My Ideal

I weigh 180 pounds. I'm five feet, eleven inches tall.ⁱ All the listings of ideal weight tell me that I'm overweight. At least I weigh more than is ideal. I know. I checked.ⁱⁱ The closest I could get (and it's top of the scale) is a little over 179 pounds, but that seems to be a minority opinion. Still, I feel fine.ⁱⁱⁱ

I don't know what triggered this revelation – this insight into my body mass. I always thought I was ideal but now I've been disabused of that illusion. Not that there aren't ways to deal with the problem. Like (ugh) dieting.

Instead I decided to convert.

No, not that way. My weight. It's 81.82 kilograms or 12.86 stones.^iv But it's still 180 pounds, and it's still more than ideal.

Wait. What does it all mean? With all the disagreement about what mine should be, I wonder if there is such a thing as “ideal” weight. And how is it determined. Even if there is such a thing, though, is it important?

According to The Fiscal Times of June 19, 2014

Until now, Americans have been losing the battle of the bulge. 

More than a third of all adults and 17 percent of young people are obese, according to the experts, and many of them have been consigned to troubled lives with obesity-related health problems such as type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke, hypertension, arthritis and even cancer. Without major government and private intervention and a sea change in many Americans’ unhealthy eating habits, the adult obesity rate could reach 50 percent by 2030, according to one study.

The cost to society in terms of damaged lives, soaring health care costs and diminished economic growth and productivity is staggering.

A new analysis prepared for The Fiscal Times by Scott Kahan, director of the National Center for Weight & Wellness at George Washington University, pegs the total cost of obesity – including direct medical and non-medical services, decreased worker productivity, disability and premature death – at $305.1 billion annually.^v

Other studies, including one I heard about yesterday that cited JAMA, put the numbers of overweight and obese at 65 to 75% of our population. In addition to the loss of productivity and death, the costs may be secondary to the medical costs of the obesity and resulting diseases,^vi the direct costs,^vii and the costs of various therapies (both established and those that are promoted by get rich quick artists)^viii and their results.^ix There are costs as well to vendors^x whose products may be banned or restricted by government edicts, or when relabeling is required.^xi

I shouldn't overlook the psychological basis of some obesity, but I leave it to the psychiatrists to expand on that.

That's not the whole story, though. “Up to 30 million people of all ages and genders suffer from an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorder) in the U.S.”^xii And “[a]ccording to a study done by colleagues at the American Journal of Psychiatry (2009), crude mortality rates were: 4% for anorexia nervosa, 3.9%  for bulimia nervosa, 5.2% for eating disorder not otherwise specified.”^xiii

As with obesity, the reasons for (and results of) under-eating may be medical or psychological^xiv – or perhaps even the psychological is medical. It can certainly result in medical problems. But it is very good for the fashion industry.^xv Some of the thinness that is apparent, and perhaps admired, is the result of chronic disease. Cachexia secondary to cancer is something not to be envied.

It's a little confusing. I know that I shouldn't weigh too much, but I'd better not obsess over it if I know what's good for me, and nothing related to weight seems to be good for me.

So the only logical conclusion is that I should go on some kind of a diet. Or maybe not. And that's exactly what I'll do.

Tomorrow.

Next episode: “Identity Unknown” – I am what I am. Unless I'm not.

 

 

I        And a quarter of an inch (but who's measuring?). They take age and sex into consideration as well so let me inform you that I'm 76 and was male the last time I looked.

ii          Based on the Robinson formula (1983), your ideal weight is 160.7 lbs
Based on the Miller formula (1983), your ideal weight is 158.1 lbs
Based on the Devine formula (1974), your ideal weight is 166.0 lbs
Based on the Hamwi formula (1964), your ideal weight is 171.3 lbs
Based on the healthy BMI recommendation, your recommended weight is 132.6 lbs -   179.2 lbs

         The numbers are based on various formulae.

iii       Actually, I'm hungry.

iv       I even tried Celsius. It's 82.22.

v        It's important to remember that there are psychological costs as well. In fact, some of what is viewed as “obesity” is imagined. It may be treated also. Add that to the price tag.

vi       Diabetes, heart disease, some cancers, etc.

vii      More food, larger (more expensive) clothes, increased insurance costs.

viii     I leave it to you to decide what's established and what results from the efforts of get rich quick artists, but they include surgery, medicines, diets, supplements, diet books and programs, prepared diet meals delivered to your home, etc.

ix       If you actually manage to lose weight you'll need new clothes or alterations in the ones you have.

x        And negative effects on citizens' rights.

xi       For example soda, as well as sugar, fats, salt, and the products that include them.

xii      Wade, T. D., Keski-Rahkonen A., & Hudson J. Epidemiology of eating disorders. In M. Tsuang and M. Tohen (Eds.), Textbook in Psychiatric Epidemiology (3rd ed.). New York: Wiley, 2011. p. 343-360.

xiii     Crow, S.J., Peterson, C.B., Swanson, S.A., Raymond, N.C., Specker, S., Eckert, E.D., Mitchell, J.E. (2009) Increased mortality in bulimia nervosa and other eating disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry 166, 1342-1346.

xiv     Or even economic. Poverty, especially in the Third World, is a major cause of starvation.

xv     From the pictures of models that I see, especially their expressionless countenances, I suspect that the drug industry is a large contributor to the phenomenon.

