Asymmetrical Information

"however, within each socioeconomic group, there were comparable levels of caloric intake among lean, average weight, and obese children"

And you conclude: "there are the majority of us, who, if we are fed 500 more calories a day, will gain weight"

I have to disagree. I think what it means is that skinny children, of all socioeconomic levels, have similar (I assume the author didn't mean comparable as in "able to be compared" one calorie is able to be compared to 100, but certainly not similar) caloric intakes. Average weight children have similar caloric intakes across groups; obese children have similar intakes across the groups. What's different, however, is the distribution of skinny, average, and obese children across the groups. (More fat poor kids make the average caloric intake of poor kids 500 calories per day higher than that of rich kids.)

I'm totally with you... I went through the exact same thing, except I ballooned up in college, not high school. After graduating, I went on a traditional diet and exercise program where I dropped more than 80 lbs, going from 255 to 175. My story is here.

It sounds to me as if some of the worries about the current "obesity epidemic" are well-founded and others are just so much noise. While people are getting heavier, to some extent that's a consequence of the fact that our population is also getting older. People tend to gain weight with age. In addition, the aging of the population is also part - quite likely a considerable part - of the reason behind the increase in diabetes. While obesity is associated with a higher incidence of that condition, so is getting older. Come to think of it, for all the hysteria over the obesity epidemic, life expectancy is increasing, albeit modestly, and the death rate from heart disease is on the decline.
In short, while I'm not going to deny that obesity is a significant health problem in the United States, and that it may be getting worse, things are not nearly as dire as some people make them out to be.
To the extent that more people are getting obese, I attribute it as much to a more sedentary lifestyle (cartball, anyone?) as to overeating, though the increased use of high fructose corn syrup in so many food items is a concern.
Lastly, determining whether a particular person is obese is far from an exact science. Reliance on BMI (body-mass index) can be misleading because it does not take varying body compositions into account. I have a relatively high BMI but do not consider myself obese by any means; I have far more muscle than most men and therefore weigh more than one would think. This works the other way, too, with the so-called "skinny fat" young women who have practically zero muscle development and have to diet and exercise like crazy in order to avoid looking heavy.
I guess I can sum up by saying that obesity is a complicated issue and all these facile explanations are grossly inadequate to explain what's really going on.

Funny how dieting aways works perfectly in animals. If your dog or cat is overweight, the vet tells you to cut down their food. If you do, then — like magic — they lose weight.

It works every time it's tried. Apparently, there are extremely few dogs or cats with genetic predispositions to being extra fat. You just modulate their food intake and their weight just follows.

This works for me too. Cut down the calories and up the exercise and I lose weight every single time. If you really want to lose weight, try training for a marathon (everyone should try it at least once). Running 20-40 miles per week will force you to lose weight unless you are REALLY dedicated to eating piles and piles of food.

Isn't it just barely possible that humans are just like the other animals and the vast majority of those people who claim "I can't lose weight no matter how little I eat" are just fooling themselves one way or another?

Generally, the problem is not that a diet does not work. Most people who seriously try a diet -- it doesn't really matter that much which one --lose weight. But onces they make their original goal they congratulate themselves and return to their old eating habits and gain the weight back. To really lose weight and most importantly, keep it off, you have to change your eating-excercise habits forever. It has to be a lifestyle change, not a diet in the sense that it is just a temporary change of pratices.

Rob -

Do you have a large-scale, well-designed study to back up your claim that, with animals, this works "every time it's tried"? Are you saying it works exactly the same every time, or merely that it works if taken to sufficient extremes? I have no doubt that, after a few years in a North Korean concentration camp, we would all walk out thin (if we walked out at all). So in that sense, dieting 'works every time'.

Sneering at people with difficult metabolisms because they're just not trying hard enough seems to me like sneering at crippled people that want to take the elevator rather than the stairs. My aunt, whose legs were paralysed from polio, could have dragged herself up the stairs with her arms. Thus, it was possible for her to go up the stairs - the difference was that it was dramatically harder for her than for others.

I think that there are people for whom losing weight is dramatically harder, and the rest of us don't need to be so flippant about their problems.

Part of the increase in weight is surely exercise - people were forced to walk more in the past. But part may also be systematic changes in our diet. I saw a study recently claiming that our food had less nutritional value than it used to, due to changes in farming methods that led to fewer minerals, etc. in our food. Perhaps people's bodies are telling them to eat more because they're not getting enough nutrients.

In terms of fats, rather than a wide range of healthy fats including Omega 3s and CLA (conjugated lineoleic acid, I think; it was in beef and milk when the cattle were range-fed), we now primarily consume concentrated amounts of only one type of Omega 6. And then there's all the high fructose corn syrup that Peter mentioned.

Rather than putting all the blame on overweight people, I think it's worth trying to find ways to help them. Telling everyone to run a marathon may not be as effective as doing research into how our diets have changed, and what effect that has had.

And you conclude: "there are the majority of us, who, if we are fed 500 more calories a day, will gain weight"

NateG, I can't find the original reference (the quote is from a secondary source) but from context it seems clear to me that Jane's interpretation is correct: caloric intake is similar within socioeconomic groups, not between them.

Ann, to dismiss the housepet example with "gulag" and "polio victim" analogies is unfair to both Rob and the value of the analogy.

We have a housecat whose combination of self-control and metabolism happens to regulate very well. We keep a dish of dry food filled, and she generally eats whatever she needs.

By comparison, my aunt and uncle have a cat who will gorge himself so severely under those kind of conditions that he throws up after every meal and still manages to gain weight. The solution turned out to be small portions at limited intervals, rather than unrestricted access. This does not equate to "feline gulag" eating conditions; merely a higher authority restricting the conditions of "when" and "how much" to a level safe for that cat's self-control and metabolism.

Humans, on the other hand, are expected to exercise self-control apart from blind "need to eat" instinct. If someone has a slow metabolism, the solution is to eat less, even if it feels good to eat more. Of all the overweight people I have known, only a very few could plausibly claim a gentic condition (and would have to eat a nutritionally-unsafe diet in order to lose weight); the others, as apparent even by casual observation, were regularly indulging caloric excesses of some nature or another.

Hey Roborant, do you want to start taking care of my obese cat? We cut down her food supply, and give her less fattening food, and she sits by her bowl and howls all day for more. No food can be left out because she inhales it. Dental treats are useless because they go straight down her throat.

