We aren't all the same.

The calorie numbers recommended by the BMR or RMR charts don't apply to every individual body.

Bodies of the same age and size don't ALL use the same amount of energy, even when their activity levels are similar. Even when the amount of "Calories-in" is the same, the difference in the amount of "Calories-out" can cause different weight results.

Like the author of the article below, I've seen very little acknowledgement, understanding, or acceptance of this very basic truth. I've found that, in general, people are surprisingly resistant to the concept.

Why “Put Down the Cheesburger” is BS
                         by noceleryplease www. fiercefreethinkingfatties.com

So there’s this woman I was talking to last week.

She and I are pretty much the same height.  I am probably 10, maybe 12 pounds heavier than her.  We both exercise, I think, very similar amounts… although she does have a job where she is up and about more than my sedentary desk job.
So we have these two people who are both maintaining a similar lifestyle.

And I happened to be talking about what I would typically eat in a day, and her response was… “That would barely last me through lunch”.

Wait…  two people of similar build don’t require the same food intake to maintain that similar weight?

Hmmmmm…. now this comes as no shock to me, because I know that different people have different metabolisms, and the fact that even though I am heavier than her, I have to eat about a third LESS than her to maintain my weight, well, it’s just one of those things that JUST IS.

But it got me to thinking about all those people in the comments that I refuse to read and how they are all always all “Put down the cheeseburger, fatty” and telling people how to live their lives.

And it occurs to me, that these people may, in fact, really think that significant, permanent weight loss could be achieved, if only the fat people would stop stuffing their faces… because obviously, the only reason someone would be fat is if they were eating ridiculous amounts of food every day.

And why would they think that?

I suspect it might have something to do with the fact they they, at whatever weight they are at, are able to maintain that weight with a fairly comfortable intake of food.  They are not feeling restricted with their intake.  They get to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner.  And sometimes “indulge” in “bad” foods, etc…

So if they can maintain their weight, with what they consider to be a perfectly satisfying amount of food,  why couldn’t someone else just eat the same as them?  Why, oh, why, would they be DESTROYING our country, just for the sake of being able to stuff their faces with baby flavored donuts?

And the answer, of course, is… “Hey, JackAss, how’d you like to live on what it would take someone else to maintain your weight?”

Doing a little math here…

The Mayo Clinic handy online calorie calculator tells me that at my age, height and activity level, I should eat 2050 calories a day to maintain my weight.

To this I say… Ha!  Ha Ha Ha Ha!  and also, Ha!

Maintaining my weight requires only about 80% of that number – around 1600 to 1700 calories a day.

But there are TONS AND TONS of people out there for whom the 2050 mark is correct, and they go around eating 2050 calories a day, which to me sounds like a pretty decent amount of food, and they maintain their weight with no trouble, and they wonder why other people are so fat, because they are maintaining their weight just fine on 2050 calories a day, so why would other people EAT MORE THAN THAT AND GET SO FAT?

And the answer to that question is…  “Hey, Jackass, if I ate 2050 calories a day, I am not sure where my weight would end up, but I can guarantee you it’d be more than you, and you would look at me and wonder why I was so fat and assume it was because of all the cake, EVEN THOUGH I AM EATING EXACTLY THE SAME AS YOU!!”

So let’s just imagine one of these comment trolls for a moment.  Let’s say this troll is, 6ft 2in.  And, let’s put him in the “normal BMI range at 185 pounds. We’ll make him 35 years old, and, lightly active (the Mayo Clinic defines that as moderate exercise 2 or 3 times a week).

So our hypothetical guy there, he needs 2550 calories a day to maintain his weight.

I have seen 2500 calorie meal plans… that’s a fair amount of food that guy gets to eat.  I’d bet he’s pretty happy with that.  Happy enough that he feels pretty justified in thinking that anyone who eats MORE than him is just a disgusting slob who is draining the economy and health care system with his unceasing demands!

But what if our guy suddenly woke up one day to find that he couldn’t maintain his weight any longer at that “normal” amount of intake.  What if he, like me, could only eat 80% of that amount.  EVERY DAY….  FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE…   or else he would gain weight.

I wonder how he would feel about that?  Would he be quite so smug and secure about “maintaining his weight”?

If he had been happy consuming 2500 calories a day, would he, I wonder… “Put down the cheeseburger?” or “Back away from the table?” in order to cut out the extra calories?

