3 Fat Chicks on a Diet Weight Loss Community

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- General Diet Plans and Questions (https://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/general-diet-plans-questions-10/)

- - Fat Fallacy (https://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/general-diet-plans-questions/32020-fat-fallacy.html)

I just ordered the book "The Fat Fallacy". Has anyone read/tried/heard of it? If so, what kind of success have you had, if any?

I've not read the book, but it has a lot of great reviews on Amazon.

From what I can tell by the description, it compares the French way of eating to our own. I think he compares the quality of food, and blames our weight issues on the highly processed foods we eat. It sounds like an interesting book, and we'll be anxious to hear what you think of it :)

The French do eat fatty foods and they do stay thin. However, recent studies of the French lifestyle shows that they just eat smaller portions than us, so that's how they stay thin. This was mentioned in several news articles in the last few weeks.

A recent study in the journal 'Psychological Science' reported that the French stay slim by eating smaller portions. A comparison showed that serving sizes in France are much smaller than those in America. For example, an American chocolate bar was 41 percent larger than a French chocolate bar. A U.S. soft drink was 50 percent larger, and a hot dog was 63 percent bigger. Chinese restaurants in America serve up to 72 percent more food than they would received at a Chinese restaurant in France.

I'm sure serving sizes have something to do with it. I think it would also be easy to show that the French have a higher average daily activity level (longer walks to work, more stairs, less reliance on mechanical convenience, ...) However, I'm not sure that I'd look to France, today, as the ideal to aim for. They, like most of Europe, are adopting American habits over time, and paying the price.

Well, I was excited to get the book, but basically, the book is about portion sizes and adapting the mediterranean food pyramid. The differences are red meat only once every other week, cheese and dairy fats and whole grains and complex carbs make up the bulk of your diet. But yeah, portions are important. He tells you throughout most of the book why Americans are fat, but we all already knew that. Then, he talkes about dangerous surgeries, stomach stapling, gastric bypass, etc., and then provides you with a few recipes at the end of the book.

He tells you to serve your foods in courses. Always eat your salad last to cleanse your palate for dessert. Don't start eating until everyone else gets their food, eat slowly, put your fork down between bites, you know, the same stuff we've been hearing for years and years. Eat slow, blah, blah, blah. Wine in moderation, blah, blah, blah. An ounce of cheese here, an ounce of dark chocolate to end your meal, blah, blah, blah. Basically, eat what you want, but don't be a pig about it. That's the difference. I don't know what I was expecting, but that's the gist of the book.

Oh, and stay away from processed foods, he calls them Faux Foods, only eat read food, you know, nothing from a box etc., etc. Was I expecting a miracle that you allow me to eat whatever I wanted? Probably, but I know it doesn't exist. Oh well, enough for me. Don't buy the book. We already know everything he says.

There is nothing new under the sun...

Ah so basically another book about the "french paradox" as 60 Minutes called it, what, 11 years or so ago...

I haven't seen the book myself, but I betcha it can be summed up pretty well in this article by Michael Fumento:

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On the Thin Side of the World:
Europeans Eat Less Than We Do, Exercise Informally
By Michael Fumento
January 19, 1998
Copyright 1998 Michael Fumento

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Any American who has ever visited Europe can tell you how much thinner Europeans are than we. Any European who has recently arrived here will gladly regale you with stories about how stunningly fat he thinks we are.

No European country even comes close to us in terms of obesity. The average North American is more than 16 pounds heavier than the average Northern European. But gross obesity is where we really excel. We have almost three times as many grossly obese people as Sweden; four times as many as the Netherlands.

Yet by our standards they are doing everything wrong.

Low-fat and no-fat cookies, cakes and desserts are virtually nonexistent in Europe. You're more likely to find a statue of the Duke of Wellington in France than a Snackwell's cookie.

Europeans get almost no wonderful diet advice thrown at them, like we do – by the government and those wonderful women's magazines that regularly offer "the last diet you'll ever need." Only the U.K. provides food labels with fat and calorie content. Without our "solutions," Europeans are so much thinner than we. Why?

Our food portions look like something out of Jurassic Park.

Europeans have more appreciation for the quality of food, while to Americans, quantity has a quality all its own. Muffins are now five times or more their original size. Pastry shops sell doughnuts the size of plates, perhaps 10 times larger than the originals.

The original bottle of Coca-Cola held 6 ounces; now the standard bottle from a machine is 20 ounces and convenience stores sell 64-ounce sodas (containing more than 800 calories). Yet the typical European Coca-Cola bottle is about 8 ounces.

My favorite European candy bar comes in only one size, 20 grams. My favorite American candy bar's small size is three times bigger.