Food For Thought

                                                                         

Most diets work. Most dieting doesn't. Because most dieters can't stick to what they're doing. For example, a while backⁱ I suggested an important advance in the field of dieting: “Lessay Fare: Sir Oracle's Five-Percent No-Exercise Guaranteed Twelve-Step Weight-Loss Diet.” There's no way that you wouldn't lose weight if you stuck to it, but no one did.

So no one did.

And that's the problem with dieting. People don't stick to their diets. I gave them a guaranteed diet that didn't even require exercise, and no one lost weight. I have to admit that much of the fault was my own – it wasn't in a book, and it wasn't widely publicized, so people weren't aware of it. I'm sure that it would have raised a stir if more people knew about it. With a title like that it couldn't miss having a big impact. Not that anyone would have lost weight, but I'd have made a fortune. Why would people use my diet anyway. The only motivation that I offered was that overweight was a serious problem. And I told them that no spirituality was necessary. Not very inspiring. Reading over it I can see why I didn't get rich. Some of what it said is worth repeating, but there are several points on which I have to reverse myself, not because they're wrongⁱⁱ but because they didn't achieve the desired result.ⁱⁱⁱ So what follows is a different plan to lose weight, only the approach will be different. No one has failed to lose following this advice.^iv

The two basic principles governing the construction of my new diet are

1. The dieter has to be motivated, and
2. The dieter can't be bored.

If there's one thing that motivates people, it's money.^v Make a financial commitment to your diet, buy in, and you're hooked. And the simple way to use this reality is by making the dieting process expensive. Another motivation is the simple truth that most of us are lazy. And the ones most in need of a diet are the laziest. Their dieting will be helped most by using this characteristic. Let the couch-potatoes sit. In fact, insist that they do so.^vi You'll tell them where. It's easy to convince people that there is a free lunch^vii and you have just the recipe(s) for it. And as far as recipes go, the ideas you'll reveal to them are vital to their good health and to feeling good about themselves. It's expensive but they're worth it. (A free or inexpensive program is, in the long run, a disincentive. “How good can it be if it's so cheap?” After all, you get what you pay for.^viii) And don't forget how important it is to brag about your project.

One more motivator is success. It's easy to achieve, and I'll tell you how. Soon.

As for the second principle, it's boredom^ix that sinks most diets. I noted earlier, most diets work. Early on, perhaps during the first week, it's common to see the dieter shedding pounds.^x It doesn't matter if it's a low-carb diet, or high-fat, or low calorie, or high-carb, or liquid diet, or whatever. But it soon begins to pall. And sooner or later the initial enthusiasm wears off. So the weight comes back on.

Bearing all these points in mind, however, you can construct a program that will initiate a major loss of weight – or sour you on the whole idea for life. Either way you're a winner. So here's what you do:

1. Prepare the environment.

a.  Designate a dieting room. The room should have a very comfortable couch, preferably one that's difficult to stand up from. There should also be a very wide-screen television set connected to a service that provides at least five-hundred channels none of which is a food-channel. Install a small refrigerator. Fill it with lots of water to take your appetite away.

b.   Put up “NO FOOD” signs. No eating or drinking (except water and zero calorie drinks) is permitted in that room. It should be as far as possible from the kitchen but close to a bathroom. Going to the kitchen from that room, or for thirty minutes thereafter, should be prohibited.

c.   Install an exercise machine. That machine should be expensive and should exhaust the user. Nonetheless, despite the fact that the user will be very hungry after a half-hour of exercise, no food or drink should be permitted for the next thirty minutes.^xi

d.   Designate an eating area such as the dining room. Make sure all of the chairs in it are narrow and uncomfortable.

e. Give the entire contents of the refrigerator and food cabinets to a soup kitchen.

2. Further preparations.
 

a.    Purchase eight diet books.^xii Each will have the best plan, recommend the best foods, and specify why it is better than all the others. Also join one weight-loss program or another. It doesn't matter which, as long as it's expensive and provides you with a buddy who'll suffer with you and keep you busy talking over watercress and rice crackers when you'd prefer to be eating real food.

b.  Buy all of the foods recommended by each diet book and restock your refrigerator and larder^xiii food cabinet. Buy foods of the highest quality at the highest prices. To determine this, comparison shop in several stores until you're sure you've paid the highest prices. Be sure to include large supplies of expensive bottled water.^xiv

c. Keep plenty of salad (no dressing) in the refrigerator at all times. Eat lots of it and drink plenty of water every time you feel hungry. If that doesn't make you sick of eating, nothing will. But remember: “No pain, gain.”

