We will start off tonight’s blogginess with this fascinating article.

The gist of the article is that they did a study on a group of 12 obese people where they all started by fasting for a day then eating a diet which was 50 percent of their usual caloric intake for six weeks. They found that some of the participants lost weight faster than the others, while others barely lost weight at all. And they had done such an impressive job of controlling for all the other factors that they believe that their results point to a fundamental different in people’s metabolism.

In other words. science is once more shocked and surprised by how a given group is not exactly alike. Sigh.

Anyhow, the two ends of the metabolic spectrum are “spendthrift” and “thrifty”. The spendthrift metabolism does not react very strongly to a drop in caloric intake. It keeps on “spending” calories as if the drop-odd never happened. The thrifty metabolism, on the other hand, slows down in response to fewer calories, and thus the benefits of dieting are blunted, to say the least.

This seems sort of obvious to me, but a lot of obvious things turn out to be dead wrong, so this study was good science.

This result jibes nicely with my theory about how the genes for obesity survived because they were actually very good genes to have if you are going to have to live through the winter before refrigeration was invented. The “bear” body type was ideal for that, because the big appetite (including the partial suppression of the ‘full’ signal from the stomach, and more expandable stomach in general) meant that my forebears (ha) could store up a lot of calories while there was food (the summer) and then survive the long winter on that stored fat.

Add in factors like : back then there was no way to avoid getting a lot of exercise; being heavy but healthy makes you very good at lifting, carrying, hauling, and pulling; when it comes with a height advantage as well it gives you great power in hitting things really hard by putting your weight into it, making you quite powerful in battle, and so forth and so on, and you get a body type that was bloody marvelous for most of human history.

It actually makes me wonder if there was a grain of truth in the whole “fat bully” character in media from the olden times. If this body type also comes with a height advantage and possibly an instinct to dominate and possess, as well as extra strength, then maybe in the days when the schoolyard was far more primitive, you really did have the fat kid turning into the bully. Perhaps the body type even came with a rough sort of leadership instinct.

The fat banker or other fat rich person stereotype might well stem from the same thing being translated into the adult world. I mean, what a better metaphor for someone who has taken far more than they can possibly use is there than a fat person?

I am not saying we deserve the abuse, I am just speculating as to its causes.

The thrifty metabolism fits in neatly with the notion of “those who survive the winter”. Bodies that can adapt to the caloric drop-off of winter by slowing down the metabolism are even more likely to survive the winter than the standard model.

And what behaviours would best serve this mode? Moving as little as possible, of course, so as to make that caloric storage go as far as it possibly can. Sleepiness, lack of motivation, a strong psychological block that makes unnecessary activity seem like a profound evil… all of these things correspond to a “prepare for winter hibernation mode” triggered by obesity.

But winter never comes.

This makes me wonder if the right approach to weight loss for some people would be some way of simulating an entire winter, leading to a “spring” where the metabolism comes to life again. I’m not sure how that would be achieved, but I imagine the right manipulations of light, temperature, and ambient noise would be a good start.

Imagine the sales pitch : “Come to our Slumber Camp where you can eat whatever you like, then get the best sleep of your life, then wake up thinner and full of energy!”.

In fact, I have thought of long term sedation as the world’s simplest diet. A couple of weeks under gentle general sedation would make it literally impossible for the patient to eat the wrong foods, and you can’t get fat off a medically controlled IV giving you the calories you need.

It would be like a crash diet, but way less risky.

I also think that would work for the chemical dependence part of addiction. Why have the patient be awake for the withdrawal symptoms? But I bet both plans would be met with strong opposition because of people’s latent belief that the fat and addicted (same thing) should have to suffer for their perceived offense. They would cloak it in phrases like “certain things should have to be earned”, but I bet they wouldn’t be saying that if they got a raise or won the lotto or they got a new machine at work that makes things way easier for them.

And some of the people saying that would be doctors, especially with us fatties. I have said before (though probably not here) that doctors tend to have the same prejudices and disgust for fat people as everyone else, and that means that deep down, they hate us too. That’s why you can bring literally any ailment into them and they will say the solution is to lose weight.

That’s because they don’t see you as a person. They only see your fatness. And they want to get rid of you, so they tell you to do the one thing they know you won’t do. Or maybe you will. Either way, they don’t have to face your disgusting fatness again.

People really do hate us.

And we’re just doing what our bodies are telling us to do.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.