At night, she purrs in our ears and claws our sheets and our cheeks until we wake up and lock her in another room, where she rattles the doorknob, or we feed her.

Now that the weather is nice, we can put her out on the back porch at night. That's a stopgap. But I wish that my cat were "normal," she's been like this for ten years.

My favorite weight loss TV reality show is Survivor. People eat all they can, spend their time lying around doing as little as possible, and at the end everybody loses so much weight they look like concentration camp survivors! No exercises. No calorie counting. No weigh ins. No excuses.

If you look at the calorie tables you will notice that for any given height 40-60 extra calories/day will make any average Joe/Josie 10 lbs heavier in the long rum; and 40/60 less calories will make Mr/Ms/Mrs Average 10 lbs lighter.

Calories are not the only thing that matters. Vitamins matter. Nevertheless, no one ever gained weight on Survivor. Over a hundred people have been on the show.

JSinger, I think it's the opposite... caloric intake is similar between socioeconomic groups and within weight classes, (Obese rich intake is similar to obese poor intake) but is dissimilar within socioeconomic groups. (Obese rich intake is larger than thin rich intake)

But that still makes Jane's larger point that those who eat more calories are fatter. (Yeah, yeah, correlation does not imply causation, chant until you are at peace.) And, in the (vast?) majority of cases, it is causal (and reverseable).

it's hard to lose weight because eating feels good and getting out to excercise is a chore. its much easier to work, sit on the couch, drive, anything rather than excercise. it's also a lot easier to eat than to not eat.

heavier people are more likely to have less control over their eating and to prefer a more sedentary existence. thus why it's so bloody hard to lose weight. metabolism excuse is almost always BS, as skinny people eat less (or puke more) than they claim, while heavy people eat more than they claim. losing weight is hard, as you have to exist on fewer than normal calories and that messes with your concentration, moods, alertness, etc. we also have our starvation genes to tahnk, but if you eat less food for a long enough time, you will lose weight.

I think the rise in obesity we're seeing is from an increase in the number of calories we're consuming, and from a change in the type of calories we're consuming. Fat, for all that it has been vilified, is a metabolically neutral substance. Carbs, on the other hand, trigger an insulin response that stimulates appetite and causes extra calories to be packed away. Before the low fat diet craze, people ate a more balanced diet of fats, protein, and carbs. People have replaced a large percentage of the calories they used to get from fats with carbs. And because carbs are less "satisfying" than fats, we eat more of them.

There is a real medical condition that goes by various names: syndrome X, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome. It basically means your insulin metabolism is screwed up, and if you eat too many carbs, you'll end up being hungry all the time. In recent decades, the number of people dealing with this has skyrocketed; I blame the prevalence of high fructose corn syrup and other corn sweetener products, even though no study has been done yet to show a direct link. There's a lot of evidence that fructose damages our insulin response.

If everyone ate less, they'd all lose weight? No, because our bodies go into "starvation mode" where they hang onto every single calorie that passes your lips. To lose weight, you need to eat, but what you eat, and when you eat it, are very important. Small, regular meals with good fats and proteins and complex carbs will keep your weight in line.

There's a lot going on here, and surprisingly, a lot of it is politics and economics. The FDA has finally targeted trans fats; now if they could just eliminate the corn sweeteners from our diet, we'd probably see a rapid improvement in our obesity numbers. Forty years ago, who would've dreamed of "super size" sodas & fries & all that? No one ate that much! But with all that HFCS running around in your system, your appetite suppressant switch is damaged, and you're able to keep on eating and drinking and eating and drinking, well past the point of satiety. At least when soda was sweetened with regualr sugar, there weren't any chemical tricks being played on our metabolisms to tell us we were still hungry when we were not. It's a scenario right out of Space Merchants.

I've kept my weight stable for 7+ years now (I had some pregnancies in there so it's hard to really pin it down.) I was a fairly strict low-carber (Protein Power) when I first learned about all this stuff, but over the years I've "recalibrated" my metabolism so now I don't have to be as diligent. But if I eat too many carbs I'll still have to deal with nearly unsatiable hunger, and if I give in and eat more carbs, then I'll gain weight. I can see the cycle and walk away from it. A lot of people can't do either.

NateG, I understand your reading of it but I think Jane's is correct. Let's see if the original can be found...

I think this is it. If so, it supports both Jane's interpretation of the result and also reaches the same conclusion she does, albeit more verbosely.

It's bogus that people are exercising less. There has never been a bigger cult of physical fitness than exists today. Back when we were supposedly thinner, there were no health clubs on every block and no mandatory gym in school and kids didn't belong to five sports teams.

Furthermore, it's healthy to be "overweight".

It's a simple matter of physics: more calories in than calories out = weight gain.

Running 20-40 miles per week will force you to lose weight unless you are REALLY dedicated to eating piles and piles of food.

Which is why when I was in high school and running that much, I ate upwards of 5,000 calories a day, more on race days or if I was feeling too hungry. I counted pretty religiously just to make sure I was getting enough. I'm one of those naturally thin folks to begin with, but now years later with about half that caloric intake (and very little exercise) I weigh the same 145 I did when I graduated. Rail thin for 5'10", but eh.

Part of the problem with dieting is that the vast majority of diets fail, and the dieter winds up regaining all, or more, weight they originally lost, and nearly all of the regain is in the form of fat even though muscle was lost in dieting.

And this cycling of weight appears to be far more unhealthy than just staying heavy. See http://www.thinkmuscle.com/articles/gaesser/obesity.htm for some summary of studies.

The problem appears to be that part of the brain is thinking: "I should lose weight" but another part of the brain is running around wailing: "Oh my god, calorie consumption has dropped! We're in a famine, people! Must get more food! Must get more food! And must store fat in case this famine happens again!"

Furthermore, being heavy isn't a bad thing as long as you're fit, and being thin is a bad thing if you're unfit. Rob's suggestions about exercise make sense, but for the benefits of exercise directly rather than weight loss.

Half Sigma, the study you link is a textbook case of confusing correlation with cause. Basically, they failed to control for disease and age and discovered that the dying, particularly the elderly dying, tend to be underweight. That doesn't mean that the dying (or anyone else) can suddenly become healthier by gaining lots of weight. Read the responses in JAMA, which mostly make that point.

BTW, this country would be a better place if people didn't hit the "THE GOVERNMENT IS LYING TO US!!!" button so quickly...