Or would he think that having to get by on around 2000 calories a day was somewhat unreasonable?  Perhaps he would find himself being hungry, even after he got his “limit” of calories.  Maybe he would eat a little more, here and there, to keep from feeling unpleasant, or restricted.

Maybe he would even just keep on eating his 2500 calories a day and gain some weight… and maybe he would think that it was, perhaps, nobody else’s damn business if he was gaining weight, because he’s just eating like every other person and for some reason, it’s just not doing the same thing to him as to everyone else.

Sigh.

The problem is, I think, that until that troll wakes up one day and suddenly finds himself having to live on a permanently restricted diet (and, let’s face it, that’s likely not going to happen because biology doesn’t quite work that way)… he is NEVER going to grasp or understand that there are people in the world who could follow him around all day, eat and do exactly what he does, AND WEIGH A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WEIGHT THAN HIM.

It just does not compute, because we have been told “calories in / calories out” for so long, that people forget that the calories out can actually vary, and “your results may not be similar”.

And I just don’t know how to convince people who have this idea.  I really don’t.

See DietHobby's ARCHIVES for more on this issue.

A Calorie Deficit 

Calories: males vs females

Running down the Up Escalator

Records: My past 8 years 

The Fat Trap

The article below says 
something that really needed saying.

 Real Food

        By Michelle - November 11, 2013 - www. fatnutritionist.com

“Real food” is a term I dislike almost as much as “real women,” and for many of the same reasons.

On occasion, I run into this idea coupled with the concept of intuitive eating. People will proclaim how much they believe in permission and fulfilling your hunger and eating whatever you want (so far, so good)…but with one small caveat (uh-oh.) Permission and eating as much as you’re hungry for and eating what you like are, apparently, only legitimate if the food being eaten meets some mysterious criteria that imbues it with that holiest of all holy contemporary food values, the coveted title of “real food.”

For some people, real food means “food I make entirely at home from scratch [for varying values of 'from scratch.']” For some, it means “mainly plant-based foods with a smattering of dairy and animal protein.” For others, it means “entirely raw foods that have not been cooked.” And for yet others, it might mean anything from “a vegetarian diet” to “mostly meat and certain vegetables and no grains” to “a vegan diet composed entirely of homemade food” to “I grow everything I eat on my own land, including grains which I mill into flour myself and then deep-fry unrepentantly.”

There is a lot of wiggle-room in this term.

Before I go further, it is important for me to make it crystal clear that for people who choose to eat in one of these ways, I say good for you. I sincerely hope you enjoy it and feel great. Rock on. I am all for people making very personal choices about what foods they eat and don’t eat. I think the above are all decent options, but most importantly, it doesn’t matter what I think, because your body belongs to you. Personal autonomy around food is the driving force behind this entire website.

The problem is that I’ve met very few people who make personal choices of the “real food” persuasion without also pressuring those around them…without also proclaiming that the foods most people rely on to survive are inherently inferior…without also implying that the reason the rest of us are fat, or poor, or don’t have shiny hair, or don’t walk around perpetually bathed in magical sunbeams of happiness, is entirely because we eat the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad food — the food that is not Real.

(To those who can make such choices without also being rude about other people’s food choice, I give my unalloyed thanks.)

That large caveat disposed of, I will now proceed to my central argument, which is this:

                     All foods, like all women, are real.

No, this does not mean that all foods are nutritionally equivalent, or that all foods are good for all people in all situations, but it does mean that choices around food must be individual, that all food choices can be valid, depending on the person and the circumstances, and that universal pronouncements on a food’s relative realness are not helpful or, well…real.

“Real food” is not a real thing. Because what constitutes food is too many things.

There is no One True Way to Eat. Most people tend to accept this as a generality, and express mild agreement through such aphorisms as “Do what works for you,” “Your mileage may vary,” etc. But I’m afraid general, mild agreement with the idea that different people are different does not quite do justice to the reality. Thankfully, I can provide you with a little glimpse into that reality.

The reality is, even foods we tend to recognize as universally wholesome and healthy are not actually appropriate for everyone. Bodies differ and circumstances also differ. For example, our universally beloved super food, kale (or leafy greens other than kale), is considered a food to avoid (along with a bunch of other “healthy” foods like whole grains, legumes, and many fruits and vegetables) for people with kidney disease who require a low potassium diet.

