You can easily and safely reduce fat retention without using drugs, without reducing fat intake and without using liposuction

You can easily and safely reduce fat retention without using drugs, without reducing fat intake and without using liposuction. Read here about simple dietary measures (NOT dieting!) you can take to reduce fat retention and excess weight.

Diet Drinks will not help you lose weight or inches

Calorie-free Diet Drinks will not help you to lose weight or inches and they are particularly bad for your waistline. Read about the harm done by artificial sweeteners in this excellent article from the Daily Mail. In general it is best to avoid putting synthetic chemicals into your body.

Good, safe, natural ways to lose excess weight and reduce your waist measurement are to cut down on salt/sodium and salty food and to eat plenty of vegetables and fruit. - The natural potassium in vegetables and fruit displaces some of the sodium from the body. The body then loses some of the excess fluid it has been holding in the bloodstream. This extra fluid (water weight) is excreted in the urine and so you lose weight, have more vitality, feel tons better and less bloated, can think more clearly and move more easily, and altogether you will be sooo pleased with your new, healthier, happier self that I hope you will be motivated to make lower sodium intake a permanent feature of your (longer) life...(o: - Read also about safe, natural ways to reduce Fat Retention.

Official leaflets for people of Scotland advising them to make sure they get enough Vitamin D - Well done, Ryan McLaughlin!

Schoolboy, Ryan McLaughlin, tirelessly campaigned on this issue and petitioned the Scottish Parliament to produce new guidelines on vitamin D supplements for children and pregnant women. His efforts have been successful. See BBC News report.

Because Scotland gets less sunshine than the more southerly regions of Britain, it is inevitably more difficult to get sufficient Vitamin D, the 'sunshine vitamin.' Inadequate levels of this vitamin result in many health problems, including more fragile bones, excess weight, muscle weakness and many more. (Click on the Vitamin D label just beneath this post if you would like more information about Vitamin D.) Possibly the most important of Vitamin D's contributions to health is protection from infections. - If you have enough Vitamin D you are far less likely to catch colds and flu, etc.

If getting out into the sun is a problem for you and you decide to take supplements of the sunshine vitamin, the best version is Vitamin D3. Vitamin D is also essential to metabolise calcium. Read about dairy calcium, fat retention and vitamin D on my webpage here.

Bacterial Vaginosis or Vaginitis (BV) is one of those health problems that tend to be associated with obesity

Bacterial Vaginosis (BV) or Vaginitis can cause intense itching and loss of sleep. Maybe you have tried the usual antibiotics and they have not worked, or maybe you would rather avoid prescription drugs anyway. - Well consider the obesity link. - Obesity is easily reduced by cutting down on salt and salty food. This reduces the fluid retention/salt sensitivity which is always a constituent of obesity. So if you lose weight by eating less salt you may find that that helps with the BV problem.

Alternative home remedies variously include wearing cotton underwear and trying to alter the balance of the vaginal flora by eating less sugar, eating probiotic yogurt or by applying the yogurt directly to the vagina. By a happy coincidence, eating dairy yoghurt also reduces excess weight by increasing the excretion of fat from the body via the faeces. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/slim/calcium.shtml where you will read: "a high calcium intake increases the excretion of fat in the faeces". – In fact, the researchers found that twice as much fat was excreted on a high calcium intake as on a low calcium intake – and this was independent of calorie intake. – They also found that dairy calcium (they suggest eating yoghurt) is a particularly good source for this extra calcium.
 
On one of the links - http://www.vitamins-nutrition.org/vitamins/calcium.html - from the BBC The Truth About Food site, it says: "Calcium is the mineral most likely to be deficient in the average diet. Let me repeat that. Calcium is the mineral most likely to be deficient in the average diet. Calcium deficiency is a condition in which we fail to receive or to metabolize an adequate supply of Calcium," and also: "Calcium helps keep the weight off. Research suggests that if you don't get enough calcium in your diet, you're likely to be overweight." 

There are a number of reasons that overweight people in particular tend to be deficient in calcium. 

The main reason is that sodium retention/salt sensitivity/fluid retention depletes the body of calcium.

Here are two other very simple reasons:

1. Most fat people are ‘dieting’ most of the time – i.e. they are eating insufficient food for their body’s needs.

2. Fat people are routinely advised to limit their intake of dairy food like milk because their advisors (wrongly) believe that milk is ‘fattening’.

