Don't think I can improve on Tarmander's response, but will add some.
But sometimes chronic stress requires a chronic adrenaline response for survival. Have you read the posts here about people trying to use various substances to lower adrenaline (eg pregnenolone), who then find they can't function?
And chronic hunger sometimes requires longer-term adaptations, such as, amongst others, reduction in lean mass and increased propensity to store fat.
I agree that there are some promising approaches to helping restore the liver, and in some cases they are likely to resolve or improve the underlying issues. There are some stories of that happening here. Good. This shifts the focus to the liver, which makes sense to me, and moves it away from fat quantities and distribution. If you are certain that at this time these tactics can be counted on to be always straightforward and successful for everyone, then I think your confidence exeeds the supporting data.
I also think it is likely that there are some cases where people cause themselves stress by overeating in some form, and avoiding this excess may be helpful for resolving their health issues.
We had some discussion in another thread a while ago about what people mean by calorie excess and deficit. It seems to me that we can distinguish between different uses of the terms. Excess and deficit can be defined relative to:
1. What it takes to maintain current weight at current metabolic rate. (One common usage.)
2. What it would take for a particular individual to attain/maintain normative weight or body-fat standards. (For people who are weight-stable in the normative range, 1 and 2 may be the same.)
3. What common public calorie calculators estimate - general estimates rather than individual. (Often underestimate what a healthy metabolism burns.)
4. What common public health advice proposes people eat. (These are usually based on inaccurate data derived from unreliable self-report methods.)
5. What an individual can currently make good use of. (This may be where other tactics addresing root causes such as liver health, nutrient-deficiencies, non-food tactics, etc, may make a difference, and where gradual changes sometimes allow the body to adapt more easily.)
6. What is required for an individual to attain and maintain a healthy metabolism. (This is what youreatopia focusses on, with additional reference to 7 below.)
7. What is required to satisfy appetite. (Since we are so incredibly complex, it is fortunate that we have an appetite evolved to guide us, even if it gets confused sometimes. When it has not been too badly messed with, it can take into account much more of our complex day to day needs than our consious minds can figure out. )
Maybe there are more possibilities, including considering relative lean and fat mass.
Conflating these different meanings can confuse the discussion. For a particular individual, they may all lead to different numbers, so it's not always straight forward knowing what is enough or too much or too little. I'm not sure which meaning you are using, but I suspect from the context that it may be 2, and/or possibly 5? I tend to often favour 5,6 and 7, maybe weighted differently depending on the context, since they can sometimes conflict.
"Justifications" implies that what I have said is invalid or wrong, without providing any actual reasons. 'Excess' refers to a judgment in a disputed area, not an established fact. 'Implied' seems to refer to things I have not said and do not think - possibly a consequence of different meanings of 'excess calories'.
Certainly I mention anorexia and famine from time to time. I want people trying to recover from such struggles to be made as welcome in this forum as everyone else, and for their issues to be taken into account too. Especially since these are both effective ways to lower metabolism, a lot of what this forum is about is how to raise a low metabolism, and there are a number of people here for whom such considerations seem relevant.
While only a small minority of people in our societies are under the influence of fully-fledged diagnosable anorexia nervosa, athletica, etc, less extreme versions affect more people. I don't want this section of the population to be discounted as irrelevant. Do you think it is more important to to avoid excess fat (which may have some long-term down-sides) than to recover from anorexia (which has much higher health risks associated with it)?
Do you have reason to believe that people who are in danger from anorexia etc can have as strong a recovery and avoid gaining 'excess' fat? What I've read on the subject suggests that so far, the most reliable known way to recover is to eat plenty, and this often leads to excess fat. I am open to the possibility that there may be ways to make this work better, but until they have been widely and successfully tried and studied, I don't think there is grounds for certainty about it.