Eating more sodium instead of less sodium can actually be a critical thing for people who experience hypotension — when I was working in the hospital, we actually had to stop purchasing a popular brand of bouillon for this purpose when they lowered the sodium in their product in an attempt to provide a healthier option to consumers. Well, it wasn’t healthier for our patients on tube feeds, some of whom required a sodium boost between feedings — in fact it was quite dangerous.

And while you may be tempted to write off hospitalized patients as the exception to the rule, they are consumers too, and there are far more people with serious medical conditions in the world than our culture allows us to be aware of.

Some of them are kept out of sight and out of mind in hospitals (except to those of us who work there), but many more are living their lives and buying their food right alongside us. I wish we could all be a little more aware of that, and I wish food companies and public health nutrition education campaigns alike would take these very real and present needs into account, rather than continually and exclusively prioritizing the speculative health needs of the generally well.

Right this minute, there is someone going through chemotherapy shopping at your grocery store, buying popsicles and ice cream to help their sore mouth, and worrying what the cashier is going to think.

There is someone on hemodialysis buying white bread instead of whole wheat, trying to keep their phosphorus levels reasonable between appointments and hoping for the best.

There is a person attending intensive outpatient treatment for their eating disorder who has been challenged by their therapist to buy a Frappuccino.

There are dietitians picking up a dozen different candy bars to eat with their clients, who feel ashamed and guilty about enjoying them.

There is someone who just doesn’t have it in them to cook right now, and this frozen pizza and canned soup will keep them going.

There are people recovering from chronic dieting and semi-starvation who are buying chocolate and chips at their deprived body’s insistence.

All around us are people listening to what their bodies need and attempting to make the best possible choice within a context of overwhelming food pressure. All of their choices are valid, and every single one of these foods is “real.”

It is not a coincidence that the foods popularly imbued with “realness” map so cleanly onto class-related ideas of healthy, high-status food. Yes, they may be nourishing and wonderful, but these foods also tend to require more resources to acquire or prepare.

Those resources might be financial, in the case of going out to eat at a splendid restaurant, or they might be temporal and energetic, in the case of high-quality raw ingredients that require careful shopping, preparation, and cooking. They might even be educational, in the case of culturally novel foods requiring that you learn of their existence in the first place, and then have the knowledge and skill to render them into something edible to you. Resources can also be emotional and psychological, in the form of having a good relationship with food and being lucky enough not to feel either overly compliant with, or stubbornly rebellious against, cultural messages telling you what and how to eat.

None of it comes cheap.

It is wonderful if you have these resources and inclinations, and if the resulting food choices work well with your unique needs, but it is also lucky. Which means you should appreciate your good fortune enough not to go around spoiling other people’s food choices by insinuating that only yours are real.

If food is keeping someone, somewhere alive, then it is real enough. 

"Be Hungry all the time

so that other people

will like the way you look?

That's just dumb."

It seems that "Eating Healthy"  was a problem even 60+ years ago.
See this 1951 propaganda film for amusing and erroneous advice.

The message here:  "the way you ate made you sick"  is very similar to "the way you ate made you fat".  Both messages attach Blame for personal behavior. 

I find the film's portrayal of a "normal" sized family interesting.  Although the population here in the 2010s is generally heavier than the 1950s population, each member of this family (including the children) appeared to be heavier than the people who are commonly shown in most of today's food commercials.  

Mom appears to have a BMI well-above the Obesity border, and Dad's BMI probably is over that border as well .. although his weight might fall merely in the high-area of the Overweight BMI range. The girl (teenage?) appeared to have a mid-normal BMI -- which isn't thin enough for today's skinny jeans, and the pre-adolescent boy would need to wear relaxed-fit pants.

Look at the amount of food served here, and how much everyone was instructed to eat.  Although the film depicts the time of my own childhood, I was seldom served, or even allowed to eat,  such a large meal.  There are a great many calories in: a 4 to 6 oz glass of Juice, bowl of cereal, couple of eggs, a couple of pieces of bacon, some buttered toast and 8-10 oz glass of whole-milk.  About 1,000 + calories, which is actually MORE calories than my body (as a small, sedentary, elderly, female) will burn in an entire day.

Did anyone REALLY ever believe that a healthy person will get a stomach ache from:

• eating a small amount of food really fast,

          or

• eating only a few bites at dinner due to an afternoon snack of a small sugared soda and candy bar?

Also notice how small the boy's soda bottle was.  And how just he tossed away the empty bottle and candy wrappers … although he was outside with NO waste containers anywhere about.

The difficulties of eating "Healthy".

 
Graphic by:  This is Not a Diet - its your life.