Europeans haven't been indoctrinated with the low-fat/no-fat nonsense. "The studies are clear," says Dr. Walter Willlett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health. "It's a myth that it's just the fat in your diet that makes you fat. ... It doesn't make any difference where your calories come from."

We don't get nearly as much informal exercise.

If you see a jogger in Paris or Brussels, it's probably an American. Europeans are walkers; we are drivers and passengers. They have a great advantage in that things are much closer together in their cities. But Americans can easily work more informal exercise into their schedules, such as parking the car as far from the store entrance as possible and taking the stairs whenever possible instead of the elevator.

American food is systematically stripped of fiber.

The American diet seems to treat fiber (the indigestible part of fruits and vegetables) with more loathing than cockroaches. Europeans eat much more high-fiber (whole grain) bread, cereal, fruits and vegetables than we do. A recent survey found that most Americans who ate any whole-grain food at all ate less than a serving a day. More than half consumed no whole-grain cereals during the previous two weeks. A 1996 survey of shoppers found that for 80 percent, the first item they looked for on a label was fat content. Only 3 percent said fiber.

Yet, there is overwhelming evidence linking high fiber intake with slimness. For example, one study comparing the self-reported diets of lean and obese women found that the lean women's diet contained 45 percent more fiber than that of their obese counterparts. Another found that women given a small citrus and grain fiber supplement for three months lost about four and a half pounds more weight than the comparison women who didn't take the supplement. Over a year, that would be an 18-pound loss without cutting a single calorie or spending so much as five minutes on a treadmill.

We hide behind excuses.

Americans have built up an aura of inevitability, victimization and rationalization around obesity. Lat year's big excuse was, "I have the fat gene." Strange how the gene seems to manifest itself only on this side of the Atlantic.

This year's big excuse is, "I'm fat but I'm fit, and that's all that counts." Wrong. You may have good cholesterol, glucose and blood pressure levels, but all that fat takes an inevitable toll. Studies dating back literally a hundred years show clearly that the fatter you are, the shorter your life expectancy.

We are also largely institutionalizing obesity, with clothes catering to obese women on practically every street corner, popular magazines like People proclaiming on the cover, "Who Says Size Counts?" and the politically correct toiletry chain, The Body Shop, using an obese Barbie-type doll as a mascot. (Interestingly, The Body Shop stores in Europe do not use the doll.) The Mattel company has finally caved into demands and made Barbie herself fatter.

We're tied to the Tube.

Americans watch more than four hours of television a day on an average, more than twice the average European. This fattens us up by keeping us from doing calorie-burning activity and by bombarding us with tempting food commercials. This is especially true with younger Americans. Researchers reported in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association that "television viewing was the best single correlate" to children's fatness.

We're in too much of a hurry.

Europeans generally take life easier, with longer vacations and (more importantly here) longer meals. Americans seem to have a need to get our food fast and wolf it down even faster, turning what should be a sensual experience into a drag race.

When it comes to trying to get rid of excess flab, we can't wait for that either. The fat we put on over a period of decades we want to remove permanently in a few weeks. The urban landscape is dotted with signs promising "Lose 30 Pounds in 30 Days!"

One of last year's biggest-selling diet books was The 5-Day Miracle Diet. Not quick enough for you? You should also buy The 4-Day Wonder Diet. Yet the slower you lose, the easier it is to stick to your regimen and the more likely you are to keep the pounds off.

Miracles come from God, not from diet book authors, weight-loss clinics or pharmaceutical companies. With 300,000 Americans a year dying of obesity, we need to get serious about our national weight problem. To be more slim, Americans must do when they want to be chic: Imitate the Europeans.

And a personal comment: I haven't yet been to France - but I have traveled to London a couple of times - and from what I saw, they *do* walk a lot more and/or rely on public transportation (which still means a lot of walking). Of course, McDonald's and other American fast-food companies have made inroads - but it's true that the traditional British scone is at least 1/4 the size of the ones I see here in America...and the portion sizes overall are significantly smaller - and meals are more relaxed and of a longer duration (rather than 'gulp and go').

