backpacking and weight reduction

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Volker Gringmuth said:

Right ... and it's astonishing how little food you really need to get
enough energy for a long day's walk.

Is that because the body uses its surplus fat stores?

Obviously. I had to drink a lot, by the way - maybe the body needs large
amounts of water to process the fat.

The processing becomes obvious in the colour of urine after a day or
two backpacking with a load over hilly ground, even after drinking
copious amounts of water. I also notice when food energy has been
depleted and the body's reserves start to get used a marked change in
my breath which smells more like a smelly mongrel dog than normal. It
is especially noticeable in late morning after the energy from my
breakfast porridge has been exhausted.
This apparently is also one of the side effects of the Atkins Diet,
not that I've tried it.

I find as a rule of thumb that I can expect to lose a pound in weight
for each full day out on the hills. This probably steadily multiplies
with the length of a trip, but as yet I have no experience of anything
over 4 days.

Thinking of it logically, fully laden I will tip the scales at about
230lbs, (1/10th of a ton). Over the course of a day ascending 5,000
feet is the equivalent of standing on top of a 500 foot cliff and
pulling a 1 ton weight up. Don't know what that is in KCals etc, but
its a mighty amount of effort.

Backpacking has to be one of the most enjoyable means of expending
vast amounts of energy over a prolonged period.

Coupled with that is the added bonus that in terms of reductions in
body weight, fuel and food, it has to be one of the only activities
that gets easier as one goes along (Resupply for extended trips
excluded).

Steve

John Laird said:

For a small fee, I will put up a web page showing acceptable weights in the
BMI range of, ooh, let's say 20-35, with a warning that a figure under 25
will invoke great suspicion of cheating and/or accusations of bulimic
tendencies. That sound ok ? ;-)

Gosh, that sounds like a good idea.

Today I am only 25.4 (but it could be higher tomorrow) so perhaps you
could set the cheat alarm at 24.8 so I do at least have something to
aim for but won't get carried away (physically or metaphorically).

Judith

Geoff Berrow said:

Quoted message said:

I'm a stone overweight actually.

Over which part of the range? Top of the range for my height is
supposed to be 11 stone. I'm 11 and a half but I'd be happier at 10
:-)

No idea about range, I'm a stone heavier than I should be, i.e. a stone
heavier than I always used to be. For most of my life I was around 9.5
to 10 stone, now I'm around 11 stone.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

Judith said:

Judith (About 10 lb lighter now than in May)

Well I lost 9lb from March to June, but a few of those have crept back
on recently...

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

In article <[email hidden]>, John Laird
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

I must admit some of the statistics coming out now are rather alarming.

I find the shape of the ever increasing population of obese people far
more alarming than any statistics.

Having spent some time in the US I very much hope we are not going to
follow them all the way down that road.

--

Dominic Sexton
http://www.dscs.demon.co.uk/

Paul Saunders said:

I'm a stone heavier than I should be, i.e. a stone
heavier than I always used to be. For most of my life I was around 9.5
to 10 stone, now I'm around 11 stone.

Same kind of thing happened to me. Not only about 1.5 stone excess,
but I shifted from a metabolism which couldn't gain a pound no matter
how much I ate (I just got more fidgety and energetic the more I ate),
to one which put on weight quite easily. Must be some of kind of
age-related shift in hormones or something I thought.

I was right. Turns out it was developing insulin resistance which if
ignored has a strong tendency to turn into diabetes. If ignored?
Today's medical practice ignores it until you develop pretty damn
obvious symptoms of T2 diabetes, then you find out you'd been
developing it slowly for a decade.

I was lucky. I also suffer from Persistent Curiosity. So despite all
the infuriating assurances that I was "ok for my age" I kept sniffing
around, and when I got round to testing my own blood glucose responses
to food it suddenly became horribly clear what was happening. I also
picked it up at least a few years before I would have become
sufficiently not ok for my age that a GP would have spotted it. While
it's not curable (yet), you can slow down the rate of progression a
lot, possibly even (though this is controversial) halt it.

It looks as though the current criteria for diagnosis are set
according to a medical philosophy which says "Research shows that very
few people can change diet or lifestyle, but they will take pills, so
to bother diagnosing this before it's bad enough to need pills would
be a waste of time and money."

And I thought I'd been contributing my taxes to the National *Health*
System! It isn't! It's the National Evidence-Based Cost-Effective
Disease Management System. Grrrr!

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Dominic Sexton said:

In article <[email hidden]>, John Laird
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

I must admit some of the statistics coming out now are rather alarming.

Quoted message said:

I find the shape of the ever increasing population of obese people far
more alarming than any statistics.

