Dale's Fat Farm

My niece is fat.  It's not glandular, something that runs in the family or big bones.  She got this way the old fashioned way. Gluttony and poor food choices.

I am now somewhat in charge of her diet.
Since she's perpetually broke (serious mental issues),  with little hope in the financial department,  my brother has decided to pay for food. I hold the money and pay for groceries, since I live near her.

 Yesterday, we agreed to meet at the deli, so I could see what was in her cart. There was lots of garbage.  Pop, TV dinner type stuff and calorie rich condiments were returned.  She had also gathered several hair products, to add to a collection that fills two laundry baskets. The crap was replaced with real food.

She is usually quite compliant with me.  Both of her parents find these shopping excursions exhausting, since she argues about each decision.  I lay it all on them. "I'm not supposed to get you junk food, cigarettes or any other garbage".  They know not to answer their phones during shopping excursions.  Thus, there is no appeals process. ☺

The store has a large fresh produce and bulk food area. I asked her to look around and count the seriously fat ones.  None, in a group of 20 or so fruit and vegetable customers.  Then we spent a few minutes in the pop and chip isles. About half of the people here were overweight. 
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Once she is home, she eats whatever is on hand. There are no chips or candy. She makes sensible choices by default.  Since there is some preparation involved, it doesn't all get eaten at once.

We spent $93.  About $60 in garbage was returned to the shelves.

I keep the receipt.  This prevents the return of good things to finance cigarette and sugar purchases.
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We went for coffee with a friend of mine,  after shopping.  My niece reported that "Uncle Dale is really bossy". 
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I'd like to run a fat farm.  No amount of complaining, crying or moping would make me give in. I'd rule with the threat of no supper or no trips to town. It'd be like having my own private prison. ... I'd be drunk with power. 😈

I like how you invited a comparison of the shoppers on the produce and bulk food isles verses the ones on the soda and chip isles. Brilliant.

Dale Hodgins wrote:
I'd like to run a fat farm.  No amount of complaining, crying or moping would make me give in. I'd rule with the threat of no supper or no trips to town. It'd be like having my own private prison. ... I'd be drunk with power. 😈

Love it! I half-joke with my wife that I could run a fat camp if I could keep the kids on property. Lot's of tree care related physical labor with three solid healthy meals provided a day. Then I'd tell them they could have all the candy bars they could get during their free time and point to the climbing harness next to a grove of trees with one bar at the top of each tree. They'd burn twice the calories getting up there vs. what they'd get from the candy.

I found the opening post painful to read.

The reasons that people gain weight and don't lose it again are complex. Once people gain a certain amount of weight and have that weight over time, it becomes much harder metabolically to lose that weight. Behaviour can have a lot to do with that, but so does physiology. Nothing to do with glandular issues, this is about things like insulin resistance and the way the body adapts to glucose and fat processing over time. There's been a lot of very interesting research done on this, why certain diets don't work (eg calorie restriction), and why some diets work for some people and not others. There is no one size fits all and there is no clear consensus on what public health messages should be. Some people's metabolism gets set when they are children when food choices were being made by adults. This becomes much harder to change.

In my experience some people can lose weight, and others can't no matter what they do. That's a separate matter from good food choices, and there are people who are considered overweight who eat very well, exercise and are fit and healthy. It just breaks my heart to see talk of putting people in prison.

Great job Dale. Hope it keeps going well. Being bossy for a good cause, I wish I could do that.

It reminds me of when I babysit my friend's kid. She's super strict on his diet, and he seems really healthy for it. My number one rule for babysitting is to understand and respect Mum's wishes, that and not misplacing the kid or letting him get hurt or stuff.

Only, when mum isn't around, he say "mum said I could eat..." "Mum said I could do...", of course, she would never say these things, but it works so well on his other family members and care takers, that he thinks he can try it on me. If he says these things, then it means that he's taking an interest in his dietary choices.

