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Original poster

Calorie Restriction - creepy article in today's Observer

38 replies

JinglePrunes · 03/12/2006 21:42

Here.

Something about it gave me a chill.

OP posts:
mancmum · 03/12/2006 21:52

would you be friends with anyone in that article -- freaks the lots of them...

Original poster
JinglePrunes · 03/12/2006 21:53

Really odd people. Very obsessive.
I was thinking, 1800 calories a day doesn't sound so bad, but to weigh rocket to make sure you were getting the 'right' amount...deeply odd.

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foxinsocks · 03/12/2006 21:56

yes I thought it was odd and plain stupid really

did find myself thinking to what extremes they would go to to find something to write about

mancmum · 03/12/2006 21:57

yes, I just wanted to say what is the difference between this and and any other diet.. but the weird obsessions of 639 claories for dinner and weighing rocket... anal to point of madness... they can not be happy and none of them sounded like a laugh.. realy worried me when people like that get so much copy almost makes them seem acceptable

JackieNoHoHo · 03/12/2006 21:57

They do sound rather weird. When I started reading, I remembered that I've read about the experiments with rats before, I think, possibly in the context of wartime rationing (is that possible?) and the effects it could have had on the population. You can see the science making some sort of sense, but to be that obsessive about anything doesn't seem healthy, tbh.

PeachesMcLean · 03/12/2006 21:58

I only cast my eyes over it but apart from the extremism to which some people are taking it, How does this differ from the old fashioned calorie counting my mum used to do, (in the days before the fancy low carb / grapefruit only / hotdogs and green beans for breakfast weird stuff took over)?

Original poster
JinglePrunes · 03/12/2006 21:59

Yes quite.
I am sure some of it had to be made up.
The guy whose meals had to contain 639 calories exactly...
You can't write about this subject without addressing the obvious mental health issue
(Unless it's made-up )

OP posts:
Quootiepie · 03/12/2006 22:00

1,800 doesnt seem bad at all - only 200 below avergae...but 200g of this, half a strawberry to even things up... holey moley.

TheChristmasArmadillo · 03/12/2006 22:06

I found this extremely disturbing.

especially parts like this:
"I can't help thinking those hands are actually a vivid shade of...

'I know, isn't it pretty?' asks April. 'I love the orange. I call him the Orange One.'

Michael smiles. 'I consume an enormous amount of carotenoids - beta-carotene and lycopene - which are found in foods like carrots, kale, tomatoes. If I had skin like yours, the effect probably would be barely noticeable, but because my skin is an extremely pasty white to begin with...'

'So wait,' Adam interjects, 'you eat so much kale, tomatoes, and carrots that your hands turn orange?'

'Yes, isn't it pretty?' April asks again."

Orange skin as the result of too much beta carotene is surely not good for you.

The obsession with food also came accross as taking over your whole life (also obsession with calorie counting and weighing and measuring food to the nearest grams). Not a healthy attitude to food imo. Also their BMI was so low and they were proud of it!

Heathcliffscathy · 03/12/2006 22:08

Errr.

It is a calorie restricted diet.

Wtf is it news???

Suddenly eating 1800 calories a day is good for you.

we've known that for those in sedentary lifestyles that's about right for a long time haven't we.

all the way through the article i was thinking what is the difference between this and Weightwatchers.

What pretentious wankers.

colditz · 03/12/2006 22:11

Oh lordy, who really wants to live until you aere 160?

You don't get any extra youth, just a great big dollop of Old. No thanks. I like crisps.

shazredredrobinbobbobbobbing · 03/12/2006 22:14

I thought the article was interesting; but I don't think i will be weighing rocket..

Original poster
JinglePrunes · 03/12/2006 22:17

oh god yes the orange hands
If she wasn't made up, she was surely a fruitloop??

I know, I mean restrictive would surely be fewer than just-a-few-less?

Just thinking about this is making me hungry, mind. What sort of a masochist tries to be hungry?

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MrsOhHu · 04/12/2006 13:03

Isn't this obsession with food called an eating disorder? What works in mice doesn't neccessarily work in humans, and although it's better for us to eat unprocessed food, nobody really knows what makes up the ultimate healthy diet. Does anyone truly think that Victoria Beckham looks healthy? If you don't eat enough food, your brain stops working properly and your bones start crumbling. With the human diet there are too many variables and humans are difficult to control. It is very disturbing that these people think that what they are doing is normal - it's sort of teenage logic I think!

themoon66 · 04/12/2006 18:39

I've read about this before... years ago I think. Some scientist or other. Anyway, I thought 1,800 calories a day didn't sound too bad, until I read about the obsessive weighing of leaves etc. I reckon I could do that... as long as I was allowed to skip breakfast, nibble on ryvita all afternoon, and save the bulk of my calories for enough Stella Artois to get so pissed I could sleep through the hunger pangs

zippitippitoes · 04/12/2006 18:46

I got bored with reading it

whensantagotstuckupAITCHimney · 04/12/2006 19:32

my god... does he have to be so boring about it? bloody food obsessives, they're all the same. i was praying for the article to end but made it to their sex lifes, realised it wasn't going to let up soon so i gave in. i'm off for a biscuit.

Original poster
JinglePrunes · 04/12/2006 19:37

yy
dietician SIL reckons 1800 plenty to get through the day and they are all just plain loopo.
The focus apparently is on health rather than anorexia btw - the food they eat is supposed to be hyper healthy
Form of OCD non?

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whensantagotstuckupAITCHimney · 04/12/2006 19:42

absolutely yes imho. but it was hard to tell as the writer seemed to be in the euphoric state that they spoke of, tbh, so his prose-style was too hyperventilated for me to tolerate.

moondog · 04/12/2006 19:44

Ah yes,the orange hands.
Apparently he 'fucks like an 18 year old.'
He was horrid,all pale with bouffant hairstyle and I would imagine clammy fingers.

There is a plethora of crap articles and silly photos in that magaZINE.

Original poster
JinglePrunes · 04/12/2006 19:44

V suspicious that he didn't seem to question the psychological state of these people or even acknowledge their fruitloopiness.
I am still tbh that he might have made them up.

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Original poster
JinglePrunes · 04/12/2006 19:45

Also am harbouring a slight grudge against the Observer WOMAN section that they deemed this to be a 'women's issue'. But then the Woman section is a complete embarrassment to womankind.

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whensantagotstuckupAITCHimney · 04/12/2006 19:49

i know, why was it in the wifie's section?
stopped getting the nobserver a few months back... it's very low-budget and feels it.

moondog · 04/12/2006 19:51

i USED TO love The bserver but despise the way they turn all their journos into 'personalities'.

It's all middle aged women wittering on about their late in life children.

Yaaaaawn.

Original poster
JinglePrunes · 04/12/2006 19:52

Because men wouldn't be entertained by a load of skinny nutters? (Notwithstanding the fact that a man wrote it.)
I dunno.
I fear the Woman's section editorial decisions are made by a bunch of twenty-something childless party girls who've been told to 'be incisive (occasionally, let's not get too heavy' but have not the faintest clue how to be.

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