More Proof: FAT FATTENS BEST

Fat vs. Carbohydrate Overeating: Which Causes More Fat Gain?

Two human studies, published in 1995 and 2000, tested the effect of 
carbohydrate vs. fat overfeeding on body fat gain in humans.  

What did they find, and why is it important?

We know that daily calorie intake has increased the US, in parallel with the dramatic 
increase in body fatness.  These excess calories appear to have come from fat, 
carbohydrate, and protein all at the same time (although carbohydrate increased the most).  
Since the increase in calories, carbohydrate, fat, and protein all happened at the same time, 
how do we know that the obesity epidemic was due to increased calorie intake and not just increased carbohydrate or fat intake?  If our calorie intake had increased solely by the addition of 
carbohydrate or fat, would we be in the midst of an obesity epidemic?

The best way to answer this question is to examine the controlled studies that have compared carbohydrate and fat overfeeding in humans.

Horton et al.

The first study to address this question was published in 1995 by Dr. James Hill's group (1).  
The title of the paper is "Fat and Carbohydrate Overfeeding in Humans: Different Effects 
on Energy Storage".  Sounds promising for the calorie skeptics.  

Sixteen men (9 lean*, 7 obese) were overfed by 50 percent of calorie needs for 14 days, 
by adding excess fat or carbohydrate to the diet.  After a four-week break, each person 
was overfed the macronutrient they had not received the first time (randomized crossover design).  Subjects were provided with all food,  in a research kitchen, although they were allowed
 to consume some of it at home.

After 14 days, the researchers measured changes in body weight, fat mass, and lean mass. 

Here's what they found:

There were no significant differences between diets and/or groups in body weight or body composition changes.  

Carbohydrate and fat overfeeding caused nearly identical increases in body weight, fat mass,
 and lean mass, and this was true both in the lean and obese groups.  

Here's a graph of body weight changes:

And here's a graph of changes in fat mass:

Note that obese subjects seemed to gain more fat than lean subjects.  This is presumably because they were overfed by a greater absolute number of calories**.

If changes in body fatness were essentially identical during fat and carbohydrate overfeeding, why did the investigators choose to state in the title that "energy storage" differed between macronutrients?  The reason is that carbohydrate overfeeding caused an increase in carbohydrate burning and total energy expenditure, while fat overfeeding had no significant effect on fat burning or total energy expenditure.  In other words, the body "burned off" some of the extra carbohydrate, but it didn't burn off any of the extra fat.  A higher proportion of the fat calories was stored as body fat.

Yet in the end, the differences were small-- the body stored nearly all of the excess calories in both cases, and any apparent differences in energy expenditure were not reflected in fat mass***.  Calorie-for-calorie, body fat accumulation was approximately the same during fat and carbohydrate overfeeding.

Lammert et al.

The second study was published in 2000 by the research group of Dr. Bjorn Quistorff (2).  Ten pairs of lean young men were overfed by 5 megajoules (1,195 kcal) per day for 21 days, given as either a carbohydrate-rich or a fat-rich diet****.  Subjects lived and ate in a research setting the entire time.  The study was extremely well controlled.

Body composition was determined weekly by underwater weighing.  Increases in body weight were similar between groups, and increases in fat mass were almost identical:

Interestingly, the carbohydrate-overfed group actually gained more lean mass than the fat-overfed group.  It's unclear to me whether that reflects actual tissue gain, or simply increased glycogen storage.  Another interesting thing to note is that fat gain varied tremendously between individuals.  Due to genetics, physical fitness, and/or other factors, some people simply store more body fat when they eat excess calories, while others burn most of it off.  This has been confirmed repeatedly.

In any case, this study confirms that fat gain is approximately the same whether people overeat fat or carbohydrate.

Bonus Study: Hirsch et al. 

We know that carbohydrate and fat cause approximately equal fat gain per unit calorie during overfeeding, but what happens when people aren't overeating?  Does the proportion of calories supplied as fat or carbohydrate affect body fatness in that scenario?

