Guest post for the fatties
June 12th, 2009 | 
Author: Sensibly Ginger says:
Weight loss. It’s simple:, if you eat more food than you need, you put on weight. If you eat less food than you need, you lose weight. Your body’s actually quite good at gauging how much it needs. It regulates this by hunger. When hungry, eat. When you’re not hungry, don’t.
Unfortunately, this system has been by passed by very high calorie foods. So the body’s gauge isn’t as good as it was. This is where common sense comes in. Salad, fruit etc = good. Large quantities of cake and sweets = bad. It’s OK to have these things in moderation, but if you have them excessively, you’ll put on weight. Some people are happy with this.
Others moan. If you’ve over indulged, you’ll put on the pounds. To get rid of them you need to eat less, and get some exercise in. This may take a while. For example: fully aware of what I was doing to myself, at uni, I stopped exercising as I didn’t have the time with labs etc, but maintained my high drinking levels. I left uni overweight, such that my mum, said, “Gosh, you’ve put on weight” or as the bar manager said, “Fuck me, you’re a fatty now”. This didn’t bother me, as I knew that, when I graduated, I’d be back on my bike cycling to work, not drink lots every night, eating better, and rejoining a gym. It took me a good year or so, but I lost the weight.
So please people, don’t go spending a fortune on stupid pills, fad diets, or other gimmicky things. If you’re overweight, it’s your own fault (in the exception of children, then it’s the parent’s fault. If you’re a parent reading this and your child is obese, you should be done for child abuse). But, all you need to do is cut down on the pies, fizzy pop etc, get 30 minutes of exercise in five times a week, and there you go. If you are going down the sensible route, don’t lose more than 1-2 pounds a week, that’s the best level. Losing too much too fast can be bad, especially if you’re morbidly obese, as you can lose the fat faster than your skin can retract, and then you’ll be a healthy weight, but will literally have skin a few sizes to large for you which will not help your self esteem, which would otherwise have been improved by said your weight loss.
Posted in Fuck ups | 
Tags: child abuse, diet, fad diets, gauge, good year, high calorie foods, metabolism, stupid pills, this is why you're fat
Eat more get fatter, eh? I think more factors are at play. See for instance this article describing the role of metabolism. In one experiment, prisoners doubled their calorie intake and only a few of them managed to increase their weight by 25%.
http://www.junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2008/10/first-law-of-thermodynamics-in-real.html
I’d recommend reading more of Sandy’s blog. Among other things she challenges the conventional wisdom that fatter people die younger. Look up the posts on the “obesity paradox”.
With all due respect Rob, that’s bollocks.
It’s quite simple:
I’m a fat cunt. If I eat less and ride my bike 30km a day, I end up less fat (but still a cunt of course).
If I keep eating kebabs and sitting in front of computers, then my trousers get smaller.
Not that difficult, really, is it?
I blame that Jamie Oliver, me.
Oh but I’ve got a medical condition that makes me fat no matter how hard I try to lose weight.
The diameter of my arsehole is a slightly narrower than my mouth.
Because clearly you know more about this issue than someone who has done scientific research.
To clarify in a less snarky way, eating better and exercising will keep you healthy, but won’t necessarily make you lose a great deal of weight. The link provided by Rob talks of numerous studies which say that we all have a natural set point for weight which we can easily stay within 10 – 20 lbs of. Outside of that, gaining or losing more becomes very difficult and no amount of “will power” or “self control” will help unless you prefer to obsess over your appearance and spend all day planning your every move and every bite while fantasizing about losing just *one more* pants size.
No, Jason, we’re not refuting the scientific evidence however numbers can be twisted to mean a lot of different things.
There is a relationship between a calorie intake higher than your calorie use and the also gaining weight. It’s a clear causal relationship and although the relationship may not be linear in every case that does not stop the relationship existing.
Many metric tonnes of research supports the idea that if you eat more than you burn you will become a fatty. In some cases this is not the case because the body changes its metabolic rate to increase burn rate or refuses to absorb some of the calories. This does not stop the fundamental principle being correct and the fact that reducing calorie intake or increasing the amount you burn will cause weight loss.
(Explanation of long words available on request)
Here’s my edit in a less snarky way.
Sure, it’s not linear but running at a calorie deficit will make you lose weight.
Weight loss. It’s simple:, if you eat more food than you need, you put on weight.
The experiment that is calorie manipulation hasn’t worked, if it had, we’d all have notice by fat people becoming slim. That is patently evident, unless you invest in delusion.