Losing Weight and Solving the Obesity Problem

Yes, obesity rates are up all over the World, and probably by now even in France. The News Media blames an increasingly sedentary population, that is, that modern automated computerized devices are saving us from a lot of the activity that used to keep us all slimmer. Kids don’t go out to play anymore but only push push push the same few buttons on their video games. So we are all fatter than 20 years ago.

I also suspect another major contributing factor, and that is the increasing popularity of Italian pizza and other pasta products. I hear people blaming the Fast Food Hamburger franchises because their menus are so calorie rich, but I honestly don’t believe that so many people are actually making a steady diet of hamburgers and French fries. They are really not that appealing. Yes, they may be convenient, and people who must hurry their lunches may be eating hamburgers and French fries for the simple lack of having any other choice. But people actually call out for pizza. They crave it enough to pick up the phone to place an order, and then to sit there starving while they wait for it to arrive, and then to pay exorbitant prices for it when it finally gets there. They must think it is awfully good. And then consider what it is, essentially… it is a thick bed of calorie rich carbohydrates, the easiest stuff for the body to assimilate into body fat, with a thick slathering of cheese fat, which the body will actually use for its energy so that all the carbos can go straight to body fat. If one were starving and needed one particular meal of food to keep one going for the next several days, then I can’t imagine a better food then a pizza pie, but that is not how it is taken at all. People add it as a snack to their ordinary regimen of three meals a day. So, of course people will get obese.

Anyway, lets now address the problem of obesity and ask ourselves why that if people are getting fat, that they continue to keep eating? They can’t possibly suppose that if they cut back on their eating, that they will instantly waste away in a moment. A step on the scale or a look in the mirror should be completely convincing that a between meal snack is the last thing that they need. But these fat people are eating anyway. Why? Well, they probably crave the satisfaction. And for at least that moment they would rather feel good, and eat, then look good and be healthy.

They would say they are hungry, but that is simply not the truth. It is a misuse of words. Now, I have experience with fasting, that is, with not eating for days on end. So I know fully well that the feeling one gets between meals is not “hunger”. Hunger is the feeling one wakes up with after the second day of a fast. What one gets between meals is “I feel like eating something”. It is a restlessness. It’s one way of staving off the boredom of an empty existence. But it’s ridiculous to call it ‘hunger’. To call it ‘hunger’ is to make a silly excuse out of it.

I would like to pretend that I am the Master of such feelings, and that I would never eat simply out of boredom. But I get the same impulses as everybody else. But that is why they invented Diet Cola. If you are bored, then pop open a Diet Cola. Oh, I hear that the cola ingredient itself isn’t the most wholesome thing in the World, and that there should be some popular Diet Non-Cola that we could all take, but until some Marketing Genius finally figures that out, if you want something simply because you want something, then have a Diet Drink. It will drown you before you gain any weight from it.

Moving on, let us suppose that you can finally control all of your snacking inclinations and you are still gaining weight… Oh, well first, we probably need to discuss that most people don’t realize they are gaining weight. Most people don’t studiously track their weight and it creeps upon them slowly, with dress sizes and pant sizes expanding larger in slow non-frightening increments. One can even convince one’s self that the clothing manufacturers are sizing differently then before, that Size 12’s are now smaller then before, or that a 34 inch waste is not as elastic as with the old cut. People must think that they are about the same as they grow fatter, until finally something like a Doctor’s physical forces them to acknowledge an additional 30 or 40 pounds that they had previous been in full denial about. People talk about the unlimited power of the Human Mind, but so far the only signs I have ever seen of it are in regards to limitless denial.

Anyway, once one becomes aware of a continuous drifting upward of weight, even after the urge for careless snacking has been addressed, what should one do? Well, the obvious thing to do is to count calories. Put a list on the refrigerator door and add up everything one has eaten all day long, and sum it up to a total. After several weeks, then sum up all the calories ingested during that entire time, and divide it by the number of days. This will give you your average daily caloric intake. Now multiply that number by .7 or 70% and that is your new daily allowance. Cutting 30% off of your daily caloric intake just might take you from the category of slowly gaining weight to slowly losing weight. Maybe.

