They eat snacks before bed, consume high calorie foods with low nutritional value. Then they feel too tired or hungover to be active the following day due to a poor night of rest.
This is why GLP-1s are so interesting. They suppress hunger, but more importantly they suppress “food noise” — the state of constantly thinking about food. You can separate this effect from appetite suppression due to its seemingly global (although still anecdotal) effect on ALL compulsive behavior, from drinking to smoking to shopping.
I wish I could just go to a restaurant style place and just like order fresh fruit or something.
I can say that my feet, knees and legs sure appreciate the change. I definitely don't feel that weight on me like I did before. I do like the occasional "Hey, you're looking good" or "You lost weight, didn't you?" That doesn't offend me. My facial structure looks better, as I have a better chin line now. My clothes are a pain, as I have to keep a tight belt as all my pants are too big now. My stomach is much flatter and doesn't poke out. Hah. I don't have a 6 pack but I sure don't have a mini-keg starting.
Anyway, after all my rambling, my point is that I wasn't addicted to food. I just sit in front of a computer too much, and was consuming too many calories. I do miss fun food. I haven't had things like ice cream since I started this thing. I'm not a fan of always being hungry. I deal with it, but I sure feel like I can eat all the time. The key is to just not think of it. Avoid being around it. I don't go out to eat with people, as that stuff is always a killer when it comes to calories. Usually, I meet up for a drink but when they all decide to go hit a table for dinner, I'll say my goodbyes and move along to something and eat later at home as I know what I'm ingesting.
For most of us that have too much fat on us, it's simply about calorie control. It's not food addition, or a mental problem. It's simply awareness. Though, in the US, we obviously have a huge mental disorder epidemic, but I believe that is just the disorder of "rampant cognitive dissonance." It covers so much of our issues here. "This soda is fine, I only have 4 a day." "Sure it's deep fried, but it's fish and that's healthy!" "He's a billionaire; he doesn't want your money! You can trust him to fix the government..." Cough Cough
I'm lucky I don't have the problem with food, because you cannot just avoid it like other "bad habits".
As a counter-factual, imagine if every time you wanted to smoke you had to decide if one particular type or brand of cigarette was good for you.
You can't do that with food. Your only choice is to develop moderation, restraint, and discipline. You're forced to always be around temptation. To always indulge at least a little, but hopefully somehow not too much.
This is much harder to do. And you have to keep doing forever — even when you're tired or stressed or bored or whichever feelings trigger your bad habits. For life.
"Eat less" / "eat veggies" is a mechanical solution to an emotional and physiological problem. The GP is highlighting that some tools we apply to similar problems can't be applied here, and so we see poor results and higher recidivism.
You do this for a few days and then you start changing your cooking habbits. This was a year ago and I've held the weight since and simply started eating less. My old eating habbits did not make me gain weight though as my old weight was constant for 10 years.
My main liquid is 98% water. I cant stand soda unless its mixed with 90% water.
There's a huge variety of tastes among green teas, white teas, oolong, black teas... Specific tea variety, different locations where the plants are grown, different manipulations, all concur to a lot of different tastes. However, a lot of people I've met just say it tastes like "earthy/dirty water"
But also, you can stay sufficiently hydrated by drinking just tea. Trying that with coffee will skyrocket your caffeine intake to unhealthy levels.
And a lot of those are not "tea" (with theine/caffeine), they're herb infusions such as mint, hibiscus, chamomile, etc. You can drink as much as you want without getting the typical caffeine buzz.
I particularly like the Morocco Mint & Spices that Lipton sells.
Caf: Turkish Caykur Rize tea with a tiny bit of sugar or honey, and boiling water.
Eating is usually (insert a number of asterisks) not a problem, more often than not it is snacks snacks.
The problem is twofold. First, snacks are typically extremely calorie dense. Even a small snack can easily offset caloric deficit coming from reduced portions. Second, leptin, the satiety hormone, is barely secreted from carbs, which are again calorie dense and main ingredient of snacks.
With these two in mind, it is no coincidence that it is hard to not overconsume snacks and snacks quickly lead to caloric surplus.
So quick snacking.
"I'll do this temporary measure for X days and I will stay lean forever afterwards".
Well... and that's the problem. It sounds easy on paper but in fact it is not easy at all in practice for the wide masses:
- work 8 hours, add 1h overtime and lunch, add 2 hours for commute, so out of the 24 hours a day, you already lose 11 hours to work related matters. Add 8 hours for a decent sleep time and whoops, only 5 hours remaining in the day for everything else: getting ready for work in the morning (0.5h), do chores (1h), make, eat and digest dinner (1.5h) have some quality time with your partner (1h) and children (1h), and whoops the entire day is gone before even considering anything actually relaxing, hobbies, or working out.
- shift work, particularly rotating shifts, or on-call work that's effectively being abused as regular overtime, makes developing healthy sleep patterns outright impossible.
- many people are outright unable to afford healthy groceries, which is why they're going for unhealthy highly processed food
- of those that are able to afford groceries, good luck getting them in one of the way too many food deserts
Our health issues (and the lack of children) to a very large degree tie back right into the expectation that people have to work 40 hours a week just to afford bare survival. That is the true trap - systemic forces leave the wide masses no other way.
[1]: https://www.entropywins.wtf/blog/2017/01/02/simple-is-not-ea...
- 2 hours commute daily? This seems crazy. Never had such a commute and most of my life I could walk or cycle to the university/work, so I gained some free exercise time.
- 1 hour overtime daily? What for?
- Lunch outside of work? (This is where my additional hour came from) Thankfully this never happened to me in my actual career.
Good luck for you. Here in Munich, I have multiple colleagues who commute 1.5h single direction, I myself (since I can't afford rent in that fucking city, so gotta commute in from Landshut) have anything from 1 to 3 hours one way depending on how shitty the train service is on that day.
> - 1 hour overtime daily? What for?
I work in the creative industry. Thankfully we are a unionized shop which means we're not affected by that problem too much - but virtually everyone I know from other agencies that are not unionized is working easily 50 hour weeks. Every company in the industry has decimated staffing, much more than the incoming work fell, so everyone is working extra to not be the next whose head rolls.
> - Lunch outside of work? (This is where my additional hour came from) Thankfully this never happened to me in my actual career.
Germany has a mandatory 30 minute break by law during the day, in practice it's more like 45-60 minutes.
This is the norm in many places of the world. I live in London and am lucky to only need to take one tube train into the office. It's still 1 hour each way - 10 mins to station, 5 mins wait - if i'm lucky, but it could be as much as 15, 45 min train, another 10 mins walk, 1hr each way is just a good smooth day for me. Many of my colleagues have even longer journeys. I only belabour this because I actually feel lucky in the length of my commute compared to many people in the UK.
As for 1hr overtime daily - if you're a salaried employee you aren't doing overtime to begin with, you're just doing your job - sure you can just not, but it probably won't go in your favour - at most agencies I've worked (this is in the UK) I was asked (i.e. required) as part of the onboarding to opt out of the working hours directive (https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/weekly-maxim...). There was no overtime, there was just work.
It was incredibly hard and took me a long time to lose 15 pounds as a always had been skinny person whose weight slowly crept up.
I've never been obese and I'm sure it's super challenging to change, considering how hard loosing 15 lbs was for me. But if I were, I do think I'd try a GLP-1 agonist to get my weight down.
That second part makes it harder. Losing weight was pretty simple for me, but maintaining that low weight was much harder. Someone said that it takes about half a year to form a habit. I maintained lower weight for about a year, then it came back.
The key insight is that your sensation of hunger is primarily driven by the weight of your stomach (not the caloric contents or volumetric fullness of it).
So the question is how do you increase the weight of your stomach (decrease sensation of hunger) without increasing caloric consumption. You just eat a lot of low caloric density foods!