Quoted message said:

Having spent some time in the US I very much hope we are not going to
follow them all the way down that road.

I was quite alarmed when I first visited the US twenty years
ago. Obese folk that I see once a day in the UK were waddling around
every street corner, and every day I saw at least one person so
alarmingly obese that I thought I'd better keep my distance in case
they fell over and burst.

My suspicion is that this is what happens when you eat more and food
of a kind very well suited to a high activity lifestyle, i.e., plenty
of quickly available starchy carbohydrates for energy (bread, tatties,
pasta) while at the same time spending more and more time sitting on
your bum (at the office desk, in front of the TV, in the car). It
could be charactrised as high glycemic index carbohydrate poisoning,
which after years of abuse (driving a car while eating a doughnut, for
instance) leads to metabolic disorders (e.g. insulin resistance) which
result in putting on weight even if you're starving and no longer
eating enough to sustain a normal person in good health.

So which politician is going to tell people to cut back on the
feel-good blood-sugar-raising foods, switch off the TV, and leave the
car in the garage?

I can't see it happening. The best we can expect is a silly
advertising campaign, while they continue to sell off school playing
fields for profit and pass regulations requiring hill walkers to wear
HASAP-approved footwear while accompanied by a licensed
outdoors-person.
--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Judith said:

Just keeping looking on loads of different websites until you find one
with the "correct" height/weight tables. That's what I do; so now I
only need to lose another 3 pound to be not overweight. (According to
some tables I have to lose another stone and a half).

Your basic problem with BMI is it's a generalisation. It just says
what's acceptable range at a given height, but doesn't take into account
build. My gf is is considerably broader across the shoulders than many
women the same height, so she /should/ be heavier than them, but you
look at a BMI table and it just says "are you in this range?". Someone
who is basically a waif at the bone structure level can put on far more
excess to basic weight than Roos and still "not be overweight", where
Roos can't. This is, of course, ridiculous.
BMI is a useful tool, but you have to realise its limitations.

Quoted message said:

Judith (About 10 lb lighter now than in May)

That's about the same as me compared to the end of July. I'll be doing
a wee bit more trimming soon, to bring me back under 75 Kg (76 at the
mo) with a safe working margin for Pies, and there I intend to stay.
That will still put me as on the borderline of "overweight" according to
the last BMI table I saw, because I'm stockily built.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Dominic Sexton said:

In article <[email hidden]>, John Laird
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

I must admit some of the statistics coming out now are rather alarming.

I find the shape of the ever increasing population of obese people far
more alarming than any statistics.

Where are they all, though ? I still see a lot of normal-sized people
about. According to hmg, skinnies are an endangered species.

Quoted message said:

Having spent some time in the US I very much hope we are not going to
follow them all the way down that road.

Too late, I suspect. Although the chances of us ever getting serious
movements started along the lines of "30 stone and loving it" are probably
slim. We're still nasty enough underneath to want to mutter "fat [censored]".

[ObTopic: earlier this year I was chatting to a lady dietician on a walk.
She specialised in dealing with diabetics. Now that is the sort of person
you don't want to have a frank conversation with if you are in the slightest
bit hypochondriac. She told me she often deals with people who are
diagnosed border-line diabetics, and wishes in many case she could be
brutally honest about some of the consequences of their condition and
general diet/lifestyle should they not take it seriously. But for ethical
reasons she has to tone it down. Interesting then to catch some of those
"fat family" programmes on the box recently, where medical advisers were
indeed completely up-front to some. One father in particular broke down and
had to ask them to stop filming, when he was informed that not only he was
likely not to see 60 himself and be chronically unfit in the meantime, but
that his two sons were heading exactly the same way, only quicker.]

--
The future isn't what it used to be...

Mail john rather than nospam...

Chris Malcolm said:

Same kind of thing happened to me.

Quoted message said:

Must be some of kind of
age-related shift in hormones or something I thought.

I was right. Turns out it was developing insulin resistance which if
ignored has a strong tendency to turn into diabetes.

Quoted message said:

While
it's not curable (yet), you can slow down the rate of progression a
lot, possibly even (though this is controversial) halt it.

I wouldn't be surprised if the same is happening to me. So what's the
solution? Cut down on high GI foods and cut out blatantly sugary foods
altogether?

So far I've more or less completely cut out chocolate, rarely eat sugary
foods, but still can't resist potatoes. I am eating more protein to
help curb appetite and eating less fat due to my new grilling machine.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

John Laird said:

[ObTopic: earlier this year I was chatting to a lady dietician on a walk.
She specialised in dealing with diabetics. Now that is the sort of person
you don't want to have a frank conversation with if you are in the slightest
bit hypochondriac. She told me she often deals with people who are
diagnosed border-line diabetics, and wishes in many case she could be
brutally honest about some of the consequences of their condition and
general diet/lifestyle should they not take it seriously. But for ethical
reasons she has to tone it down.

