Weight gain across species

[Spartana]

It was bizarre, experiencing having NO desire to eat. No appetite, in fact a food revulsion. Wow. And, once I got my appetite back, I was ravenous. It was the starvation/gorge cycle that when experienced, I believe our bodies adapted to centuries ago by packing on the pounds.

This is sooo me :-)! I completely lose my appetite when I don't eat (and have also been accused of being anorexic at times in my life even though I wasn't). I get to a point where I can't stand to even look at it. This usually happens if I get too hungry or wait too long between meals. So I try to eat fairly often (whole, raw foods like fruit or veggies or nuts) or I get repulsed by food and can easily just stop eating all together. And of course I have been known to binge eat too :-)! It seems the more I eat, the greater my appetite. I've read up on it and both things have to do with the release of enzymes and how they effect appetite. I can be stuffed to the gills physically but still craving more. Or I can be starving but have no appetite. I have found that happy medium and now have neither reactions - or only minimally and I know how to fix them (eat spartana, eat!!). But, again, for me keeping my weight at a good level has just been a matter of calories in and calories out. Dealing with the chemical reactions my body has that makes me crave food, or be repulsed by food, hasn't changed my weight - if I eat too much I gain weight. If I eat too little I lose weight.

[Bethers]

My brother just sent me a DVD of old home movies from 50 years ago. Everyone was lean as could be. Something has certainly changed.

Something seems to be different. If you look at "obese" celebrities from years ago like Jackie Gleason, the chubby guy from Laurel and Hardy, etc. they were big but nothing like what you see today. There's a newish book out called "Wheat Belly" by William Davis MD and he makes the point that men and women in the 40s and 50s were trim but there was no exercise craze like there is today. He even mentions that about 1/3 of triathletes today are overweight despite burning a ton of calories with their workouts. For the most part he blames the situation on hybridized wheat found in many of the products we eat today and which hasn't been around for very long. Here's an interview with the author http://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...ealthy/245526/

[Suzanne]

With regard to the no fat people in Holocaust concentration camps, it is true that there was no obesity. However, these were extreme conditions, with people getting as little as 400 calories per person per day. And, even more important, some people survived on these rations for long periods while others, with the same amount of food, died very quickly. This surely indicates very strongly that individual metabolism and biochemistry play a major role in how quickly we fatten under good conditions or die of starvation when food is short. Prisoner studies have shown the same kind of variation, when prisoners volunteering for feeding studies have been given exactly the same amounts of exactly the same foods and been supervised through exactly the same amount of exercise. The variability appears in both overfeeding and starvation studies. Then there are the examples of polar explorers; identical daily rations, identical daily exertion.

The doctor who made that comment was not only indelicate but ignorant.

[Bethers]

With regard to the no fat people in Holocaust concentration camps, it is true that there was no obesity. However, these were extreme conditions, with people getting as little as 400 calories per person per day. And, even more important, some people survived on these rations for long periods while others, with the same amount of food, died very quickly. This surely indicates very strongly that individual metabolism and biochemistry play a major role in how quickly we fatten under good conditions or die of starvation when food is short.

I've been watching Survivor for a while and also noticed that some contestants come off the island very thin losing about a pound a day and some are still pretty chubby. It probably also depends on how much extra weight they were carrying at the beginning of the season as well as metabolism and biochemistry variables.

[Spartana]

Something seems to be different. If you look at "obese" celebrities from years ago like Jackie Gleason, the chubby guy from Laurel and Hardy, etc. they were big but nothing like what you see today. There's a newish book out called "Wheat Belly" by William Davis MD and he makes the point that men and women in the 40s and 50s were trim but there was no exercise craze like there is today. He even mentions that about 1/3 of triathletes today are overweight despite burning a ton of calories with their workouts. For the most part he blames the situation on hybridized wheat found in many of the products we eat today and which hasn't been around for very long. Here's an interview with the author http://www.theatlantic.com/health/ar...ealthy/245526/

I live in a Vietnamese immigrant community and have noticed a HUGE (pun intended :-) ) difference in the weight and size of the second and third generation younger people who eat a more american diet. They are not only taller and bigger, they are over weight. The older people who had a different traditional diet of fish and rice are teeny tiny with no fat.

[Suzanne]

True, Bethers! The amount of weight one carries at the beginning of a low-food intake period will make a difference. Survivor aficionados who own the series will be able to visually assess the participants at the beginning and end.