Divide calories by grams on the nutrition label. Lower is better. Replace as many items as you can in your diet with the nearest alternative that is of lower caloric density.
Nonfat greek yogurt and seitan are the two biggest hacks ever. Adopting this mindset will also probably astound you how many calories modern engineering can fit into a gram. Would be a pretty great achievement if we had to trek long distances, but here we are munching on this stuff while sitting all day.
Yeah I instinctively did the same thing once I finally was able to bring myself to counting calories. Once you have a budget, you want to game the budget to feel full, so it makes veggies start looking a lot more attractive, and things like chocolate easier to avoid.
For me one of the big byproducts of this thinking is that my feeling of fullness was mis-calibrated a little bit. As a result, when I’m full according to my calorie counter, I think about how what I’m feeling is not hunger but the correct level of full. I’m recalibrating what full means to me, and believe it or not it actually helps me to not feel like I’m trying to overcome hunger.
Don't they only prescribe these for the morbidly obese? As someone "merely" overweight (BMI ~27) I'd like to try but I don't think I'm fat enough to get a prescription.
Reassess progress towards your renewal (we did 3 months). It’s literally cheating, in the best way.
Many experts including cardiologists maintain that the current mainstream protocols for statin drugs do more harm than good.
On a side note, I keep exercising at least 2-3 hours per week and honestly I feel physically much better than I used to feel in my 30s.
'Just eat less and exercise more' never worked because I needed to learn how to do these smaller skills myself first. Once I learned what it actually takes to eat less and actually exercise more, that simple advice started becoming possible. It's still a work in progress.
Because it's CICO. Focusing on whole-foods can make you resistant to undesirable weight-gain, but losing substantial amounts of weight requires caloric restriction in some form or another. That isn't easy to adhere to, it needs to be done in whichever way is the most sustainable. Low-hanging fruit is to boost protein and fiber at higher-than-normal amounts for satiety.
All of the programs/diets that don't have you track calories are just tracking something else as a stand-in, obfuscating restriction. If you go low-carb and hit a wall, what are you going to do next, cut out negative carbs? If you go low-fat, will you cut out fat that's no longer there?
> The notion of two traps, a physical trap and a mental trap, comes from Allen Carr’s fantastic Easy Way To Stop Smoking. He states, quite convincingly, that there is a physical aspect to smoking (nicotine addiction) and a mental aspect to smoking (feeling that you need it).
I think Carr's perspective is very strong advice for kicking a bad habit. However, "emotional" and/or binge-eating may benefit from more targeted therapy.
Try to do Saitama's training (from anime One Punch Man, just a tongue-in-cheek way to mean do lots of push-ups and squats) and afterwards tell me you don't feel like you've done some serious exercise!
If that was true, then literally everyone would be fat in your area. You can learn to cook, you have room for bodyweight exercises. You don't need equipment to feel really sore the next day! It's not going to be easy, it will be miserably hard, but it is possible.
It also doesn't address the larger point that _it doesn't have to be this hard_.
For example, only drink water. It’s all the body needs for hydration anyways. No soda, diet soda, alcohol, slurpees, etc. Black coffee if you enjoy a cuppa in the morning, no sugar. (Good black coffee is such a joy)
Then set a rule about only eating 3 meals a day, however you define meal. No snacks in between.
Losing weight, even accounting for hormones, really is a diet thing. Exercise daily burns like… 100-300 calories, which is a small fraction of basal metabolic rate for a grown human.
My spouse and I work full time with 3 kids between ages 3-11. We are very busy, all the time. We have both lost a noticeable amount of weight in the past 6 months following these kinds of “rules” if you will.
People who says they’re too busy are sadly fooling themselves.
We don’t even exercise! Well, maybe at night sometimes…
Coming from a family of alcoholics, I'm also very familiar with the moral judgment issue with addiction. It _must_ be a lack of control that makes that man drink, etc. There's been quite a lot of success destigmatizing alcohol addiction in the last half century, so it's even more stark to see exactly the same thing play out with so many conversations about food and weight. It _must_ be that fat man's lack of control that makes him fat. Often it is. But there are so, so many other factors. I actually think that's part of OP's larger point.
I focused on the water thing because it is so, so easy to smash a 20oz coke without thinking about it, twice a day even. I’m sure I don’t need to inform you about the nutritional information of coke, but 40oz a day negates any kind of diet or exercise two-fold.
I also made the point about 3 meals completely because of metabolism and the bad effects of eating only once a day. There is however value in skipping breakfast and only eating lunch and dinner, but not if you just make up for breakfast with the other two meals.
The world isn’t black and white, absolutism is never a good thing unless you’re designing digital circuits or some other “there is no other choice but binary” but there already is an exception to your rule.
Keep an open mind. You sound like you’ve talked yourself out of lots of things and seem to have accepted defeat and blamed your circumstances. Coming from the same background as you I would encourage you to at least admit to yourself the things you already know and excuse away. When I finally had that moment it was a game changer.
GP, try climbing or martial arts - indoor air conditioned activities that have much less toxic culture and are much more mentally engaging.
I just don’t get the appeal of throwing my hands up and going, “Yep, somebody needs to care more about me than I care about me.”
It's rarely "This is really hard and I doubt I have it in me right now" or some other honest answer.
I don't, for the record, disagree with much OP's point, though I do have some misgivings about "food addiction" being explanation for everyone's struggle with weight (I don't think that's his point, really, but it's clearly what his experience has been and it's the focus of the piece). His approach mirrors my own (successful) approach with any of a number of challenges. I just question the effectiveness as a complete solution.
It is also possible to have enough mental fortitude to read beyond the first item in a list that you yourself wrote about an hour ago.
Yes, you can’t mental fortitude yourself out of every situation. But you can be committed to change and figure things out.
Or you can just say “Nah, I’ll let somebody else fix things for me. I’m sure I’m high on their list of priorities.”
Who is changing some of the societal conditions here? You or someone else?
You also started your comment with a list of individual excuses.
You may not have said “4” but you said “2+2” and it’s not that big of a leap to make.
Yes, positivity is essential, and negative thinking is also a trap, but this "Believe In Yourself!" and "Follow Your Passion!" is rotten fruit from the $16 self-help bookshelf in the public library.
I bet not. Sure it is more difficult for some people than others, but what would be the alternative ? Ban or regulate fast food ?
I want to be able to have a guilty pleasure once in a while, I am careful with what I eat in general. Why should I be deprived of that ?
I honestly don't know how I feel about things like sugary drink bans. Objectively they're part of the problem, but I feel like emphasizing urban rather than suburban development would be a more effective tool. A bit hard to put the genie back in the bottle where I live (the next county over has 0% undeveloped land, and most of it is suburbs). I would rather destroy the market for things than ban the thing. Personal lifestyle changes play a role in that, as others in this thread have gleefully noted, but health education does too. Vice taxes are probably one solution, but only if the money is actually going to be used for effective programs, which is almost certainly not going to happen in the political environment where I live.
Work out in the early morning or late evening?
> I hate gyms and toxic gym culture
Stop hating gyms. Stop over-analyzing "toxic gym culture". Get off social media because that's the only place this exists. Nobody in the gym cares about you or what you're doing as long as you aren't harming someone else, breaking equipment, etc.
> I have a quaint bungalow that doesn't have space for equipment
Give Crossfit Linchpin a try - they have 5 workouts/week including "no equipment" workouts.
> I live in a country that prioritizes fast, processed, sugary foods, etc
Yes but you don't have to prioritize those foods.
> I work an intense job that keeps me focused for hours at a time
This is fair. We all unfortunately have to deal with this in some fashion, but even then you can probably find 15 minutes/day to exercise in a way that you enjoy, if you want to.
