Chapter 13, entitled The Mythology of Obesity, begins by talking about how most all of the obesity research out there begins from a hypothesis that has never been proven to be true. The hypothesis is that obesity occurs because of over consumption of food and inadequate exercise. These are the principles that are still preached today. Eat less and move more. By doing so you will create a calorie deficit and thus there will eventually be less of you. Makes sense, right? Scientifically, yes, its that whole law of thermodynamics thing at work. Problem is, practically speaking, it has never really been proven to work and from the 1960′s to now obesity in America has doubled. This statistic is slightly deceiving due to the way obesity is calculated-using the body mass index (BMI) which is a ridiculous concoction, but nonetheless Americans are growing and I don’t think the direction of the growth is up. Most of the research on calorie restriction and or exercise had similar unimpressive findings. Essentially, people lost weight and then gained the weight back plus more. The chapter also takes a fairly extensive look at the Pima Indians who are infamous for having the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the United States. Interestingly enough, they rose to such a state in spite of severe poverty. They did so living mostly on government rations comprised primarily of simple carbs.
Chapter 14, entitled Hunger, begins by taking a look at a couple studies conducted using calorie restrictive diets. The effects of both were horrid, both psychologically and physically. The participants lived with gnawing hunger, borderline psychosis, low energy levels and depression. Physically, the participants lost weight and then regained it rapidly after the study’s conclusion due to the unsustainable nature of the diets. In most of the studies addressed the entrants were put on a 1400-2100 calorie diet. The chapter then turned to exercise. There are even fewer good/conclusive studies on exercise than on diet and calorie restriction. Essentially, exercise has never been proven to be effective for inducing long term weight loss. Which, by the way has been my very anecdotal observation. Taubes does admit that exercisers report increased fitness and a general sense of well being, but not significant sustained weight loss. Again, this all fits with my observations in the garage.
Essentially, the take-home message of chapters 13 and 14 goes like this:
Creating a calorie deficit by either simply lowering calories or by exercising more creates hunger and discomfort. The body then desires to consume more calories to feel satisfied. This is all exacerbated by the fact that the metabolism is slowed down by the reduced caloric intake of the diet so when the dieter returns to a calorie level that previously would have maintained body weight, they now gain weight at that same calorie level. Bummer!
If dieting and exercise won’t help what do we do? We keep reading, learning, eating only real foods and CrossFitting to improve functionality.
Read chapters 15 and 16 this week.
AM Class
Five rounds for time of:
Row 500 meters
135 pound Thruster, 7 reps
Post time to comments.
PM Classes
Happy rest day!
Filed under: Nutrition Tagged: | Good Calories-Bad Calories
Chnaged this one to be 5 rounds of the following:
2 minutes of 135lb thrusters
2 minutes of rowing for calories
Thrusters: 9, 5, 6, 5, 4
Rowing: 35, 32, 32, 31, 39 (the middle 3 are all give or take 1 calorie)