Another thread got me thinking about something I once read, called The Hacker's Diet. It's available online, just search, it's basically a geeky approach to thinking about weight management by thinking of your body as an engineering sort of system.
But the thing I recall as being neat was its graph of how people's appetites work, basically. This was a graph they drew of a person with a 'normal' appetite, which they call 'Skinny Sam':
Basically the idea is that if people eat too little, they get hunger, which causes them to eat more until they reach their optimal calories for weight maintenance. And if they eat too much, they get stuffed, which causes them to eat less calories.
Then you have a picture of someone they call 'Overweight Oscillating Oscar'. The idea here is that his cues are a bit off. If he's feeling perfectly satisfied he's just on the threshold of gaining weight, or else gaining a little. They say this is the person who's constantly trying to lose "that last five pounds", only to regain it again. Their hunger cues are a little out of line.
Then there's the one they call Bulky Blown-Up Buster. Basically this picture shows a situation where whenever this person eats too little, there's clearly hunger, but there's nothing that ever signifies "okay I'm full!" until he gets physically sick. I swear that feels like me some days:
Anyway, just thought that was an interesting way of looking at it.
"Normal" Eaters versus the Obese
