ULers Carrying an Extra 20-40 lbs – WHY?!

"Genetics will never explain why some people suffer from the delusion that their body some how is outside the laws of thermodynamics"

No, but genetics does seem to explain why identical twins, even when seaparated at birth and raised in different environments, almost always end up later in life with the same body mass index and same weight distribution as eachother. The exceptions seem to be when one twin ends up in a concentration camp!

Have you considered diabetes? I am diabetic and was eating more than I should. I was also much heavier than most people realized. I was told I would no longer be starving once my blood sugar was controlled. When I was finally able to keep my blood sugars under 140 I found that my appetite did decreased and I quickly lost 60 pounds. I am still over weight, I watch what I eat and exercise daily but have reached a plateau. I have always been an outdoorsman and have pushed the envelope into visiting remote locations. I never considered my excess weight to be a hinderance in doing what i love. Do I want to lose more weight. Yes, because I want to live and push my diabetes into a pre-diabetic state. There are many reasons to be over weight and those reasons are not always apparent. Prior to being diagnose, I naturally concentrated on gear weight and tried to keep my weight under control. The weight gain was slow and I chalked it up to old age and slowing down not realizing I was fighting a losing battle to diabetes if left untreated.

People tend to focus first on what is easiest to change. Losing weight definitely helps but there are a lot of variables in doing so. At least the fat man was getting some exercise and not sitting on the couch watching a movie while gorging on butter popcorn.

"gorging on butter popcorn."

– too bad that would be a healthy and delicious snack
corn – whole grain
butter- full of vitamin A or retinol, vitamin D, vitamin K and vitamin E, Omega-6 and Omega-3 Essential Fatty Acids, Lecithin,Cholesterol, Glycosphingolipids, manganese, zinc, chromium and iodine.

Well, I've got to back up everything Aris says.

First, you cannot criticize me for telling someone that they are overweight when they are in fact overweight. IT'S MY JOB. I'm a doctor. I'm allowed to be "rude" about such things. If you are fat, I will tell you that you are fat. I am fat. I struggle with it. (My personal demon is portion sizes.) But, like anyone else without some sort of metabolic derangement, if I can muster enough willpower I can lose ALL of my excess weight. I've done it- I have restricted myself to very low caloric intake and lost ridiculous amounts of weight very quickly- probably too quickly. (Fifteen pounds in a month is too quickly.) That was hubris, I admit, and I was quite uncomfortable while doing it.

That said, while I do tell my patients that they are fat if they are fat, I do not walk up to random obese pedestrians within my field of view and accost them. As Aris says, you never know their situation. And, frankly, it is none of my business. If they ASK me about their weight then all bets are off, though, and I will not shirk from telling someone that they need to lose weight out of some sense of "politeness." I'm pretty tactful, though, and in general can critique without being offensive.

The MetLife height/weight tables are a useful approximation, but they have their limits. For example, if you are a body-builder who is very muscular and has a very low body fat you will almost certainly chart as "obese" on the MetLife tables. Lean body mass (or, secondarily, body fat percentage) is a better metric, but is difficult to measure accurately. So, Sarah, you might be doing very well, in truth, if you are conditioning the way that you say that you are.

I wholeheartedly support all opposition to the current "Oprah-fied" trend in society to consider obesity as normal. I've done >100 bariatric surgeries and let me assure you NONE of those people were physiologically incapable of losing weight. They were PSYCHOLOGICALLY incapable of losing weight. If they had a physiologic problem then I would not have done the surgery- I would instead have treated their hypothyroidism or whatever it was. Almost all of these poeple blamed their "glands", but had normal TSH on the labs.
It sucks, but the truth is that with enough willpower you can lose weight. (Sorry, Sarah. Love you.) Watch one episode of "The Biggest Loser" if you want proof. (I am not endorsing such extreme weight loss, but it does support my point.)
I will back Sarah up, though, when she says that it can be hard. But, well, sometimes you have to work for it if you really want something, y'know? And some people DO certainly have to work harder than others- people's metabolisms DO differ. The Vermont prison study proved that pretty conclusively.* It is especially hard, as she says, to both condition and lose weight at the same time. I generally focus on one at a time. (I'm currently in "lose weight" mode, counting calories, and I've lost five pounds in the past month. I know from experience that it will then be much easier for me to work out intensively, and re-condition.)

