Is Obesity 100% OPTIONAL?

[SOMO]

I believe obesity is 100% optional.

If you're obese it's simply because you're eating too much. I've literally never met an obese person that didn't drink soda regularly and didn't consume massive quantities of food...frequently. Genetics may play a role, but it's mostly down to healthy diet and moving around from time to time. Stress also doesn't make you obese, even if it's a contributing factor. Even if you had high-stress and ate large quantities of (healthy) food, I don't think it would be enough to make you obese.


Note, I'm saying OBESITY is 100% optional - not that being OVERWEIGHT is optional.

 

[Herbie]

I think youll find that there are obese people who hardly eat anything and obese people who eat a lot.

 

[walker_in_aus]

I knew an obese girl who only drank two diet cokes and ate one meal a day. She was 25, barely able to walk, had had cervical cancer and some kind of skin cancer and PCOS.

I think there are people who abuse their bodies into obesity, but I do think there are people who have tried everything, don't eat more than you or I, and have been obese since a young age.

There was also a medical case where a young woman with C.Diff accepted a FMT donation from her Obese relative, cured her C.Diff but was morbidly obese in two months...

 

[Hugh Johnson]

It depends. Humans are naturally pretty lean. However both physical and psychological damage can cause obesity. I doubt I will ever get obese but I do Peat diet and I am in reasonably good health. I won't be counting calories any time soon.

Otoh some people eat to feel safe. Perhaps they were abandoned or raped as kids and food bring them safety. Is this a choice? If you force people to give up their coping mechanism without removing the pain, you are cruel and the solution is unsustainable. You can't win against your subconscious, it runs all the time and has billions of times the processing power of the conscious mind.

Can such a person lose weight? Easily and without any effort if, and on if, they remove the mental program that causes them the pain they are alleviating.

Same with broken metabolism. It can be fixed so that normal diet won't make you exceedingly.

However, you would need to find the solutions and since we mostly told lies by the authorities most of the solutions given to you do not work.

 

[sunraiser]

I have never been overweight and for long periods was sedentary playing computer games.

I had a mega adrenal issue a few years ago and forced 3000 calories to try and fix it yet did not gain weight. This was double my previous intake. I was only able to gain weight when eating sugary foods (literally forcing them down). I also gained a ****88 up insulin response and liver damage from this approach, but the adrenal crisis did fix (it fixed before the sugar though).

It's absolutely far more complex than calories in calories out - what's true for you isn't true for everyone.

@Hugh Johnson interesting point. I actually forced myself to give up my coping mechanisms and while I know it was necessary, it took a ******* long time and a great deal of pain to understand that physiology was the root. Self discipline is useful but it can become self torture.

It's definitely important to have a robust understanding of what's going on before ripping away all coping mechanisms - then again if i hadn't done it I'm not sure anything would have changed!

 

[Westside PUFAs]

Obesity is excess triglycerides stored inside fat cells aka adipose tissue. These triglycerides do not come from magic. They enter the bloodstream after a person has willingly ingested them and then some get stored in adipose tissue. When a person does that over and over again every day eventually they become obese. Their fat cells fill up with triglycerides like balloons and stretch out. It’s not mainly about activity. It’s about what is being ingested day after day.

 

[Prosper]

Obesity is excess triglycerides stored inside fat cells aka adipose tissue. These triglycerides do not come from magic. They enter the bloodstream after a person has willingly ingested them and then some get stored in adipose tissue. When a person does that over and over again every day eventually they become obese. Their fat cells fill up with triglycerides like balloons and stretch out. It’s not mainly about activity. It’s about what is being ingested day after day.

Is that just a fancy way of saying calories in calories out?

 

[raypeatclips]

I think by suggesting obesity might not be optional that is giving obese people a free pass to eat what they want and blame something outside of their control. People may have issues that they deal with through eating, but they could get counselling, therapy, use exercise to deal with their feelings instead. I don't think it is right to simply accept obesity as unsolvable or out of someone's control, it is like some sort of helplessness. I am obese because of something i can't control or do anything about, so I won't do anything about it, I'll just keep sedentary like I always have, and overeat like I always do.

I dont doubt there might be conditions where people are obese, like @walker_in_aus stated above, but I would imagine these conditions are extremely rare, accounting for the vast minority of people that are obese. The amount of people that will tell you they are obese despite trying "everything" and it is because of a condition is far more than those that have actually tried everything, or have a condition.

All the obese people I know overconsume calories for what their body needs by choosing to eat those calories. I have heard many of them say they have tried every diet going, but I see them eat junk food regularly at work.

 

[CLASH]

Obesity is excess triglycerides stored inside fat cells aka adipose tissue. These triglycerides do not come from magic. They enter the bloodstream after a person has willingly ingested them and then some get stored in adipose tissue. When a person does that over and over again every day eventually they become obese. Their fat cells fill up with triglycerides like balloons and stretch out. It’s not mainly about activity. It’s about what is being ingested day after day.

I don’t believe this is how people become obese. People may gain some weight or become overweight with an excess of fat, an excess of carbs, or a combination of excesses. However, from what I’ve read and currently believe, the idea that eating triglycerides leads to fat storage and thus overtime this fat storage leads to obesity, is just not reality.

I would say obesity is more a matter of inflammation via endotoxin and PUFA. The PUFA because of oxidation and inflammatory mediators, not neccesarily the fact that its a fat. I think it would be dificult to become fat or even overweight on a diet of fruit, vegetables, coconut oil, beef tallow, seafood and meat, even in a caloric excess.

