moved reply to meet baldcyclist in other thread.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
"NHS approach to obesity 'patchy' "
(55 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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Of course one important factor in the whole good food/bad food/fat/salt/sugar/diet/exercise 'debate' is alcohol.
Even people conscious of the 'issues' and 'health aware' often 'forget' about the calories in alcohol.
They may or may not care about the "units" - but that's for different reasons.
One of the Hairy Bikers was on Women's Hour today talking about losing three stones. The food part consisted of calorie counting 'the carbohydrate went from the largest portion on the plate to the smallest' and 'we didn't cut out any food groups as that would be unsustainable'.
"I'll still have my steak and kidney pud, but not seven days a week."
Also the Bikers' GP bought them BICYCLES. They had "fun" but having lost weight they seem to have given up cycling.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Fat people are great. You can demonise them and be as hateful and blaming as you like and get away with it. There's hardly anyone you can do that to any more. Even alcoholics, beggars and gamblers are seen as 'victims' to be pitied and helped. But fatties, you can really get stuck into them. Someone called it the last bastion of legitimised bigotry. Lovely phrase. Wish I'd come up with it.
Where to start sorting the facts from the myths, the individual choices from the social problems, the early learning from the later developed behaviours?
Let's start with the basic biology of it. We're told that weight gain or loss is a simple equation - to the extent that calorie intake exceeds calorie expenditure, a person will gain weight and the opposite is also the case. And people can just choose to adjust their intake and expenditure so that the weight piles on or falls off. Whatever they choose. And if they choose wrong? Well, it's their own fault, no? Sadly far too simplistic. When you've reached the stage of pandemic you have to stop thinking of things in terms of individuals and their choices and start looking at least at how those individuals and their choices fit into much bigger social and political structures over which they have little if any influence. You have to largely ignore the exceptions in the same way that one female CEO doesn't mean there is no glass ceiling and one black president doesn't mean racism is over. One cyclist doesn't mean everyone can overcome the same barriers and one successful dieter doesn't mean that everyone can be stick thin.
Here's some reading. The Lancet. An excellent four-part review of the current understanding of obesity. And lots of related articles.
You have to register to see the articles but it's free.
Posted 12 years ago # -
I've basically given up drinking since September (had some very modest tipples at Xmas and Hogmanay, that's it). Instead of quaffing vin rouge I'm indulging in binge audaxing. I've lost over 5kg as a result.
Be warned though: try to limit the number of glasses of diet cola imbibed at parties as a substitute for alcohol: I overdid it a couple of times and had what can only be described as a foul hangover the next day! Is it the CO2, the phosphoric acid, or the aspartame, I wonder?
Posted 12 years ago # -
"There's hardly anyone you can do that to any more."
Cyclists? ;)
Posted 12 years ago # -
Fat people are great. You can demonise them and be as hateful and blaming as you like and get away with it. There's hardly anyone you can do that to any more. Even alcoholics, beggars and gamblers are seen as 'victims' to be pitied and helped. But fatties, you can really get stuck into them. Someone called it the last bastion of legitimised bigotry. Lovely phrase. Wish I'd come up with it.
You forgot about cyclists. Once the fatties have had their affliction medicalised and become part of the victim culture, cyclists will be the only target left. After all, we choose to be different...
Posted 12 years ago # -
When you're done with the Lancet, there's this as the starting point for the Government's (not this one, the last one) understanding of obesity. Part of a much larger collection of reports.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Crow river I recommend the Erdinger low alcohol beer. It is a wheat beer. It has less than 0.5% alcohol. t tastes like a slightly watery Erdinger. it replaces my previous favourite Wittburger Drive. it is better than Schneider Weiss non alcoholic. You can get all sorts including lager but I have not tried them. Bavaria do one (bizarrely Dutch) also Cobra. allnofnthese are better than diet coke. Also go quite well with food in a way that tomato juice doesn't. Quite big business now and clausthaler is a thing of the past. N.B. come February I will doubtless be back on the juice properly. The Schneider Weiss one also has negligible calories if you aren't as fussy as me about the taste. Peter Green in march mint probably stock somehow the above. There is a website r supplying alcohol free beer http://www.beerhere.co.uk. You can get twelve Erdinger for 16 pound (not sure of postage). 500ml bottle 0.4 % alc. can be a slippery slope if total abstainer but I am about to buy some for health purposes. Some claim to be 0.0% they are a bit more watery. Obviously tomato juice or mineral water or elderflower cordial all good. Sometimes you just want a beer. NB £4.96 postage suppose quite heavy
Posted 12 years ago # -
Erdinger quite good. Cornelius on Easter Road stock it (or used to). Beck's blue surprisingly drinkable. Always wondered how the calories compare - is there any benefit caloriewise to low-alcohol?
I can't drink more than one though.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Insto, a straightforward definition from that government report:
"Weight gain occurs when energy intake (calories consumed) exceeds total daily energy expenditure for a prolonged period. Total energy expenditure represents the sum of three factors:
a) - resting energy expenditure to maintain basic body functions (approximately 60% of total daily requirements)
b) - processing of food (10% of daily requirements)
c) - non-resting energy expenditure, primarily in the form of physical activity (approximately 30% of total requirements).Obesity is frequently and mistakenly confused with inadequate levels of physical activity – a separate public health problem. However, the marked rise in obesity levels among the British population is directly due to an increasing imbalance between calories consumed and those expended. So, addressing the problem requires examination of both energy intake (nutrition) and energy expenditure (physical activity)."