The research group of Drs. Rudy Leibel and Jules Hirsch kept a series of subjects under metabolic ward conditions, strictly controlling the diet and dramatically varying the proportion of carbohydrate to fat, while keeping calories constant, for several months at a time (3, 4).  Here's a summary of their findings:

We showed that the carbohydrate-to fat ratio could vary widely with little or no alteration in the energy requirement for weight maintenance.  The results of a 13-week study in which an individual was fed a formula diet extremely rich in carbohydrate and low in fat for a period of 38 d and, thereafter, for a longer time, a diet rich in fat and low in carbohydrate are shown in Figure 1 [see below-- SG].  Weight varied little throughout the study and average energy intake was the same throughout...  The reason for emphasizing these findings is that under the strict conditions imposed by hospitalization and feedings of a formula diet, energy needs are the same over long periods of time even though carbohydrate-to-fat ratios vary.  Similar data were accumulated in 15 subjects.

Here, you can see the weight trajectory of the woman described above:

Over a fairly long period of time, her weight stayed within a 1 kg range, despite huge differences in diet composition.  The same thing was observed in a number of other subjects.

In other words, under non-overfeeding conditions, the carbohydrate and fat content of the diet have no measurable impact on body weight when calories are controlled.

Conclusion

There are always caveats when interpreting scientific evidence.  Here are a few for today:

• The studies we discussed were small.
• They may not have been long enough for differences to emerge.
• The overfeeding studies didn't include women.
• The overfeeding studies reported significant individual variability.  In other words, some individuals may gain body fat more readily when they overeat carbohydrate, while others may be more sensitive to fat.  Or not.  We can't really say based on these studies, but it remains possible. 

Scientific evidence is never perfect, but at some point we have to decide which hypothesis is best supported.  In this case, the clear winner is the hypothesis that total calorie intake determines body fatness, but not the proportion of dietary fat or carbohydrate.  

Based on the available evidence, the US obesity epidemic probably resulted from an increase in total calorie intake, not from changes in fat or carbohydrate intake that were acting independently of total calories.  We would likely be faced with the exact same obesity epidemic if our increased calorie intake came exclusively from fat, or exclusively from carbohydrate.

That being said, macronutrients (fat, carb, protein) are not irrelevant to body fatness!  They can impact fat storage by affecting how many calories we eat.  Added fats tend to increase calorie intake, while high-protein diets tend to decrease calorie intake.  Of course, refined and processed versions of fat and carbohydrate tend to favor higher calorie intake as well, due in part to higher calorie density and palatability.

Somewhat paradoxically, once a person is overweight or obese, increasing the proportion of protein and fat at the expense of carbohydrate can help control appetite and reduce body fatness.  During moderate carbohydrate restriction, this effect seems to depend mostly on increased protein intake, but during more extreme carbohydrate restriction, there may be a role for ketones.  I think there are still mysteries here that deserve further scientific exploration.  

* Average body fat percentage of lean group = 21.4%, which is not particularly lean for a man.  BMI = 21.3, which is low, so these people probably had a fairly undesirable body composition on average.  The investigators specifically excluded "highly trained individuals".

** Subjects received a 50% calorie excess.  Since obese people have a higher baseline calorie expenditure than lean people (25% higher in this study), the excess calories during overfeeding would be greater in an absolute sense.

*** The investigators do state that the body composition changes they measured were near the detection limit, given the short duration of overfeeding.  The subtext is that the fat overfeeding group may have ended up gaining a bit more fat if the study had lasted longer.  Personally, I'm skeptical of this possibility, due to the nearly identical body composition changes they reported and the results of Lammert et al.

*** Carb-rich: 11%, 78%, 11% of calories as fat, carb, protein.  Fat-rich: 58%, 31%, 11% of calories as fat, carb, protein.  In the carb group, a lot of the calories came from sugar (sucrose).

Gluttony is Good...Good for YOU!

Greedy Gluttony is Good for You 

Eat up. The fatter you are, the less likely you are to get depressed and commit suicide!