There is significant evidence of a genetic tendency toward weight gain in many persons. This is most evident in populations with a high prevalence of adult onset diabetes (such as the Pima tribes in Mexico and some Polynesians). These persons will gain weight continually if food is plentiful, a behavior similar to that of bears who gain weight in the summer and fall when food is plentiful so they can survive the winter and early spring when food is scarce. Like the bears, persons with these tendencies are more likely survive periods of famine. But, as one diabetes medical reseacher said to me, "We are designed to survive feast or famine, but now it is all feast!"

This genetic pattern accounts for much of the weight gain seen among persons with insulin resistance and a family history of Type II diabetes mellitus.

Half Sigma:
I don't know how you can say that people are exercising more today. Health club memberships? I've been a regular at one of the biggest commercial gyms in the area for over three years and I can say without hesitation that at least 90% of the people you'll see at any given time are under 30. From what I've gathered, this is true for most such facilities. People are interested when they're in their teens and twenties, but not much thereafter. Children may belong to sports teams, but adults sure don't; as best I've been able to tell, except for a few adult softball and basketball leagues - and "adult" in this context really means 18 to 25 - about the only organized sports activity that attracts more than a trival number of adults is, yes, cartball. Schools have had mandatory phys ed for decades, and if anything it's even more bogus today than it always was. 15 or 20 years ago it wasn't uncommon to see adults jogging or bicycling, while today it's a rare sight indeed. Sales of exercise equipment may be on the rise, but it's famously used mainly as coat racks.
So as far as I can tell, people are exercising a lot less today than before.

Ah, one of my very favorite 'Bloom County' strips dealt with Opus's quest to lose weight. He was looking at all sorts of extreme techniques. Milo kept saying 'Eat Less, Exercise More.' Opus's responded by saying (essentially)
Enough crazy talk! That is too radical. What about liposuction?'

To this day, whenever my wife complains about her wieght, I say 'Eat...' and now she even finished is 'yes, yes, eat less, exercise more, I know, I know' Heh...

Another problem w/ the study from Halfsigma-- I would imagine that a large number of extremely healhty people (personal trainer types) have BMIs that are well in the overweight range. Muscle is heavier than fat. Mine was above 26 at the fittest I've been, if I recall correctly, and is down a bit now that I've started getting lazy about going to the gym. I would imagine that what we're talking about when we talk about fat people is those who are "Obese" or "Extremely Obese" in that study-- the 300 pount land-whales that are close to uniquely American in my experience. I would imagine that the automobile and diet both play big roles here.
Speaking of diet, is there any actual evidence for corn syrup being really seriously worse than cane sugar? This 'Straight Dope' says otherwise, rather convincingly to my mind.

On HFCS: The Wikipedia entry has a section on how fructose screws up your ghrelin, a hormone that controls your feeling of hunger. There are external links listed (including that Straight Dope article) which include links to research studies showing the effects of dietary fructose.

I would never say that HFCS is solely responsible for the so-called obesity epidemic, but I think there is good reason to believe it is a contributing factor.

Joan:
It's not a question of whether excess dietary fructose is a problem. The point is that it doesn't make sense to blame the substitution of HFCS for sugar, since sugar and HFCS have pretty much the same glucose-to-fructose ratio. High fructose corn syrup is "high fructose" only relative to regular corn syrup, not relative to cane sugar.

Regarding the points about high fructose v. cane sugar or Jane's update comment about holiday gorges / smaller portions / heavy meals, I'd throw out my personal hot button, characterized by Coca Cola.

Back in the day, those cute little 7 oz. bottles did the trick. Then we moved to 12 oz. cans, 16 oz. bottles (glass then plastic) and now 20 oz. wide mouths. And let's not forget one poster's reference to Super Sizing plus the ubiquitous Big Gulp !

Assuming that each step-up represents an average serving size (granted, some folks might ratchet down that screw top real tight and save half until tomorrow, but I'm assuming not), you don't even have to crunch the numbers to recognize there's a huge increase in calories consumed over a year, or ten, simply due to the changes in serving size - even if frequency remains steady.

Nothing against Coke. I think the phenomenon is widespread throughout our eating options, and lots of such little hidden examples add up while folks assume that they're not consuming (much) more.

Cheers,

It's pretty simple, really. Weight loss works, but dieting doesn't (long term). The key is to exercise more. If you do that, you won't necessarily eat less (in fact, you'll probably eat more) but you'll weigh less. Or, if you're not much overweight, you may not even weigh less, but you'll be fitter (more muscle and less fat).

Balancing food intake against energy consumption to maintain a stable weight is just not something that the conscious mind is intended to calculate. Your body does that automatically through the appetite mechanism. If you attempt to override that mechanism for extended periods by eating less than you desire and feeling hungry most of the time, your body will interpret that as famine, and when you let your body run the show again (and you will), it will pack on extra fat to protect against those periodic famines. Do it over and over, and you'll convince your body that you live in an environment where food availability is spotty and fat reserves are, therefore, essential. That is how yo-yo dieting leads to obesity. On the other hand, if you eat what you desire and exercise a lot, the body will calculate that famine is not a problem and that peak physical performance is important and it will, therefore, shed the fat reserves as an unnecessary hindrance to performance.

So -- exercise, eat all the healthy food you desire, and avoid reduced-calorie diets.

Half-sigma: "Back when we were supposedly thinner, there were no health clubs on every block and no mandatory gym in school and kids didn't belong to five sports teams." When I was a kid 40-some years ago, you didn't have to go to a gym or be on a team to get exercise. We got out of the house and ran and rode bikes around the neighborhood. We got out toy guns and reenacted WWII. Nobody had conniptions if they didn't see their kids for a couple hours on weekday evenings (after homework was done!) or between lunch and dinner on weekends.

Hours of playful exercise every day is better than gym class (and we did have gym class), and better than the training schedule for most non-professional sports. There were no fat boys in my elementary school at all (although it took about 3 of us to balance poor Mary Jo on the seesaw). In Jr high and high school, I recall three fat boys out of a class of 500, and two of them were prodigiously strong.

My earlier 'gulag' and 'polio victim' examples, as anony-mouse described them, were to make the point that yes, there is a simple relationship in that 'eat less, exercise more' will always work if taken to sufficient extremes, but that the extreme needed varies substantially from one person to the next. Thus, the fact that doing this is simple for some people doesn't mean that it's simple for everyone. The cost of being thin may be dramatically higher for some.