And western diets suck. That makes it all even more difficult, I know.

And, as far as how pack weight differs from excess body weight- my mind boggles trying to fugure out how pack weight is worse on the knees (or whatever) than excess body weight. Maybe there is some ergonomic reason, but it must be pretty small.

Still, I advocate expanding HYOH into the rest of you life on this one- if someone is a bit of a gourmand (like Sarah?) and decides that eating well keeps them happy, and they are willing to tote a few extra pounds, well, then they are happy, aren't they? Granted, it would be even better if they were a gourmand who was willing to work extra hard to keep the weight off (again, like Sarah?). And I will certainly advise them to lose the weight if they exceed "overweight" and nudge into "obesity." But I'm not one to deny another person happiness if I can help it. A few extra pounds is -realtively- harmless, as long as they don't keep accumulating, or cause secondary problems like hypertension, diabetes, or whatever.

But some people are simply screwed by their basal metabolism, and will have to work much harder to keep from becoming obese. It isn't fair, but then life isn't fair, is it?

By the way, how much fat or carbs (or whatever) that you eat has very little effect. All you have to do is worry about calories in versus calories out. (And, of course, be sure you're getting enough vitamins and protein and whatnot.) The exception is the Adkins diet which I think actually does work due to the ketogenic effect, but it isn't very healthy, and is actually harder than just counting calories.

Caories-in/Calories-out. Say it with me…

P.S. I'm just mentioning you specifically because of things you have posted in this thread, Sarah. Obviously, I have never met you, and I'm not trying to present my little comments as facts or criticisms. I'm just trying to better explain what I'm saying.
Love your book, by the way. It certainly changed the way I pack food for the trail.

* The Vermont prison study worked thusly: The investigators offered prisoners better food than normal prison fare in exchange for participating in the study. The deal was, they had to eat exactly the amount of calories the investigators assigned to them. They found that some individuals could maintain their body weight even if they took in huge amounts of calories a day, whereas others would put on weight at 2000 calories a day. (Caveat- I think these were all males, though they were all screened for metabolic derangements first.)
So, there is quite a bit of variance even among normal individuals.

Hey Dean,

Can you post a bit more info/ref on the Vermont prison study. I'd love to check that one out.

I was just trying to find it again, actually. I can't easily find a free copy online. I printed out the info to order it through my library.

I think this is it:

Author: Sims EA
Title: Endocrine and metabolic effects of experimental obesity in man
Publication: Recent Progress in Hormone Research. 29:457-96, 1973.

More will follow.

Genetics can determine how our bodies decide whether we store or burn calories.

Over eaters brains share similarities to drug users, compulsive gamblers, and other addicts

The american diet makes it easy to become addicted to salt, sugar, and fat

Doctors have also found that gastric bypass patients are much more likely to transfer their compulsive eating behaviors to gambling, sex, over spending, theft, etc. and need counseling to manage their behavior.

Why is atkins unhealthy?

Try to be an endurance athlete without carbs.

"Caories-in/Calories-out. Say it with me…"

Though the number of calories you eat is a factor, what kind of calories the the biggest. Dont eat any refined flour,sugar,soy refined corn ect… and you will not only lose weight but your overall health will vastly improve. Dont eat anything with a label on it.

>> what kind of calories the the biggest.

No. It isn't. Not when we are talking simply about weight loss, as opposed to nutrition.

And, coming from someone who claimed that butter is "healthy", it is a rather bizzare statement. :o)

Refined flour, sugar, etc., are still just calories. If you eat less calories of them you will still lose weight. The source makes little difference. I stand by my statement.

They have health problems for other reasons. (As does butter.) Among them that refining removes a lot of nutrients, but MOST significantly they tend to be very calorically dense and thus it is easy to eat too much of them. (Thus, the problem is still too many calories.) Corn syrup is a big problem this way.

Your statement not to 'eat anything with a label on it' is certainly not bad advice, but it was missing my point. Nutrition is one thing, but I was talking about calories and weight loss. For all practical purposes a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. Your body will turn it into adipose tissue no matter what the source is. There is some small difference in how efficiently different sources are made into fat, but the difference is trivial, and is generally already accounted for when calculating the amount of 'food calories' in a given food.

Regarding weight loss, avoiding refined foods will make it easier to take in less calories, but that is all.

