What would happen if we pursued health over weight?

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  • Acg67
    Acg67 Posts: 12,142 Member
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    Excess fat storage IS a health issue completely. Excess weight and health are not separate issues! A healthy body will NOT store excessive extra fat. It won't. A healthy body will eventually rid itself of excessive fat. Unfortunately, correcting health issues related to hormones and metabolism may be impossible if people are completely following conventional weight loss advice and, even if they are well informed and doing everything right, it can still take a very, very long time for all the excess fat to finally be shed. One will be very healthy even before all the fat is gone, but impatience may lead to strategies that once again impede the body's natural process of establishing a lower set-point weight.

    The ONLY real way to remedy excess fat storage (ie excess weight) is to address health issues and remain committed to a new healthy, permanent lifestyle that promotes ideal health. And then, we need to learn to be incredibly PATIENT with the process.

    For me, I lost the first 70 pounds pretty quickly and effortlessly, but the last 20 pounds, not so much. Trying to force the issue, speed things up, has only backfired immensely. I've had over 6 months of frustration and my body rebelling before I finally got the message. Now is the time to just focus on my health, quality of food (not quantity), exercise, and leave the excess fat to be resolved by my body without my meddling in the process. My body knows better than all the weight loss strategies that I think I know.

    Any actual evidence for your statements or just making things up?

    And so if you eat "healthy" foods, however you may define that, you can eat them in unlimited quantities and you will gain no excess fat? Mmmmhmmm


    I almost never comment in the general forums anymore (mostly due to you- give yourself a big pat on the back), but the few times that I still do, you are right there to ridicule my personal experiences and every single thing I say. Online bullying? Harrassment? It's getting very old, and my other MFP friends have noticed what you do as well.

    LOL. Let's see you and your friends follow the same pattern as well. Make supremely ignorant and outrageous claim, someone calls said poster on outrageous claim, original claim maker never ever substantiates said claim or attacks the person that asked for the original claim maker to substantiate said claim. And oh look it played out exactly that way here again. Is that bullying? Perhaps stop making things up and you wouldn't be asked to substantiate ridiculous statements.

    But since you think i belittled your personal experience please go on, on how you determined that a "A healthy body will NOT store excessive extra fat. It won't" Dying to know how you set up such a trial to make such an outrageous claim.
  • usmcmp
    usmcmp Posts: 21,220 Member
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    Excess fat storage IS a health issue completely. Excess weight and health are not separate issues! A healthy body will NOT store excessive extra fat. It won't. A healthy body will eventually rid itself of excessive fat. Unfortunately, correcting health issues related to hormones and metabolism may be impossible if people are completely following conventional weight loss advice and, even if they are well informed and doing everything right, it can still take a very, very long time for all the excess fat to finally be shed. One will be very healthy even before all the fat is gone, but impatience may lead to strategies that once again impede the body's natural process of establishing a lower set-point weight.

    The ONLY real way to remedy excess fat storage (ie excess weight) is to address health issues and remain committed to a new healthy, permanent lifestyle that promotes ideal health. And then, we need to learn to be incredibly PATIENT with the process.

    For me, I lost the first 70 pounds pretty quickly and effortlessly, but the last 20 pounds, not so much. Trying to force the issue, speed things up, has only backfired immensely. I've had over 6 months of frustration and my body rebelling before I finally got the message. Now is the time to just focus on my health, quality of food (not quantity), exercise, and leave the excess fat to be resolved by my body without my meddling in the process. My body knows better than all the weight loss strategies that I think I know.

    Any actual evidence for your statements or just making things up?

    And so if you eat "healthy" foods, however you may define that, you can eat them in unlimited quantities and you will gain no excess fat? Mmmmhmmm


    I almost never comment in the general forums anymore (mostly due to you- give yourself a big pat on the back), but the few times that I still do, you are right there to ridicule my personal experiences and every single thing I say. Online bullying? Harrassment? It's getting very old, and my other MFP friends have noticed what you do as well.

    So that's a no? I would like to see the science behind your claim as well. My personal experiences say you are wrong, but n=1 for each of our experience is not proof. Please provide me a link to a study that supports the claim that a healthy body will not store extra fat in a calorie surplus.
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
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    it's not an either-or situation

    too much body fat is bad for health

    focusing *only* on body fat at the expense of all other health markers, is no better, and may actually be worse if it leads to dieting in ways that are potentially harmful

    People need to stop dichotomising everything and start looking at the big picture, i.e. taking in all health markers, including body fat percentage as well as all the others, and getting an overall picture of health from all of them, and where one factor is not so good as the others, working on improving that particular factor. It's not "fat n fit" versus "not fat but not fit" - it's a whole range of different factors working together and people should be aiming to improve all their health markers (or keep them in the healthy ranges).
  • neandermagnon
    neandermagnon Posts: 7,436 Member
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    Excess fat storage IS a health issue completely. Excess weight and health are not separate issues! A healthy body will NOT store excessive extra fat. It won't.

