Category: weight loss

body image · diets · eating · fitness · health · weight loss

Well intentioned lies, doctors, and the diet industry: If weight loss is impossible, then what?

Sam B9 Comments

Recently the CBC repeated news many of us know to be true, that significant long term weight loss is so difficult, so rare, that it counts as near impossible.  I thought the piece was pretty well-researched and well-argued and while I have quibbles and questions here and there, frankly I sometimes I find news of this sort a relief. I’m going to write a part two with quibbles and questions but for now, let’s take this news at face value.

You can find this news depressing or liberating. Personally I’m opting for the latter and I’ll say more about why later.

See Research confirms long term weight loss almost impossible.

As incredible as it sounds, that’s what the evidence is showing. For psychologist Traci Mann, who has spent 20 years running an eating lab at the University of Minnesota, the evidence is clear. “It couldn’t be easier to see,” she says. “Long-term weight loss happens to only the smallest minority of people.”

We all think we know someone in that rare group. They become the legends — the friend of a friend, the brother-in-law, the neighbour — the ones who really did it.

But if we check back after five or 10 years, there’s a good chance they will have put the weight back on. Only about five per cent of people who try to lose weight ultimately succeed, according to the research. Those people are the outliers, but we cling to their stories as proof that losing weight is possible.

“Those kinds of stories really keep the myth alive,” says University of Alberta professor Tim Caulfield, who researches and writes about health misconceptions. “You have this confirmation bias going on where people point to these very specific examples as if it’s proof. But in fact those are really exceptions.”

Our biology taunts us, by making short-term weight loss fairly easy. But the weight creeps back, usually after about a year, and it keeps coming back until the original weight is regained or worse.

This has been tested in randomized controlled trials where people have been separated into groups and given intense exercise and nutrition counselling.

Even in those highly controlled experimental settings, the results show only minor sustained weight loss.

So that’s the “news,” scare quotes because it’s not new news.

See The Fat Trap, the New York Times in 2011, or The Obesity Era in Aeon Magazine in 2013. (The obesity era article raises the puzzle of fat animals, as humans aren’t the only animals getting bigger. See also I’m not fat, I’m fluffy: The puzzle of animal obesity.)

My favourite though is Gina Kolata’s 2007 book Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss–and the Myths and Realities of Dieting. She’s a terrific writer and I highly recommend her book. Kolata is another New York Times science reporter and so this isn’t exactly fringe stuff.

So let’s get back to supposing this gloomy/liberating view is right. Two things immediately follow.

First, doctors shouldn’t prescribe weight loss to overweight/obese patients, especially not without mentioning the long term likely effect. Would we recommend any other treatment with these odds of success? Medical professionals should spend more time emphasizing weight maintenance. Second, especially if you’re a normal weight or overweight person, the last thing you should try to do is lose weight. That looks like a clear fast train to getting fatter.

Here’s the more interesting question, if doctors know this, why don’t they act on it? Here is my guess at an answer. Doctors hate problems they can’t solve. I saw that when they were dealing with a family member with incurable illness. They want to hold out hope.

So that’s part of it. Doctors are also human and reason as everyone does. The simple mathematical model of “eat less, move more” seems obviously true. Weight loss looks like just simple math plus will power. How could it go wrong?

Finally, doctors also know that healthy eating does matter and so too does exercise. Indeed a recent study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine concluded that  for women and heart health exercise matters more than any other factor including obesity. (See Study: Exercise Trumps Body Weight When It Comes To Women and Heart Health.) Doctors fear that without the promise of weight loss, no one would be motivated to eat well and stay physically active. As the article about the impossibility of weight loss says, “Health experts are also afraid people will abandon all efforts to exercise and eat a nutritious diet — behaviour that is important for health and longevity — even if it doesn’t result in much weight loss.”

But I worry that this reasoning gets it exactly wrong. People aren’t idiots. Tell them to exercise and eat well in order to lose weight. What happens if they don’t lose weight? They’ll quit exercising and quit eating well. That’s because you told them to do it to lose weight. And clearly it wasn’t working so why stick with it?

Also, think about the thin people. They need to eat well and exercise too. But if weight loss is given as the main reason to do so, why would they? They’re already thin after all. See How equating being fat with being out of shape hurts thin people too.

Moving past doctors, what about the weight loss industry? Weight loss companies are ethically bankrupt–see my past post on Weight Watchers, I hate you Weight Watchers–and ought to be shunned. They’re in business to sell the impossible dream. If you fail, it’s your fault. Weight Watchers always says that people who attend the meetings lose weight. That’s because those who don’t lose weight sensibly make the decision to quit.