Cliches only turn into cliches because they're true. Otherwise, they just become a weird thing that someone in a bank once said to you. So I'm assuming that this will cheer you up, because I'm assuming that, at precisely this time of year, you're probably quite fat. Or maybe just fat for you. No, no, don't go and change - you'll be fine going out looking like that ...

Scientists have discovered that fat men are more cheerful than their thin peers. I thought this was just a revivification of the ancient (well ... maybe 25-year-old) wisdom that says you shouldn't go on a totally fat-free diet because your brain needs its fat surround to keep from crashing against your skull. That makes you depressed, apparently. But you don't have to be obese to maintain this fatty covering; you just have to not be anorexic.

Nor is this a reworking of the slightly less ancient study that found that people with notable self-control, people who weren't "appetitive", were more likely to be depressed. The usefulness of this survey was opaque. It appeared to demonstrate that hedonists were happier than puritans. Nobody needs a scientist to tell them that. They just need to study the works of Chaucer. Or Dickens. Or watch EastEnders. The people enjoying themselves are the fat, jolly ones. The people who worry about how they look, and what people think of them, and what God might think, and whether drinking too much mead will turn out to be a signal that they are bound for hell - those people don't enjoy themselves so much.

Fatties are Mentally Healthier Than The General Population!

In fact, the new research is quite new. It merely asked whether fat people kill themselves. Are they prone to depression or anxiety? The answers were all no. Not only are you less depressed when overweight, it works in proportion. The fatter you get, the less likely you are to commit suicide. Of course it's possible that you could be getting morbidly obese as an incremental form of suicide. Research doesn't relate.

Doctors hazarded a guess that thin people made themselves depressed with the effort of keeping thin. It's feasible, I suppose, but there are plenty of fat people on diets who are making all that effort and failing, and they seem pretty cheerful. Lacking an explanation, we have to fall back on "comfort eating". This is far from being a sarcastic catchphrase, like "panic buying" and "binge drinking".You do actually gain comfort from eating. As Kirstie Alley, the Fat Actress (I capitalise because that's the name of her show, not because she's really, really fat), once said, "ain't nothing as lovin' as something from the oven". As a rhyme, it works better in an American accent; as a concept, dammit, it's true in any language.

Consider the pleasure that can be derived from food. There is: a) the comforting taste of something nice, generally with a heap of fat and let's hope some brandy (sorry, it's still close to Christmas); b) the more arcane pleasures of the gourmet, which are prissier and rarer; and c) the warped pleasure of self-denial. Naturally, people who go for the last band will be the most miserable. They have misery written into their DNA.

What makes this fat/happy curve so surprising is that fat people are told that they have a horrible time at the hands of society but deep down we know that we have pulled the wool over society's eyes. This year it was revealed that they were less likely to land jobs have to work, and doctors made moves to stop treating them for joint replacements. Next year it'll probably be even worse. And still they smile.

If there really is a direct correlation between body mass index and mental health, when, exactly, are we going to start charging skinny people for their own Prozac? Huh? OINK?

zoe_williams@ntlworld.com

Dr Gerald "Teddy" Bear Citizen Science Guy

A Leaner Dr Bear Standing Pat

A lot of things make Dr Bear unique.

1. Like other science greats like Copernicus, Newton, Pasteur, Bill Nye, Sagan, Galileo and Einstein, Dr Bear has suffered for science. As a child, Dr Bear suffered at the hands of an anti-science pro jock teacher simply for having a love for science.

2. Dr Bear is the world's fattest astronomer and while that is unique there are other fat scientists.

3. Dr Bear is multi-talented in that he's a critically acclaimed cartoonist and social critic

The thing that sets Dr Bear apart is the fact that he is a citizen science guy. That means that Dr Bear is his own man. He is not affiliated with some corporation like Dupont nor is he associated with some corporate funded university. Dr Bear is his own man and the only dog he has in the fight is a big fat growling attack dog called the truth!

Visit Dr Bear at Debunction Junction and climb aboard the Truth Train.

How Gluttony and Obesity Stimulate The Economy

Gluttony is an economic stimulus on many levels! The gluttonous life style is a GOOD lifestyle it is good for both the glutton and the economy. When Gordon Gekko said, "Greed is good." he only got it half right. Greed may be good but greedy gluttony is better.

