By now, anyone who spends any time with me here at DietHobby, probably knows a great deal about my personal dieting, weight-loss and maintenance history, and is familiar with my 8 year + ongoing struggle to maintain my body at a normal size after years of yo-yo 100+ lb losses and dealing with the issues of morbid obesity.

If not, you can see my recent STATUS UPDATE, which includes a couple of very relevant links.

My weight is now in the “normal” range, and it takes constant vigilance for me to keep it there. What most “average” people have difficulty grasping is that my struggle is not caused by trying to keep my weight “too low”. Ten years ago when I weighed in the 190s, I struggled to stay under 200 lbs. Twenty years ago, before my RNY gastric bypass at 271 lbs, my highest weight ever, I was engaged in an ongoing struggle to keep from gaining even more weight.

Despite all of my nutritional knowledge and dieting experience, I know without a doubt that the result of “listening to my body” and eating what my body tells me to eat will return me to my highest weight. There are many articles here in the DietHobby ARCHIVES that deal with the specifics of this issue in detail.

A great deal of current research has indicated that overweight or obese people aren’t necessarily less “healthy” than normal weight people. This has also been my own lifetime observation and I am in agreement with that line of thought.

So WHY, here in my late 60s, do I continue to engage in this struggle? Why not relax and just “eat healthy” and let my body get as fat as it wants to get? I’m in excellent health for my age, come from “healthy” genetic stock, and take no prescription drugs, great blood pressure, and no medical conditions, except for my tendency toward obesity.. Even though I’m in excellent health for my age, I’m elderly, so it is unlikely that I have more than 10 to 20 lifetime years left.

Recently I posted some videos of an ongoing BBC series called “The Men Who Made Us Thin”.

It reminded me of my personal history in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and forward, and I thought about the fact that almost all of the people who helped me create my personal anti-fat bias are now dead. Their opinions, which were once crucial to me, are now meaningless. All of my present family and friends love and accept me at any size, fat or thin.

I have no wish to share here all of the details of my innermost psyche about this issue, but I bring it up because as part of my Dieting Hobby, I’ve been watching quite a few people who are adopting the principles of “Health at Every Size”, and are working to Accept whatever size …. no matter how obese…. their body wishes them to be. I find them interesting and admirable.

Here at normal weight, I have no intention of adopting this philosophy for myself and allow my body to return to morbid obesity, but if I were still at my top weight I think I might consider it.

Previously I shared an article and dancing video of a woman embraces the concept: “It’s Not Really About the Fat – Health At Any Size”.  Here is another of her articles which is worth a great deal of consideration.

  Do Diets Fail or Do Dieters Fail? 
         by Ragen Chastain. 
             Dancer, Choreographer, Writer, Speaker, Fat Person.

I got a question from a blog reader that I wanted to talk about:

I have a question! I have non-FA (fat acceptance) friends who think that most diets don’t work not because of metabolism or anything like that, but because the actual dieter is weak-willed. They think that people regain the weight plus some because they stop doing the diet or attending Weight Watchers or whatever it is they have chosen to do. In contrast, I think that even if one stays on the diet religiously, still metabolism will change and the weight will be regained in the majority of cases. What do you think?

This is basic math. Studies show that the vast majority of diets fail. Even Meme Roth says that the failure rate is around 95%. Somehow people still believe that it’s because 95% of people just aren’t doing it right.

In truth, there is a lot of research about the physiological changes the body goes through in response to weight loss for the specific goal of weight regain. An Australian research team studied people who had lost weight in an effort to understand some of these changes. A year after their initial weight loss:

• A hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism – Leptin – was still lower than normal

• Ghrelin, nicknamed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher

• Peptide YY, a hormone associated with hunger suppression was abnormally low

• Participants reported being much more hungry and preoccupied with food then they had prior to losing weight

A year after losing weight these people’s bodies were still biologically different than they had been prior to the weight loss attempt, desperately working to regain the weight – and participants had already regained about 30% of the weight they had lost. One of the study’s authors characterized it as “A coordinated defense mechanism with multiple components all directed toward making us put on weight.”

