Hi Chris, you inspired me to make a post on my blog on this very topic

http://historian2wheels.blogspot.com/2007/04/company-you-keep.html

I've discovered that in the last 4 years since losing weight that I have all
new friends from the time when I started. I've even changed volleyball teams
from one that values going out and drinking (before and after) on game
nights to one that wants to get together to practice and run drills. Go
figure.
My social life no longer revolves around restaurants and bars but gyms and
bike trails instead.

I've heard a psychologist say that spouses can sabotage healthy
habits, too.

Two years of dieting hell? Well, first, good job having the willpower
to do that. But are you sure that you are dieting the right way? I
wanted to lose fifty pounds but I plateaued (spelling?) after about
ten. But then I finally gave up refined foods - or at least grains
without fiber and started eating really little meals (snacks, really)
every three hours and I started losing again. If you eat, even a small
meal, the body thinks that the food supply is plentiful and it's safe
to burn fat and lose weight [1]. Since I'm eating every three hours
I'm constantly in the "fed state", and burning fat. Eating three rice
cakes is enough to do it, and they come in cheese flavor, so I enjoy
the taste (they come in chocolate, too, for 15 more calories a cake,
which is a small transgression :). I eat cheese popcorn, too. One meal
a day is a regular meal, 600 calories, and I have an 8 ounce can of
coke with it. I've been loosing 1 1/2 pounds a week that way. I think
about food a lot, but it isn't that intense craving that leads to
hedonistic eating that wrecks a diet.

Of course, if you are eating white rice or bread that isn't whole
grain whole wheat [2], the body digests it quickly, so you have more
energy than you need and it gets stored as fat. Then, before the three
hours is up, the body runs out of fuel from the white bread and goes
into the "fasting state", where it slows the metabolism ( the normal
processes of repair that the body constantly does) down to conserve
fat. So you lose, er, gain, both ways: you put on fat first and then
you don't take it back off.

Has anybody here heard of Brenda Watson's Fiber 35 program? I saw it
on public television. She says that dietary fiber sequesters food in
the intestines so that it doesn't get digested. In other words, you
can eat more food and still loose weight. She shows plates of food
that represent the typical American diet [3]. The portions look kinda
small, but she says that it adds up to 1600 calories. Then she shows
plates of food with Fiber 35 menu foods on them. They are practically
overflowing with food, there's so much. She says that when you
subtract the calories that the 35 grams of fiber keep you from
digesting, you have a net caloric intake of 800 calories. I think just
about anybody could loose weight eating that amount per day. Oh, she
recommends exercising, too. My local PBS station's website is selling
the Fiber 35 program materials, if anybody is interested:

https://www.kcts.org/members/pledge/index.asp

Feel free to pledge to my station, or you can look for your own local
PBS station and get it from them.

I read in "You: On A Diet" that each additional pound of muscle burns
between 40 and 120 calories per day. It gives exercises that you can
do (no gym required) to build up your core muscles and that could
really help with both getting rid of weight and with keeping it off
after you're done. I get the impression that maintaining muscle mass
is the thing that burns the most calories, more than aerobic exercise.
although the author, Michael F. Roizen, recommends also walking for 30
minutes a day.

How about just making the TV commercials showing unhealthy food
illegal. Like the way they outlawed commericals for tobacco products
on TV.

The advertising industry and big business will spend whatever it takes
to make sure that that never happens. Using part of the money that we
pay for the products we buy from them, too.

Sean, long winded today :)

P.S.: I heard that being overweight increases the likelihood of
getting diabetes. Diabetes can make you blind and can require that you
have your feet amputated. That's my motivation, to diet and keep them.

[1] Well, the body doesn't really think, but it acts as if it does.

[2] Every brand of whole grain whole wheat bread I've seen has high
fructose corn syrup, which makes it just as bad as eating white bread.
Totally defeats the purpose of making it whole grain. My Mom says that
Trader Joe's has whole grain bread without the corn syrup, but I
haven't checked on that.

[3] Breakfast: Bagel with cream cheese. Lunch: Hamburger and fries.
Dinner: Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

Ragnar's wife will gain all the weight back once she loses enough weight
that he won't be able to get it up anymore.  Fat rolls excite Ragnar.

Did she used to leave candy on your chair and keyboard before? If not, don't
kid yourself. I could see it maybe being subconscious if she started
stocking the candy dish on her desk with your favorites but going out of her
way to put a piece on your chair several times a day?? Sounds pretty
conscious and intentional to me.

dkw12002@yahoo.com wrote:> opinion since it was also my own.

snip

Never  been to Wisconsin, eh?

My focus on food is not the reason for obesity, it is the reason I have been
successful in fighting obesity.

There is something primal in the social effects of people eating in a group.