posted
So, a social justice issue I've noticed gaining a lot of traction over the past year or so is the Fat Acceptance Movement - mostly due to calling fit women "skinny bitches", running campaigns like "f*** your beauty standards", that sort of thing. I'm not entirely sure if it has a codified manifesto, since like many other movements it's exact beliefs seem to change depending on who you ask. So I'll focus primarily on the tenants I've seen argued most. Feel free to add or discuss more aspects of it as we go on. Also, based on photos and the people backing it, "fat" for the purpose of the movement seems to mean "severely overweight/obese", not "chubby."
The statements I see frequently:
1) Obese people should not be discriminated against
This is something I agree with for the most part. There are some exceptions, though. There are many jobs (military, firefighter, rescue diver, personal trainer, etc.) that obese people either cannot do at all, or will severely under-perform at due to their weight. I don't think it's wrong for a company to deny employment to or fire someone for being obese if it negatively effects work performance.
Also, in the case of airlines, if you're too big to fit into one seat, then you should pay for two seats rather than forcing the airline to lose money by flying you around. That seems pretty fair.
That being said, in general I think social and legal discrimination of people based on weight is wrong.
2) Heathlism/being obese is healthy
This is where I start disagreeing pretty strongly. Two concurrent claims by the FAM are:
A) The idea that one should eat healthy, exercise regularly, and maintain a healthy, well balanced and well proportioned diet is "healthism", a discriminatory practice by which thin people, scientists and medical professionals oppress obese people. They believe it's a sort of equivalent to racial Darwinism, and is used by fit, healthy people to propagate the bigoted notion that they are "ideal" and superior. And,
B) That obese people are actually healthier than non-obese people.
Now B is usually supported by means of a false dichotomy. It's absolutely true that an obese person who eats a somewhat healthy (though over-proportioned) diet is healthier than a severely anorexic person, and likely to live longer. But a fit person who eats healthily and exercises regularly is much, much healthier than either.
Moreover, there's an idea that one can have a "healthy body weight" at 350 lbs, or that being overweight alone is not harmful. This is demonstrably false. There are numerous health problems related to being overweight, from joint issues and back problems to heart disease, intestinal problems, blood pressure, etc... not to mention all the ancillary problems associated with the sort of diet and lack of exercise necessary to become obese.
3) That Teaching/Encouraging Physical Fitness and Nutrition in School is Oppressive or Abusive
Since being fat is "healthier" or at least just as healthy, the logic follows that teaching the importance of exercise and proper nutrition in school is oppressive, and that PE teachers are child abusers.
This is a particularly insidious one IMO, simply because of the evil that is childhood obesity. It's one thing to choose to become obese as an adult, but when you're fat from the get go, there are so many things you're unable to do, so many careers you can't pursue, and you've had your options and possibilities curtailed without your choice. Which is why I can never support obesity as an "ideal" body type.
4) If you're not attracted to fat people, you're an oppressor, or at least very shallow
This is one that gets brought up a lot, and I personally find rather annoying. It goes that if you choose not to date someone because they're obese, then you're an awful human being.
It's generally made out to be that you're buying into a system of oppression and discrimination, even if the simple truth is that you just don't find yourself sexually attracted to fat people.
For me, as someone who's personally been attacked by a fat woman who I turned down, it's about incompatible lifestyles as well as complete lack of attraction.
I'm a very physically active guy, and a lot of my hobbies include doing physically active things. Today my wife and I took her parents dogs on a 5 mile hike on a mountain trail. We go to the gym together, bike together, go kayaking, go paddleboarding, go snorkeling, go surfing, go rock climbing, horseback riding, etc. We also cook almost every night and go grocery shopping together and have the same priorities as far as eating a healthy diet.
Choosing to date an obese woman would mean giving all of that up, or at least not being able to do any of my favorite activities with her. It means we'd have to shop separately, eat separately, and more or less live separately. In other words, there wouldn't be much of a chance for a good or healthy marriage, because of radically different lifestyles.
There's more to it than that, but those are the big 4 I see frequently being discussed.
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posted
Missing from your list: Being large isn't indicative of a personal failing; thin or fit people aren't better because of that.
It's not to say that personal choices don't play into whether one is large or not. But how those choices get made, the weight of different factors, the role of willpower vs. inclination: it's not simple and it largely isn't about worth or success, mostly just luck.
(Let's exclude fitness enthusiast pursuits - having extremely low body fat or bulky muscles can take a lot of specifically directed work. I'm talking about the average person who may naturally tend toward gaining fat or may not.)
Quick comments on your list:
1) Ability to do the job! Not size! 2) Weight isn't health. Obesity correlates with many health problems but isn't the cause. 3) Sounds good, but there's probably room to examine whether status quo methods are ideal or if there's a way to be more effective for more people. 4) Compatibility is obviously important, but let's not deny that not skinny=not attractive is pretty much shallow and an artifact of our culture
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: Missing from your list: Being large isn't indicative of a personal failing; thin or fit people aren't better because of that.
Sure.
quote:It's not to say that personal choices don't play into whether one is large or not. But how those choices get made, the weight of different factors, the role of willpower vs. inclination: it's not simple and it largely isn't about worth or success, mostly just luck.
Again, no disagreement here.
quote:(Let's exclude fitness enthusiast pursuits - having extremely low body fat or bulky muscles can take a lot of specifically directed work. I'm talking about the average person who may naturally tend toward gaining fat or may not.)
Yes, it's a lot of work. As far as "naturally tending" towards gaining fat, it mostly depends on how you eat, how much you eat, and how much you exercise. People store different amounts of fat and in different places, so while some healthy people may be very skinny and others more bulky or husky, they won't be obese. Also, genetics plays a big role here - my brother in law eats absolute crap all the time and is skinny as a rail with a perfect 6 pack. He's pretty far from healthy, though, and is sick pretty often. Probably from all the garbage he eats.
quote:Quick comments on your list:
1) Ability to do the job! Not size!
