Reply to not so subtle weight comments from DH ruining my vacation

Forum Index » Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)

Reply to "not so subtle weight comments from DH ruining my vacation"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I believe the studies that show very few people can sustain weight loss, but I don't think it's for any physiological reason. I'm hypothesizing that the reason is because people who are inclined to let themselves gain a great deal of weight have personality qualities (e.g., lack of self-discipline, tendency toward emotional eating) that prevent them from losing weight sustainably. For those who've seen the literature, has this been disproven?[/quote]

Eating patterns are a huge part of why people regain weight, even after drastic stomach and intestinal mutilation in order to lose weight.  But there are also really powerful hormonal and metabolic shifts when fat cells become "activated".  You never actually lose the fat cells themselves (except during liposuction).  They continue to excrete hormones, even after you have lost weight, that are screaming for a person to eat more and that dramatically alter hunger/satiation signals.

More recent groundbreaking research comparing the gut bacteria of obese vs. thin individuals shoes that intestinal flora have a profound effect on how substances are digested and how nutrients are absorbed.  On a simple level, many really obese people can eat the exact same food as a thin person - precisely the same calories - but convert more of the food to energy.  I used to marvel that my skinny college roommate could eat three times more pizza than me and never get fat.  Well, I wasn't imagining things, or so recent studies suggest.  In mouse studies, obese mice were colonized with "skinny" gut bacteria and quickly became thin.  The opposite has also been shown.  So, if a fat person's fat cells are generating hormones that say keep eating keep eating more than a thin person's do, and on top of that the gut is actually processing the food much more efficiently, then a fat person will get fatter eating the same calories but will also feel much more hungry than a thin person.  It's not necessarily lack of willpower...they may actually feel way, way more hunger than you do, so need far more willpower than you do.

As a fat person, all of this new research makes me way more passionate about preventing people from becoming fat in the first place.  I desperately wish that "common knowledge" and media hype would catch up with actual scientific research and be really honest with us that once you become really fat, it is almost impossible to lose the weight, so don't be so casual about gaining it assuming that if you just work really harder you can take it off.  Your body turns against you in a profound way. Which for me stresses the importance of being honest with fat people that the goal of healthy behaviors should be better health and fitness, not primarily weight loss.   Don't stop going to the gym if you are still fat after 6 months.  Don't give up eating well, because eating well is the goal in itself.  It's really, really hard to accept yourself and continue healthfully if weight loss is not happening, though, because society heaps so much loathing and recrimination on us for not losing weight despite efforts.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics