I actually thought we pooped it out.
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I knew the answer, but itās largely because I think of the human body as a literal machine, with fat and sugar literally getting burned to power it. As such, fuel+oxygen+energy = C02+H20+more energy makes intuitive sense to me, because thatās what fire is.
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Iām glad the app helped your wife, but ācalorie countingā with any accuracy is not possible with a phone app and a set of scales.
The average medium apple is 80-100 calories. But then oneās digestive efficiency has to be taken into account. Someone who has poor digestion might only get 75 calories, while someone else will get 90 calories from the same apple.
Some spices, while adding zero calories, make me retain water. So my weightās going to go up for a few days, even though for all the app can tell Iām eating less.
Then thereās the up to five pounds of water gained with PMS, and on.
So yeah, if an app makes you a more mindful eater and thatās what it takes to lose weight, great, but youāre not counting what it says youāre counting.
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Hormones are wacky all the way through life, Iām beginning to believe. Theyāre not given near enough credit, especially the stress-related ones.
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I almost turned it off at:
āMany in this room think that you can turn atoms into energy; well, itās one of the founding principles of modern chemistry: you cannot turn an atom into pure energy. Itās called the conservation of mass: before the reaction and after the reaction, you have the same number of atoms.ā
As it pertains to weight loss, sure-ish. But, as a general rule? Thatās more bad science heās teaching, while berating science teachers for teaching bad science.
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Hormones play a role. Sleep plays a role. Genes play a roleā¦ Turns out itās a whole lot more complicated than just āeat less, exercise moreā.
Such a shock.
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Last words in the presentation (I went back to it): āIf you want to lose weight, all you have to do is eat less, move more, and keep breathing.ā
So thatās exactly what heās saying.
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To me the part that was interesting was the biochemical breakdown and what happens with fat. I did not know.
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I think it helps her be mindful and get her into the proper range. Most of the calories are pulled from the brands so it is whatever they say they are. I use a kitchen scale. Like any other diet, whatever works, I just know this worked for her.
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Yeah. Iāve gained a lot of weight due to chronic illness.
āEat lessā makes me dizzy.
āExercise moreā makes me get awful migraines hours or days later.
āWell, then, exercise until you begin to feel badā makes me keep going and get migraines hours or days later, for days.
āWell, then, pace betterā is easier said than done. A low-end handheld heart-rate monitor might work.
āEat healthierā doesnāt help, since most āhealthyā food makes me sicker.
āEat these universally healthy foods as part of an elimination diet until you can identify other safe foodsā doesnāt help since Iām allergic or otherwise intolerant to most of the āuniversally healthy foodsā on that list.
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This is very true, and Iām not disagreeing. But we canāt change our genes and have little control over our hormones. Eating, sleeping, and exercising are things that are within our power to change.
Disclaimer: my eating, sleeping, and exercise habits are awful. Not enough exercise means I donāt sleep as well as I could and Iām not hungry enough to eat better; lack of sleep and food means I donāt have the energy to exercise more which brings it full circle. Itās much easier said than done to balance those things, but they are things that we have at least some control over.
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Yes and no. Eating happens in a whole social context, with other people both policing and pushing food. Then thereās the scarcity/availability thing, where it doesnāt matter how much you want fresh vegetables when the only choices are chips and chocolate bars.
Sleeping also depends on environmental factors, and once damage is done to sleep patterns it canāt just be fixed by sleeping in later on. Prolonged sleep damage causes brain damage, full stop. It can be helped by writing in better sleep habits and a better sleep environment, but it canāt be erased.
Exercise also happens in a societal context unless you have the personal space for it not to. Iāve written here before about the verbal abuse I get for cycling while fat, and thereās a whole sub-genre of articles about going to gyms while fat.
There are plenty of fat people who eat well and are fit by any measure except they are also fat. The human body is very adaptable, but not infinitely so, and itās naive to just chalk it all up to personal choices.
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One of my sisterās friends is exactly this. She can run up a mountain wearing a full pack faster than 20 year-old guys training to be wildfire firefighters. Go to roller derby and you will see people in all shapes and sizes ā and if they are playing in league, they are in good condition.
Weāve seized on āfatā as our visible marker of āunhealthyā and that isnāt always the case. And itās one of the last things that seems acceptable to victim blame over: if youāre fat it must be your fault.
Which is ā to a larger degree than people think ā bullshit. Most people who lose weight put it back on. It makes no sense that most people would fail, unless there was some other factors at work. We donāt understand the human body nearly as well as we think we do. But one thing it is not, is simple.
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My aunt was like this. She was quite large, exercised more than most people, barely ate. She is pretty well set, so she got weight loss surgery and then had extensive plastic surgery once she lost the weight. It has changed her life. She went off all the drugs she was on for diabetes management and she can do even more exercise. I think she did expect a different reaction from men and Iām not sure that really happened. In that way I think it was tough to adjust to the weight loss. Health wise, it was a great move. She canāt each much food though. Itās a little weird to eat with her because she hardly eats anything.
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Did she have one of the stomach-stapling surgeries? There really isnāt much room left in the stomach, so they canāt eat much, by design.
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And can get nutritional deficiencies.
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yes - some kind of band or staple situation.
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Yep. I think the benefits outweighed the downsides for her.
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