Is there another way? What about companies like Precision Nutrition (see my take on them Precision Nutrition’s Lean Eating Program: A Year in Review) and dietary approaches like Intuitive Eating?

We haven’t tried Go Kaleo’s approach but it also seems to fall into this category. As a commentator on our Facebook page put it, “Her idea seems to be that our focus on ridiculously low calories when dieting pushes people toward a complete lack of ability to see how many calories they’re actually eating (If not all the way into Binge Eating Disorder) See https://gokaleo.com/stop-dieting/.”

These approaches focus on process and habits rather than results. It’s all about the journey.

Okay, but what about results? Does focusing on the process get you where you want to go?

My suspicion, and it’s just a suspicion, is that these approaches don’t fare much better in terms of weight results but that they do help people have a better, healthier relationship with their food and bodies.

Why the suspicion?

First, they don’t track results. Since I left Precision Nutrition’s Lean Eating program there’s been no follow up to find out how weight maintenance is going. I’ve gained weight back but they don’t know that I suspect they don’t want to know that. When I did the program I met lots of people doing it a second, third, or fourth time. Each said, “This time, I’ll do it right.” But that reminded me a bit of Weight Watchers with its high rate of recidivism.

Second, if they had good news in terms of weight loss results they’d share it. Loudly and from the rooftops. Not a single weight loss company shares honest to goodness statistics about their results. You can assume, I think, pretty safely that if there was good news, we’d all hear about it.

Ragen Chastain of Dances With Fat puts it pretty bluntly talking about the CBC piece:

“If you read the comments on the article, which I don’t recommend, you’ll see that many people subscribe to the magical power of semantics. If you attempt intentional weight loss, but instead of dieting you call it a lifestyle change, they claim you won’t gain your weight back. This is the second to the last stop on the denial train, at the final stop people just close their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, and scream LALALA! “

So why do I find all this liberating rather than depressing?

It removes an impossible goal.

You can move because it feels good and it’s good for you. You can eat because it tastes good, helps fuel your activity, and makes you happy and  healthy.

You can join Tracy in stepping off the scale.

You can love your body the way it is now.

Now go play! Enjoy!

Image: Misty grassy spot in a forest Jonas Nilsson Lee, Unsplash

Guest Post · overeating · weight loss

biodots, mood lighting and dandelion salads (guest post)

natalieh (she/her)4 Comments

Dandelion Bacon salad. The trick is to make a roux from 1 tbl fat, 1 tbl flour then add a mix of 1/4c honey, 1/4c lemon juice, 1/2 c milk. Mix that still warm over 8c greens &4 slices of bacon (vegan option roasted pine nuts). Mmmmmmm
Dandelion Bacon salad. The trick is to make a roux from 1 tbl fat, 1 tbl flour then add a mix of 1/4c honey, 1/4c lemon juice, 1/2 c milk. Mix that still warm over 8c greens &4 slices of bacon (vegan option roasted pine nuts). Mmmmmmm

 

Life has been a whirlwind since I was diagnosed with high blood pressure back in April and I griped about my feelings here and got some great resources from readers/friends/family.

I am learning to reign in my charming, yet not so good for my health, A Type personality and to be mindful of tension in my body. The good news, I’m making headway, so much so that after 6 weeks of blood pressure medication my doctor halved the prescription as I had lost 14 lbs and my blood pressure was too low at 107/72. This is good news. It means my arteries have not yet hardened, that my blood pressure responds to medication/weight loss and that I can prevent further damage to my circulatory system.

I’ve been seeing my psychologist and doing some grueling trauma work has helped me self-regulate and reduce my overeating without it feeling like an imposition or taking much effort at all. The biggest change for me since my post in April is that I am now confident I can make the changes I need to be healthier and keep my blood pressure where it needs to be for me to have the long life I want.

It’s all on the table, from eating my weeds in dandelion salad (they are called piss-en-lit in French because of their diuretic properties) to turning off the big overhead light at work to using biodots. Have you ever heard of biodots?

I once attended this really great time management seminar about 7 years ago with Harold Taylor and one strategy for time management was to live a long, healthy life and address stress. He offered us this tool, a tiny black sticker:

Image: blue bio dot on wrist
Image: blue bio dot on wrist

It works like the mood rings of old, the colour changes based on your skin temperature. When  you are tense blood leaves your extremities so the dot goes brown to black. At home the dot is usually a deep blue, I’m so chill in my garden or with my family, at work brown and black rule my day. I’m mindful to relax and take a deep breath and the dot changes colour. Part of the success in the biodots in helping me is that it is a mnemonic for mindfulness. I put it on and  it reminds me to check what’s going on with my body and thoughts. I feel more in control when I have good information about what’s going on and I’ve been able to have a scale in the house without going all obsessive about weighing myself.