In a lot of those jobs, size determines how able you are to do the job.
quote:2) Weight isn't health. Obesity correlates with many health problems but isn't the cause.
Now this is just completely, demonstrably incorrect. Obesity *is* the direct cause of numerous health problems. The added pressure the fat puts on the organs causes numerous problems, there's sleep apnea, heart disease, blood pressure, arthritis, spinal issues, bone deformities, blood pooling and clotting issues, etc. Your body isn't meant to carry that much fat, and doing so causes major health issues.
quote:3) Sounds good, but there's probably room to examine whether status quo methods are ideal or if there's a way to be more effective for more people.
100% agree.
quote:4) Compatibility is obviously important, but let's not deny that not skinny=not attractive is pretty much shallow and an artifact of our culture
I would say I'm more along the lines of not fit = not attractive, I don't necessarily find underweight women very attractive either. I think desiring a virile, healthy mate is pretty standard across all human cultures, and while there are exceptions (our culture's recent obsession with women who look like walking clothes hangers and men who look like boys, renaissance era conflating fat = wealthy = attractive, etc.), calling it strictly an artifact of our culture is a little dismissive of every other human culture.
As far as being shallow - the simple fact is that I'm attracted to women who look a certain way, have a certain personality type, and have certain interests. Which isn't to say I don't appreciate variety or trying new things, but the fact of the matter is I don't find fat women attractive. At all. You wouldn't call me shallow for not being attracted to men, nor would you say that my heterosexuality is simply a cultural artifact (despite the fact that there are fewer gay people than fat people in the world), but fat women are as attractive to me as men, which is to say, not at all.
I don't go around broadcasting that, I don't make fun of fat women, I treat them with respect and friendship. But I don't feel like my non-interest in them or the fact that I chose to marry a non-fat woman should be ridiculed. Yet that's exactly what has happened, and my wife has on several occasions been called a "skinny bitch" or just outright ignored by (now former) female friends of mine for no reason other than she has a different lifestyle than them. And that really sucks.
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posted
To be clear, I have no problem with (adult) people who are obese. Whether by choice, environment, or disease/disability, it doesn't matter, it's their body and I have no interest in shaming or discriminating against anyone. Nor do I have a problem with obese people considering themselves to be beautiful or desirable.
I absolutely have a problem with portraying obesity as a healthy or preferable lifestyle. It's demonstrably not, and it requires a viewpoint that's willingly and terrifyingly disconnected from reality to believe that. The FAM's accusations of bigotry against medical professionals who tell the truth is disturbing and immoral, as is any group that considers reality to be offensive. (Like smokers who get angry at lung cancer statistics)
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posted
How much I agree with you depends on where you draw the line on "obese." BMI charts put obese for a 5'6" woman at 190 lbs. Health and activity level is going to be much different for someone weighing190 lbs and someone weighing 350 lbs.
And I think you're being a little hyperbolic on the "separate shopping, eating, separate lives" thing. If the person is opposed to healthy eating and has no interest in hiking, etc., then yes, you would not be at all compatible. If they just hadn't made it a priority, maybe because they work long hours and the people they hang out with on weekends tend to go to movies rather than outdoor activities, then you could invite them to go hiking with you on a Saturday and see what happens. (Could have, if you'd met such a person when you were single, obviously.)
Which is not to say that you (were you single) have to date someone you don't find attractive or be a bigot. Dating relationships are absolutely based on personal choice, and no reasons need to be given. But the reasons you are giving seem to be consigning any woman over an ideal weight into couch potato territory.
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posted
This is an interesting topic. It's one that is more complex than appears on the surface in all kinds of ways.
For example, the research on overweight:
quote:Originally posted by Dogbreath: ... or that being overweight alone is not harmful. This is demonstrably false. There are numerous health problems related to being overweight, from joint issues and back problems to heart disease, intestinal problems, blood pressure, etc...
If you actually look at the data, what sounds intuitively true does not seem to be supported -- at least not in terms of mortality, or longevity of lifespan, which probably the most key single indicator. [Added: this point can be debated. But there is definite complexity here, and there is something that needs to be examined.] There was a huge meta-analysis of international studies done by a senior CDC scientist which found the following:
quote: The somewhat surprising conclusion comes from an enormous, detailed review of over 100 previously published research papers connecting body weight and mortality risk among 2.88 million study participants living around the world. ... The new research confirms that obese people, and particularly those who are extremely obese, tend to die earlier than those of normal weight. But the findings also suggest that people who are overweight (but not obese) may live longer than people with clinically normal body weight. ... “We published an article in 2005 that showed, among other things, that overweight was associated with lower mortality — and we got an awful lot of negative feedback from that,” says the current study’s lead author, Katherine Flegal, a senior research scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Since that study, however, dozens of others have reached the same conclusion — even if it was hard for researchers and the public to accept. [italics added]
1. Does this mean everyone should lay around and eat junk food?
No.
2. Does this mean there is conclusive proof without potentially important confounding effects that overweight people (by the WHO definition) are healthier?
No.
But, importantly,
3. Does this mean that the situation is more complicated than it would seem on first glance, and that we probably need to be careful about making pronouncements in this gray area until this is sorted out more thoroughly?
Yeah, probably.
This is just one of the ways in which discussion of weight categories is, well, complicated. I do feel fine as a physician with encouraging people to stay active, eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables if tolerated, ensure good lean protein sources (especially if undergoing strenous exercise, as protein needs increase), and keeping plenty of fiber in their diets.
I don't believe supplements are as healthy as whole foods, which tend to come with natural brakes against overconsumption. Plus, thank you John Oliver for the excellent takedown on the hazards of supplements in an essentially unregulated context. But that's another rant for another day.
