News You Already Knew

Yeah I read a similar story years ago-
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http://www.theonion.com/articles/im-like-a-chocoholic-but-for-booze,10739/

I’ve been jazzed to see some U.S. commercials while watching the tourney online. Utterly striking (from my perspective) to see 4 slim folks sitting down to an lethally obscene meal @ Applebee’s.

Thrilled that my diet is uber healthy, thrilled that the trains aren’t packed with the obese. That said, when staring at yet another spread of miso, rice and broiled fish, I often weigh which non-essential organ I’d give for a carne asada burrito. Either one of my kidneys or a testicle (I’m not having any more kids anyway).

And then there’s this, appropriate for this week on the calendar:
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2010-03-23-lastsupper23_ST_N.htm

That’s an interesting study. I gave up beef and pork for Lent and pay attention to portion size.
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Down 14 pounds.
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But I DO miss bacon.

Obviously the only solution is to add fat, sugar, and corn syrup to the list of controlled substances that one is only allowed by prescription, if that. To balance these sudden bans, we can take marijuana off the list, so that folks can get so blissed that they don’t miss the other stuff. Collectively, we’ll lose millions of pounds.

It’s well known that most people who lose large amounts of weight by following stringent regimens soon go off those regimens and eventually gain all the weight back. (I’ve done it myself.) If fattening foods weren’t addictive, would this be happening?

Tomorrow’s CNN headline: Higher temperatures keep people warmer.

When a family member was dealing with bad carotid readings I joined with her and ate a 10% fat, Dean Ornish type diet for the summer – lost 26 pounds.Wasn’t particularly hungry, but I did miss things. Most of the vegetarians I know say bacon is the food they miss most.

For me personally though, the culprit is salt. I can leave a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer untouched for weeks, but I had to stop buying Maldon Sea Salt because I was snacking on it, and I gravitate toward salty snacks whether or not they’re fat.

I think Kessler said that fat, salt, and sugar work in similar ways. And apparently artificial sugars trick the brain into thinking it has just gotten sugar, and then when it finds out that’s not really true, it sends us off on a quest for real calories. So people using artificial sweeteners tend to gain wait.

I saw a very interesting PBS fundraiser program by Dr. Daniel Amen this last week, and he talks about how different types of overeaters have different stuff going on in their brains. He has different advice for different types of habits (impulsive vs. compulsive, for example)

There was an outstanding article in the NYTimes 3-4 years ago that I can no longer find, about the difference in what happens to body chemistry and the metabolism in fat cells once a person is already obese. It turns out that losing weight when a lot overweight is not the same things as losing weight when a little overweight. And yes, it’s a lot more complicated than “willpower”

“I had to stop buying Maldon Sea Salt because I was snacking on it”
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You were snacking on salt? Dang that’s pretty hardcore/impressive/horrifying.
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It’s too easy to get chubby.
One thing not brought up is that stress makes people more prone to all bad habits.
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In the old movies when I guy loses his job, he is next seen in a bar drinking away his sorrows with a pack of Lucky Strikes.
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Today that same down and out guy will be at McDonlads with two big Macs and a super sized coke.
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http://weight.insulitelabs.com/Stress.php
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Increased income, a more satisfying career and a more satisfying personal life all help one stay thin and healthy.
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Imagine if crack cost less than a glass of milk?
That would be how our food prices work. The addictive foods are cheapest.
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http://www.lubbockonline.com/stories/051508/hea_279222896.shtml
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I wouldn’t mind if there was a tax on high fat foods, sugar and bleached flower (in preference to whole grain) and a subsidy on vegetables, lean meats and whole grains.
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Then when under stress and poor, you don’t get fatter. Only high stress people who have a high income and can afford to go to the gym to work at least part of it off will be chubby.

Let me get this straight. You want to let people smoke pot but then NOT let them eat Ice Cream afterward??!! Do you want to start a riot???!!

You can have my steak when you pry it from my greasy, cold dead, artery clogged fingers.

i hear you. not much of a sweet tooth here, but totally addicted to fat and salt. fried chicken is the food i love most, but bacon is a close second.

Thanks for the chuckle, JC!
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I was next door in Seoul last week and, as always, enjoyed the change in cuisine. But after only a couple of days, I can hear that Whopper/Burrito receptor starting to feel needy…you have my respect.
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P.S. Oh, and Good Luck with the organ sale on eBay…;)

kathy & karen: I’m with you both on the salty snack jones.
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The slice of cheesecake in the CNN Health article doesn’t do anything for me. But a bag/bowl/wheelbarrow full of popcorn/Doritos/Cheetos…

Family guy nailed it a while back…
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I can and do skip the fries and learned to love unsweetened iced tea, but, the burger is what I need.
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I do not have high cholesterol, so, I am unworried about everything besides getting below about 2,500 calories to 2,000 calories a day.
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In NYC it was a pro-free market idea by Lord Bloomberg (who proclaimed that he was immune to the two term limit and tens of millions of his own money later won a third term, but otherwise, pretty good) to require that calorie counts be on everything in any restaurant with more than – three? – I believe three franchises in New York.
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The health care bill will, also, require this.
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It involves approaching the free market concept of “perfect information”.
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It is not somebody stopping you from eating 1,100 calories in ten minutes at Burger King. It just lets you know that you better not do that more than once in a day.

