In many groups the subject matter on weight reduction, centers around keeping active, eating a healthy and balanced diet, getting enough sleep, not smoking, and drinking alcohol moderately. These seem to be positive guidelines to follow and there has been some success, when you stick to it. Here Nadja Hermann, TheGuardian.com, reflects on five dangerous ‘fatlogic' myths, debunked:

 

“As far back as I can remember, I was overweight. My parents were morbidly obese, just like three of my grandparents (my maternal grandmother was “only” obese – in other words, just fat). In my teenage years, I tried every diet going, and would sometimes lose weight, only to put it all on again. Eventually I concluded that so-called “normal” weight just wasn’t realistic for me. It would mean a life of permanent hunger.

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I also decided such a life wasn’t necessary: excess weight was demonised without reason. I might be fat, but I didn’t smoke, drink, consume fast food or red meat. And I was physically fit. I decided to set other priorities in my life; I trained as a psychotherapist, got married and started renovating an old house.

At the age of 30, I tipped the scales at 150kg (23st 8lb). If asked, I told people I was comfortable with my weight and that my only wish, if anything, was to be a bit fitter. But at that same time, I was secretly visiting an obesity clinic as an outpatient and thinking about a stomach-stapling operation. I eventually decided not to have the operation, and buried myself even deeper in studies that showed that being overweight was not really harmful.

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My doctor never mentioned my weight. Every time I went, my blood pressure was enormously high, but I dismissed it as “white coat hypertension”. I managed to ignore the fact that I was suffering frequent back pain and that I was having trouble sleeping, in part because of my heavy snoring.

This went on until, one day, I slipped while doing housework and injured my knee. I know now that I tore my cruciate ligament; but at the time my doctor said it was probably nothing to worry about and prescribed me ibuprofen. Then I had another accident while renovating our house. I walked with a limp for months, until it happened again.

After more than a year of pain and restricted mobility, I had a breakdown. I realised that, over the previous few years, my health had decreased while my weight had increased. And I knew that if I kept going this way, within a few years I would be unable to walk – while still in my early 30s. Something had to change.

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For the first time, I consciously started thinking about my eating behaviour and began reading up on genetics, metabolism, diets and obesity. Although I had read around the topic for a while, I had done so selectively. Now, I began to explore the 95% of the research to which I had turned a blind eye. I came across the term “fatlogic” on Reddit and it immediately resonated with me. The term doesn’t mean “fat people’s logic”, but refers to the complex grab bag of supposedly medical facts, well-meaning advice, homegrown ideas and fantasies that make losing weight not only difficult, but impossible.

I don’t consider myself stupid or naive. I have always been the kind of person who questions things; I have a doctorate, and an interest in science. But still I believed in so much fat logic, probably because I was always surrounded by it. I was told from an early age that our family had “fat genes” and that my metabolism was “broken” – which appeared to be corroborated by my own experiences.

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Tearing down the fallacies I had believed for my whole life was a long and sometimes painful process. But in the following year, I began to put it to practical use. I restricted my calorie intake. I moved more. Within a year, I was in the normal weight range for my 175cm (5ft 9in) height; and a few months later I weighed 63kg (9st 13lb) – the least I had weighed since the age of 12 or 13.

Fat logic is not just a problem for fat people; I have never met a person who was completely free of it. Here are a handful of the most persistent myths, debunked.

Myth 1: ‘I eat only 1,000 kcal a day, but I don’t lose weight’

There’s one thing we can all agree on: everybody needs energy. A widespread fallacy is that there is a huge range of difference in people’s metabolic rates. The amount of energy we need is influenced by various factors, but the main ones are body mass, and what that mass is made up of. A person’s energy consumption can actually be calculated relatively precisely using certain formulae. The only information you need is height, weight, sex and approximate daily activity levels. You can find plenty of online calculators; just search “basal metabolic rate calculator” (this is the number of calories you would require if you were resting all day).

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There’s a high probability that your BMR will lie somewhere between 1,400 and 2,000 kcal a day – unless you happen to fall into one of the two extremes of very high or very low body mass. The bottom line is that most people use far more than 1,500 kcal a day, but even people with extremely low consumption still need significantly more energy than 1,000 kcal. Which means it’s practically impossible not to lose weight on a daily calorie intake of 1,000 kcal.

So the question is, are you eating as little as you think you are?

Despite the common cliche of the fast food-guzzling, fat person, my favourite meal used to be a large mixed salad with salmon. I ate it regularly, and in my mental calorie journal I would estimate it contained about 500 kcal. When, after many years, I finally weighed out all the ingredients and calculated the actual number of calories they contained, I discovered that the dressing alone, with three tablespoons of olive oil, contained about 300 kcal.”

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To stay healthy, there are specific steps to follow that’ll increase life expectancy. For example, exercise, which is considered one way to extend life. The Body Reboot book reveals how a low carb, high fat diet can improve health. Keep reading to learn about additional ways to increase life expectancy and improve your health.

 

 

Read More … Article Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/05/truth-obesity-five-fat-myths-debunked

 

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