PS: It is also interesting how much visceral anger these results seem to provoke when presented at medical conferences, grand rounds, etc. As the author of the study notes, the backlash was tremendous. But this shouldn't be an emotionally charged topic for scientists or health professionals, at least not in terms of analyzing data. Yet it would seem to be. Interesting. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I think there are perhaps larger cultural forces at play, including cultural definitions of virtue and health, and the cultural connections drawn between the two.
quote:It means we'd have to shop separately, eat separately, and more or less live separately.
Just a quick quibble: you may be surprised. While it's true that you're unlikely to find many obese women who'll accompany you on a rock-climbing trip, five-mile hikes aren't out of the question. I think you may also be surprised to discover that obese people might well shop and eat in very much the same way you do. You're not assuming that a fat lady sits down to meals of bon-bons and gravy, right?
Now, you probably both won't be able to go shopping for clothes in the same store. But that's a small price to pay for love.
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posted
The HAES movement is generally unscientific, and neurotically anti-medicine, and spends a lot of time engaged in what it considers its sacrosanct right to be total jerks to fit or standard or underweight people because it's punching up as a socially marginalized person. A lot of their defining work is medically insane and denialist. They're a perfect example of the spirally radicalizing end of fat acceptance and its a shame to see them get so vocal for their size (pun intended)
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: How much I agree with you depends on where you draw the line on "obese." BMI charts put obese for a 5'6" woman at 190 lbs. Health and activity level is going to be much different for someone weighing190 lbs and someone weighing 350 lbs.
And I think you're being a little hyperbolic on the "separate shopping, eating, separate lives" thing. If the person is opposed to healthy eating and has no interest in hiking, etc., then yes, you would not be at all compatible. If they just hadn't made it a priority, maybe because they work long hours and the people they hang out with on weekends tend to go to movies rather than outdoor activities, then you could invite them to go hiking with you on a Saturday and see what happens. (Could have, if you'd met such a person when you were single, obviously.)
Which is not to say that you (were you single) have to date someone you don't find attractive or be a bigot. Dating relationships are absolutely based on personal choice, and no reasons need to be given. But the reasons you are giving seem to be consigning any woman over an ideal weight into couch potato territory.
You're right (as is Tom Davidson), it is hyperbolic. I was actually specifically thinking of one person who I had a bad experience with. It doesn't apply universally.
Obese for me is a large amount of excess fat. I don't consider a healthy woman who is active and carries some "extra weight" to be obese or even unattractive, and indeed I find the "if you're not 8% body fat as a women you're fat" thing to be annoying and stupid. The sort of musculature and frame necessary to carry a 100 lb pack 20 miles meant that a lot of female Marines I worked with were very stocky, usually 150-160 at 5' 6" to use your example.
But the FAM isn't comprised of people like that, though they might express their frustration with supermodels or the "Justin Bieber look" and so on. (Luckily for us guys, we're allowed to have stocky/muscular role models as well. Though I was annoyed to read articles about how "chubby" Bradley Cooper got for American Sniper - when by "chubby" they mean "put on 40 lbs of muscle") It's comprised of obese people who consider healthy eating, diet and exercise to be "healthism".
I guess my whole point is I have is that I'm all for ending discrimination, but I don't believe that me believing what my doctor and medical consensus tells me - that I should eat healthily, exercise regularly, and maintain a reasonable level of body fat - makes me a bigot or part of a system of oppression.
posted
That's a pretty great moral to live by, actually.
I've always hated the "two wrongs makes it right" mentality you find at the fringes of any social group, since it involves a level of intentional evil. By which I mean, it's plausible that some skinny people who belittle or shame or tease fat people do so with little understanding of how much hurt they're causing, or even think "it's for their own good." (That doesn't justify it or make it even remotely better, mind you) Whereas someone part of the FAM who bullies a skinny person almost certainly knows how much it hurts, but does it anyway because "they started it!" Even if the person being bullied had *nothing* to do with it. It just seems so counterintuitive and destructive and evil.
You see this a lot in nerd culture with #gamergate and doxxing and posting naked pictures online and so forth, where people who were bullied or rejected at some point in their life believe they're in a culture of "oppresion", and they're just fighting back or defending themselves. It's pretty sad.
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quote:Whereas someone part of the FAM who bullies a skinny person almost certainly knows how much it hurts, but does it anyway because "they started it!" Even if the person being bullied had *nothing* to do with it. It just seems so counterintuitive and destructive and evil.
At least sometimes even if they SHOULD know exactly how much it hurts, they have assigned the target into some kind of unfeeling oppressor or EEEVUL category or even just fail to translate from pixels-and-words-on-a-screen to "human being" - I think that last is most often the case with trolls and bullies online (I lack objective evidence that this is the case, but I've seen a few cases where one is slowly coaxed into seeing the error and makes a full reversal).
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: How much I agree with you depends on where you draw the line on "obese." BMI charts put obese for a 5'6" woman at 190 lbs. Health and activity level is going to be much different for someone weighing190 lbs and someone weighing 350 lbs.
I don't always chime into conversations on hatrack, but this hit me in a personal spot. I'm a woman, and I'll admit I'm currently sitting at 190 lbs and am 5'6". I've been exercising 3-5 days a week since the beginning of the summer of 2014 (and before that I was more sporadic of an exerciser but never completely inactive), have been keeping track of my food intake both calorically and quality-wise, and yet I can't seem to drop weight. I'm waiting on results of a thyroid panel to see if that's my issue. I just want to raise awareness that there is going to be a subset of people who are legitimately trying to eat healthy and be active and yet come up against a wall when it comes to losing weight in order to get themselves in a visually healthy place as well as in internally healthy one. This isn't meant to be anything more than that.
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posted
I find the idea that a skinny person and an obese person couldn't food shop together ridiculous to the point that it made that entire part of your argument seem petty. And I've told an obese man I wouldn't date him because he couldn't do the sorts of things you're talking about with me. (Kayaking, biking, hiking, etc.)