I think that what slocum said about exercise makes a lot of sense. To diet, people have to fight their own brains, and there are evolutionary reasons why this isn't easy to do. And as Jane said, they can't just go cold turkey and stop eating.

Again, I think it's more productive to look at changes in our diet that may be leading people to get bad signals, than to simply sneer at people and say that they'd be thin if they only abandoned everything else in their lives and suffered all day, every day for the sake of losing weight. Yes, anyone can be thin, but at what cost?

"There's a lot going on here, and surprisingly, a lot of it is politics and economics. The FDA has finally targeted trans fats; now if they could just eliminate the corn sweeteners from our diet, we'd probably see a rapid improvement in our obesity numbers. "

Why have the FDA throw more monkey wrenches into the works? Just drop the tariffs on sugar, and our food vendors will use more of it and less corn syrup.

As for differences in socioeconomic groups, it seems to me that rich people have habits that lead both to being rich and to eating and exercising better, while poor people have habits that lead both to being poor and to eating whatever crap is easiest & cheapest to get and sitting on their asses during their free time rather than getting some exercise.

Extending on markm's remarks, once we grow up, many/most of us have jobs sitting at desks, or running vehicles, or whatever. Our ancestors had to lift the steel, or the crops, or whatever, more or less by hand. They did 'weight work' all day long, every day. Mom, at home, was scrubbing laundry on a board, all day on Monday, and was doing similarly physical tasks the rest of the time. Irons were pieces of solid metal heated in a fire, not 3 pound electrical devices. Even 'office workers' were pushing unpowered lawn mowers on weekends. Who was fat in ye olde days? Kings, bosses, lords, Senators - people who had other people to do all the heavy lifting. Now we all have the machines to do it. Exercise is the active stuff you do - it isn't always done with health as the intended outcome.

Now we don't do those things, so we have to substitute treadmills, stationary bikes, and weights to get the same effect.

You can be healthy and overweight, even obese. In practice, however, few overweight people are healthy and in shape. If they were, we'd see more of them finishing 5k runs, hiking, and not breaking out in a sweat and gasping like they are having a heart attack heading from G to 3 via the stairs.

A previous poster wrote: "Funny how dieting aways works perfectly in animals. If your dog or cat is overweight, the vet tells you to cut down their food. If you do, then — like magic — they lose weight."

I'm sorry, but this is just flat wrong. I have 4 dogs, one of whom is overweight chronically, and we have tried everything from portion control to low-fat diet dog food. It doesn't work.

My guess is that he responds by a combination of scrounging for food (he's a fabulous ratter) and exerting himself less.

I also have an acquaintance with a dog with precisely the same problem, with precisely the solution suggested here and precisely the same result.

My guess is the person who wrote this doesn't have a dog. I do, and I can tell you that this statement is categorically wrong. Dieting may work in some animals, but it does not "work perfectly."

Is there really any mystery about what one has to do to gain 100 pounds of fat? No? Conversely, is there really any mystery about what one has to do to lose 100 pounds of fat?

Gaining money, knowledge, muscle or social approval is difficult and requires self-control and discipline. However, any moron can gain weight, and obviously quite a few do.

This is very inspiring

Aspartame Does Not Raise Cancer Risk, Study Finds

While I think society is way too harsh on fat people, and I sympathize with them, it seems to me that the whole point of that post is for fat people to kid themselves that it's OK to be fat. Well, it isn't. I"m not talkign about being 10 pounds overweight. I'm talking 50lbs. If oyu should weight 150, and you weigh 200, you are kidding yourself thinking that you aren't putting your body at risk.

Further, if you're that overweight, odds are you are eating a lot of unhealthy foods (high in sugar, salt, certain fats, etc) and not enough healthy foods (vegetables, etc). On top of that, you probably are getting very little exercise, which has huge health benfits.

People just like to fool themselves. One of my pet peeves is the term "workout". People walk on a treadmill for 30 minutes and that's a "workout"? C'mon, that's just silly. I refrain from using that term, even though my exercise regimen is much more strenuous than the average person's. I was recently at a hotel, and went to their exercise room. It was the midle of the business week, so it was the worker crowd. I coudln't believe what I saw. People talking on their cell phones, reading newspapers, and eating food while doing their "workout"! heheheh. While even WALKING on a treadmill can have health benefits - and I highly recommend it - let's be honest and keep that minor activity in perspective.

Anyways. Good luck to all. :)

That said, I also assume that people who struggle with their weight have some different, stronger signals in their brain telling them to eat than I have. Aside from the occasional holiday gorge, I find overeating unpleasant, and actively seek to avoid it by cooking small portions, or pushing my plate away when I've had enough, so that I can't pick at it. And too many heavy meals in a row kill my appetite. Social conditioning or biology? No idea. But I don't assume that what is easy for me is easy for everyone--after all, most of my friends can smoke socially, while every time I've broken down and had a cigarette, I've ended up right back on a pack-and-a-half habit within a week. Unfortunately, my friends who struggle with their weight can't just go cold turkey, the way I did.

That captures it very well.

BTW, the reduction in fat percentages in the American diet follow the same trend line as the weight gain.

Come on - the reason people say diets fail and being fat is ok, is that the statement panders to a certain demographic of people (as in, fat people with little self control) - who want to make their problem someone elses fault (my metabolism did it to me .. evil companies did it to me... bleh).

The problem isn't a lack of healthy choices. The problem is a lack of self control among people with an abundance of choices. People will, more often than not, take the path of least resistance, which usually leads to excessive eating and little exercise.

I realized how bad I was at dieting when I got very sick and literally could not ingest solids for 5 days and lived on a few crackers and weak tea for several days after that. Wonder of wonders!, I lost 15-20 pounds.

I decided to make lemonade out of lemons by gradually ramping up my food intake and then being very careful not to overeat -- without actively dieting -- when I was fully recovered. I find that even though I don't do much exercise beyond a leisurely 30-40 minute stroll in the evening, I have only gained back 4 to 5 of those pounds in the last two years. Eat less probably is even more important than exercise more.

Well, it depends what we mean by skinny - I used to run 50 miles a week, and I still weighed 10 pounds more than all the other guys who did. I hated it, but I think it's eating habits and genetics.

Notably, when I didn't exercise but went on South Beach, I managed to get under where I was when I was running 50 miles / week. Obviously wasn't healthier though.

Gosh I want to lose weight so bad right now. Just 15 more pounds.

Even if someone has slow metabolism, that is partly a behavioral issue too. Being a slug lowers metabolism. Getting enough exercise (strength training in particular) increases metabolism.

