Dr Rick

Because limited clinical studies suggest it may be more effective and just as safe for healthy people than traditional weight-loss diets.

Rick

Dr Rick

From a physiologic perspective, weight loss is exactly that simple (though I would phrase it somewhat differently).

Unfortuantely, complex behavioral, psychological, and social influences make effective, long-term weight-loss through dietary and lifestyle changes a difficult goal for most Americans to obtain.

Rick

enigma555

Ack! Atkins is a health risk.

Cut out carbs? Your body needs carbs!
So it starts metabolising your fat. The problem is, it does the same to your muscle mass.

As soon as you try to go back to a normal diet again, you'll gain EVERYTHING back, only your muscle will stay gone. Find one person who quit the Atkins diet and kept the weight off... just one... before you try it.

Did you know that in the senate hearings to determine whether or not his diet was a health risk Dr. Atkins FELL ASLEEP?!?

NialScorva

How reliable are the weight to height charts such as BMI when you get into the extreme ends height in a population?

I'm 6'9" with a moderately large frame, weighing around 300 pounds. This puts my BMI at 32.1. To get to a 25 (the start of "overweight") I'd have to weigh 230 pounds. That is absolutely absurd. I definately have weight to lose, but I have muscle to gain as well. At my healthiest, I weighed 255 pounds (BMI=27.3), my current target weight. As a mitigating factor, I do have rather large legs (about 30 inch thighs) from fencing and the strength training associated with it. I don't see how the BMI guidelines are representitive of my optimal physical condition.

[editted]
I saw something else about how having a waistline above 40 inches is a health risk. As tall as I am, and with a beer gut, I still wear waist size 40 pants. Can I just toss out all these healthiness measurements like I do everything else made for a world of short (sub 6'4" ) people?

[ July 12, 2002: Message edited by: NialScorva ]</p>

Agnostic Journyman

NialScorva:

I know what you mean about these BMI charts. I'm 6' 5"...every chart I see ends at 6' 4"! At least one chart I came across at cooperfitness.com I could see a pattern that every inch increase in height had a 4 pound gain in weight for a medium frame, and slightly more for large frame. It also gave a way to tell if you're medium or large frame, and a fudge factor for large frame people.

So for me, at 6' 5", I need to weight about 210 lbs. to have a BMI under 25. I'm now at 218, coming down from a peak of 248 in nine months. That puts my BMI right at 25.55...on the border! Just like my height is on the border (the wrong side) for all the charts!

I think the most accurate gauge of body fat health is body fat measurement. Whether you are big or small frame, body fat is body fat. I'm told 15% is about normal for a man my age, with 12% being ideal. My peak has been 26%, I'm curious now to know what it is after losing 30 pounds.

For brighid and Rick:

As for the debate over whether weight loss is merely a matter of less calories in over calories expended vs. a complex maneuvering of glycemic indexes, I have to side with the caloric balance argument. Seems to me this is easier to hold in mind for a weight loss program. It easily covers such issues as portion control, forms of calories (nutritional value, etc.), and meal frequency.

There may be merit for "grazing", i.e. spreading out one's daily intake of calories to keep blood sugar levels more constant. At this point, from what I've been able to glean from the horde of info out there, it leans more toward a cardiac health aspect than for weight loss purposes.
But it deserves further study.

Bree

Let's see -

I work out 45 minutes a day (aerobic activity). On weekends this increases to 3 hours a day. I have done this for about three years. My average daily intake of calories is now about 2,300. I actually am losing weight. Before my diagnosis (diabetes, this was in May) I was getting somewhere between 1,000 and 1,300 calories a day, and gaining weight. I want to know how I can increase what I eat, change nothing with my exercise routine, and still lose weight.

Oh, and add on top of that the fact that I am, for all purposes, extremely obese. I'm a size 12 (height/weight charts say I should be a 7) at 5'6" - if I were to go back to ballet, I'd have to drop almost 60 pounds to be at "working weight" again.

Anyway - the Atkins diet does work, but only for a short period of time. I went on it to lose weight for my wedding. I lost 17 pounds in two weeks, but was extremely sick the entire time (I lost a totle of 21 pounds - my waist measurement afterwards was 23 inches!). I passed out climbing a flight of stairs to my apartment on a regular basis and didn't have the energy to dance. However, I didn't have any yeast problems (I'm allergic) and that's probably because of the no-carbs thing. I'd rather have energy than be that thin, thank you.

Agnostic Journyman

Interesting. I would want to ask what you were eating before at the 1-3k calorie levels vs. what you eat now at 2.3k. Also, 1,000 calories to me seems a bit restrictive...your metabolism may have slowed considerably...the body believing a famine was in the land.

Also, if your primary activity is aerobic, your muscles may not be getting challenged like they would with a combo of aerobic and weight training. Challenged muscles grow, thereby increasing metabolic rate.
However in your case you increased your caloric intake but maintained your activity at consistent levels. So I'd look at any changes as to types of food consumed, and that perhaps by depriving the body of too many calories there is actually a negative effect against weight loss. What would be helpful here is if we knew your basal metabolic rate, or how many calories your body would burn in a day just to stay alive (like if you did nothing but stay motionless in bed all day). Then total how many calories you expended through activity, and add in calories consumed, to see if you still have a caloric deficit necessary to lose weight. Dr. Cooper recommends no more than a 500 calorie/day deficit, split 50/50 between activity and intake restriction. Some others advocate more, toward 1,000. But 1,000 total calories consumed in a day...that's one intense diet!

Bree

Meat - prior to May, I was a vegetarian!

wildernesse

Bree:

I can't imagine that at a size 12 and 5'6'' you are "extremely obese". Especially since I am a size 10-12, barely 5'5'' and only around 10 pounds overweight (so I say!). Maybe your frame is smaller than mine--I'm medium-framed. But you know yourself and I know me--and this probably highlights the fact that people are different and respond to excercise and diet differently. Which is why more SCIENTIFIC study should take place regarding nutrition and excercise.

Also, I wouldn't consider ballet dancers to neccessarily be the ideal when considering healthy weight.

And, just curious, how many people read the linked article that started this thread?

--tiba

Viti

Bree, my love, a size 12 at 5'6" is not obese, it's barely chubby. I am a size 10 (147 lbs) at 5'6" and extremely small framed (my shoulders are 16", wrists 5 3/4", ankles 8 3/4") and doc said I am at the top of end of normal...though I should start keeping an eye on what I eat and increase exercise.

45 mins a day plus hours on weekends is too intense and 1000 calories is insane. I believe (I could be wrong but ask Jekyll her opinion) you have carried over some of your weight/eating anxieties forced on you during your dancing days.

I am not criticizing, I am worried. If you had an eating disorder like many many dancers, it doesn't just go away, you'll carry that with you and need to fight it every day I am sure.