Pushing my dieting button

[sarahmichigan]

If you see me post articles or rants about my anti-diet views, don't be sure that I'm directing them at you in particular. I know of at least three people on my friends list who are on Weight Watchers, and at least a few others who are doing various things to maintain or lose weight.

I may scroll through your posts about your diet plan, or I may comment occasionally if I feel compelled, too, but make no mistake: I do not support your diet. I won't try to sabotage your efforts, but I will state here and now that I think you are doing something that can potentially have very bad effects on your mental and physical health.

Dieting doesn't work. The odds are 9-1 against you that you'll keep the weight off and there's a good chance that you'll end up fatter. Chances are that you'll have to keep going on diets to maintain your weight or lose the weight you've re-gained, and yo-yo dieting is extremely unhealthy.

You may think you deserve to know what it's like to be in a thinner body, but it's most likely a pipe dream. There's no good evidence that you can modify your body shape to a signifcant extent (more than about 10 percent of your original body weight) and maintain that new shape. (For the record, I've been on Weight Watchers twice. The first time, I lost 41 pounds. The second time, I lost 36 pounds. I gained it all back.)

Health gurus are always going on about the conditions that are exacerbated by excessive weight, and they assume that losing weight will improve the condition. But there are NO good studies about whether long-term weight loss will improve your health because such a tiny minority of people who lose a large amount of weight are able to keep it off for more than a year or two.

There are, however, many studies that show that chronic dieting makes your heart health, blood pressure, and other measures of health WORSE.

Dieting causes compulsive eating habits. A weight-loss diet is just a doctor-approved eating disorder. I would not try to aid you in your efforts to be a bulimic or an anorexic, and I do not support your efforts to develop an eating disorder, which is what weight-loss dieting is, when you strip off all the pretenses.

Everyone I've ever known who has gone on a weight-loss regimen has become completely obsessed with food. Weighing food, measuring food, thinking day and night about what fits the plan and what doesn't. It's just like the mentality of the friends I've known who are anorexic and are constantly measuring what they eat and thinking all day about what they can and can't eat.

Do I support teaching yourself more about nutrition? Sure! Do I support the idea that Americans have a distorted sense of what a reasonable portion of food is? Sure! Do I support improving your eating habits to include more fiber, fruit, and vegetables and less processed food? Sure! But if your focus is on losing weight regardless of how the method will affect your long-term health, I can't support that.

I'm especially leery of commercial weight-loss plans, because it is not in their best interest to see you succeed, because then you will not keep paying them your hard-earned money. Their bottom line is making money, not your health. Did you know that Weight Watchers has a policy that if you're five pounds over your MINIMUM weight, they will help you lose weight? That means if they decide your optimum weight range is 108 to 128 pounds, and you come in weighing 113 pounds, they will help you lose weight until you're 108 pounds. If health was their focus, they would tell a woman who is 120 pounds and who wants to be 114 pounds to see a psychiatrist about her distorted body image instead of telling her they can help her lose those "last six pounds."

I'll continue to post anti-diet rants and articles about studies which point out the destructiveness of dieting, so if that bothers you, you may want to scroll on through. . .

Comments

[stacycat69.livejournal.com]

Your rants dont bother me.

In fact, they were a contributor to me wanting to start working out :-)

And, the information you provide is a good service, to me and to others. Keep it up!

[pstscrpt.livejournal.com]

My main contributor is finding that cardiovascular stamina is more of an issue for me in bed than sexual stamina. I've had several stops and starts, though, and I'm not sure keeping up with any regular exercise program is really realistic for me until I finish school.

[stacycat69.livejournal.com]

If I could get all the exercise I needed from sex, I would be a happy girl :-)

Ive never been able to keep up with a regular program in exercise. Ironically, my schedule with school gives me more free time to work out, which Im starting next week. Dont know when im getting laid again, so it might be a while before I see sexual benefits.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

Feeling ornery lately? ;)

[lefthand.livejournal.com]

I saw a study in college (which, of course, makes it really dated) in which the presented silhouettesof women from Auschwitz skinny to morbidly obese. The participants were asked to pick the silhouette that was the most attractive. Oddly enough, men consistent picked a form that was 10-15 heavier than the women picked. That makes that last ten pounds a lot more of a vanity item than an actual social detriment (if one is looking to get laid). Personally, I like women with hips, they look like grown-ups.

[stacycat69.livejournal.com]

"They" (I dont remember who, Im sure I can dig it out of the internet if needed) did a study of international cultures, on which body sizes and types they prefered. Cultures varied on the weight that they prefered, but they always rated women with a 8/10 ratio of waist to hip as most attractive. From americanized societies to jungle societies, that was the main factor in attractiveness of body shape.

