Diet and Fat

[annecros]

OK guys, behold my beloved husband and his skinniness:

He consumes more fat than anyone I have ever known, and I am a southern lady. His cholesterol is at 76 (the doctor actually laughed out loud in disbelief) - blood pressure at 75/90 - pulse of 82.

He was born on 10/10/54.

He eats pints of Ben and Jerry's for dessert, after a meal of ham and greens and sweet potatoes (two helpings) in which he consumes the hock, insists on butter, and swigs a beer or two.

Here he is enjoying his Chicken Fried Bacon:

My blood work and vitals are a disaster compared to his. I outweigh him and am an inch shorter.

Eh, and younger.

[Chris Hennes]

It seems like I've been contributing to a lot of similar threads over the last few days... I haven't been a member for very long - maybe eG is always this way... I love them because there are so many random misconceptions about what we eat and its affect on us, and because the topic is so challenging! It boils down to: we don't know very much about how our bodies work, and conducting any kind of rigorously controlled long-term study is both extremely challenging and extremely expensive. Couple this with the media's propensity to exaggerate scientific results (this unfortunately starts at the University's press office and only gets worse from there), and you have a situation in which we are constantly bombarded with changing suggestions for better health. How can anyone be expected to make any sense of it? And so we resort to a sort of "well, scientists don't know what they're talking about, I'll go with my gut feeling" attitude that results in all manner of "logic"-based diets. Some of which work, some don't, some work for a while, some result in permanent weight loss. Why? We just don't know...

[MarketStEl]

As the joke has it:

"After reading about the hazards of smoking, drinking, and eating, I have decided to give up reading."

[Misa]

I think that the truth of the matter is that we're all very different, that different things work for different people, and that what we often think we know about the body is later "proven" wrong (sometimes in a cyclical fashion). For most people, eating less overall works. However, I do have a friend who can eat tons and tons of food without gaining any weight - and she spends most of her time sleeping or lying around her house. (I love her dearly, she just doesn't move very much). So, who knows?

Weight management seems to be as much a voodoo as it is a science.

[prasantrin]

I think that the truth of the matter is that we're all very different, that different things work for different people, and that what we often think we know about the body is later "proven" wrong (sometimes in a cyclical fashion). For most people, eating less overall works. However, I do have a friend who can eat tons and tons of food without gaining any weight - and she spends most of her time sleeping or lying around her house. (I love her dearly, she just doesn't move very much). So, who knows?

Sounds like she need to get her thyroid checked. Women especially can have "mixed up" symptoms when it comes to thyroid problems. Even though she's not gaining weight, she could very well have hypothyroidism.

Weight management seems to be as much a voodoo as it is a science.

←

No, it's still science. It's just different for each person's body.

[Fugu]

I may have missed it but it seems no one has mentioned trans fats? As already mentioned, not all fat is bad for you and fats actually do lubricate your joints. There is a legislation being passed here in Toronto that will make fast food restaurants and manufacturers remove trans fats from their foods. These hydrogenated fats and other forms of trans fatsare reported to be a major contributor to plaque formation in your arteries.

[hjshorter]

Personally, I think it started with the massive overconsumption of soda.  When I was a kid (admittedly, eons ago) an ocassional can of soda was a real treat.  Now it's part of every meal.

I think we should go back to drinking beer or cider all day, instead of water.

[Dave Hatfield]

A quick update. After 6 days on the Montignac Method I have lost over 6 pounds.

I feel great, am not hungry and am enjoying my meals of fats, proteins and COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES!

Daily reports on my blog below.

We'll see how things continue. Bound to slow up.