I dont' understand this. If someone is at risk of diabetic
complications because they're not taking preventative measures
seriously, I would have thought the only ethical thing to do would be
to be really seriously brutally honest. In fact I would consider it
actionable professional negligence if that were not done.
--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

Paul Saunders said:

Chris Malcolm wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Same kind of thing happened to me.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Must be some of kind of
age-related shift in hormones or something I thought.

I was right. Turns out it was developing insulin resistance which if
ignored has a strong tendency to turn into diabetes.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

While
it's not curable (yet), you can slow down the rate of progression a
lot, possibly even (though this is controversial) halt it.

Quoted message said:

I wouldn't be surprised if the same is happening to me.

It's easy to find out. Get your GP to do a glucose challenge test, or
if he won't, find a friendly diabetic who will test your blood glucose
for you before, and 40 minutes after, drinking a pint of orange
juice. And it's worth finding out, because if your BG control is fine,
there's no reason to bother.

If your GP won't do a glucose challenge test he might agree to do an
HbA1c blood test for accumulated excess blood glucose on
haemoglobin. It won't pick up the earliest stages, but it's easier for
the doc to do, and easier for him to interpret the results.

Quoted message said:

So what's the
solution? Cut down on high GI foods and cut out blatantly sugary foods
altogether?

Not just sugary. Foods in which the starch is easily available, like
bread, potatoes, or pasta, are as bad as pure sugar -- *if* your blood
glucose control is beginning to slip.

Quoted message said:

So far I've more or less completely cut out chocolate,

High % dark choc is ok, provided you don't eat the entire bar in one
go. Check the carbohydrate content on the label.

Quoted message said:

rarely eat sugary
foods, but still can't resist potatoes.

*If* you have insulin resistance, the tatties are damaging you a lot
more than chocolate would.

But there is one important exception: you can eat plenty of tatties
etc.. *provided* you really need them because you've just done a lot
of walking, or are about to start as soon as you've finished the
plate.

And *if* you are on the slippy slope to developing diabetes, or have
already developed it, then far better than reading books about what to
eat, and much less effort, is to find out what *you* can eat (it
varies) by getting a blood glucose meter (they're cheap) and doing
your own testing on your own diet.

--
Chris Malcolm [email hidden] +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

In article <[email hidden]>, Chris Malcolm
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

I dont' understand this. If someone is at risk of diabetic
complications because they're not taking preventative measures
seriously, I would have thought the only ethical thing to do would be
to be really seriously brutally honest. In fact I would consider it
actionable professional negligence if that were not done.

For some reason, a few people just won't accept that they are diabetic.
One reason maybe is because they don't feel any different apart from
going to the toilet a few times more than they used to, feeling a bit
thirsty more than normal and maybe just feeling tired.

The symptoms are so insidious that the diabetic may not realise they are
suffering then when told they are they won't/can't accept the fact.

In my case it was my optician who suspected problems when I complained
about a new pair of specs not being correct in the right eye. When I was
re-tested the optician apologised for "missing" this error. My glasses
were fixed and on a recheck I complained of the left eye being out of
focus. It was at this point he suspected I was diabetic and a subsequent
glucose check confirmed it.

I'm not suggesting Paul is diabetic but it won't hurt to have a check.

I have what is called mature onset diabetes and Paul is a bit young for
that.
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

In article <[email hidden]>, Chris Malcolm
<[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

It's easy to find out. Get your GP to do a glucose challenge test, or
if he won't, find a friendly diabetic who will test your blood glucose
for you before, and 40 minutes after, drinking a pint of orange
juice. And it's worth finding out, because if your BG control is fine,
there's no reason to bother.

I was told to check my blood glucose two hours after a meal.

Quoted message said:

And *if* you are on the slippy slope to developing diabetes, or have
already developed it, then far better than reading books about what to
eat, and much less effort, is to find out what *you* can eat (it
varies) by getting a blood glucose meter (they're cheap) and doing
your own testing on your own diet.

Check meters have come down in price from ten years ago. It's the cost
of the testing strips that is the bummer. If you can get them on
prescription then great, otherwise a tub of 50 strips can cost as much a
25 quid.

The meters can cost up to 30 quid.
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk

On Fri, 8 Oct 2004 16:03:05 +0000 (UTC), [email hidden] (Chris

Malcolm) said:

John Laird said:

[ObTopic: earlier this year I was chatting to a lady dietician on a walk.
She specialised in dealing with diabetics. Now that is the sort of person
you don't want to have a frank conversation with if you are in the slightest
bit hypochondriac. She told me she often deals with people who are
diagnosed border-line diabetics, and wishes in many case she could be
brutally honest about some of the consequences of their condition and
general diet/lifestyle should they not take it seriously. But for ethical
reasons she has to tone it down.