I also prefer women with curves. Then again, my top is a skinny size 2 women. But most of my girlfriends and lovers were larger sized.

[aiela.livejournal.com]

Perhaps if there are people who do not like reading such things, you could take volunteers for a filter for these types of posts.

Myself, I have found Weight Watchers to be a god send for many of my friends who have found their relationship with food spiraling out of control. By chosing to work on -portion control- via Weight Waters vs. deprivation, they've been able to eat all the things they enjoy while retraining their brains to what is an appropriate amount of food to eat.

Myself, I worry more about the people rushing headlong into WLS (and paying CASH for it, because their insurance companies won't pay for it unless they've exhausted all other methods of losing weight, and they aren't willing to do the work to try) than I do someone who decides to go on a diet.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I don't think any weight-loss diet plan, even weight watchers, helps compulsive eating habits; they make them worse. That's my experience with it, and the experience of many other people's. They do teach portion control, but they also teach you to follow a plan instead of listening to your own body's wisdom. They also re-inforce "good food/bad food" thinking, which is extremely unhealthy. People get an all-or-nothing mentality about foods, or they think THEY are "bad/good" depending on what they eat. Also, it just doesn't work long-term. Studies show that the small number of people who actually lose a large amount of body weight and keep it off do it on their own, without a commercial weight-loss plan. Question, have your friends on WW kept the weight off for more than a year? I no of not one person who has done so. I realized that's anecdotal evidence, but it's in line with the statistics.

Just to be clear, I'm not against educating yourself about appropriate portions or examining your relationship to food, but that's not WW's main goal; it's taking your money.

I'm really afraid of weight loss surgery, too. There are so many horror stories about things going wrong, people getting very sick, gaining all the weight back. Yuck.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

"know of"

[aiela.livejournal.com]

Actually, yes. A friend of mine has kept 90+ pounds off for three or four years now. Via Weight Watchers. And she still eats plenty of food she enjoys.

My psych professor has a Ph.D. in health psychology, is extremely against 'dieting', but doesn't count Weight Watchers in with that. He thinks WW is a fabulous program. He'll also go on for hours that it's not anyone's fault they're fat, most of it is genetic, and if you are predisposed to being overweight, it's going to be a hell of a lot of work if you want to keep off the weight, and he can understand people not thinking it's worth it. So he's definitly not fat-phobic.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

She must be one of the 10 percent, then.

[aiela.livejournal.com]

I'm right there with you with fad diets and unsafe eating, but I see nothing wrong with "cutting calories" in the vein of "Learning how much food I actually need to eat, and eating that." Dropping down to 1000 or 1200 calories a day? No, I don't support that. But if that means you have to measure for a while to retrain yourself what's an appropriate amount to eat, I don't see that as dangerous, I see it as educating yourself as to what a "serving" is. Because most Americans have no idea.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

About the serving thing: yes, I explicitly mentioned that in my post.

My main beef with diets are ones that tell you to eat such and such amount of calories or servings regardless of what your body tells you. If your body tells you it's hungry, feed it. If it tells you you're full, stop. A lot of fat people are totally out of touch with their hungry and full signals, and I fully support slowing down while you eat and paying attention to your full signal, and (the one thing many people never figure out) paying attention to how foods make your body feel (do you feel sluggish when you eat something? Maybe you should cut back on it. Does it make you feel good and alive? Keep eating it!).

[aiela.livejournal.com]

Most of the things you are saying are okay are the things that the people I know are going to Weight Watchers for, specifically.

The -only- way I have ever lost weight was by keeping track of what went into my mouth, and holding myself responsible for it. I am an emotional eater, I eat when I'm bored, I eat too much when I eat. And keeping track, which to you seems obsessive and unhealthy is, for -me-, the only way I can curb that.

And obviously, if someone goes on a meal plan of some sort, and is careful what they eat and how much of it they eat, and then loses 20 or 30 or 40 pounds, and then goes back to eating the same way they did before, they're going to gain it back. What is needed is not a "diet", but a lifetime reevaluation of how and what a person eats. Something sustainable. Forever.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I think there's a subtle difference between "noticing" what you eat and how it makes you feel vs. being compulsive about "restricting" yourself and beating yourself up if you slip up. I think traditional weight-loss programs tend to re-inforce compulsive eating patterns and food/body obsessions.

[aiela.livejournal.com]

And in my experience, most people I know fall in the former rather than the latter, and sometimes your posts seem to lump everyone into one category.