So to reduce fat retention, if it is present, the most important thing is to alter the diet to reduce the fluid retention which is the initiating cause of excess weight and the primary reason for fat people being short of calcium and for fat people ‘dieting’. That means reducing sodium intake and ensuring plenty of fruit and vegetables in the diet (because their high potassium content helps to displace sodium from the body). 

And specifically it also means having a higher intake of calcium, especially, if possible, from a dairy source like yoghurt. – It is also necessary to ensure sufficient vitamin D intake, as this is needed to metabolise the calcium. Insufficiency of vitamin D is quite common, as is widely reported, e.g. here - http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp

See also www.vitamindcouncil.org.
 

Also read this very informative page: http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Vitamin-D-Deficiency.htm

I hope that cutting down on salt and sugar, and eating more calcium by way of probiotic unsweetened dairy yogurt, will help you to reduce or solve the itching and the lack of sleep and also help you to lose excess weight the safe, fast, healthy way.

If you are overweight and kidding yourself that you never feel like breakfast

I've got to tell you that, honestly, doing without breakfast will not help you to lose weight. In fact, it's more likely to make you gain weight. They say you should 'Breakfast like a king, Lunch like a prince and Dine like a pauper'. That's what they say is the best way to stay healthy.

And what I say is, don't go without any meals at all, thinking that that is an easy way to lose excess weight. It isn't. It is an easy way to get run down and damage your health.

Here is the information you need to lose weight safely, easily and fast by cutting down on salt and salty food:

How to lose weight

And see Sodium in foods

and FAT RETENTION

Manchester professors claim that priests in Ancient Egypt developed atherosclerosis from eating rich food high in saturated fat

I heard Egyptologist, Professor Rosalie David, of Manchester University speaking on Radio 4's Sunday programme this morning. She was recounting "how the food that the Ancient Egyptians offered to their gods was ultimately eaten by the priests - who paid with their health." She explained that rich, fatty food, like beef and goose, was a feature of the food offered to the gods, and she claimed that because of eating this rich, fatty food, the priests developed atherosclerosis - furring of the arteries - leading to their early death. She also mentioned 'natron' as being a sort of early toothpaste they chewed to cleanse the palate. - My ears stood to attention at this because that sounded like a substance high in sodium. (Natrium is the Latin word for Sodium and Na is the chemical symbol for Sodium.)

And indeed Natron is a substance high in sodium. Wikipedia tells us that "Natron is a naturally occurring mixture of sodium carbonate decahydrate (Na₂CO₃·10H₂O, a kind of soda ash) and about 17% sodium bicarbonate (also called nahcolite^[1] or baking soda, NaHCO₃) along with small quantities of household salt (halite, sodium chloride) and sodium sulfate. "

This evening I found further information about the research. See Manchester University webpage. See also BBC News article.

Professor David, of the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology in the Faculty of Life Sciences, worked with co-author Professor Tony Heagerty, of the Cardiovascular Research Group at the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences. They conclude that their research provides clear evidence that atherosclerosis was a disease caused by fatty diet in ancient times, just as it still is today.

I'm sorry, Professor David and Professor Heagerty, I don't buy it! I don't believe that saturated fat is the guilty party today and I don't believe it was the guilty party then!

Now the professors may think I'm impertinent to say that, when I am neither an Egyptologist nor a cardiovascular researcher. - But I have become increasingly aware that the belief that saturated fat is unhealthy food, a belief zealously held by many health professionals and by the Food Standards Agency and other Government agencies and quangoes, is a belief less and less held by medics and other scientists who have opened their minds to a wealth of research that does not support the 'conventional wisdom'. And I am persuaded by this more recent research that finds saturated fat is healthy to eat, not unhealthy. See, for example, http://www.drbriffa.com/blog/2010/01/21/heart-surgeon-waging-war-on-saturated-fat-seems-seriously-short-on-science-to-support-his-claims/

My own belief, based on my experience as a steroid victim, is that high sodium intake is the primary cause of the atherosclerosis. The Manchester University webpage referred to above tells us that those priests ate a lot of salt and when I couple that with the additional sodium that would ingested from chewing the Natron 'toothpaste', that clinches it for me. See my own webpage on Fat Retention.