I am overweight, and I know why. I eat more than I should, and I don't eat as well as I should, and I'm not getting enough exercise. Wonder of wonders, when I was exercising 5-6 days a week, I weighed about 25 pounds less than I do now, and it was more lean tissue. Also, I found that when I was getting regular exercise, I ate better without even trying to. I think there are two reasons for this. One is, without giving it conscious thought, I avoided eating in a way that would undo my healthy exercise habit. Second, like most people who overeat, there are emotional triggers to my poor eating habits. In my case, boredom is my worst enemy. Being active limited the amount of time I had to snack.

So why did I stop exercising enough? Lifestyle changes. I got married and now have a baby, but the biggest factor was going from a government job to private practice. (I'm not saying it's impossible to exercise while practicing law with a firm; I'm just saying the schedule was a lot easier to manage with a government job.)

Ann wrote: Rather than putting all the blame on overweight people, I think it's worth trying to find ways to help them. Telling everyone to run a marathon may not be as effective as doing research into how our diets have changed, and what effect that has had.

Sure it would. It would be cheaper; most would lose the weight and then the number of folks we'd have to study for changed diets and their effects would be smaller too. Unless, of course, folks are too lazy and weak to exercise, which very likely is the only problem after all. Blaming "how our diets have changed" is a cop out, given how we know how much our exercise/physical work habits have changed. Harsh? Yeah, maybe, but much less so than diabetes and heart disease.

Portion control and exercise. When I got my dog from Airedale Rescue she weighed 80 pounds. A year later she was at 60 and the vet was happy. Now if only I could find someone to limit ME to two cups of dry food a day.....

I created a free website (www.bellygraph.com) specifically to help people lose weight by helping them make it easy to create big visible charts of their weight over time.

Nothing like knowing you're going to have to put an uptick on the graph in front of God and everyone to help you put down the ice cream!

People stay fat because they go on a diet. Try the anti-diet, which I call The Methuselah Diet.

Methuselah ate what he found on his plate,
And never, as people do now,
Did he note the amount of the calorie count.
He ate it because it was chow.

He wasn't disturbed as at dinner he sat,
Devouring a roast or a pie,
To think it was lacking in granular fat
Or a couple of vitamins shy.

He cheerfully chewed each species of food,
Unmindful of troubles or fears
Lest his health might be hurt by some fancy dessert,
And he lived over 900 years.

Anon)

It's all about portion control and exercise. I've gone from 320 to 211 in the last ten months just by burning more calories than I take in. Low fat, low carb, good carb, bad carb, it's all a bunch of crap. Count calories and start walking (and then work your way up to running).

I do martial arts. One advantage of that is that it's a sport/activity done by a very wide range of age groups, all together. All the time I see folks come into our salle in terrible shape, feeling awful both physically and existentially, wondering why they're shaped like pears when they used to be such beanpoles.

People don't stay fat because they're on diets... people stay fat because, by and large, what they think of as exercise isn't even a tenth of what they used to get just running around. The treadmill above is absolutely telling: what teenager or early adult regards walking as a workout?

The good news is that once folks begin to get reacquainted with what a real workout entails, they get in shape (which doesn't always imply being skinny), and tend to enjoy themselves. If you're in these circumstances, I would seriously recommend you lose the treadmill, and develop an intimate loving relationship with that other health-club standby: the Roman Chair.

I see no mention of the fact that really rich people and celebrities are generally walking skeletons. Maria Shriver, for one. Does anyone think she looks good?

"Weight loss" is really a misnomer. In truth it's a combination of strict weight loss (a temporary thing) and weight maintenance (a long-term thing). Almost everyone in the world knows how to effect weight-loss, and many overweight people do. It's very simple and straightforward, just eat less and/or exercise more. However, many people have trouble maintaining a lower weight and just end up putting weight back on again. The trick to maintaining weight is being able to keep to a diet that provides a regular calorie intake, combined with tracking your weight and making fine adjustments as necessary. In this, I have found no better or more eye opening resource than The Hacker's Diet, which lays out a lot of well-founded theory about appetite and diet and weight-control. In short, don't necessarily let your appetite control your eating entirely, you need to formulate your own triggering mechanisms for how much you eat.

As for the make up of the diet itself (other than the strict calorie numbers), I would recommend basing a diet off of The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating.

In January of 2001, I was 230 lbs at 6' tall, giving me some insane number like 25% body fat. My friends and I decided to go to Cancun that March, and within two months, I had dropped to 175, and I was at 10% body fat. Turns out drinking 2-3 liters of regular soda a day has a negative effect on weight gain. Once I limited myself to diet soda and went to a 2000-3000 calorie per day diet, combiend with regular exercise, I dropped something like a pound a day.

It works if you put your mind to it. I haven't been over 10% body fat in 4 years, and coming into Summer 2006, I have a pretty good six-pack shaping up.

I am convinced that the secret to weight loss is a form of self-hypnosis, by which I mean the ability for an individual to look at unbelievably alluring food and recoil from it as if it is poison. If one is able to train the mind to consider certain food items or even catagories as "bad for me," just as a toddler is taught to avoid poisonous household items, one will eventually gain confidence not only in the ability to shun fattening food, but also in the ability to truly enjoy eating a low-fat, healthier diet.

How do I know this? I've done it myself and it works! Current stats - Height: 70 inches; Weight: 170 lbs; amount lost using this technique: 18 lbs.

The problem with opinions about dieting is that there are so few informed ones. I wish people who anounce they know the answer would read up on the science first.

Some points:

(1) People are different. Jane, you're describing a very different personal history from people who are morbidly and chronically obese. Your anecdotal experience doesn't really inform us much about, say, the person who has been 50 percent overweight since age 10, but those are exactly the people for whom "dieting doesn't work." The remission rate for that kind of obesity is under 5 percent and the cure rate --- in the sense of 5 years or more remission --- is about zero. The science tells us there are real metabolic differences between those people and people who are a little heavy.

(2) It's not a "simple matter" of thermodynamics, and the assertion that it is, is primarily an assertion that the person saying it knows a lot less about physiology than they think. Yes, if you eat 500 Calories (ie, kcal) a day and maintain normal activity levels, you'll lose weight. However, while doing so, your metabolism down-regulates, so that while you may have been stable at 2000 Cal/day, your actual metabolic output as measured will drop to, say, 1200-1500 Cal/day while on a restricted diet. (Or, more properly, if your metabolic output is say 12 kcal/kg to begin, it will drop to in the neighborhood of, say, 9 kcal/kg.) What's more, after the caloric restriction is over, many people won't have their metabolic rate go back up to the original, meaning that they aer more likely to gain weight back. (Google for this by looking for the Pima Indian experiments.)