The one downside is that with all this rapidly changing blood pressure I’ve been too light headed to work out. I have to let go of racing in the Kincardine Triathlon this July with Sam and Tracy. I’m going with a friend and will cheer all of them on though, and that should be good fun. 🙂

diets · eating · weight loss

Diets Don’t Work but They Do Make Us Suffer

Tracy I14 Comments

diet-fix-bookI had a few errands to run this morning before work, so I hopped in the car just in time for CBC Radio One’s The Current.  This morning Anna Maria Tremonti interviewed Dr. Yoni Freehoff, author of The Diet Fix: Why Diets Fail (and how to make yours work).

Freehoff’s main point was that diets fail because they make us suffer, and human beings aren’t built to suffer indefinitely. We can suffer for a period of time, but eventually we’ll say, “enough’s enough.”

Now, I have read and heard and even written quite a bit about dieting and why it doesn’t work. See here and here and here, for example. So I didn’t think there was a lot new for me to pick up, though of course I found the segment interesting. But one thing I learned that was new to me was the idea of “best weight.”  Best weight, according to Freehoff, is whatever weight a person reaches when they’re living the healthiest life they truly enjoy.

I like the idea of best weight because it doesn’t legislate standard weights but rather scales it to enjoyment and choice.  The idea doesn’t totally divorce weight from healthy lifestyle, but it doesn’t suggest rigid height/weight/BMI measures either.

As Sam has done in her post Fit, Fat, and What’s Wrong with BMI?, Freehoff reminds us to ignore BMI. It’s only a meaningful measure for populations, not individuals.

If you want to hear the whole interview with Freehof, you can tune into it on The Current, here.

And they ended the segment with a country song called, “The Diet Song.” It was new to me, though I guess it’s been around for a while.  It really captures the suffering of a dieter with these lyrics:

Breakfast black coffee one slice of dry toast no butter no jelly no jam
Lunch just some lettuce two celery stalks no booze no potatoes no ham
Dinner one chicken wing broiled not fried no gravy no biscuits no pie
And this dietin’ dietin’ dietin’ dietin’ sure is a rough way to die

Here’s the whole song (not entirely unproblematic in its entirety, but the dieting suffering part gets that feeling of deprivation right):

body image · diets · weight loss

Lent isn’t a 40 day diet challenge

Sam B9 Comments

“Renounce yourself in order to follow Christ; discipline your body; do not pamper yourself, but love fasting.” — Saint Benedict

I’ve seen many Lent themed diets in my social media newsfeeds. Lent comes in many flavours it seems including Paleo, grain free, sugar detox, vegan, and even pro ana. That’s really sad. I started reading some of the pro-ana forums and some of the young women use Lent as a religious cover for not eating. “My parents are really religious so I’m lucky. They’ll let me skip dinners for Lent.”

Lent as a diet challenge came up at the gym the other night as the women I was working out with discussed what they were giving up for Lent. Someone said to one of the women, “Oh, I didn’t know you were Catholic.”

“I’m not but I’m giving up sugar to lose weight. Seems like a good thing to give up.”

Tracy and I like challenges generally. See My new challenge! and Why I Like “Challenges” but I find it frustrating when people run together religious observance with diets. The Lunch Box Diaries puts it this way: “Please don’t tell me you’re “giving up sugar, soda, and carbs” unless you plan on praying about it every day. If you’re doing it to lose weight, it’s called a Pre-Easter Diet.”

What is Lent anyway? “Christians across the globe are entering Lent, the season of preparation before Easter. Starting on Ash Wednesday — which was March 5 this year — the 40-day period sees many Christians partake in a season of moderation, meditation, fasting and repentance. The exercises in discipline are undertaken to allow Christians time to reflect on the life, words and sacrifices of Jesus Christ.” From the IB Times.

In addition, to non-believers using Lent as some sort of 40 day diet challenge, there are also believers using religious themed diets.  The so-called “Daniel Fast” diet is gaining popularity during Lent, when participants will eat only food from seeds, drink only water and practice daily devotions.

What do people give up for Lent? According to the Lent Twitter tracker, the top things are school, chocolate, Twitter (of course), alcohol, swearing, sweets, social networking, and soda.

