Honestly i have no idea about the program, i've only read this article, and that was only because it was in the chemE journal i get.
Alot of ignorance in this thread. We get fat because our bodies are secreting excess insulin, period. Insulin is the primary regulator of fat tissue in the body. Now, some people are particularly insulin resistant, and their bodies need to secrete more insulin than normal to handle high blood glucose levels. But insulin secretion is caused by high blood sugar, which is caused by carbohydrates in our diet. Some people can handle carbs better than others, but for people who are fat, carbs are the reason. For anyone with weight problems, I recommend this Gary Taubes lecture and his book Why We Get Fat. Taubes is a science journalist who has been published in the New York Times and the magazines Discover and Science. He spent five years studying two centuries worth of obesity research to write his book. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9mIvj6HmHBg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Just about everything Michelle Obama and the USDA has to say about diet is wrong.
Exercise has health benefits (strength and endurance), but it won't help you lose weight. Exercising makes you hungry, that's why they call it working up an appetite. Inducing hunger is not a smart way to lose weight. Not to mention your body will compensate by consuming less calories when you stop exercising (fatigue, lower body temp).
Correct. The whole gym/fitness craze is a relatively new phenomenon (that began incidentally, when obesity rates started rising). Prior to like 1965 the standard prescription for obesity was a sugar/carb restricted diet. Not running two miles to burn a few hundred calories and work up a massive appetite.
Some people wonder why this country is so fat. I hear those quick weight loss commercials talking about lose weight with no exercise and no hunger. Why do people accept anything to be easy? You can just eat Twinkies and lose weight. Just don't eat more than your body uses.
Perhaps you meant to say "It is not necessary to exercise in order to lose weight". Exercise DOES help you lose weight.
I think genetics has to do a lot with it. Even though it's basically personal experience, I cannot come up with a different reason. I've always been on the chubby side growing up. As an adult, there was a time when I didn't do anything right from a health standpoint. I ate fast food, snacks, ate whenever I want, drank sodas, bad sleeping pattern, stress, didn't work out, etc. etc. etc. At that point I was 210 pounds(height 5-8). I have since slowly lost weight since then, down to about 185 while still maintaining a steady but slow weight loss. And I generally need to eat twice as healthy and exercise twice as much as normal people to maintain or lose weight. So even though my body has low metabolism, even in my worst days, there was a certain weight I simply cannot go across. I mean, even eating candy bars and hamburgers eventually makes you full. And you can't exercise less than just sitting on your ass all day, whether it be in the office, at home, or in the car. And I can't reach 300 pounds even if I had tried. I can't see how this could be anything BUT genetics. Something that prevent people from knowing when to stop eating. Because I've ate most weight-gaining food and drank the most weight-gaining drinks in history and still cannot come close to being 300+ lb type of obesity.
There could be an genetic factor, but I think most obese people tend to derive too much pleasure from eating. They find that the most enjoyable part of the day. For me, I derive no pleasure from eating most of the time. Yes, I do have some favourite foods, but I just eat for the functional sake of eating. If there was a pill, which I could take and I would never be hungry again, I would easily opt for the pill. When I tell people that I am not a foodie and finding no pleasure in eating they do find it odd. But I find gratification in other sort of things like nature, music, meditation, exercise and learning. In Western culture, there is a heavy emphasis on loving food as evidenced by things like Food Channel. Ultimately it seems to be a cultural aspect in regards to obesity as other slimmer cultures I've encountered don't seem to have the same infatuation with food.
I don't buy that. Maybe it's because we are such a young country, but every other nation seems to take the art of cooking (this is synonymous with 'loving food') far more seriously than Americans.
This. Especially in Europe. Yet you hardly ever see any obese people like you do over there like you would here.
Actually, I love food. I do consider eating to be a more enjoyable part of my life. I feel like a kid in a candy store when I go to my favorite restuarants. And when I'm really stressed, eating help me cope. So I'm pretty much a prime candidate for being a morbidly obese person. That's why I think there has to be another factor involved.
yes, and that other factor is having the balls to not indulge on a double meet cheeseburger from jack in the box. I love food just like you. I actually look forward to breakfast, lunch and dinner. Do i go balls out by eating bunch of greasy food? No, I keep it moderate and relatively healthy. It's unfortunate the way people let themselves go. It's sad, really. Especially young kids. They're so overweight that they cant walk properly. It's really a tragedy if you come to think of it. But oh well, people will never learn. Especially if America is telling you go buy the juicy burger.
Um, that may have something to do with the fact the America has transitioned over the past 50 or so years to a primarily car based society. obesity rates rising after the 60/70s coincides pretty well with the advent of suburbia. How many of you actually remember walking close to a mile to school? How old are you? I rest my case
The biggest thing I've noticed in America is that people can't cook. They did a survey of kids in West Virginia (America's most unhealthy state) and found that kids there had the lowest percentage of food literacy. Kids there struggled with identifying a tomato or celery for example. Basic vegetables were almost unknown to many of the kids in the survey. Many of my white friends grew up in households where they ate out quite frequently and rarely did they eat a true cooked meal from scratch. This is in contrast to myself where I was lucky enough to eat true meals everyday. In many foreign countries, people don't eat as much fast food or even eat as often at restaurants. I'm fairly certain we eat pre-processed foods at a much higher rate than the rest of the world. We live in such a fast paced country that it is only natural that we consume food as quickly as possible and that usually isn't the healthiest option. Far more important than exercise is diet. Growing up in households that give a child the opportunity to eat healthy meals prepared from scratch is the easiest and most effective way to combat obesity. There's a growing (albeit tiny) effort to start teaching poorer families basic cooking skills to limit the reliance on processed foods. And if you have an opportunity to learn cooking, take advantage of it. You won't regret it. And if you can exercise on top of that, kudos to you.
