Overweight and Obese Children Eat Less Than Their Healthy Weight Peers

[algernon]

Is there not a reliable way of determining body fat?

IE:
X% or over, and you're fat.
If you're fat, lay off of the refined carbohydrates and exercise more.

I hate when fatties lay off the responsibility of being fat to other circumstances, other than diet and exercise.
I mean, if I locked my 350 lb neighbour in a cage, and only fed him broccoli for a month, he'd lose a lot of weight. The second I let him out, he'd be back to drinking two Double Big Gulps everyday.

Why is this so hard?
Pop and chips bad.
Unrefined fresh food good.

[Pinner]

5'9" - 125 lbs... Can any body type be healthy at that weight ?

5'9" - 185 lbs is skinny/thin for me, that's nearly 50% more than the chart.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by algernon

Is there not a reliable way of determining body fat?

[IliketoPuck]

That looks cold and painful, and if you dimmed the lights and put people in a series of elaborate traps it could be part of a Saw movie.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Rathji

For me that is what it is.

I never learned portion control, or how to make good food choices when I was growing up.

A couple times I have been on diets that have helped me figure it out, but it is hard to reverse an entire lifetime of not worrying about what I eat.

Yeah, getting a digital kitchen scale changed my life for the better, that's for sure.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Pinner

5'9" - 125 lbs... Can any body type be healthy at that weight ?

5'9" - 185 lbs is skinny/thin for me, that's nearly 50% more than the chart.

I guess it depends on your body composition. I'm 6'0", fairly muscular with a medium to large frame, and I weigh in at 175. BMI charts usually say right on them that they don't apply in extreme cases (i.e. most professional athletes would be "overweight"), so if you're really muscular then they're not that helpful; however, I think it's fairly accurate if you're a normal body composition.

A few years ago I was 215 and I remember looking at one of those charts and it said I was almost obese. I definitely didn't feel obese back then (and I didn't really look it either). If someone had asked me I'd probably have said I was a little overweight. But looking back on it, I was carrying a lot of extra weight and that's why I made a conscious decision to get back to a healthy number. The fact that I lost 40 pounds without looking skinny should say something about how much weight I was carrying, even if I didn't look or feel as overweight as I actually was.

[firebug]

Originally Posted by Pinner

5'9" - 125 lbs... Can any body type be healthy at that weight ?

5'9" - 185 lbs is skinny/thin for me, that's nearly 50% more than the chart.

I have found this website to be... illustrative on heights and weights.

Photographic Height/Weight chart. (Sorry, but it IS safe for work)

~bug

[Isbrant]

Originally Posted by opendoor

A few years ago I was 215 and I remember looking at one of those charts and it said I was almost obese. I definitely didn't feel obese back then (and I didn't really look it either). If someone had asked me I'd probably have said I was a little overweight. But looking back on it, I was carrying a lot of extra weight and that's why I made a conscious decision to get back to a healthy number. The fact that I lost 40 pounds without looking skinny should say something about how much weight I was carrying, even if I didn't look or feel as overweight as I actually was.

I think this is a big part of the problem. People do not have a good idea what a healthy bodyweight looks like. I know that it probably takes someone who is 50 lbs or more overweight before I start to notice.

The only healthy people whos weight are well know that I can think of is athletes. The problem is that athletes have a lot of lean muscle mass compared to the general population. Muscle is heavier than fat so the athlete should wiegh more than a healthy non athlete of the same height.

Take Iggy, he is 6'1" 207 lbs according to the Flames website. People will say they are not in as good of shape and add more weight to Iggy's and think it is healthy. So the person could think 6'1" 220 - 230 lbs would be healthy. Instead, in order to be healthy they should weigh less than an athlete of the same height.

Just my thoughts.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by Pinner

5'9" - 125 lbs... Can any body type be healthy at that weight ?

5'9" - 185 lbs is skinny/thin for me, that's nearly 50% more than the chart.

You talking guys or gals? 5'9 125 lbs would probably be fine for a girl and perhaps even a skinny guy.