Rod,

I sent you a PM, to get your email so I can email the Vermont Prison Study to you.

There were two subjects who required 2700 cal/square meter to gain weight. For a 70-inch person, this is about 7800 calories.

Later,

I recommend the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories"
by Gary Taubes

"coming from someone who claimed that butter is "healthy", it is a rather bizzare statement."
What is unhealthy about real butter? It has healthy saturated fat, cholesterol, vitamins and minerals. its real food.

Butter is processed…refined…and has a label (unless you make it yourself). So advocating butter while dissing anything processed or labelled is a bit hard to swallow, so to speak.

And Dean is pretty much correct in terms of calorie balance being the main determinant of fat loss. However, some calories are much easier to over-consume than others. This is the biggest danger of processed foods (including butter) and even unprocessed foods. It would be difficult to over eat on potatoes alone (an unprocessed and unlabelled food), for instance, or butter alone. But if you add lots of yummy salted butter to your spuds, the combo suddenly becomes very easy to gorge on.

butter is technically processed in the way broccoli is processed ( harvested, washed, packed) and its labeled too. But it is not what people refer to when they say processed. Add the butter to broccoli and you will have a hard time getting fat.
While you will have no problem getting fat on potatoes no butter needed.

I will have to refer back that book, its whole point was to refute the whole calorie counting thing he will have more references than I can give you.
But thats not really the reason I bothered to post what I knew would get under some peoples skin. I posted for those who see this thread that want to get fit.
I was one of those people who had a little gut even though I exercised -worked out, had a very physical job that would have me covered in sweat head to toe every day, and I could run hike all day- but still had that fat. It wasn't until I got older that I had to say-thats it Im too old to play around with my heath its time to eat right -really right. I never counted a calorie. I eat until Im full thats it. My body knows when it has enough because I eat real food.* I ve lost all of that fat and It stays off because of what I eat not because I keep track of some theoretical output-input equation. lets just say that I want people to know that there may be a better way than they have been told by the media/gov/doctor and I think they should give it a shot.
* low glycemic

"butter is technically processed in the way broccoli is processed ( harvested, washed, packed) and its labeled too"

Umm, I disagree. Butter is made from milk (that is the whole, unprocessed food) by a method of curdling/churning to separate the fat from the whey (protein) and water. It is a very processed and un-whole food.

"I will have to refer back that book, its whole point was to refute the whole calorie counting thing he will have more references than I can give you.
But thats not really the reason I bothered to post what I knew would get under some peoples skin. I posted for those who see this thread that want to get fit.
I was one of those people who had a little gut even though I exercised -worked out, had a very physical job that would have me covered in sweat head to toe every day, and I could run hike all day- but still had that fat. It wasn't until I got older that I had to say-thats it Im too old to play around with my heath its time to eat right -really right. I never counted a calorie. I eat until Im full thats it. My body knows when it has enough because I eat real food.* I ve lost all of that fat and It stays off because of what I eat not because I keep track of some theoretical output-input equation. lets just say that I want people to know that there may be a better way than they have been told by the media/gov/doctor and I think they should give it a shot.
* low glycemic"

Aha, we get to the bottom line, which I agree with, but has nothing to do with processing, or labeling or anything else you advocate. Low GI is not intuitive. Some spuds (usually early harvest) are lower GI, later harvest are not. Some rice (whole grain in particular) are lower GI than others. Even carrot vary in their GI. How something is cooked, and how long it is cooked for, influences GI. And then there is the individual response to any food, where one individuals GI is much different to another's. So the like of nutritionists and medics find they need to come up with a *one size fits all* approach to nutrition, which may not suit the individual. All this does not mean you should accuse you GP of giving you bad information, merely that if you want personal health, diet and fitness advice you really need to educate yourself and NOT depend on someone else for your health advice.

As a mentor of mine once said, we all tend to do what is instantly hormonally satisfying. A big hit of insulin, fat, tryptophan, testosterone, drugs sex and rock 'n roll all meet this criteria. So most of us are junkies to our unhealthful food (and other lifestyle) choices. As You Brian know, I have followed a low GI bodybuilding diet for many years, but eventually fell off the wagon because it basically was totally un-fufilling and un-satisfying. It takes extra-ordinary willpower to stay on a strict diet for life in the presence of so much easy and yummy food. I wish you luck in your pursuit.