> Much like fighting climate change, placing all the responsibility on the end user without changing some of the social conditions is a flawed approach
Our environments shape us. For sure. If you are surrounded by a bunch of obese people encouraging you to drink milkshakes all day and making fun of you for working out, that's going to be hard to overcome! But just like climate change, you can't control these social conditions, or at least you can't have much of an effect. But you can make a difference in your own life according to your own principles. Often times it just means being "less bad" instead of giving up.
Blaming corporations or the built environment is a convenient excuse you can use again and again and never have to overcome.
Motivation for gym work can be a huge problem; what suggestions do people have for that?
I agree with your general suggestion though too. Though from the sound of the scenario the OP was describing there probably aren't many neighborhood gyms. But hey maybe the OP or someone in that scenario could start a friendly gym?
Completely agree. I may nitpick a few of your responses, but I'm not saying that any of the factors I named make health impossible, only that it's exponentially more difficult because of the larger social context. And, similarly, I'm not saying the larger social context makes it impossible, but that it makes it _much_ harder than it needs to be for many people. (As evidence, I live in an area with very high obesity rates.)
I sort of knew when I posted that here, in particular, that the reaction would be to focus on the individual, because, well, HN. It's kind of a thing here. I'm also fascinated by the reaction that I must be fattie fat man who wants to make excuses and wait for others to fix my problem because I questioned whether mental fortitude is enough. The reality is that I was merely noting that there are larger contextual challenges that, taken together, make any individual's journey needlessly, inescapably harder than it should be.
Why is this fascinating when you both offered up a litany of excuses and then went on to say:
> Much like fighting climate change, placing all the responsibility on the end user without changing some of the social conditions is a flawed approach, even if there are some things individuals can do to help
Who is changing some of the societal conditions here? You or someone else?
When I wrote my post I was responding to you but also hoping others would see that post and if they had the same challenge that you mentioned that they would find some encouragement. It's unfortunate (maybe not? [1]) but our societal expectations around fitness can cause people pretty extensive anguish and I think it's important to just say, there are no reasons or excuses for me not to work out or go to a gym - it's your life and you decide that, nobody else. BUT if you don't want to go you don't have to and you don't need to feel bad about that either. Making up excuses to mask your lack of desire is an unnecessary exercise in self-deception.
I think one of the greatest problems in America, and one of the sources of many of our downstream problems, is that we build places where local businesses can't compete, people can't walk anywhere, and they're designed for the lifestyle of the automobile instead of the American Citizen. Highlighting the scenario you find yourself in (or was bringing to the discussion as an example) I think is yet another downstream effect of cars cars cars at all costs.
[1] It's probably good overall that we are so focused as a society on health and fitness. We do have a lot of overweight folks which is bad for social health but we also have a very great fitness culture that I think is arguably unmatched in the world.
Losing weight is all about removing things from your diet. It’s accessible to anyone if they are willing to tolerate a little hunger.
This isn't what you want to hear, but "mental fortitude, discipline, self-honesty, commitment to change, and persistence" are not things that are supposed to be defeated by "it simply being difficult." In fact, some of them (especially "fortitude" and "commitment") strongly imply that the circumstances in which they are applied should be difficult.
If you're somewhere hot and humid (I used to live in Florida, so I understand) or have a job that keeps you in a chair all day, go for long walks around four or five in the morning: you'll avoid the heat and feel ready for your morning work.
If you hate toxic gym culture, look into different gym cultures. The US gym chain "Planet Fitness" makes a big deal about explicitly rejecting gym-bro culture in order to foster a more inclusive environment.
Consider, however, that gym-bro culture might exist for a reason other than simple jackassery: people stick with something difficult when they undertake it with friends, and they have more fun doing boring things when they do them with friends. If you start going to a gym with a friend or group of friends, you might find that you enjoy it more and that the difficulties you describe become easier.
What is "toxic gym culture" though? I've been to gyms off and on for months at a time in different cities (and countries) and all I see are people trying to become stronger, or lose weight, usually with headphones on minding their own business.
* “It’s unpleasantly hot,” but that is kind of irrelevant. Unpleasantly cold could be a deterrent. I live in a climate that changes wildly with the seasons, which is annoying, because I have to have different routines depending on the time of year. There are few climatically perfect situations.
* “I hate gyms,” but maybe it’s certain aspects of gyms, or you had some bad experiences at a gym.
* “I have a quaint bungalow that doesn’t have space for equipment,” but you don’t have to have a lot of equipment. All you need are a few dumbbells, and a treadmill is nice but also very much not required.
* “I work an intense job,” but so do many people who find time to work out. Things like standing desks help, walking during meetings, finding the time during lunch, before work or after work. And sometimes time-intensive jobs help distract people from eating, which can be a useful tactic. Time management is hard, but it’s not impossible. And if your job sucks… well, that’s an entirely different conversation.
* “I live in a country that prioritizes fast, processed, sugary foods,” but most countries do. Cheap soda, cheap fast food, grab and go snacks… absolutely! All of this makes eating healthily difficult. What you’ll need to do is learn how to cook for yourself. It’s an incredibly important skill that will help considerably.
* “Responsibility is on the end user,” and yes, it sure is! But you can get help. You are not alone! There are resources — support groups, diet and fitness programs, indoor and outdoor activity groups, nutrition, fitness, and life coaching.
* “It won’t be enough in the face of it simply being difficult to find time, space, or money,” but that’s what you have decided to tell yourself. In reality, you don’t need a lot of time, space, or money. If you have more, sure, it’s easier. But it’s more doable than you are giving yourself credit.
take this quick video as example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg3Y3tCmBWo
the different portion size is ridiculous
and now you compare it to serving size from asian country, you would find it very hard to get fat at this places
and I mean it, even if you get fat its nowhere near american fat
For example a popular Asian Fast-Food dish might be a huge bowl of udon noodles, with assorted veggies (e.g. bok choy, carrots, mushrooms), a little meat/tofu, in a salty broth. 500~ calories total. Then add on a Green Tea/Thai/Jasmine/Oolong Tea at an additional 100~ calories or less.
A McDonalds large french fry is also 500 calories alone for comparison. A Big Mac is another 580 calories on top, and a Medium Coke is 200 calories. So we're at 1280 calories for McDonald's most popular meal in the US.
I'd put it to people that the udon bowl is more satiating ("filling") than the Big Mac meal by a lot. It is also a large portion. You'll be full most of the day, whereas on the carb/fat/sugar explosion from McDonald's you'll need a snack when you crash late-afternoon.
its insane you can order 1 litre coke for your drink
+ food is viewed strongly as entertainment here
+ everything is very noticably sweeter or saltier than I'm used to. So many brands of plain bread taste like cake!
I very much sympathize with americans that are pushed by their environment to be overweight
Then I need something that motivates me again and move from b) to a).
Long term fat is bad, but if you are able to burn it, it is the fuel
There's a lot of stuff I started writing from personal experience but I've just deleted it because I sense what's being talked about in the article is probably classifiable as an eating disorder and I am in no way qualified to say anything about eating disorders. People who identify with the sentiments expressed in the article may want to consult a doctor.
That's one effect people are less aware of. One reason your metabolism drops as you lose weight is you can also lose lean body mass. Muscle and organs.
Cycling specifically is incredibly good. It's easy to stay at a low-moderate zone 2 effort you can maintain for many hours, unlike running. It's also very easy on your body
Some of my friends are obese despite exercising heavily every day.
Finding ways you enjoy to keep an active lifestyle is a great idea, probably the highest impact thing you can do for your long term well being (for people in this community I strongly recommend trying rock climbing or martial arts, especially BJJ, both very mentally challenging sports).
However, author's recipe doesn't work for everyone, and you shouldn't feel terrible if it doesn't work for you. Also, I'm hearing amazing things about those new drugs.
Similarly people who appear overweight may have low volumes of visceral fat. Health is hard to determine without analysis and testing.
