I'll vouch for the effectiveness of losing 30+kg (65+lb).
Which only reduces the back pain problem for overweight people to a known-intractable weight loss problem... :-/
Which only reduces the back pain problem for overweight people to a known-intractable weight loss problem... :-/
And the drug analogy is a good one, because just like quitting drugs, you can't quit overeating (barring the aforementioned option of someone physically preventing you from doing so - which is literally what gastric sleeve surgery and the like are doing) until you actually choose to. When you wake up in the morning, look at yourself in the mirror, and instead of "oh I'm so fat" or "it's not fair" or "I wish I could lose weight", you think "I choose to lose weight by controlling what I eat", then you lose weight. And it stays off for as long as your choice holds.
I meant the comparison with addictive drugs to illustrate how difficult it is to resist the urge to overeat. And I believe the two cases are essentially the same - you can't save an addict who doesn't want to be saved, and you can't convince a fat person to diet if they don't want to lose weight more than they want to eat food.
(it's a strong beer with a pink elephant logo, very good stuff)
it is very simple physically.
as for where to set it, I have nothing to say about it just as you have nothing to say about how to make a choice.
/s
The fact is, a choice fat people can make is "I will get gastric sleeve surgery" and this "commit" is statistically enough.
the "commit" that parent suggests is the same as my suggestion at the top. I give no practical advice at the top of this comment and neither does parent comment.
if there were a variable that would set someone's appetite and saciety then it would work. if there were a variable for commitment then parent's advice would work.
parent ignores the hard work of finding and setting that variable, and parent ignores statistics that most fat people have spent a few dozen hours looking for how to set that variable and have failed to do so.
your advice is as bad as when people defend some totally useless setup on the grounds that it's turing complete. yes, you can make a social media app with a custom backend written in C++. No that does not work statistically and most people who set out to do so fail.
but physically it's very simple.
reasonable people don't ignore the statistics.
Apparently, boffins are starting to realise it's not that simple.
[1] [trak-tuh-buh l] .. easily managed or controlled; docile; yielding:
Overeating is a stress response for a lot of people, and overeating often occurs among people in high-stress situations. The US is a country that tolerates a very high level of poverty, inequality, and insecurity, and this results in high obesity rates in some sectors. Obesity isn't the same problem for people who shop at Whole Foods and spend hours at the gym on weekends; it's a more severe problem among people who have to work a horrible job 60-80 hours a week to avoid really desperate poverty, live in decrepit housing, spend hours on neglected bus lines, and are physically insecure.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Body_Mass...
Here's the 2017 update; France and Spain have topped 15%, but Italy dropped below 10%. http://www.oecd.org/health/health-systems/Obesity-Update-201...
taneq didn't suggest that.
And [the weight] stays off
for as long as your choice
holds.
So is cutting your arm off with a hacksaw. "Simple" does not mean "easy."
Indeed, weight loss is "simple", as you said. The problem arises when you have managed to get to your target and you realize that, short of amphetamines or similarly dangerous drugs, there is no known way to keep your weight stable with an acceptable life quality.
Obese people are not stupid when they choose to keep eating; they've just learnt by experience that, unless you solve the hunger problem, loosing weight will not yield a better life.
By the way, surgery actually looks like an option.
Sure, obesity is clearly (also) a problem of bad habits. The question that still needs an answer is: when will the new habit become natural for me?
Hunger is not like exercising: while a couple years of training can make a marathon feel natural for the body of a former sedentary person, no amount of training (AFAIK) can either ease the feeling of satiety with the correct amount of calories or set your stomach/brain system to "hunger is normal" state.
Edit to add: I'd lovee to be proven wrong :-)
Water before eating may help you slow down too, which means your body can realise you're sated at an earlier point through the meal.
Just suggestions, YMMV, IANADietician and haven't fully researched these ideas scientifically (though they are based on research I've heard about in passing).
Meaning you need to establish a new normal for yourself. Maybe that means no more soda (not even the sugar free crap) and no ketchup on your fries. After a while weight comes off and stays off without you missing the extra calories.
But changing too much at once will only cause people to revert to old behaviours. Change one thing at a time. I started by weaning myself off of sugar in coffee, one step at a time. Stopping candy was easy, I never had a problem with that, the stuff makes my teeth hurt. And stopping friday/saturday/sunday snacking was relatively easy too once I was no longer living with my parents and it was just put on the table.