Taube's book is described as a "challenge to widely accepted ideas on nutrition and weight loss". Thus, his seems to be a fringe opinion.

But, as I said, I will certainly back you up that you are eating a healthy diet. Fat calories, per se, don't somehow magically add more weight than other calories. (Coronary health is another matter, Taube notwithstanding.) It is just high-calorie, and as long as most other foods you are eating aren't high-calorie you'll do fine. But you can get fat eating butter, just as you can get fat eating potatos.

Calories in, calories out…

Your mention of a "theoretical input output equation" and hints about a media/gov/doctor conspiracy are inane, brother. I mean, the "input/output" slur actually made me chuckle. Theoretical?!? As a member of the conspiracy (twice over) I'm really amused by that kind of stuff. :o)
The input/output equation is the established science. Thus the onus is on you (and Taube) to prove otherwise. And as the saying goes: extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Taube's book certainly does NOT qualify as extraordinary. I can find you a book on alien abductions and another on how the Atlanteans are running the US government, if you like… :o)

Sorry- I'm not trying to equate a diet book with conspiracy theorists. I'm only trying to point out that reading something in a book doesn't make it true. And I'm definitely not going to get into a source-citing war with you. (Those get boring, quick.) Suffice to say I could produce a lot more primary and secondary sources about caloric balance than Taube cites in his book.

CERTAINLY there are important factors in diet health that cannot be boiled down to calorie counting. But weight loss is the one where calorie counting is appropriate. Your statement that "what kind of calories [is] the biggest" determinate of weight loss is absurd. (it is especially the use of the word "biggest" with which I take umbrage.)
Even Adkins, which I mentioned earlier, probably works because the diet is so monotonous that people don't eat as much, and thus take in less calories. And it is NOT an "eat all the meat and fat you want" diet, as many people seem to think it is.

Anyway I also don't technically count calories any more, either. Instead I sat down and figured out a menu for myself that results in a healthy and on average calorically-deficient diet. (Counting calories every day gets old fast.) And it is working, despite the fact that I eat (high-GI) bread with my sandwich at lunch every day.

And, incidentally, I'm not totally discounting the utility of the glycemic index (GI). It obviously does have utility. But BY FAR total calories is more important when we're talking about weight loss. Despite much pasta being low-GI, many people get fat on pasta. And note that with a few exceptions if you are eating a low-GI diet, then you are eating low-calorie foods. Another factor (shared by Adkins) is that a low-GI diet is rather monotonous, and thus people tend to eat less of it, leading to less calories, yet again. And the glycemic index has issues in how it is calculated, too, which I won't get into, but suffice to say it can be a very helpful dietary aid but is certainly not better than counting calories for purposes of weight loss.

To highlight the GI-calculation issues: You, Brian, the "no processed food" advocate, may be surprised to learn that high-fructose corn syrup not particularly high-GI. In fact, HRCS90 qualifies as low-GI, with a GI<55. The most commonly used form, HFCS55, just barely misses, with a GI=57. My point is that even if you ate pure fructose (GI=20) your body would STILL digest that fructose and you would STILL gain the weight appropriate for that number of excess calories. Where else do you propose that those calories go? (See: First Law of Thermodynamics.)

A low-GI diet is NOT "the answer" for weight loss. It can be helpful for diabetics, though even then reducing calories, weight loss, and basic carbohydrate counting have been shown to be more effective in reducing A1C.

I'm sure that even on your low-GI diet you are watching your portion sizes, etc.? You're not pigging out on pasta and butter, right? I'd bet that you actually put yourself on a low-calorie diet. You just did it in a roundabout way. (A roundabout way that certainly has other beneficial health effects.)

Many, many processes advocated for dieting are generally just disguises for lowering caloric intake. No diet that ANYONE has EVER proposed beats restricting caloric intake. (However you do it; and if keeping a low-GI diet helps you cut your calories, all the more power to you, brother.) Restricting calories will work for ANYONE who doesn't have a metabolic derangement. It just takes quite a bit of self-discipline.

I have never understood why people try to complicate an issue that is so simple.

Dean, have you read Gary Taubes book? It seems you have not. It is extremely well researched and cited. It is primarily an examination of the science behind our dietary recommendations. It turns out most of the science is just plain bad; flawed studies, contradictory results. It is not a 'diet' book and does not make recommendations for what you should eat; it's simply an examination of what we are being told to eat.