And who gives things up? According to Christianity Today, “If you do give up something for Lent this year, you will join 17 percent of U.S. adults, according to a new survey by Barna Group. While many practicing Catholics (63 percent) are planning to fast, only 16 percent of practicing Protestants have similar plans. People born in 1945 or earlier are most likely to fast (26 percent), and people born between 1946 and 1964 are least likely (10 percent). About 20 percent of young adults between the ages of 18 and 30 say they will fast.”

diets · eating · weight loss

The Mesh Tongue Patch for Weight Loss. No Thanks.

Tracy I1 Comment

small mesh rectangle held between thumb and index finger wearing rubber gloves.Not too long ago I wrote about men who body shame women. One of the people at the centre of the latest controversy when I wrote that was an influential Venezuelan beauty pageant host named Osmel Sousa.  His name has come up again in an interview with a Venezuelan “beauty queen” who has, at Sousa’s advice, had a boob job and surgery to get rid of a slight “hook” in the shape or her nose.

But breast augmentation and nose jobs don’t really shock me much anymore.  I still wish women weren’t so fixated on their looks that they would go under the knife to look different, and I do think that it would be bad for women if the culture of cosmetic surgery (for purely aesthetic reasons) really took hold so that it was expected.  At the same time, I have known women who did indeed feel better about themselves after surgeries.

And body transformation is so rampant in our world, through means that range from extreme dieting to heavy weight training with all sorts of stops in between. But the interview made me aware of a new method for losing weight that seems like some sort of medieval torture.  It’s a mesh patch that is literally stitched to the tongue.

How does it aid weight loss?  By making it too painful to eat solid food!  If we have to draw the line somewhere on the continuum between taking good care of ourselves and abusing our bodies and ourselves so we can lose a few pounds, I’m going to say we should draw it on THIS side of mesh tongue patches that make it too painful to eat solid food.

One thing is for sure. The mesh tongue patch is a short term solution.  The patch is temporary, and so is the weight loss.  Why? Because it doesn’t work on habits. Just like any weight loss diet, the real test is not whether the weight comes off, but whether it stays off.

If you put a patch on your tongue so you can’t eat solid food for a few weeks, how likely is it that you’re going to start eating regular food as soon as the patch comes off? If it were me, I’d be grabbing for whatever solid food was in my grasp–from fruit to chocolate cake, from hummus to veggie burgers, I wouldn’t care–as soon as my tongue healed enough for me to tolerate eating solids.

A doctor who spent 14 seasons on the Biggest Loser thinks it’s “barbaric.” According to this article:

Studies show most extreme dieters who lose weight rapidly eventually gain it all back — and more, he said.

“There’s not one scintilla of hope or evidence that putting a patch on your tongue and not being able to eat for a month is going to have any effect on you at one year, or two years or three years,” he said.

That sounds about right.

Here’s more about the tongue patch fad in Venezuela:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRDhVvvH1Gg

 

body image · diets · eating · fat · weight loss

Jennifer Lawrence and Body Shaming. Really?

Tracy I18 Comments

Cant_WIN_by_dopey_templerozThe latest on Jennifer Lawrence, whose praises I and others have sung as a positive role model for a healthier body image, is this: her refusal to diet, her openness about loving to eat, and her insistence that her Hunger Games character, Katniss Everdeen, not be skinny as a rake–it is all a thin cloak over the body shaming reality.

This blog post on Jenny Trout/Abigail Barnette’s blog Sweaters for Days quotes Jennifer Lawrence as saying, “I’d rather look chubby on screen and like a person in real life.” And then Trout says:

Let’s concede the point here that she is, perhaps, a size or two above the Hollywood accepted norm. Let’s also concede the point that it’s admirable, being the star of a movie franchise aimed at teens, that she is concerned about the effect a too-svelte appearance might have on her audience, who are already bombarded with negative body messages every day. I’m not making this post to attack Jennifer Lawrence. I’m making this post to attack the rabid fandom that has grown around her.

I’m not going to cover the fact that it’s fucked up that a girl like Jennifer Lawrence has to justify her perfectly gorgeous body to every single media consumer in the world. We all know that’s fucked up. Let’s focus instead on the fact that in order to appease our own self-doubt about our weight, we, the internet, have decided to ignore how body-shaming the entire image of JLaw, “Spirit Animal” to fat girls everywhere, really is.

She added the bold type because people were pouncing on her in the (rather nasty) comments.

The post gets really interesting when she brings in a comparison with Melissa McCarthy, who does not express, and arguably would not so easily get away with expressing, a love of food and eating and a refusal to diet.  There is no question that thin privilege allows Jennifer Lawrence, who may not be as thin as they come in Hollywood but who still fits into a cultural norm of relative slenderness, to promote the “radical idea” that women and girls should not have to lose weight to have acceptable bodies.