People sometimes expect too much from diets. They cut 30% of their calories and expect that they will see phenomenal results instantly. The truth is that one does not see ‘phenomenal results’ even from complete fasting. Let me try to explain why. The Human Body is a marvelous survival mechanism. When you are eating too much, the body realizes it, and both allows for an increase in the metabolism, and for some great inefficiencies in the digestive track – one burns more calories then normal and poops out more calories then normal. So when one reduces caloric intake by 30% there is a chance that the body may only switch both the metabolism and the digestion to more efficient rates of operation. It may be entirely possible that you might still gain weight as the body kicks in with this greater efficiency.

It is something Dieters see all the time. They complain about it. “I diet and diet and NEVER lose any weight”. They begin to tell people that they are simply meant to be fat, pointing to the fact that they eat way less than even some of their skinny friends. But it is all just silly excuses. Yes, the body of a chronic dieter will indeed get very much more efficient, but matter is never created purely out of nothing. To get fat one still has to eat more calories than the body burns. One should simply continue counting calories, and continue tracking weight loss or gain, and keep cutting down that Percentage until one finally notices a trending down of one’s weight. Eventually the trench line must go toward the negative side, even if it is just for the loss of a pound or two a month. Indeed, it is rather a huge victory! Instead of creeping upward, one is creeping downward. How many people nowadays can claim that… who don’t live in Darfur.

Oh, remember not to discontinue your calorie and weight tracking simply because you have established a declining trend. What many people fail to take into consideration is just how much exercise is involved in being fat! For instance, I have lost 40 pounds from my peak weight, and so now whenever I go up the stairs with two twenty pound bags of Cat Food, which is a very demanding task for me, I have only to pause to think that THAT was the very same way I used to go up the stairs when I was carrying nothing but my own fat butt! Lugging around a Fat Body is a tremendous exercise and it burns a great many calories every day. What happens when one begins to lose weight? Well, quite automatically one’s daily requirement for calories is reduced – by being less fat one burns less fat. So to continue trending down in weight one needs to continue cutting into that Percentage.

What finally begins to discourage many dieters is that they stop believing their own math after a while. They cannot believe that they can exist on so few calories. They think they must be doing something wrong. Again they look at what their skinny friends are eating and suppose that their comparatively extreme restriction of calories must be unhealthy. There are no few well meaning crusaders out there trumpeting that Dieting amounts to having an “Eating Disorder” and are actively campaigning to make Chunky and Plump the New Normal… the New Average, so as to discourage people from what they consider to be unhealthy dieting. However, it all flies in the face of what we know about what a healthy Human Race is supposed to look like. In the State of Nature healthy individuals need to be able to move about without getting in their own way. Bodies should normally tend toward the Athletic. Telling people that a wide belt of fat about their middle is healthy, well, it is true only to the extent that it proves that the body is healthy enough to produce and store excess fat. But the next time you have to run away from a tiger or a bear, tell us how healthy it is to have to be tripping over one’s own fat gut.

So, no, don’t be blown off course by not believing the truth of your numbers. Double check your math if you have to. If your tabulations say that you must eat less than a thousand calories a day, or even 800, in order to lose weight, then that is the Truth. Yes, the various books all say that ‘normally’ people burn about 2200 calories a day – more than three times what some dieters require, but remember that such numbers are derived from studies involving those skinny friends of yours who eat everything and remain slim – with their super high metabolisms and cigarette smoking and digestive tracks that poop everything out two times a day. Those NORMAL numbers mean nothing to us dieters. We simply are no longer ‘normal’ in that sense of the word. Our metabolisms are different, more refined, more attuned. The numbers on your refrigerator door are not wrong! Just keep to what they are telling you. The numbers prove that you are in no danger of wasting away any time soon!

Oh, but there can be the problem is trying to figure out how one can actually eat so few calories. There are several schools of thought on the matter. Some people insist upon many very small nibble meals a day… to keep up their strength while eating such a small total of calories. They swear that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Well, that is what they swear to, but I couldn’t think them more wrong. As the French say, eating gives one appetite. Eating a few bites would only make me hungry, well, hungriER. And the idea of keeping up one’s strength is just silly. Nobody is dropping over from fatigue or passing out. Just think of all the starving people in Africa. Yes, finally as they approach the day they drop dead of absolute starvation they will begin to show obvious signs of weakness, lethargy, faintness and decline, but almost until the very end, they will keep going. I know for a fact that I can fast on through three complete days before I need to consider any significant weakening. So it just seems silly that a person should watch the clock throughout a single day to make sure of getting enough food not to waste away. Silly!