I am also a woman who is near that obese line, and am married to a man who is thin. I cook for both of us, we eat the same things quality wise, and he eats more than me quantity wise. I am 9 inches shorter than he is and weigh 30ish pounds more. I am also healthier than him in all the measurements you listed. A lot of that is just genetics. Would I like to lose weight? Sure. But I trained for and ran a marathon last summer without losing a pound. So am I going to beat myself up over it? Nah.
But I definitely agree with you about encouraging kids to develop healthy habits when they're young. It's a lot easier to do it then, and the vast majority of overweight people would probably tell you they wish they had.
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: How much I agree with you depends on where you draw the line on "obese." BMI charts put obese for a 5'6" woman at 190 lbs. Health and activity level is going to be much different for someone weighing190 lbs and someone weighing 350 lbs.
I don't always chime into conversations on hatrack, but this hit me in a personal spot. I'm a woman, and I'll admit I'm currently sitting at 190 lbs and am 5'6". I've been exercising 3-5 days a week since the beginning of the summer of 2014 (and before that I was more sporadic of an exerciser but never completely inactive), have been keeping track of my food intake both calorically and quality-wise, and yet I can't seem to drop weight. I'm waiting on results of a thyroid panel to see if that's my issue. I just want to raise awareness that there is going to be a subset of people who are legitimately trying to eat healthy and be active and yet come up against a wall when it comes to losing weight in order to get themselves in a visually healthy place as well as in internally healthy one. This isn't meant to be anything more than that.
Hey, what's up!
I know from my own experience with strength training that one of the most annoying things in the world is having someone come up and say "hey, what if you just try this?" as if it's not something you've already heard of, researched, and tried. Which is to say, take everything I say with a grain of salt, and the most important thing to do if you want to lose weight is talk to a doctor, meet with a personal trainer, and do what's healthy and works for you.
That being said: the "wall" you describe (or "plateau" as a lot of weightlifters call it) is a well known phenomenon, and very real. The human body resists change, and will try it's hardest to maintain your current body weight and composition. This has a lot to do with the ice age screwing us over metabolically speaking - your body will exert as little energy as possible while exercising while also retaining as much fat as possible, and only building as much muscle as is necessary to perform the tasks you're doing. Why? Because fat is necessary to survival when faced with going a month or two without food and costs almost no energy to maintain, whereas retaining muscle burns an alarming amount of energy. This can make long term weight loss (or in my case, gain) very difficult - you'll see short term results for a few months, and then plateau and stay at one weight. It's immensely frustrating.
What you need to do to break through that wall is to shock your body.
Long distance running, or going on the elliptical, while good for your cardiovascular health, aren't going to help you lose weight. (though they'll help keep you from gaining weight once it's lost) Running is what humans do best, and we're incredibly efficient at it. A fit human being can chase a horse until it dies of exhaustion and still be ok, and the reason for this is because our bodies are incredibly efficient at running, and it require very little energy to do so.
When you first start running you don't have the appropriate muscle memory or coordination to do it efficiently so you burn a lot of calories and lose weight quickly at first, which is why a lot of overweight people trying to lose weight fall into the running trap - it works at first, and then right about the time you lose your first 20 lbs or so, it seemingly stops working. That's because your body has reached a point where it runs so efficiently that running takes very little energy to do.
What you need to sustain long term weight loss is high intensity workouts. The one that got me absolutely shredded in about 2 months time and that I continue to do 3 times a week is the Spartacus workout - it supposedly burns roughly 800 calories in 42 minutes. I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate (again, muscle memory, etc.) but it certainly works. You can read about it here and there's a youtube video that actually times it for you too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJb9dyY8tKY . (I feel like I'm now a spammer... ) I do it in my living room on my wife's yoga mat.
There are hundreds of similar workouts you can find, I know Women's Health has a ton, and you could get like 5,000 tips from the ladies at the bodybuilding.com forums. I think the most important thing again is to talk to a doctor and a physical trainer first and find out what's best for you, and what you're least likely to injure yourself doing.
Once you're at your ideal weight (whatever that i for you), you can transition into more low intensity, comfortable workouts to maintain it. Best of luck! And again, I realize you probably didn't want or need any advice, so feel free to ignore me. I just get excited for people who are making that step towards physical fitness and wanted to offer some encouragement. Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
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quote:Originally posted by ElJay: I find the idea that a skinny person and an obese person couldn't food shop together ridiculous to the point that it made that entire part of your argument seem petty. And I've told an obese man I wouldn't date him because he couldn't do the sorts of things you're talking about with me. (Kayaking, biking, hiking, etc.)
*nods* Again, I was thinking of one person who definitely did have entirely different eating and cooking habits than I did, and I apologize for the generalization. I didn't mean it as "all these apply in every circumstance."
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There are many, many things I do better than running.
Well, cognition, tool use, speech, etc. are important too I guess. I meant, "as far as physical activity goes, humans are outstanding long distance runners." Especially in terms of calories spent when compared to weight and speed, I think we're either the best or close to it.
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There are many, many things I do better than running.
Well, cognition, tool use, speech, etc. are important too I guess. I meant, "as far as physical activity goes, humans are outstanding long distance runners." Especially in terms of calories spent when compared to weight and speed, I think we're either the best or close to it.
Human beings are absolutely the best in the animal kingdom when it comes to long distance running. We're pretty well evolved for it.
There's a theory that the reason the species adapted in such a way was to run down prey animals when we had to get within "stabbing them with pointy sticks" distance.
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I don't run marathons and having done any formal distance training in a while, though I still greatly enjoy trail running. I did an 8 mile run on a trail in the Redwood Forest in northern California 2 summers ago and it was one of the most surreal, breathtakingly beautiful experiences of my life.