So it does appear that the body fights weight loss strongly. There are other studies that show the same things, as well as studies that show genetics play a large part.

What I want to point out is the fact that, regardless of why a treatment doesn’t work, if it fails 95% of the time then there is an problem with the treatment and an issue with meeting the criteria for evidence-based medicine, and that is the situation with dieting.

The thing that blew my mind when I realized it (thanks to the brilliant Deb Burgard) is that the entire basis of prescribing weight loss for greater health is built on a guess. There is not a single study that shows that people who lose weight have the same health outcomes as people who were never fat, or better outcomes than if they had just engaged in healthy habits and stayed fat. This whole thing is just a guess – so all the work and money going into figuring out how to make fat people thin so that we can be “healthier” may be a complete waste.
So it’s not just that it doesn’t appear that long-term weight loss is possible for most people – it’s also that, when it comes to health, weight loss may not even be a worthy goal.

What’s ridiculous to me is that it’s not being widely publicized that we have a mountain of evidence that shows that healthy habits are the best chance for healthy bodies of all sizes. Plenty of studies show that people who get 30 minutes of moderate movement 5 days a week get tremendous benefits without weight loss. Another study shows that people who get moderate physical activity, 5 servings of fruits and veggies, drink moderately and don’t smoke have the same health hazard ratios whether they are considered “Normal weight”, “Overweight” or “Obese”.

It’s important to note that our culture’s attachment to weight loss as the path to health is not based on evidence. It is at best an “everybody knows situation” akin to the time when everybody “knew” that the sun revolved around the Earth (which could be why those of us who are pointing out the evidence are getting told to sit down and shut up faster than they put Galileo under house arrest). At worst, our attachment to weight loss is a combination of profitability and pride. The diet industry doesn’t want to give up the 60 Billion a year it rakes in, doctors are enjoying lucrative weight loss practices, and others just don’t have the guts to admit that they’ve traveled so far down the wrong road and given so much bad advice to so many people.

So why do people who have all of this information keep trying to diet? I think it has a lot to do with the potential rewards and everyone’s belief that they can beat the odds. I was watching a documentary about the Green Beret selection process (I’m a documentary junkie). They know that 50% of people will fail but every man there is sure that he will beat the odds. At one point one of the guys is so out of it that they ask him “Do you know where you are” and his answer is, I swear to god, “hashbrowns”. But as they drive him away to see a medic he keeps yelling that he’s fine, he can do it. Golda Poretsky at Body Love Wellness wrote a great post about this phenomenon as it pertains to weight loss. I get e-mails all the time “I don’t agree with you because I’m losing weight right now and I’m just not going to gain it back.” To which I want to reply “hashbrowns.”

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that weight loss almost always works short term, but almost always fails long term and the dieting industry has done a great job of taking credit for the first part of a biological reality and blaming dieters for the second part. I get so many e-mails from people who say “I believe in HAES, but I’m doing [insert diet here] and I’ve lost X pounds so it’s working!” There is so much societal reward when people are losing weight that you can get a huge rush and it’s easy to forget that there is a 95% chance that you will be back where you were or even heavier in 5 years.

Of course everyone is the boss of their underpants and I have no problem with people choosing dieting for themselves, but I do not feel comfortable being part of the rush of praise that people who lose weight receive that makes the near-inevitable weight regain that much more crushing so I choose my words very carefully, and I’m certainly not recommending that people do something that nobody can prove is possible for a reason that nobody can prove is valid. 

Ragen Chastain blogs at www. danceswithfat.wordpress.com
and describes herself as: Dancer, Choreographer, Writer, Speaker, Fat Person.

Update:  The missing videos were removed from YouTube in 2014 due to a Copyright violation.

  Here's Episode ONE of BBC series: "The Men Who Made Us Thin" 
which was televised in the UK in Summer of 2013.            