 

d. Post on your refrigerator and food cabinet pictures of yourself at your fattest.ⁱ

e. Dispose of all clothes larger than you are and buy new and expensive ones. And each time you get to be a size smaller, give away all those that are now too large for you as you get new and expensive ones.

 

By now you've an idea of what I'm suggesting.  The goal is to waste money. Spend as much as you can – especially on the discomfort foods (preferably ones that make you throw up) – before getting to anything you really want to eat. Once you've spent all that money and replaced your clothes, you'll be motivated to keep your diet rather than admit you wasted your money. Everyone knows about your diet. Failure will be a major embarrassment.^xvi It's true the bottom line for your expenses will expand, but your bottom, itself, may contract. And change diet books once a week to avoid boredom. Most diets work the first week, so if you rotate them it will always be the first week (of whatever diet you happen to be on at the time). It would probably be prudent to take a vitamin pill daily to compensate for the fact that your new diet will be anything but balanced, but it will be different.

Next episode:  "'Reality' And Belief" – On creative thinking.

i       November 7, 2010.

ii     I'm never wrong, even when I disagree with myself.

iii    Especially my request to send me money. No one did.

iv    Remember, however, “Past performance is no indication of future results.” (I don't want to get in trouble with unsuccessful dieters.)

v      Or, as Governor Bill Clinton put it (in the words of James Carville), “It's the economy, stupid.”

vi    And you have just the seat for them. First you convince them that they must exercise and you know just the way they should do it – with an expensive exerciser like a exercise bicycle. They'll quit soon enough. But we'll come to that presently.

vii    Even though by the time you're done with them they won't be able to afford it.

viii   I hope you don't really believe that.

ix     By the way, “boredom” and “bedroom” are anagrams. This diet does not require you, however, to get the two confused.

x      Or kilograms. It's unrealistic to expect the loss of stones during the first week. (Even Lorena Bobbitt didn't go that far.)

xi      Don't worry though. It won't be long before you lose all taste for exercise.

xii    Full disclosure. I get no kickback from all the books sold. But if you want to send me money (perhaps a dollar for each pound lost) I'll make good use of it. Crumpled, unmarked bills. The UCDC hasn't been established yet. (You'll know what that means if you've read previous blogs.)

xiii   Lard's out. Fattening.

xiv    It's no better for you than tap water (and may, in fact be worse) and the plastic bottles will certainly be bad for the environment, but the fiscal disbursement will contribute to the conviction that the diet is a serious one.

xv    Pregnancy not included.

xvi   How's that for motivation?

Fats, Fads, and Futility

                                                                                              

There's nothing more important than your health.ⁱ Trite, but true. Another strong component of most people's thinking is belief. We all believe in something, even if it's the idea that we can't trust Congress. For most the issue of belief relates to religious teachings; for others it's the belief that all religion is fraud. (Even atheism is a religion – a belief system.) But people have belief, and if you put health and belief together and you have a powerful force – one that controls most of us.

Unfortunately, much of what we believe has little support. For example, two of my favorite foods – fat and salt – are widely believed to be detrimental to our health. I never let that stop me, however. As it says in Genesis 45:18, “Ye shall eat the fat of the land.” I certainly wouldn't want to argue with the Bible. If it says that fat is good, who am I to dispute it?ⁱⁱ I see no benefit to following the contrary teachings.ⁱⁱⁱ

But wait. The warnings are what you read in the newspapers, so you know they're true. However you read the opposite as well. A recent article in the New York Times^iv raised questions about our view of the harmful effects of salt.^v The article pointed to “a slew of studies suggesting that reducing [emphasis added] sodium to anything like what government policy refers to as a 'safe upper limit' is likely to do more harm than good.” Such studies were widely ignored however. They didn't correspond to the dogma of the times. The author of the newspaper article also stated that “(t)his attitude that studies that go against prevailing beliefs should be ignored on the basis that, well, they go against prevailing beliefs, has been the norm for the anti-salt campaign for decades. Maybe now the prevailing beliefs should be changed.”