John Humphrys on Radio 4's Today programme has made his prejudices about obese people clear this morning

John Humphrys was interviewing someone this morning about the inconsistency of access to weight loss surgery provided by the NHS. Both interviewer and interviewee seemed to be confident that obesity is caused, or mainly caused, by eating too much and taking insufficient exercise. Humphrys even aired the idea that it should be thought of as a moral or ethical problem. But these two men are so wrong in their ill-informed opinions. (As to whether people should be offered weight loss surgery, with all the risks and pain that major surgery entails, my personal view is that this surgery should be avoided, unless at the same time the correct information is given about the paramount importance of avoiding salt and salty food.)

Salt sensitivity/fluid retention (which often leads to calcium deficiency and fat retention) is the problem, not gluttony or laziness.

Obesity is the main underlying cause of most chronic illness and a lot of frailty. It is therefore increasingly desirable to reduce the incidence and severity of obesity because this would reduce chronic illness, frailty and human suffering to a small fraction of what it is now. But this CANNOT be achieved by continuing to give the wrong information about the causes of obesity and about how best to reduce obesity.

The continuing increase in the incidence and severity of obesity is NOT caused by eating too many calories/too much fat and/or taking too little exercise. – No matter how many doctors and other ‘experts’ claim that it is, and that it can be reduced by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise, they are wrong and it is still NOT true. – The hypothesis has never been put to the test scientifically and there is certainly not a shred of valid evidence to back it up.

There is, however, a wealth of evidence to show that it is NOT true. – Millions upon millions of innocent overweight people have tried over decades to reduce their excess weight by eating fewer calories and taking more exercise. – Overwhelmingly they fail to lose weight this way. – They get tired; they feel cold and ill and hungry. – But they do not lose weight (or if they do it is only temporary). – The ‘experts’ then tell them that they have done it wrong; they haven’t tried hard enough or long enough; they are lying; they are mistaken, etc. – The ‘experts’ cannot get their heads around the fact that it is THEY who are wrong; THEY who are lying; THEY who are mistaken…

Obesity is caused by fluid retention in people who are sensitive to salt. – It is as simple, and as profoundly complex, as that.

Now – what really causes the fluid retention/salt sensitivity/obesity? – Here are the main causes:

1. Prescription drugs such as tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline.

Amitriptyline is also known as Elavil, Tryptanol, Endep, Elatrol, Tryptizol, Trepiline, Laroxyl, and is present in some combination drugs, e.g. Limbitrol is a drug which combines amitriptyline and chlordiazepoxide.

Weight gain is also widely reported by people taking Lexapro, Prozac, Fontex, Celexa and Paxil. These are not tricyclic antidepressants; they are SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors). As with the tricyclic antidepressants, the weight gain is because of sodium retention and fluid/water retention, and can be avoided/reduced by avoiding eating salt and salty food.

2. Other prescription drugs such as steroids including prednisolone (also sold as Pediapred®), prednisone (also sold as Deltasone®, Meticorten, Orasone and SK-Prednisone), cortisone, hydrocortisone, dexamethasone, betamethasone, beclomethasone, fludrocortisone, triamsinolone, desonide, fluprednidene, clobetasone, alclomethasone, momethasone, desoxymethasone, fluosinonide, budesonide, fluosinolone, triamcinolone (trade names Kenalog, Aristocort, Nasacort, Tri-Nasal, Triderm, Azmacort, Trilone, Volon A, Tristoject, Fougera, Tricortone, Triesence) and other corticosteroids, Advair – a combination drug that contains Fluticasone, a corticosteroid, HRT and other medications containing oestrogen – like some birth control medication (contraceptives) – some anti-psychotic drugs, including Zyprexa (aka olanzapine) and other psychotropic drugs, and some anti-epileptic/anticonvulsant drugs, notably valproate (trade name Epilim).