Episode THREE of BBC series: "The Men Who Made Us Thin" 
which was televised in the UK in Summer 2013.   

Episode FOUR of BBC series: "The Men Who Made Us Thin" 
which was televised in the UK in Summer 2013.   

 ALSO    Click link below to see:
the BBC series: "The Men Who Made Us Fat"
televised in the UK during Summer 2012.

Update:  The missing videos were removed from YouTube in 2014 due to a Copyright violation.

  Here are the 3 Episodes of the BBC series "The Men Who Made Us Fat"
televised in the UK during the summer of 2012 .             
                                           
The Men Who Made Us Fat (BBC series - Episode One)         

The Men Who Made Us Fat (BBC series - Episode Two)         

The Men Who Made Us Fat (BBC series - Episode Three)   

 An Article Worth Reading.
 



 

It’s Not Even About My Fat
          by Ragen Chastain. Dancer, Choreographer, Writer, Speaker, Fat Person.

Ever since I posted about doing a marathon I’ve been getting tons of hate mail. I got an e-mail that said “A part of me sincerely hopes you die doing that marathon so that others will see you can’t be over 300lbs and act like it doesn’t matter, you need to lose weight!”

This illustrates something that people who fat bash for fun, profit, or pleasure often try to disguise behind claims that it’s “because of our health” or “for our own good.” A lot of fat bashing has almost nothing to do with us being fat per se.

For starters, let me take a shot at re-wording this person’s comment: “A part of me sincerely hopes you die doing something that you like to do, so that other fat people don’t get the idea that they can do things that they like to do, as if the shame and stigma that I want to heap upon all of you doesn’t matter. You need to hate yourself like I want you to and do what I say!”

A lot of the social stigma that fat people face can serve to make us second class citizens – clothing stores use our purposeful exclusion as a marketing strategy, hospitals don’t bother to purchase equipment that will help keep us alive, the government is actively encouraging our employers, friends, and families to stereotype us based on how we look.

When we refuse to bow to this and we live the lives we want to live – doing a marathon, wearing a fatkini, going to see that band we like, eating at the new restaurant- or engage in activism to make the world better for us, this can be seen as “rising above our station”. There are people who count on fat people trying to solve social stigma by changing ourselves. When we decide to solve social stigma by ending social stigma, the people who profit – monetarily and/or emotionally – from our attempt to change ourselves can start to get antsy. Or completely panicked and pissed off.

There are people for whom conforming to societal norms by getting as close as possible to the stereotype of beauty is incredibly important, and something at which they throw a tremendous amount of time, energy, and money. People are absolutely allowed to do that. It goes wrong when these people start to resent and become angry with those of us who make different choices.

I think that one of the most powerful types of activism fat people can do is live our lives unapologetically. In the world we live in, waking up and not hating ourselves is activism. So going to that show, or wearing the awesome sweater we crocheted, entering a 5k, getting a scooter and going to Vegas, or whatever we do that isn’t hating our bodies – are acts of revolution. Every single time a fat person refuses to be silenced, hidden, kept away, or kept out of an activity it is a revolutionary act.

There are many fat people who are afraid to do the things that they want to do and that’s totally ok and understandable. Outside of not trying to take away people’s civil rights, I’m not trying to tell anyone how to live. As I have said before, if someone reads my work and realizes that fat people deserve to be treated with respect that’s great, but the goal of most of my work is to suggest/remind fat people that we deserve to be treated with respect.

I don’t do things to inspire people (that’s way too much pressure) I do thing that I like to do. So I don’t care if I ever “inspire” anyone to do a marathon, but if my doing a marathon, or wearing a bikini, or stubbornly refusing to hate myself, helps another fat person go to bingo, or join a quilting circle, or go read a book in the park, or do anything that they want to do, then I’ll be thrilled.

Ragen Chastain blogs at www. danceswithfat.wordpress.com
                 and describes herself as: Dancer, Choreographer, Writer, Speaker, Fat Person.
See her DANCE in the Video at the bottom of this page. 

