Exercise 'not key to obesity fight' Doctors say

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  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
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    I have no idea about my body chemistry and all I know about my metabolism is how many calories I burn in a day. I feel good on any given day, regardless of if I had a bunch of mcdonalds or nutritious homecooked meals. So no.

    I also never experienced a "sugar high" or "crash", which people like to talk about when talking about evil sugar either.

    You may not know about yours but would you say that a person who says they know about theirs is lying? That is what is being done here. A person made a claim about having less inflammation when eating less sugar and was told that she couldn't know that. But that is not true. Inflammation has markers and it can be tested. Many doctors test for inflammation. It is disingenuous to call someone a liar because you don't like their message. You didn't do that but someone else did.


    Sorry, but the test for a generic inflammation marker are not a reliable indicator. Try again.

    It seems to be pretty reliable.

    http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/guide/heart-disease-c-reactive-protein-crp-testing

    Try again. CRP tests for a LOT of things, not just heart disease. It's a general inflammatory marker. I have psoriatic arthritis. A friend of mine on here has ankylosing spondylitis. Both of us get tested regularly by our rheumatologists for our CRP. Mine varies. Last time, mine came back normal. The time before that, it came back high. It can vary according to the disease, the current state of the disease (many inflammatory diseases relapse and remit) and pain levels on a given day. It can even test high because you have a cold. It's not reliable at all.

    The person said she had less inflammation, not less heart disease.

    The link you provided? Remember that? It was about CRP as an indicator for heart disease. You made it out like the link proved that CRP testing was a reliable indicator of general inflammation, and the link in no way backed that assertion because the point is that a disease state can still exist without the CRP being elevated at the time.

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    I have no idea about my body chemistry and all I know about my metabolism is how many calories I burn in a day. I feel good on any given day, regardless of if I had a bunch of mcdonalds or nutritious homecooked meals. So no.

    I also never experienced a "sugar high" or "crash", which people like to talk about when talking about evil sugar either.

    You may not know about yours but would you say that a person who says they know about theirs is lying?

    I wouldn't say someone was lying but something I see commonly is someone going from a horrible diet--say many calories over maintenance, some crazy amount of sweets, little protein or fiber, tons of fast food, etc.--to an extreme diet (cutting out added sugar and fruit, going super low fat or carb, etc) and then claiming that some aspect of that extreme diet (NO sugar, no fast food) is why they feel better. The fact is that simply improving a horrible diet will make most feel better; it doesn't mean they can't feel good eating sugar or whatever.

    I don't care if anyone does or not, but it's one reason people take such claims with a grain of salt (or a shaker full).
  • bainsworth1a
    bainsworth1a Posts: 313 Member
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    My daughter and I are proof that you can lose weight following MFP and not exercising or exercising a little. the fact is exercising does help with body function and when combined with eating at a calorie deficit can help a person lose quicker.
  • AlabasterVerve
    AlabasterVerve Posts: 3,171 Member
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    I also claim I have less inflammation following a low carb/sugar diet. Whether I really do or not I don't know but what I do know is that my gums used to be swollen and would bleed when brushing and flossing and that's no longer the case.

    I also claim I feel better in general. I don't have any "proof" of that either but I ended up with three bottles of Advil in my medicine cabinet before I realized I wasn't taking it anymore. I was buying it every month out of habit and was honestly a little taken aback when I realized just how much I was relying on pain relievers for nightly leg pain and frequent back pain and headaches before reducing my carbs. I also no longer experience any incidences of hypoglycemia which again I have no "proof" of -- my doctor concluded there was nothing wrong and advised me to eat more often.

    I agree that all of these things could be placebo effect -- it's truly amazing what the mind is capable of -- but I wasn't aware any of these things could be diet related when I had already started eating healthier, exercising and losing a substantial amount of weight. I was doing all of that six months before I started low carb.

    I value reading about people's personal experiences on MFP and hope these absurd demands for proof and research every time someone decides to share stops.
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
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    I also claim I have less inflammation following a low carb/sugar diet. Whether I really do or not I don't know but what I do know is that my gums used to be swollen and would bleed when brushing and flossing and that's no longer the case.

    I also claim I feel better in general. I don't have any "proof" of that either but I ended up with three bottles of Advil in my medicine cabinet before I realized I wasn't taking it anymore. I was buying it every month out of habit and was honestly a little taken aback when I realized just how much I was relying on pain relievers for nightly leg pain and frequent back pain and headaches before reducing my carbs. I also no longer experience any incidences of hypoglycemia which again I have no "proof" of -- my doctor concluded there was nothing wrong and advised me to eat more often.

    I agree that all of these things could be placebo effect -- it's truly amazing what the mind is capable of -- but I wasn't aware any of these things could be diet related when I had already started eating healthier, exercising and losing a substantial amount of weight. I was doing all of that six months before I started low carb.

    I value reading about people's personal experiences on MFP and hope these absurd demands for proof and research every time someone decides to share stops.

    again, "dem feelz" is not a legitimate reason for telling someone else to avoid sugar...

  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    Do the math. If someone walks at 3.5 mph for an hour they burn roughly 200 cal per hour. So if a person walks 4 hours a week that adds up to about 800 cal per week. If that same person walks for 7 hours a week it adds up to 1400 cal per week.

    That would translate to burning a pound of fat in 2.5-4 weeks.

    Exercise is good for you but it won't help you lose that much weight.

    How about this? If someone rides a bicycle at 15 mph for an hour they burn roughly 900 calories (bicycling.com). So if a person rides 4 hours a week that adds up to about 3600 calories per week. If that same person rides 7 hours a week, that adds up to 6300 calories per week.

    That would translate to burning a pound of fat in 1 week, or even 1.8 pounds per week.

    Exercise is good for you, and if you do enough of it, it will help you lose a lot of weight.

    The problem with that is that this amount of exercise (not always but often) also translates into a bigger appetite, which usually means eating more if you're not counting calories and ruining a good amount or even all of that deficit you created from your exercise.

    Who said anything about not counting calories?
    Having a bad diet would suggest that they aren't counting. Unless they're counting, going over by 1000 and being like "Oh well." then just keep going.
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Do the math. If someone walks at 3.5 mph for an hour they burn roughly 200 cal per hour. So if a person walks 4 hours a week that adds up to about 800 cal per week. If that same person walks for 7 hours a week it adds up to 1400 cal per week.

    That would translate to burning a pound of fat in 2.5-4 weeks.

    Exercise is good for you but it won't help you lose that much weight.

    How about this? If someone rides a bicycle at 15 mph for an hour they burn roughly 900 calories (bicycling.com). So if a person rides 4 hours a week that adds up to about 3600 calories per week. If that same person rides 7 hours a week, that adds up to 6300 calories per week.

    That would translate to burning a pound of fat in 1 week, or even 1.8 pounds per week.

    Exercise is good for you, and if you do enough of it, it will help you lose a lot of weight.

    The problem with that is that this amount of exercise (not always but often) also translates into a bigger appetite, which usually means eating more if you're not counting calories and ruining a good amount or even all of that deficit you created from your exercise.

    Who said anything about not counting calories?

    The overwhelming majority of the population doesn't count calories. Much of the population has a really crappy diet that consists largely of high calorie, low nutrient foods for which it is really easy to overeat. I see all kinds of people in the gym who are crushing it...but their body's haven't changed much...why? *kitten* diet.

    All this article and others like it are stating is that the obesity fight starts with diet...yes, exercise is important for many aspects of good health...but fighting the obesity epidemic starts with proper diet.

    I can also attest to having a much easier time controlling calorie intake when I'm just sort of generally "working out" vs actually training. When I'm actively training, I'm starving all of the time and have a great deal of difficulty controlling my calorie intake. When I keep my workouts light to moderate, this isn't as much an issue.

    If someone is going to do a study that looks at the effects of exercise, the people in the study are going to count calories, so they know they aren't changing their diet. In normal life, weight loss always involves both diet and exercise. But when we have these people trying to separate the two, a study must be done, and that always requires counting calories.

    I assumed the distinction here is "Exercising without paying attention to diet" vs. "paying attention to diet without exercising", in which case diet wins clearly.

    I would say it isn't as clear as you assume. What person who is "paying attention to diet" doesn't first go calculate their TDEE estimate or something similar? The moment you calculate the number of calories you are burning during a day, you are paying attention to exercise. Technically, even breathing and the beating of the heart is a form of exercise. We just don't call it that because we're more interested in the extra calories we burn.

    Come on, you know what is meant with exercise.