He's four now, and time enough in my opinion that he can darn well participate in the meal planing and prep (at least while he's with me). I'm going to be spending 100 percent of my time interacting with him while he's with me, so we might as well spend some time doing things I like to do (cooking) instead of only doing things he likes to do (weeding and picking up rocks from the field). So, he helps plan some of the meal - of course, it's a choice of peas or carrots, but it's still his choice. Being able to have a say in his food seems to make him happy. Any junk food he wants to eat, well, he has to make it himself (under adult guidance, he's only 4 after all).

It's the same criteria I give myself. I want junk food, I have to make it from scratch. No cheating! I want pumpkin pie, it's not go out and buy a crust and a tin of pie filling. No, I grew the pumpkin - simply because I balked at how much sugar a normal pumpkin pie recipe has in it, so I decided I would simply use a superior quality pumpkin and less (if any) sugar.

At the very least, I burn a couple of calories cooking my dessert that I wouldn't have used if I had just gone shopping. By knowing what's in it, by seeing the three huge cupfuls of sugar that go into my brownie recipe - such! good! brownies! - I find it really hits home how damaging that kind of food is. Thinking about those three cups of sugar makes me have a cuppa hot cocoa instead (milk substitute, cocoa powder, and only 1 tsp of maple syurp - much healthier).

Of course, now I have several thousand pounds worth of pumpkins waiting to be harvest... all I wanted was one pumpkin pie last January. Sigh.

Keep up the good work Dale, and let us know how it goes.

Rose Pinder, thank you for posting, you make some very good points. There are so many complex issue surrounding weight, it's always good to be reminded of that.


For me, what I enjoyed about the Opening Post was changing the diet from high processed industrial food like substances, to actual food (to use a Michael Pollan turn of phrase). It may be just one shopping trip, but it's still one small victory for the real food movement.

R Ranson wrote:Rose Pinder, thank you for posting, you make some very good points. There are so many complex issue surrounding weight, it's always good to be reminded of that.


For me, what I enjoyed about the Opening Post was changing the diet from high processed industrial food like substances, to actual food (to use a Michael Pollan turn of phrase). It may be just one shopping trip, but it's still one small victory for the real food movement.

Ah, yes, in which case let's focus on all people who eat industrial food I'd love to see kids educated at school on what good food is, and how to prepare it.

I wonder if y'all are familiar with the "Health at Every Size" movement? I think it brings together a lot of what Dale is getting at with food choice and what Rose is getting at about the complexity of weight gain/loss and physical/emotional problems that can come from certain ways of talking/thinking about body weight. The main idea of health at every size is that one learns to listen to one's body and make healthier food choices and develop a healthier relationship to exercise and one's body in general, and weight loss may or may not result, but health outcomes and various biomarkers almost always improve even without weight loss due to these healthier choices (blood pressure, blood glucose, cardiovascular endurance, strength and power, risk of various cancers and chronic diseases, etc.)--in fact, the heath outcomes are often much better than if one focuses mainly on fat loss, or loses weight without necessarily making healthier choices (for instance, through severe calorie restriction while continuing to consume processed food, diet shakes, etc.) and it allows people to focus on what they can control (process, good choices) rather than what they can't necessarily (outcome, weight loss).

The Fat Nutritionist has a popular blog along those lines: http://www.fatnutritionist.com/

And here is an interesting scholarly article about food choice as it relates to obesity, environmental cues, dieting, and other complicating factors:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2001.127/full

One thing that I think is worth noting is that autonomy and sustainability seem to be important factors in consistently making choices that lead to weight loss and health improvement over the long term, which for most people who have already become obese is very difficult. Of course, in a case where one is mentally ill and dealing with chronic financial instability, that's really complicated, but I do think that for long term weight loss and/or health at any size it's best to focus on helping people learn to make their own good choices ("choice" being the operative word here) rather than focusing on an outside authority or short term "fat camp" model, since weight regain is not only dispiriting, but can actually lead to worse health outcomes than if the weight had never been lost in the first place...and you can't keep people in fat camp forever, generally speaking, unless it really is a private prison. Of course, this may be less satisfying for the would-be prison warden, deprived of the power he relishes, but presumably better for the potential "inmates."

