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The No S Diet

2010-01-26T07:02:00.000-08:00

I can't resist checking out new diets and seeing what they are all about. A lot of them seem to disappointingly similar. Most seem to work by either deliberately restricting calories, or by restricting the type of food and/or timing of eating so that less calories are consumed, or by changing attitudes to food to avoid overeating, or some combination. Maybe there are more types of diet (the ones which involve drugs, for instance). I'm just thinking on the hoof here. When I see a new diet, I'm always hoping that it really will be something new.

Recently I've been looking at the No S Diet. I'm not sure if I can summarise the diet here without infringing copyright, because those fourteen words at the beginning are the diet. But I think I can safely say that it's basically eating only at mealtimes and avoiding high sugar foods during the week, and unrestricted eating at weekends.

I liked the sound of it. After all, it's more or less how we tend to eat naturally. I imagined that this is how it might work:

- one type of food is restricted (sugary food), which might lead to less calories over all (although not necessarily. The "set point" thing might lead to more of other foods being eaten to compensate)

- possibly sugary foods might tend to be quicker and easier to eat than the other food we tend to eat (so you're cutting out the type of food you'd be most likely to overeat)

- restricting the times of eating might mean less food is eaten overall. People might well eat a little more at mealtimes, but wouldn't feel an urge to eat a lot more.

- people who tend to overeat at a sitting will have less sittings to overeat at (and it would be difficult to hugely overeat at mealtimes, because you are restricted to one plateful of food, I think).

- the weekend allows for a bit of relaxation, indulgence and particularly social eating (meaning that it can fit in with people's lifestyles and they are more likely to stick with it)

I can see how it might work in theory.

But then I started to have a look a couple of the blogs and testimonials of people following the diet. Only a couple, and maybe I didn't read a representative sample. I got the impression that people were losing a good few pounds at the beginning of the diet, but then started to level off a bit. Maybe they reached the bottom limit of their "set point". Maybe their eating adjusted so that they ate more at mealtimes. Maybe some other reason. It wasn't dramatic (and to be fair, the diet doesn't claim to be).

Two blogs I read in a little more detail. I was surprised to find that the writers were adding further restrictions to the diet. That was disappointing. Apparently they had accepted that it wouldn't work on its own, for them. I'm not sure why it works for some and not others, and I'm not sure how well it works long-term.

However, I do like the idea better than some of the others out there. It doesn't seem to encourage an obsession with food. Apart from avoiding the sweet stuff, you could be eating more or less what you like, every day. A plateful of food at a meal is actually quite a lot of food (assuming it's not mainly lettuce), so you wouldn't need to be left hungry. I think it could be easier to stick to three meals than to eat when you're hungry, because three meals tend to fit in easily with family and work. (No need to sit twiddling your thumbs during a communal lunch because you don't feel hungry enough yet, then have to pull out a packet of nuts while you're trying to work).

Why are thin people not fat? (And why am I fat?)

2009-01-27T03:27:00.000-08:00

"Why are thin people not fat?" was a Horizon documentary shown last night. It's available on iplayer (possibly only in the UK). The programme followed a small group of young, naturally thin adults who were monitored for weight, measurements, body fat percentages and so on while eating huge amounts of food and avoiding exercise over a few weeks.

From memory, the following points came up:

*Naturally thin people found it difficult to put on extra weight. Two people could not manage to eat all the extra food.
*One person put on extra muscle instead of extra fat and increased his metabolic rate.
*All the participants easily lost weight at the end of the study

Meanwhile, some other obesity research was looked at:
*A virus which causes chickens to gain weight is more common in fat people
*Once laid down, fat cells don't go
*Evolution has selected for a tendency to fatness
*Small children fall into two groups - those who continue to eat when full, and those who lose interest in food when full
*People seem to have a set weight point and adjust their diet and exercise naturally to maintain that weight.
*Fat people who lose weight, have an appetite for extra food.

There was more, but that's a quick sum up.

I was particularly interested in this story, because for most of my adult life I wasn't fat. I was naturally slim - not thin, but within a "healthy" BMI range. I seemed to be very much like the naturally thin people on the programme. I didn't have any desire to overeat. I lost interest in food after I was full. I was never overweight as a child.