But back when I was in my A-School we had a staff sergeant who was training for a marathon, and every Monday he'd wake us up around 3:30 and we'd run 11-16 miles. "Runner's high" is pretty powerful, maybe like an anti-drunk feeling. After a few miles I'd fall into a sort of mental trance and feel a lucidity and mental clarity and do a lot of deep thinking. Actually, I used to do that all the time in college - I've always been much better at thinking when I run or hike or work out, so I'd run with a notebook and periodically stop and write stuff down. The evolutionary reasons behind that sensation - increased mental focus to track and hunt - are pretty cool.
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quote: Human beings are absolutely the best in the animal kingdom when it comes to long distance running.
Horses?
From the link in the post above you that answers exactly that question:
quote:Our "sustainable distance" is also hard to beat. African hunting dogs typically travel an average of 10 kilometers a day. Wolves and hyenas tend to go about 14 and 19 kilometers, respectively. In repeated distance runs, horses can cover about 20 kilometers a day. Vast throngs of human runners, by comparison, routinely run 42.2-kilometer marathons in just a few hours, and each year tens of thousands of people complete ultra-marathons of 100 kilometers and longer. (A few animals can match that under special circumstances. Huskies can trot up to 100 kilometers in Arctic conditions when forced to by people. But in warmer climes—no way.)
Also, top shape humans have distance speed of 6.5 m/s, as opposed to horses 5.8 m/s. But it's really the fact that we can go much, much further than horses before being exhausted that makes us "faster" in the long run.
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
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quote: That being said: the "wall" you describe (or "plateau" as a lot of weightlifters call it) is a well known phenomenon, and very real. The human body resists change, and will try it's hardest to maintain your current body weight and composition. This has a lot to do with the ice age screwing us over metabolically speaking - your body will exert as little energy as possible while exercising while also retaining as much fat as possible, and only building as much muscle as is necessary to perform the tasks you're doing. Why? Because fat is necessary to survival when faced with going a month or two without food and costs almost no energy to maintain, whereas retaining muscle burns an alarming amount of energy. This can make long term weight loss (or in my case, gain) very difficult - you'll see short term results for a few months, and then plateau and stay at one weight. It's immensely frustrating.
What you need to do to break through that wall is to shock your body.
Long distance running, or going on the elliptical, while good for your cardiovascular health, aren't going to help you lose weight. (though they'll help keep you from gaining weight once it's lost) Running is what humans do best, and we're incredibly efficient at it. A fit human being can chase a horse until it dies of exhaustion and still be ok, and the reason for this is because our bodies are incredibly efficient at running, and it require very little energy to do so.
When you first start running you don't have the appropriate muscle memory or coordination to do it efficiently so you burn a lot of calories and lose weight quickly at first, which is why a lot of overweight people trying to lose weight fall into the running trap - it works at first, and then right about the time you lose your first 20 lbs or so, it seemingly stops working. That's because your body has reached a point where it runs so efficiently that running takes very little energy to do.
The body loses weight when it burns more calories than it consumes. If you do long-distance running and consume a low-calorie diet you'll keep losing weight as long as you keep adding distance to your runs as your conditioning level rises. If you burn more calories than you consumed in a day, you're going to lose weight that day; that's inescapable.
That said, I do agree that high intensity training is a better weight-loss program than simple long-distance running. Not only will you burn calories but you'll develop muscles and coordination and other cool stuff.
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quote: Human beings are absolutely the best in the animal kingdom when it comes to long distance running.
Horses?
From the link in the post above you that answers exactly that question:
quote:Our "sustainable distance" is also hard to beat. African hunting dogs typically travel an average of 10 kilometers a day. Wolves and hyenas tend to go about 14 and 19 kilometers, respectively. In repeated distance runs, horses can cover about 20 kilometers a day. Vast throngs of human runners, by comparison, routinely run 42.2-kilometer marathons in just a few hours, and each year tens of thousands of people complete ultra-marathons of 100 kilometers and longer. (A few animals can match that under special circumstances. Huskies can trot up to 100 kilometers in Arctic conditions when forced to by people. But in warmer climes—no way.)
Also, top shape humans have distance speed of 6.5 m/s, as opposed to horses 5.8 m/s. But it's really the fact that we can go much, much further than horses before being exhausted that makes us "faster" in the long run.
What do they mean by repeated distance runs? It seems like they're comparing an average horse vs. a trained human runner. Has a horse ever been trained to run long-distance with the level of sports science we use to train ourselves in getting into optimum conditioning for running?
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: The body loses weight when it burns more calories than it consumes. If you do long-distance running and consume a low-calorie diet you'll keep losing weight as long as you keep adding distance to your runs as your conditioning level rises. If you burn more calories than you consumed in a day, you're going to lose weight that day; that's inescapable.
While this is absolutely, undeniably, observably true, there are some aspects of it that make it difficult for people to lose weight doing. Admittedly those parts are more related to psychology and a misunderstanding (on the part of many people trying to lose weight, not you) of how the body works. One part is physiological, which I will cover.
1) You have to continue adding distance, which means unless you're dramatically increasing speed (unlikely) you need to continue adding time as well.
So Joe Schmoe has 45 minutes every day to work out. He starts by stretching for 5 minutes (hopefully dynamic stretches not static), then runs 3 miles in 30 minutes, and then cools down and does static stretches. He burns about 300 calories above his BMR doing this and also increases his metabolism. Assuming he wasn't gaining weight on the diet he currently eats, and assuming he doesn't start eating/snacking more or drinking sugary "recovery" drinks or other crap (Gatorade has something like 200 calories in a bottle), he'll start losing about a pound a week.