But I do think it’s unfair to call her out for body shaming.  The comments on that blog post make it clear that people still assume that Jennifer Lawrence can eat as she does because she works out, and that Melissa McCarthy must not work out at all (in fact, one of the comments says exactly that–the comments are astonishingly mean-spirited). Genetics have a lot to do with it. Some people are just going to be larger than others even if you hold activity and food intake constant.  It’s not a simple formula that determines size, shape, and body fat percentage. Melissa McCarthy saying that she doesn’t understand why she’s not thinner than she is is a very good demonstration of the frustrating facts.

After I posted a link to the body-shaming blog post on my Facebook page, a friend commented that women just can’t win. And she’s right.  What would we rather Jennifer Lawrence do?  Here’s a young woman who recognizes that she has influence with girls and young women because she plays a popular character, and makes a conscious choice to use that influence in a positive way. Should she just stay silent?

And while it’s perceptive to note that it’s easier for her body-positive message to be heard by the mainstream because she has the appearance of someone who we perceive to be fit and strong, it’s still important that women hear what she has to say. Jenny Trout has clarified that she is not attacking Jennifer Lawrence, but rather the media for lauding Lawrence as a role model.

But the fact is, she is a role model.  Girls care what she has to say.  If the staggering statistics about girls and dieting are true, then even average-sized girls feel pressure to lose weight and to diet.  If Jennifer Lawrence can successfully nudge them away from the idea that they should cave into the pressure to diet, then that’s a good thing.  She has been widely quoted as saying, “If anybody even tries to whisper the word ‘diet,’ I’m like, ‘You can go f– yourself.”

That’s a great quote. It would be something special to hear teenaged girls all over the place saying that instead of being in a perpetual state of body hatred and attempting to drop a few pounds.  As for the quote about looking chubby on the screen and like a person in real life, I’m not sure what to make of it other than that I’ve heard her interviewed and read a lot of other things she’s said, and the overall gist sounds body positive. If she consistently said things that gave us a reason to think she is secretly trying to body shame people who are larger than she is, that would be a different matter.

So despite that I think Jenny Trout provides an interesting perspective in pointing out that thin privilege is at work here, I’m not ready to agree that the media should stop reporting on Jennifer Lawrence’s anti-dieting and body-accepting attitude. And while I don’t deny that Melissa McCarthy can’t offer quite the same narrative, there are other positive body image role models. Adele, for example, has said that she isn’t preoccupied with her body. Her body, she says, isn’t stopping her from doing anything she wants to do. She recommends: “The first thing to do is be happy with yourself and appreciate your body– only then should you try to change things about yourself.”

The more celebrity women who can influence girls and women to be more accepting of themselves, the better.  Average-sized women like Jennifer Lawrence can contribute constructively to this conversation as much as larger women like Melissa McCarthy and Adele.  Why? Because it’s not only women who are larger than the average who struggle with body image and who feel pressured from a very young age to diet.

health · weight loss

Does heat make you fat? No wait, it’s cold…

Sam B1 Comment

Upfront confession: I have a high tolerance for headlines of the form “X makes you fat!” Posting these stories to social media. I’m often misunderstood. I’m never doing it to suggest that people stop doing X, for any value of X. Instead, I do because I like seeing that medical researchers agree that whatever causes fat, it’s more complicated, much more complicated than “calories in/calories out” or the simple formula for ending obesity that overweight people always get, “eat less and move more.”

Oh, I also hate sharing these stories because inevitably they are accompanied by a photo of a headless fat person. Oh, the shame! I lost my head. See No more headless fatties, why not use images of active fat people complete with heads instead? for my beef on that front.

Now, there are lots of proposed values of X, the list of things that cause obesity. In additional to the usual suspects (eating too much and moving too little) the list has included such things as street lighting (too much light at night disrupts our sleep rhythms), chemicals in plastics,  hanging out with fat friends, and my favourite, comfortable kitchens where people want to spend time. I just had my kitchen redone and now I think maybe I should go back to our one person-at-a-time galley thing that was falling off the back of the house.

“What a beautiful kitchen!” I hear my neighbour saying but I wonder if she’s also secretly thinking, “Too bad it’s making you fat!” Actually my kitchen isn’t that nice. Maybe just nice enough to make me pleasantly plump.

For the complete ridiculous list, see xojane’s list of 21 Things Making You Fat Right Now!

Here’s one such theory that I hear a lot. It’s central heating that’s to blame. Warm houses are making us fat.

Don’t turn up the heat! Put on a jumper! (That was the story of my youth.)

This story fits in well with my British heritage. “Jumper” should have been your first clue. I’m from the land of virtuous people living in cold houses. My family loves to retell the story of a great aunt who at the insistence of her children had central heating installed but reassured all visitors, with a smile, “I haven’t had it on yet.” I think she likely died without ever turning it on.