I sometimes use the word famine from the internal point of view of a body receiving insufficient food over an extended period, even though externally there may be plenty of food available. While most westerners are not faced with severe food scarcity most of the time, there are many who have been lead to believe that they should restrict their own food intake to levels inadequate for sustaining a healthy metaobolism. Do you disagree with the idea that restrictive dieting can and often does cause the adaptations I've mentioned, including reduced lean mass, reduced base metabolism, and increased propensity to store fat? I understood the science to be pretty clear that these can occur, even though the detailed mechanisms are not fully understood.
I usually only make explicit suggestions to eat more calories to those people who explicitly spell out that they are in the habit of eating well below the calories normally required to run a healthy metabolism. I do not to propose that everyone eat more than they need. Only that people eat as much as they need. Knowing how much that is is not necessarily straight-forward (see possible definitions of excess/deficit above).
I also object from time to time in other threads when people make oversimplifications, generalisations, and negative judgements like yours, eg that 'there is no excuse for excess fat'. My intention is to draw attention to the variability of our contexts, and to counter the common disrespect from lean people, not to replace a generalised anti-fat attitude with a generalised pro-excess-fat attitude. People do seem to often report reading things from me that I haven't written, though.
'Excused' implies that you think you and others have a moral right to judge a person for their choices or appearance in this area. I don't agree with that.
You are making a bunch of assumptions, and you are using them to justify dismissing my opinion. Do you routinely make assumptions about people basedon your own prejudices? Do you routinely dismiss people's opinions on the basis of their fat? Do you routinely insult people by making up psychological judgements about them?
If you can't see the biases and value judgements in these, as well as many of your previous statements, then maybe it is the water you are swimming in.
I got a glimpse of the water, and that is why I keep speaking up.
When I started reading and writing on this topic, I had been through a couple of bouts of unintentional weight loss in recent years. One gradual one associated with life-stress, and the other more rapid from attempting to address my health issues with another way of eating. Then I stumbled on some basic information about metabolism, and I learned something about how many calories ordinary, weight-stable non-dieting people actually eat, the consequences of chronic undereating, and the common patterns and requirements in recovery from severe under-eating. Most of my life I havebeen in the so-called 'ideal' BMI category, but with lowish energy and a number of symptoms consistent with low metabolism. I do not think I have ever been anorexic. I do think that I have had some extended but not extreme periods of undereating. I think this has caused me significant stress and malnourishment, and therefore may have been a contributor to my chronic health issues.
I also came upon some rational-looking writing challenging the dominant paradigm about the role of fat in health, and the oppressive societal atitudes about fat.
If you are a young man who has been able to simply resolve your own health issues, then you are fortunate.
Sure, brief acute adrenaline and brief acute hunger don't ususally cause major long term trouble; it's the chronic cases that are of more concern.cantstoppeating said:post 111371 Obviously but you're talking talking about acute the effects of adrenaline when the discussion (implied by my statement) is about the chronic effects.
But sometimes chronic stress requires a chronic adrenaline response for survival. Have you read the posts here about people trying to use various substances to lower adrenaline (eg pregnenolone), who then find they can't function?
And chronic hunger sometimes requires longer-term adaptations, such as, amongst others, reduction in lean mass and increased propensity to store fat.
I agree that where possible addressing the root causes of health issues is generally desirable.cantstoppeating said:post 111371 The better approach is to focus on the substances/protocols/experiments that offer a solution to the root cause of the problem which appears to be a deranged liver. And it's not about restricting calories than it is about restricting excess calories and taking specific substances to clean the liver.
I agree that there are some promising approaches to helping restore the liver, and in some cases they are likely to resolve or improve the underlying issues. There are some stories of that happening here. Good. This shifts the focus to the liver, which makes sense to me, and moves it away from fat quantities and distribution. If you are certain that at this time these tactics can be counted on to be always straightforward and successful for everyone, then I think your confidence exeeds the supporting data.
I also think it is likely that there are some cases where people cause themselves stress by overeating in some form, and avoiding this excess may be helpful for resolving their health issues.