After a while, though, Joe becomes better and better at running, his slow twitch muscles develop, he becomes more coordinated, his lungs process oxygen far more efficiently, his heartbeat slows, and he stops burning as much. He goes from losing a pound a week to half a pound, then a third of a pound, and because he doesn't have more than 45 minutes, he can't increase distance much to compensate. Even top shape Marathon runners can't do much better than 5 miles in 30. Then this happens:
2) As he runs and diets and starts losing weight, along with burning fat his body will start burning muscle too. Why? Because he's taking in fewer calories than he burns, and his body is going to try to go back to the status quo as quickly as possible. Since muscle greatly increases your BMR, reducing muscle mass is it's best way of retaining his fat. (which, evolutionarily speaking, is a "good thing") There are ways around this - taking branch chain amino acids and eating carbs for a glycogen spike shortly before running (why a lot of bodybuilders recommend eating a pop-tart before lifting, strangely enough), doing weight training as well as running to convince the body that retaining muscle mass is more important than retaining fat, etc. But this again requires more time and education that Joe is really willing to put in.
So eventually Joe reaches a point where his body compensates for the increase in caloric burn that 3 miles a day of running causes, and he reaches equilibrium and stops losing weight. If he's lucky, that's at his target weight. If he's more than 15 or 20 lbs overweight, this is highly unlikely.
3) After several months of no further weight loss and tired of feeling hungry all the time, Joe falls off the wagon and either stops running or increases his caloric intake. And we're back to square 1.
Whereas if he had used those 45 minutes for a high intensity workout (like, say, doing a series of timed sprints, or anything else except running) and varied the workouts routinely to keep his body from reaching a plateau, he actually has a good chance of reaching his goal. And once you're in shape, it's easier to keep off weight than it is to lose it.
None of this is to actually disagree with you in any way, just to say that distance running can be a huge mind-screw if you're not adequately educated and prepared. It's also very high impact and can cause a lot of injuries, again, mostly for people who are overweight and haven't been trained to run properly.
Edit:
Just so it's absolutely clear, by "compensate" above I mean "lower BMR by reducing muscle mass and optimize running to a level of efficiency that calories in = calories out." I by no means am denying thermodynamics or making the assumption that there's no limit to human efficiency. If Joe were to continue to increase distance or continue to reduce intake, he would be able to sustain weight loss right up to the point of starvation, actually. The body is awfully crafty at avoiding this, though. (seeing as how everybody who starved before they mated isn't part of our gene pool) It'll make him more lethargic at other tasks, make him hungrier (and increase the temptation to snack more), he'll eat larger portions, etc. It requires a very high level of discipline in exchange for very low level of improvement, which seems stupid when there are much better options out there.
quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: What do they mean by repeated distance runs? It seems like they're comparing an average horse vs. a trained human runner. Has a horse ever been trained to run long-distance with the level of sports science we use to train ourselves in getting into optimum conditioning for running?
Read the article. They race top-shape horses against top-shape humans. The humans win some times, and do better and better the longer the course and the hotter the day. I don't know much about horse racing, but I assume just based on the huge amounts of money involved there's quite a bit of sports science that goes into it.
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quote:Originally posted by GaalDornick: What do they mean by repeated distance runs? It seems like they're comparing an average horse vs. a trained human runner. Has a horse ever been trained to run long-distance with the level of sports science we use to train ourselves in getting into optimum conditioning for running?
Read the article. They race top-shape horses against top-shape humans. The humans win some times, and do better and better the longer the course and the hotter the day. I don't know much about horse racing, but I assume just based on the huge amounts of money involved there's quite a bit of sports science that goes into it.
Meh, I just finished reading all the front page articles on The Atlantic, I don't feel like reading another.
Just to nit-pick, horse racing seems more like sprinting. I don't think the horses actually pace themselves. I've never heard of a horse being trained for a marathon.
Also, great post before that one. I especially like the part about dynamic stretching before and static after!
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quote:Originally posted by scifibum: It'd be interesting to see what would happen if the horse was trying to win, and riderless.
Another angle on it: how many marathon runners can go run down a wild mustang in the desert?
Almost any of them. There are tribes that still hunt this way. (they don't hunt horses, mind you...)
Horses will sprint to get away from the person chasing them (instinctual predator reflex) and overheat pretty quickly. The rider actually helps the horse in this case - he keeps it moving at a steady pace.
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Regarding horses and distance racing - you're talking about endurance racing. And most races are 50 or 100 miles. And it's as much a test of the rider's endurance as it is of the horse's (and without a rider or other human direction, there's pretty much no way a horse would voluntarily travel that far in such a short time).
My stepfather was an ultramarathoner and he used to frequent a 100 miler in Vermont that was paired with a 100 mile endurance ride. Horses and riders had 24 hours to finish, runners had 30 hours. There have also been relay variations where you've got a team that takes turns running and riding.
From the article:
quote:Horses' average distance-running speed is 5.8 meters per second—a canter.
Believe it or not, the most efficient gait for a horse is trotting - which is often slower than cantering (a good endurance horse will have a good ground-eating trot, though). The problem with a trot is that it's the bounciest and generally most difficult gait for a rider.
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Ah, ok. Sorry I deleted the post, I figured you had answered the question with your first one. I didn't think anyone would see it for the 3 seconds it was up. Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
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In Ancient societies being overweight implied success and wealth and you were highly sought after.
I think there's also a trope in Asian societies that an overweight husband is a sign that his wife is a great cook, while a skinny husband implies the opposite; ironically my friends (His parents are from Hong Kong and Vietnam) mom who *IS* a great cook but his dad has such a high metabolism that he's skinny.
I've been working on losing weight on and off for years, but nothing really worked until recently due to a multitude of factors. Currently my plan is judo once a week (time factors) and calorie counting. Myfitnesspal puts my limit in order to lose weight at 1850 per day, I'm aiming more at the 1600-1700 since I'm not physically active on most days; while slowly trying to wake up at 6:30 to do exercises for about a half hour each morning; but that's extremely difficult.