If you have been inappropriately prescribed or over-dosed with corticosteroids or HRT or the many other drugs that cause weight gain, then you may well have developed drug-induced Cushing’s Syndrome, a very serious illness, frequently far more serious than the health problem for which the drugs were prescribed. It is, to the best of my knowledge, an entirely preventable illness if doctors conform to the protocols for prescribing these drugs and if they monitor patients’ progress on the drugs, and if they warn patients about salt. It is VITALLY important that it be realised that weight gain resulting from these drugs is from sodium and water retention, so patients taking these drugs should be warned not to eat salt, or foods containing salt, while taking the medication. They should also be informed that any weight gained in this way can easily and swiftly be reduced by eating less salt/sodium, and they should be warned not to try to lose weight by eating less food or restricting calories because this will not help them to lose weight and is harmful.

If you gain weight suddenly and unexpectedly when you start to take prescribed medication that I have not mentioned on this page, it is highly likely that the weight gain is caused by the drug. You may like to consider whether you really need to take that drug, or whether the dose could be lowered. At any rate if you continue with the drug, try to reduce your salt intake in order to reduce the weight gain. Doctors seldom, if ever, warn about the drugs that cause salt sensitivity and the need very strictly to avoid salt and salty food while on the drugs, and many do not observe the drug protocols and very few properly monitor the patient’s progress on the drugs. Obviously if doctors did do all these things, there would be no steroid victims, no patients with drug-induced obesity, etc. whereas there are many millions of them worldwide, victims of medical negligence and ignorance.

3. If, as a baby or small child, you ate salt and salty food, you were highly likely to have developed sensitivity to salt and you therefore became fat or overweight.

4. Pregnancy can cause fluid retention/salt sensitivity because of hormonal changes during pregnancy. It is important to avoid salt and salty food during pregnancy.

These are the main causes of obesity. Dieting/calorie counting makes obesity worse and should be avoided.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, boost your lung function and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it!

See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

Fat retention and fat excretion: the importance of getting enough calcium.

I can be contacted from my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

C4's 'My Big Fat Diet Show' was better tonight because the dieters ate less salty food

Well Channel 4's My Big Fat Diet Show was better tonight - better in that the dieters had their intake of salty snacks restricted. The previous programme scarcely mentioned salt as an ingredient to avoid. Because of the lowered salt intake this time it was to be expected that there would be significant weight loss, as there was, because of the water loss resulting from sodium reduction. The dieter who didn't lose weight this time despite sodium reduction was the one who drank a lot of alcohol, and of course alcohol also causes fluid retention (ascites, in the abdomen) in people who are sensitive to salt. - Details about sodium in food and about alcohol on this page: Sodium in foods

The best and safest way to lose excess weight is to cut down on salt/sodium and salty food. - If you do this gradually you will lose weight gradually; if you do it more rapidly you will lose weight very fast indeed, especially if you make sure that you eat plenty of fruit and (unsalted) vegetables as well, because fruit and veg are rich in potassium, and potassium displaces some of the sodium in your body, thus enabling you to excrete more of the excess fluid from your body. Reducing salt intake is safe and we are advised to eat less salt. Most of us eat too much salt.

It is DIETING - by which I mean eating fewer calories than your body requires - that is harmful. Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7423/1085 for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fatter.

If you have fat retention as well as fluid retention, you will find that the fat retention is also reduced by cutting down on salt. - Fat retention is not caused by eating too much fat and is not cured by eating meals low in fat. - Read about fat retention here: FAT RETENTION

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Fat Loss: you don't need to burn it off or change to an unhealthy low-fat diet.

Fat Loss: you don't need to burn it off or change to an unhealthy low-fat diet. You need to cut down on salt and salty food, eat plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables, eat more dairy calcium and GIVE UP DIETING!

See FAT RETENTION

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk

The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Sodium in foods

Vulnerable groups

Children and Obesity

advice for pregnant mothers

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

Associated health conditions

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

I'm puzzled about the New Scientist

Note added on August 17th:

I can now access the New Scientist website again. My comment has not been reinstated. I can now read the Terms and Conditions and I am still unaware of any way that I could be considered to have breached them. I put my real name to my comment and, where the form asked for website URL, I gave it. I gave it because the form asked for it. I studiously avoided putting any links in the comment itself. Anyone could click near my name to reach my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk which is a non-commercial website that warns of the harmful side-effects of prescribed steroids and other prescribed drugs and explains about the benefits of eating less salt, principally the benefit of losing excess weight easily and safely. I created the website because as a steroid victim myself I wanted to save others from the great and unnecessary suffering caused by the reckless over-prescribing of these and other drugs. The website does not sell or advertise anything and it has no sponsors.

