Overweight and survivability

[gadgetgeek]

I think there are far more factors at play. Its what your body has conditioned to over your entire life, there will likely be some epigenetic influence from your parents, how fast your body can adapt to new conditions, some people respond fast, some do not. And a lot of these factors are things we haven't really studied, or can, since they would be nearly impossible to control for. It could be as simple as how well someone can sleep, or as complex as fat/muscle composition combined with hormone production. During the Biosphere low calorie experiments they found that as the participants lost weight in fat, they also suffered the effects of toxins that are fat soluble being released into the blood. I'm not talking "toxins" like alternative medicine folks, I'm talking measurable pollutants that used to be much more common through the 50s-70s. Its also possible that as bones break down the heavy metals within them are released as well. These could all have an impact on a person's mental state, so even if the body can handle it, the mental side of things may make them feel fatigued. Hydration and kidney function can also be a big factor. Its a very large and complex system, so distilling it down to just a calorie in-vs-calorie out doesn't quite work.

Interesting research being done right now on former biggest loser contestants, it looks like some of the things we thought were solid might not be after all. It will take a while for the full story to get told, right now its all headlines and clickbait.

 

[James Y]

Muscles can be auto digested as well and thus sustain you during lack of food. Of course they can not pack as many calories as fat but it still puts a dent into the fat trumps muscle theory.
Also muscles are denser than fat thus the calorie comparison will look even better when looking at volume instead of weight.

I've done no science in that direction but I also have a feeling the best would be what I call construction worker strong. Sure these guys have usually no very visible muscle definition and are often "overweight" by BMI standards, however under the surface fat and beer belly they have quite a lot of muscles and highly functional ones at that. The same body type can be seen by world's strongest men contests. They don't look sculpted like Arnold though their bodies appear tougher and more capable, to me at least. This seems to be similar to how Gladiators were described earlier.

Agreed on the point about laborers having lots of strength. My dad grew up on a farm, the youngest of 8 children, and did blue-collar work his entire life, including several years on a professional tuna boat back in the day. He was never fat, though. He was maybe 5'6" and probably never even 160 pounds, but he was freaky strong. He also had big, thick laborer's fingers. And in old photos from the 1950s and 1960s, when in his 30s and 40s, his physique resembled Charles Atlas. And he never touched a weight set in his life. I don't know how he would have stacked up in a weight room, but I'm pretty sure he could do certain types of hard labor all day that would have left lots of gym rats in the dust. Even later in life when he was beset with health issues and lost the bulk, his hands remained incredibly strong.

Jim

 

[baldtaco-II]

Are you referring to the starving contestants who have gone without food for a couple of days? A few days to a few weeks without food is hunger. A few months without food is starvation.

33 days

Without getting into the semantics of exactly where the transition is between hunger and starvation we can note that Bobby Sands ended his noise after 66 days. That was in bed, only rejecting solids, with people trying to get food into him.

 

[Gaston444]

However, the bigger you are the more fuel you need to actually do anything.

Hardly science but timely in as much as I have just watched yet another survival show that was more of “a bunch of starving people limp over the finish line”. Once again it was the svelte women that were fairly sprightly at the end, whereas the big ole lumbering alpha male ape sorts struggled, flaked out, & needed medics. For a reasonably average distribution of tasks across the group it was the men that struggled to get stuff done on the same amount of resources as the thin women.

Remember when Wiseman said Mears was the wrong shape for proper survival stuff in the wild? This is why.

This is what I would expect.

Also stomach size does make you feel hungrier, and in a more debilitating way. That is why they now surgically staple the stomachs of morbidly obese people, the only way they can actually reduce their consumption without having them being obsessed by food to the point of being non-functional. (The difference with a stapled stomach borders on the fantastical, the person feeling "full" in a few bites...)

I have been around fat people, and although there are exceptions, generally their constant need for food has always astounded me.

The only situation a fat person might do well is in an underground fallout shelter, and even then the effects of food deprivation will be far more intense.

Being obese is to have modified your body to feel hungrier faster and in more debilitating ways. The risk of injury at the slightest activity also appears to be through the roof: I would not expect them to walk through woods for days without risking twisting an ankle.

Gaston

 

[baldtaco-II]

This is what I would expect.

Also stomach size does make you feel hungrier, and in a more debilitating way. That is why they now surgically staple the stomachs of morbidly obese people, the only way they can actually reduce their consumption without having them being obsessed by food to the point of being non-functional. (The difference with a stapled stomach borders on the fantastical, the person feeling "full" in a few bites...)

I have been around fat people, and although there are exceptions, generally their constant need for food has always astounded me.

The only situation a fat person might do well is in an underground fallout shelter, and even then the effects of food deprivation will be far more intense.

