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What people are not seeing, is that while a lot of obese people eat unhealthily, so do many, many thin people! Yet because their bodies respond differently and they don't gain, we give them a paaa. When an overweight person eats the same things, we jump on them.
Now I'll be honest I don't know any truly huge,obese people. In my circle of friends and family, pretty much everyone tries to eat healthy and watch their weight and diet. I don't know a single person who stuffs their face with fast food. And yet, out of the women I know well, some are just thin without much effort, others are in great shape due to diet and exercise, and still others are slightly overweight, chubby, in spite of not eating any more than the others. If anything, they're the ones watching their diets a lot more strictly, turning down sweets and snacks while the thinner ones load up. And yet they remain chubby and you can see this is their body's set point and it would take a tremendous amount of effort to overcome if at all.
You can say we don't know what they eat behind closed doors blah blah but I truly don't believe they go and stuff their face in secret. Like I said I watched my grandmother who lived with us and constantly watched what she ate and stayed obese and prediabetic. She didn't go on strict regimens but she certainly didn't eat more than, say, my other grandmother did, who never watched what she ate and remained tiny well into her 70s. How can you just discount such differencs??
I don't think anyone is denying that a [URL="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-causes/genes-and-obesity/"]genetic predisposition[/URL] to obesity is a factor (denying such is just as ridiculous as say... claiming a particular race is just naturally effortlessly thin, eh?), but it comes down to a different obstacle that some people face. Having that predisposition does not mean you will be obese, but that a person has to be much more vigilant with their lifestyle choices if they want to avoid obesity. Just as if someone has a predisposition to be very thin, sure they can treat their bodies like trash disposals, couch surf, develop cholesterol and triglyceride issues, along with a nice layer of visceral fat. But it all comes down to taking responsibility for your own health, regardless of the hand genetics has dealt you.
My obstacles this week: jury duty, 3 kids home on spring break, my last week of class before finals, and two papers I've barely made a dent in. I'll finally start my workout at around 10pm tonight.
Last edited by Ginge McFantaPants; 04-26-2016 at 01:25 PM..
I figure one of the reasons I am obese is I have a metabolism that is designed to rapidly store fat when food is available like during Fall harvest season and keep that fat as long as possible until next harvest. The problem is I do not starve from late Winter to Fall.
I am now on a diet that should either kill or cure me. I do not eat any starches or carbohydrates that I can possibly avoid. I do this not to lose weight but to starve out a stubborn collection of intestinal yeast. The result of the diet is I feel a lot more energetic and I am actually doing more physical work.
Some people may gain weight because their intestinal flora, yeast, not only diverts food from you to it, it also excretes complex alcohols that poison you by slowing your metabolism. Feeding it enough and there is enough extra to overfeed yourself. This makes for a kind of metabolic trap.
For me it is easier to work to get healthier than to just lose weight. So far so good.
Exercise helps speed up weight loss and increases metabolism but is not necessary.
Emotional support is not needed if you're strong-willed and/or not weak-minded.
Behavior modification has no physiological effect on weight loss.
The only thing that does have a physiological effect on weight loss is: cutting calories.
So, you're wrong, "simply cutting" is exactly how you lose weight at any age.
Really, most fat people I meet are weak people. They'd rather circumvent the actual problem and say "anything but eating less! give me a pill! give me some atkins/south beach/low carb/low fat/bullcrap diet!"
Then, when things fail, they're quick to blame their friends or significant other for not doing enough. Or, they'll find another "thing" to blame.
I disagree with several of your assertions. Exercise is necessary, especially when you are heading into middle age. Basically every reputable health publication out there advises exercise in conjunction with diet. After age 40, you lose muscle and your metabolism does change.
Behavior modification plays a role in weight loss because if you don't change your mindset of overeating, then how will you restrict calories? Or, if you do restrict calories and ultimately get the pounds off, but you didn't truly modify the behaviors that caused the weight problem in the first place, then how long will the pounds stay off? That's the million dollar question. What's the first thing that people do when they get overweight? They do what you wrote - latch on to XYZ low calorie diet only to find themselves regaining the weight down the road. I'd just like to say, though, that by going on a diet, overweight people aren't circumventing eating less since dieting involves "eating less" but I presume you're talking about people who halfheartedly follow a diet.