(3) The essential difference between animals and humans in the example of regulating weight in cats is that cats can't open the pantry door and work a can opener. If you were locked in a cell and could only eat what someone handed you, and that was significantly less than your metabolic needs, you would indeed lose weight. The person who did it, however, would be committing a war crime.

packsoldier is right. I've lost 22 pounds since Jan.1 by counting calories (plus exercise, but exercise alone never helped me lose weight). There are some really good software programs on the market that make calorie counting easy. I had no idea I was eating so much until I started keeping track of my food.

Coming from Instapundit's link.

Here's my recent experience. Graduating high school back in the early '90s I weighed around 135 lbs. I'm 5'7". I was a star athlete, in sports every season, soccer, x-country skiing, track, and summer soccer. Since gradating I stopped exercising nearly completely. By the time I married in 1998 I was weighing in at 175 lbs. It was frustrating with all those memories of being such a fit person back in high school.

When my wife and I signed up for a new life insurance program I had a slight negative mark because of my weight and some high blood preasure. I tried some exercising, and cut my portions down, and was able to reduce my weight 10 lbs. Well, to tell you the truth the exercising was extremely irregular compared to the amount I did back in high school. The insurance company was impressed with the 10 lbs weight loss and asked me what I did to pull it off... simply, it was cutting portions down.

Fast forward to 2006. I'm 33 years old and joined the National Guard. January I was sent to Basic in Fort Sill, OK. I graduated Basic seven days ago. I entered BCT weighing 165 lbs. and right now, about 11 weeks later, I weigh 140lbs.

Now, the Army has just instituted a new BCT model that has been tamed down from the past. My graduating class was the very first to go through it, we were told. BCT drill sergeants are prevented from giving more physical fitness training than is necessary to graduate soldiers at the 50% level. Compared to my exercise amount in high school, BCT exercising was less than that of high school sports.

That said, there were three things I noticed about Basic that must have played a role in my remarkable weight loss. First, 3-5 times a week, very modest exercising in the early morning before breakfast; go Google Conditioning Drill 1 and Conditioning Drill 2. Second, regular meal times, three per day at almost precisely the same time every day... no chance for snacking. These meals I made a conscious effort to eat smartly... usually eating a bowl of soup, a salad, an apple or banana, slice of cake and cup of yogurt. I was very full from a meal like this. Lastly, the road marches (long walks at a brisk pace) with a fully packed ALICE pack, body armor with SAPI plates and my Kevlar helmet... I weighed all of my equipment at around 60+ lbs.

I'm back to my high school physique and all it took was exercise diet. What it took was going a step beyond the comfort level I had settled into. I'm of the opinion that the average person trying to lose weight with exercise (like I was before Basic) isn't going far enough... probably only doing just enough to get a good sweat. In my experience, a good sweat isn't good enough when your metabolism is slowing down, as mine has as I have gotten older. If you are going to do walking as a "workout", do yourself the favor of walking at least 3 miles with a 40 lbs backpack... without stopping until you walked the entire distance.

That's simply my experience. Here I am at 33 and I'm back in almost as good physical shape as I was at the height of my high school sporting era. All it took was exercise and diet... and 10 and a half weeks (I'm counting my week and a half doing nothing at reception... otherwise it was only 9 weeks long).

If I may be so humble, I'll say that my wife is pleased with the results as well. ;)

Who was fat in ye olde days? Kings, bosses, lords, Senators - people who had other people to do all the heavy lifting. Now we all have the machines to do it.

But what happens when the next generation of robots get fat?

"Back in my day, we had organic oil, natural, from the ground. And it came in quart-sized bottles. Not this synthetic crap you young machines ingest in those new half-gallon servings."

About 30 years ago, I started counting my calorie intake in order to manage my weight. It was a headache for the first year, but it is now absolutely second nature to me and my weight has been very stable for the whole time.

All this other information about food type, nutritional content, etc. is good for other health reasons, BUT it is largely irrelevant for purposes of weight control. If you start counting calories, you will soon have a keen understanding of what caloric intake is necessary and what is too much.

IMHO, if people want to control their weight, they must follow this basic rule - if you cannot count it (the caloric content), you cannot eat it!

About 30 years ago, I started counting my calorie intake in order to manage my weight. It was a headache for the first year, but it is now absolutely second nature to me and my weight has been very stable for the whole time.

All this other information about food type, nutritional content, etc. is good for other health reasons, BUT it is largely irrelevant for purposes of weight control. If you start counting calories, you will soon have a keen understanding of what caloric intake is necessary and what is too much.

IMHO, if people want to control their weight, they must follow this basic rule - if you cannot count it (the caloric content), you cannot eat it!

I suppose the thing that bothered me most about Ampersand's post was the comments that claimed that telling people that you can lose weight through diet and exercise amounts to oppressing fat people.

I have been overweight nearly my whole life; my freshman year of high school I played football and got thinner, but I was never as thin as the other guys. In college my weight has been anywhere between 210 and 280 (I'm 5'10"), and it correlates almost exactly with what I have been eating.

I have had to give up pizza entirely. I can eat an entire large pizza at a sitting--and nearly every time I have ordered a large pizza in the last ten years, I have eating it all at one sitting, including breadsticks if it came with that. I bet most fat people can and do do that, and won't admit it.

Now I may not be responsible for the DESIRE to eat a whole pizza by myself, but I am certainly responsible for the ACT of doing it. And it may not be my fault that it requires more effort for me to not do that than other people, and it is not my fault that some people can regularly eat whole pizzas and not gain weight. But the fact is I have a lot of control over how much I weigh. I have never wanted to do the work making the weight loss permanent.

At the end of May last year I weight 268 pounds. By September I had got it down to 235 or so by cutting carbs. Well, I HATE cutting carbs and I find it very hard to stick to that. So I CHOSE to quit, and my weight did stay stable until the holidays, and now I am at 240 and just starting to cut carbs again.

It is very hard. But I like being thin. I just don't like doing the work, so I don't stay thin.

And while it's not fair that I have to work much harder than other people to lose weight and keep it off, it is still under my control if I work hard enough.

