount of calories we needed to burn to move around). Lawnmowers changed from non-powered push-cutters, to power drive mowers to riding mowers. Walking to school went away. The video game was invented in the 70s. Outdoor activities steadily declined over time.... eat more...exercise less..........gain weight..... isn't that a simpler explanation than arguing that 1/2 the population contracted an addictive/obsessive disorder when previously only a small fraction of the population suffered from that disorder?

Calling it a disorder doesn't really get at the truth. It's only a disorder from the point of view of modern lifestyles. We evolved as hunter/gatherers, travelling on foot over rough country, climbing trees etc. etc. to find our food.

You needed many more calories per day to survive, because you expended a lot of energy catching and collecting your food.
We are still set up for that lifestyle, nothing has changed. We have not evolved to sit in front of a screen all day, or to drive home, and get a weeks food in one half hour at the supermarket.
The tendency to constantly nibble, and eat more is hard-wired into us over hundreds of millions of years. It's not surprising some of us can't cope with the change. What might manifest as a "disorder" or addictive trait today, would have been a life-preserver to our ancestors.

As you say, even fifty years ago, it was not that much of a problem, with kids playing outdoors and adults walking far more, and fewer labour-saving gadgets.

It's not that people are contracting a compulsive disorder, the tendency has always been there, and now it's a real mismatch between our evolution, and our lifestyle.

You can call it addiction, disorder, or mismatch, the facts for the people experiencing it are the same. It's in our genes, hard-wired into our brains, and today causes us problems.
What today manifests as a harmful addiction, fifty years ago might have been relatively harmless good appetite, and a million years ago, a life saving trait.

If you're one of the ones who it causes problems for, you've got two options, go back to huning and gathering, or somehow overcome the tendencies which you have inherited. And it's not easy. Make it easy, and you'll make a fortune.
.

[Coito ergo sum]

If you're one of the ones who it causes problems for, you've got two options, go back to huning and gathering, or somehow overcome the tendencies which you have inherited. And it's not easy. Make it easy, and you'll make a fortune.
.

Nobody here - especially not me - has ever said it was "easy." It's not easy. It is simple, but it's not easy.

[Coito ergo sum]

http://49th-parallel.blogspot.com/2010/ ... e-and.html

A new study by the British Heart Foundation found that in the year 2000, the average British man was 16.9 pounds heavier than in 1986. The reason? Well believe it or not it was because they have been eating crappy food and not getting enough exercise.

They got some sharp cookies over there.

By studying official figures on body weight from 1986 and 2000 and calculating the food energy available during that time, researchers were able to work out the expected extra food eaten by men and women during that period. Not sure how the researchers figured out how much food was consumed but like I said these people are really sharp. The study was published in the British Journal of Nutrition.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12067344

"The problem is really how people are getting around. They are driving more, cycling less and more likely to be employed in a sedentary job.

"Physical activity is slowly being removed from day-to-day life."

In England, 25% of men were classed as obese in 2008.

This compares with only 7% who were obese in 1986.

Wow...that's about the same obesity rate as in the US.....lol ...fatties!

[mistermack]

If you're one of the ones who it causes problems for, you've got two options, go back to huning and gathering, or somehow overcome the tendencies which you have inherited. And it's not easy. Make it easy, and you'll make a fortune.
.

Nobody here - especially not me - has ever said it was "easy." It's not easy. It is simple, but it's not easy.

Of course it's simple physically. Just eat less. Simple!!!
Mental problems always seem simple to people who don't experience them.
Depressed? Fuckin cheer up!!!
Panic attacks? Pull yoursef together.
Phobia? Flying is safer that driving.
Simple!!!
There's nothing simple about having your stomach reduced.
.

[Warren Dew]

Easy theory to test. A clinical study of 50 volunteers should do it. I wonder if anyone has done that?

You may say "easy", but I've never seen a controlled experiment of any diet with 50 people. Paying 50 people full time to stay in a metabolic ward so you can control their food intake is apparently far too expensive to get funding for.

So, even on the chance that there is some mechanism triggered by depriving the body of needed carbohydrates and other materials besides fat and protein, that causes the bacon to shat out, it's not something that is particularly helpful given the negative health impact.

As Sisifo points out, there's no such thing as "needed carbohydrates".

As for Taubes' articles, please link one. I'm willing to bet I can show you in a quote where he is giving away "the secret", as you put it, and you just didn't notice it because you ignored it.

Believe me - I read a couple of his articles in great detail. I'm not out to "ignore" anything. Google Taubes and words like diet eat gain etc. Some will come up.

The first thing with quotes from Taubes that comes up is this:

http://web.mit.edu/knight-science/fello ... aubes.html

It says "Atkins" in his first paragraph. I guess you weren't reading carefully.

[Coito ergo sum]

If you're one of the ones who it causes problems for, you've got two options, go back to huning and gathering, or somehow overcome the tendencies which you have inherited. And it's not easy. Make it easy, and you'll make a fortune.
.

Nobody here - especially not me - has ever said it was "easy." It's not easy. It is simple, but it's not easy.

Of course it's simple physically. Just eat less. Simple!!!
Mental problems always seem simple to people who don't experience them.
Depressed? Fuckin cheer up!!!
Panic attacks? Pull yoursef together.
Phobia? Flying is safer that driving.
Simple!!!
There's nothing simple about having your stomach reduced.
.

Only a very small percentage of overweight people have their stomachs reduced. There is a difference between overweight, obese, morbidly obese, etc. And, it's really not a complex medical procedure, anyway. There's nothing "minor" about having one's stomach reduced - I'll give you that. It's a serious, serious thing. But, let's not take the most extreme examples and pretend that they are typical of 50% of the population.

[Coito ergo sum]

As Sisifo points out, there's no such thing as "needed carbohydrates".

That most certainly is not true. Carbohydrates are important for the body. A healthy diet is a good balance between proteins, carbohydrates and fats, with sufficient vitamins and minerals for the body, good amounts of fiber and vegetables.

As for Taubes' articles, please link one. I'm willing to bet I can show you in a quote where he is giving away "the secret", as you put it, and you just didn't notice it because you ignored it.

Believe me - I read a couple of his articles in great detail. I'm not out to "ignore" anything. Google Taubes and words like diet eat gain etc. Some will come up.

The first thing with quotes from Taubes that comes up is this:

http://web.mit.edu/knight-science/fello ... aubes.html[/quote]

And? Where does he reveal the secret of weight loss by having a 2,000 calorie a day surplus?

It says "Atkins" in his first paragraph. I guess you weren't reading carefully.[/quote]

[Sisifo]

No. Many things are necessary. That means that if you don't eat them, you die. Carbohydrates are not one of those.