Another point is that you can be good athletically speaking and yet have too much body fat to be considered healthy. An extreme example is that of professional fighters in open-weight categories.
Exercise -- even heavily -- will never compensate a bad diet; that focus we have on exercise as weight control is detrimental.
- eat a bit less food
- eat food that is higher on the satiety index
- eat food that has less easily absorbed calories/less processed/etc
- build muscle to raise your resting metabolic rate slightly
- sleep well
etc
I think a bit of everything with mostly a focus on less calories will be easier to adopt than just telling people to track calories into perpetuity and feel like they're starving for a good while.
I have several friends that have had miraculous weight loss, as a result of Ozempic.
>Some of my friends are obese despite exercising heavily every day.
An often overlooked factor is how much snacking is done. If you eat "all the carbs and fats", but they're contained to a single meal a few times a week, and the portions are reasonable (ie. you're not stuffing yourself every meal), that has far less caloric impact than someone eating "salad" everyday, but loaded with dressing and snacking voraciously on the side.
> Some of my friends are obese despite exercising heavily every day.
Whether that's a boon or a bane not depends on which body fat and especially visceral body fat you end up with. Looking fit (which is somewhat captured by BMI) but actually being unhealthy (body fat) makes it easier to ignore in the short-term.
You’d be surprised just how little you eat. I’m also like that, thinking that I eat shitton and don’t get fat at all while my friends can’t lose 5 kilo. When I’ve started counting, even with all the junk food, I’ve been barely pushing above 1,5k.
All I did for activity was ride bikes some and lift weights a little, plus usual kid stuff, no serious sports or training.
I had visible ab muscles and would get a full-on six pack if I did e.g. a lot of swimming in a week. During those times I'd have relatives concerned I was sick or something, my face would get so gaunt.
Metabolisms are weird. HGH and T are basically magic I guess? I truly have no idea where all that energy was going. Must have been mostly coming out the other end unprocessed, I suppose, or else somehow used up by my gut biome. Can't figure any other way.
Growing your body. I was the same in my late teens and early 20's. Family called it the POW Aesthetic. 6'1" & 150lbs, couldn't put an lb more on. I was strong as shit though, in a practical sense. No issue throwing 100lb feed bags over a shoulder and walking it up some stairs into storage, things like that. I was both doing active things all the time, and finishing growing my body. The summer I got my last growth spurt was agony, my bones hurt every night and I was a bottomless void of hunger.
Also, do not underestimate this bit:
> All I did for activity was ride bikes some and lift weights a little, plus usual kid stuff, no serious sports or training.
Specifically I believe the "usual kid stuff" part was doing a lot for you, I know it was for me. Looking back I now realize that my "usual kid stuff" was me being very, very active. I was pounding out 20k+ steps a day just moving around the family farm, miles on a bike (often on grass too), and then maybe an hour of pick-up soccer in the evening. This was just normal activity for me back then, I would not have considered any of it Intentional Exercise. Today I'd have to intentionally train for an ironman to even start approaching that level of activity.
I gained 15lbs the _summer_ I got my first desk job, that was entirely because I replaced 8 hours of walking around and doing things with 8 hours of sitting in a chair, and about 30 minutes of walking for breaks and lunch.
I know because I've experimented with this when I started measuring my weight, heck sometimes having a single Wendy's Baconator will not only fill your entire calories but even make you gain weight.
Your activity levels of course also matter but I'm assuming sedentary lifestyle.
This is much more different for healthy foods however.
I agree there’s no substitute for measuring your numbers. But meticulous calorie and weight tracking is probably a big ask for the average person, even though it’s imo absolutely necessary for controlling your weight one way or another.
I was surprised that running 6h/week and 15k/steps a day gave me an TDEE activity level at barely above "Light Exercise" and I need about 2460/day.
The "Moderate" activity level is if you actually work construction and haul bricks all day!
I’ve been chubby despite heavy exercise most of my life. It took me at least 30 years to come to what now seems like the dumbest most obvious realization:
Exercise makes me strong. Food makes me fat.
Now I think of them separately, to a first approximation, as the high order bit. To affect change to my strength, I first need to modify my exercise habits, and to affect change to my weight, I fist need to modify my eating habits. Of course I’m not saying you can’t burn calories exercising, but it’s actually been extremely helpful in my weight loss goals to mentally separate exercise from eating. Instead of thinking of exercise as _the_ way to lose weight, I think of diet as the primary tool, and exercise as something that is primarily for strength and activity and only secondarily for weight control.
The reason I’ve been fat despite exercise is, of course, because I naturally compensate for exercise by eating more. For me, I was eating until I feel a certain level of fullness, and that level seems to be slightly too much regardless of how much physical activity I do. Finally realizing that I don’t need to exercise harder, I ‘just’ need to track what I eat, is what finally actually worked. But like the article says, simple is not easy; I air-quoted the ‘just’ in that last sentence because successful food tracking is mentally difficult.
One of the fun side effects of tracking my eating instead of thinking of exercise as the primary weight loss tool is that with respect to food, exercise sort-of reversed it’s function for me, in a way. Instead of thinking of it as my weight loss tool and relying on it to compensate for what I ate, I sometimes use exercise to allow me to eat more when I’m hungry or want a treat. It’s funny, I know I said the same thing two ways, but my mindset changed almost 180 degrees. When I’m in a calorie deficit, I’ve noticed that days I don’t exercise I get more tired and hungry than days I do exercise.
Exercise is absolutely invaluable for general health but its not effective alone for weight loss for most people.
Alcohol is by far the biggest one(was the case for me). Used to work at a place where "lets go grab a pint or two after work" was the norm every day. A pint is like 250kcal, you do that for a month you will gain like half a kilo easy.
Liquid calories in general are the most dangerous thing because of how easy it is to ingest.
This whole idea about exercising to lose weight is unhelpful when the truth is that no amount of exercise is going to compensate for eating more calories than you have to.
And yes, you will go to bed slightly hungry for weeks or even months if you want to lose a lot of weight.
When people say they "don't have the time" this is often what they mean.
It's like the joke from Airplaine!: "Guess I picked a bad time to quit smoking", "Guess I picked a bad time to quit drinking", "Guess I picked a bad time to quit sniffing glue", "Guess I picked a bad time to quit amphetamines", etc.
I found the best weight loss success eating about 1200 or 1300 measured calories a day and using a fairly strict routine, but it left me on edge and distractible. And that kind of diet has social costs too - much more of a pain to eat with coworkers at lunch, for instance.
CICO is easy to say, but the trick is actually knowing both of those measurements and being able to control them.
Fast food doesn’t necessarily mean high calorie either. Almost all fast food places have meals for under 600 calories, yes even McDonald’s.
A huge part of eating healthy is eating less.
So they are busy but it's because of a lack of time management which then plays into their inability to make good dietary choices. Being "busy" is their excuse and they make it happen by not managing their time.
Things like having to hit up starbucks before work, which wastes 10-15 minutes. Then going to grab lunch instead of bringing it from home, which wastes 45 minutes. Then they spend a large amount of time doing their outfit for the day, which wastes time in the morning. 30 minutes on social media before/after bed. Etc. These things add up to hours every day. And then "I'm too busy to eat healthy" comes out.
I say this cuz I know plenty of people who are "busy" but still manage to make great choices. I've noticed it has more to do with how people manage their time and the priorities they make throughout that time management. Time management is a skill that needs to be worked on. When one avoids managing their time well then of course they're going to be so inefficient that things get difficult.
A small amount of hunger will completely distract some people, cause them to become overly emotional and overspend.
I spent overall around 5 years quitting smoking. It was extremely hard, for the most part because of the mental trap. Physically I got rid of the addiction in a couple of weeks. And physical exercises were the thing that helped me. I still do my routine, because it became the substitute for my smoking habit. But in a healthy way.