There are actually a few foods that I tend to be more European about...and chocolate is one of them. I don't buy Snackwel's or fat free puddings or any of that anymore...on the occasion when I do "need" it-I go down to a local fine chocolate shoppe, and buy a single (full fat) dark chocolate truffle and savor it slowly. I found that eating that one "high quality" candy does the trick better for me than eating an entire box of "fake goodies." So-in a sense, I think there is a lot of truth to this.
Americans have definitely been trained to be lazy-we are alway on the lookout for the easiest to prepare meal, the fastest line, the closest parking space...and the largest food portion for the money.
Aphil

I find the article on europeans eating higher fat than us interesting. and that they eat smaller portions. they eat smaller portions because of body controlled eating not because they have extrodinary self control. other wise they would be very fat.

they don't go on caloire reduced diets and they don't obsess about weight and so the battle with the body never begins. thus teh smaller portions are because the body isn't trying to do any fat storing to replace fat stores lost through dieting efforts.

the secret is body controlled eating not mind controled because of all the diet propaganda we are all suffering from here in america.

by the way this body controlled eating doesn't mean the person will always be obese. it just means the body has to be convinced that famines (undereating for any reason) don't occur. this takes time. in my case it has been a little over a year plataueing waiting for my body to get the message that undereating will never occur again, once this message is clear to it the body not me, will decrease the appetite or change the cravings to leaner foods, for fat loss. in fact my appeitite has changed dramatically I crave healthier food I don't crave the junk and I feel more like moving this is something I am not forcing. in fact it surprised me.

WARNING, THIS METHOD IS EXTRMELY SLOW, AND THE RESULTS CAN TAKE YEARS TO ACHEIVE. BUT THE RESULTS ARE PERMANENT.YOU MUST BE FIRMLY CONVINCED IN THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURALLY THIN, BASED ON THE BOOK HOW TO BE NATURALLY THIN BY EATING MORE AND BREAKING OUT OF THE FOOD JAIL BY JEAN ANTENELLO.

It should be noted that the method is indeed slow, and the results can take years to achieve, but the results are NOT always permanent. Like all approaches there is success and failure.

I have to state the 95 percent of dieters fail. well the diets fail them. no point in blaming the person who has endured tremendous deprivation and hunger (which is painful) to try to lose weight and keep it off.

so the failure rate is too high. but the plan I was talking about has a 98 percent success rate (as opposed to a 95 percetn failure with other plans). those who follow it are basically body controlled eaters. they lose and maintain for over 10 years without pain suffering worrying about holiday eating or anything.

the 95 percent who end up the losers in the unhappy way are mind controlled eaters. the 5 percent who succeed and keep the weight off for over 5 years usually are termed anoreixic. they have to remain extremely disciplined to fight their bodies survival mechnism. they know that if they let up the controls even a little then they may start eating and not be able to stop..

so too they usually eat just enough to "medicate" their hunger. just enough to maintain their strict controls but not enough to stop the extreme pain they have to endure. the physical and mental pain. they have to be constantly on guard.

who can maintain that for life? the consequences is the obessession with every caloire eaten, critisium of others who eat all the time, even tho they are not obese, maybe a little chubby but in no way fat.

the pain, the talking about diets all the time, the extreme exercising for weight loss not for health and enjoyment and the list can go on.

but the worst consequences is if they don't eventually give into their hunger and gain their weight back they die. it is that simple. they literally starve themselves to death. if they maintain a deficite to keep from gaining any weight their bodies are feeding on their muscles and the heart is a muscle to make up the difference. afterall the body can only lower the metabolism so much.

who wants to spend their life having to be on the watch for not eating to much, for the intense hunger, cravings the weakness and the fatigue that hits these undereaters (and all dieters would have to maintain undereating to maintain weight lost otherwise the body would take any extra and store it because of trying to recover from a famine)

but if the weight loss is natural and instigated by the body and not by the dieter the battle with the body never begins the body controls the rate of loss and when and the loss will be fat only not muscle.

once the weight hits the area the body wants to be based on the availabitly of food and if the person doesn't take over the controls then the loss will be permeanent.

elimiate famines of every kind you eliminate the need for excess fat. Naturally we need a certain amount, the body knows how much. so we should not try to look like the actresses or models on tv. they do extreme things to achieve an unnatural thiness, the type that was never meant to be.

I for one would like to see some studies on these "95 percent failure rates" and "98 percent success rates" that you are throwing around as though they were proven facts, Antidieter.

Anything published in JAMA or is this just something you gleaned off a message board or a website with an agenda? Just curious...because I have lost and KEPT OFF over 100 pounds of fat for 12 years now...and I don't believe that anyone would consider me "anorexic".

Before you send everyone in a panic, check your facts.

good for you. you are indeed a rare individual. I wish I knew someone who lost alot of weight like you and wasn't anorexic. and I know a few believe me. they are in a battle for life. a battle against their survival instincts. if you don't have that battle I am very happy for you. keep it up. these statistics i Have read in medical books over the years the kind doctors read but the average laymen never reads, too technical. plus on the tv and magezines articles written by doctors, dietitian etc.

this is over many years of reading and listening and observing people, those who diet, those who don't those overweight and those who are not.

the success rate of the naturally thin is based on people I know who are following have followed and it and those who persist and do not fall for the diet propagnda who have lost kept it off and do not have to worry about whether they will all of a sudden lose control there is no fear of binging ther is no fear that they will start eating and not stop, there is no will power involved.

in fact the only willpower is to not lose faith in the principles because the major results take years, tho there are signs you are on the right track before that.

these are the little victories that keep you from losing faith and going back to mind controlled eating because of wanting to speed the weight loss up.