Posted 12 years ago # -
I bought Becks Blue once by mistake, thinking it was Becks. That was quite disappointing. I could neck two Erdinger I think but haven't pushed it. Quite easy for a lunch time cycle for me now down to cornelian, I will check if they have it. Calorie wise some of the low alcohol like the Schneider Weiss are also low calorie. Full fat beer is high in calories. You maybe missed the 1980s adverts for Holstein Diat Pils where most of the sugar turns to alcohol. Spoofs on black and white movies like ice cold in Alex with griff Rhys jones. Off to phone cornelius. Quoting £1.40, I will go Monday. Better be some left
Posted 12 years ago # -
Obviously tomato juice or mineral water or elderflower cordial all good. Sometimes you just want a beer.
I saw the various low alcohol varieties of Beck's in the supermarket over the festive period, but I've always had an aversion to low alcohol beers. They came into vogue in the 1980s for (male) drivers who wanted to look as though they were still partying but didn't want to go over the drink drive limit. Somehow seemed a bit of a fraud.
Fruit juices/cordials have the sugar issue.
Next time I'll probably just bring some fizzy water along: fewer impurities and no caffeine!
Posted 12 years ago # -
My theory:
Exercise doesn't really help directly with weight loss, as you have to do a huge amount of exercise just to burn 100 calories. Reducing intake is far more important/effective.
What exercise does help with is feeling good about yourself, which in turn makes you less inclined to snack or binge eat.
Posted 12 years ago # -
What exercise does help with is feeling good about yourself
Which is a side effect of the endorphins produced while exerting yourself. So cyclists really do look smug: quite often we are smiling away on an endorphin high like some loved up ravers from 1988.
Posted 12 years ago # -
When I were a youth I ate what I liked and exercised a good deal and at one point when I were a vegan I were nine stone. Could keep the weight off just by exercising. Now I am an old fart I would need to limit intake to get weight loss in addition to exercising (Unclear why I went ungrammatically Yorkshire there but that was the effect I were after).
Cycling no use as I need to eat a lot to have energy to cycle. however, combined with running and swimming I am back down to 38 inch chest. Unfortunate middle age tum tum declining to man up.
Posted 12 years ago # -
Yep, don't discount age.
I came across a 25 year old photo of me the other day, I ate what I wanted, weight stayed pretty constant no matter how much/little exercise I took. Now I have a permanent paunch and much less hair.
So, if sixty percent of calorie expenditure is basic metabolism, this becomes less efficient with age and you would have to up your exercise levels considerably to compensate.
That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it :?Posted 12 years ago # -
My theory:
Exercise doesn't really help directly with weight loss, as you have to do a huge amount of exercise just to burn 100 calories. Reducing intake is far more important/effective.
When the Ministry of They say that X calories are burnt by exercise session Y, do they mean that it requires X calories of mechanical energy or that X calories have to be consumed to get your body to do it?
I don't know how (in)efficient the human body is at turning the latter to t'former.
My theory is that doing exercise gives you oooje massals[/Austrian accent] and they're calorifically horrifically expensive to run even when asleep.
Posted 12 years ago # -
20 years ago I was as thin as a rake. However, I also smoked, frequently skipped meals, and ate pretty badly about half the time.
The past 10 years (at least) I've been overweight, until late 2012 when I entered the 'normal' BMI range (just) mainly due to no booze. Still my proportion of body fat is too high, so calorie restriction in some form, plus exercise seems to be the way to go...
Posted 12 years ago # -
Exercise doesn't really help directly with weight loss, as you have to do a huge amount of exercise just to burn 100 calories. Reducing intake is far more important/effective.
Portion control is the main thing to target, for sure. However, exercise can have a significant effect.
I reckon I would normally average one 30-50 mile ride and perhaps a few laps of Arthur's Seat per week. But since snapping my achilles tendon at the end of September I've not done any cycling and my cardio-vascular activity levels have dropped off somewhat, as you'd expect. I've consciously not eaten as much, knowing I haven't as much need for it. Despite this, in the 3 months I've not been cycling I definitely have padded out around the midriff...
Posted 12 years ago # -
The cyclist hunger never goes away, I was off the bike for years and still ate like I was doing 100 miles a week.
Posted 12 years ago # -
If you've a spare hour and a half, excellent documentary/lecture on sugar (specifically Fructose), obesity, health etc. from University of California
Posted 12 years ago # -
"
SCPHRP (@SCPHRP)
07/01/2013 07:19
Article discussing the results of JAMA obesity paper 'How Useful Is Body Mass Index In Predicting Long-Term Health?'"
Posted 12 years ago # -
Exercising can lift your basal metabolic rate. This is part of the challenge once people's weight gets over a certain size - their basal metabolic rate drops because they just can't move around quite as much. This means the level of effort they need to make to shift the pounds often seems insurmountable.
A colleague was given a free gym membership a year ago from the council to help combat her morbid obesity. To give her credit a year later she is still going to the gym three times a week. Sadly she also often gets the lift to our office (the first floor) and has made little or no attempt to reduce her calorific intake. She is fitter but not slimmer.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"
Scottish Government (@scotgov)
08/01/2013 00:18
Drop a Glass Size in 2013: Think about how much you drink and look better inside and out. http://www.bit.ly/Zzpe9Y"
Posted 12 years ago #
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