Being obese is to have modified your body to feel hungrier faster and in more debilitating ways. The risk of injury at the slightest activity also appears to be through the roof: I would not expect them to walk through woods for days without risking twisting an ankle.

Gaston

I wish I could remember more about this stuff.

Hunger as a perception and motivational influence is certainly complicated. I recall the Washburn stuff with him inflating balloons inside himself to explore the mechanisms of hunger fairly well. And then we have the glucose and insulin theories and the triggering of the vagus nerve and all the other biological stuff.

In addition though we need to account for psychological hunger and feeding patterns based on learning and cognition. There's certainly a whole raft of factors put forward there in the attempt to account for why fat people respond to food differently from normal people. An interesting component I recall from that concerns laziness and the availability of food. In short, study participants split into groups of fat and normal were presented foodstuffs and consumed at about the same rate, 'till a work element was included. When nuts and foodstuffs were presented in versions that required some sort of unwrapping, peeling, and shelling, the fat participants quit consuming stuff significantly sooner. Despite initially having similar degrees of motivation for the food the moment they included the effort component the performance at actually taking action in the fat group dropped. I've always represented that to myself as Wile E Coyote was so fixated on the actual act of eating Roadrunners he couldn't take his mind off that long enough to figure out an effective way of actually catching one. That can't be helpful.

 

[Bo T]

33 days

Without getting into the semantics of exactly where the transition is between hunger and starvation we can note that Bobby Sands ended his noise after 66 days. That was in bed, only rejecting solids, with people trying to get food into him.

Aye, and if he had been plump upon starting his strike, his 'noise' would have lasted much longer.

 

[James Y]

Being obese is to have modified your body to feel hungrier faster and in more debilitating ways. The risk of injury at the slightest activity also appears to be through the roof: I would not expect them to walk through woods for days without risking twisting an ankle.

Gaston

Being obese is hard on a person's body, period. Not only the ankles are at risk; all the joints are under greater stress, blood sugar and blood pressure levels, and heart issues. I don't see any great advantage in being obese in a wilderness survival situation.

One could point out certain groups with a genetic tendency toward becoming heavier (for one example, many Pacific Islander groups) as having survival advantages during lean times; but in modern times, with the easy availability of food, such former advantages often become liabilities.

Jim

 

[Miao]

I guess it can be an advantage, but only really in the longer term. In the short term there's maybe slightly better protection against cold, offset against decreased mobility. Longer term, if you're not able to properly feed yourself - which is likely in survival - it becomes an advantage. Surviving actual life though, it's a huge disadvantage, so don't fatten up for the off chance you'll get trapped in the wilderness.

 

[Bo T]

There are cost/benefits to every situation. I watched the first season of Alone. It was really interesting, and it was a 'hunker down and wait' scenario. In that case, if one was able to provide usable shelter, having 30% body fat vs 10% body fat, everything else being similar, would provide an edge on survivability. Somewhere along the increased body fat a change would probably occur where the person with 10% body fat would have an advantage. But, I have known some individuals who were pushing 40-50% body fat that (given the skills) would have done well in that situation.

 

[pict]

I used to weigh 225 about 15 years ago. In 2003 I decided to get in fighting trim and hit the gym for a year. I got down to 175 and then put on ten lbs of muscle. I felt great. I should have kept that up but didn't. Fast forward to last year getting ready for Alone. I decided I needed to gain as much muscle and fat as possible so I ramped up the exercise and ate large healthy meals. I think I was about 195 on launch day, but I wasn't living a sedentary life at that weight. I figured the more of me there was, the more there was to cannibalize. That is also why I took 5 lbs of pemmican as one of my items. When carbs are cut off you start to eat your own muscle and fat so the body is converted to burn pemmican better than anything else.

I can't yet talk about how much weight I lost. IMO when facing starvation, the more of you the better, to a point. It was said earlier in the thread that morbid obesity is never a good thing. If your cardio and muscle mass are in good shape, I really believe a few (10 - 15) extra pounds of body fat are an asset if you know you are going to face starvation.

 

[silenthunterstudios]

One of the problems I have faced, is that most of my favorite foods are foods that my ancestors used to pack some meat on their ribs for the winter. Frybread, blinis, pierogies, kielbasa, corned beef etc. All made for people that worked hard and faced possibility of starving through the winter.

These days, obesity comes from eating food that has little to no nutritional value. I'm reminded of a Twilight Zone episode, How to serve man. It seems as if we're being fattened up for something, maybe Soylent Green . I lost 50 lbs over the winter by just taking acidophilus and saw palmetto, drinking more water and staying away from fast food, walking too. I need to cut out bread too.

