Recently the Stanford University Medical School, Health Policy Forum hosted an event examining the reasons why we get fat and how different diet trends and food policies affect our nation’s obesity rates.

The forum featured a conversation between science writer Gary Taubes and Christopher Gardner, PhD, director of Nutrition Studies at the Stanford Prevention Research Center.

During the discussion, Paul Costello, the medical school’s chief communications officer, talked to Taubes and Gardner about Americans’ misconceptions about food, diet and nutrition, the driving forces behind the obesity surge of the late-80s and the path to a healthier, leaner lifestyle.  Below is a video of that 1 hr 24 minute forum.

We got a very tiny Christmas tree this year, because of our new adopted kitten, Layla.  I found her at the SPCA, where someone brought her after she was abandoned by her previous owner.  She is a tortoiseshell, now about 5 months old, and very, very sweet. I got a book to refresh my knowledge about training new cats, and have been working to Think Like a Cat.

 
My advice:   Gather your own knowledge to support your own decisions, beliefs and unique body, and then do what works for YOU.

I definitely don't believe that one size fits all.

My own body, my own culture (southern-based, blue-collar-to-professional), and my own values make up ME…who I am. I am over 60 years old with a great deal of personal experience with diets, “lifestyles,” “non-diets”, and ways-of-eating, as well as an in-depth knowledge received by a lifetime of reading, studying and by watching others in relation to food, exercise, and weight-issues.

Personally, I have no interest in becoming a vegetarian. I’m don’t feel a need to support or spread a message about going green, low-carb, paleo, organic, buying local, or have any desire to become an activist supporting any other method of food intake that is intended to “save the planet”.

I have no present plans to eat mostly plants, or even to avoid processed foods. I use artificial sweeteners and drink diet cokes without restriction. I’ve studied opposing ideas on these issues, and have run experiments with them, and at this point, my experiences have resulted in the belief that doing any of these things is NOT a solution for my own individual weight-loss maintenance problems.
However, any or all of those things MIGHT work for You.    And, who knows, someday I could change my mind about any of them or all of them. It’s called having an open-mind.

Do THIS with what you see at DietHobby.

Holiday Greetings

The purpose of posting articles and videos here at Diethobby is to place them in a central location that is easily accessible, for both present (HOME) and future (ARCHIVES) review. This is one of the methods I use to encourage and support myself and any others who are interested, and it is part of my Dieting Hobby.

DietHobby isn’t intended to be a planned lecture series for others, or a well-plotted self-help book. It has a common theme, and I often repeat myself. Here I write and post from day-to-day about the things that are on my mind at the time. When I run across an article or video that I find interesting or meaningful, I include it. For more understanding, re-read  the Disclosure section of my Terms & Conditions.

The following article is interesting, amusing, and thoughtful. I find it especially valuable because many of the author’s personal weight-related experiences are similar to things that I’ve experienced as well. At present, the author is one-and-a-half years post-bariatric-surgery, while I am now twenty years post-op, however, in many ways her point of view closely resembles my own.

I Once Was Obese and Now I’m Not. Please Don’t Applaud.
           By Shannon Chamberlain | Posted Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012, www. slate.com

I Once Was Obese And now I’m not.
Please don’t applaud me for losing the weight.

I am a veteran of weight-loss support groups and 12-step programs, in-person and online. So I know well that the only acceptable way to do this is to make my confession up front: Only by admitting our problems do we have any hope of overcoming them. And when it comes to obesity, there’s only one confession that anyone has any interest in hearing.

I once weighed 352 pounds.

Or 356. The trouble is I don’t really know my starting weight. When you cross over from merely obese to morbidly obese, it’s hard to find a scale in the bath part of Bed Bath & Beyond to accommodate your girth. Even many doctors’ offices don’t carry a scale large enough for the truly fat. This usually ends in a nurse whispering, “Well, how much do you think you weigh?” as if you, the nonmedical professional, were a better judge of this than anyone else—despite the fact that according to many medical professionals, you are lazy, unattractive, stupid, and stubbornly unwilling to comply with treatment.

One thing about not knowing your starting weight: In those early days of weight loss, when you can reasonably expect the numbers to diminish rapidly, you may not have any accurate way of accounting for them. So you miss out on that Pavlovian spur to greater feats of diet and exercise when you need it the most.

Now that I’m merely on the chubby side of normal (size 12) and weight loss is considerably mor...