On Fri, 9 Oct 1998, James Crocker wrote:

> From:    Todd Moody <[log in to unmask]>
> >Subject: Re: weight loss
> >
> >By "unnatural" I refer to the fact that our bodies appear to be
> >programmed to conserve body fat, except under fairly austere
> >conditions, and to replace it quickly after it is used.
>
> I think this is individual-dependent.  For example, I am like Amadeus who
> has never been overweight.  I attribute this to a combination of genes
> and an intelligent diet.  (Obesity does run in my family, both on my
> mother and father's side.  This doesn't prove much, but may be of
> interest.)  If I pigged out on SAD food I am sure I would gain weight.
> But I have never been able to gain much, and I wouldn't describe my body
> as being programmed to store fat.  If I over eat then I would store some
> calories as fat.  Does this mean I am "programmed" to store fat?

Yes, I think so.  I agree that there is much variation in rate of
fat storage.  The point is simply that fat is a resource that the
body tends to conserve if it can.

> Also, who is to say what an
> austere diet is?  Many people today   would say any diet without their
> donuts, cookies, pop, chips, etc. is too severe and boring to stick to.

I was referring to austerity strictly in the sense of caloric
restriction.

> My point from before is that losing weight down to a "desirable" level is
> made much easier by eating a diet of highly nutritious foods, but *lower*
> in calories.  The idea is that the bulk of the food is satisfying, and
> the fact that your body gets all the nutrients it needs goes along way
> towards satsfying hunger.

I agree with this, and it's definitely easier to *maintain* a
desirable weight by choosing the most nutritious foods possible.
Whether there is a level of caloric restriction that does not
cause hunger is, for me, an open question.  So far, all such
attempts cause at least intermittent hunger, which is not an
intolerable thing.

> >In the
> >wild the amounts of body fat would be quite modest compared to
> >the modern obese human, of course.  But I don't imagine that
> >obesity was an issue for many paleolithic HGs.  On the contrary,
> >if they could find enough chow to add a few pounds, so much the
> >better.
>
> And what makes us think they were all lean, olympic style athletes?  If
> they don't have to work very hard (~1-3hrs/day) pulling down large land
> animal one after another with the greatest of ease as some on this list
> seem to suggest, then why would they be any different than us today?

I, for one, am seriously skeptical of the picture of the Edenic
HG and his life of leisure.  One of the points that Jared Diamond
emphasizes, which I find utterly plausible, is that there is
little evidence of human ingenuity and efficiency until the Great
Leap Forward about 40,000 years ago.  True Stone Age people are
not to be thought of as particularly similar to modern HGs, who
function at a much higher level of resourcefulness and knowledge.

> After all, we are claiming that the diet best suited for us is the diet
> of 40,000 yrs ago, during the big hunting era.  We are genetically
> identical to Cro-Magnon man of that era, are we not?

This is the big question, isn't it?  If the "big game epoch" is
mainly from 40K to 10K years ago, then it may not be likely that
we are all fully adapated to that sort of diet.

> What about all
> those icons of very obese women that are supposed to be from the ice
> ages?  Fantasy, or modelled after real life images?

Ray thinks they are late paleolithic pornography.  I don't know
what other theories are out there.

> My definition of "setpoint weight" is the weight you were at at the
> earliest ages of mature adulthood, ~18-20.

I thought it usually referred to the "attractor" to which body
weight tends to return.

> >To keep my weight stable, or to lose a bit more, I have to
> >monitor my eating carefully, even on Neanderthin.
>
> Any surprises?  This makes sense to me.  In other words, I mean that both
> the type of foods consumed and the quantities are important for good
> health.

No surprises.

Todd Moody
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