And truth be told, I’ve inherited a bit of that. I like cold rooms and lap blankets, warm kitchens with ovens on, and cold bedrooms with warm blankets. I even have a heated mattress pad. (My new fave feature of modern life is the smart phone app that allows me to get into bed and then turn down the heat and shut off lights. Brilliant.) I prefer hot spots in otherwise cold rooms. This makes sense as I also love old houses and these things go together.

Winters in Australia and New Zealand tested my tolerance for cold houses. I guess when the weather isn’t life threatening, you don’t see the same need for regular, reliable indoor heating.

And to add to the moralizing notes in this story, cold houses don’t just promote virtue (I think it’s because you’re not tempted to take off your clothes until after you’re under the blankets and sweaters on top of sweaters aren’t exactly the sexiest look around) they’re also better for the environment.

No surprise then that warm houses make you fat.

See Mark’s Daily Apple, Is central heating related to obesity?

See Readers Digest! 8 things that are making you fat

“Trying to lose weight? Turn down the thermostat. A cozy home could be contributing to making you fat, suggests research in the journal Obesity Reviews. When our bodies are cold, we shiver, causing our muscles to contract to generate heat—and burn calories.”

Even the New York Times weighed in Central Heating May Be Making Us Fat. And Time Magazine too, Why Indoor Heating May Make You Fat.
 

The authors of the new study, published in the journal Obesity Reviews, note that average indoor temperatures have risen steadily in the U.K. and U.S. over the last several decades, as central heating has become increasingly available — and rates of obesity have risen too. The average temperature in British living rooms went from 64.9 degrees F to 70.3 degrees F, from 1978 to 2008. Living rooms in the U.S. have long been heated to at least 70 degrees F. Indeed, average temperatures have gone up all throughout the house — and in the wintertime, people tend not to leave their homes much anymore, at least not unless it’s in a heated car.

“Increased time spent indoors, widespread access to central heating and air conditioning, and increased expectations of thermal comfort all contribute to restricting the range of temperatures we experience in daily life and reduce the time our bodies spend under mild thermal stress — meaning we’re burning less energy,” said lead author Fiona Johnson in a statement. “This could have an impact on energy balance and ultimately have an impact on body weight and obesity.”

Although humans are born with significant deposits of brown fat — the primary purpose of which is to regulate body temperature by burning energy for heat — those stores diminish over time. By adulthood our brown-fat stores have shrunk, having been replaced with the more familiar white fat, the stuff that hangs over belt buckles and swings from the backs of arms.

 
And I’d love to love this story. Yes, get out of your comfort zone, go play outside, stop burning fossil fuels. Live like our ancestors used to, etc etc.

But now, it’s cold, not hot, but cold, that makes you fat. That journal article was published in 2011, but new research published the same journal years two later says it’s cold, not heat, that packs on pounds.

See Study: turn up heating to fight fat this holiday season.

An interesting new study from the UK reveals that people who live in well-heated homes are not as likely to be obese or have a high body mass index, compared with individuals who keep their houses cooler.

The researchers, from the University of Stirling in Scotland, have shown a link between higher temperatures and lower levels of body fat by studying over 100,000 adults who rely on central heating from 1995 to 2007, in the nationally representative Health Survey for England.

Although the researchers note that scientists have recently suggested warmer indoor temperatures could be contributing to rising obesity levels in the US, Canada, the UK and Europe, this latest study suggests the opposite is true.

Back and forth, to and fro. This debate ought to be familiar. I’ve heard it before  about swimming in cold water (see here and here). And I’ve been bugging Tracy to blog about it. Swimming in cold water makes you fat! Wait, no, bathing in ice cubes makes you slim. Thank Tim Ferris for that suggestion. Read about his “ice diet” here. Um, no thanks, Tim.

Keep your house at a temperature you like that’s consistent with caring for the environment. Swim in cold water if that’s what you like.

Because we really don’t know what’s responsible for the increase in obesity rates and we’re even less certain when it comes individuals what factors are that make a difference.

If there’s something to be learned here, it’s something I got from Precision Nutrition’s lean eating program, you are your own expert. Try different things and see if they make a difference for you.

diets · eating · weight loss

“Vegan” Is Not a Fad Diet

Tracy I12 Comments

cake I’m vegan. And that’s my birthday cake (back in September) from my favorite vegan restaurant.  It’s bar none the very best chocolate cake I’ve ever eaten.  And it’s vegan. No eggs, no dairy.