We had some discussion in another thread a while ago about what people mean by calorie excess and deficit. It seems to me that we can distinguish between different uses of the terms. Excess and deficit can be defined relative to:
1. What it takes to maintain current weight at current metabolic rate. (One common usage.)
2. What it would take for a particular individual to attain/maintain normative weight or body-fat standards. (For people who are weight-stable in the normative range, 1 and 2 may be the same.)
3. What common public calorie calculators estimate - general estimates rather than individual. (Often underestimate what a healthy metabolism burns.)
4. What common public health advice proposes people eat. (These are usually based on inaccurate data derived from unreliable self-report methods.)
5. What an individual can currently make good use of. (This may be where other tactics addresing root causes such as liver health, nutrient-deficiencies, non-food tactics, etc, may make a difference, and where gradual changes sometimes allow the body to adapt more easily.)
6. What is required for an individual to attain and maintain a healthy metabolism. (This is what youreatopia focusses on, with additional reference to 7 below.)
7. What is required to satisfy appetite. (Since we are so incredibly complex, it is fortunate that we have an appetite evolved to guide us, even if it gets confused sometimes. When it has not been too badly messed with, it can take into account much more of our complex day to day needs than our consious minds can figure out. )
Maybe there are more possibilities, including considering relative lean and fat mass.
Conflating these different meanings can confuse the discussion. For a particular individual, they may all lead to different numbers, so it's not always straight forward knowing what is enough or too much or too little. I'm not sure which meaning you are using, but I suspect from the context that it may be 2, and/or possibly 5? I tend to often favour 5,6 and 7, maybe weighted differently depending on the context, since they can sometimes conflict.
Quite likely a major contributor for many people. Maybe this means it would be more useful to focus on liver health than on judgements about appropriate amounts of fat.cantstoppeating said:post 111371 Like I said above; there's enough info on this forum to reveal that the liver is often at the root of fat gain when eating carbs.
This is a bunch of value judgments reflecting your current viewpoint, not just statements of facts.cantstoppeating said:post 111371 I've seen many of your posts on this forum and whenever the topic of fatloss/weightloss comes up, you're quick to offer justifications for excess fat (along with implied suggestions of consuming excess calories) with reasons of anorexia and notions of famine. (And even in the case of famine, it easy to see how a long period of burning through (PUFA filled) fat and muscle tissue with increased cortisol and adrenaline can lead to a deranged liver.)
"Justifications" implies that what I have said is invalid or wrong, without providing any actual reasons. 'Excess' refers to a judgment in a disputed area, not an established fact. 'Implied' seems to refer to things I have not said and do not think - possibly a consequence of different meanings of 'excess calories'.
Certainly I mention anorexia and famine from time to time. I want people trying to recover from such struggles to be made as welcome in this forum as everyone else, and for their issues to be taken into account too. Especially since these are both effective ways to lower metabolism, a lot of what this forum is about is how to raise a low metabolism, and there are a number of people here for whom such considerations seem relevant.
While only a small minority of people in our societies are under the influence of fully-fledged diagnosable anorexia nervosa, athletica, etc, less extreme versions affect more people. I don't want this section of the population to be discounted as irrelevant. Do you think it is more important to to avoid excess fat (which may have some long-term down-sides) than to recover from anorexia (which has much higher health risks associated with it)?
Do you have reason to believe that people who are in danger from anorexia etc can have as strong a recovery and avoid gaining 'excess' fat? What I've read on the subject suggests that so far, the most reliable known way to recover is to eat plenty, and this often leads to excess fat. I am open to the possibility that there may be ways to make this work better, but until they have been widely and successfully tried and studied, I don't think there is grounds for certainty about it.
I sometimes use the word famine from the internal point of view of a body receiving insufficient food over an extended period, even though externally there may be plenty of food available. While most westerners are not faced with severe food scarcity most of the time, there are many who have been lead to believe that they should restrict their own food intake to levels inadequate for sustaining a healthy metaobolism. Do you disagree with the idea that restrictive dieting can and often does cause the adaptations I've mentioned, including reduced lean mass, reduced base metabolism, and increased propensity to store fat? I understood the science to be pretty clear that these can occur, even though the detailed mechanisms are not fully understood.