I definitely recommend it. It is a 'fringe' opinion but not without support of many qualified individuals.

Try thincs.org:

"The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (THINCS) is a steadily growing group of scientists, physicians, other academicians and science writers from various countries. Members of this group represent different views about the causation of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease, some of them are in conflict with others, but this is a normal part of science. What we all oppose is that animal fat and high cholesterol play a role. The aim with this website is to inform our colleagues and the public that this idea is not supported by scientific evidence; in fact, for many years a huge number of scientific studies have directly contradicted it."

The issue I have with conspiracy theories of nutrition is that they all ignore the fact that most folks are getting fat by NOT following these same theories. If someone followed the USDA food pyramid to the letter, they shouldn't be getting fat. If they follow Taubes' diet to the letter, they shouldn't be getting fat. If they follow Atkins, or Ornish, or Masai or Warrior or Mediterannean diets to the letter, they shouldn't be getting fat. Truth is, most people can't or choose not to stick to any of the equally acceptably methods of calorie control and healthy eating due to lack of discipline. It's not the carbs or fats that are our downfall, it's our lack of resolve and carry through. I loooove meeting up with my mother and her partner for a big old American breakfast. They both sit there and order the three egg ham and cheese omellete (nothing wrong with that), with hash browns. toast and some sausages on the side, while saying that *I shouldn't be eating this because of my cholesterol* (and I'm thinking you shouldn't do it because you're FAT). But they do it anyway, then add artificial sweetener to their coffee to reduce calories. None of those foods are *bad* in isolation, but the combination mixed with the excess portion sizes makes it a heart attack feast. We all know folks like this. It's not an ignorance of how they should eat that holds them back.

+1 Lynn. Well said. I'm always surprised by the number of people waiting for the next fad, when people have for millenia known how to stay healthy. It seems most people want their cake and to eat it, too. Literally.

>> It is a 'fringe' opinion…

Well, Evan, I'm glad we agree on that!

>> have you read Gary Taubes book? It seems you have not. It is extremely well researched and cited.

No. Have you read a decent medical text? It seems you have not. I recommend Harrison's Internal Medicine. It, too, is very well researched and cited. I think you'll find it enlightening.

Please don't condescend to me, Evan.

I don't really have to read Taube's particular book- I am familiar with the arguments. And it is Bad Science if it says that for practical purposes total calories is immaterial, and that fructose calories don't make you as fat as starch calories do. Sorry. As general diet advice, a low-GI diet is pretty good, but that's talking nutrition not weight loss, unless you cut calories, too.

You can find "many qualified individuals" to support almost any notion. Even whackos get degrees occasionally. But the peer review process weeds them out, as it has with the propositions in Taube's book. (There is a reason this is a mass-market book rather than a peer reviewed meta-analysis in a scientific journal. But even peer review isn't a perfect criterion, because garbage DOES get published with some regularity.)

But, since people insist upon defending then i guess I'll have to address Taube and thincs:

The stuff about risk factors for heart disease MIGHT have SOME merit (after all, it took us a while to figure out that LDL and HDL behaved differently) but your referral to thincs.org is pointless- we're not talking about coronary health, we are talking about weight loss. And Uffe Ravnskov is DEFINITELY fringe. I mean- saying that coronary atherosclerosis is a healthy and beneficial damage-repair process ?!? Wow. I WILL agree that dietary control is preferential to prescribing a statin, but so would ANY doctor so this isn't some creative new idea on Ravnskov's part, and many people are incapable of controlling their diet so the statin or other medical control is the next best option.
As I said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and Ravnskov hasn't met that criteria by a long shot, no matter how much he protests that he has. In fact his position crumbles under the weight of contrary data.

The Lipid Hypothesis remains the official position of every reputable public health organization on this planet, including the NIH.

Here is the Skeptic's Dictionary entry about Uffe Ravnskov:

http://skepdic.com/refuge/bunk28.html

As you can imagine, it is rather critical.

Science-Based Medicine has this to say about thincs:

"They tell us about those contradicting studies; but they don’t tell us about the flaws in those studies, they misrepresent some of the results, and they don’t tell us about the many good studies that support the cholesterol/heart link. The issue is a complex one, and it is easy to find studies to support any claim. Good science is about weighing all the evidence pro and con before reaching a conclusion. As far as I can see, these folks have cherry-picked the literature to support an agenda. They seem to have a vendetta against statin drugs in particular […] It provides “what the medical journals and newspapers won’t let you hear” – letters and papers that have been rejected for publication."

