Wednesday, January 4, 2012

The Fat Trap

EDIT: Just a heads up, this article contains calorie amounts, weights, descriptions of diets/exercise regimes etc. that some people might find triggering. Feel free to skip it!

The original article is pretty long so if you don't feel like reading that, the interview with TPP is much shorter and covers the main ideas anyway. In the article, Tara Parker-Pope talks about how when people lose weight through dieting, their hormones/body compositions/metabolisms essentially reprogram themselves to promote weight regain. I guess it's basically the same idea as starvation mode in EDs, where the body slows everything way down to sustain itself. After losing weight, people get obsessed with food, food starts tasting better, cravings get more powerful, and hormones kick in to fight the loss. Basically, the bodies of obese people make losing weight and keeping it off Very Hard to do.

There are a few interviews with people who had lost large amounts of weight and are now maintaining their new lower weights, despite biology and genetics working against them. The way they described their lives, though...well, it sounded like my life. Counting calories, tallying every last bite, working out compulsively, calculating cal intakes and burns obsessively. TPP discusses this as a necessary lifestyle change, the way people with epilepsy or high blood pressure or diabetes might follow highly regimented diets in order to control their illnesses. Another article criticizes this approach taken by formerly obese people because their mentality "resembles the symptoms of an eating disorder."

Since I've never been obese, I honestly can't attest to whether or not this hyper-vigilant approach to eating and exercise is truly the only way to prevent regaining the weight. It sure sounds a lot like an eating disorder, but of course I'm not suggesting that obese people have to "turn anorexic" to lose the weight and keep it off. It is interesting though that obesity carries such a stigma that illnesses like diabetes, hypertension, etc. don't. Plus, the treatment for obesity (constant vigilance in eating and exercise) also seems to carry some stigma, like people are supposed to stay slim and trim without working at it or thinking about it.

This also made me think of my dad, who was allegedly a chubby kid and teenager (although I've seen pictures, and he never looked that big to me) before losing a bunch of weight in college. To this day, he is religious about working out and eating right, and has maintained a slim weight throughout his entire adult life. To me, it seems insane that he would have to be so careful about how much he eats and exercises just to maintain his healthy weight, but maybe he does? My dad was never obese, so I'm not sure how much this applies to the ideas in the NYT article. Plus, he could probably gain a relatively significant amount of weight and still be healthy.

I'm also wondering if it works in reverse, like if a formerly underweight person has to eat more and exercise less to maintain a higher weight than someone who has always maintained that higher weight naturally. But now I'm just thinking through my keyboard, so I'll stop.

7 comments:

  1. I actually just read that article yesterday and found it pretty fascinating and actually more than a little triggering, but that's probably more me than anything else. I had the same impression as you: the obsessive weight maintainers basically reflected my day-to-day life with an ED.

    My metabolism has been all over the board at different times, with repeated relapse/recovery rounds, and I've wondered, as you brought up, how 12 years of ED has affected whatever my "natural" set point originally was. I would pay a ton of money for a magic ball that would tell me what my current weight would be if I had never had an ED; the concept of a "free weight" for myself fascinates me. There have been times when I've doubled calories or halved exercise with no weight change, and other times when my weight has gone up or down for no apparent reason (which drives my inner control freak up the wall). I do think that the "inexplicable" weight changes, though, are in line with the point of that article: my body likes to push me towards a weight that it favors more, whether I like it or not. Pretty frustrating at times, even though for me that point it pushes towards is in no way objective way a high weight. So I can't imagine what it would be like to be one of the people in the article who seem to have gotten the short end of the stick gene-wise.

    I think a big part of my exercise addiction began as asort of panic-driven attempt to keep my metabolism from flatlining when I was restricting, despite the fact that over-exercising is read as a purge by your body and can depress your metabolism overall...if it were all logical then none of us would be here in the ED blogosphere, right?

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    1. I would give an arm and a leg for a magic machine that would tell me 1) what my real ideal body weight is 2) how many calories I need to get/stay there 3) how many I've actually eaten (although I guess if I've given up two limbs, those results might be skewed...)

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  3. Sorry for removing my post... I posted more information about my experience with metabolism than 1) I felt comfortable giving and 2) was probably helpful. Bottom line is that, yes, there is quite a bit of evidence out there that demonstrates that many formerly underweight people need more calories than "normal" to maintain healthy weights. This higher caloric need can last for several months past weight restoration to several years. there have not been longitudinal studies done to see if the increase caloric needs lasts a lifetime. Nor everyone who was once underweight will experience this, but many do. In my case, about a year post weight restoration, my metabolism increased again and I now require even more calories to maintain. It's hard to trust our bodies, but they are very smart and worthy of our trust.

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    1. No problem, metabolisms are funny and seem to vary so much from person to person. I wish I could get over the need to know exactly what's happening with my metabo, and just go with it!

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  4. Very interesting and I remember seeing a similar article and wondering the exact same things as you. I don't want anyone to have to live an eating disorder lifestyle, and personally even if it's the only way to stay slim I'm not sure that it's worth it, but I suppose it depends on the person's health risks etc. I too am thinking through my keyboard!

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    1. Lucy - I'm also not sure it's worth it, but then again that's pretty hypocritical of me! It's hard to understand that if someone doesn't actually have an eating disorder, why would they choose to live as if they do?

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