Now my weight has changed, but I still behave much like a naturally slim person. I have a normal appetite. I don't overeat. My house is full of chocolate and other treats left over from Christmas but I only have the occasional piece now and then - not because I'm trying to resist but because I don't want it. So the puzzle is - why am I eating as I have done for all my adult life (apart from a few misguided attempts to diet), but steadily gaining weight?

The programme didn't give any explanations for somebody like me. (Unless you count the virus idea people seem to be pooh-poohing at the moment).

Thank you for telling me I'm fat. I hadn't noticed.

2009-01-25T03:27:00.000-08:00

Meanwhile, here is Eamonn Holmes talking about being fat, from a male perspective.

'People slap my belly all the time, and the truth is, it really hacks me off,' he says, with quite unexpected feeling. 'It's because I'm a man. Everything's a joke when it comes to overweight men. Women have it much easier.

'No one would ever say, "Oh, you're fair piling on the beef there" or "That's some ass you've got on you". They wouldn't pat a woman's tummy or prod her thighs. But, as a bloke, I can tell you that it happens all the time. They go, "Oi, Eamonn, that's some paunch". People feel they can touch you, and I hate it. If another person lays a finger on me...'

He pulls his jacket around the midriff in question. 'The thing is that they never expect a man to be offended. They do expect women to - and know that if they said those things to a woman, she would probably burst into tears or slap them. Well, I am offended, too, even though I've done my fair share of laughing along with it. Men do hide behind jokes when it comes to being overweight. They wear it as some sort of trophy, laughing along with all those, "you'd better cut down on the beer" jibes. I hardly ever even drink beer.'

Sometimes, people try to give Eamonn diet advice while patting his belly, which is a big mistake. 'What gets me is all those people who say, "Eamonn, I lost three stone just by cutting out sugar in my tea". If one more person says that to me I will scream.

Even worse are the people who say, "Eamonn, I have to tell you that what worked for me was cutting out bread. I just cut out bread and, do you know, I lost seven stone in no time." Why do these people seek me out? I always think, "**** off!"'

We've all been there, Eamonn. Men get the more obvious comments and have to try to treat them as a joke, I suppose. But I think women know that the comments are lurking there unsaid - unless you visit a health professional, of course, and then they may not remain unsaid. I recently had to see a doctor who hadn't met me before, and it seemed inevitable that my weight had to enter the conversation. Of course, health professionals are advised to bring up weight issues, as part of their role in tackling obesity. I think there is a misunderstanding that fat people are fat because they didn't notice they were fat. And if their fatness is pointed out to them, they will then eat less and become less fat.

Health inequalities and obesity

2009-01-25T02:33:00.000-08:00

I have just been reading this article in the Guardian:
A more effective way of combating child obesity

The article claims that "health inequalities are inextricably tied up with obesity in children". The "evidence" is the WHO report, I suppose, which tells us that a boy born in Calton in Glasgow has a life expectancy of just 53.

I'm not sure where the connection to obesity comes in there. Are they suggesting that the men of Calton tend to die of obesity? Of obesity-related illness? We're not given the causes of death. We're not even told how obese the men of Calton are in comparism to men from other areas.

I keep mentioning the men of Calton, because the Calton life expectancy figures have been much reported, but only for the men. Apparently the life expectancy for women is 20 years higher, at 73. Surely that discrepancy is worth looking into, along with the causes of death, rather than just assuming it's the result of a diet of deep fried pizza?

I'm not denying that poverty seems to be linked to health outcomes. But I'm questioning the automatic assumption that the cause of death in poorer areas is obesity.

The article goes on to say that "a quarter of children and the majority of the adult population will be obese by 2050".

"It is not simply a question of getting children, and their parents, to eat less. Compared to the late 1970s, seven- to 12-year-olds are consuming fewer calories, not more. It's about getting them to be more active."

So the increase in obesity is not caused by extra calorie intake. (And a commenter helpfully points out that it doesn't seem to be caused by lack of exercise either, because exercise doesn't prevent childhood obesity).

