Lessons from my cat ...

I was feeding my low carb house carnivore this morning and a couple of things occurred to me in light of the discussions on what causes obesity.  Many of these theories are based on the knowledge of a presence of an energy homeostasis mechanism and how something goes awry with this.  

My kitty eats about 1.5 cans of food per day.   I put his food out a full can at a time and when the plate is empty I put out another can.  Therefore there's really no fixed time when a fresh can gets put out and sometimes he has to wait.  This morning was one such time as he was low on food last night before I went to bed, but since I want him to finish the old stuff I won't put out a fresh can.  So this morning he greeted me meowing at the plate and as soon as I put the food he went to town.  I'd say he ate about a third of the can and walked away.   He knows where the food is and that it will be there all day, but he probably won't go back for more until noonish.

Now this cat loves to follow me around the house for following's sake and when I go to the kitchen I pretty much can't help but glance to check his food status.  Many times I'll see the empty plate and put out a new can and he walks right on by it following me back to where ever I'm going.  Bottom line, this cat eats when hungry, stops when full ... on his own schedule for the most part.  I've seen him eat at all times of the day or night.  There's no schedule.

I guess what struck me is that humans are the only animal that have scheduled meals.  As children, we are encouraged to eat when food is put in front of us whether we're hungry or not.  But not my cat.  And yet I can override this with him in the form of lobster, the only people food he likes.  I guess this is very high food reward for him ;-) because he will eat a LOT of it.  (I guess he also has bad food memories b/c he almost died as a kitten and the vet had me feeding him pureed chicken with a syringe ... no chicken foods for this cat!)  His hunger can also be overridden with one or two treats, but we don't bother with those much anymore.  

In the Western world we are accustomed to eating three meals a day (and snacks even).  We are also accustomed to eating a variety on a plate whether at home or in a restaurant.  We can argue over how the "MyPlate" thing should look, but rarely do we eat a single food at a meal.  Many of our foods come portioned.  Be it a can of tuna (which is now only 5 oz folks!) or sliced bread.  Even unpackaged foods, especially in whole form, come in "servings" and this depends on if you're making food for yourself vs. a family.  Who makes half a potato?  Who eats half an apple (well, me, b/c hubby and I share one)?  Or a 2.5 egg omelette?  Most of us do not like to waste uneaten food.  Yet there's always that fine line with what amount of left-overs is worth packaging up, etc. ... so you eat it even though you're satisfied and doing so will make you feel over-full.

There is no denying that portion sizes in restaurants have increased in the US.  And even eating at home I think the basic dinner plates are larger.  My Mom gifted me the melamine dish set we used to use on summer camping trips and I've used it for bbq's for nostalgia.  Gosh those plates are small!  Juice glasses are teeny and an 8 oz cup is really small.  We're so used to (and I'm guilty here) huge mugs for coffee and giant cups and cans for drinks.  

I think from the time we become aware of our size and shape relative to others and make the connection with how much we eat, many of us humans already start to make some conscious effort to monitor intake.  Perhaps that's all it takes in the wrong way to muck things up!  It does not seem to take much to override a set point except in those genetically predisposed to having trouble gaining mass or putting fat on.  Passive overeating is easy in a world filled with cheap, palatable, energy dense foods served up in big portions.  Heck, a small burger and small fry does satisfy me at Wendy's but whenever I eat that in the restaurant (this is a rare thing) I look around and I almost feel deprived just because there's so much food on everyone else's tray!

Personally, I am not all that interested in why those folks don't get fat or return to their slender selves after participating in overfeeding studies.  I'm also a bit fickle with my interest in the more academic discussions on the causes of obesity based on homeostasis gone awry.  My cat was fat when we fed him ad libitum dry food.  Even though our brand was a fairly high quality food containing meat or fish as the first ingredient, this is not a natural diet for a carnivore.  He's naturally returned to a leaner animal since we've switched to wet food.  Unfortunately there's still some grain in the flavors, but we try to work plain tuna from Trader Joes and 9 lives into his rotation.  There is another lesson from my cat:  Eat foods that the human body is designed to eat and homeostasis can be at least swung back to normal.  But in our modern environment it seems more rare than common that once altered, one's adipostat will be reset to normal.  What I ultimately take away from the academic discussions are strategies for maximizing the potential that diet composition alone can hit the reset button.  So reduce food reward, and/or eliminate food groups, and/or eat only whole foods ... stuff like that.  And if we want to halt this obesity epidemic we have to start by feeding our kids real whole foods at home so that they are only eating CAF diet 10% of the time.  There's nothing wrong with ice cream or french fries for a treat.  

In the end, it is of little value to try to find some unifying hypothesis as to why you have obesity in certain isolated cultures, however the energy balance equation without Taubes' strawman caveat (that those who believe in CICO think the terms are independent, they are not ... nor do we believe they are constant throughout life, they are not) can explain obesity in every case.  Whether it is genetic defect that causes voracious appetite, or periods of starvation that cause a depressed metabolic rate, or spending 6 hours a day sitting at a desk to pay the bills.  And the obese need to eat less to reverse the condition.  Doing and sustaining that is difficult but not impossible.

And in the realities of modern life, most of us, virtually all of us who have struggled with overweight/obesity, must make conscious efforts to maintain a normal weight.  Does that mean becoming a bean counter?  I contend not, but that may well be necessary for some.  I wish some of those bloggers who effortlessly maintain their never obese ectomorph physiques would stop mocking those of us for whom this is the reality.     You know who you are, and I know you're reading this.  I doubt there's an obese person reading this who would not acknowledge in their quiet moments that they got that way by overeating.  Passive overeating can be avoided with prudent food choices or continued by continuing to make the same poor ones.  The obesity epidemic is easily explained by a failure of people to exercise portion control when you can "supersize it" for 25 cents more.  Call it a warped sense of what a normal portion is supposed to be and all these drinks have got to go!!

One last semi-related thought.  The metabolic state associated with obesity is a state that contributes to various diseases.   And the saying goes the stuff that makes us fat is the same stuff that makes us sick.  I tend to agree with that, only quibble over what the stuff is and with the qualifier that quantity/frequency definitely matters here.  But just because that may be true does not make the opposite true:  e.g. the stuff that makes us sick does not necessarily make us fat.  Indeed I don't see much evidence in support of this hypothesis.  And disease, infectious or otherwise, is associated with weight loss and even emaciation at least as often if not more often than weight gain.  This is what the study of all of these various cultures and the diets of our not even long ago ancestors (e.g. my parents and grandparents) through to traditional pre-industrial diets of our ethnic lineages can inform us on -- identifying what it is we're eating now or not eating now that is making us sicker.  It is more important to be healthy than some ideal weight/size.  Indeed this seems to be the tact that many prominent LC'ers are taking because they remain overweight but have often experienced relief from GERD, or IBS and such.  So we may be sicker because of transfats (I'm picking a universally non-controversial culprit there) but I do not believe we're fatter because of them.  French fries can be fattening fried in lard, tallow or veggie oil.  I contend moreso for that middle fat, that's what the infamous yummiest McD's fries were fried in!  People don't eat more McD's fries b/c of an omega 6 addiction that perturbs their metabolic homeostasis and throws their hypothalamus out of whack.  No ... we buy more b/c of the value or because our eyes are bigger than our appetites, and we tend to finish what we've purchased.   And nothing is more ridiculous and harmful in my view than this continued insistence in low carb circles of calling a 1500 calorie diet for a woman "starvation".   Please STOP!!!