One thing that the idea of "fat camp" or other forms of weight loss retreats or institutions (which can be viewed as something like "food rehab" in a lot of cases) does seem to highlight is the importance of environmental factors of food choice. There have been all kinds of studies showing that seemingly minor factors, like whether a bowl of candy sits within arm's reach or a few feet away, or the height at which various foods are placed on shelves, etc. have a major impact on food choice. So designing environments where healthy food is readily available is a huge factor in promoting good food choices. I think permaculture is ideal for this, of course; I know I eat better when fresh vegetables, fruits, and eggs are ready for the gathering than when my house is full of leftover Christmas treats. And I think your post brings up a great point, Dale: willpower exercised when shopping is willpower that doesn't have to be exercised when deciding what to eat, so a short period of self-control at the store eliminates the need to fight constant battles with oneself over food at home. My mom was diagnosed with pre-diabetes a few years ago (she had been rail-thin all her life and subsisted on Reese's peanut butter cups and Dr. Pepper until it finally caught up with her in her sixties) and the idea of changing her food environment was both one of the most difficult things for her to grasp and one of the major factors in helping her turn her health around.

The interesting thing about making good food choices is that your brain (usually) runs on glucose. So the act of maintaining willpower can lead to carb cravings.

It is far, far better to design your environment to encourage good food choices than to bring home bad foods "for special treats" and rely on willpower to limit their consumption. I recently saw a television show where they impacted what diners consumed at a buffet restaurant by changing the plates from 10 inch white plates to 8 inch green plates. Then, they cut back on the number of trips to the buffet when they redecorated a dining area to have tablecloths, candles and dimmer lighting, with lots of blue (blue is a color that doesn't make you hungry, unlike red or yellow).

Thank you for all of the comments.
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I looked at a bag of chips that gave a fairly low calorie count for a serving. Upon further investigation, I determined that their version of the serving was six chips. I suppose I could eat six chips , but I don't think that I've ever opened a big 200 gram bag and done that. It's more likely that I will eat until I feel full or until I see the bottom of the bag.

 I don't currently have a bag of chips in my truck,  at the jobsite , or at home. If I did have chips in one of those places,  it's likely that a good portion of today's calories would come from that source.

 Although I understand that there are many factors affecting weight gain, I also understand that a person cannot gain weight,  unless their calorie intake exceeds what they are burning.

 I'm out on my bike right now and I have just harvested some wild apples and blackberries. Upon looking in my backpack where I store the fruit,  I see that I have some trail mix, so I will eat some of that with fruit. If I were to find a stray Mars bar in there, I would definitely eat that as well.

Dale Hodgins wrote:My niece...serious mental issues...I am now somewhat in charge of her diet.
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We went for coffee with a friend of mine,  after shopping.  My niece reported that "Uncle Dale is really bossy". 

Kudos to you for stepping up to help with a difficult family situation, caring for an adult that cannot function at an adult level. This kind of thing is so hard on families.

One thing that might help in the long run is to give the niece a one item splurge, her choice of junk, each shopping trip. That way she still has the dignity of choice and you aren't the meanie. And she can focus her mental cycles on the decision rather than you. Because if you are to do this for a long haul, a constant power struggle won't help your mental well-being.

It's only a power struggle if you give in once in a while. Otherwise, complaints are background noise.
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Today is welfare Wednesday in British Columbia. My niece is a "Mardi Gras millionaire". She has probably already bought many of the items that were withheld before.  Every taxi in the city will be busy tonight,  hauling people to pizza shops,  liquor stores and on dope runs. The police will be very busy dealing with public intoxication and all associated behavior.
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Long after the windfall is exhausted,  there will still be staple food items in the fridge and cupboards.

Whole foods are a better choice, but I can stay fat on chicken and potatoes...
I have been to food banks where you could take as much produce as you wanted. When we stacked up the rutabagas, other clients asked us how we would use them. They had no idea. I'm not sure they would have known what to do with an apple even.
We ate mashed, fried, and baked rutabaga, and froze a bunch to add to soup.
I wonder what would happen if food assistance came in the form of beans,rice and cooking oil?
I just finished pretty much that meal, with meat sitting in the fridge. Beans is good!
I am 50 pounds heavier than I was when I was in top shape, most of it is from whole foods, but then potatoes are cheaper than broccoli...