And from my experience this is how everything works, regarding the quality of life that you have control over.
And I agree that judging and shaming is not helpful. You need to clear your mind and concentrate on the better future you want rather than reflecting on bad things that you have in your present or past.
Which is completely wrong according to science on the topic. Trying to willpower your way out of addictions is a recipe for failure. It's been shown over and over again. People who are aren't addicted don't have more willpower. They have to exercise their willpower far less than someone who struggles with addiction. Identifying and eliminating environmental triggers will do far more for an addict than "willpower" will. Instead of inane advice like "just have more willpower bro" we should be teaching people about environmental triggers and how to structure your life to avoid them without relying on willpower constantly.
That requires a lot of willpower, which is why that advice typically doesn't work.
Dieticians are often fat so you know there is more to it than just knowledge, there is a big willpower factor to it still.
People should also talk about the volition trap. I'm 40 and it feels like I've had more than a life's worth of people talking about how "you can do it if you just try!"
> ... advertising signs that con / you into thinking you can do what's never been done / meantime life goes on all around you
The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we are not the problem, that our volitions are not the problem. Certainly so many people can't be too weak to regulate one of the most basic facets of existence? How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation? Certainly so many people shouldn't have to try so hard? Sure, some people succeed, but in world where the overwhelming majority are failing, maybe "trying harder" is just akin to insanity?
People need to remember that being insulin resistant and being overweight are chronic conditions. You won't be able to fix them overnight. Don't focus on decreasing calories, focus on eating real food. The article mentions this too.
One thing that was counterintuitive to me is that most people's bodies produce insulin in response to artificial sugar so there's no real difference between diet coke and coke on your body.
It's the food addiction. People can't stop eating just like alcohol, cigarette or drugs.
The "obesity pandemic" is a very distinct trait of USA. The rest of the world does not have this problem at this magnitude.
There are 127 countries with an obesity rate higher than 20% (roughly what the US was at 30 years ago).
In nearly every country in the world, your ancestors from 30 years ago would call you fat.
The US is just ahead of the curve for some reason.
For example, here in Europe it's rather clear just by eye (but also borne out in the data) that the increase in obesity here is actually just an increase in age.
Older people (up to a point) tend to be plumper than young people. The rapidly increasing average age in Europe then causes an average increase in obesity.
But obesity rates don’t correlate well with average country age, and if you look at childhood obesity rates in Europe they have increased dramatically.
Most European countries have childhood obesity rates close to the US childhood obesity rates in the early 90, many are much higher.
The US has also increased in average age quite a bit as well.
And just because everybody isn’t fat doesn’t mean they don’t struggle with porn, or substance abuse, or some other hangup they can’t seem to shake. In fact it’s the people who deny having any issues that are sometimes the least self-aware, having the most glaringly obvious issues to everyone else around them.
Meat was awesome when calories were sparse/intermittent. Now it's just excess for the sake of a status symbol. Same can be said about a lot of our foods.
I don't see how this is a relevant fact. If we threw away 10x the food does that make our diet even more unhealthy? Moreover if technological innovations like refrigeration decreases food waste, does that magically make our diet healthy again?
>That's why veganism makes so much sense nowadays. Nothing about the modern diet is "natural" for most people.
>Meat was awesome when calories were sparse/intermittent. Now it's just excess for the sake of a status symbol. Same can be said about a lot of our foods.
If you turn back the clock even more (ie. pre-agriculture), you'd probably see the reverse (ie. more meat consumption).
I believe you're agreeing with the comment you're commenting on. Before calories were easily available, meat was the most reliable form of protein and fat in most environments.
not much: meats lacks A. fibers and B. carbohydrate. Some can argue removing B isn't a bad idea, it certainly is quire restrictive. Removing A. have many short and long terms effects that are not very desirable.
Therefore most meat eaters also eat thinks like vegetables, beans, grains etc... which "unbalance" the "right proportions" (if that exist) of meat. It's very hard to achieve near perfect macro and micro nutriments if not with an artificial and perfectly calculated meals taking into account daily physical activity, psychological state, temperature, infections exposure etc... I'm not even sure ISS guys get such a calculation.
> sufficient micronutrients
This is easily done by eating plenty of plants -which is exactly what non meat eaters do- and a pill of B12. One can count but it's not more necessary than if they want a perfectly balanced meat diet, which also have its "problems" when not perfectly balanced.
If by "veganism", you simply mean healthy diet, then I agree.
Sometimes I really really want to punch a certain coworker in the face, but I still don't, and that's despite the temptation by "evolutionary design".
It's still worth noting everything in our programming wants us to consume sweet foods, but this is maladaptive in the modern world.
And an environment where a massive completely out of control advertising industry that's injected into pretty much everything these days abuses every psychological trick in the book to capitalize on those evolutionary cravings.
FFS, look at how long it took to get calorie counts on menu signage! And that's the lowest hanging fruit.
1. Fix fast food + the ad industry by financially penalizing pushing unhealthy food.
2. Rework the food supply chain to support healthier eating. (Less ultra-processed, shelf-stable items, more easy-to-cook healthy options + increase availability in food deserts)
Between lost productivity and end of life health expenses, I can't believe there isn't an economic argument for this.
https://www.newsweek.com/map-shows-ten-states-changing-rules...
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/hhs-fda-...
This feels like a really weird first thing to spend effort on. I don't think it would make a list of the top 100 things to fix in the US food system.
Taxing unhealthy food may work, but that would also piss a lot of people off who have their palates destroyed from eating too junk food, especially since you'd need taxes to be high enough to basically force people to change their habits. Subsidies for healthy food tend to benefit the the upper-middle class the most. Subsidizing school lunches that are both healthy and not disgusting is the only option I see as both feasible and effective.
At least in the US where the problem is much worse than in the EU, I would say the major driving factor is the lack of cheap healthy foods.
We're starting to get more healthy options in the US but the problem I see again and again is that food is always painted as "trendy" and therefore commands a higher price. I can go into McDonalds and buy fries and a cheeseburger for around ~$5. But if I try to get a healthier option from another place I'm looking at $10-15 for just about anything.
Every time I travel to Europe or Latin America I'm always shocked at how easy it is to find cheap healthy food. I can pop down to a local fast food place and for around $5 get a piece of chicken, beans and rice. This by no means fancy but it's solid healthy food.
Watch what other people eat in their day. How many of their calories came from meals created with only the above ingredients? 25%?
Sure, buying Just Salad is more expensive than buying McDonald’s, but that’s not the only options.
The bigger problem IMO: we put way more sugar, sweeteners, and addictive substances in food and have big portions where people feel obligated to finish. It’s very easy to eat 100g of sugar every day and hardly notice. Combine that with most American activities involving food and alcohol.
We have a culture that encourages eating and food that responds by being more eatable
And portion sizes! There a several factors that lead to such large portions. Americans expect (and now desire, thanks to the ever expanding gut lines) to be stuffed from an ordered meal so producers spend the extra $1 on food costs to ensure larger portions and fewer complaints. We'd complain is the the $9 burger was made into 1/3 sized $3 burgers. Additionally the fixed costs of running a food joint require to low cost and high margin items (like fountain soda) to survive.
Put another way, the bag of chips at the American grocery is _designed from concept to factory_ to be unable to support living beings. Microorganisms would die from dehydration trying to eat the chips. But due to a bug in human psychology, when we eat them we just feel more hungry. There only regulating feeling we get is guilt.
This is a weird leap. Yes, there is some degree of modern engineering in packaged food to prevent spoilage but "unable to support living beings" is the wrong conclusion. You're implying the food lacks nutritive value, which is not true.
In other countries that shops more frequently there is less need for that, and there these products has much fewer additives.