But as the article points out, government interventions don't make much difference to obesity either. Despite that, the aim seems to be to keep increasing government intervention, at increasing expense.

Half Ton Son

2009-01-20T03:03:00.000-08:00

I watched "Half Ton Son", the (inaccurately named) documentary about Billy Robbins, the worlds heaviest teenager. It's available on Catch up TV here (in the UK), and here's a synopsis.

I don't claim to know the truth of this story. I'm very aware that these documentary programs take a certain slant on the story and that information may be omitted or misrepresented. The slant taken was that Billy was being killed by his mother's overfeeding, as she tried to deal with her grief over the death of her previous son, Matthew. It was tearful viewing, as Billy's mother Barbara struggled not only with the still raw grief over Matthew's death, but the guilt over possibly killing Billy. (I don't know if loading her with more guilt was the best way to deal with the situation. I think an overload of guilt can be paralysing and/or destructive. However, as I mentioned, we don't know what was omitted). She said that if he died she would want to die too, to get in the coffin with him. He said that he felt he was slowly killing her. At the end of the programme we were told that the two had been separated.

But one thing really was bothering me by the end of the programme. Billy's facial expressions and speech seemed just like a depressed person's. It turned out that he had been bullied at school, and so had had to be homeschooled. He apparently had no friends. He spent almost all his time in his room, with his mother visiting to bring him food or to wash him. His father seemed caring, although he didn't seem to spend much time with him. It seemed to me that depression might be a risk for anybody in those reclusive circumstances, especially if the circumstances had been brought about by bullying. Billy's sexuality is never mentioned, and he's treated like a child sometimes by his mother, but also sometimes by the other adults in contact with him, I felt. At one point, he laughs as he's given anaesthetic, and one of the medical staff mentions that it's the first time they've seen him laugh. And right enough, he doesn't seem to laugh or even smile much at all. After the surgery and some weight loss, he is back home, holed up in his dimly lit bedroom, and a showdown develops with his mother, who is trying to encourage him to exercise. She doesn't want to bury another son, she says and asks him, rhetorically, if he wants to die. Yes, he says, sometimes he does.

And that all worried me a lot. Maybe Billy wasn't depressed, but what I was seeing seemed to point to him needing assessment, at least. The bullying, the social isolation, the apparent eating disorder, the lack of smiling or laughter, the lack of motivation or energy and particularly the desire to die were warning bells for me. But, unless I missed it, Billy's possible depression was never addressed. It was as if his size dwarfed all other problems he might have. The answer to everything was for him to lose weight. And maybe it WAS the answer to everything - I just don't know. But even if it was, treating his depression may have helped with his motivation, and surely would have given him a better quality of life, before, after and during the weight loss. And surely, even, if the bullies had been dealt with and Billy had had supportive friends and a social life, his life would have been better in the first place.

It seems to me that it may be another case of people not being able to see beyond the fat. The fat is the problem. Removing the fat is the solution.

While Billy was in my mind, I read this other story about David Smith:
'Man mountain' who nearly ate himself to death loses 28 stone and becomes fitness instructor
David seems to have had a happy outcome. But again, I'm bothered by the description of his life as a fat man:

He said: 'I had been overweight all my life.

'I would have sticks and stones and dog mess thrown at me and I would be spat on.
I've had a broken arm and black eyes because people didn't like me because of my weight.

'It got so bad that I didn't want to leave the house and I didn't even feel comfortable in my own backyard until it was dark out.

'I felt like I deserved as much pain as possible and I wanted to kill myself.

Isn't that heartbreaking? What upsets me, is that he seems to judge himself for the terrible way he was treated, and again, the general thrust of the article is that his weight was the problem. He wouldn't have been so terribly bullied if he hadn't been fat. Now that he's no longer fat, he's no longer being bullied. Losing weight was the solution. The horror of people indulging in such utterly reprehensible behaviour as the emotional and physical bullying he describes is not addressed. Did the attacker or attackers who did this go to court? We don't know, and we get the impression it doesn't matter because they weren't the problem, David Smith's fat was. He was driven to an extreme level of social isolation, like Billy, and like Billy, he wanted to die. The same cycle of bullying, social isolation and depression, all being seen as an inevitable result of being fat rather than something that should be tackled.

