Wall-E Wednesday (diet discussions)

[jesusdaughter155]

I'm pretty sure that Wall-E wasn't meant to be a documentary (I'm pretty sure Idiocracy wasn't either) but as anyone can see by looking around, we've got trouble.

As is always pointed out, weight loss is about diet, but diet and life when you aren't 20 is a little more difficult. Buy in from family, work, stress, what worked when you were 20 might not work now.

This week, let's get a little more intersting and less technical. When I was in high school, nobody was fat. I mean maybe one guy might have been 220 lbs. Parent's generation, no one is fat. Even boomers, look at any college protest from the 60's, almost nobody is fat. Now, everyone is fat. I mean huge. High school kids in the 400 pound range. There's almost nobody lean and gaunt even in their early 20's.

So the question for today is why?

what changed?

Frankenfood? crappy food? more eating out, less making meals? Fraudulent food? (it isn't what it says it is). GMO? sugar in everything? Both parents working? Little johny (or Suzy) getting spoiled and getting junk food all the time? Stopping smoking? the food pyramid? etc

What has turned us (the nation) into a place where 2/3 are obese and at risk for diabetes.

 

[beezyhonkelton]

@jesusdaughter155 Dehydration. Being mildly dehydrated feels the same as being hungry, and most people don't drink enough water each day. On top of that caffeine dehydrates you, and a lot of people choose sugary drinks full of caffeine when they're thirsty, only worsening the dehydration and double-ending the calorie intake.

Eating out. Even healthy food from most restaurants is nutritionally terrible, and people eat a double portion of it. I try hard to eat healthy, but even on the occasions where I order something "healthy" off of a menu, I do the math and find that I'm WAY over my calorie count for the day. I don't know how people can eat out more than once a week and not be fat.

Pitfalls. The grocery store is full of food, and you shouldn't eat 99% of it. Of that 99%, half of it is marketed as "healthy". I was looking at a "healthy" trail mix snack, with a little snack pack marketed as 150 calories per serving. Had I not noticed that the tiny, easily to eat snack pack was considered THREE servings, I probably would have eaten it. Butcher, Dairy, and Produce are the only places people should shop, and there are 20 additional isles of fat-making options.

Work. Being overworked and having no time is a sign of success, and we all have to sacrifice other things to have enough time to be human beings. Eating has to be fast, or there isn't time for it. Nothing that can be made and eaten quickly, on the spot without planning, is good for you. What's more, we're made to feel that sacrificing ourselves for our job is the least we can do in appreciation for having one, and anything less is either laziness or ingratitude. Even school aged children are being given more and more homework to do each evening, to a ridiculous degree. So wolf down that can of spaghettios for dinner after eating off the dollar menu for lunch, and then get back to work!

Activity is definitely a factor as well, but 80% of the problem with obesity is diet in my opinion.

 

[rosewinter]

@jesusdaughter155 Constant consumption of beverages with sugar (empty calories), processed foods, and the convenience of eating out/drive thru. So many cultural changes since WW2. Lack of activity is often blamed because of all the new fandangled vidja games and technology, but anyone relatively experienced with fitness knows Diet is as big/larger part of maintaining healthy weights.

 

[dottie65]

@jesusdaughter155 It's simply too easy to take in calories now, both through the availability of food to the actual food itself, and processed foods have been designed to make you crave them.

 

[davjjorton]

@jesusdaughter155 I think a few things are at play here:
Kids don't play outside. As a result, adults aren't physical either.
Our jobs are 100% sedentary, and we drive to them instead of walking or even standing on the bus. I occasionally ride by bike to work (10 miles each way). most people would never consider doing that at all.
OUr food has become an incredible calorie delivery system. I don't think it's frankenfood. it's bad food. I eat either 2 eggs or 4 egg whites for breakfast every day, that's either 70 calories or 150 calories. Plus a yogurt and some fruit. as a snack before lunch. A single McD's Sausage biscuit with egg is 570 calories. Plus, whatever else comes with the meal.

IN addition, portion size is out of control. A soda was 8, then 12 oz. now, even at work, I see grown ass adults drinking 2-3 64oz sodas in a regular work shift. Hamburgers went from regular size to 3/4 lbs. We are eating buckets of pasta, not knowing that a serving size is tiny.

the mentality that food is a reward, that exercise is work or punishment, and that huge desserts are a normal part of diet is killing us.

Fwiw, smoking was definitely killing us.

 

[jesusdaughter155]

What the problem is, I really don't know. But i have some good guesses that easily pass the smell test.

I lost a ton of weight (150lbs) on low carb. Everyone who has tried low carb loses weight on it. Many people lose a LOT of weight rather effortlessly. But, they tend to go back to how they were eating because it's easy. If you've done low carb you know that EVERYTHING has carbs (sugar) in it now. Even things you would never think of. Between that and the .gov pushing low fat high carb from the 1980's on, I can see that it certainly plays a part. It also makes sense that you are totally inundated with sugar all the time, you body (and insulin) simply can't deal with it after a while and boom, you're a diabetic. passes the smell test, makes sense, I'm sure there is more science to it, but that's certainly part of it. (paleo fits in here too)

Frankenfood. Everything is manufactured and made with chemicals (ok everything is a chemical at one point) and made to survive being on shelves (both retail and restaurant) forever. Ever make fresh bread? Lasts about 2 or 3 days before going bad. It takes weeks for store bought bread to go bad, and it was made a week or two before it even hit the store. I read somewhere that a frozen pizza has like 50+ ingredients. Umm, pizza. water, sugar, salt, yeast, flour, tomato's, cheese. Should be like 15 or so.

Fake food. Fraud if you really want to say it. Everything is fraud (and not just food). You're told olive oil is good for you, so you go buy olive oil But it's not what you get. Seafood is a damn joke. less than 50% of what you buy is actually what you are paying for. This book Real Food Fake Food (https://www.amazon.com/Real-Food-Fake-Youre-Eating/dp/1616204214) is damn depressing.

Lack of activity is some, but as we all know, weight is more about diet. Although all these teens who move less than senior citizens do are going to HURT when they are old. So much movement is just about feeling better.

You'll hear portions are huge, but portions are only huge because people eat. Low carb was a eye opener to me, I simply wasn't hungry for the first time in 20 years. Portions are normal because I'm not hungry not because I"m limiting myself. Restaurants wouldn't' make enormous portions if people didn't "need" it to feel full.

Prepared vs. real food is certainly part of it. Growing up I probably went out maybe once a week, probably less and McD's might be a special occasion. By the time i was in my 20's (90's), man, fast food was everywhere, everyone went out 2,3,8 times a week. Kids today (women especially) can barely boil water, much less make anything slightly complex. Didn't learn, never had the need. has to be part of it and goes back to Frankenfood too. Most regular restaurants (esp chains) are simply reheating frozen food that was made in some factory somewhere.

Ending smoking? sounds crazy, but there aren't many fat smokers and EVERYONE used to smoke. And that wasn't so long ago, but it really started going down right about the 1980's, same time that weight began to explode.

 

[prophecysocietyatlanta]

@jesusdaughter155 Dr. Martin Blaser argues that antibiotics are contributing to problems such as obesity by negatively impacting gut microbiota in the book Missing Microbes.