August 14th: It's weird.

I receive emails from the New Scientist each week as I am on their mailing list, and I read many of their interesting articles. Occasionally I submit a comment on an article.

This week there was an article about weight control. The article is called "The fat that makes you thin," and I submitted a comment about how to reduce obesity easily, swiftly and safely. The comment appeared beneath the article and I did actually get a visitor to my website as a result so I know it was seen by at least one other person. - But I can't get to that exact webpage now and my comment appears to have been removed from the page though I can still find the comment in some archived pages on the internet. I can't access the New Scientist's terms and conditions for contributing comments so I can't check to see if I could possibly have contravened them. What I wrote has no connection with any adverts or sponsors and is simply facts/advice to help their readers. - I'm puzzled as to why my comment has been removed.

I do not seem to be able to access the New Scientist website at all. I'm disappointed about this and I'm genuinely baffled as to why I have apparently been banned. The New Scientist more than any other publication should, one feels, be open to new thinking about obesity.

This is what I wrote:

"Obesity is easily, swiftly and safely reduced by cutting down on salt and salty food, because this reduces fluid retention, the real cause of obesity. Reducing sodium intake also reduces fat retention, which most commonly caused by fluid retention aka salt retention. Increasing potassium intake assists because potassium displaces some excess sodium (and its attendant water) from the body.

Increasing calcium intake also reduces fat retention because it increases the amount of fat excreted in the faeces. The role of calcium in weight loss was explained on a BBC2 programme, The Truth About Food, a few years ago.

All of these safe, simple ways of reducing excess weight are nothing whatsoever to do with calorie intake or calorie reduction.

It is easy to put to the test what I have suggested. If you are overweight I urge you to try my suggestions. You will definitely lose weight and will also feel a lot better."

When Obese People Get Swine Flu There Is a Risk of Severe Complications

Google News today has a number of reports about obesity resulting in severe complications and even death for people who catch H1N1 swine flu. My advice to anyone who is obese is to cut down your intake of salt and salty food as much as you can. - This is the way to lose weight safely and it will boost your immunity to infection.

People who are overweight/fat/obese are sensitive to salt, which for them can result in sodium and water retention and therefore, obviously, weight gain. This in turn can result in calcium deficiency, which causes fat retention. Reducing salt intake reduces both the fluid retention and the fat retention. - Reducing calories does not address the fluid retention problem at all and that is the explanation for the fact that diets don't work.

Prescription drugs including many steroids, many antidepressants, anti-psychotics and epilepsy drugs as well as other pharmaceuticals, are a major cause of fluid retention/obesity/salt sensitivity and especially of morbid obesity. - Avoid taking prescription drugs unless they are absolutely necessary.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver damage and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Don't Listen to the 'Just Eat Less, Do More' Misinformation.

You know it doesn't work!

The people who insist on giving this advice quite literally do not know what they are talking about. Any fat/overweight/obese person who has followed this advice knows that it doesn't work. - It will make you tired, cold, hungry, irritable, depressed, ill. - What it won't do it make you slim.

There has never been any evidence to support the 'Eat Less, Do More' fallacy. - The hypothesis has never even been scientifically put to the test! - It has just been an arrogant assumption made by people who have not appreciated that just because something appears obvious, then it must be a fact. These ill-informed people are the modern-day equivalent of the flat-earthers. - Remember them? - The superstitious people who believed that the earth was flat and that we shouldn't sail too far in case we sailed over the edge?

The fact is that obesity is caused by fluid retention, not by overeating. Almost everyone who is overweight is sensitive to salt and this means that for them, eating salt leads to some salt retention and thirst and a lot of the water in whatever they drink tends to get retained by the body. Slim people haven't got this salt sensitivity problem. Their bodies excrete any excess salt and excess water in the urine. This is why they remain slim. The overweight people have excess salt/sodium and water in their blood stream. If they substantially reduce their intake of salt and salty food they will lose weight fast and safely, without dieting or going hungry, and will feel much better and have more energy.

Prescription drugs including many steroids, many antidepressants, anti-psychotics and epilepsy drugs as well as other pharmaceuticals, are a major cause of fluid retention/obesity and especially of morbid obesity. - Avoid taking prescription drugs unless they are absolutely necessary.

