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I'm not going to lie, because I exercise as much as I do, I enjoy a cheat day without any real gain. In fact, I lost weight even. I probably consume anywhere between 3000-4000 calories (I wouldn't know because I don't count). But I confine that to one day a week, every other day I eat much less (and feel good about it). I believe in calorie averaging, how much I average out over a week's time, not daily. Even with that blowout day, I average about 1750/day over the course of a week. Truth is, the only barometer I can rely upon is if I notice sustained weight gain. Then that means I need to dial back.
Lifelong chubby person here. I'm not particularly lazy (even in periods of no exercise, I am generally pretty active).
I think there are a host of things starting with our food supply.
My dad is a self-proclaimed junk food junkie. When I was a kid we had lots of junk food around. My dad loves sodas, cookies, cake etc. We had dessert daily. My dad only eats Frosted Flakes cereal. I would always want to get Raisin Bran (I found Frosted Flakes to sugary as a kid). We had soda or koolaid with meals. This was normal at our house. I was a chubby kid, my mom is skinny, my sister was small. Many of my relatives ate the same way, I was always the chubby one.
I think about how different the food supply is for my parents generation vs mine. They are from the rural south. They had produce from the garden, local dairy, locally milled grains. My mom's family had chickens and raised pigs. Super high quality food. We had lots of factory created crap.
I played outside all the time as a kid - bike rides etc. Basically daylight hours were for playing outside. Nighttime is when I might read a book, watch tv or play video games. I was an active kid.
I hit puberty early - at age 11. By the time I hit my teen years, I was pretty over it on many of the sugary items. I basically stopped drinking soda other than occasionally (maybe weekends). I watered down juice and koolaid. I was somewhat active, and participated in some active after school activities. Still chubby - but I improved my eating habits.
In college I even reduced my intake of sugary beverages more. My eating habits were like most students, but I made sure to eat my veggies. I can't say I drank a lot or had pizza all the time or any of that. But there was a lot of walking on my campus and I did that. So college was pretty active, and my weight was pretty stable.
In my early 20s I got really into food. I started eating seasonally and locally (and organic) and cutting out a lot of processed stuff. Starting to follow the new recommendations about Mediterranean diets and whole grains blah blah.
In my late 20s I got diagnosed with hypothyroidism, but I had unusual blood tests in my early 20s and symptoms even in my teens. Working full time and commuting cut down a lot of activity, but my eating habits are pretty decent.
We put a lot of emphasis on losing weight, but not much on being healthy. These things are not the same. This encourages people to adopt "quick fixes" or bad habits to lose weight, but not do the tings that promote health.
Until we start looking more holistically at our diets, our lifestyle, and our food supply - for people of all weights - we will continue to create a nation of unhealthy people. The average person eats pretty poorly - it just may not show up on the scale ever or until they are much older.
My fat cousin likes to say "I'm not as fat as ________" Fill in the blank with a fat celeb, neighbor, stranger. As long as there are lots of morbidly obese people, it normalizes the condition.
Interestingly, my mother, sister and I were diagnosed hypothyroid. My sister and I stay thin counting calories and regular exercise. Nothing extreme, treats allowed. My mother was fat because she didn't make the effort. My cousin didn't inherit thyroid disease. She just eats too much and sits around.
We all have to take responsibility for our choices. My endocrinologist said people gain about five pounds from hypo alone so can't use obesity as an excuse. That was the case for me. I had an extra five pounds that I couldn't easily lose but I still lost it. Got diagnosed and treated. Still can't stuff my face but when I gain it's easier to lose.
Less smoking, less use of diet pills, fewer diet products available, more sedentary lifestyle, high fructose corn syrup, fewer people walking, communities designed around cars, not enough exercise.
Eating out. Restaurants, fast food and otherwise, serve big portions of high calorie food: deep fried, sauces and gravies, etc. Hamburgers have become obscene. I remember when a McD's Quarter Pounder was considered huge. Now it's dwarfed by standard bar food.
When people eat out they eat way more than they would at home.
Eating out. Restaurants, fast food and otherwise, serve big portions of high calorie food: deep fried, sauces and gravies, etc. Hamburgers have become obscene. I remember when a McD's Quarter Pounder was considered huge. Now it's dwarfed by standard bar food.
When people eat out they eat way more than they would at home.
Soda and junk food is out of control, too.
That's why I don't eat out as much. There's the excessive calories and let's not talk about the sodium. Every single damn entree is at least 1000 mg. One of the first things I did to lose weight was confine the eating out to once or twice a week tops.
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