I usually only make explicit suggestions to eat more calories to those people who explicitly spell out that they are in the habit of eating well below the calories normally required to run a healthy metabolism. I do not to propose that everyone eat more than they need. Only that people eat as much as they need. Knowing how much that is is not necessarily straight-forward (see possible definitions of excess/deficit above).
I also object from time to time in other threads when people make oversimplifications, generalisations, and negative judgements like yours, eg that 'there is no excuse for excess fat'. My intention is to draw attention to the variability of our contexts, and to counter the common disrespect from lean people, not to replace a generalised anti-fat attitude with a generalised pro-excess-fat attitude. People do seem to often report reading things from me that I haven't written, though.
Value judgement, not fact.cantstoppeating said:post 111371 Being fat is not OK ...
I don't see why relative harm should not be used as a basis for decision. Lots of decisions in life involve choosing a less harmful option.cantstoppeating said:post 111371 ... shouldn't be excused because it may be the lesser of some comparative evil; ...
'Excused' implies that you think you and others have a moral right to judge a person for their choices or appearance in this area. I don't agree with that.
Quite possibly, though there does seem to be some uncertainty when it comes to stored SFA. Peat as said that when stored fats are released under stess conditions, saturated fats tend to limit the stresss reaction, whereas unsaturated fats amplify them. Since PUFAs are not completely avoidable, and it seems we preferentially store te PUFAs, these will be an issue. On the other hand, the fats we create from carbs tend to be saturated, so maybe less of of a problem.cantstoppeating said:post 111371 ... being fat promotes systemic inflammation (often via aromatase)...
Society imposes a great deal of disrespect and mistreatment on fat people. It is not the fat that causes this problem, it is the widespread societal attitudes. These attitudes cause a great deal of stress and harm to fat people (and probably also to some lean people who starve themselves to avoid this abusive treatment.) Given the importance of social connections to people's health, as well as the other more directly physical effects of this mistreatment, it could be that these abusive attitudes are a significant contributor to the correlation between large fat and particular health issues. I don't like it when people blame the victims of oppression.cantstoppeating said:post 111371 ... and induces mental stress through societal friction.
cantstoppeating said:post 111371 ... It seems to me that you carry excess fat and that you haven't yet lost it and that you find it difficult to lose and so you project your circumstances onto others on this forum.
You are making a bunch of assumptions, and you are using them to justify dismissing my opinion. Do you routinely make assumptions about people basedon your own prejudices? Do you routinely dismiss people's opinions on the basis of their fat? Do you routinely insult people by making up psychological judgements about them?
If you can't see the biases and value judgements in these, as well as many of your previous statements, then maybe it is the water you are swimming in.
I got a glimpse of the water, and that is why I keep speaking up.
When I started reading and writing on this topic, I had been through a couple of bouts of unintentional weight loss in recent years. One gradual one associated with life-stress, and the other more rapid from attempting to address my health issues with another way of eating. Then I stumbled on some basic information about metabolism, and I learned something about how many calories ordinary, weight-stable non-dieting people actually eat, the consequences of chronic undereating, and the common patterns and requirements in recovery from severe under-eating. Most of my life I havebeen in the so-called 'ideal' BMI category, but with lowish energy and a number of symptoms consistent with low metabolism. I do not think I have ever been anorexic. I do think that I have had some extended but not extreme periods of undereating. I think this has caused me significant stress and malnourishment, and therefore may have been a contributor to my chronic health issues.
I also came upon some rational-looking writing challenging the dominant paradigm about the role of fat in health, and the oppressive societal atitudes about fat.
Unlike you, I don't claim to have simple answers for everybody else's complex health issues. I don't assume that everybody is suffering from undereating; I look at the evidence posters present.cantstoppeating said:post 111371 ... so you project your circumstances onto others on this forum.
If you are a young man who has been able to simply resolve your own health issues, then you are fortunate.
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