You’ve probably heard by now about Beyonce’s 22-Day Vegan Challenge with her hubby, Jay Z.  I heard about it when it was announced, and I’m hearing regular updates about how it’s going for them on what is often described as their “health kick.”  The Daily Mail (I know) reported that one week into her vegan “health kick,” Beyonce is flashing her abs.

Everywhere I turn these days I’m reading about how losing weight is one of the big reasons to become vegan.  It’s starting to drive me to distraction!

See that chocolate cake? It’s not health food.  Vegan is NOT a sure fire way to drop pounds.  Losing weight isn’t even the best reason to eat a vegan diet.  Why? Because french fries and potato chips are vegan. That cake is vegan.  Coconut milk ice cream is vegan. Vegans, no less than anyone else, don’t just eat fresh fruit and vegetables.

Now I think it’s a good thing that you can still find all sorts of indulgences and follow a vegan diet. But what that means is that you need to do a lot more to drop pounds than switch to a plant-based diet.  I myself didn’t lose a single pound when I become vegan.  Nothing. Nada. Rien. 

So why become vegan?  The two primary reasons have nothing to do with your health: 1. animal welfare reasons and (2) environmental reasons.  I won’t go into all the details here, but billions of animals a year suffer unspeakably and unnecessary cruelty in industrial farming.  I’m not talking about cruelty inflicted over and above the regular conditions of their lives. I’m talking about the very conditions they live in day to day.  If you’d like to know more about that, read Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation or Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation or even just go to the Vegan Society website.

Livestock farming is bad for the environment and the atmosphere. It’s a huge contributor to global warming.  There’s that great statistic: a vegan who drives a Hummer makes a smaller carbon footprint than a meat-eater who drives a Prius.  Yes, there are other variables, but there is no question that mass livestock production is hurting the planet.

And yes, there’s lots of evidence that it’s good for your health. But there are still all kinds of not-great-for-your-health choices available on a vegan diet. So there is no automatic free pass or anything like that, and some things, such as lean protein, become a bit more challenging (not impossible with some knowledge).

Back to the 22-Day Challenge that Beyonce and Jay Z are on.  If the reasons for being vegan are compelling (and they are!), then being vegan for 22 days just isn’t quite “getting it.”  I mean, I’m glad that Beyonce and Jay Z are bringing some good press to being vegan. They’re even saying they feel great and it’s not difficult. Lucky for vegan PR that they aren’t having a negative experience — if it was a struggle and they had an adjustment period where they felt bloated or tired what have you?  Animal welfare and the environment would still matter.

But you don’t hear about animal welfare or the planet when you hear about their vegan challenge.  Given the facts, it’s just irresponsible to promote veganism without even mentioning these other reasons for being vegan.

Most ethical vegans extend their vegan choices beyond their diet, making an effort to avoid animal products in other areas of their lives. You’re unlikely to find a leather couch in a vegan home, and if you look on-line you can find all sorts of vegan footwear.

Another misconception that needs clearing up and now’s as good a time as any to do it: being vegan doesn’t mean being gluten free.  Gluten is from wheat; wheat is not an animal product. Therefore, you can be vegan and not be gluten free.  It’s very disappointing to someone like me who loves baking to go to a bakery where all the vegan options are also gluten free. Worse yet if they’re also raw.  There are raw vegans, but most vegans are okay with cooked food. Why? Because there is no animal welfare or environmental reason to go raw.

Here’s a nice article where the author promotes the idea of veganism as a lifestyle change, not a diet.

There are also successful vegan athletes like ultra-triathlete Richard Roll (author of Finding Ultra) and the no-meat athlete, Matt Frazier (author of The No-Meat Athlete). Although both emphasize “plant-strong” over “vegan” (see Sam’s posts about the difference here and here) the point is, you can be a vegan athlete.

If you’re interested in learning more about becoming vegan, in addition to the resources above that outline some of the ethical and environmental reasons, I found these books to be really helpful:

The Ultimate Vegan Guide by Erik Marcus

Main Street Vegan: Everything You Need to Know to Eat Healthfully and Live Compassionately in the Real World by  Victoria Moran and Adair Moran

Becoming Vegan: The Complete Guide to Adopting a Healthy, Plant-Based Diet by Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina

And some good vegan cookbooks:

Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitch and Terry Hope Romero

La Dolce Vegan by Sarah Kramer

The Happy Herbivore by Lindsay Nixon

Bon appetit!

 

 

 

diets · eating · weight loss

Let’s Talk about the Myth of the Skinny Vegan Bitch

Tracy I15 Comments

Here’s how the first installment in the Skinny Bitch series (authors Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin) starts:

It sounds almost empowering.  Almost.