There have been fundamental shifts in CI and CO. Food went from fundamentally scarce and requiring effort to fairly abundant, and the effort to acquire keeps going down. Over the course of US history we have gone from farmers to factory workers to desk workers. Each of those transitions has lowered "natural" daily CO, as such each one has brought about weight increases.
>"trying harder" is just akin to insanity?
Yes, try smarter. CI/CO is true but I find it to be bad advice because a) it is damn near impossible to measure, and b) straight forward CI/CO changes can lead to opposite results.
What I find works for me:
Cut CI a little bit, large calorie cuts can slow metabolism. Up CO a little bit, exercise boosts metabolism even when not working out. Anerobic is better at boosting metabolism than aerobic.
Food wise, sugar and salt drive the human appetite. Reducing them will help you not feel as hungry while reducing CI. The other is just get used to eating less. Low food days help reorient to smaller meals feeing right. By "low food day" I mean find something small, low sugar, and salt (personally I use unsalted peanuts) when you feel hungry stop and focus on the feeling and try to determine if it is actual hunger or just habit hunger, if it is "real" hunger then eat a handful of peanuts and wait 15min before you reevaluate. The day after eating less will feel normal.
I get your point that genes are important and some are blessed while others are not. But regardless what your genes are, you need to find a way to take care of yourself. You are not entitled to someone else taking responsibility for you and your problems.
Here's the crux of the issue; for most people who are fat, finding a way to take care of themselves is so onerous, complex, and difficult that they're not technically stuck, but they're effectively stuck. If you need to drive more than an hour to get access to food that won't be terrible for you, it's not surprising that so many people have a problem.
Who is shoving food down your throat for years on end?
The idea that one person could fight this battle day in and day out on their own if they just try harder seems comical at best. Feels like victim blaming to be honest and I hate it. Make healthy food easy to find, identify and buy and tax trash food because it is a burden on the community, just like actual pollution/cigarettes/etc.
When you frame the issue as a matter of willpower or trying harder then you're already setting yourself up to fail. Everyone that I know who has succeeded in maintaining a healthy body composition has done so through permanent lifestyle changes in which they set up better defaults and positive habits. The daily exercise program then becomes something that they have to do whether they want to or not, rather that something that they can really choose. And some of these people literally used to be obese alcoholics, so it's totally possible. Discipline has to be progressively built up over time through exercising it, just like a muscle.
Plenty of reasonable, disciplined people do all the reasonable things to develop new habits and fail.
IMO: because we have always had nowhere near enough food. Agriculture revolution was what, 10,000 years ago? That's a blip.
It's entirely possible in my mind that the same mechanism and behaviors that fuel obesity were actually helpful for almost all of human history. It's just now, like right now, that they're a problem.
And it becomes even more obvious to me when I look at other animals. I look at my cute dog. If I gave him infinite access to food, I have no doubt he'd be dead by the end of the week. Is he stupid? Is he broken? Or was he never intended to be in that situation?
I think its the opposite, agricultural is much more reliable food so then population could grow until everyone barely starved. Before then people either had more food than they could use or they just died from starvation, people generally lived better lives before agriculture but there were much less people.
The reason we grow fat is because its good to be fat when you are a hunter gatherer, since there is more food than you can possible eat when you kill a large animal you just eat as much as you can, and then you survive better if you don't find another kill for a while.
Agriculture only started to produce enough food for everyone when we human stopped multiplying, before then starvation was only a few generations away as people would multiply exponentially until there isn't enough food again.
For me the issue was that I stopped exercising during the lock down, but continued to eat the same amount out of habit. This led to me putting on a bunch of fat without realizing it.
To fix the issue, I primarily scaled back the quantity of food I ate without changing its composition too much.
If you were eating the exact same and just not working out, you wouldn’t have put on “a bunch of fat” at all. Maybe 10lbs over two years.
Snap, instant cure. No side effects. I lost 26 kg (57 pounds) in 18 months. I finally eat normally. I am no longer prediabetic. My cholesterol is now fine.
So, I constantly thank the researchers for making this wonder drug, and I hope the same success can be repeated for other disorders.
This is not a question of "discipline", or "willpower", or "mental trap". Just a physiological imbalance that can be easily resolved. For some people, staying lean is easier because they don't have this disbalance. For others, it is much harder, but this is not their fault.
There is a constant supply of pressure and propaganda from the junk food makers that most people don’t notice and can’t fight against. It is brutal. This t should be regulated, but …
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9EmDyARAMtlZ21FdmZZ...
2 3 and 5 in a loop (3 sessions per 4 days), the other are useless
Two important changes :
- remove the stretching after the warmup, it's considered harmful nowadays
- don't do the jumps and replace by squats (for knee problems)
It's only 35 min per day and I've lost 2.5 kg in basically a month.
Please note that watever your sport level is, you WONT be able to do the workout completely at least the first 10 times
https://www.intuitiveeating.org/about-us/10-principles-of-in... https://www.health.harvard.edu/nutrition/feeding-body-and-so... https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/quick-guide-intuitive-e...
This part of my life ended in December 2020 when I was t-boned by a drunk driver going 130Mph. I'm no longer able to engage in intense exercise the way I once was, and the combination of my physical limitations and emotional issues (in addition to losing my life-long hobby and being in constant pain, my son had birth complications in 2022 and required brain surgery, and is now heavily special needs) pushed me towards alcoholism and emotional eating. I gained a _lot_ of weight, and my previous strategies no longer provided me with the guardrails and motivation to deal with the problem.
I've always had an issue with insatiable appetite my entire life, and while I was able to deal with it via a militantly regimented lifestyle and mindset change, I recognize that solution is itself incredibly challenging to implement (if it's even possible in an individual's case). Thankfully Monjourno was able to help me address the problem, and I look forward to GLP medications becoming more widely available as I do think there are a lot of people who suffer from appetite dysregulation due to genetics and emotional trauma who shouldn't have to wage an epic battle with their body to feel normal.
People, people, I know many of you don't want to look like you lift, but skeletal muscle has moby advantages in minimizing the annoyances of old age. It also literally helps in weight loss. I'm also told it regulates insulin. Plus weight training also strengthens your tendons and bones. If you start deadlifting heavy at age 40, you will develop strong spinal erectors which will likely protect you from herniated discs when you're 60.
Losing weight is fine and will help preventing coronary / fatty liver etc diseases. But please make it priority number 2. Build muscle and try, as a bonus, to lower your body fat percentage. If you never do, it's better to be 35% bodyfat and yoked than to be 30% and made of blubber and chalk.
Just cut the sugar calories. You probably eat the appropriate amount of calories for you, just eliminate the calories you drink.
They are all characterized something like this: the problem is on the face of it an individual one, with individual solutions. Just stop eating so much. Work out. Eat less unhealthy food. Etc.
But a deeper look and you see that the overall system makes it difficult or impossible for the average individual to really solve the problem. Because it’s too complex, too expensive, takes too much time, and mostly because the framework around “solving the problem” is still locked into the individual mindset.
The same pattern is in voting or affecting the democratic process (an individual action is what matters, but it simultaneously doesn’t really do anything unless you are wealthy/have free time to be an activist.)
Curbing social media addiction is another. It’s seen as an individual problem, but fighting against it requires you to essentially be against the entirety of society.
These are all consequences of the world getting more complex but the tools for dealing with that complexity not keeping pace.
The solution is maybe that we need a new agent or entity that operates in between the individual and the system. Traditionally that was something like your local neighborhood, extended family, etc. but nowadays I don’t think it really exists, because the solutions have been offloaded to individual-focused ones.
For example, there are apps which let you order healthy groceries every month that are delivered to your door. But it’s an individual thing, not a group or community one. You as an individual need to organize and order this stuff.