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If the marathon runners were good trackers, most of them could. That's kind of the point.
Animals can be faster in the short term, sure. A horse can and will run very far away from a human that is trying to catch or kill it. But, if the human can track the horse, the human will catch up. The horse will run away again, and so on, until the horse overheats or exhausts itself, something which will most certainly happen before the physically fit marathon runner experiences the same thing.
This would happen even faster in the desert, as homo sapiens is also able to shed excess body heat faster and more efficiently then any other large mammal.
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It's always amusing to see where the thread wanders...
Dogbreath, thanks for all the info/suggestions. If I'd been able to lose more than three pounds over the past six months, I'd say it was hitting a wall. As it is, I'm not sure what's going on. I switched apps to myfitnesspal for tracking. It seems to have a little more information on offer, and maybe that's what I need to help keep me honest. I like the tips and goals in the app. Need to schedule a time to meet with the trainer at they gym, too.
I was reading the article about the New York time machine from What If? Serious Scientific Answers..., and there was mention of the American Antelope (if memory serves) and its ability to run 55 mph for at least short distances. I wonder how they'd do in a race of endurance?
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quote:Originally posted by Traceria: It's always amusing to see where the thread wanders...
Dogbreath, thanks for all the info/suggestions. If I'd been able to lose more than three pounds over the past six months, I'd say it was hitting a wall. As it is, I'm not sure what's going on. I switched apps to myfitnesspal for tracking. It seems to have a little more information on offer, and maybe that's what I need to help keep me honest. I like the tips and goals in the app. Need to schedule a time to meet with the trainer at they gym, too.
You're welcome!
Myfitnesspal is great and has given me pretty awesome results. I recommend getting a kitchen scale if you don't have one already to help measure portions. Measuring out food and planning every meal can be a pain in the butt, but we actually started for budget reasons (we were wasting too much money and food not planning meals) and found it only takes a couple hours at the beginning of every month. And My Fitness Pal helps you track any changes pretty easily.
As for your weight, I would recommend keeping a log (I just use an excel spreadsheet) of your weight every day. Weigh yourself at the same time in the beginning of the morning before you've eaten or drank anything, and then average out your weight over each week's period of time to track your actual gain/loss. I tried weighing myself in the morning yesterday then again in the evening after dinner, and found I had gained 5 lbs. So if you weigh yourself at different times of day and aren't consistent, you may get inaccurate results.
Once you have an exact pattern down - your daily caloric intake as well as your average weight loss - you can establish a baseline of how many calories your body actually burns and start tweaking the numbers.
quote:I was reading the article about the New York time machine from What If? Serious Scientific Answers..., and there was mention of the American Antelope (if memory serves) and its ability to run 55 mph for at least short distances. I wonder how they'd do in a race of endurance?
I researched pronghorns for a while and apparently they've some of the best distance runners in the world, as their "distance speed" is still ~25 mph. I'm not sure how long they can sustain that, but for miles at least.
That being said, Native Americans used to run them down. Probably by making them sprint repeatedly and wearing them out. (55 mph is sustainable for only short distances)
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Through the whole measles anti vax thing, I've often been tempted to bring up fat acceptance and anti-vax. Maybe because I used to be both. I find the efforts to shame anti-vax folks so counterproductive, however delicious it appears to the majority.
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to shame anti-vax people and the anti-vax movement is never going to pull over the stubborn deniers, which is a movement that sort of self-selects to being stubbornly impervious to medical and scientific truths (and if they weren't, and were thus conceivably able to have their minds changed on the issue, they are most likely to have left the movement by now) but the shame is important to deny the movement any sort of legitimacy to breed and grow.
Let people die on that hill if they want to, but make them seem so shamelessly idiotic that few people are going to be pulled in to join them.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: Let people die on that hill if they want to, but make them seem so shamelessly idiotic that few people are going to be pulled in to join them.
This is my belief as well.
With the Fat Acceptance movement, the greatest danger is to children brought up in an environment where it's believed that obesity is healthy or desirable. The sheer number of medical problems, pain, shortened lifespan, and limited lifestyle caused by obesity is sad and difficult enough to deal with in adults. When the person literally has never been given a chance at living a normal lifestyle (for reasons discussed here, losing that much weight is very difficult to accomplish) because his parents/teachers decided that being obese is "healthy" because they didn't want to hurt someone's feelings, it's that much worse. And arguably, seeing the sheer number of people in the U.S. dying of obesity-related diseases, I think it's extremely important to stop.
Curiously, I don't think anyone here has recommended shaming as a method of doing so. I think firmly and vocally denying the anti-scientific claims of fat acceptance people (as well global warming deniers, young earth creationists, anti-vaxxers, etc.) and refusing to entertain the notion of teaching their garbage in school is enough.
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Well, with fat acceptance there do exists disorders on the other side that it is feared we would push people into. Though I think the attitudes that actually give rise to anorexia have less to do with fat shaming per se as with overalll perfectionism.
I do think there could be an overlap between anti vax, fat acceptance, and other conspiracy theoriests and borderline personality disorder. So is shaming still the right tool in that case? The whole crux of personality disorder is where a maladaptive response is perceived by the individual as integral to self. Distrust, selfishness, isolation, jealousy, greed, manipulation and even loyalty become overemphasized.
I just don't think attacking people is the right way. It's answering fear with fear. The fear is real. But a doctor advocating for the truly unimmunizable is different from shaming. How does the mob decide which cases their doctor should be turning away?
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: Well, with fat acceptance there do exists disorders on the other side that it is feared we would push people into. Though I think the attitudes that actually give rise to anorexia have less to do with fat shaming per se as with overalll perfectionism.
The attitude that thin=perfect didn't come from just anywhere.
I'm a size 0 thanks to curvy pants, vanity sizing and genetics. My sisters, who are more or less my height and but not much above me in weight are upset that they are "fatter" than me. Their weights are so far into the realm of "shouldn't care at all" based on what they weigh, fortunately do not have disordered eating, but *it still bothers them*.