But one thing I have noticed about fasting, and that is that real hunger tends to impinge upon sleep. If the instinctive body intent upon Survival has to choose between sleeping or eating as a one or the other kind of choice, then the Body will come down on the side of eating, and hunger will over-power the urge to sleep. The reason why fasting Monks pray all night is that they can’t sleep anyway. Oh, while we are on that point, the reason why fasting monks are celibate, or can manage to be celibate, is that real prolonged hunger cuts back on the libido. Apparently, in Nature, the Sex Urge in proof in itself that one has not only enough for himself, but enough left to share. Really needy, hungry and troubled people are not likely to be tapping each other on the shoulder, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, what this brings us to is that if one is down to a remarkably small number of calories a day and is wondering how to distribute the eating throughout the day, what I have decided upon for myself is a smallish snack when arriving home from work – a bowl of soy-nuts, raisons and almonds, followed by a small dish of pretzels. Yes, it is calorie rich, but the nuts have all the necessary very good oils that that the body really does need, and the raisons have all those admirable ingredients which have convinced researchers to suppose that drinking wine is a good thing, but without the seduction and troubles of dealing with alcohol. The few pretzels are a taste of what is ordinarily to be forbidden – that is, simple carbohydrates, but I keep them few, and they really are so very tasty… in a ‘forbidden fruit kind of way’. Remember, it is okay as long as they are taken up in the Calorie Count, and all essential vitamins and minerals, proteins and fats necessary for good health are accounted for. Then in the evening, a few hours before sleep, I have a nice little meal to bring up my calorie count to its allotted total. Yes, they say that a meal just before sleep goes entirely to fat storage. Well, so? Not having eaten all during the day, it is obvious that I had lived off fat storage to begin with, and so putting some back on probably would not be such a bad idea. And eating just before sleep appeases the feeling of hunger enough to make it possible to fall asleep. And a good sleep is one of those healthy and necessary things. And I feel fine during the day, and my weight is trending downwards. Obviously it works fine.

I have tried small meals throughout the day, like those other people, but it is so difficult to control portion size, that the total number of calories consumed more often then not exceeds projections, and then so much eating only makes me hungrier. While everybody will finally find what suits them best, do not exclude the possibility that one might be able to live on simply one meal a day. And don’t get fixated on the notion that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. Yes, it might be, for giving one the energy to work with. But if one is getting so much energy from one’s food, then went exactly is one supposed to be burning off the excess fat that one is carrying about?

Oh, this brings up the subject of Fat Burning. I used to be a Marathon Runner and know something about Fat Burning. First off, yes, the body really does apply more energy from available food carbohydrates, in the digestive track, then from Fat Storage. Also, and few people know this, but Fat Storage is not the only energy that the Body is storing. The Body also stores a kind of carbohydrate energy called glycogen which is embedded in the muscle tissues themselves. During a Marathon the body will hit heavily upon both digestional carbohydrates and the glycogen storage which typically allows one to go strong and super fast for about 90 minutes. But even for World Class athletes, a Marathon goes on for more than two hours, and for ordinary people it often takes over three or even four hours. When strenuous exercise thus exceeds 90 minutes then energy derived from fat burning comes into play. But it is something of an elaborate and slow process for the body to break down stored fat tissue and derive energy from it, having to implement all of the chemical processes required while on the run, so to speak. The energy output is nothing even close to what can be gotten from the glycogen and carbos. Marathoners call it ‘hitting the wall’ when all the carbohydrate energy has been expended, and the body goes over to that slower process of fat burning. Yes, the Marathoner can keep going, but just at a much reduced pace. Oh, by the way, you know, there are races called Ultras which take up where Marathons leave off (that is, 26.2 miles), going on up to 50 or even a hundred miles. They have found that female runners, with their slightly higher percentage of body fat actually begin to have an advantage over their male competitors after a certain point. While they can run only slowly on body fat metabolism, the men after having burned all they have, well, they necessarily have to come to a complete stop, eat something, and wait for it to kick in. It is the women who, slow and steady, win such Ultra long races.

Anyway the point of that dissertation on Fat Burning is not that it gives one less speed then do carbohydrates and glycogen, but that one can keep running even on just fat storage. Yes, one cannot run as fast as usually. In fact one can only run rather slowly. But running is running. If we are only talking about going to work to do a job, then such Fat Burning should be plenty enough. Sure, the Boss will not get a Sprint out of us, but if the concern is only that we keep moving throughout the day and so that we cross the line at Close of Business still moving forward, then there should be no complaint. For day to day operations Fat Burning provides more than enough energy!