    Yes, I do. But if we're going to not pay attention to something, we have to include general activity. There's a big different between a truck driver who doesn't exercise and a bicycle cop who doesn't exercise.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
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    I also claim I have less inflammation following a low carb/sugar diet. Whether I really do or not I don't know but what I do know is that my gums used to be swollen and would bleed when brushing and flossing and that's no longer the case.

    I also claim I feel better in general. I don't have any "proof" of that either but I ended up with three bottles of Advil in my medicine cabinet before I realized I wasn't taking it anymore. I was buying it every month out of habit and was honestly a little taken aback when I realized just how much I was relying on pain relievers for nightly leg pain and frequent back pain and headaches before reducing my carbs. I also no longer experience any incidences of hypoglycemia which again I have no "proof" of -- my doctor concluded there was nothing wrong and advised me to eat more often.

    I agree that all of these things could be placebo effect -- it's truly amazing what the mind is capable of -- but I wasn't aware any of these things could be diet related when I had already started eating healthier, exercising and losing a substantial amount of weight. I was doing all of that six months before I started low carb.

    I value reading about people's personal experiences on MFP and hope these absurd demands for proof and research every time someone decides to share stops.

    You are reasonable in your claims, and I never have any problem with someone like you who states things the way you do. Personal experience is great if you are able to acknowledge that that's all it is.

    I'm glad you've found what works best for you. Ultimately, that's really all that we all should do. Saying that we "need" to do this or that when someone else's experience contradicts what someone else claims is foolish, though. This is why I personally have an issue with some food-as-cure types.

    It's great if you feel it helped you, but for Bob's sake, don't think you've done something scientific unless you have conclusive scientific studies to back you up. Because there are those of us out there who have been there, done that, and have nothing to show for it who are doing the same as we did trying it now that we eat differently.

  • TheSingingMom
    TheSingingMom Posts: 24 Member
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    I have no idea about my body chemistry and all I know about my metabolism is how many calories I burn in a day. I feel good on any given day, regardless of if I had a bunch of mcdonalds or nutritious homecooked meals. So no.

    I also never experienced a "sugar high" or "crash", which people like to talk about when talking about evil sugar either.

    You may not know about yours but would you say that a person who says they know about theirs is lying? That is what is being done here. A person made a claim about having less inflammation when eating less sugar and was told that she couldn't know that. But that is not true. Inflammation has markers and it can be tested. Many doctors test for inflammation. It is disingenuous to call someone a liar because you don't like their message. You didn't do that but someone else did.


    Sorry, but the test for a generic inflammation marker are not a reliable indicator. Try again.

    It seems to be pretty reliable.

    http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/guide/heart-disease-c-reactive-protein-crp-testing

    Try again. CRP tests for a LOT of things, not just heart disease. It's a general inflammatory marker. I have psoriatic arthritis. A friend of mine on here has ankylosing spondylitis. Both of us get tested regularly by our rheumatologists for our CRP. Mine varies. Last time, mine came back normal. The time before that, it came back high. It can vary according to the disease, the current state of the disease (many inflammatory diseases relapse and remit) and pain levels on a given day. It can even test high because you have a cold. It's not reliable at all.

    The person said she had less inflammation, not less heart disease.

    The link you provided? Remember that? It was about CRP as an indicator for heart disease. You made it out like the link proved that CRP testing was a reliable indicator of general inflammation, and the link in no way backed that assertion because the point is that a disease state can still exist without the CRP being elevated at the time.

    The link did say exactly what you said.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
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    I have no idea about my body chemistry and all I know about my metabolism is how many calories I burn in a day. I feel good on any given day, regardless of if I had a bunch of mcdonalds or nutritious homecooked meals. So no.

    I also never experienced a "sugar high" or "crash", which people like to talk about when talking about evil sugar either.

    You may not know about yours but would you say that a person who says they know about theirs is lying? That is what is being done here. A person made a claim about having less inflammation when eating less sugar and was told that she couldn't know that. But that is not true. Inflammation has markers and it can be tested. Many doctors test for inflammation. It is disingenuous to call someone a liar because you don't like their message. You didn't do that but someone else did.


    Sorry, but the test for a generic inflammation marker are not a reliable indicator. Try again.