I agree that the latter is unhealthy. I disagree that there's no way to get into a weight loss program without becoming one of the latter.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

OK, I'll admit that I make generalizations about dieting and compulsive eating patterns.

Putting that all aside, even the NIH has determined that most people put back on the weight they lose, and there is a great deal of evidence that weight-cycling is very bad for your health.

[styggie.livejournal.com]

i dont think sarah should have to filter her opinions - it is her journal. If you want to censor her, do it at your end. You have entered into her space, not the other way around.

[aiela.livejournal.com]

I never said I didn't want to read it. She mentioned that it might be a problem for some people. I was making a suggestion based on that statement.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

It's OK, Angie, I took it in the spirit you intended.

[rikhei.livejournal.com]

This brought up a lot of issues for me, but before I comment on them, what I'd like to know is: how do you define dieting (and weight-loss dieting)? How do you define healthy weight loss?

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

how do you define dieting (and weight-loss dieting)?
Reducing calories and/or portion control with the explicit and main goal of losing weight.

I believe the only "healthy" weight loss is as a *side-effect* of eating better and getting more exercise. Generally rapid weight loss (more than a pound or two a month) is unhealthy and un-sustainable. There's evidence that rapid weight loss is associated with worse measurements of health (blood pressure, risk for cancers, etc.).

[rikhei.livejournal.com]

I don't think that the two are mutually exclusive, as you've described them. I think I would define dieting as "Reducing calories and/or portion control with no concern for proper nutrition, and/or exercising in such a way that weight loss is unhealthy and/or unsustainable."

I knew people in high school who prided themselves on only eating a tic-tac that day. *cringe* That kind of reducing calories is obviously unhealthy. And I can agree that obsessively measuring calories or portion sizes is unhealthy too. (I certainly don't want to be on WW all my life.)

But the general principles of reducing calories and portion control aren't bad. You can eat better and reduce calories - in fact, I see them as tied. Obviously veggie burgers on whole-wheat buns and fruit salad are going to have fewer calories than a fast food combo meal. And I don't see anything wrong with ordering a small fry rather than a jumbo size, or having a small dish of ice cream after dinner rather than a sundae.

I also think you're being too hard on health issues. Yes, certainly weight loss that occurs in an unhealthy and unsustainable way can lead to the health problems you've described. But are you really suggesting that people suffering from certain health problems (I'm thinking especially insulin-related disorders such as diabetes and PCOS) can't benefit from healthy, sustainable weight loss?

I do agree with a lot of what you've said. There has to be a middle, healthy ground between obesity and fad dieting. It constantly amazes me that our country, as a whole, can't seem to find that middle ground.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I also think you're being too hard on health issues. Yes, certainly weight loss that occurs in an unhealthy and unsustainable way can lead to the health problems you've described. But are you really suggesting that people suffering from certain health problems (I'm thinking especially insulin-related disorders such as diabetes and PCOS) can't benefit from healthy, sustainable weight loss?

No, what I'm saying is that for the average person, permanent weight loss of any significant magnitude is virtually impossible. It's like the doctor saying, "You know, your diabetes would be better if you could be a mermaid instead of a human."

"OK, doc, I'll try to be a mermaid, but I'm not sure if it's sustainable long-term. I can only hold my breath for 90 seconds."

There's good data that exercise, *regardless of weight loss*, helps with insulin issues, especially if it's muscle-building exercise, because the more muscle you have, the better you process insulin.

You can use the "eat when hungry, stop when full" approach that the Overcoming Overeating people advocate even if you have diabetes.

http://www.overcomingovereating.com/diabetes.html

[rikhei.livejournal.com]

Is it weight loss itself or following a healthy weight loss plan that's virtually impossible? Or some combination of the two?

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Significant weight loss (more than 10 percent of starting body weight) AND maintenance, via calorie-control, is generally unsustainable:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B758G-48KMC8J-8&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F1996&_alid=311664971&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_qd=1&_cdi=12926&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ecc96cdd0ce046e2d1651efa30f07f34

Results At 1 year, no significant differences were noted among the three groups. The diet-only group lost 6.8 kg, the exercise-only group lost 2.9 kg, and the combination group lost 8.9 kg (P=.09). During the second year, the diet-only group regained weight — reaching 0.9 kg above baseline; the combination group regained to 2.2 kg below baseline; and the exercise-only group regained slightly to 2.7 kg below baseline (P=.36). Repeated measures analysis of variance showed a group-by-time interaction (P=.001); data for the dieting groups best fit a U-shaped regain curve (P=.001).