                                 What is Behavior-Centered Health?
          It is a health practice in which healthy choices and behaviors are the goal, not a particular size, weight, or shape.

                                                       What is Health at Every Size?
          1. Accepting and respecting the diversity of body shapes and sizes

          2. Recognizing that health and well-being are multi-dimensional and that they include physical, social, spiritual, occupational, emotional, and intellectual aspects

          3. Promoting all aspects of health and well-being for people of all sizes

          4. Promoting eating in a manner which balances individual nutritional needs, hunger, satiety, appetite, and pleasure

          5. Promoting individually appropriate, enjoyable, life-enhancing physical activity, rather than exercise that is focused on a goal of weight loss.

Dances With Fat
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
are Not Size Dependent

                     
For several seasons, I watched “The Biggest Loser”, as well as several other “weight-loss shows”, and I formed some personal opinions based on my focused attention. I’ve also read quite a few follow-up interviews by people involved in the show – including contestants.

As a result, I’ve now chosen to boycott this type of TV “reality” weight-loss program. The article below was written by an exercise professional, and it accurately reflects many of my own thoughts on this subject.

Fat Farm 
          by David Landau

In recent years Television has attempted to show the world what real life in America is all about. But in television unfortunately, there is not a control in order to turn up the brightness (intelligence). Be as it may, this is how many individuals do their research. Unfortunately many of them are stuck in television’s land of illusion. Much of what TV provides is promulgated half truths in the form of propaganda. The great philosopher Eric Hoffer once said, “Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.” Knowing this, witty TV producers have consequently spawned a variety of shows that have come under the umbrella of what is labeled “Reality Television.” Like TV hasn't had its fair share of providing a fountain of misinformation. So therefore the reality has to be real; sure!

This concept of Reality TV more or less involves a type of programming that supposedly mirrors real world situations which feature the unscripted documented lives of genuine common folk. But if this were to be really true, the TV viewing audience would quickly abort those channels and never venture back to them again. After all, they would be looking in the proverbial mirror at the same sad said pathetic scenes they have often seen in their own lives. To take this actuality a bit further, someone else said, “Television enables you to be entertained in your own home by people you wouldn't have in your home.” The truth is, TV becomes sociological nightmare that spawns a show of its own, that could be called, “As the Public Turns.”

People however; need and want to get away (at least for a while from their dreary lives), so they turn to television. But as someone once said, “Television is not the Truth. Television is god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers and football players. We're in the boredom killing business.” Regardless of the aforementioned warning, the allure of TV continually stays fresh, even though the entertainment is often the same ole, same ole.

The producers of the “reality” genre have in many cases cherry picked fledgling third rate actors/actresses to fall in with the rest of the so called common “real” folks. With the additional dash of cleverly done scripting, editing, and post production trickery and voila – we have the emptiness of “real TV.” The perpetrators of this feigned rendering of faith certainly know their market. It has conveniently revolved around the typical American lifestyle. Case in point; today’s habitual American way of life is centered on the good old 9 to 5, or at least a great deal of it is. Prime time television has focused on this built in target of this traditional humanistic routine. In these dreary economic times, the common stressed out syndrome trickles in. People will seek their outs to de-stress so to speak. Middle age has set in or is just around the corner. Their leisure time becomes TV time and many are conveniently couched in for the nightly news and the network battles. Fantasy television arrives after 8 pm.

In recent years a craze has flourished in the ultimate form of this made to order “Reality Television.” But as it is in many cases, the trap of Reality TV simply fits the bill for many of those who are sedentary couch potatoes. It becomes habitual and “fitting,” just sit to down in the easy chair and get ready to surf the hundreds of TV channels that have you ready made for the taking. But alas, Reality TV is no more or less again a venue of generic entertainment that portrays very little liking to “real life occurrences.” But of course this vogue has become far reaching to the point where this idealism somehow portrays some “truth”.