Even though the following graphic contains fat shaming pejoratives the numbers don't lie. Those of us in the man friendly fat acceptance see the glass half-full and when we are given lemons we make lemon

Grandma's Lemon Meringue Pie Recipe - Allrecipes.com

Michael Grimm: Just Another Rethuglican

The NY Daily News reports that Republican CONgressman Michael Grimm threaten to throw a NY1 reporter Michael Scotto from a balcony along with other threats of violence.

During an interview following President Obama's State of the Union address, the embattled Staten Island Republican grew angry after and made a violent threat against a NY1 reporter.

BY ADAM EDELMAN , JOSEPH STRAW 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Tuesday, January 28, 2014, 11:55 PM

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-rep-michael-grimm-threatens-reporter-asked-fundraising-allegations-article-1.1594857#ixzz301XymlM6

Fat Bastardo's Op Ed:

This was all caught on audio and video and here is how it went down.

“Congressman Michael Grimm does not want to talk about some of the allegations concerning his campaign finances ... but as you saw he refused to talk about that,” Scotto said as Grimm began to walk away.

Hearing Scotto’s comment, Grimm turned and walked toward the NY1 reporter Hearing Scotto’s comment, Grimm turned and walked toward the NY1 reporter "Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I'll throw you off this fucking balcony."

Scotto: “Why, why, I just wanted to ask you?”

Grimm: “If you ever do that to me again,”

Scotto replied, “why, why it’s a valid question,” Grimm said: “No, no, you're not man enough, you're not man enough. I'll break you in half. Like a boy,”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/new-york-rep-michael-grimm-threatens-reporter-asked-fundraising-allegations-article-1.1594857#ixzz301ldRwcV

They don't call members of the GOP Rethuglicans for nothing. This Rethuglican punk threatened a New York Italian. That's just stupid. While the NY mob may have lost some clout there are still enough wise guys left to put this guy's balls in spaghetti sauce. 

This sort of behavior is typical of today's Republicans. This is also a result of zero tolerance in schools. Clearly Michael Grimm has always been a punk, a bitch and a bully but had he gotten a few beat downs when he was in school perhaps he would be a bit more civilized and ethical today. For now all we can hope is that he ends up sleeping with the fishes in NY harbor compliments of some guys named Vito and Carlo. 

Republican are overly fond of young boys and in seems that Scotto's boyish looks put Grimm into Republican bugger mode.

BREAKING NEWS! GRIM INDICTED!

The U.S. Attorney's Office in New York intends on filing criminal charges against Rep. Michael Grimm, R-N.Y., an attorney for the congressman confirmed to CBS News.

Grimm has been under investigation for more than two years for alleged campaign finance violations.

Grimm, a conservative whose district includes parts of Staten Island and Brooklyn, made headlines after this year's State of the Union when he threatened a reporter who asked him about the campaign finance allegations.

The FBI has been investigating Grimm's relationship with his ex-business partner Ofer Biton, who pleaded guilty to visa fraud last year. In January, the FBI arrested Grimm's ex-girlfriend Diana Durand on charges that she used straw donors to make illegal campaign contributions to Grimm.

.

Jesus's Face Found On A Dog's Butt

It seems that Jesus' face is popping up everywhere lately, on toast, waffles, burritos, tacos, potato chips and now Jesus is showing up on dog's butts. I shit you not and neither does Jesus but the dog might.

Click HERE to see Jesus' Face on a Dog's Butt!



Related: BOMBSHELL! Phil Robertson's Gay Lover Speaks!

Jesus Christ or Charles Manson? Who Cares?  Give me a few pads of butter and some syrup!

Got Jesus? No but I got some Jelly!

Watch out for Woody Woodpecker Jesus!

Looks more like Charles Manson without the sauce and pepperoni!

Here's the deal, Charles Manson is real and Jesus Christ probably never existed except of what he wrote on the Bible.... OOOOOPS! Nothing that appears in the Bible was written by Jesus of Nazareth.