I'm with Rofe on the sodas. I had been gradually gaining weight for about 10 years, but when it started flirting with BMI > 25, finally got motivated. Dropping a couple of bottles of Pepsi and one candy bar/day out of my diet resulted in a 50 lb. weight loss in 9 months.

It is interesting how whenever weight loss is discussed, a group of PC whiners always complains that "eat less, exercise more" is useless advice for some special class of people with weird metabolisms. So and what? There are a much larger number of people who do simply need to eat less and exercise more to lose weight.

"I had no idea I was eating so much until I started keeping track of my food."

I think this is true for a lot of people. And as much as Americans eat out, we really have no idea what we're eating.

I took a soup cooking class once from a restauranteur/chef. She admitted that there was a lot of fat and sugar in her recipes (more than you would guess if you were just eating at her restaurant). "You know why?" she asked. "Because you like fat and sugar."

A lot of comments.I want to weigh in with a couple of helpful comments One of the letters mentioned "metabolic syndrome".That may or may not be a real syndrome,but many Americans do have insulin resistance.Basically,your insulin doesn't work well,so more must be released to bring down your blood sugar.Then reactive hypoglycemia kicks in,causing the patient to run for carbs,AND high levels of insulin slam fat on the midsection.Fat secretes (TNF alpha) a substance which opposes weight loss.There have been some good articles in the nutritional literature re'cinnamon's binding to the insulin chains and restoring it's activity.I've tried it in patients and been very happy with the results.A caveat;patients on meds must monitor their bs,and please let your doc(and I mean a real one,not a naturopath or chiropracter) know so your meds can be adjusted downward.
The rec'd dose is 3000 mg/week.Cost for the pills ranges from $4/100-local drug store to $27/100-health food store.
To find if you have insulin resistance,one can have a simultaneous glucose tolerance test and insulin level.(I had mine at Atkin's center.A lot of blood draws.)However,if your waist is over 36"(female) or 40"(male),you probably have it.If you also have high lipids or bp,save your money.You've got it.

And your favorite song should be,"I'm Walking",by Fats or Ricky
PS-If anyone wants the journal articles,I'll post.
PPS-A researcher at Harvard notes of a 10-12% drop inchlesterol while on this

I guess I'll find out if weight loss works or not.

I started out the month of March at 196.5 by my bathroom scale (a new digital).

As of this morning (4/7/06) my scale read 176.0.

How'd I do it? I walk to work (1 mile) and back home. I keep up the pace. I walk during my lunch hour when I can. And I've drastically cut back on my caloric intake. And while I'm not officially Atkins-ing it, carbs were pretty much the first thing to go (after Pepsi, sigh), as they tend to have some of the highest calorie numbers out there. I'm probably around the 1000 calorie point daily, and while my mom has recommended upping that to 1500, I have empirical evidence that that isn't my way of losing weight. It's a great way to gain it though!

Fish is very nice. Some of Campbell's Soups (I had a can of French Onion with some cheese in it for lunch) are excellent. Fresh fruit is just a plain good idea.

I've still got a minimum of 6 more pounds to go, and a desired loss of at least 16 more.

It seems many people say things like Jeff above "carbs were pretty much the first thing to go", na di think it's dangerous and wrong to associate the high calorie, sugar-laden CRAP that most people binge on versus HEALTHY carbs.

Everyone needs carbs, and the healthiest food group for you (i.e. VEGETABLES) are pure (complex) carbs.

Maybe people are just misstating what they mean? But I hear this all the time now. People acting as if CARBS are bad for them. Carbs are being made to be the bogeyman, when in fact, SOME of the best foods for you are mainly carbs.

It's not the carbs folks - it's the foods you're eating. The CALORIES. Whether or not you buy into the complex carb vs. refined/simple carbs, that's another story. I tend to limit my simple carbs, because I find that works for me.

But look at it from another angle, it would be very difficult to eat a healthy diet and maintain weight while eating a lot of foods that are high in simple carbs, or that are high in fat for that matter.

I look for "CALORIC VALUE" of the foods I eat. Which foods will fill me up, satisfy me, be healthy for me, and also allow me to stay within a certain range of calories per meal and per day? And that's why vegetables are so important. IMO, the best "value" of the foods you can eat. I'm lucky, because like most vegetables. I know that many people do not. Whole grains is another dense, healthy food group.

It just seems that people need to make this much more complicated than it is, or to believe in "magic solutions".

Eat vegetables, fruits, whole grains, nuts, seeds, lean meats.

Reduce sugar, salt, and refined carbs to very low levels.

Exercise and be ACTIVE as much as possible. Paint your house, mow your grass, do gardening, etc., etc. Walk to the corner store instead of taking your car. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Many ways to work in activity. Just keep your body at a higher level throughout the day.

Oh, one other thing. I used to exercise about 6 days/week. Then I read an article by a terrific weight trainer ( I forget his name, sorry). He was very successful, and non-conformist. One of his themes was how people are OVER exercising, running their bodies ragged, and not giving their bodies enough time to recuperate. That was me! I was doing about 1 hour/day, 6 days/week. usually about 5 miles on the treadmill or 15-20 miles on the bike. So I decided to take his advice, and get nmuch more rest time between "workouts" (which is hard, because I like to be active). At the same time, I decided to increase the INTENSITY of my workouts. Well, all I can say is that for ME, it made a huge difference. My body was so used to being in minor pain, that I didn't even realize it anymore. All those minor aches and pains went away (knees, feet, back, etc.). I lost quite a bit of weight (combined with a reduced calorie, HEALTHY, balanced diet), gained some muscle (because of the increased intensity), and felt much better. Also, I enjoyed pushing myself more, because doing the old routine 6/7days become so boring. Bottom line: REST is very important, because when you are resting, your body is HEALING ITSELF, and it is through that healing process that it repairs itself and makes itself better! :)

In August of last year, I was at a critical juncture. My weight had ballooned to 245 (I'm 5'11") and I was totally incapable of meeting the Navy's fitness standards. In fact, I had only passed one semi-annual fitness assessment in the previous three years. I was almost denied the opportunity to extend in the service to meet my retirement date; it meant that 18+ years of service would have been wasted. I immediately began an extremely rigorous diet (<1000 calories/day) coupled with an exercise regimen three times a week. As the weight dropped, I was able to exercise more and increase my speed on the treadmill. I now weigh 177 lbs and can run two miles without stopping (at 7.2 MPH, it's an eight and a half minute mile). I no longer have to count calories religiously, but I have ditched the sugary sodas and the enormous portions for good.