And please, my intentions are not to panic, but if I can get people to understand the principles then they can know it is there once they are unable to do teh mind controlled eating plans.

they have something to fall back. oh by the way that principles are working for me. just ask my husband. ice cream left in the freezer for months. that is something I could never do and if I dieted, then trying to avoid teh binging phase would be utter torture.

You know the consitition forbids cruel and unusual punishment for criminals, and obese people are treated like they are guilty of being gluttons and to expect them to endure a life time of agony just isn't fair.

so forcing the body to get by on less forcing fat loss and trying to fight the body's attempt to replace those stores in order to prepare for the next famine (which to the body will happen because it keeps happening) is utter torture. to be beaten, flogged and pushed around is less painful compared to that.

pain and survival are not good friends. dieting is like trying to cut your hand off. no matter how much you want to cut that hand off once you start cutting and hit those nerves you either stop or have to endure the intense pain and if you do succeed you will bleed to death. only a rare individual can endure that kind of pain, someone who knows how to numb themselves.

unfortuanantly that is very few.

Wow, I don't know what kind of diet you're on, but I don't find changing my lifestlye as difficult as cutting my hand off. Yes, it's hard, but the reward is so worth it. Feeling healthier, living longer, having more energy, and so much more.

i am no longer on any diet but rather I am on a antidiet program.

those days are over. I have done the ww things the eat less and exercise thing, I have seen my friends on physicians weight loss their determination etc.

the pain and suffering is no longer a part of my life. not the physical, one but the mental trying to help others understand what I have come to understand adn what took years to come to understand.

anyway I too had the weight loss successes and the feeling of jubilee only to eventually be replaced with fatigue, fogginess, lack of desire to move around much and the intense hunger that would not go away.

and I in no way went on a severe diet either. just cut down a little except the time i did ww only to develope gallstones which my doctor attributed to my dieting efforts.

I know a lot of people that have lost weight successfully - and kept it off - through a healthy diet and exercise program. I agree with mthrgoos68 in that changing our lifestyle isn't that hard. It just takes practice and motivation. Fortunately, we see a lot of inspiring examples, including Mrs. Jim's own success. Fortunately, hers is not a rare example. Weight Watchers is also a good and healthy program that most doctors will recommend, as long as it is followed properly.

We have a lot of very supportive groups here, and I'm not aware of any that have described their diets as torturous or compared the experience to being flogged. Dieting can actually be fun and often includes a lot of food exploration, as we try new things. Exercise can also be fun. Exercise IS recommended by most physicians and reputable diet programs to assist in weight loss.

We love to read success stories, and see how people's lives change when they first notice weight loss, or how much energy they have after following a healthy diet and exercise program. Their lives improve and they become happier and healthier.

We realize that you have found a method of weight loss that you find acceptable for your personal goals. Please realize that every person is different, and each person needs to find what works for them. Our members generally take a very positive approach to weight loss and enjoy the friendships they make during their journey. Support is a very important part of a weight loss program, as well as proper nutrition and exercise.

Quote:

Originally posted by antidieter
I have to state the 95 percent of dieters fail. well the diets fail them. no point in blaming the person who has endured tremendous deprivation and hunger (which is painful) to try to lose weight and keep it off.

If you truly want to be fair, then you really do have to place a good amount of the blame on the dieter. Many diets do indeed "work" if adhered to. The failure typically stems from failure to achieve the behavioral modification necessary to sustain the diet. You can demand that diet regimens come with effective behavior modification support, but you can also demand to be exempt from taxes and get all your groceries for free -- that doesn't necessarily make it so. Don't get me wrong: It is *hard*. Many important things are hard. That's life.

Quote:

but the plan I was talking about has a 98 percent success rate (as opposed to a 95 percetn failure with other plans).

I don't believe you know of any plan that results in sustained maintenance of a significant amount of weight-loss over a significant period of time. You sound like a snake oil salesman. You've got a credibility gap you need to fill.

Quote:

the 5 percent who succeed and keep the weight off for over 5 years usually are termed anoreixic.

You're mistaken. Anorexia is a psychological condition that has nothing to do with healthy eating and good fitness. Sounds to me that you're grasping at straws, trying to defend your personal preference by attempting to cast reckless aspersions on other approaches, rather than proving the efficacy of your own approach.

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who can maintain that for life?

I'll refer you to the National Weight Control Registry, where there are thousands of case studies proving that you're wrong.