 

[Prosper]

I think it would be dificult to become fat or even overweight on a diet of fruit, vegetables, coconut oil, beef tallow, seafood and meat, even in a caloric excess.

People on this forum gain fat with such diet all the time. Metabolism can become only as efficient as the available nutrients allow it room to be. Where do you think the "excess" in "caloric excess" goes?

With dietary choices you can influence how much of the ingested energy gets utilized. Eating more than you are able to utilize will still lead to fat gain, regardless of what you eat. Remember that storing energy as fat has had an evolutionary purpose. Working as intended.

 

[Douglas Ek]

I believe obesity is 100% optional.

If you're obese it's simply because you're eating too much. I've literally never met an obese person that didn't drink soda regularly and didn't consume massive quantities of food...frequently. Genetics may play a role, but it's mostly down to healthy diet and moving around from time to time. Stress also doesn't make you obese, even if it's a contributing factor. Even if you had high-stress and ate large quantities of (healthy) food, I don't think it would be enough to make you obese.


Note, I'm saying OBESITY is 100% optional - not that being OVERWEIGHT is optional.

I've seen lots of obese friends get freaking slim by willpower so I do agree

 

[YourUniverse]

This is a debate on free will vs determinism. Do we truly have free will? Or are all our choices pre-determined by past experiences, circumstances, and the uncountable forces acting on people and things at every moment? Its an interesting philosophic exercise, for sure.

Personally I think it's a bit of both. You choose what food to put in your body and what lifestyle you choose to live, but WHY did you choose those things..? Very complicated question

 

[Sobieski]

Based on my own experience, it's not as simple as calories in/ calories out. When I did a short stint on a 80/10/10 approach a few years ago, I physically couldn't eat enough to maintain my weight (4-5000 calories daily and lost about 12 pounds over 6 weeks); I lost both muscle and a lot of fat (too much in fact to the point of looking malnourished). With Peating (oj, milk , fruit), I eat on average 3000 calories a day, pretty low fat intake and I'm around 14lbs heavier than I was with the former approach; most of it on my stomach and chest like a lot of other people here. I've also lost weight quickly in the past eating a lot of saturated fat as my predominant energy source, although I didn't feel good with this approach.

 

[cellboy]

It's very complicated I think. I've been through every combination possible: lean without eating a thing and lean while eating a lot. Overweight from eating too much and overweight from barely eating a thing. From personal experience sunlight helped a lot with controlling my weight. I'm from northern africa and lived there my whole childhood and teens and never got fat no matter how much and what i ate. Moved to europe a few years ago and got fat no matter what i did. Libido went down too. A peat inspired diet helped a lot though but i think it's really the environment we live in that has the MOST impact on our health and weight.

 

[michael94]

many people do not have the luxury of being able to experiment with their diet and lifestyle all the time. And considering what the usual solutions for weight loss/staying healthy are its no surprise that weight gain gets out of control.

 

[michael94]

willpower is beautiful but the sad reality is that life force ends up getting sacrificed for the ideal, with recourse only to come later in the form of wisdom. So willpower is destined to lose without wisdom ...

In the case of dieting this would be like starving oneself at the expense of the health/function of the organs as fat is burned

 

[dbh25]

This:

Note, I'm saying OBESITY is 100% optional - not that being OVERWEIGHT is optional.

Not:

People on this forum gain fat with such diet all the time.

Obesity, not just gaining fat. I'd be curious how many people on the forum became obese following that diet.
Obesity is not 100% optional, but close to it.

 

[Prosper]

This:


Not:


Obesity, not just gaining fat. I'd be curious how many people on the forum became obese following that diet.
Obesity is not 100% optional, but close to it.

Define obesity. Putting on 10-20 pounds when you are already chunky starts bordering obesity in my view. @CLASH himself (to whom I was replying) spoke of "becoming fat or overweight". We have many peatarians here who have become overweight as defined by BMI by following the kind of diet that was outlined in his post. Users complain about weigh problems here all the time.

 

[shepherdgirl]

I recall Dr. Peat mentioning obese women who could maintain their body mass on 700 calories per day. Hypothyroid individuals can easily become obese because of their very low metabolic rates. Also, starving to lose weight - maybe what is being referred to as "will power" in this thread - tanks the metabolism further. You can't compare a person who can eat 2500 kcal/day without problem to one who can exist on 700 kcal per day. The hypo person is not fat because they are lazy or weak-willed. Do you really think obese babies are downing doughnuts and potato chips with abandon, and thin babies are resisting birthday cake for the sake of their figures? They all eat what they want to, and yet some become obese and some do not. Check out these two genetically identical rats with different prenatal nutrition:

 

[dbh25]

Define obesity. Putting on 10-20 pounds when you are already chunky starts bordering obesity in my view. @CLASH himself (to whom I was replying) spoke of "becoming fat or overweight". We have many peatarians here who have become overweight as defined by BMI by following the kind of diet that was outlined in his post. Users complain about weigh problems here all the time.

Let's go with the graphic in the OP, BMI > 30.
Being "chunky" (however you measure that) and putting on 10-20 pounds would make a big difference if you are 150 or 350 lbs.

I think it would be dificult to become fat or even overweight on a diet of fruit, vegetables, coconut oil, beef tallow, seafood and meat, even in a caloric excess.

How many have become obese on this diet, while including low intensity activity ? (like walking outside every day) There is no peat diet, there are infinite variations on it.