Everyone these days is jumping on the bandwagon of “health and fitness.” Notwithstanding, Reality TV has waded knee deep into the “exercise” industry. Appearing out of thin air and looking for the easy mark, they are now presenting shows on how to “exercise” and diet to combat obesity. The most popular of these programs are sickening entertainment at best. The validity of this so called reality (as many before it), at best is specious. Again, fraught with the most suspect of all fitness marauders, these shows have hired these bottom basement performers. Unfortunately some of their targets are the clinically obese population. This gives false hope to many that watch, some of which may be morbidly obese. But nevertheless, they have put poor fatty at the center of attention. We'll call this show; “everyone’s a loser!”

Upon cursory observation, their approach is insane at best. They are worlds away from undoing genetic situations that are far beyond fixing in the manner they are exhibiting. But this is the classic example of the quick fix that rarely if ever takes hold once the charade is over. Such is television folks! These are not real life situations; they are anything but. So in actuality, the show is a mere fantasy. The existing episodes can be capsulated by their preoccupation of terrible muscle wasting activities that merely cause dangerous exhaustion and fatigue. Case in point; back over a century and a half ago, these exertions were seen as the worst of all menial jail labor. It was loathsome drudgery bound punishment for those that committed the most hideous of crimes.

Boy, how times change for the better? It was in the days before running water and electricity, whereas man and animal power stood arm and arm. The energy was in the form of human power and if it were appropriate today, we could harness some of this power and put it to good use. But this is hardly ever the case. What was human bondage yesterday is glorified as an exercise routine today. History therefore repeats itself in an ironic and pathetic parody. There is a Fat chance you could ever point this fact out, to all but a few. It can be simply summed up by the fact the body works as a scale and has a limited amount of reserves; whatever goes up, must come down (energy expenditure). The hidden factor in these shows is the forced descending dietary intake prescribed; pure and simple.

Their army - boot camp style based exertions (often in the mud) are actually dangerous, degrading, and counterproductive in the least sense. “Trainers” or actors as you might are literally treating their subjects like dogs. If you take an actual farm animal like a Pig, you will notice they are extremely active but are still fat, active pigs. Again, as stated often, it is not nice to mess with Mother Nature. But nonetheless, on come the pretentious fitness humanitarians that are merely pathetic poor man’s performers portraying themselves as experts in the exercise arena. Nothing ever changes!

The television ratings for such garbage are beyond any rational understanding. In a “Real” world, these phonies would be thrown in jail and likely subject to their own suggested exertions as punishment. This is likely the worst case of fraud since the early exposure of the predetermined and rigged “quiz shows.” But everyone loves a popular winner, and for a while what looked to be totally on the up and up, wasn’t. But no one was hurt and no one went to jail. However, it is still sickening the way these Fitness Reality Shows actually have the following and ratings they do. True reality however is the final arbitrator, and sorry to say this is a hoax at best. It is simply a sad exposure of a group of people, some clinically obese, that may likely need real professional care.

The “fitness fakers” portrayed are simply sad pathetic morons making these predetermined genetic situations worse. These egotistical trainers show us only one thing for sure; it is self evident their conceptual range is profoundly limited. But remember again, TV is entertainment and has very little or nothing to do with the truth, especially in this scenario. The illustration of proper and appropriate fat loss would make an extremely boring show and would never sell. The truth has nothing to sell and therefore the Bull Shit will continue to march on!

In order to clearly understand the dreadful shortcomings here, there are lucid truisms showing up in history. With an inordinate abundance of opinionated ways to get thin, you would figure with all of this information available (with the inclusion of prime time TV), there would be a population of skin – skin - skinnies. Lets KISS (keep it simple stupid) and show truth does exist in a simple buried gem from History.