Everybody is different, and what worked for me may not work for everyone. The caloric reduction was pretty drastic, and I would not recommend it for anyone who does not need to immediately lose a lot of weight.

Mike Furir Mike 825

Brittain33 wrote:

At night, she purrs in our ears and claws our sheets and our cheeks until we wake up and lock her in another room, where she rattles the doorknob, or we feed her.

Now that the weather is nice, we can put her out on the back porch at night. That's a stopgap. But I wish that my cat were "normal," she's been like this for ten years.

You stated the solution when you stated the problem. The key phrase is "...or we feed her."

You are intermittently reinforcing the yowling and doorknob rattling behavior by feeding her. That's the most effective way to make the behavior continue. In short, you have trained kitty to tell you when to feed her.

Do this: Feed specific amounts at specific regular times of day. Do not under any circumstances respond to yowling and other "feed me" complaints by feeding.

Here is what will happen: The yowling complaints will escalate, possibly for as much as a couple of weeks. Then they will stop. Cold. Kitty will learn to notice new cues that she is about to be fed, and will show up for meals.

Don't ever respond to the yowling again, or it will start all over.

I once trained an old stray cat to stop yowling for meals that way. It requires only a little patience, and lots of adamant refusal to break the regimen.

I first trained old stray cat to scratch behind an ear instead of yowling. That took 3 sessions of 10-20 minutes. Then I extinguished constant ear scratch begging by only feeding at specific time and place. Thereafter, old stray cat would show up at the appointed hour, scratch behind an ear, and get fed. I offer that detail only to point out how trainable cats really are, if you pay close attention to what they are doing, and what you are doing in response.

Funny how dieting aways works perfectly in animals. If your dog or cat is overweight, the vet tells you to cut down their food. If you do, then � like magic � they lose weight.

The problem with this common conception is that, while true, it isn't transferable to human beings. Sure, send someone to survivor island and they'll lose the weight. The question is, can you do this weight loss while holding a full time job? Going to school? Taking care of children? Who is going to be willing to reduce their ability to pass their classes or do their job for diet? Did any of these experiments require maze runs or other examinations of what dieting does to the animals other than weight loss? Not to mention, the dieting of animals has nothing to do with whether the animals -choose- to diet. What animal has willpower to diet? Perhaps there should be more "survivor" islands where your diet autonomy is completely taken away from you. That would be a better albeit unpleasant way to diet (ignoring whether it would be healthy).

Scott,

People lose weight while doing all of those things. C'mon, that's just silly to suggest they don't.

I wish people would focus ont he right thing. The problem isn't LOSING the weight - the problem is KEEPING it off!

What the school of thought in question suggests, is that because the vast majority of people cannot KEEP their weight off, that they shouldn't try. I think that's nonsense, but to each his/her own. Just because most people fail at something, doesn't mean it isn't worth trying.

I guess the best approach would be for people to be honest with themselves (as if). If you truly think that you will NOT be able to keep the weight off, then the data suggests it might be better if you don't even try. However, if you have the DESIRE and the DISCIPLINE to keep the weight off, then go for it.

Rare cases and genetics aside, the majority of people just don't have the willpower/desire to keep the weight off. Let's face it - it's damn hard to do. The easy thing is to sit in front of the TV, and stuff your face! It's much more enjoyable than exercising and denying one's desires.

What we all know is this: human beings are very good at staying on track for SHORT periods of time. When we get motivated, and really want something (i.e. lose x pounds), we can do it! But the longer the period of time in question, the more we seem to revert to the mean.

However, take a look at alcoholics or drug addicts. Most fall off the wagon. There's probably evidence that within 5 years the majority go back to their old habits. But then there are people like myself, who (as tough as it's been), made significant behavior changes for long periods of time. It's been TEN years since I had a drink. So even though I still want one, and I do "miss it" (less and less each year), I (and many others, of course) have been able to behave in a certain way for extended periods of time which goes against our "basic nature".

I just don't agree with the idea that beacuse a)most people fail, and b)failure might be harmful, that c)people shouldn't even try!

It's much more enjoyable than exercising and denying one's desires.

Not exactly, vigorous exercise causes enough (normal) tissue damage that the brain responds by doping itself -- the resultant chemical release reportedly triggers some of the same neurochemical receptors as THC (marijuana). It really is a good feeling, much better than lying on the couch with a bag of potato chips; the problem is that you have to get up, maybe go outside, and work for the reward, whereas the couch and pantry are right over there.

Everyone needs carbs, and the healthiest food group for you (i.e. VEGETABLES) are pure (complex) carbs.

Wrong on a couple of counts:
1. Everyone needs protein, and everyone needs fat. Carbohydrates are optional. Maybe you should eat them, but you don't have to.
2. Most vegetables (the "healthy" kind, anyway) are fairly low in carbohydrates. For example, a serving of broccoli will give you about six grams of carbohydrates net of fiber (half of which are simple sugars), and four grams of protein. This is why most low-carbohydrate diet books encourage vegetable consumption. Only root vegetables like potatoes and turnips contain significant amounts of starch.
2. That vegetables are the most healthful food group is not incontrovertible. Personally, I think they're a bit overrated.

Also, "refined" does not mean the same thing as "simple." White flour contains mostly complex carbohydrates, and fruit contains mostly simple carbohydrates.

Propa, meet Ganda.

Your bowel needs to WORK in order to stay healthy. If carbohydrates are "unnecessary," and the plant group is "overrated," where do you get your fiber? How about minerals and vitamins? You can get potassium and iron and a few others from various meats, but others are non-existent in meats, and you sure can't get fiber. The diet biased primarily toward protein and fat, which downplays both carboydrates AND vegetables, will eventually lead to malnutrition and a clogged, cancerous colon. Do you know what a colonoscopy bag is for?

People can subsist quite nicely, and healthfully, on a vegetarian diet provided they include an adequate protein source (various types of beans are good candidates, or for the non-vegan types, add dairy products also). The fact that it is possible to subsist by emphasizing other foodgroups does not make them essential, or the fruits/vegetables/carbohydrates inessential.

No matter what your body type (and dense bones in a woman are a damn good thing) or metabolism, this you can take to the bank: the laws of thermodynamics are inviolable. If you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. If you consume more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. Thermodynamics is your friend.

I'm 6'2, and I wish I weighed 180 lbs.

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