I know someone who's 6'5 and weighs less than 185 lbs. Person is obviously skinny but I don't think people would say they look unhealthy/anorexic.

[Phaneufenstein]

For those interested you should check out Tom Venuto's Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle e-book.
It pretty much answers all the questions raised in this thread.
Ie body types, BMRs, how weight scales and BMIs are misleading, how many meals a day one should eat, exercise etc.
I highly recommend it for self-education. And it doesn't need to be followed to the tee, unless you're planning to get really ripped.
I'm 6'2", was 230 lbs, now floating around 205, thanks to that book. I could probably drop another 10 lbs, but I like my beer and lack the "bodybuilder" ambition.
The book's language is somewhat poor since Venuto obviously isn't a communications major, but it'll give you all the basic info to achieve great results.

[Phaneufenstein]

Forgot to mention the original point I was going to make in this thread.

People that eat only 2-3 meals a day are in risk of having their body enter "starvation mode". Once in starvation mode, every meal will have a larger percentage stored as fat. This is due to human body adapting to famine environments over the millenia.

Conversely, if one eats around 5 meals a day, and a feeling of hunger is never there, the body will try to burn off as much of the calories as energy.

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by bcb

No, I am not fat. Although if I were, and my parents and grandparents were, would it really be my fault that I inherited their obesity genes?

The "obesity genes"? If modern science was anywhere close to identifying the genes responsible for obesity (if that's even possible) we'd be in a lot better shape in society.

Originally Posted by bcb

Can anyone really achieve a healthy weight? I just responded to someone four posts ago who couldn't drop two pounds despite exercising 2 hours per day.

How is that evidence? How do we know how hard their exercising? What if they're only burning 50 calories for that entire 2 hours? What are they eating? Are they telling the truth?

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by Azure

That may be exactly what you've done, and exactly why people will always say that you should lift weights alongside cardio to help retain lean muscle mass so your metabolism doesn't go to crap.

Or, like you said, the lower calorie count has reduced your metabolic rate. My advice would be to start eating more. Nothing seriously, maybe 200 calories more to start with. At 165#, you should easily be burning 2,000 calories per day.

Unless he's going more than 8 hours without a meal (besides sleep) he's not losing muscle by eating less.

He wants to lose weight and you think he should eat more? Really?

He was eating 1500 calories a day and went up to 2000. Unless he's burning 500+ calories more a day he's not going to lose anymore weight; in fact he'll gain some.

[TheSutterDynasty]

Originally Posted by algernon

Is there not a reliable way of determining body fat?

The reliable ways are DEXA and hydrostatic weighing. To perform these on a large sample size of the population would be insanely expensive.

Originally Posted by Azure

[Calipers]

Calipers are not reliable. They have a very large margin of human error associated with them. The HPL at the U of C has one person who measures body fat with calipers in order to counter-act this, and it still does not hold a candle to DEXA and hydrostatic weighing.

[Azure]

I was talking about measuring your own body fat.

Nobody has time to go to the U of C and get someone to measure their body fat, or get DEXA or hydrostatic weighting done. Hell, half the population hasn't even heard of those two latter methods.

[Pinner]

Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty

How is that evidence? How do we know how hard their exercising? What if they're only burning 50 calories for that entire 2 hours? What are they eating? Are they telling the truth?

You are talking about Devil's Advocate who lost 170 lbs in 1 year.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by TheSutterDynasty

Unless he's going more than 8 hours without a meal (besides sleep) he's not losing muscle by eating less.

He wants to lose weight and you think he should eat more? Really?

He was eating 1500 calories a day and went up to 2000. Unless he's burning 500+ calories more a day he's not going to lose anymore weight; in fact he'll gain some.

Maybe you should take your scientific books and look up with happens to your body if you eat 1500 calories, which is near starvation to some people, for 12 months.

Your metabolism and energy levels slow down.

People hit plateaus all the time. And when you're in a calorie deficit diet for a long period of time, your leptin levels drop. When that happens, your rate of fat loss slows down. So in order to bump your leptin levels, you need to periodically overfeed to facilitate greater fat loss.

