You can usually find a study that supports a position if you take it far
enough out of context-

IMHO and IMHE, Americans are adding pounds:

1) because Americans are adding stress from added hours of work, and comfort
food drops short-term stress - but it adds pounds long-term. ( Children
sense parent's stress, and react accordingly and go hide in games while they
intake comfort food)

2) women add pounds because they want to share with men, as equally
participating - so when 200 lb dad gets a plateful, 120 lb mom gets the
same amount - subconsciously "sharing", or "equals", or whatever .
Sorry, mom - you get half as much on your plate as dad, unless you want
to gain weight. You get one, he gets one-and-a-half-to-two. He gets more to
eat than you do. Period. He big. You small.

3) Many Americans don't take in sufficient fat calories (30% of daily
calories) recommended by exercise nutritionists. So they run slow and use
caffeine to kick up, and then put on pounds.

4) Too many Americans eat sugar water for breakfast (cereal and skim milk) -
a sure way to drop metabolic rate in half (ref: British study from years
back comparing metabolic effect of fats, carbohydrate, and protein for
breakfast) and curry type II diabetes from a daily insulin bounce.
Breakfast, the hour after waking, is a time for fat and protein and
carbohydrates, a combination which turns up the metabolic rate. A sweet
roll is even better than skim milk and cereal or a skim latte.

5) pounds go on because Americans do not understand basic math - adult
maintenance intake is roughly 10 calories per pound of body weight (if you
eat a fat-carb-protein breakfast-less otherwise). Period. (Teens and
nursing.pregnant mothers can go to 20-25 cal/lb )

No way around the numbers:
If an adult wants to weigh 120 pounds for the rest of your life, you eat
1200 calories per day -for the rest of your life.
If an adult wants to weigh 300 pounds for the rest of your, eat those 3000
calories per day - for the rest of your life.

(OK, a few muscled-types may need to go to 12 or 15 cal per pound if, ONCE
you get to your desired weight, you start to go below your desired weight on
your maintenance calories)

(The Basic "engineer's diet" for an adult is:
eat, in calories per day, what you want to weigh in lbs times ten - for
basically the rest of your life.
eat, in daily grams of protein, half your desired lbs-weight , especially
if you are using heavy weight regimen to prevent muscle loss as you come
down to your desired weight )

FWIW

just my observations, in nutrition and athletics and having stress-gains on
and off for a few decades.

And since there are more opinions about dieting than there are people on the
planet - it must mean there are an awful lot of different kinds of helpful
people that find different things work for different people - so it seems
then that the only thing you can trust are the numbers.... IMC, weight and
calorie intake.

whatever....

"jiso" > wrote in message
oups.com...
> "New Findings On Diet And Fat Spark Rejoicing Among The Hefty"
>
> By Jowlie Bigaman
> Dietary Journal Staff Writer
> February 8, 2006
>
> "This confirms what I've been saying for years - fat is good for
> you," said Lena Lumford, a chef in Reading, Pa. "I weigh 422 pounds,"
> said Lumford, 37, "and I never believed all that baloney. Now I'm
> getting reacquainted with my comfort foods."
>
> Lumford was among a number of overweight Americans interviewed in
> the wake of a new study by the National Heart, Lung and Blood
> Institute that indicates that low-fat diets do not protect women from
> heart attacks, strokes or breast and colon cancer. The 8-year
> study's findings are believed to apply to men as well as women,
> according to Ivan Hubitcukakov of the Institute. The study results
> seem to contradict accepted dietary precepts that have guided American
> for decades.
>
> In an assisted living facility in Frenulum, Ariz., Aggie Moundess,
> 58, said she's preparing to kiss her low-fat diet goodbye.
>
> "I'm going back to my favorite foods," she told a reporter. "That
> means bacon, eggs, ham, and hash browns - with gravy!"
>
> The 5' 2" Moundess, a retired cab dispatcher who admits to 270
> pounds, added that she never succeeded in keeping off pounds shed
> through numerous diets.
>
> "Some of us are naturally heavy," she insisted, adjusting her
> walker, "and it's very stressful to be constantly dieting while our
> friends eat what they please. After all, you only live once."
>
> Theo Broadbeam, 41, who works at a Dunkin Donuts shop in Mesa,
> Ariz., said he ignores stares from customers when he serves up honey
> dips and cream-filled pastry.
>
> "I figure I'm a good advertisement for my company's products. I
> weigh about 300 pounds, but on my 5-foot, ten-inch body, I don't
> think I come across as obese," he chuckled. "Just a healthy-lookin'
> good ol' boy."
>
> Jenni Waite, who works in the cafeteria at First Regional Hospital
> in Springfield, Ill., said she never put much trust in low-fat diets.
>
> My grandmother, who lived to be 94, was always overweight," said the
> 33-year-old, 230-pound Waite, "and she never was sick a day in her
> life until she died in her sleep. And her blood pressure was like 200
> over 170, her cholesterol was through the roof, and she weighed about
> 250 [pounds]!"
>
> Doctor Thoran Scales, a food specialist, is introducing a
> "Healthy-Fat Diet" he's developed at the University of South
> Delaware Hospital. It allows liberal consumption of fat, but requires
> followers to carefully keep track of total calories from fat on a daily
> basis.
>
> The diet allows not more than 80 calories from fat a day, no matter
> an individual's physical size," he said. "This way, we feel that a
> person can still enjoy what we call fatty foods while staying within
> our guidelines for lipid ingestion."
>
> He added that he expects to publish guidelines for the diet in late
> March.
>
> http://www.dietaryjournal.com
>
> === ### ===
>
>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020701681.html
>
>