I am 50 pounds heavier than I was when I was in top shape, most of it is from whole foods, but then potatoes are cheaper than broccoli...

I know plenty of fat vegans, even raw vegans. Admittedly, most of them (but not all) got fat before switching to veganism, but even after years or decades of eating a diet based on produce and whole foods, many are still obese. I also know plenty of fat Paleos who eschew processed foods altogether and either remain fat or became fat on that diet. Still, both are much healthier choices for the person and for the Earth than the typical SAD.

I have been doing a lot of research on gut biology and how it relates to obesity and mental disorders. The links are there, and both modern medicine and processed foods kill the good biology and let the bad biology thrive. There is a tipping point where the bad biology has control and returning to a whole food diet will not restore balance. At that point additional help is needed to kill off the bad bacteria and restart the good.

Just like soil and compost.

The comedian, Ricky Gervais, who has lost some weight, says this. "I don't make any judgements about fat people, (pause) other than how they got that way." Ricky is awesome.

The shopping trips continue. After several excursions, she no longer loads the cart with junk that has to be put back. In the beginning, half of her choices were processed junk. The knowledge was already there. Junk was usually piled separately, so that a sales pitch and explanation of the need for each item could be delivered.

There is a tendency to blame poor choices on poverty. I have at least 10 times the disposable income of my niece. Still, given free reign at a restaurant or at home, she consistently chooses more expensive and less healthy food than I do. I often challenge the "food is too expensive" crowd, to see if they are able to eat a dollar worth of oatmeal or lentils. Most of us can't eat that much in one sitting. Those same people can pound down $5 worth of Cheesies and chocolate in one go.

Dale Hodgins wrote:I often challenge the "food is too expensive" crowd, to see if they are able to eat a dollar worth of oatmeal or lentils. Most of us can't eat that much in one sitting. Those same people can pound down $5 worth of Cheesies and chocolate in one go.

I am "LOL" at this because it's so true. Rolled oats, like just about any other industrial grain or legume, cost about a buck a pound at the bottom end of their price range if you shop smart. (Of course you could pay a lot more for alleged better quality, organic growing, or fancy packaging.) I could maybe just about choke down a pound of dry rolled oats, but cook them up properly and it would be more food than I could consume in a couple of days. I can just about eat a pot of pinto beans in one day that I make with one pound of beans and two onions, but only if I cook the beans overnight and eat on them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner! (The people around me would prefer I not do that...)

That said, this is also true for me:

William Bronson wrote:Whole foods are a better choice, but I can stay fat on chicken and potatoes...

I'll go further than that, I can stay (and have stayed!) fat on nothing but whole vegetable foods. I lost a lot of weight when I switched, but was so obese prior that I never stopped being "fat". Saw enormous health benefits (including complete vanishing of diabetes symptoms, and dramatic improvement in vascular function) but stopped losing weight well before I escaped the "obese" area on the chart. If you're a big eater (which I always have been) it's perfectly possible to eat "too much" healthy whole food. But -- as I have learned -- you're still way better off doing that, than you would be eating "too much" of the usual junk.

Back on Dale's point about the expense of healthy foods: I seem to get volunteered to do a lot of shopping for other people who aren't able. It horrifies me sometimes, because I'll have bags and bags of healthy food, but my checkout total is twice what it should be due to the three items (meat and cheese and frozen dinner) they put on my list. Really nice fruit and veg can seem expensive, but not once you compare it to meat and dairy and (especially) ready-to-eat processed crap!

As was mentioned above, there are many factors in weight gain/loss, but one that really affects me, and I strongly suspect many other people I know, is stress. I've been working a lot the last few years, at nothing that satisfies me, and living in (for me) a very unpleasant location. And I've gained weight. A few weeks ago I had enough and went down to 16 hours/week at work. I now eat exactly the same things as before, but more of them since I have the time for more food prep. My dog hurt his leg so I've been doing less cardio-type exercise and more weightlifting too. Still lost 10-15lbs.

Way to go Dale. Thank you for the update.

Weight gain/loss is so complicated. But cooking healthy food need not be.