But, yes, there can be legitimate Eating Disorders. In order to dodge any blame from that direction, remember not to do anything too extreme. When cutting your percentages, never cut more than 30% at a time, and then continue to monitor how you feel. Never let your WILL POWER override how you happen to feel. Some people really do have too much Will Power. No, you don’t have to worry about simply feeling hungry – that is not really a problem. But Light Headedness IS a problem. Fainting IS a problem. Never allow such problems to go unheeded and untreated.

Now, sometimes one can feel light-headed not so much from having extremely low blood sugars, as from having mineral imbalances. Remember that while you are restricting your caloric intake, you must doubly emphasize to yourself the importance of maintaining a well balanced diet. You must come to the point of seeing Food as a necessary medicine. You should have some idea of everything your body needs in regards to vitamins and minerals and supply them naturally with your diet, using supplements only as a kind of bet hedging. You shouldn’t entirely rely on pills as one can never be sure of their quality or digestibility. That being said, potassium is an extremely important mineral for the body and one of the easiest to exclude by a too rigorous diet, so it would not hurt to have a few potassium pills handy, or most Sport’s Drinks are rich in potassium.

Oh, there is another possibly serious problem which may indicate the onset of an actual eating disorder, and that is to not know when enough is enough. You see, it is possible to get quite caught up in your dieting, not just as though it were simply one other daily routine or an interesting hobby, but it may begin to serve as the primary way you define yourself to yourself – as a person who needs to always be losing weight. This is understandable. At first one may have a great deal of pride in losing weight. This pride translates to self esteem, and perhaps one begins to need continual reassertions of the good feeling by seeing new lower numbers at your daily or weekly weigh-ins, even long after one has gone through the Normal Range of the Body Mass Index numbers into that range which is now indicating you are beginning to be too thin. Well, any time any number raises a Red Flag, it should be of concern. Yes, you can be too thin even if you can still find some shred of fat somewhere still under the skin. Some Fat Storage IS normal and even healthy. If you should get a fever, or should you need to suddenly engage in some Marathon-like activity, it is this normal layer of skin fat which will keep you going even after you have burned up whatever sparing meal you may have in your stomach. So, please, do not allow yourself to track any lower than any of the Normal lines you may find in any of the literatures, as you do not need anybody to be yelling at you that you have an ‘Eating Disorder’, and then for them to be right about it. It is best that these people should never be right.

However, that being said, the more usual problem for Dieters is to set too high of a weight goal for themselves, and then to find it difficult to ever get under it. Look at it this way – when a person is up at about 240 pounds then it seems most reasonable to set a goal at 175. Honestly, they would kill to be down at 175. But what happens when they finally do get down to 175 and realize that they still have a fairly ‘healthy’ roll of fat around their middle, still have a little double chin, and the other people in the Running Club are running their 10K’s 6 minutes faster than they are and talking about that ‘tricky last 15 pounds’ when they are all down around 160 themselves!? Then one realizes that 175 is still somewhat ‘Fat’. But the problem is that after so much goal setting and anticipation, it is almost impossible not to pull back on the diet after its declared end has been achieved. It is hard to keep oneself fighting after the Victory has already been won. Anyway, what typically happens next is what we can call the ‘Oprah bounce’ – one achieves the diet goal and then starts going back up.

Anyway, there is a good thing about keeping that “last 15 pounds” in mind and that is because it largely prevents one from taking that ‘Oprah bounce’… by instantly re-establishing a new weight-loss goal, even if one is not entirely and completely enthusiastic about achieving it, it might at least prevent one from ballooning back upward as so often happens with dieters who achieve their goal. Just never set a “Last 15 Pound” goal under the Normal Line. When you get that close to ‘Perfect’ then you can annoy all the other dieters by referring to “those last annoying 5 pounds”. Everyone will hate you! Congratulations!

This brings up the point that a diet can never be temporary. Remember what we established about the metabolism, that it attunes itself rather rapidly and completely to the conditions the body encounters. The body grows accustomed to dieting – the metabolism becomes super efficient, and no single calorie is allowed to go to waste. One can never go back to ‘normal’ eating, not without ballooning up in weight. In order to level off on one’s diet, one needs to do what one has done all along, and that is to keep counting calories and adjusting percentages. No, just because one stabilizes at a certain weight, it does not mean that hunger will go away. No feeling of satisfied contentment comes upon the leveled off dieter. Just think about it, that if Normal was Enough, then there would not be Fat People. Hunger is always with us.