Furthermore, the fluid retention problem often leads on to fat retention - which, surprisingly, is not caused by eating too much fat, but by mineral deficiencies, principally calcium deficiency. - Read on:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations.

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Fat Retention compared to Fat Storage/Fat Reserves

As we know, some animals store fat for when they need it in the future. This BBC webpage, for instance, tells us that: "Common hibernators are bats, frogs (which hibernate at the bottom of streams or ponds where the water does not freeze), and snakes. Other animals such as badgers and squirrels go into temporary hibernation - staying inside their dens during the very cold days and surviving by living off body fat or a store of food."

So that's Fat Storage. - Fat Reserves, you could say. They are temporary. They are going to get used when the animal is not eating.

And that's certain animals: mainly animals that hibernate, i.e. conserve energy and go to sleep during the winter because there isn't much food around for them to eat in the winter.

Now there's a lot of obesity pundits telling us that obese people store fat in case there's a time in the future when they'll need it. - I believe that that is absolute nonsense. - And here is why:

1. Human beings do not hibernate.

2. The excess fat that humans accumulate is not the special 'brown fat' that hibernating animals store.

3. The excess fat that humans accumulate is not useful; it's a nuisance, a burden. - In fact, I don't think we'd be going far wrong to call it an anomaly - a deviation from what is usually the norm.

I think it's a categorical mistake to call it Fat Storage.

Storage implies purpose - like the purpose of providing a hibernating animal with food when it is unable to feed in the usual way.

So that accumulated excess fat in obese people should more correctly be called
Fat Retention. - And by Fat Retention I mean that there is no biological purpose to it. - It's not going to 'come in useful' if there's a famine. - It's fat that been retained because the normal physiological mechanism the body uses to get rid of excess fat is not working. - And it's not working because sodium retention/fluid retention has depleted the body of the calcium it needs in order to excrete excess fat (by way of the faeces).

And it hasn't accumulated because the fat person ate a lot of fat. It has accumulated because the person is sensitive to salt.

You can read about Fat Retention here: FAT RETENTION

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Do you believe you have layers of fat and are you wanting to reduce them? - Cutting down on salt helps with this problem.

It's true! - Cutting down on salt helps reduce fat retention. - And it has lots of other health benefits too. - Eating less salt and salty food is completely safe and involves no drugs or surgery.

Read about this in more detail here - FAT RETENTION

In my personal opinion it is neither necessary nor desirable to adopt a low fat diet. Low fat intake can be harmful, especially for small children.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

New research based on flawed assumptions claims to explain why some people do not get flabby.

The research reported in this article in the Daily Telegraph Fat enzyme explains why some people don't get flabby is based on the usual false assumptions for which there is no supporting evidence, namely that obesity is caused by high calorie intake and that retention of excess fat is caused by excessive fat intake. These assumptions are not true so any conclusions based on them must be flawed and are likely to be irrelevant.

Obesity is caused by sodium retention/fluid retention/salt sensitivity, not by eating too much food. It can be easily reduced by cutting down on salt/sodium and salty food. The calorie explanation for obesity (eating too many calories and not taking much exercise – i.e. greed plus laziness) is clearly wrong because many – probably most – people can eat as much as they like and not become overweight, even if they take very little exercise. – They are what I call on my website ‘the lucky people’. – They are the slim people. – They are the people who have healthy veins and kidneys and are not sensitive to salt. They simply excrete in the urine any excess salt and its attendant water, so they do not gain weight by fluid retention.

The reason they do not put on excess weight when they overeat is that they simply excrete any excess fat/calories they eat. (Faeces tend to contain a lot of fat/calories, which is why animal dung is used as fuel in many countries.)

A few years ago BBC2 showed a series of programmes called “The Truth About Food” and I learnt about some Danish research which throws light on this. – See http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/slim/calcium.shtml where you will read: "a high calcium intake increases the excretion of fat in the faeces". – There is the necessary information! – In fact, the researchers found that twice as much fat was excreted on a high calcium intake as on a low calcium intake – and this was independent of calorie intake. – They also found that dairy calcium (they suggest low fat yoghurt) is a particularly good source for this extra calcium.