I agree with what he is saying, but I think the trap starts earlier than that. I think a huge aspect is your eating habits as a child. I feel like my hunger is not normal, I can have a giant meal and still feel the need to continue eating, my brain just loves it. It is frustrating to feel the need to eat 24/7, I believe my family has some form of ADHD because we all have addictive personalities, mine and my sisters were eating. My eating habits as a child is something that I ALWAYS have to fight against, it can get pretty tiring.
What I can tell you though is losing weight is also a feedback loop, I'm not saying positive or negative because I believe it depends on who you ask. When I was losing weight, it was so much easier once the ball was rolling, I'm less hungry, I have more energy, but you also start thinking about everything you eat. I was refusing to have dinner with college roommates because it didn't fit my daily caloric intake, and I never truly felt like I looked better, I was never satisfied. At my skinniest you could see my ribs and my arms were twigs.
The inverse is true, I truly believe that most American food is designed to make you eat more than to provide enjoyable nutrition. I visited Europe once, and it was crazy how much weight I was losing because I could have a great meal and feel content, something that I rarely feel here.
The weird thing is I wouldn't change a thing, maybe I did overcorrect, but it taught me a ton about nutrition, and seeing my weight go down made me feel more passionate to keep going, I'm not sure if I had stuck with it if I did the healthier slow and steady approach.
I'm back on the grind and have been working out more, it sucks that I don't have the time to dedicate to my health that I used to during covid, but that's something I'll have to figure out.
I really don’t believe this is true. It may have been at some time in the 1900s when being skinny was the norm, but most people will look around these days and see that other people are fat just like them, and it just becomes accepted as the norm. The “fat” person is always someone fatter than them. And even if they know they are fat, most simply refuse to see it as a problem.
Most have been fat so long I do not think they are even aware how much better life could be if they were a proper weight, anymore than a skinny person thinks how much harder life would be if they were carrying an extra 45 pounds everywhere they went. I hear the little pains they feel everyday from being fat often getting attributed to age when really it’s just from being fat and inactive. If you take care of yourself you should feel just as good at 40 as you did in your 20s, and maybe even better.
But here’s the grim truth: it’s pretty much impossible for 99% of people to ever lose weight long term. Once you’ve reached a certain level of weight, you’re pretty much not going to be much lower than that for the rest of your life, no matter how hard you try. Nearly 99% of people who lose significant weight gain it back it after year. Imagine, when was the last time you were top 1% of anything? That’s the level of effort you have to go through to be one of the success stories, and I don’t think people realize this.
Your ONLY hope is stuff like Ozempic and other GLP-1s.
Yes and no. I think it is more individual. Robert Lustig has an interesting assertion that about around 20% of slightly overweight people are metabolically healthy and they simply have a higher "normal for them" body fat percentage.
- can gain weight, and fat, easily. I've intentionally done it when weight training
- have gone through periods of years where I exercised very little. Certainly not daily exercise or even their prescribed 7500 steps. No weight gain
- can't really trust myself with food. Put a bunch of snacks in my house and they'll be gone very quickly
I think the things that are really making a difference is simple, and more strategic: I know how many calories the foods I eat have (was very into weight training in the past), I cook 90% of my own meals (usually 4-5 days worth at a time so I'm not tempted to order - I can just reheat) and I don't keep junk food in my house
That last point is huge. They sent me a free pizza with my grocery delivery the other week - I threw it out. I've thrown out countless bottles of coke/pepsi I'm sent for free. If I keep it around I'll eat it
Earn more, spend more time earning money. Cut down spending. Evaluate what you spend money and remove the too expensive parts.
After those steps it is simple.
And for some reason people just don't accept this truth.
What was an eye-opener for me:
once i was prescribed 20mins ergometer. So they put on cables and connected me to the monitoring system - the system is adjusting the power level of the ergometer to keep high power, while monitoring heart rate and that the power level is not set too high / heart rate.
To my astonishing, that 20 minute ride was HELL! constantly keeping the muscles at continuous high load nearly "killed" me - I've fallen asleep afterwards while doing MRT. It really was hell.
and then - the evaluation told me, I've burned the equivalent of 180 kcal. ONE HUNDRED EIGHTTY kilocalories!!!!
My body was on full force for 20 minutes and I burned just a burger ??? - ??? Not to speak of the fanta I usualy drink to spill down my four ordinary hamburgers which I eat 3x a week (doing a fat-diet).
So, I realized, that there's no way other than that of of counting kcal - One can exercise as much as one wants, but the burned energy (output) must somehow correspond to the input (eat & drink). If one eats more than one can burn, it will be stored for bad times in the hips-storages or in the belly-town.
If you want to lose weight - check first how much energy are you capable of burning when doing heavy exercise. And then you have to count the in-put kilocalories. Just for visualizing and assess how and how much you need to exercise, if you put in that burger... and that coke.. and that dessert.
for me, to see how much has been burned cleared up that much:
- exercising doesn't stop me on my way to become round
- no need to count kcal except assuring intake of roundabout the equivalent of burned energy while exercising (not much, though)
- I won't gain weight, because I can't eat that much anyway. So, start loving myself is a better option for me.
If you really all-in about loosing weight, find the exercises that burn the most. That depends on your constitution. You need professional help to get the knowledge. Look for a university doing sport-studies and ask them if they want to conduct a study on this or, at least, whether they can measure what exercises do the best burning. And then count & asses.
Or use the new medication emerged. Or try a stool-transplant. But without, definitely, one has to control the input kcals.
Wish everyone to achieve what one's soughing so hard!!!
The US hesitates to regulate major food corporations because they're core domestic economic drivers and employ millions, which contribute significantly to GDP. Also lobbying.
Europe has more of a middle ground. They have major food companies but stronger traditions of balancing corporate and consumer interests.
Check any major health metric (obesity rates, life expectancy, etc) between the two and there is a clear winner.
THe US food system has clear stratification based on economic access and geographic distribution. Wealthy areas have greater access to fresh, minimally processed foods, while lower-income communities are disproportionately served by retailers offering processed options.
Food industry executives/policymakers often have purchasing patterns that differ significantly from the products their companies produce or the regulations they oversee. This creates a disconnect between decision-makers' lived experiences and the food environment they help shape for the broader population.
The economic incentives favor processed food production due to longer shelf life, lower costs, and higher profit margins. Healthcare costs associated with diet-related diseases are largely socialized through public health systems, while profits from food sales remain private.
Geographic food access varies significantly by income level. You find premium pricing on minimally processed foods which creates economic barriers. The regulatory framework reflects input from industry stakeholders who may have limited personal exposure to the food environments experienced by lower-income consumers.
There are two distinct food ecosystems: one accessible to higher-income consumers with diverse options, and another serving price-sensitive consumers with fewer alternatives. The structural incentives maintain this division through market mechanisms rather than explicit policy design.
You could go on and on...tie in wages, taxes, etc. It all flows back to the all mighty dollar and profit motive regardless of all else. And why shouldn't it? We're in the land of the free, home of the brave! We can do what ever we want because it's out choice! /$
If you ever go to a nutritionist they'll tell you that, and they may even give you recipes!
But this is mostly an exercise in futility. Why? Because going to McDonalds tastes better. So people will revert and not solve their problem. Diets don't work, and new fad diets come out, and the industry cycle continues.
The problem with diets and lifestyle changes that are proposed in common social discourse is that we are always missing the most important step which is teaching citizens how to cook. As a nation I wish we would spend more time focusing on good culinary skills, and that is an investment that would pay dividends not only in healthier waistlines, but also in an increased interest in the quality of our food and produce.
The advice I give people when rarely solicited, is that you work all day to ensure you have food and shelter. 1/3 work, 1/3 food, 1/3 shelter. If you routinely don't have time to cook and enjoy your food -- frankly, what are you doing with you life? Planning a menu, shopping for groceries, cooking meals, these things should take up your time! It's what you need to be doing. That's the point of this all!