    If a healthy human body didn't store extra body fat, then all the homo erectuses would have died during the first food shortage and we'd never have evolved.

    healthy bodies store fat because it's a long term energy storage that enables the body to survive famines. In our modern world of excessive food with no need to exert ourselves to get food, bodies end up storing too much fat, and that excessive amount of fat then is harmful to health. We didn't evolve any mechanism to deal with this, because our ancestors were all hunter-gatherers who had to exert themselves (often strenuously) to get food, and had to deal with times when food was less plentiful, so they didn't become obese. That's why healthy bodies just go on storing more and more fat if people eat more than they burn off, to the point that it actually damages the health. Obesity is a modern problem caused by a combination of eating too much and being inactive. It's fixed by eating less than you burn off, and eating less than you burn off is a lot easier if you are active, and exercise has many health benefits because humans did not evolve to be sedentary... we evolved to be able to do the strenuous exercise we needed to do to be able to survive as hunter-gatherers.
  • wheird
    wheird Posts: 7,963 Member
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    TIL that fat storage is not a function of a healthy body.
  • ScatterBrainedSpirit
    ScatterBrainedSpirit Posts: 75 Member
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    I am pursuing health. If weight loss happens as a result, great. But honestly, it's not my ultimate goal. I just want to make sure I putting things in my body that are good for me so that I will continue to be around for my children. :)
  • BinaryPulsar
    BinaryPulsar Posts: 8,927 Member
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    Health has always been my main focus because I didn't have a weight problem and didn't need or want to lose. And I have always had health and not been overweight. But, I think noticing slight fat gain and then working to lose and prevent it is one of the factors that has helped my good health. So, I agree that health should be the priority, but appearance can be one of the things that keeps us healthy. It also feels good. And there are also performance goals and benefits. It's all important and has multiple benefits. You get there in the ways and goals that work for you.
  • Meerataila
    Meerataila Posts: 1,885 Member
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    Depending on how serious people were about it, I suspect the snackfood and fastfood industries would take a huge hit. Not that I would care. Maybe people would even demand more access to safer, healthier food at more reasonable prices and an end to subsidies that make high calorie, low nutrient foods so cheap.
  • catb58
    catb58 Posts: 239 Member
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    Excess fat storage IS a health issue completely. Excess weight and health are not separate issues! A healthy body will NOT store excessive extra fat. It won't. A healthy body will eventually rid itself of excessive fat. Unfortunately, correcting health issues related to hormones and metabolism may be impossible if people are completely following conventional weight loss advice and, even if they are well informed and doing everything right, it can still take a very, very long time for all the excess fat to finally be shed. One will be very healthy even before all the fat is gone, but impatience may lead to strategies that once again impede the body's natural process of establishing a lower set-point weight.

    The ONLY real way to remedy excess fat storage (ie excess weight) is to address health issues and remain committed to a new healthy, permanent lifestyle that promotes ideal health. And then, we need to learn to be incredibly PATIENT with the process.

    For me, I lost the first 70 pounds pretty quickly and effortlessly, but the last 20 pounds, not so much. Trying to force the issue, speed things up, has only backfired immensely. I've had over 6 months of frustration and my body rebelling before I finally got the message. Now is the time to just focus on my health, quality of food (not quantity), exercise, and leave the excess fat to be resolved by my body without my meddling in the process. My body knows better than all the weight loss strategies that I think I know.

    Any actual evidence for your statements or just making things up?

    And so if you eat "healthy" foods, however you may define that, you can eat them in unlimited quantities and you will gain no excess fat? Mmmmhmmm


    I almost never comment in the general forums anymore (mostly due to you- give yourself a big pat on the back), but the few times that I still do, you are right there to ridicule my personal experiences and every single thing I say. Online bullying? Harrassment? It's getting very old, and my other MFP friends have noticed what you do as well.
    [/quote


    Actually, these are very good questions and I wondered the same thing.

    Where are you getting your facts? What is your source?
  • saraharnoldnelson
    saraharnoldnelson Posts: 26 Member
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    I agree with the basic principle that the primary goal should be health. The only problem with this is that goals are supposed to be: Specific and Measurable. While there are some ways in which to measure improved health, weight loss is very specific and measurable.

    On my goal list, improved health is #1. Weight loss is #5. Guess which I keep the closest tabs on?

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