The Fat Trap

[kangofu]

The Fat Trap
Source - NYTimes
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Published: December 28, 2011For 15 years, Joseph Proietto has been helping people lose weight. When these obese patients arrive at his weight-loss clinic in Australia, they are determined to slim down. And most of the time, he says, they do just that, sticking to the clinic’s program and dropping

Comments

[deathchibi]

I read once that being overweight changes the fat cells since they hold more - making it really, really difficult to lose the weight for good. Not to mention all the stress from concern trolls or people outright mocking and health conditions that tend to get ignored. Throw in food desserts, being overworked, a lack of cooking lessons in most places and ... yeah.

It is kind of sad this has to be news to some people. :( I always try to eat what my friends on diets eat, so I'm not waving junk food in front of them.

[labelleizzy]

thanks for this.

[kitschaster]

I really did enjoy the amount of this article that I read (I can't sit and finish reading it, not yet at least), but I enjoyed how open the writer was concerning her own weights struggles, and what many women go through. Especially the one woman who is 195 lbs, but strives so hard to maintain it.

*sigh* I wish I were 195 again. :(

[shoujokakumei]

Same. The lowest weight I've ever been at in my adult life was 170, when I was living in the city and depending on walking/transit (and in a neighborhood relatively free of fast food). When I tell people I'd love to get back to that, they go "omg but that's still so fat!!!1"

Yeah, maybe, but I felt great and looked good enough to suit myself. And since I didn't have to starve myself or work out like a fiend to get there, that's what I'd like to be able to go back to - the lifestyle I had (and loved) was enough to do it.

[homasse]

According to Wii Fit and it's "ideal weight" thing, I should aim for 147 pounds. And I laughed and I laughed and I laughed and said, "Yeah, so, I'm shooting for around 170, maybe 165, Wii Fit," and merrily ignore it every time.

...I will admit, though, I laugh evilly every time it tells me, because it tells me what it thinks I should be in kilo: 66.6 kilo.

>:D

Laugh evilly, then ignore it and tell it my goal is to lose a kilo in a month.

[mariechan]

Maybe I'm biased but I wouldn't really trust a family game console to advise you on your health/weight/etc.

[roseofjuly]

Changing your diet is a lifestyle change, and it is far more difficult to do than going on a diet - and as the author points out, may not work as effectively as one would thing given biological and genetic antecedents to being fat. It needs to be studied more.

[spyral_path]

lf you read the entire article it says that even permanent changes to diet don't always work because of changes weightloss causes to a person's body.

[kitbug]

I think there's merit to a longer, slower weight loss. I lost fifty pounds over the course of a year or two, and I've kept the weight off for like three years. Not saying it would work for everyone, but I think it helps hold off the starving mode the body goes into for extreme dieting.

[homasse]

Yeah, similar here. I lost thirteen kilo slowly over a year. Yeah, half of it came back in a year, but that was because of a massive injury to both legs that took me from walking an hour every day to, well, not exercising at all, and once my legs healed up and I could start walking again, my weight started going back down, and I'm sure the fact that I lost weight slowly was why only half of it came back (and I also think a lot of it was a side effect of some medication I was on, because all the weight came suddenly over a few months, and once I stopped taking the pills because they were making my stomach swell up, I started losing weight. Eight months later and I'm a nearly dress size smaller than I had been in before the meds).

I refuse to deny myself food, but I do think about what I eat and yeah, I have to think about the calories and calculate in my head...insofar as that I pick the lower calorie choice when I'm getting food, not that I don't eat, and that measuring food to the gram shit can blow me

[sephystabbity]

This is true. I think just being knowledgeable about the calories you eat goes a long way. I eat when I want to eat, but knowing roughly how much calories there are in things helps me make okay choices. Although since it's the holidays, I am still gorging on the chocolate lying around all over the house -_-

[homasse]

Right - every day I try to keep to under 1800 calories, but that's a rough count. I look at a calorie count on something and go, "OK, that's around *rounds up*," and decide if it's OK or not, and that's about the extent of it. Sometimes I'll decide the calories are worth it, especially if the meal or whatev overall is healthy.

I'm still gonna eat, but that eating til I'm full is more likely now to be mall bibimbap instead of McDonald's.