    It seems to be pretty reliable.

    http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/guide/heart-disease-c-reactive-protein-crp-testing

    Try again. CRP tests for a LOT of things, not just heart disease. It's a general inflammatory marker. I have psoriatic arthritis. A friend of mine on here has ankylosing spondylitis. Both of us get tested regularly by our rheumatologists for our CRP. Mine varies. Last time, mine came back normal. The time before that, it came back high. It can vary according to the disease, the current state of the disease (many inflammatory diseases relapse and remit) and pain levels on a given day. It can even test high because you have a cold. It's not reliable at all.

    The person said she had less inflammation, not less heart disease.

    The link you provided? Remember that? It was about CRP as an indicator for heart disease. You made it out like the link proved that CRP testing was a reliable indicator of general inflammation, and the link in no way backed that assertion because the point is that a disease state can still exist without the CRP being elevated at the time.

    The link did say exactly what you said.

    That a disease state can still exist without the CRP being elevated?

  • TheSingingMom
    TheSingingMom Posts: 24 Member
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    You all win. Sugar is FANTASTIC!
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
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    You all win. Sugar is FANTASTIC!

    That's not the point. The point is that, in moderate amounts, it's not harmful.

    If someone wants to make the choice to not eat it? Fine. It's just not necessary for health. If they're still eating vegetables, fruit and/or dairy? Their body is still ingesting sugar. Oh, it might take their body a little longer to break things down to get to the point that it's dealing with the individual sugars, but still, at the end of the day, there are sugars in those things, just like there are sugars in a cookie.

    When your body is at the point where it's down to processing the sugar on a molecular level? It doesn't know the difference.

    A cookie here or there isn't going to hurt anyone. An excess of calories, if they come from sugar (or fat, or protein, or another carbohydrate)? Well, that's a problem.

  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
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    You all win. Sugar is FANTASTIC!

    it is neither fantastic or evil it is just sugar.

  • tatumtracy
    tatumtracy Posts: 9 Member
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    I think we think to much. People spend to much time looking for a "miracle" cure to obesity. There is no way I'm giving up carbs, sugar, or fat for the rest of my life so I have accepted that model thin is not in my stars. Bottom line ...not everything works for everyone but if I Iistened to every study that was put out I'd be going thru life and not enjoying the awesomeness of food. It's only poison if it kills your quality of life. Everyone have a piece of cake!!
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
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    I have no idea about my body chemistry and all I know about my metabolism is how many calories I burn in a day. I feel good on any given day, regardless of if I had a bunch of mcdonalds or nutritious homecooked meals. So no.

    I also never experienced a "sugar high" or "crash", which people like to talk about when talking about evil sugar either.

    You may not know about yours but would you say that a person who says they know about theirs is lying? That is what is being done here. A person made a claim about having less inflammation when eating less sugar and was told that she couldn't know that. But that is not true. Inflammation has markers and it can be tested. Many doctors test for inflammation. It is disingenuous to call someone a liar because you don't like their message. You didn't do that but someone else did.

    Someone's personal experience is just that. In my personal experience I have to cut carbs to lose weight. That's not true for everyone, but it's true for me. I don't doubt that you never experienced a sugar high or crash. That doesn't mean someone else hasn't experienced it.
    A lot of the time? Yeah, people talk about their feelings more than actual, measured parameters on here when they come and talk about these kinds of things.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
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    Do the math. If someone walks at 3.5 mph for an hour they burn roughly 200 cal per hour. So if a person walks 4 hours a week that adds up to about 800 cal per week. If that same person walks for 7 hours a week it adds up to 1400 cal per week.

    That would translate to burning a pound of fat in 2.5-4 weeks.

    Exercise is good for you but it won't help you lose that much weight.

    How about this? If someone rides a bicycle at 15 mph for an hour they burn roughly 900 calories (bicycling.com). So if a person rides 4 hours a week that adds up to about 3600 calories per week. If that same person rides 7 hours a week, that adds up to 6300 calories per week.

    That would translate to burning a pound of fat in 1 week, or even 1.8 pounds per week.

    Exercise is good for you, and if you do enough of it, it will help you lose a lot of weight.

    The problem with that is that this amount of exercise (not always but often) also translates into a bigger appetite, which usually means eating more if you're not counting calories and ruining a good amount or even all of that deficit you created from your exercise.

    Who said anything about not counting calories?
    Having a bad diet would suggest that they aren't counting. Unless they're counting, going over by 1000 and being like "Oh well." then just keep going.
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    Do the math. If someone walks at 3.5 mph for an hour they burn roughly 200 cal per hour. So if a person walks 4 hours a week that adds up to about 800 cal per week. If that same person walks for 7 hours a week it adds up to 1400 cal per week.

