Day 484: 282 lbs

(sigh)

When did 280 lbs become acceptable, and nothing to panic about?

I haven't stuck to my diet in quite some time, and it looks unlikely now until the holidays are past.

Okay, enough self-pity. Meanwhile, there's been some interesting research I've seen recently about how fat people are different than thin people. One is that the bacteria which live in our gut are different. It's not just that we eat more food than other people (though that may also be the case), but that the bacteria in our bodies help our bodies get more calories out of that food.

No word on why the bacteria are different, so there could be a cause-and-effect issue at work here (that is, the more efficient bacteria thrive for some reason when the person is overweight to begin with).

The other interesting development is a drug which fights obesity by blocking cannabinoid receptors in our brains. Those are the molecules in the brain which respond to various activities including smoking pot (hence the name), and one effect is apparently to increase appetite. So block the molecules, decrease appetite. No word on side-effects, which has been a big deal with other anti-obesity drugs.