Also, after a while you realize at least outside of some dishes like maybe ramen or something like that, you can cook day-to-day better than just about anywhere you can go out to eat. It also makes you appreciate really good restaurants a bit more too. At least that has been my experience.
McDonald's doesn't taste better, it tastes worse, but what working adult has the time next to their day job to eat healthy?
You have to be either
1. Rich enough to be able to spend a premium at restaurants for most of the week
2. Be rich enough to have a partner that doesn't have to work a 40-50h work week
3. Be rich enough to have a personal cook
4. Not work and get by via other avenues.
When you first start cooking for yourself you'll easily double the times online recipes say. As you get better at prep and more of an understanding you'll eventually reach their times. Dishes afterwards are included in this: most recipes have downtime that you can entirely clean up during.
I get that not everyone wants to cook though, but for those who do or want to eat healthier food you can do it and you WILL suck the first few times you cook anything because you're a human being and you haven't done it before.
Roger Ebert wrote a whole cookbook about using the rice cooker, guy loved the thing, makes for a very easy meal.
If you want to lose weight - and part of my comment was a critique on nutritional advice and dieting - or save money or just cook for the enjoyment of it you have to make time to do that.
It's not easy. I work full-time and do other things. I'm tired. I don't want to drive to the grocery store. it's Friday I want to relax, etc. and sometimes I don't cook! But it's just another life choice to make and we can be better and more consistent over time and make improvements without going straight to 0 eating out.
All you need is an oven and some baking pans, and you can easily make a well balanced meal in less than an hour. Roasted chicken, potatoes, vegetables. Done. There’s only a little bit of prep, then it’s mostly waiting.
The biggest impact of industrialized food companies is not their poor products, it’s that they convinced everyone that cooking is too hard.
Cooking takes hardly any time when you're smart about it
if you are single, sure. but as soon as you have family, those calculations go out the window. worse if you are a single parent. long commutes, a stressful job...
8 hours work, 8 hours sleep, 1 hour commute, 1 hour lunch, 1 hour in the morning, 1 hour spending time with my kids (means i do what they want), 1 hour TV to relax. 1 hour exercise/go for a walk. that leaves me with 2 hours for everything else. housework? shopping? keeping in touch with others? go out to meet friends/family?
i love cooking. i did it all the time before i got married. i rarely went out to dinner. but as soon as i got married i had to stop. i couldn't afford the time that i needed to dedicate to it to do it right. it's more than just the process, it's the planning, the shopping, etc.
it's not a question of time, but priorities. for most people 18 hours (sleep, work, commute, lunch) are spoken for, and everything else has to fit into the remaining 6 hours. yes, you can move things around. you have time to cook if you can delegate. that just never worked for me. at best i can delegate washing dishes and other housework.
Cook when you do that.
> i love cooking
This is probably the problem, you try to cook fancy stuff rather than things that are easy and fast to cook. Cooking barely takes any time if you cook easy things.
But your example of roast chicken in under an hour is misleading since it doesnt include the time to go grocery shopping or to clean up. Add those in and your roast chicken dinner is probably taking up at least 2 hours.
It’s really a non-negotiable activity that’s essential for life. The mental gymnastics people use to justify their bad habits is really shocking.
The American version of how we eat is abject nonsense - DoorDash expensive food that's worse than what you can cook for yourself, incredibly unhealthy, and then in between doomscrolling Elon Musk's latest Tweets and your ever expanding waste line complain that there's no time to do anything and you just can't cook because it takes "2 hours to go to the grocery store". Americans don't even go out to eat and take their time and enjoy life and the culinary arts because they're in a rush.
Unfortunately our car-only infrastructure reinforces this learned helplessness, and so we have crappy food quality, obese people and massive healthcare costs, and antisocial behavior as people spend their time terminally online.
Sorry for the rant to anyone reading. Don't take it too seriously. It just drives me crazy that we have such a great and vibrant country and we refuse to truly live in it for some god forsaken reason.
this is a problem for a some people
however for many more people, the issue is affordability
unhealthy food is cheap and widely available
healthy food is more expensive and in some neighborhoods unavailable -- so there's the cost and effort of going somewhere where you can actually get it; food deserts are a real thing, while soda and chips vending machines are ubiquitous
this is why there are much higher rates of obesity among lower income populations
it's a solvable problem (not entirely, but it's possible to greatly reduce levels of obesity), but there seems to be very little social willpower to fix it
There's an educational piece, a motivational piece, and a marketing piece (you'll be like Lebron James if you eat Burger King!!! or whatever) and lots of other general barriers. But it's a problem that we can make progress toward.
Though with all this being said I had hoped to really convey the problem of nutrition advice which misses the component that matters the most which is cooking proficiency. You eat out because it tastes better, but it tastes better even if you could make the same thing at home, because you don't know how to cook or cook well enough.
(not you specifically of course :) )
I don't go either, but I do know that it's cheap compared to healthy alternatives (especially organic); the immediate availability is a huge factor as well
> t's a problem that we can make progress toward
agreed; what really bothers/saddens me is that there seems to be so little social desire to do so -- probably because there's no money to be made from solving the problem, and lots of money to be made from letting it be and "solving" the symptom (but not the root problems) post-hoc with big money-makers like ozempic. it's disgusting.
Telling someone that losing weight is as simple as calories in < calories out is about as useful as telling a homeless person that building wealth is as simple as money in > money out.
There are environmental, genetic, and cultural influences, and while you can always find a token individual who overcomes them all to become fit/wealthy, there's no denying that they have significant impact on outcomes at a population level.
For example, a tall, attractive person born in the US into a wealthy household who's introduced to other wealthy people throughout their lives and taught how to manage and increase their wealth is going to have it far easier becoming/staying wealthy than an ugly, smaller person born in South Sudan into a poverty-stricken household who's forced to struggle their entire lives.
Similarly, someone born to exceptionally fit parents in a country like Japan with a culture focused more on health is going to be far more likely to be themselves fit than someone born to a family with a history of obesity in a country like the US where it's harder and more expensive to buy and make healthy foods than unhealthy foods.
And yet, in classic US style, just like with wealth, we add a thick layer of moral valuation to being fit so that people can feel better about themselves by viewing and treating anyone less fit than themselves as lesser, evidenced quite strongly throughout these very comments.
- Added a comment on GLP-1 agonists. I wrote the article like it was 2023, not 2025. These drugs now exist and their benefits massively outweigh their drawbacks, particularly for people that really need help. Anything that helps out of the trap, particularly with this effectiveness, should be front and center. Thank you for pointing it out.
- Added a comment on my take on the usefulness of exercise for this process. I don't believe in exercise as a calory burner, but as something you need in order to be strong, fit, flexible and feel better mentally. It supports you in your journey. Exercise in order to burn calories to get lean is counterproductive. It is a thick wall of the mental fat trap.
- I realize that my struggles (and I don't say this lightly) have been a small fraction of what many of you had to go through, or are still going through. I also mentioned this in the article now. For some, it can be ten, a hundred, a thousand times harder than for others to break free from being overweight and be able to regulate their food in a way that is mentally healthy.
- I also added this: "Incidentally, I don't think this is about willpower (this is another parallel with Carr's insight). The decision to change comes from a deeper source. When I was most obsessed about asserting willpower over my eating, I was having the worst time and making bad choices. Getting out involves awareness, work, and a willingness to fail and keep on trying. The authors above say it much better than I can."
Hope again this was helpful for those with like struggles.
mrbluecoat•11h ago
This is the key for all addictions and compulsions.
Trasmatta•11h ago
It's not about willpower.
bravesoul2•11h ago
mytailorisrich•11h ago
Trasmatta•10h ago
tonyedgecombe•8h ago
If this is the case then you would need to make other changes in your life at the same time as adjusting your diet.
nemomarx•11h ago