Category: Random

overeating and inactivity doesn’t make you fat

I’ve always heard that eating too much and not getting enough exercise will make you fat.  That seems reasonable to me.   But I read somewhere online that this isn’t true.  Check out these “facts” someone posted:

The basic assumption here is that people become obese due to overeating and inactivity. This isn’t true. … Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation, not overeating and not sedentary behavior.

Consuming excess calories does not cause us to grow fatter any more than it causes a child to grow taller.

Exercise does not make us lose excess fat; it makes us hungry.

We get fat because of an imbalance — a disequilibrium — in the hormonal regulation of fat tissue and fat metabolism.

So if I understand it, I’m not overweight because of overeating and being lazy, but because of excess fat accumulation.  And exercise doesn’t help you lose weight but actually makes you fatter because you’re hungrier!  (This sure sounds like that “Important Doctor” fellow, but it was someone else.)  And it’s my “hormonal regulation” that is to blame.  Hmm…

If you’re curious what that guy recommended to do to lose weight, his solution is to eat less carbs.  Although I thought he said consuming excess calories doesn’t make us fatter, so I don’t understand.   I just know that according to what that guy said, it’s not my fault!

man vs food – super burger challenge

The other day I saw a new show on the Travel Channel called MAN v. FOOD.  (BTW, that’s an awesome title, especially once you learn what it’s about).  The host, Adam Richman, goes around the country to various restaurants, and eats the spiciest foods, and he also takes on challenges at restaurants.  That’s my kind of show.

I’ve only seen a couple of episodes so far, but one I saw was at this restaurant in Boston, and it was voted the 2nd best place to pig out in the U.S.  They specialize in burgers.  They sell a monster burger with fries, and if anyone can eat it all within an hour, they name it after that person and then create a bigger one.  The current challenge is called the Eagle’s Burger Challenge.

eagles-deli-challenge-burgerThe challenge is a cheeseburger with 5 pounds of beef — but it’s not one giant patty, it’s 10 half-pound patties.  And it has 20 strips of cheese, 20 strips of bacon, and a LOT of fries — 5 pounds.   In fact, all that together weighs 12 pounds.  The owner estimates 1500 people have tried this one but no one has defeated it.

On the show, Richman competed against a former employee of that restaurant (who had obviously done some prior “training”).  Richman ate almost 7 pounds of it, but his competition ate a little over 7 pounds of it.  Before they got that far, though, they were sweating from processing that much greasy food.   Try to imagine how that would feel…

I wonder what the “Important Doctor” thinks about that burger, since he promotes a bacon and cheese diet and has other unusual views on eating…

special diet preparations for fasting

Today I heard someone say that the proper way to do an extended fast is to prepare with a special diet during the previous week.  Supposedly this special diet prepares your metabolism for the absence of food, and it also helps you be more efficient with weight-loss during and after the fast.

That all sounds good, until you hear what the special diet consists of : cabbage soup.  There are some variations on the cabbage soup, including adding beef on certain days, but still, it’s cabbage soup.  I don’t know your opinion on it, but I think it’s nasty.

I was wondering about this diet, why it would work, and I’ve come up with a few ideas.  I’m no dietitian or nutriologist, but I’m good at making up stuff.  🙂  First, I think that after a week of eating only cabbage soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, your stomach says “no more” and thus you don’t want any food for a while.  Secondly, I think that it takes the whole length of your fast (say, 21 days) for your stomach to quit reeling over all that cabbage soup.  Given these ideas, I can see how such a diet can “help”.

Speaking of cabbage, since this is in a soup, I suppose it would involve boiled cabbage.  If you haven’t ever been around such a mess, I’ll tell you that there is some STANK involved with that.  (If you aren’t familiar with the term STANK, it’s worse than “stink”.)

Anyway, I plan to do more fasting in the future, but I don’t plan to research that cabbage soup diet.  If anyone tries it, you can let us know how that works out for you.