Cooking healthy food on a budget is EASY! People are simply not taught how anymore. Even now, when people are starting to see the need to cook for themselves, many budget cook books involve starting with pre-fab foods and are require far more time and effort than is needed. It really gets my goat how commercial interests have been allowed to 'train' the population into unhealthy eating all in the name of nurturing The Economy.

Anyway, I can rant forever on the topic. But that's not what this forum is for.

Focusing on what inspires... I started a thread a while back with inspiration for healthy, homemade (preferably easy to make) food that comes in at under a dollar a plate. Dollar, pound, euro, whatever your local currency is, it's not impossible to eat well on a budget. I would love to hear from more people about their healthy home cooking on a budget.

I had a long period where I was not available for shopping excursions. Her mother, who is more malleable, took up the cause. She has put on 30 pounds. My brother started giving her the money directly in order to avoid unwanted financial discussions with his ex-wife. I may insert myself into the situation again.
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On a positive note, my niece has gotten meds which are doing a better job of managing delusions and mood swings. She wanted to develop a hobby to earn some extra money. She has often made hippie type jewelry out of found objects. I suggested small wooden pendants made from little pieces of driftwood. She is good at painting flower designs or other little scenes on them. I provide cutting and drilling services, so that strings can be attached.

The gathering of suitable material requires her to trudge along the beaches in search of suitable specimens. This gets her out of her apartment, where she is bound to burn some calories. The beach is also a reasonably safe place for her to socialize with others who do crafty things.

Dale, I like how you take your live of family seriously.
You are willing to be strong and direct,for their own good. You seem to take them where they are,without accepting their self destructive tendencies.
You seem tough minded,but far from indifferent.

I would have made an awesome medieval dungeon guard. I don't put a lot of stock in people's complaints and excuses." You shouldn't have stolen that bread"

Our social safety net in Canada allows people like my niece to rely on others for everything. I think she would be better off if she lived on a farm 200 years ago and had to pitch in or starve. The foods that she is so drawn to, hadn't been invented at that time.

I have often said that the best way for people to save money, get their weight under control and improve their fitness level, would be for them to grow their own food. I have presented this idea and offered to find her a spot. The problem is that she's not keen on the types of food that come out of a garden.
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I have given quite a bit of thought to the idea of running an actual Fat Farm at my place. Instead of putting them through the paces, like they do on those TV shows, I'd rather just have lots of fun activities. Instead of seriously restricting quantity of food, let them eat all they want, of the healthy foods that are offered. I'm not sure how to market this sort of thing. Beyond that, insurance would probably be the biggest hurdle.

This post won't make me any friends I'm guessing, but every time a discussion comes up about weight (fat) loss, it becomes a giant mess of things about slow metabolism, stress eating, insulin resistance, blah, blah, blah.  Here is a simple fact.  If you eat less calories than you burn, you will lose weight.  Everyone.  That is, every single person.  If you doubt it, watch "My 600 lb life" sometime.  Some of these people weigh in excess of 900lbs.  If ever there was an argument to be made for slow metabolism, screwed up hormone levels, or whatever, these people would have it.  The doc puts them on a 1200 calorie a day diet and, miracle of miracles, every one of them loses weigh.  Fast.  Many lose more than 50 lbs a month.  The ones that aren't losing and say they are following the diet are put in the hospital where they are forced to comply with the 1200 calories a day.  They lose weight just as fast.  It's fairly simple (simple, not easy).  Fat can't be made out of air.  It can only be created by calories. If you are fat, it's because of too many calories.  To maintain being fat takes a certain number of calories.  Some really large people eat in excess of 20,000 to maintain their weight.  Put them on a restricted calories diet and the weight falls off.  As Dale and others have mentioned, eating some foods take up a lot of room.  Eat 2,000 calories of ice cream at a sitting?  No problem.  Try eating 2,000 calories of kale.  How does the saying go?  Facts don't care about your feelings.

Dale Hodgins wrote:  Instead of putting them through the paces, like they do on those TV shows, I'd rather just have lots of fun activities. .