Kathy,
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My wife would offer a hearty “hear, hear” to that. She’s been frustrated for years by those who think she isn’t losing weight simply because she’s not trying hard enough.

Sometimes the swamp is twice as good as watching Letterman.

The Maldon Sea salt comes in very thin pyramid-shaped flakes, and the taste is indescribably different from table salts. Some of the big flakes are sort of like a totally-salt snack chip of some sort. I’d keep a box on the desk…

grape_wife and I sat down to watch Food, Inc. last night. Unsettling at best.

KT:

I’m guessing the real point of this post is that CNN, Time’s corporate affiliate, only reports the obvious. That, paradoxically, is as apparent as the CNN story itself.

One more level and the MSM will disappear in a puff of tautology.

Aha! Realized the NYTimes article I’ve been looking for was stored over on IE’s favorites, instead of mozilla’s bookmarks.

The study cited found that people who are “normally” thin will lose weight quickly when they gain weight, because their metabolism will increase dramatically, and people who are “normally” fat will gain weight quickly when they lose weight, because their metabolism will dramatically slow.

“There is a reason that fat people cannot stay thin after they diet and that thin people cannot stay fat when they force themselves to gain weight. The body’s metabolism speeds up or slows down to keep weight within a narrow range.

sigh*

TIME’s cover story on article on epigenetics also had this interesting news that whether people are overweight may depend on whether their parents or grandparents overate:

“For instance, Bygren’s research showed that in Overkalix, boys who enjoyed those rare overabundant winters — kids who went from normal eating to gluttony in a single season — produced sons and grandsons who lived shorter lives. Far shorter:…..Once Bygren and his team controlled for certain socioeconomic variations, the difference in longevity jumped to an astonishing 32 years.

To put it simply, the data suggested that a single winter of overeating as a youngster could initiate a biological chain of events that would lead one’s grandchildren to die decades earlier than their peers did

It seems clear from the NYTimes article that it’s critically important for people to avoid becoming overweight to begin with, and clear from epigenetics that this is a lot more complicated than we yet have any way to understand.

Sorry the link didn’t work. Here’s the link to TIME’s cover story on epigenetics. The paragraphs quoted above are on page 1

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1951968,00.html

patrick – I thoroughly agree. Our agricultural subsidies are a recipe for increasing our health care costs. Solve one and you would help the other a great deal.

Pot but no snacks? Are you crazy?

We, as good Mericans need to watch out for those sneaky communist, nazi, anit-christ ideas!
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Why back when Thomas Jefferson was eating Doritos and drinking a super sized coke with Jesus Christ and talking about the Communist manifesto, he said…
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Kathy, I bet that the idea will come up and I bet somebody will attack it like that, but somewhat more intelligibly… or, maybe that uninteligibly .
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Nobody object to taxing booze since alcoholism and, even for people aren’t being drunk is a bad thing.
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Why not tax bad food and subsidize the good outside if conservative objections and Republican obstructionism?

Have you ever volunteered at a food pantry/soup kitchen? The food the desperately poor are given is often high calorie, high fat. A lot of bread, cereal, pasta, some canned vegatables, full of salt, of course. Very little meats, fish, other high protein foods. Hardly ever fresh foods as they tend to cost the most. It makes the poor disporportionately more fat than the rest of the country even though many of them eat far less than people with money.

Second Harvest says they can purchase $17 worth of food for every $1 donated. But they tend to purchase the low cost foods that make people fat rather than nutritionally sound foods. They have it backwards sometimes. But I guess they feel their mission is to fill bullies first, think of nutrition second.

“Obviously the only solution is to add fat, sugar, and corn syrup to the list of controlled substances that one is only allowed by prescription, if that.”
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Fat and sugar have been around, like, forever. Only corn syrup, highly processed foods and super-sized portions correlate in time with our present obesity epidemic (along with an aging population and more sedentary behavior). The next battle in health reform should be a sky-high tax on corn syrup, period. All we have to do is take on Archer-Daniels-Midland and Coca-Cola. Piece of Cake.

I’ve turned into a little bit of a health food jerk since college. I still eat pasta and carne asada and drink beer, but I’ve gotten away from soda and candy and pastries.
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I’ve gotten to the point where I’ll see an Applebees commercial or a Burger King commercial and be repulsed by whatever monstrosity they’re offering now.
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And I’m thankful for that.