Calorie controlled menus

2009-01-19T02:06:00.000-08:00

Restaurants and takeaways to print calorie content on menus in bid to curb unhealthy eating

Fast food and sandwich chains will begin displaying the calorie content of their menus by the summer in an effort to help customers fight the flab and switch to healthier options....

.....The calorie count scheme proposed by the Government's Food Standards Agency mirrors a compulsory regime adopted in New York last year. This has led to an average reduction of 50-100 calories for each order placed.....

....However, the plan faces opposition from the British Hospitality Association amid claims it will add to business costs and threaten jobs at a time when small food outlets are struggling for survival.

Where to start?

The first sentence implies that the healthiness of foods can be measured by the amount of calories. To a certain extent, yes, we need calories, and therefore food which provides calories, rather than not, is desirable. But obviously, they are associating the healthiness of food with less calories, rather than more. Presumably the lowest calorie option is thought to be the healthiest option, regardless of the content. So, supposedly, one apple is healthier than two apples, one grape is healthier than a bunch of grapes and boiled water is healthier than soup.

The second part - about the scheme resulting in a reduction in calories per order placed - what does that mean, on its own? Did people go for "healthier" options, or choose less "healthy" but lower calorie options? Did the lower calorie intake at this meal mean a lower calorie intake over the day, the week, the month, the year? How was the people's health affected? Did they lose weight? Because, lets face it, if there was no measurable difference in health and/or weight, then what's the point?

Now the last bit, about the problems for small businesses. There's a list of businesses which are signing up, and they are big companies like Pizza Hut who serve pretty much exactly the same food, cooked in exactly the same way, in the same portions in all their restaurants. So it's feasible, maybe, that they could give an idea of the calorie count of each of their dishes. MacDonalds already do this, I think. I remember the paper things they put in the trays used to have the calorie count of their foods on them. But for a chef in a small restaurant, would it be so easy? I suppose you could make one portion of the dish, measuring ingredients carefully, and take it to a lab to have the calorie count tested. Or you could carefully weigh and measure all the ingredients and count their calories. But that wouldn't be terribly accurate, because often the calorie count will change during cooking (oil drains off or is not absorbed). And in both cases, you'd have to make sure that you continued to accurately measure all the ingredients each time somebody ordered a dish. No dashes of that, or knobs of this, or handfuls of the other. And your ingredients would have to be standard - if a steak was half an ounce overweight, you'd have to cut that extra half ounce off, and presumably throw it away, unless you had invented and measured a calorie controlled recipe for small pieces of steak. It sounds like a nightmare to me.

But finally, eating out isn't just about calorie intake. We could get plenty of calories cheaper at home. I eat out to be sociable, to mark occasions and for the pleasure of a meal which I haven't cooked myself and don't have to wash up after. I probably do eat a bit more when I eat out than I would at a normal meal - there's plenty of time to eat, it's slow and enjoyable, I'm not tired and flustered from cooking, and the food, hopefully, is delicious. It's a sensual pleasure, and one that I'm paying money for. I don't want to be expected to choose my food according to the calorie count.

And that's what will happen, won't it? We'll maybe be able to ignore the calorie count, but I bet that when we're out with a group of people, some are going to notice whether the fat person chooses a low or high calorie option, and perhaps make some judgment about them because of that.

Evans

2008-07-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

I've been clothes shopping at Evans again. And what a pleasant experience it is! In the old days, it used to be known as 'Evans the Outsize shop' and used to sell horrifically unfashionable clothes in bigger sizes. At some point it had a revamp and ditched the 'outsize' tag. The clothes are attractive and fashionable and go up to size 32. And that's not all:

- It's not too expensive (most of the trousers are around £15 and they have frequent sales)

- The sales assistant are big enough to wear the clothes they sell.

- They don't act as if you're going to steal things if you try clothes on - you can walk in and out of the changing rooms freely without being accosted and having the clothes counted.