Even the frequent claim that fat deposits in the bodies of fat people are there to be drawn upon 'in leaner times' is a pure guess and is not correct. - The fat deposits are caused by the altered body chemistry (depletion of calcium and other essential minerals in the body) resulting from excess blood volume/fluid retention/salt sensitivity.

So to reduce fat retention, if it is present, the most important thing is to alter the diet to reduce the fluid retention which is the initiating cause of excess weight and the primary reason for fat people being short of calcium and for fat people ‘dieting’. That means reducing sodium intake and ensuring plenty of fruit and vegetables in the diet (because their high potassium content helps to displace sodium from the body).

And specifically it also means having a higher intake of calcium, especially, if possible, from a dairy source like low fat yoghurt. – It is also necessary to ensure sufficient vitamin D intake, as this is needed to metabolise the calcium. There is increasing research evidence that vitamin D deficiency is associated with being overweight - and insufficiency of vitamin D is quite common, as is widely reported, e.g. here - http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp

In my personal opinion it is neither necessary nor desirable to adopt a low fat diet. Low fat intake can be harmful, especially for small children.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, stroke, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

The British Heart Foundation (the BHF) is mainly giving the wrong information about the causes of overweight and how to reduce it.

I've been looking at their website today and on this page - http://www.bhf.org.uk/keeping_your_heart_healthy/healthy_eating/managing_your_weight.aspx - it says:

"Why do we gain weight?

By taking in more energy (calories) than your body is burning, you will gain weight. The extra calories that you’ve consumed will be stored as fat – too much of which results in weight gain. If you’re not physically active, you’re even more likely to gain weight.

Fatty foods, sweet foods and sugary drinks are all likely to cause excess weight gain""

I have quoted selectively, but not inaccurately. This is their main message about what causes weight gain, but the fact is that excess weight gain is caused by fluid retention, NOT by calorie excess or energy imbalance. The fluid retention is maintained by salt/sodium intake, and the excess fluid is mainly held in the blood vessels, so that if you are very overweight you may already be aware of distended and painful veins. Calorie reduction does not reduce fluid retention, nor does it reduce fat retention.

On the same page it also says:

"How can I lose weight?

The best way to lose weight is by reducing your calorie (energy) intake by cutting down on the fat and sugar in your diet and following a healthy balanced diet. Being physically active also plays an important part in losing weight as you burn up calories.

Try not to lose weight too quickly. Losing weight slowly and steady about one to two pounds (between half a kilo and one kilo) a week is healthier, and you are more likely to keep the weight off for good. Gradual weight loss is the safest and most effective long term way to lose weight."

None of this is true. There is no evidence to support what they claim about burning up calories to lose excess weight. - The best and safest way to lose excess weight is to cut down on salt/sodium and salty food. - If you do this gradually you will lose weight gradually; if you do it more rapidly you will lose weight very fast indeed, especially if you make sure that you eat plenty of fruit and (unsalted) vegetables as well, because fruit and veg are rich in potassium, and potassium displaces some of the sodium in your body, thus enabling you to excrete more of the excess fluid from your body. Reducing salt intake is safe and we are advised to eat less salt. Most of us eat too much salt. - It is DIETING - by which I mean eating fewer calories than your body requires - that is harmful. Calorie counting and advice about increasing exercise and reducing fat and carbohydrate intake to reduce obesity are ineffective, counter-productive and often damaging. - See the article in the British Medical Journal of November 2003 http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/327/7423/1085 for actual research on what happens when this advice is followed! - Over 800 obese adults were put on energy deficit diets, given diet sheets and plenty of instruction and help from trained staff, and apparently, visited fortnightly for a year, at the end of which they had GAINED weight! This mirrors the real experience of obese people, viz. - dieting makes you fatter.

If you have fat retention as well as fluid retention, you will find that the fat retention is also reduced by cutting down on salt. - Fat retention is not caused by eating too much fat and is not cured by eating meals low in fat. - Read about fat retention here: FAT RETENTION

Here are the facts about obesity:

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html - social and economic considerations

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Children and Obesity

Associated health conditions

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free. I am not a doctor or a dietician or a nutritionist. The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

The natural way to get rid of excess fat from your body is not to try to 'burn it off', but to excrete it. - Here's how:

See FAT RETENTION

and

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs, hunger or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods

Further foolish claims made about genes as causes of obesity.

Six new obesity genes discovered
article in the Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Scientists looked at the genes of more than 90,000 people and uncovered six genetic variants associated with an increased Body Mass Index (BMI), the standard measurement of obesity.

Of the six, five are active in the brain, and could affect behaviour around food, rather than how the body breaks down fat or uses up energy, according to the findings, published in the journal Nature Genetics.

"It might seem remarkable that it is the brain that is most commonly influenced by genetic variation in obesity, rather than fat tissue or digestive processes," says Dr Ines Barroso, a senior author on the study, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "Until 2007, no genetic associations had been found for 'common obesity', but today almost all those we have uncovered are likely to influence brain function."

Scientists hope that by analysing the genes they can better understand how they work and develop ways to tackle the problem."

This is pernicious nonsense. Genetic changes in brain function are not what cause obesity.

Obesity is caused by fluid retention, often accompanied by fat retention.

Fluid retention is caused by salt sensitivity/weakened veins, often caused by prescription drugs.

Fluid retention tends to lead to deficiency in calcium, magnesium and potassium. Deficiency in these minerals, especially calcium, and in vitamin D, causes fat retention.

Reducing salt intake reduces fluid retention AND fat retention. Increasing intake of calcium and vitamin D, magnesium and potassium, further reduces fat retention.

Read the following webpages for fuller information.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

Children and Obesity

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

You won't lose excess weight by restricting calories or cutting down on fat. - You need to reduce your fluid retention by cutting down on salt .

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

amitriptyline

prescribed steroids and HRT

See advice for pregnant mothers

Associated health conditions

and FAT RETENTION

Researchers at the National Institute for Agricultural Botany in Cambridge have produced a GM wheat that releases fewer calories into the body.

New flour means bread could fight obesity
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"Researchers at the National Institute for Agricultural Botany in Cambridge have produced a genetically modified form of wheat that releases fewer calories into the body compared to other varieties currently available.

Food made from the new crop is also digested slower, making people feel fuller and less likely to eat more food. The scientists hope that these qualities could help make staple foods such as bread, pasta and other flour products healthier."

"Scientists at Birmingham University have also discovered a new method to replace fat in food products by using a protein found in mushrooms. The protein creates an air filled capsule that mimics the texture of fat.

The researchers claim that the protein could be used to replace fat in foods such as salad dressings, mayonnaise, sauces and even ice cream where most of the fat is used to provide a rich texture rather than taste.

Dr Phil Cox, one of the researcher on the team, said: "It is hoped that, by making indulgent foods more healthy, the consumer will be able to continue to enjoy those foods that are currently seen as bad for you, without worrying about the fat content.""

Wouldn't it be great if the researchers gave up this misguided research and did something useful instead?! - They could at least check that their research is founded on reliable evidence. - There is no evidence whatsoever that reducing calorie intake reduces obesity. Nor is there evidence that reducing fat intake reduces obesity. - And they've never even tested out these theories to check if they are right...)o:

The facts are that obesity is caused by salt sensitivity/sodium retention/fluid retention and sometimes, additionally fat retention, i.e. obesity is not caused by overeating or by taking too little exercise. - Obese people can easily lose excess weight, i.e. excess fluid and excess fat, by significantly reducing their intake of salt/sodium and by eating plenty of fruit and unsalted vegetables. - Reducing calories or fat intake has no effect on fluid retention so does not result in loss of excess weight. - Slim people do not have the problem of salt sensitivity; THAT IS WHY THEY ARE SLIM! - It isn't that they don't overeat. - Frequently slim people are the ones you see eating like there's no tomorrow and taking no exercise, but nobody tells them they are greedy or lazy. - It's only the fat people that get gratuitously insulted and accused of greed, yet most fat people are counting calories/dieting MOST OF THE TIME and so they are hungry and UNDER-EATING most of the time.

The fattest people - the morbidly obese - are usually the victims of prescribed drugs that cause sodium and water retention. Doctors prescribe these drugs far too readily/carelessly/recklessly, often in high dose, and without the important warning that while taking them the patient should avoid eating salt of salty food.

See Health problems associated with salt sensitivity and fluid retention

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, angina, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

See also FAT RETENTION