Dr. Forbush Thinks

The whole nutrition, diet, exercise, and health “problems” continues to baffle me.

For example, I continue to be amazed that I put on fifty pounds in less than twenty years. But, if you think about it that’s only a little more than two pounds per year. And, since we know that one pound of body fat is about 3500 calories. So, putting on an additional two and one half pounds in a year means that one would basically need to over eat just 8750 calories per year, or just 24 calories per day.

Twenty-four calories is almost nothing! And, since a person’s metabolism slows gradually as one ages it wouldn’t be unlikely that a person would eat the same amount of food over the years and as they age begin to put on weight.

One the other hand, twenty-four calories is almost nothing. That means that if a person would like to continue eating the same amount of food every day, then they just need to do a little bit more physical work to make up for the difference in metabolic rate. For example, walking at a brisk pace for 15 minutes would easily burn 25 calories.

But, what generally happens is more extreme than just a change in metabolic rate and the continuation of the status quo. In fact, people tend to be less physical as they age. You don’t usually see middle aged people out in the park throwing the Frisbee around. Hiking, biking, playing softball and even going for a swim tend to be things that the young tend to do more than the rest of us. So, sitting around watching TV and snacking at the same time tends to put those extra pounds on most of us.

Obviously it is easy to fall into the habit of coming home from a stressful day and flip on the TV and crash on the couch. Everything else seems to take effort. And stress tends to motivate us to take “down time.” The problem is that “down time” tends to be zero physical activity time. And, “down time” also means that we seek things that we hope will make the stress go away - things that make us feel good. Obviously when an “out-of-shape” person decides to make some effort they quickly learn that their body isn’t used to the physical stress. And, physical stress on top of daily stress tends to de-motivate many of us.

But, upping the activity level doesn’t mean that you need to start training for a marathon. Upping the activity level just means - go out and do something physical. Hiking, biking, and even gardening can help. But, by gardening I would suggest using the manual hedge clippers and manually walk around the yard pruning. Turn the soil by hand and carefully nurture your plants. Burn some calories. Just burning 50 to 100 addition calories per day will put you back on track and stop the endless weight gain.

Of course many people have slipped quite a ways down that path into the heavy weight kingdom. I know from personal experience that it isn’t hard to “suddenly” find yourself “fat” and “out of shape.” When you finally discover this you may need to do more than burn an additional 100 calories per day. And, based on how overweight you are and how fast you are willing to loose the weight, then more drastic measures are needed.

Starvation seems to be the course that many people opt for. I can understand the logic. People think that doing nothing is better than doing something. So, obviously eating nothing is easier than doing exercise. Unfortunately this logic needs to deal with the real world. Our bodies do not like starvation. Nature tells us that we need to eat. If we don’t eat, then we begin to crave food. This natural urge increases until it is satisfied. In fact, the urge may become so strong that it actually requires one to overeat before the urge is satisfied.

If we assume that a normal healthy person requires about 1500 calories per day for basic metabolic stability, then eating this amount one would not feel the urge to eat more, and one would neither gain nor lose weight. Starvation means eating substantially less than this amount, which brings on the hunger pangs and urge to eat.

Now, I personally lost my fifty pounds of fat over a period of 18 months. If one would try to loose fifty pound over 18 months, then they would need to eat less than calories required the metabolic rate for the entire 18 months. Since we know that one pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories; then 50 pounds of fat is 175,000 calories. And there are approximately 550 days in 18 months. So, that means that one would need to starve themselves by eating 320 calories less than 1500 calories every day for 18 months. Or, a person simply needs to eat about 1180 calories per day for 18 months to loose 50 pounds. But, remember that 1500 calories is actually about a hundred calories below what I was eating and gaining 2.5 pounds per year. So, 1180 calories is bound to put any normal person into starvation and craving mode. Could a normal person maintain these cravings and urges for one month let alone 18 months? And, many people are unhappy with loosing weight so slowly over a long period of time. But, in order to loose 50 pounds in six months one would need to eat 640 calories less or only 540 calories per day. For a reference point, 540 calories is about 3 sodas. Obviously no one could survive on three sodas per day, because there wouldn’t be any nutritional value in that sort of diet. But, how could anyone maintain nutrition and eat only 540 calories per day?

No wonder people find it so hard to loose weight. Loosing 50 pounds over 18 months of starvation would be frustrating, because the rate is so slow that there is little encouragement to suffer the starvation any longer. Trying to loose the weight even faster results in even stronger urges to eat something. And, the body also craves particular nutrition, in which 540 calories per day may not easily provide. Even eating only low sugar vegetables might not be enough to overcome the cravings for carbohydrates, protein and vitamins.

However, there is another way. The way that I lost 50 pounds in 18 months was to burn an additional 345 calories per day for 18 months. At least that’s the way I figured it. I had to loose 175,000 calories worth of fat. Over 18 months that works out to 320 calories per day, like I wrote above. But, I also had to compensate for the 25 calories per day that I had been overeating. I didn’t change my diet at all. Of course I was eating fairly well, just a bit more than I should have been eating.

I did this by exercising every day for one hour come hell or high water. I simply chose to go to the gym every morning and swim for one hour. At first I was in fairly poor shape and swimming 2000 yards took the entire hour. But, as time went by I worked myself up to swimming about 4200 yards in an hour with some variations. Slowly I added running and weight lifting as well. But, my main theme was swimming - every day. Of course I missed days occasionally, for illness or family reasons. But the default was going to the gym every morning. And, after 18 months I was down to 145 pounds and a 28-inch waist. And, I never starved myself.

And, now it is an additional 18 months later. And, I am happy to say that I now weigh about 155 pounds. But I still have that 28-inch waist. But, of course weight isn’t everything. I believe that the additional 10 pounds has come from additional muscle mass that I have put on in the last 18 months. I am certainly stronger than I was 18 months ago. But, saying that I lost fifty pounds isn’t quite right any more, so I just don’t talk about it. Except right here in this blog.






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Don't forget what Stephen Colbert said, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."


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