The first red flag?  If you’re full of self-loathing then…wait for it…getting skinny is the answer!  If that’s not clear from the introduction, it is made super-clear on the first page of chapter one where it says: “Healthy = skinny. Unhealthy = fat.”  I’m sorry, but I think that simple equation has been firmly established as utterly false.

Getting healthy is a lot more complicated and is absolutely not correlated to being skinny.  Some of the least healthy people I know are really skinny.  The authors seem to maintain a distinction between a “skinny bitch” and a “scrawny bitch.” That’s when they recommend against over-exercising. Despite warning against over-exercising, they promise that “you’ll soon become addicted to exercising.”

And the mixed messages don’t stop there. They are opposed to fad diets, like low-carb diets (and especially Atkins). They encourage people to eat bread and fruit.  This makes it seem like a not very restrictive way of eating (a lifestyle, remember, not a diet).  But they have a whole chapter that explains why “Sugar is the Devil.”  That would make it thoroughly evil.  I’ve posted about why food is beyond good and evil here.

On the pro side (for me, anyway) they promote a vegan diet for lots of the right reasons too. They quote Linda McCartney, who said that “if slaughterhouses had glass walls, we’d all be vegetarians.”  They remind you that if you adopt a vegan diet, “you’re sparing the lives of at least ninety animals a year.” They even talk about the environmental impact of livestock farming (methane from livestock contributes a lot to global warming).

But I want to take issue with two of their fundamentals.

First, the whole bitch thing.  People are annoyed enough with vegans.  We are inconvenient, not just as dinner guests (“what will we feed you!?”) but as in-your-face reminders that your food choices have moral implications for other animals and for the planet.  So associating veganism with being a bitch. It’s just not the kind of PR we need.

Second, the idea that being vegan will make you skinny.  No. It’s just as easy not to be skinny as  a vegan as it is not to be skinny as a non-vegan.  There’s all sorts of vegan crap out there.

Now of course, the skinny bitch “philosophy” does not include vegan crap.  Nope. A skinny bitch will embark on a regimen of “pure eating.”  Remember: this is not a diet:

Never feel like or say you are “giving up” your favorite foods.  Those words have a negative connotation.  You are simply empowered now and able to make educated, controlled choices about what you will and won’t put into your body, your temple.  Be grateful that you know the truth about the foods you used to poison yourself with…Be excited about feeling clean, pure, healthy, energized, happy, and skinny.

So let me say this.  I’m vegan. Have been for over two years now.  I eat a fairly “clean” diet, in the sense that I choose lots of whole foods, no animal products, I don’t drink alcohol or take any drugs, I’m more active than my peer group.  But I am not skinny. I’m kind of average, really. And I was kind of average *before* I became vegan.  So the magical transformation won’t come simply by becoming vegan.

That’s not to say there aren’t all sorts of good reasons.  But becoming vegan is not to be approached as another diet that will get you thin.  And all this “pure and cleansing” talk–getting rid of toxins and so forth–it’s just not borne out by science. See this about juicing.

That’s my myth-busting message today:  Go for it! Become vegan (which is not just about food, by the way). But you don’t have to be a bitch and don’t listen to the people who promise you’ll be skinny.

Skinny isn’t even a great goal.  It’s not empowering.  And if you are experiencing self-loathing, try loving the body you have and treating yourself with compassion and care.  We have lots of that to go around on this blog!

sports nutrition · weight loss

Nature doesn’t have a bar code

Sam B2 Comments

In Stone Soup’s 6 Reasons to NOT Count Calories there’s one that really resonates for me:. Writes Stone Soup, “Counting calories encourages you to eat packaged processed food: I was talking to a friend recently who mentioned her teenage daughter has become very interested in nutrition and has started to keep an eye on her calories. But the sad part is she’s noticed that her daughter is more likely to choose food out of a packet than something fresh because she can easily tell how many calories she’s getting from the pack.”

I first noticed this same thing when I started using My Fitness Pal for tracking.

The mobile phone app comes with a nifty bar code scanner for adding foods to your diary. It’s fun just picking up the box or package your food comes in, scanning it with your phone’s camera, and then gleaning the relevant info. But note the words “box” and “package.” It then starts to seem burdensome to log real food. Hey, apple, where’s your bar code? Okay, apples aren’t that bad. But homemade casseroles with multiple ingredients? Tricky stuff.

Generally speaking, I’m a big fan of tracking. And I’m a data geek about fitness. I like my games. I’m not in principle adverse to counting calories. I find it challenging to match my needs for adequate energy and nutrition  without paying some attention to the details of what I’m eating.