    That would translate to burning a pound of fat in 2.5-4 weeks.

    Exercise is good for you but it won't help you lose that much weight.

    How about this? If someone rides a bicycle at 15 mph for an hour they burn roughly 900 calories (bicycling.com). So if a person rides 4 hours a week that adds up to about 3600 calories per week. If that same person rides 7 hours a week, that adds up to 6300 calories per week.

    That would translate to burning a pound of fat in 1 week, or even 1.8 pounds per week.

    Exercise is good for you, and if you do enough of it, it will help you lose a lot of weight.

    The problem with that is that this amount of exercise (not always but often) also translates into a bigger appetite, which usually means eating more if you're not counting calories and ruining a good amount or even all of that deficit you created from your exercise.

    Who said anything about not counting calories?

    The overwhelming majority of the population doesn't count calories. Much of the population has a really crappy diet that consists largely of high calorie, low nutrient foods for which it is really easy to overeat. I see all kinds of people in the gym who are crushing it...but their body's haven't changed much...why? *kitten* diet.

    All this article and others like it are stating is that the obesity fight starts with diet...yes, exercise is important for many aspects of good health...but fighting the obesity epidemic starts with proper diet.

    I can also attest to having a much easier time controlling calorie intake when I'm just sort of generally "working out" vs actually training. When I'm actively training, I'm starving all of the time and have a great deal of difficulty controlling my calorie intake. When I keep my workouts light to moderate, this isn't as much an issue.

    If someone is going to do a study that looks at the effects of exercise, the people in the study are going to count calories, so they know they aren't changing their diet. In normal life, weight loss always involves both diet and exercise. But when we have these people trying to separate the two, a study must be done, and that always requires counting calories.

    I assumed the distinction here is "Exercising without paying attention to diet" vs. "paying attention to diet without exercising", in which case diet wins clearly.

    I would say it isn't as clear as you assume. What person who is "paying attention to diet" doesn't first go calculate their TDEE estimate or something similar? The moment you calculate the number of calories you are burning during a day, you are paying attention to exercise. Technically, even breathing and the beating of the heart is a form of exercise. We just don't call it that because we're more interested in the extra calories we burn.

    Come on, you know what is meant with exercise.

    Yes, I do. But if we're going to not pay attention to something, we have to include general activity. There's a big different between a truck driver who doesn't exercise and a bicycle cop who doesn't exercise.

    The bicycle cop probably doesn't have a weight problem to begin with.
    But anyway. Doing exercise raises your TDEE, be that purposeful exercise or just general activity you do to begin with.
    It usually also raises your appetite accordingly, which is why the bicycle cop isn't ending up being a spooky skeleton even if he doesn't pay attention to his calorie intake.
    So, here's my hypothesis, if you exercise purposefully, but don't keep track of your consumption, so you eat when you're hungry, a good part of the extra burn you're getting from the exercise is going to get negated by eating more food because you're more hungry than if you're not exercising. Which is fine and dandy if you're not trying to lose weight or not much. But if your goal is losing weight that is not the most optimal way.
    Add to that funny stories like "I walked for 15 minutes, I earned that BigMac." and the like, when people have no clue how much their exercise actually does for them.

    Compared to the truck driver who chooses not to do any extra exercise but counts his calories instead. The only way his deficit could get offset is by going over his goals or by becoming less active than his baseline for whatever reasons.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,942 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Do the math. If someone walks at 3.5 mph for an hour they burn roughly 200 cal per hour. So if a person walks 4 hours a week that adds up to about 800 cal per week. If that same person walks for 7 hours a week it adds up to 1400 cal per week.

    That would translate to burning a pound of fat in 2.5-4 weeks.

    Exercise is good for you but it won't help you lose that much weight.

    If I'm sedentary, my maintenance is about 1550. Currently my maintenance seems to be about 2000. So I can lose weight eating 1750, but if I were sedentary I'd be gaining weight. Not gaining or losing quickly, but over a year that matters a lot.

    The reason I mention this is that the original article wasn't really about how to lose lots of weight fast (obviously the key to that is controlling your diet), but how to address the problem of obesity. I think activity is extremely important for that.