And the harmful effects of fat, about which we're warned all the time, my be less well established than what the enemies of fat say . Another New York Times article,^vi by John Tierney, wrote, “The notion that fatty foods shorten your life began as a hypothesis based on dubious assumptions and data; when scientists tried to confirm it they failed repeatedly.” He attributed the view to a “cascade” effect in which a theory was presented which sounded plausible and subsequent experts deferred to that theory even if they couldn't confirm it. It sounded like the right thing, and most people – even scientists – aren't eager to dispute what seems true. Especially if it agrees with what they already believed.^vii

In both of the case cited above there is the disagreement among experts, but the message to the public doesn't suggest this. Salt and fat are bad. So we're told by doctors, nutritionists, newspapers, and all the other experts. Science is sloppy. It doesn't matter if the popular perception is true or if it isn't. Once an obviously correct idea captures the imagination, it is hard to dislodge it. If the media proclaim it to be true, it's true. After all, there's a scientific study which comes to this conclusion. Or, at least, a scientist. The authors of papers may have to reveal funding sources and their scientific affiliations, but there is no requirement that they disclose their political views and their pre-existing notions.

But there are also reports based on outright deceit. A single study,^viii with what has been described as “falsification” and “fraud,” led to the widespread belief that immunizations cause autism. And that view has persisted in the public mind, although scientifically disproved. As has the persistent belief that breast implants cause autoimmune disease.^ix Popular perceptions, like the ideas that megavitamins, anti-oxidants, foods said to strengthen the immune system, natural, and organic foods are good for you and genetically-altered and irradiated foods are bad, don't require proof.^x Everyone knows that electric power lines cause cancer. Why do some reject such an obvious truth? Such ideas are intuitive and, therefore, correct. Never trust a scientist or doctor.^xi Trust your intuition. Trust your gut.

But the biggest source of misinformation,^xii and a popular preoccupation of the public, can be found in the plethora of diets and the books that promote them. The simple version of weight is that the more calories you ingest, the more you'll weigh; the fewer, the less. Weight is a matter of calories.^xiii But people want magic – something that will allow them to eat what they want while shedding pounds. So there are diets that cater to every taste: diets that permit carbohydrates while limiting fat, diets that emphasize protein, high fat diets, low fat diets, low glycemic-index diets, diets that are accompanied by exercise, and those without, some supplemented by vitamins, some not, and variations of all of these. Diet books are published at almost the same rate as cookbooks. With most diets there is an initial loss of weight which sparks the enthusiasm of the followers of the plan, and their spreading the gospel of the new regimen. But later on the lost weight is usually regained – and sometimes more weight is added than was lost initially. The early results may originate in diuretic and laxative effects, as well as the enthusiasm and willingness to sacrifice of the dieter. All of these effects disappear and pall later on. So, ultimately, the diets fail.

People want THE ANSWERS to all their health problems, and they don't want to wait. They look for magic and “feel good” solutions to those problems. Belief is substituted for scientific study. And it's a strong force. So strong that convincing a believer that he's on the wrong track is almost impossible. Facts are irrelevant when compared to “obvious” and “logical” answers. But those answers are ones that the people who control our society don't want you to know. You can't trust authority.

So like other fads, most diets are doomed to failure. If any one worked there would be no need for alternatives, and no market for them. Rather, there are so many that it seems clear that none of them is worth its salt. In fact, the salt is probably more worthwhile.

As Craig Claiborne said, “Man is born to eat.” And, in the inspiring words of Orson Welles:

Ask not what you can do for your country,

ask what's for lunch.

Next episode: “7” – Other.

i        For some, politics is a strong force but many people wisely ignore it.

ii      And most of the sacrifices had salt added. Can I criticize the the desires of the One to Whom the sacrifices were made?

iii    John Mortimer's observation also has merit: “I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.”

iv     And, consequently, fit to print whether true or not.

v     “Salt, We Misjudged You” by Gary Taubes, described as an independent investigator in Health Policy Research for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The article appeared June 2, 2012.

vi    “Diet and Fat: A Severe Case of Mistaken Consensus,” NYT, October 9, 2007.

vii   When it comes to the question of “global warming,” many attribute the statements of various scientists to political beliefs rather than scientific facts.

viii   By Andrew Wakefield.

ix     Indeed, although scientifically unsupportable, it has cost some manufacturers large sums and driven some of them out of business.

x     In fact any dispute of these views probably reflects scientific bias or conclusions driven by the deep pockets of those who gain by the controversy. It took a long time for the public to accept the fact that Laetrile was not only useless but it kept patients from getting valuable help in a timely manner.

xi     Actually that's an excellent idea if observed in evaluation of single studies, like the ones in newspapers – usually on the front page. But those are the ones that the public believes. Most scientists won't accept such studies until they've been duplicated and verified, however the failure of a study that was highly touted is not nearly as interesting, and will only be printed in an inconspicuous place on an inside page, if it appears at all.

xii    And a major source of revenue for authors and publishers.

xiii  The concept of calories was first introduced by Clément in 1842, and it referred to heat production. Later in the nineteenth century the relation to food was noted.