I don't get it

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It is starting to dawn on me that the human body is designed all wrong. The idea of fat is to store energy for the body right ? When we need energy we should be able to burn off that fat but instead we just feel hungry. So we eat more and our levels of fat storage increase. Something tells me this process of burning off fat before filling ourselves up is somehow broken. What is happening ? :-)
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Replies

  • 999tigger
    999tigger Posts: 5,235 Member
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    It looks for the easiest source of food to convert. You carry on with your deep thinking.
  • jlahorn
    jlahorn Posts: 377 Member
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    That's because the body wasn't designed; it evolved. The diet problems you're describing weren't selected out of the population (and won't be) because they don't kill off individuals before they're able to reproduce. Any mutations that occur that would potentially change the way our bodies behave in that way don't really have much of an evolutionary advantage.
  • HeySwoleSister
    HeySwoleSister Posts: 1,938 Member
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    It's only "wrong" in a society with modern economic bounty. Availablility of calorie-dense food is not a constant thing in nature. Think about how other mammals fatten themselves up in the autumn, creating massive fat stores to survive during winter, when any nourishment at all is hard to come by.

    Biological imperative is to create fat stores while the eating is good. Evolution has not caught up to refrigeration, central heat, and drive throughs. That's all.
  • LAWoman72
    LAWoman72 Posts: 2,846 Member
    edited March 2015
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    The human body works beautifully. :) IMO. I agree that it only seems "wrong" in an overabundance of calorie-concentrated foods. We don't have to run all around the place for the better part of a day to find food, and then have that food be, basically, protein or unprocessed plants and the occasional lucky in-season tuber find.
  • amitkatz0
    amitkatz0 Posts: 61 Member
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    Your body is actually beautifully designed/evolved/whatever for survival. It will hang to every oz of fat it can, and lower your lean mass to the absolute minimum required for you to function. It's amazingly efficient, the problem is that our lifestyle over the past 2000 years changed incredibly fast, it would take evolution eons to deal with that kind of bounty of food and lack of predation (that is assuming we can continue on this path for that long, which is not at all guaranteed.)
  • gpstreet
    gpstreet Posts: 184 Member
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    All very good points. I just wish there was a way to tell the body to burn off the fat stores before burning what is in the belly.
  • amitkatz0
    amitkatz0 Posts: 61 Member
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    Imagine you have a couple of bags of dry rice in the cupboards, and a bowl of cooked rice sitting on the counter. Which one are you going to eat?

    You can't tell the body to ignore the cooked rice, the only way to get rid of the stored food (i.e. the fat) is to deny the body a small amount of readily available energy so it will have the "motivation" to go and get the water boiling, so to speak!
  • gpstreet
    gpstreet Posts: 184 Member
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    amitkatz0 wrote: »
    Imagine you have a couple of bags of dry rice in the cupboards, and a bowl of cooked rice sitting on the counter. Which one are you going to eat?

    You can't tell the body to ignore the cooked rice, the only way to get rid of the stored food (i.e. the fat) is to deny the body a small amount of readily available energy so it will have the "motivation" to go and get the water boiling, so to speak!

    A very good analogy. Makes me wonder why I made all that rice. Did I make it from the dry rice in the cupboard or is it one of those pop in the microwaves types ?
  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,627 Member
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    gpstreet wrote: »
    amitkatz0 wrote: »
    Imagine you have a couple of bags of dry rice in the cupboards, and a bowl of cooked rice sitting on the counter. Which one are you going to eat?

    You can't tell the body to ignore the cooked rice, the only way to get rid of the stored food (i.e. the fat) is to deny the body a small amount of readily available energy so it will have the "motivation" to go and get the water boiling, so to speak!