"...She could recognize some of his moods, feared his occasional if quiet criticism, rejoiced to know that she was a **valued member of his team**, but she didn't know him. And she had long learned first to discipline, and finally to put aside, any hope of his love."  -PD James, "The Murder Room"

Skip the *focus* on fun and make them invested in what they are working on.  If a person has been raised to feel like a tool, eventually they won't care which toolbox they end up in.  Although it's a bit lukewarm, have a read of Sebastian Junger's "Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging" on one reason (among many) why modern day soldiers have such a hard time coming back......er....."home".  Upon feeling no longer a tool, there's more incentive to be and feel healthy.

I am heavily overweight, and I don't disagree with your understanding of weight loss. When I put the effort into exercising and diet I have always been quickly able to shed pounds. I am in good health otherwise, so that has always been an option for me. It helps that gluttony is my biggest problem, I'm active enough to have muscle to burn the calories with. Adding activities is usually easier to me than holding back from tasty foods, though the more active I am the less appetite I tend to have.

I thought you might find it amusing that I can actually disagree with this part of you post, though.

Todd Parr wrote:Fat can't be made out of air.  

You might find it interesting that they have determined that when you do lose weight that the fat leaves the body as carbon dioxide and water. So fat is in fact at least partly made of air.

Casie Becker wrote:I am heavily overweight, and I don't disagree with your understanding of weight loss. When I put the effort into exercising and diet I have always been quickly able to shed pounds. I am in good health otherwise, so that has always been an option for me. It helps that gluttony is my biggest problem, I'm active enough to have muscle to burn the calories with. Adding activities is usually easier to me than holding back from tasty foods, though the more active I am the less appetite I tend to have.

I thought you might find it amusing that I can actually disagree with this part of you post, though.

Todd Parr wrote:Fat can't be made out of air.  

You might find it interesting that they have determined that when you do lose weight that the fat leaves the body as carbon dioxide and water. So fat is in fact at least partly made of air.

I don't think we disagree.  We can agree that it can be broken down into air, but can't be made from air.  

It's interesting that it's easier for you to lose by increasing activity.  For most people, myself included, it's easier to remove calories by eating less, simply because burning 300 calories takes so much longer than not eating them does.  Neither way is "better", just whichever is better for the individual.  You found what works best for you, and that is what matters.

Probably part of the reason it works is that I have less appetite when I am extremely active.  And no, I have no clue why increasing my energy use doesn't increase my hunger.  Maybe because I drink so much water, to replace what I sweat out, my stomach feels full.

The problem is that she's not keen on the types of food that come out of a garden.

edible pod peas are an excellent gateway vegetable.  They are sweet, no fuss, easy to snack on and filling.  Most junk food addicts fall head over heals in love with them.  They are good raw or cooked.  It needs to be the homegrown ones as the ones we get in the shop taste starchy.  

Casie Becker wrote:Probably part of the reason it works is that I have less appetite when I am extremely active.  And no, I have no clue why increasing my energy use doesn't increase my hunger.  Maybe because I drink so much water, to replace what I sweat out, my stomach feels full.

If I'm busy, I'm distracted, which means I forget to get hungry.  Also, I don't like being active on a full stomach as it hurts, so I tend to eat less on active days.  Maybe something like that?

Then again, I usually remember to eat breakfast at about 2pm (I start my day about 4am), so I'm probably not the best example.

 Funny thing is,some people do have a "better" feed to fat conversion ratio.
During most of human history,the ability to efficiently convert calories to fat was an advantage.
There is some evidence that a population that experiences famine will have offspring that are more prone to storing fat,an example of epigenetics at work.
Funny how modern agriculture has made precious salts,fats,and sugars plentiful,and because the dose makes the poison, potentially dangerous.

Last Summer, I was walking around my place, clearing all of my walking paths of overgrowth. After a few hours, I realized that I had been at it quite a while and wasn't hungry. The only thing I had eaten in several hours , was salal berries. A quick look around the internet, showed that salal berries are one of the best natural appetite suppressants. It worked for me and I can be sure that there was no placebo effect, since I had no idea that the berries had this quality, until I noticed their effects. I wonder how many other natural appetite suppressants are out there.