I dont' understand this. If someone is at risk of diabetic
complications because they're not taking preventative measures
seriously, I would have thought the only ethical thing to do would be
to be really seriously brutally honest. In fact I would consider it
actionable professional negligence if that were not done.

Perhaps we are at cross purposes. I'm sure there is no problem warning
people of high blood sugar levels or the onset of (usually Type 2) diabetes.
What I *think* she was telling me was that she cannot spell out in black and
white the full gamut of complications. Blindness, limb amputation, severely
shortened life expectancy, blah blah. She is a dietician, not a GP. (Hmm,
maybe that explains the different approach I saw on the idiot box.) What
she definitely did say is that frequently she really would like to scare the
pants off some patients to stir them into taking more positive action.

Anyway, I didn't wish to stir up a deep medical debate. It's not my field,
other than as a once-or-twice-a-decade visitor to my local surgery (when
they deign to see me, that is).

--
Give me patience! RIGHT NOW!

Mail john rather than nospam...

The message <[email hidden]>
from "Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

Geoff Berrow wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm a stone overweight actually.

Over which part of the range? Top of the range for my height is
supposed to be 11 stone. I'm 11 and a half but I'd be happier at 10
:-)

Quoted message said:

No idea about range, I'm a stone heavier than I should be, i.e. a stone
heavier than I always used to be. For most of my life I was around 9.5
to 10 stone, now I'm around 11 stone.

I reckon I am probably a stone overweight as well. I have nudged a BMI
of 25 several times in the past but am currently about 24.

Most of my excess weight I put on in lumps. About a stone in the month
after I left home at 18, swopping a diet with small potato portions and
plenty of meat (an early form of the Atkins diet perhaps) for one in
which potatoes and cream cakes played a much larger part. The second
lump (I forget the exact amount but probably much the same) was when I
gave up smoking in 1970.

--
Roger Chapman so far this year 64 summits
New - 47 (Marilyns 13, Sweats 5, Outlying Fells 35)
Repeats - 22( Marilyns 7, Sweats 16, Wainwrights 16)

John Laird said:

Quoted message said:

Hey, those are top quality Bird's Eye 100% Beef Quarter Pounders!

But having said that, you are right, the box lists 20g protein and
19g fat per burger.

Well, that's not too bad considering. My Scottish beef sausage
products are 30%.

Beef, fat or what?

Quoted message said:

Anyway, *you* said they were half the size
afterwards ;-)

They are! But when I look at the tray full of fat that's poured out of
them, I'm glad to be eating the healthy half and not the rest. The
thought of eating all that fat just doesn't bear thinking about when you
see it like that.

Quoted message said:

If they spit a lot, there is a high water content
too.

Well they sizzle, don't know about spitting.

Quoted message said:

To be honest, a burger with the fat cooked right out is kind of
bland for me

I rather like the taste, and the chewy texture. I bought some fresh
spicy burgers the other day and they were absolutely gorgeous without
the fat.

Quoted message said:

(And
yes, I do realise this means that much of what we perceive as "taste"
in meat is in fact the fat rather than the flesh.)

No doubt. Perhaps I should leave just a little fat in them?

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

Chris Malcolm said:

John Laird said:

But for ethical reasons she has to tone
it down.

I dont' understand this. If someone is at risk of diabetic
complications because they're not taking preventative measures
seriously, I would have thought the only ethical thing to do would be
to be really seriously brutally honest.

I would much prefer that. It would be a good motivation to change.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

W. D. Grey said:

Don't try to work it out for yourself, see your doctor, have a blood
test to ascertain your blood glucose levels.

Two or three years ago, when I had all those blood tests done, he did
tell me that I might be, and I quote, "slightly diabetic", because my
blood sugar was a little high, but that it was nothing to worry about.
I'm pretty sure that I'd eaten a lot of sugary foods before I had the
test one.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

Roger said:

I reckon I am probably a stone overweight as well. I have nudged a BMI
of 25 several times in the past but am currently about 24.

I'm currently 24 something.

Quoted message said:

Most of my excess weight I put on in lumps. About a stone in the month
after I left home at 18, swopping a diet with small potato portions
and plenty of meat (an early form of the Atkins diet perhaps)

Sounds good, more like what I'm trying to eat now. My mother brought me
up on the opposite, loads of potatoes and hardly any meat. If I was
still hungry afterwards she'd tell me to "fill up on bread".

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk