overeating and early graves?

Since giving up smoking Emerald, 62, has been drinking and eating more to compensate for her lost pleasure, and now that her weight is being affected she is terrified that overeating will put her into an earlier grave than smoking.

"I don't have any alcohol or food related complaints yet," says Emerald, “but because I'm drinking and eating more to compensate for giving up smoking I think I should re-examine what's worse for me in the long run."

"Apparently, overeating – especially the high-calorie, fat-laden foods that I like – is one of the surest ways to an early grave," says Emerald, "but is it? Now that I've learned about the good aspects of smoking that I never heard about before, I am inclined to believe that anti-food propaganda is similarly based on false facts."

"Basically, it's good common sense that if you like doing something it is doing you some good -- it's making you happy!" says Emerald. "And isn't this what a healthy old age is all about?"

"I hate vegetables, you'll never catch me eating them no matter how good they supposedly are for us," says Emerald. "Knowing this, I wonder why I gave up smoking when they told me to? Why did I believe them about smoking and not about vegetables?"

"Maybe I'm not the wimp I've been thinking I am," laughs Emerald. "Maybe I'm made of the same stuff after all as Jeanne Louise Calment – the lady who died at 122 and was a smoker – and I have what it takes to tell them to get stuffed when they dare to tell me what I should and should not do."

"I base my belief on the following research:

The top 10 reciprocal causal factors relating to obesity death surprisingly do not include obesity. As a matter of interest, obesity only occurs as a reciprocal factor in Heart Disease and Alcoholic Liver Disease deaths.

The top 10 reciprocal causal factors in obesity death, in order of highest incidence, are :
78.22%
Foreign Born,
74.02%
Living alone,
73.58%
Divorce,
72.63%
Pork,
72.20%
Soft drinks,
71.60%
Coffee,
69.69%
Land,
62.54%
Cannabis,
61.56%
Social Security and
61.05%
Working Moms.

In total, statistics of 30 countries were examined for the incidence of death by obesity and 33 causal factors were taken into consideration (personal consumption, family and social issues, environmental issues and population).

The reciprocal causal factors were determined as follows. Firstly, the 15 countries with the highest incidence of death by obesity were examined to establish causes and their values. Secondly, the 15 countries with the highest incidences of these causal factors were examined to establish values in relation to obesity death. Finally, these two values were added together to obtain an average.

If causes alone were taken as established facts then something like Carbon Dioxide rating 60.14% would come into play, but as countries with the highest incidence of Carbon Dioxide did not have a corresponding high incidence of obesity death its reciprocal causal factor was very low and as such Carbon Dioxide did not make the top 10.

In order of highest incidence, the top 15 countries representing 97.99% of the total obesity deaths are :
Austria,
Denmark,
NZ,
US,
Germany,
Spain,
Mexico,
Australia,
Canada,
Luxembourg,
Norway,
Sweden,
Finland,
Netherlands and
Hungary.

So, being obese is not a huge factor in obesity death but it definitely plays a part in the above countries which have a high proportion of Foreign Born, Living Alone and Divorced people who consume a high proportion of Pork, Soft drinks and Coffee.

Less important contributing factors include a high proportion of Land (sq km per 1000 people), Cannabis use, Social Security expenditure (% of GDP) and Working Moms with children under 6."

"Overall, it looks like death was caused by alienation and loneliness exacerbated by obesity," says Emerald, "but you can't put that on a death certificate can you?"

"And, undoubtedly, death was hastened by a whole bunch of diet and exercise obsessed Fat Nazis putting unnecessary stress on these unfortunate obese people who might otherwise have died of Heart Disease or something else."

Read more stories by Emerald related to longevity:

how to live to 122

a smoker lives to 122!

doggy friends

everything in moderation

weight loss analysis

When she retired at 60 Gypsy was at her heaviest weight ever (80kg/176lbs) and with time at her disposal she tackled her weight problem with the same analytical skills that she once used at work.

"I made weight loss my full-time job," laughs Gypsy, "but it's no laughing matter really because my health was being seriously compromised by my weight."

"Because I approached weight loss with a professional accountant's eye," explains Gypsy, "my weight loss spreadsheet took into account everything about the food I ate."

"My base year comprised the contents of my last shopping cart when I weighed 80kg (176lbs)," says Gypsy. "I listed every item in the cart along with its weight and nutritional content."

"I rarely drink, eat junk food or obviously fattening things like ice cream, cake and chocolate," says Gypsy, "so I couldn't understand why my weight over ten years had ballooned from 60kg (132lbs) to
(80kg/176lbs)."

"It was pretty obvious even at that early stage of analysis that the main culprit was bread," sighs Gypsy. "It accounted for twice as much in calories or kilojoules as the next culprit, full cream milk."

"Just by cutting out bread and increasing my fruit intake -- and substituting full cream milk for skim milk -- I lost a huge chunk of weight within three months," says Gypsy, ''and I managed to continue to lose weight for the rest of the first year."

"By the end of the first year of this simple diet I weighed 69kg (152lbs) and looked and felt great," says Gypsy. "My gaol was to slim down to a healthy 60kg (132lbs) and I naively believed that by reducing my calorie/kilojoule intake I would achieve that goal by the end of the second year."

"My base year's average daily intake was 10,101kj, my first year's average daily intake was 7,472kj and my second year's average daily intake was 7,165kj," says Gypsy, "and guess what, I gained weight."

"I was so disappointed and couldn't believe that by literally starving myself for a year -- keeping my average daily intake well below the previous year -- I now weighed 72kg (159lbs)."

"In my third year I experimented with a variety of diets -- high protein and then a nut diet -- and because my weight didn't shift much I then reintroduced bread in moderation and at the end of the third year I weighed 73kg (161lbs) with an average daily intake of 9,621kj."

"Hello? What's going on here, I thought," laughs Gypsy. "In the base year my average daily intake was 10,101kj and I weighed 80kg (176lbs), in my first year my average daily intake was 7,472kj and I lost 11kg (25lbs), in my second year I reduced my average daily intake to 7,165kj and gained 3kg (7lb) and in my third year I increased my average daily intake to 9,621kj and I gained just 1kg (a few pounds)."

"On the basis of my calculations, with an average daily intake of 9,621kj I should have gained heaps and be almost back to my base weight," says Gypsy. "That I wasn't pleased me, but it just goes to show that there is much more to weight loss than counting calories."

"I then looked at the amount of food I was eating -- it's weight -- and took a simplistic view that if I was eating more I might weigh more," says Gypsy, but that didn't pan out either."

"In the base year my average daily intake was 1457g, in my first year my average daily intake was 1,575g (more!), in my second year my average daily intake was 1,483g (less) and in my third year my average daily intake was 1,882g -- which was far more than my base year!"

"Right now I'm in my fourth year and almost ready to give up," sighs Gypsy. "So far, my average daily intake is 8,710kj/1538g, I weigh 76kg (165lbs) and it looks like I am soon going to be back to 80kg (176lbs) despite watching everything I eat."

"My only ray of hope is a factor I have just discovered," confides Gypsy. "It's the kilojoule per gram ratio which you arrive at by dividing the average daily kilojoule intake by the average daily gram intake."

"In the base year my average kilojoule per gram ratio was 6.93, in my first year my average kilojoule per gram ratio was 4.74 (less), in my second year my average kilojoule per gram ratio was 4.83 (more), in my third year my average kilojoule per gram ratio was 5.11 (more) and right now it is 5.66 (more)."

"The kilojoule per gram ratio is the only factor which can explain why I have been gaining weight since my first year of dieting," says Gypsy. "I won't know until my fifth year of dieting whether or not it is going to be the magic bullet, but in the hope that it is I am now in the process of cutting out all food that has a high kilojoule per gram ratio and increasing all food that has a low kilojoule per gram ratio."

"And guess what?" laughs Gypsy. "The dietitians are right about eating more vegetables. By increasing my fruit intake -- especially grapes, melon and plums -- I was inadvertently increasing my kilojoule per gram ratio!"

"If a gram of mushrooms has a ratio of 1, a gram of grapes 5 and a gram of bread 10 then you don't have to be a mathematician to work out that you can eat the equivalence of a loaf of bread in mushrooms and feel full as well as losing weight."

"My initial weight loss was due entirely to substituting fruit for bread!"

"The only fly in this theory," sighs Gypsy, "is that when I weighed a healthy 60kg (132lbs) I ate a lot less vegetables and far more bread than I do now."

"At 76kg (165lbs) I may not look too good but I feel a lot better than I did at 80kg (176lbs) and everyone says I should be grateful for improved health," says Gypsy, "but I do want to look good as well."

"I'm now using my analytical spreadhseet skills to look at other factors in my life since I turned 50 that caused me to gain weight," says Gypsy. "I think stress was a huge factor in my last 10 years at work -- I literally worked, ate and slept -- but that's all behind me, now."

"If my weight gain since 50 was just a hormonal thing then there's not much I can do about it -- or want to do about it," says Gypsy, "but if it's a matter of eating more vegetables and starting a solid exercise regime at the same time then I can do it."

"I have to bear in mind that it took ten years to put on weight and might take another ten years to lose it."