- The clothes seem to be designed for bigger women rather than just sized up.

- The accessories they sell are also designed for bigger women - wider boots, longer necklaces, bigger stockings, etc.

My only gripe is that they don't seem to design clothes specifically for my type of figure (curvy hourglass). The bras are for people with big chests, rather than with small chests and big breasts. But it's the same in most shops, and I usually can't get my bra size in normal shops anyway.

It's a joy shopping there, and one of the perks of being bigger. So I had mixed feelings when I learned that there is now so much demand for Evans clothes that they now go down to a size 14. Slimmer people can now shop in Evans. As well as just about everywhere else, of course.

Old friends, and undercover knowledge

2008-02-09T11:01:00.000-08:00

I was thinking about an old friend of mine yesterday, and wondering if it might be nice to get in touch again.

And then I remembered. Back when we were close friends she was always making disparaging comments about people who she thought were too fat. And that included anybody from about my size upwards. (My size at the time, I mean, which was a US size 6 to 8, looking at the charts). She was about the same dress size as me, but taller and proportionately slimmer.

Now maybe her view on size has changed - after all, lots of my views have changed. But if it hasn't... I realised that if I met up with her, she would feel repulsed when she looked at me. If I'd met her first when I was fat, I would never have known that because she wouldn't have made those comments to me if I was fat. But I've heard those comments, and even though I'm sure she wouldn't make them now, I'd know how she really felt. I realised that if we met up, it wouldn't be as equals. She would be seeing me with revulsion and pity, and I don't need that.

And this is where I feel like I've been a spy working undercover for most of my life. As I wasn't fat, I got to hear people's true feelings about fatness, and it wasn't pretty. If I'd been fat all my life, then no doubt I'd have suffered the usual jibes from unpleasant people. We know there are cruel people out there who are quite blatant about their prejudices. But having been on the 'inside' all these years, I can tell you that there are lots of perfectly nice people, people whom I would count as friends, and whose opinions I generally respected, who have similar prejudices and see obesity as a moral failing. I know they won't tell me that to my face, now that I'm fat, but I know that's what they think, because they told me so when I was slim.

I won't be getting in touch with my friend just yet, because I'm not ready to deal with the disapproval that she'll be trying to hide when she meets me.

Obesity 'may be largely genetic'. And the 23% that isn't genetic....?

2008-02-07T09:32:00.000-08:00

On the news this morning*, we were told that obesity may be largely genetic.

There was some discussion about this today at work. I got the feeling (and I'm paraphrasing, probably unfairly here) that the general view was that the 'news' was a bad thing, because it might stop people dieting. I did mention that dieting didn't work anyway.

Apparently 'differences in body mass index and waist size were 77% governed by genes'. The rest of the BBC piece seems to go on to assume that the other 23% is governed by eating behaviour. Maybe it is. But the article didn't really say that - it only said that 77% was governed by genes. Some of the remaining 23% may be governed by prenatal factors, for instance, or breastfeeding, or childhood illness - who knows? Prenatal factors are particularly interesting. For instance, here's an article about the relationship between IUGR (slow growth in the womb) and adult obesity (babies with IUGR carried more fat as adults). Here's one about dieting during pregnancy (foetal undernutrition seems to lead to later obesity). There are loads of articles out there on this subject. Prenatal effects have to account for some of that 23% that isn't genetic.

So the BBC piece doesn't really tell us how much 'lifestyle' contributes to obesity - only that it's somewhere between 0 - 23%. As factors other than genetics are likely to contribute, it doesn't seem likely that lifestyle is responsible for the full 23%. This is hugely important, I think, and helps to explain why diets don't work.

We went out for lunch today, a rare event. Most people ate a fair bit, because most of them are starting diets next week. I ate a fair bit myself, and so was full up when the time came to order a desert. I was the only one who didn't have desert, but I felt under so much pressure to have one, oddly. It's very rare that I have desert anyway, as I don't have a very sweet tooth. I gave in, in the end, and had a taste of somebody else's desert. I don't know what all this meant, as I'm still getting used to being a fat person. I was by far the biggest person there, and yet I was the one who ate the least. The others seemed to really want me to eat more - why? Because they thought I secretly wanted to eat more but was too embarrassed to have any because I'm fat? They've seen me eat plenty of food on other occasions, though, so why would they think I'm ashamed of my appetite? Didn't they believe that I just wasn't hungry? Did they just want to include me in the group? Was my size irrelevant? I'd be really grateful for comments on this - why would people try to persuade a fat person to eat more, while at the same time showing that they disapprove of fatness (by talking about dieting)?

*It took me so long to post that I now mean yesterday morning.

Join the club

2008-02-04T22:36:00.000-08:00

Recently at work, it seems as if everybody but me has been dieting. That's not unusual, of course. Get a bunch of women together, and eventually the talk seems to come round to weight, who's eating what, what everybody should be eating or shouldn't be eating, etc.

Often these conversations take place among slim or average women, and I used to worry about what to say if there was a genuinely fat person there. Sometimes I'd just say I was happy about my weight. But that didn't feel right, because that would seem to suggest that I thought my body was better than the fat person's body. By accepting my body, I would be rejecting theirs. So stupidly, sometimes, I'd find myself flailing about trying to say things which is included us both - which would be something along the lines of implying that I was fatter than I actually thought I was. And then, I'd cringe, and wonder why on earth I'd said that? Didn't that just make things worse, because if I thought I was fat, then I must be thinking that she was 'summin else' (in the words of Marjorie from Fat Fighters of Little Britain fame)?

I'm in an interesting situation now, because for the first time, I'm the fat person. I'm much fatter than anybody that I work with. And all of them (apart from one, I think), think they're too fat and are trying to lose weight. I'm pleased to find that it doesn't bother me as much as you would think. I meet those implied insults with a wry smile. But lets not forget that they are implied insults. If my slim colleagues are insisting that they are unacceptably fat, then they're implying that I am even more unacceptably fat. And yet, they don't seem to see it as an insult. I even wonder if they're trying to include me, like I used to do with fatter friends. They don't want to make the division of 'you fat, me not', so they include themselves in being overweight. But then they genuinely are unhappy with their bodies, because they do want to lose weight. So they really must see me as humungously ginormous.

I now find that them saying they are happy with their bodies would be less of a rejection of mine than their current unhappiness with their bodies. Oh, one of them is a lot happier, because she's lost weight and gone down a dress size. Her fat dress size, needless to say, was smaller then my current size dress.

And now, I'm the one saying that I'm happy(ish - I still have some work to do) with my weight, and I'm by far the biggest. I'm the only one not dieting, and yet, judging from their assessments of their own bodies, my colleagues think I desparately need to. And now I do feel that people watch what I eat. I know they do, because I've seen people watch what other fat people eat, before I was fat. And I know they probably think that the reason for me being fat is that I eat far too much. And then I feel - well, guilty isn't the right word, but kind of embarrassed that I'm not on a diet when everybody thinks I should be.

Application to join the fatosphere

2008-01-29T22:44:00.000-08:00

I wasn't born fat. Quite the opposite. I wasn't a fat child, or a fat teenager, or, for most of my adulthood, a fat adult. In fact, I've spent around 40 years not being fat.

Lucky old me. For all those years I haven't had to endure the misery that I've heard about other fat people going through - the taunts at school, the worried parents, the diets, the disapproving doctors, the employment discrimination, etc. And even though I've recently got bigger, I've gone past the point where I will have to experience some of these things - being picked for games as a fat person, finding school uniform that fits as a fat person, starting dating as a fat person, etc.

And lucky old me in another way - although I didn't join the team due to my size, I embraced fat activism many years ago. And, metaphorically at least, I embraced fat people - I didn't find fat repulsive on myself or others.

That's not to say that I was completely accepting of my fat. I have had mixed feelings (which I'll elaborate later) and also have tried unsuccessfully to lose weight (more about that later too). But I do think I have had an easier time than most of you. Now that my size has altered enough for me to become a member rather than just cheering from the sidelines, I'd like to join you please.