I work in Baltimore, but live about 45 miles away on the MD/PA state line. I've often thought about leaving my truck on the side of the road in a SHTF scenario, grabbing my bag and water bottles and heading home. I know all of the side roads, and can keep a general direction to get home. It's not that easy though. We've had 16 days of straight rain, and my broken back (from a car accident) is screaming right now. I sustained a broken leg in the accident also, and that little tiny bone is preventing my mobility around my office. Also, bad knees and ankles are a problem. Depending on my body, I'm not going that far.

My goal weight is considered obese by today's standards, but 250 is my sit down and say I'm done goal. Not give up on my new lifestyle, but decide that I am going to be my healthiest at that weight.

After the accident, in 2012, I was told that my weight saved my life, but now it was time to loose it. I also sustained broken ribs and chest cartilage, and those are hurting in this weather. I might be able to get a fire going in wet weather, but just kneeling down huddled over a pile of wood might give me a heart attack. I used to be able to walk three miles, at this size, before my accident, take a shower and a nap and I was fine. Now, I feel like I got hit by a truck the next day. Hiking in the mountains has the same effect.

Not giving up.

 

[Woods Walker]

I have been both wildly fat and in good shape. I can tell you good shape is better in the woods. Cardio is like have a deep well of power. I am writing up a trip report which involves hiking up hills that only a few years ago nearly killed me. I hardly even noticed them now. Plus being able to balance on one foot is a survival skill! No really I proved that in this video! LOL!

[video=youtube;wG0Rki8s-B4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG0Rki8s-B4[/video]

 

[silenthunterstudios]

Balance is a big issue for me. Diabetic neuropathy, constant ear and sinus infections, and medicine for diabetic neuropathy. Hypertension also.

When I get up in the middle of the night, I feel like Indiana Jones. Fall out of bed because you're disoriented, trip over the dog, get up, trip over the other dog, hit the door frame, then hit the other side of the hallway, and if you've made it to the bathroom before you go to the bathroom, it is an accomplishment. I've never missed but I've often felt like I would. I'm only 37, I need to lose some weight.

 

[Bo T]

Balance is a big issue for me. Diabetic neuropathy, constant ear and sinus infections, and medicine for diabetic neuropathy. Hypertension also.

When I get up in the middle of the night, I feel like Indiana Jones. Fall out of bed because you're disoriented, trip over the dog, get up, trip over the other dog, hit the door frame, then hit the other side of the hallway, and if you've made it to the bathroom before you go to the bathroom, it is an accomplishment. I've never missed but I've often felt like I would. I'm only 37, I need to lose some weight.

I wasn't is as bad a shape as you are, but at about the same age, I started getting high blood sugar. I did the Atkins diet and it worked. Now, staying on the diet and away from the foods that I crave, is a different issue. Also, always keep moving. If you watch TV - hide the remote. Get up - walk to the TV and change the channel. If you drink a beverage while on the computer - only fill the container a quarter of the way. Get up and get another quarter of a cup if you want more. I started taking DHEA around the same time and it helped with muscle stiffness - especially in the morning. It makes it a lot easier to get moving if you are not hobbled for half an hour after getting up. Good luck.

 

[Woods Walker]

Balance is a big issue for me. Diabetic neuropathy, constant ear and sinus infections, and medicine for diabetic neuropathy. Hypertension also.

When I get up in the middle of the night, I feel like Indiana Jones. Fall out of bed because you're disoriented, trip over the dog, get up, trip over the other dog, hit the door frame, then hit the other side of the hallway, and if you've made it to the bathroom before you go to the bathroom, it is an accomplishment. I've never missed but I've often felt like I would. I'm only 37, I need to lose some weight.

Type 1 or type 2?

 

[Jake245]

Fat is definitely a plus point while surviving without food. But if you are in a habit of eating all the time then it could be a little bit difficult.

 

[the lone gunman]

I wasn't is as bad a shape as you are, but at about the same age, I started getting high blood sugar. I did the Atkins diet and it worked. Now, staying on the diet and away from the foods that I crave, is a different issue. Also, always keep moving. If you watch TV - hide the remote. Get up - walk to the TV and change the channel. If you drink a beverage while on the computer - only fill the container a quarter of the way. Get up and get another quarter of a cup if you want more. I started taking DHEA around the same time and it helped with muscle stiffness - especially in the morning. It makes it a lot easier to get moving if you are not hobbled for half an hour after getting up. Good luck.

What is DHEA?

 

[Bo T]

What is DHEA?

It is a hormone precursor. We tend to produce a certain amount when we are younger, which gradually decreases with age. It helps me with muscle stiffness in the mornings. I got headaches when I took too much. 25 mg was too much 20 years ago but seems to be about the right amount currently.