Now, to be fair to Oprah, we must realize that much of her eating is not really completely within her control. She must have a huge calendar of events she must attend, and we all know how eating is involved in nearly all social functions. Dinner Parties. Drinks after work. How long can Oprah continue to say no, no, no to everybody for the sake of a diet when everybody is wowing her on how fine she looks? Eventually she takes the drink and begins nibbling the pastry, and some of the pounds return. The good news is that the next time she insists that she still must be watching her weight, that they might begin to believe her.

Oh, there is another problem that chronic dieters have, and that is Reward Behavior. Now, typically everybody has enough common sense not to reward diet behavior by eating – one does not order up a serving of fries as a reward for forgoing a slice of pizza… that would be stupid. But often we have about the same thing happening as regards to exercise. You know how so many people think it is a very important component of the Weight Loss Strategy to increase one’s level of exercise, and it is. Often increased exercise is enough by itself to handle the complete demands of a diet and to put one solidly on the weight-losing downward trend. But one sees time and time again that people sabotage themselves by giving themselves rewards for a good exercise routine – having a beer afterward, or eating a good spaghetti dinner after a ten mile trail run or something. One needs only to remember to do the math. Even the most strenuous workout can only eliminate about 500 or at the most 600 calories in an hour. Since a pound of fat contains almost exactly 4000 calories, that means that an hour of the most strenuous exercise only cuts about an eighth of a pound of fat. A four hour trail run up the side of a freaking mountain would only cut a half pound. Running a Marathon… a half pound. Does that really seem like something to celebrate. And at what cost? A slice of pizza and a beer more than puts on the weight lost by an hour long workout, and the extra calories would demand that you do the same workout again tomorrow – but without Reward! A big spaghetti dinner with a glass of wine wipes out a complete marathon run. So, keep in mind that Reward Behavior – food and drink in reward for exercise behavior – is almost always self-defeating. Let your Reward be becoming slim and trim.

And remember that some calories are more insidious than others. Especially calories from alcohol. You know, it is a mistake to suppose that most fat comes from fat. The food industry tries to make us believe so by emphasizing non-fat and low-fat products, but the easiest weight to put on is from simple carbohydrates – sugars and alcohols. For the body to turn dietary fat into body fat, the fat must be entirely broken down into blood sugars and then reconverted again into body fat. It is complicated and even burns up energy just in the process. But simple carbohydrates such as sugars and alcohols are almost instantly converted to body fats, and the very body fats that are most conspicuous, coming to rest on the belly or the butt. Then there is the more threatening aspect of alcohol, and that is that it impairs the judgment. Few people can really say no to a second drink. Oh, and perhaps the most frightful thing about drinking is that it is projected by the Media as so elegant, as all these svelte and beautiful Hollywood Actors are continually being presented with drinks in their hand. You know it is not true… that anybody in their kind of shape has to be drinking only seltzer water. Let the truth be known that the only Hollywood Actors who really drink are the dumpy, pasty, sickly looking ones. Hi Jack. Hi Bob.

Now, I have one last word about dieting, and that is that it should be seen as something of a moral duty. The planet is soon approaching, or has even passed the point where there is enough food for everybody. If it really is true that some people are starving because there is a simple lack of food, then how can anybody justify eating twice the calories they really need? How much food could be saved and set aside for the Starving if everybody were to drop down to their optimum Body Mass Index Number? It is just a guess, but I am supposing that 40% of the World’s food simply goes toward making fat people even fatter. Yes, I realize that if everybody were to drop down in weight, that everybody would feel a little bit hungrier than they would otherwise. But, hell, screw that! At least they would look good!

Oh, and let me remind you that the feeling of being hungry is not such an entirely bad thing. You know, I have heard from old people that the last thing to go before death is the appetite. The truth is that you are really in trouble when you aren’t hungry anymore. So stop seeing hunger as a negative and start seeing it for what it really is – the feeling that healthy people have of being alive. No one is just hungry, but hungry to live! It doesn’t mean you should shove a piece of food in your mouth. Instead, do something! It will burn calories.