Most fringe critics and conspiracy nuts are notorious for cherry-picking data. It always sets off my radar, as does citing research that was rejected for publication.

Sorry. Not buying it.

There are now many peer reviewed comparative weight loss studies available, but one of the clearest and easy for the lay-person to understand is this summary:

Comparison of the Atkins, Ornish, Weight Watchers, and Zone diets for weight loss and heart disease risk reduction: a randomized trial.

Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Metabolism, Atherosclerosis Research Laboratory, Tufts-New England Medical Center, Boston, Mass 02111, USA. mdansinger@tufts-nemc.org

CONTEXT: The scarcity of data addressing the health effects of popular diets is an important public health concern, especially since patients and physicians are interested in using popular diets as individualized eating strategies for disease prevention. OBJECTIVE: To assess adherence rates and the effectiveness of 4 popular diets (Atkins, Zone, Weight Watchers, and Ornish) for weight loss and cardiac risk factor reduction. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A single-center randomized trial at an academic medical center in Boston, Mass, of overweight or obese (body mass index: mean, 35; range, 27-42) adults aged 22 to 72 years with known hypertension, dyslipidemia, or fasting hyperglycemia. INTERVENTION: A total of 160 participants were randomly assigned to either Atkins (carbohydrate restriction, n=40), Zone (macronutrient balance, n=40), Weight Watchers (calorie restriction, n=40), or Ornish (fat restriction, n=40) diet groups. After 2 months of maximum effort, participants selected their own levels of dietary adherence. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: One-year changes in baseline weight and cardiac risk factors, and self-selected dietary adherence rates per self-report. RESULTS: The mean weight loss at 1 year was 2.1 kg for Atkins (53% participants completed), 3.2 kg for Zone (65% completed), 3.0 kg for Weight Watchers (65% completed), and 3.3 kg for Ornish (50% completed). Greater effects were observed in study completers. Each diet significantly reduced the low-density lipoprotein/high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol ratio by approximately 10% (all P<.05), with no significant effects on blood pressure or glucose at 1 year. AMOUNT OF WEIGHT LOSS WAS ASSOCIATED WITH SELF-REPORTED DIETARY ADHERENCE LEVEL BUT NOT WITH DIET TYPE. For each diet, decreasing levels of total/HDL cholesterol, C-reactive protein, and insulin were significantly associated with weight loss with no significant difference between diets. CONCLUSIONS: Each popular diet modestly reduced body weight and several cardiac risk factors at 1 year. Overall dietary adherence rates were low, although increased adherence was associated with greater weight loss and cardiac risk factor reductions for each diet group.

I don't think controlling your diet is too hard at all. Several times a year I will give up something completely for a week or two just to see what it feels like. Often times caffeine will be cut completely, and I pay attention to how crappy I feel. Other fun things to cut out are added salt, sugar, potatoes, bread.

Another somewhat fun thing to do is overdose on certain food groups. Like eating A LOT of fruit with every meal. Or eating a ton of vegetables with every meal. Twice to three times more than normal. It's interesting to see the way the body reacts.

I mainly follow a caveman diet now, or zone diet, or whatever you want to call it. Kinda sucked at first, but it's enjoyable now.

For anyone looking for a good workout program that should help them lose weight, I'd suggest Crossfit and Crossfit endurance. Just follow the advice the folks in those cults.. err communities have to offer to avoid a lot of pain and wasted time/money. But the results are real, I've seen quite a few people who have been doing it for a while that I'm pretty convinced could make a silverback gorilla look like a cripple in a physical contest.

Let me point out that it is much more fun to buy a new UL tent made of cuben fiber than it is to lose 5 pounds. Losing weight is NOT fun! (and I lost 9 pounds this summer)

Next, it's important to note that when we are preachy and judgemental, it tends to prompt judgement and negativity in response. This seems to be part of the point in the initial posting. I remember how my Ultralight Nazi attitude used to tick people off and prompt stubborn anti-UL responses from some friends. I think part of the aha moment came from the preachiness of this hiker.

I love the "hike your own hike" attitude and I've gained a lot from this wise statement. My friends are happier to hike with me these days. :-)