Samuel Blythe

Good old Samuel Blythe was no more than a common man, but a man who saw the forest through the trees. The year was 1911 and Samuel although not a genius, understood what common sense was. He knew there were simple, but hard solutions for fat loss - for he was a “victim” of being amongst the overweight. He noted there were more systems of diet than there were religions. He practically tried them all, but all he got from the experience was the fact there was a sucker born every minute with two to take him. So from his own intuition and vast experience, he had to learn the hard truth through the experience of the “right way”. He knew it was a tough game, especially if one were predisposed to being fat.

After “running” through the treadmill of exercise and diets, he decided to take a step back to understand why he got so fat in spite of his efforts. Throughout his formal years, he was inherently a barrel chested and broad shouldered lad. He had an insatiable appetite that caused him to balloon from 185 pounds at maturity, to an extremely rotund 247. Knowing 300 was just around the corner, he knew something had to be done or else he would have been done! He looked over his intake of food and drink. Sammy found out through the process of elimination that he was eating at least 60% more than he required and was downing alcohol at an alarming rate that was undesirable at best. He reasoned the similarity of predicament to his simple understanding of how they fattened livestock. He figured he was just part of the herd so to speak. Previously, he had gone through several dietary wars with discarded diets that cost him over 200 dollars for each try. He finally figured it was a numbers game that could be won by cutting down the portions and balancing them out. He decided to diminish the quantity of his intake of food and not the variety. He had developed a personal liking over the years for his favorite foods and he wasn’t going to get rid of them. He simply reduced the amount over time and made his adjustments gradually.

Samuel knew in order to succeed at this “nonscientific approach” as he called it, he could not be in an impossible hurry to win the battle of the bulge. In the failed attempts leading up to this conclusion, he saw he lacked the patience needed to make his journey a success. He still enjoyed his desserts and breads, but simply ate less of them over time. Instead of chowing down a big pie, he ate a much smaller one for his desert and eventually cut out alcohol altogether. He was steadfast in losing the fat over a much longer period of time and it worked like a charm! In this process there were absolutely no lifestyle changes (other than no more beer) and that included no additional exercise or activity. There was a systemic adjustment that occurred from doing it over a longer period of time; his gradual modification allowed his stomach to acquiesce to the lesser intake of food stuffs; therefore no hunger pangs existed. He kept his weight off for the rest of his life and expressed he had gained a new lease which was most enjoyable. He was so impressed by his accomplishment, he wrote the book about his experience, entitled; The Fun of Getting Thin.

Lifestyles are individual and made better from successful choices which are unique to each person outside of the collective’s questionable opinions. The indiscriminate following of a trend or fad, especially one perpetrated by television hoaxes; allows for certain failure. Fitness Reality TV is a terrible farce. It literally makes fools out of people who are unfortunately exhibited as overweight contestants in a carnival like setting.

Certainly popular culture can take the blame in exposing something to the masses that in reality does far more harm than help. But again, such idiocy sells and makes millions of dollars as a result. Unfortunately, it only allows those really in need of help (most don't), to do their research by way of TV and popular magazines. These notions and solutions are worse than dead end roads, as there is no way out. The activities under the name of exercise shown should have a forewarning. Do Not Try This at Home or anywhere for that matter. This is malpractice at its best.

The people that are the subjects are comprised of those simply embarrassed about the weight they have gained through the years. In today’s “society,” being overweight is seen to be not culture friendly. A few of the others exhibited on these TV aberrations, are borderline to morbid obesity. They are in need of clinical and professional help to get them on a better track. This is not an indictment on the people who carry those extra pounds. On the contrary, they have been unfairly exposed by TV and these arrogant and obnoxious “Hollywood” trainers who are worse than useless! Don’t be fooled about the feigned concern of these trainer actors, it is a scripted nightmare! They are either guilty of unbelievable stupidly or outright criminal fraud, regardless of the supposed sincerity of their misguided beliefs! As a result, I will refuse to remain silent in the onslaught of such outrage.

David Lanau – fitness trainer for past 30 years,
whose focus is to separate facts from fiction, exposing exercise fraud. www. ExerciseFraud.com