You can restrict calories but so much. That's fine when you're young, but it won't cut it when you're over 40. It's a system. You eat less, you move more, you don't give up. That's how permanent weight loss happens. Losing weight was easy when I was younger and much more difficult when I was older. It had little to do with not being able to push myself away from the table. I was eating 1300-1400 quality calories per day and that made little to no difference by itself. (I'm a 5'10 woman). What did make a difference was weight training and maintaining an exercise regimen. I walked more. I'm 145 (down from 200) and feel great.
You can curb a slow metabolism by remaining active and keeping(or even gaining) muscle.
If your metabolism is slow, you eat less calories.
Just keep a log of what you eat. If you're gaining weight, cut the calorie count.
There is nothing hard about that.
But in today's society, everyone wants to blame something else, like a slow metabolism, instead of putting away the cookie jar.
That's what I started 3 months ago. My last physical in January was the deciding factor. My doc was pretty blunt. In the the past 5 years I gained 45lbs (and I was already stocky). I was going to cross the line from overweight to obese and he really let me have it. I decided then and there that I would immediately lose 45lbs and then work towards my ideal weight of 175lbs (I'm 6' and considered on the edge of a men's med/large frame).
I reduced my calorie intake from an estimated 2,500 to 1,500 p/day. I quit all alcohol.
I track everything I eat, I walk/hike 3-5 miles a day. I'm losing 2.5lbs per week steady. No fad diets. I eat a balanced 3 meals a day- my rule of thumb is nothing from a box or a bag. I watch my portions and snacking and I make it a PRIORITY to hike or walk. Next week I start on the weights.
I'm down 30 lbs since that doctors visit. My body has adapted well to 1,500 calories (net). It is all inputs and output. Energy in and energy spent.
Edit- I've found the myfitnesspal app to be an extremely valuable tool for me. I can log all of my food intakes with nutritional values. The act of logging in your diet really hammers it home (for me). I measured out a serving size of ice cream per my old standards, weighed it, and found I was consuming 3x a normal serving. It's stuff like this that killed me. The act of logging in the food makes one TRULY confront the problem..
It is all inputs and output. Energy in and energy spent.
Exactly. Fat is just energy. If you take in more than you burn, you store it. You can lose weight either by keeping intake the same and burning more, by decreasing intake and not moving at all, or by a combination of the two (obviously the most healthy is to move more and eat less).
People cling to 2,000 calories as though it is the magic number between gaining weight and losing weight. It's not. You can get all the nutrients your body needs in 1,200 calories. The rest is just energy that you will either need to burn or store. The magical 2,000 calorie figure tries to approximate the number of calories needed to equal the amount you burn in a day, but it's a wild oversimplification and not at all correct for most people.
Ohhhh geeees. Its like the nicotine addict saying they quit and then sneak a smoke when nobody is looking. You can't cheat your body . people take in 2k worth of calories at one meal........I'm sure people try hard to be healthy but why try and fool other people.... ?
I think it's worth mentioning that the OP's post is terribly wrong. Unless obese people specifically have a real medical condition preventing them from losing weight, (which do exist, but these conditions are very rare), there is certainly no reason any person cannot lose weight AND return to a normal body composition. OP mentions they exercise 3 days a week. That is nothing. Ideally people should exercise 6-7 days a week, and sometimes even multiple times a day. Our bodies were not designed to be sedentary. Far too many people eat too little too. Eating too little can slow down metabolism. Trust me, you work out 6 days a week and eat just a tiny bit less than your base metabolic requirement, your body will slowly but surely return to a very optimal and healthy state.
Yes, eat single ingredient foods, follow a modified paleo or mediterranean diet and don't worry about calories at all. Avoid wheat in general at all costs, that is the easiest thing to do to avoid weight gain- unless you really want to spend extra time exercising.. LOL
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