    Good point. I don't recall even gaining a significant amount of weight while exercising. I may not have been losing weight, but I wasn't gaining weight, even though I had something of the attitude that I could eat whatever because I was exercising. All of my weight gain has occurred during periods when I was sitting in front of the TV instead of sitting on the bike.

    Not me. I was exercising during the entire time I was gaining 80lbs over the space of 18 months, and eating the same meals. The thing I did different was to consume a lot of sugary carb snacks every evening after dinner.
    And back in the days when I weighed 110lbs, my idea of a strenuous exercise session was jumping up and down on a rebounder for 15 minutes. As I recall I used to do that three times a week, as was the recommendation in those days.

    All this tells us is that you ate a calorie surplus and gained weight (no surprise ;) ). You could cut back on the sugary carb snacks and eat within your calorie deficit and not lose weight.
  • Sarasmaintaining
    Sarasmaintaining Posts: 1,027 Member
    edited April 2015
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Never met anyone who thinks that exercise is a magic bullet.

    There's simply no way to sort out or generalize about the contributions of diet vs. exercise.

    It is much easier to lose weight if you understand and control your diet. I think that's common knowledge. (As I said in the other thread, even in "eat less, move more" the eating bit is first.)

    But people who are active -- societies where people are active in daily life and walk a lot vs. drive -- are less likely to be obese.

    I have been that person who thinks that all you should have to do is work out and you will lose weight. I also know tons of people who think that they will lose weight if they run after work or whatever.

    This. I have quite a few friends and a couple relatives who have this mindset. We live in a BIG running community (we host an annual race that brings people in from all over the country). So many people I know are hard core runners and are also overweight. I've had several conversations with some of them and they all bring up that running will help them lose weight, but yet year after year they continue to gain weight. None of them are doing anything with their diets/calories. I've been in a couple heated discussions because I lost the weight with no exercise at all and this really irritates them for some reason, go figure. I have one relative who's a runner, and she mentioned that after a run one time she came home and ate an entire package of Oreo cookies. The whole package.
  • Chrysalid2014
    Chrysalid2014 Posts: 1,038 Member
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    ndj1979 wrote: »

    I value reading about people's personal experiences on MFP and hope these absurd demands for proof and research every time someone decides to share stops.

    again, "dem feelz" is not a legitimate reason for telling someone else to avoid sugar...

    It's certainly a legitimate reason for sharing one's experience on a forum like this one. Many people have reported that they feel better after cutting down or giving up added sugar and it's a valid suggestion to make to others. Whether the 'evidence' they're citing is scientific or anecdotal doesn't really matter – no-one is going to be harmed by giving up added sugar for a few weeks/months to see if it makes them feel better too.
  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
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    ndj1979 wrote: »

    I value reading about people's personal experiences on MFP and hope these absurd demands for proof and research every time someone decides to share stops.

    again, "dem feelz" is not a legitimate reason for telling someone else to avoid sugar...

    It's certainly a legitimate reason for sharing one's experience on a forum like this one. Many people have reported that they feel better after cutting down or giving up added sugar and it's a valid suggestion to make to others. Whether the 'evidence' they're citing is scientific or anecdotal doesn't really matter – no-one is going to be harmed by giving up added sugar for a few weeks/months to see if it makes them feel better too.

    when I am sick and I lay down on my bed I "feel" better, does that mean that my bed has some magical property that makes me feel better? Of course not, it means it is a placebo effect and I feel better because I am comfortable…

    same with sugar…there are way too many factors to say because I feel better when I do not eat sugar that means that sugar is bad and it should be avoided..

  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
    edited April 2015
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    ndj1979 wrote: »

    I value reading about people's personal experiences on MFP and hope these absurd demands for proof and research every time someone decides to share stops.

    again, "dem feelz" is not a legitimate reason for telling someone else to avoid sugar...

    It's certainly a legitimate reason for sharing one's experience on a forum like this one. Many people have reported that they feel better after cutting down or giving up added sugar and it's a valid suggestion to make to others. Whether the 'evidence' they're citing is scientific or anecdotal doesn't really matter – no-one is going to be harmed by giving up added sugar for a few weeks/months to see if it makes them feel better too.

    Absolutely. Sharing personal experience as personal experience is awesome.

    Making medical claims? Maybe you'd better be prepared to back them up with more than feels or vague assertions.

    It's one thing to say "I feel better". That's a subjective statement. "I decreased my inflammation"? Well, that's relevant to my interests. I'd like to see some specific proof.