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I’m outraged! Here I am, drinking my coffee and reading the morning paper and what do I see? An article comparing diet plans (it’s been an on-going series since the beginning of the year) http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04169/332980.stm. No problem until I get to this paragraph:
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What discourages me, though, is something I read in The New York Times on June 8, quoting noted obesity expert Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, who says that "body weight is genetically determined, as tightly regulated as height. Genes control not only how much you eat but also the metabolic rate at which you burn food. When it comes to eating, free will is an illusion.
"People can exert a level of control over their weight within a 10-, perhaps a 15-pound range," Dr. Friedman said. But expecting an obese person to decide to simply eat less and exercise more to get below the obesity range, below the overweight range? It virtually never happens, he said. "Any weight that is lost almost invariably comes right back."
Frankly, I think that “noted obesity expert” Jeffrey Friedman can blow it out his you know what …. What kind of message is that, to tell people they’re doomed before they even start?? It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I’d like to point out that WE have many “noted obesity experts” here, such as Karen, Julie, Jack, Beverly, StarPrincess, Mel, myself, and many others who can tell you that it’s very possible to lose weight and keep it off permanently. In fact, we’re all doing it. So there, Dr. Friedman!
I've been reading the book "The Hungry Gene: the Science of Fat and the Future of Thin" by Ellen Ruppel Shell, and learning more about the aforementioned Dr. Friedman. He really is a noted researcher at Rockefeller University in NY. The NY Times article was a vastly simplified abstract of his findings, but that is the gist of his and others' conclusions. And here's why:I’m outraged! Here I am, drinking my coffee and reading the morning paper and what do I see? An article comparing diet plans (it’s been an on-going series since the beginning of the year) http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04169/332980.stm. No problem until I get to this paragraph:
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What discourages me, though, is something I read in The New York Times on June 8, quoting noted obesity expert Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, who says that "body weight is genetically determined, as tightly regulated as height. Genes control not only how much you eat but also the metabolic rate at which you burn food. When it comes to eating, free will is an illusion.
"People can exert a level of control over their weight within a 10-, perhaps a 15-pound range," Dr. Friedman said. But expecting an obese person to decide to simply eat less and exercise more to get below the obesity range, below the overweight range? It virtually never happens, he said. "Any weight that is lost almost invariably comes right back."
Frankly, I think that “noted obesity expert” Jeffrey Friedman can blow it out his you know what …. What kind of message is that, to tell people they’re doomed before they even start?? It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I’d like to point out that WE have many “noted obesity experts” here, such as Karen, Julie, Jack, Beverly, StarPrincess, Mel, myself, and many others who can tell you that it’s very possible to lose weight and keep it off permanently. In fact, we’re all doing it. So there, Dr. Friedman!
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Mild obesity usually reflects a plumping up of individual fat cells, while more severe obesity, and obesity arising from childhood, is usually manifested by a substantial increase in the number of fat cells: average weight adults have 25 to 30 billion fat cells, while the obese may have as many as 200 billlion....This explains why dieters in his (Hirsch's) obesity clinic at Rockefeller Hospital so oftern hit the "wall"- shrinking fat cells fought back, sending ever more frantic "eat" signals to their brains. Eventually as Keys's starvation experiment had shown with frightening clarity, these signals all but drown out other messages to the brain- and become almost impossible to ignore. A reduced obese person is not the same as another person of the same weight who has never been obese...their brains are different."
(bold is my addition)Mild obesity usually reflects a plumping up of individual fat cells, while more severe obesity, and obesity arising from childhood, is usually manifested by a substantial increase in the number of fat cells: average weight adults have 25 to 30 billion fat cells, while the obese may have as many as 200 billlion....This explains why dieters in his (Hirsch's) obesity clinic at Rockefeller Hospital so oftern hit the "wall"- shrinking fat cells fought back, sending ever more frantic "eat" signals to their brains. Eventually as Keys's starvation experiment had shown with frightening clarity, these signals all but drown out other messages to the brain- and become almost impossible to ignore. A reduced obese person is not the same as another person of the same weight who has never been obese...their brains are different."
(Keys's starvation experiment refered to above, was done on conscientious objectors after the Second World War. It has become known as the "Minnesota Starvation Study". Healthy young men were fed a concentration camp diet to assess the effects on both their bodies and minds for 6 months, then given access to as much and any kind of food they wanted. Almost all returned quickly to their previous normal weights. Most did not go above their previous weight, and lost interest in gorging themselves once that body fat level had been attained.)
Somewhere in the book, and I wish I could find the exact quote, Friedman says that a normal weight, previously obese person is someone living in a constant mode of starvation. Reading the descriptions of the study participants' food psychosis reminds me of my own state of mind while I was losing weight (which I admittedly did too quickly) and in the first few weeks of maintenance. I also had the same reactions while doing a bodybuilding comp diet, though I had no intentions of competing.
Ok, so where am I going here? The more I read, the more I believe that in most cases there is a pysiological set point for each individual. In cases of morbid obesity, obviously something has gone radically wrong in creating that point. The human genome has been mapped, but still not fully understood. The hypothalmus is still mostly a mystery, although researchers have shown in both mice and men, that a damaged hypothalmus leads to either obesity or self starvation. Yet there are some of us here who have lost 50, 100, 150 plus pounds, and some who have maintained that loss for years. And many who have failed to maintain, and are on the same sysiphean journey. We had a thread about cravings and how we handle them- that's where the free will part comes in. My theory at this point, is that those who can successfully distract our cravings, or "frantic 'eat' signals" are the ones who can maintain a weight loss. MrsJim assures us it gets easier over time. Maybe refusing to give into those eat signals begins to erase the neural memory of overeating, or actually shrinks the fat cells long enough that they can no longer send out such frantic signals. If we maintain long enough at a certain body fat level, are we creating a new set point? I know that for myself, it's now fairly easy to maintain at what was my original goal, but I've been trying to take off 10 more pounds, and it's been near impossible to fight the cravings and the constant food thoughts.
Any further thoughts?