    A very good analogy. Makes me wonder why I made all that rice. Did I make it from the dry rice in the cupboard or is it one of those pop in the microwaves types ?

    my husband is japanese. i am pretty sure he would have a heart attack if i brought microwaveable rice in the house.

    however, a 50 pound bag of rice happens once or twice a year. And i haul that MF'er in myself! LOLOL
  • gpstreet
    gpstreet Posts: 184 Member
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    however, a 50 pound bag of rice happens once or twice a year. And i haul that MF'er in myself! LOLOL
    In a similar way to your rice sack exercise, I work on an allotment which means lots of work digging up potatoes.
  • HeySwoleSister
    HeySwoleSister Posts: 1,938 Member
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    gpstreet wrote: »
    amitkatz0 wrote: »
    Imagine you have a couple of bags of dry rice in the cupboards, and a bowl of cooked rice sitting on the counter. Which one are you going to eat?

    You can't tell the body to ignore the cooked rice, the only way to get rid of the stored food (i.e. the fat) is to deny the body a small amount of readily available energy so it will have the "motivation" to go and get the water boiling, so to speak!

    A very good analogy. Makes me wonder why I made all that rice. Did I make it from the dry rice in the cupboard or is it one of those pop in the microwaves types ?

    my husband is japanese. i am pretty sure he would have a heart attack if i brought microwaveable rice in the house.

    however, a 50 pound bag of rice happens once or twice a year. And i haul that MF'er in myself! LOLOL

    How do you store your rice? Every time I buy my grains in bulk I get those awful pantry moths.
  • Laurend224
    Laurend224 Posts: 1,748 Member
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    EWJLang wrote: »
    gpstreet wrote: »
    amitkatz0 wrote: »
    Imagine you have a couple of bags of dry rice in the cupboards, and a bowl of cooked rice sitting on the counter. Which one are you going to eat?

    You can't tell the body to ignore the cooked rice, the only way to get rid of the stored food (i.e. the fat) is to deny the body a small amount of readily available energy so it will have the "motivation" to go and get the water boiling, so to speak!

    A very good analogy. Makes me wonder why I made all that rice. Did I make it from the dry rice in the cupboard or is it one of those pop in the microwaves types ?

    my husband is japanese. i am pretty sure he would have a heart attack if i brought microwaveable rice in the house.

    however, a 50 pound bag of rice happens once or twice a year. And i haul that MF'er in myself! LOLOL

    How do you store your rice? Every time I buy my grains in bulk I get those awful pantry moths.

    Mylar bags and 5 gallon food grade buckets. At least, that's how we roll. ;) I'm not unfamiliar with 50 lb bags of rice. =)
  • overin2015
    overin2015 Posts: 94 Member
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    My two cents and this isn't about rice but I LOVED that analogy. :) Even with my weight struggles I really still believe the body was/is designed perfectly but character and the development of that is just as important to true health. Moderation is the key to having a body that would have the right balance of things to burn for fuel. No big bellies! The struggle with learning to do that in moderation in a world where we are SURROUNDED by food is where the amazing strength in character gets built. I am trying to look at my struggle as building solid game-changing strength inside as well as showing what is pleasing on the outside. Work in progress.
  • SergeantSausage
    SergeantSausage Posts: 1,673 Member
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    "designed"

    lol
  • palwithme
    palwithme Posts: 860 Member
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    999tigger wrote: »
    It looks for the easiest source of food to convert. You carry on with your deep thinking.

    LOL! This reminds me of deep thoughts by Jack Handey, an old NSL skit.
  • palwithme
    palwithme Posts: 860 Member
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    Your body is built for survival in brutal elements. Why turn to your stored energy when you convince it, through hunger, to look for new energy?
  • gpstreet
    gpstreet Posts: 184 Member
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    BTW when I wrote designed I wasn't meaning it in the intelligent design way or that some mighty spaghetti monster designed us. :-)
  • gpstreet
    gpstreet Posts: 184 Member
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    Praise be his oodleness
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    My body is designed just fine :wink:
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    Talk about lousy design; we eat and drink down the same tube we breathe.