Applications The results suggest that dieting is associated with weight loss followed by regain after treatment ends, whereas exercise alone produced smaller weight losses but better maintenance. The large outcome variability and unequal difficulty of the regimens across groups limit the generalizability of the findings. J Am Diet Assoc. 1996; 96:342-346.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

It's not like I'm making these statistics up out of thin air to support my pet theory. Even the NIH agrees that the majority of dieters gain back all the weight they lose:

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-04-092.html

"Although there are many well-accepted methods to reduce initial body weight by 7-10%, long-term maintenance of that lost weight is more problematic. On average, among treatment-seeking populations, approximately 1/3 of lost weight is regained by one year; by 5 years most or all previously lost weight
is regained."

[rikhei.livejournal.com]

I know you're not making them up. Can't you understand why someone might be the teeniest bit resistant to the idea that they're going to be called "morbidly obese" by their doctors for the rest of their lives?

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Get a new doctor. I'm "obese" as well.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

"obese" is defined as being 30 percent over your so-called "ideal weight" or heavier. However, "ideal weight" is an arbitrary social construct that has little relation to health and morbidity rates based on stastistical studies.

People at the low end of the "ideal" BMI range have worse mortality rates than people who are in the "mildly overweight" BMI range, for instance.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I realize that sounded flip and callous. What I'm trying to say is that 1. I understand the feeling but diets won't solve the problem and 2. don't take bullshit from your doctor.

I had an old gynecologist tell me that my dysmenorrhea (or however you spell the word for bad periods) was from me being fat. Um, no, bitch. I had terrible periods when I was much thinner. Next idea?

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

re: diabetes and weight loss, check out this article

http://www.hhpr.org/currentissue/fall2003/gaesser.php

"Improvements in insulin sensitivity and
blood lipids as a result of aerobic exercise
training have been documented even in
persons who actually gained body fat during
the intervention."

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

some of my comments to aiela above may clarify what I mean, as well.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

How do you define healthy weight loss?
More than two dozen studies in the last 20 years have found that weight loss of more than 10 pounds leads to an increased risk of premature death, sometimes by a margin of several hundred percent. Only about four studies in that same period found that weight loss leads to lower mortality rates: one of them found that a permanent weight loss of 50 pounds would help you live about another month longer.

An American Cancer Society Study in the early 1990s showed that weight loss was associated with higher mortality even after screening out smokers and all deaths that took place within a few years of an individual's entry into the study (to screen out people who were losing weight because they were sick with an incurable disease). A follow up to the study found that obese women were better off if they didn't lose weight. Healthy women who intentially lost weight over the span of a year or longer suffered an increased risk of premature death from cancer, heart disease and other causes that was up to 70 percent higher than that of healthy women who didn't intentionally lose weight. A 1999 report on men found similar results.

[razzle.livejournal.com]

Brava!

[m0n90053.livejournal.com]

I crawled over here via your comment to (http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=novapsyche)novapsyche (http://www.livejournal.com/users/novapsyche/)'s Thursday post about wearing short, revealing clothing...

I have seen your icon & username on several comments to her entries in the past, and have been somewhat intrigued, but between your comment to her post and this entry [and now that I've taken a look, several others on this page- I haven't clicked back 20 yet, and probably am not going to do so 'tonight')- I'm not sure what to call how I am feeling at the moment- something between active interest and 'in love'?

(I see from one of your posts that you are married, which causes a mild pang of heartbreak, even though I'm engaged myself- I'm just selfish that way- but in no way do I wish you anything but joy with himself... this is nothing to take seriously, I fall in love at the drop of a hat and am used to it and used to it being nonrequited- I'm no solipsist, to demand that the world overall and with its own desires conform to my own... now I feel I've overcomplicated the issue, and maybe I just shouldn't have mentioned it. At any rate, though I was born in Michigan and have lived there since then (Albion for both, though growing up we also lived in Saginaw for a year or two), I've been gone for 12 years now and have no intention of returning.)

Anyway- I appreciate your candor and lack of rancor in this entry, and also like your take on the matrix poem, except for the last bit, but that must be the really tricky part, and as I haven't tried my hand at it myself, I'm in no position to criticize, so don't take it that I am doing so.

[m0n90053.livejournal.com]

Now I'm going to be embarrassed, because that last bit is the matrix, or the words for it, itself, and not part of the poem...

I don't know why I didn't catch that the first time.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Hi Richard. Thanks for your comments, especially on the poetry.

[m0n90053.livejournal.com]

You're welcome. Thank you back for not freaking out over my early-hours-of-the-morning weak attempt at articulating what I was feeling.