Some people advocate binge eating at specific times, but from personal experience just eating around 1500 more calories during that time seems to do the trick.

This is exactly why I have always said its not as simple as calories in, calories out. There is a lot more involved.

Of course, you're going to turn around and now call me fat, and trump up the scientific research you studied at UofC which in your arrogance makes you smarter than the rest of us fat people who don't understand how the human body works.

I think it may be time for the ignore list to get another member.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Azure

Maybe you should take your scientific books and look up with happens to your body if you eat 1500 calories, which is near starvation to some people, for 12 months.

Your metabolism and energy levels slow down.

.

Completely anecdotal, but my personal experiences seem to go along with this theory. I've used deprivation diets and found it very hard to have continous weight loss. Then I read somewhere that every once in a while, you should shock your body with some high calories to keep your metabolism up and so I started doing that and it worked.

I suppose maybe it was just giving me extra energy and so I worked out harder. Whatever the reason, it worked for me.

[Devils'Advocate]

The calipers are useless for me. After losing so much weight, there are folds of loose skin around my midrift. The calipers would have me at "severely obese".

I bought a $300 scale that does bioelectric impedance measuring. It measured me at 9.9%.

TSD: I upped my caloric intake to 2,000 because I was losing too much weight at 1,500... my doctor told me to slow it down or stop. At 2,000 I'm staying steady at 165. Even though I added 500 I am now breaking even. What I'm not happy with is that I'm burning 1,000 in exercise via swimming and other cardio. So if I am eating 2000 and I'm burning 1000, then my base metabolism is only 1000, which is severely screwed up.

Only reason I want to get to 163 is because then I figure I can order pizza and not feel insanely guilty about it.

[TheSutterDynasty]

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Originally Posted by Pinner

Your talking about Devil's Advocate who lost 170 lbs in 1 year.

That doesn't mean he can't mess up the last few pounds.

My point is anecdotal evidence is useless.

Originally Posted by Azure

Nobody has time to go to the U of C and get someone to measure their body fat, or get DEXA or hydrostatic weighting done. Hell, half the population hasn't even heard of those two latter methods.

Which is why they use BMI to measure obesity rates. Get it?

Originally Posted by Azure

Maybe you should take your scientific books and look up with happens to your body if you eat 1500 calories, which is near starvation to some people, for 12 months.

I would imagine you would lose weight!

Originally Posted by Azure

Your metabolism and energy levels slow down.

Imagine that. You're taking in less calories (calories are a measurement of the energy content of food), and will therefore have less energy!



Weight loss is hard. You're starving your body so it consumes itself (fat). That's how it works, and that's why people struggle with it.

Originally Posted by Azure

People hit plateaus all the time. And when you're in a calorie deficit diet for a long period of time, your leptin levels drop. When that happens, your rate of fat loss slows down. So in order to bump your leptin levels, you need to periodically overfeed to facilitate greater fat loss.

Some people advocate binge eating at specific times, but from personal experience just eating around 1500 more calories during that time seems to do the trick.

This is exactly why I have always said its not as simple as calories in, calories out. There is a lot more involved.

There is more involved if you don't have the motivation to continue at such low caloric intake. Your body tells you to stop operating at a caloric (energy) deficit, which is why it has mechanisms like leptin. All you are doing is delaying fat loss by periodically stopping the energy deficit, and with 1500 more calories are likely at an energy excess; you would gain weight during this time.


Have you never seen a starving child? They don't get fat after getting skinny from being starved...

Originally Posted by Azure

Of course, you're going to turn around and now call me fat, and trump up the scientific research you studied at UofC which in your arrogance makes you smarter than the rest of us fat people who don't understand how the human body works.

I think it may be time for the ignore list to get another member

Ignoring the fact that I keep proving you wrong? That I can provide scientific research and fact that you're too stubborn to even read?


You'd rather go through life believing what you want and struggling with health and fitness than, god forbid, think once in awhile. Your loss (not weight loss though!).