There's this pervasive attitude that anything over a size 0-2 is unhealthy, that thin is part of being perfect.
As CT points out, it's OK, medically speaking to be overweight. Obese, not really. Morbidly obese not at all, but our society is full of people who are shamed and harassed for being perfectly healthy.
Our society is so screwed up, we have no idea what healthy is anymore. Anorexia isn't healthy (and it kills harder than obesity) and nor is morbid obesity, but as long as you're well away from either extreme, and your lifestyles includes healthy food and exercise, than you should be fine.
There's also this horrible hate toward fat people that's just inexplicable. My fat friend gets unsolicited hate messages for simply having her picture on the internet in ways that normal people display their pictures. Her health (which admittedly is terrible) does not warrant nasty comments from strangers telling her to kill herself. Countless fat people who have lost weight can testify the difference in attitude they receive from everyone after becoming skinnier.
I read this fascinating book on Project Gutenberg, How to Analyze People On Sight (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/30601/30601-h/30601-h.htm)
The book is filled with old-timey pseudo-science ("highly accurate science" according to the book), explains a lot of where our stereotypes come from, but it also describes how fat people were viewed before being fat was this shameful thing. They were lazy, owned comfortable furniture, ate too much food, were the best of business sharks, destined to die young from heart problems, popular and the life of every party-- all at once!
I don't know, if the people of the 1920s, with all their specialness that would not be tolerated today, could deal with the fact that fat people were unhealthy but treat them as part of society, we should be able to too.
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quote:Originally posted by theamazeeaz: but as long as you're well away from either extreme, and your lifestyles includes healthy food and exercise, than you should be fine.
Unfortunately, this idea that you should maintain a healthy body weight, eat healthy food and exercise regularly makes you a "healthist" and an oppressor.
I wonder of the HAES/FAM people realize how much they have in common with Pro-Ana groups, or realize just how damaging shaming people (especially young women) for their body can be.
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I read alot about body positivism and follow alot of body positive and fat acceptance bloggers and yet I've never seen anyone discouraging a healthy diet or exercise. Most of the bloggers I follow are super into yoga and are working to dispel the notion that yoga is only for thin, white girls. I got some of my best clean recipes from these blogs.
The only negativity I've seen happens when one of those "real women have curves" or similar images go around. About half the women talk about how body positivism should mean teaching all women to love all bodies. The other half defend the ability of marginalized women to express frustration with images of thin women (much along the lines of letting women complain men when they're angry at the patriarchy, or for people of color to rail against white people when they're frustrated by a institutionalized racism.) Its the whole argument that you should only be offended by "skinny b*tches" if you are a "b*tch" otherwise calm down because they're not complaining about you.
I've never seen "healthist" equated with a healthy lifestyle, but mostly with the pervasive behavior of some health care providers who blame every complaint on weight issues rather than investigate and treat their patient the same as someone who weighed 50 pounds less. I've heard so many first-hand accounts of women who have gotten sick or nearly died because a doctor didn't take their aches and pains seriously. Some healthists also sell the lie that body size equates to general health and well-being. Or that being a smaller size will make a person happier.
There are plenty of people who eat well, exercise, but are perfectly happy to maintain at their current size even if its larger than what society deems desirable. From my experiences, the Fat Acceptance Movement is about letting girls and women know that being fat is okay. They are allowed to look in the mirror, say "I am fat" and feel no more or less negative about the statement than if they had said "I am blonde" or "I am short." They may not always be short, they may dye their hair, they may lose the weight at some point in their life. But in a moment, they are allowed and encouraged to accept and love themselves for who they are without any qualifiers or negative connotations.
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quote:The estimated number of annual deaths attributable to obesity among US adults is approximately 280,000 based on HRs from all subjects and 325,000 based on HRs from only nonsmokers and never-smokers.
I highly encourage you to read the study above, as well as the wikipedia article on obesity and it's citations. Simply put, this is not a "lie" that doctors and the healthcare industry conspired to start telling people to make them feel bad about their weight, it is the truth. Obesity being an extremly unhealthy condition that kills hundreds of thousands of people every year is factual. While I completely respect your choices as far as what you want to do with your own body, trying to push dangerous lies on other people for a political agenda or because the truth *hurts your feelings* is immoral and, in the cases where children are involved, abuse. Telling people not to listen to medical professionals because you don't like what they have to say, or accusing doctors who choose to practice medicine with integrity and honesty "healthists", is also immoral and evil.
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Dogbreath, what's your take on the research in the intervening 15 years since that article was published? *interested
--- Edited to add: I've been interested in following the ongoing conversations in the literature about outcomes. As I mentioned before, my read is that it is more complicated than often portrayed, especially given large meta-analyses coming out in the last decade or so.
--- Edited Part 2: Also, just to be clear, I'm not recommending obesity as a goal for anyone. I'm not recommending becoming overweight as a goal for anyone, either. I am professionally interested in being clear for myself and in broader discourse about what we do and do not know. The issue is, I think, more complicated in many ways -- not just what we know, but also in how to support change in personal choices, if that is the goal. From the research, it looks like intuitively appealing approaches are not necessarily helpful, and I think that's critical to understand and acknowledge in broader discourse.
If the way we try to motivate people to change does not in general work -- and especially if it tends to lead to more negative outcomes -- then I think we need to change our discourse, if changing the outcomes is the goal. There is indeed research on this. These issues are not settled by any means, but there has been more and and more data gathered as dialogue in the research communities goes on, and the interpretations of that data become better informed as the years go by, too.
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But there is definite complexity here, and there is something that needs to be examined.] There was a huge meta-analysis of international studies done by a senior CDC scientist which found the following: ![[Wave]](graemlins/wave.gif)
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