If you see a taco, cassadia, pancake, potato chip, cloud in the sky that looks like a guy with a beard it's just a guy with a beard. The depiction of Jesus Christ is a lie. Had Jesus existed he would have looked like a Middle Easterner and not a Northern European.

The Morons hate non whites so much that this is how they depict Jesus!

Jennifer Livingston Another Whining Fat Girl

Jennifer About to Have a Massive Foodgasm!

People are still opining on this!

The growth of this "fat acceptance" culture in America leaves me legitimately confused. Not only are we expected to treat obese people with respect and never urge them to lose weight, but somehow we should welcome fat people into our standards of what's socially acceptable and beautiful. What kind of idiot believes people should reform standard sof beauty to accept obese or fat people? Humans inherently view slimness as ideal--it's a sign of health, hygiene, and to some extent intelligence. Obesity is an abnormal lifestyle that exists due to excess; it's not natural and never should be treated as such.

That whole debacle over that fat news reporter getting infuriated over some guy telling her to lose weight in the most kind, gentle terms really brought this all full circle. Link here. This guy never called the reporter "fat", "obese", or "overweight" directly; he never attacked her for her weight; he never made his comments public (they were in a private f*cking e-mail, and she CHOSE to make his comment public in an attempt to garner sympathy). All he did was encourage and try to motivate her to lose weight to promote a healthy lifestyle, a lifestyle EVERYONE should aspire to adopt. What we saw was this woman berate him like some sort of bully, misrepresent what he said in the crudest of fashions, and then cry crocodile tears as the public and media rallied behind her. It was pathetic.

I just wish fat people would realize their lifestyle isn't healthy, isn't sustainable, isn't ideal, and isn't admirable; there is no reason to respect an obese lifestyle when it's immoral and dangerous.

Fat Bastardo weighs in:

This is what set the angry fat girl off and caused her journalistic stampede like a herd of angry NAAFA sows on their way to an all you can eat buffet.

I am in agreement with most of the above. Jennifer Livingston is not only a whiny fat girl but she is also intellectually dishonest which is why the fat accetptance movemet has stalled and otherwise failed miserably in Bill Fabrey's dream of AIDING FAT PEOPLE! Had Jennifer Livingston been honest she not only would not apologized for her sized but celebrated her gluttony and proclaimed that GLUTTONY IS GOOD! Instead Jennifer Livingston cried lied and denied and attacked this thinling man like she was an enraged hippo defending her calf. Once again, Ms Livingston like other fat girls set fat and gluttony promotion back another 10 years. This is just one more example of how fat feminism is fucking things up for fatlings everywhere.

Obesity is more than aesthetics. It's an indicator of a dangerous and disgusting lifestyle. It tells a person that you let immediate gratification dictate your life choices.

Fat Bastardo weighs in:

Here is where I take umbrage. While gluttony is a lifestyle choice and has it's dangers it is not a "disgusting" lifestyle. Gluttony is a great lifestyle. While the fat girls who ruined fat acceptance with chant, "Fat by Nature Proud by Choice those of us in the TRUE FA movement proclaim, PROUD by Nature and FAT by Choice. We can be any size we want and WE CHOOSE FAT. If fat girls like Jennifer can't handle the fat then they need to stop being fat!

Cute. Losing weight is easy. There's nothing self-righteous or egotistical about wanting people to either get in shape or realize they have a problem and stop lobbying for society to accept their laziness.

Fat Bastardo weighs in:

We fatlings are the overwhelming majority. We are society. We make the rules and we set the norms. Thinlings don't dictate to us, WE dictate to them not the other way around! Losing weight is easy but gaining it is fun. We are large and in charge!

I am thrilled that fatlings are the majority and dictating the ideal lifestyle, regardless of it being a lifestyle that is unsustainable, toxic, and guaranteed to lead you to reduced life expectancy. This is a brilliant proposition for advancing society. I am stunned by how incredibly ingenious it is to say "fuck it" and sit by the wayside while obesity skyrockets in the U.S. OINK!

Related: Kenneth Krause the accused fat shamer of Jennifer Livingston stands his ground.