300 Calorie meal

After looking at photos of 300 calorie meals I think that's about how much I naturally eat at breakfast and lunch at home. That's about what my mother served me. Other than pregnancy the only time I've gained weight was when I dated someone who was fat and we ate out a lot. Then I figured out I didn't need to eat the entire portion of a huge American restaurant meal.

Eating a restaurant meal portion makes me feel horribly full but it often sneaks up on you. So I didn't feel extremely full until after the restaurant. I heard a fat person on Oprah say that she loves that feeling when you feel the need to loosen your pants and if you eat any more you might be sick. I really hate it.

Now at a restaurant I just tell myself as the plate is being put down "I can eat only half" of however much seems like a reasonable amount.

We have started eating out more because restaurants do serve higher calorie items that Little T likes like "burger fries." I eat less because the food has higher calories and therefore makes me feel more full.

Like today we ate at a deli. The bread is the same I would eat but a lot more salami and cheese and little mayo and mustard than I would eat on a sandwich at home. I ate half of the sandwich plus one bite. I also ate about 7 fat fries. I still feel full 2 hours later though not nauseatingly full. My husband ate the rest of my sandwich and part of his meal and some fries. He is gaining weight on this "new diet."

I have read research that people have a "set weight point." I think that's actually a simplistic answer. I think rather people have differing

• tolerance of fat - I just can't eat too much fat. It makes me feel full.
• the way foods taste aka food preferences - I can taste red no 5 and other artificial ingredients. They taste a little weird. I can't stand the taste of diet coke. I naturally prefer fresh meat and vegetables cooked simply. I hate preserved things. I have a friend who is the opposite and would choose diet coke and cheezits over stirfry any day of the week. I think McDonalds food tastes gross.
  
• amount of food needed to feel full - my husband clearly has a higher set point than I do
• feelings about being over full - my husband and I both hate it
• rate of conversion of excess calories to fat - I do not gain weight easily. I think this also varies by body part. Any weight I do gain goes to my belly first then my breasts and then my face. My arms and legs remain the same. To gain weight during pregnancy I had to force myself to eat several times a day. Not eating caused my nausea to be worse. In the first part of both pregnancies I actually dropped a few pounds.
  
• rate of conversion of fat to muscle/energy - In most areas of my body I am pretty static. I still have a fat belly from pregnancy. Otherwise I have dropped back down to my prepregnancy weight. I think I could work really hard to get rid of this belly fat but it would be very difficult. It has slowly gone down over time but very slowly.
  
• rate of metabolism - my metabolism is pretty high. It has slowed down since I was a teen and I think pregnancy slowed it down further.
• amount metabolism is affected by exercise and amount and type of exercise needed - I find I need to walk everyday to be happy. Faster exercise also makes me happy but I get "the runner's high" or feelings of well being just from walking. I walk fairly fast on my own but often I walk with kids. However when I can't walk due to injury I gain a few pounds which I drop after I start walking again. Oprah says she needs to work out an hour a day to keep her current weight. I just don't have time to do that.
• ability to do a task over time that has long-term benefits - My ability to do this is low if it's just for myself but I'll do anything for my family.
  

I think people who are fat most likely have the "gain fat" side of many if not all these factors. Both of my parents come from a long line of people who were well-fed their entire lives i.e they lived in prosperous farming communities. With a constant supply of food the body reacts differently and there are different selection pressures.

Few people except Jared Diamond talk about how a culture's access to food resources affects its ability to expand. I would say that coming from a heritage that includes low and inconsistent access to food promotes genes that all lead to being fat in a culture that has consistent access to very high calorie foods.

I guess what I'm saying is yes my observable weight point is set lower than many Americans and I exercise less than the recommended amount. I don't do a lot of hard exercise like going to the gm. In fact when I did the most time at the gym I was also gaining weight from restaurant food. My BP etc is all low. It's just from following my natural tendencies.

I think someone like Oprah who comes from a background of slaves and before that prolly hunter-gatherers has all the factors to make her fat. With a lot of hard work she overcame her natural tendencies to get to a lower weight. I think other fat people could do the same if they had the resources and time of Oprah. Some fat people do and some don't.

But I think saying "everyone has a set weight point" or "everyone can be an ideal body weight if they only followed my lifestyle changes" misses the point.

At this point in my life if I had to do what Oprah did to maintain my current weight I would be fat. I don't have the time to exercise an hour a day or rather I feel my family needs that hour more. I can often walk with my family. I just eat what I like when I like. I don't spend time craving foods that are bad for me. I don't deny myself much in the way of food. Yes I love chocolate but in moderation. But I also don't think I need to be worth a billion dollars to have Oprah's genes and not be fat. I just need the time and resources.

At my current socioeconomic level I guess I could force myself into weight loss lifestyle changes if both my children were functionally school-age. Not true for me now. I don't know if I would want to. I prolly might if I was convinced I would die too young. I dunno.