Current / most recent change is having a big salad for lunch at work, now that I've got a new assignment that has a big salad bar. Making it big is important; there's pretty much no nutritional value in the green stuff, and it helps me get through the afternoon without feeling hungry.
If you're already fit, it's incredibly easy to stay fit.
Also, most of the time, obese people don't only eat to satisfy hunger, but much past that.
You are right! Thanks for pointing it out.
> obese people don't only eat to satisfy hunger, but much past that.
They surely don't eat for the pleasure of adding some more fat to their body.
We surely do, isn't that the problem, we're tailored to times of famine & plenty meaning eating is pleasurable even when we're physically sated to allow us to gain weight ready for the next famine?
I'm on the line of obesity, I eat most when I'm lethargic, depressed, bored. I eat less when I'm exercising, occupied mentally, distracted, physically tired.
Firstly, why does your weight need to be stable? Personally I tend to go on yearly (maybe biennially) cycles with shifts between 170 and 195 pounds. Basically I force myself to get down in the weight (my weight-loss method is to restrict calories pretty dramatically). After that I will have eating habits that tend to keep me low for a while, but over time as I go back in my regular eating style (I am naturally a bit of glutton), I'll usually go back up in weight. After that the cycle starts again. I think that this is a much easier approach than trying to stick to a target weight. It also allows you to "live" (most people don't want to count calories forever).
Secondly, what is an "acceptable life quality"? Like I said, I lose weight by restricting calories greatly. This leaves me pretty much constantly hungry for a couple months, but I quickly am able to just push it into the background mentally and accept it. For me this is acceptable. But yes if basically any approach that _works_ is considered _unacceptable_ to you, you're basically screwed. (I don't want to sit on a high horse. You might have stress in life or obligations that make it basically impossible for you to be productive and hungry for a couple months, so I can totally understand my method as being unacceptable to many.) In the end, you do need to figure out how to take action somehow, or you'll never solve the problem.
> By the way, surgery actually looks like an option.
Yeah most don't realize how extremely successful gastric bypass is. It's way more successful on average than any popular weight-loss routine. Obese people should seriously consider the possibility. It can be life-changing.
Your method is indeed interesting, as you basically found a way to concentrate "suffering" in few months per year, still it is another example of a cure that lacks an important bullet point: it never ends.
Solving the hunger problem would let obese people loose their excess weight, no matter the sacrifices involved, and then forget they ever were obese.
But yeah I think the most realistic way to solve the hunger problem en masse* is gastric bypass. It's surgery so it shouldn't be taken lightly, but not weight-loss method even appears to come close when compared to it.
*As I said in another thread in this post, I don't think it's a good idea to focus on finding the best weight-loss plan for everyone, since it's a very personal issue, but everyone has to recognize that if there is such a general solution, it certainly is gastric bypass.
You will absolutely lose weight with gastric bypass. Full stop. And usually a ton of weight. Which is good! And the surgical complications have fallen way down over time. Those are the good bits. The BAD bits that aren't emphasized in the literature (and that a poor doctor will gloss over):
1) A lack of focus. Universally the people I know that have had gastric bypass seem to have a greatly reduced ability to concentrate on complex tasks and recall. Its almost like 'pregnancy brain' but for men and women and seems to persist long after the surgery.
2) Gastric issues. Everyone knows that people that have gastric bypass spend a lot of time vomiting after their surgery while they adjust to what kinds, and volumes, of food that their greatly reduced stomach can handle. What isn't discussed is that often times your stomach is reduced to such a point where food gets into your intestinal track partially digested, leading to diarrhea and a host of other digestive issues. Also, depending on where the band is placed there might not be enough 'drop' in your stomach for food to easy make it further into the digestive tract. This can lead to further surgeries and even shortening of the intestine. I don't know about you, but going through the rest of my life fighting explosive diarrhea. I'd rather be obese then run the risk of vomiting and intestinal distress for the rest of my life.
3) A general listlessness. I don't know what the cause of this is but I've observed it in everyone that I know thats had it done but no one as much as my mom. She was quite overweight my entire life, but almost disgustingly energetic and just generally full of life. She rarely got sick, and could work a full day of manual labor with no complaint or sign of slowing. After her surgery she shrank way down lost all of her, for a lack of better word, vim. After the surgery she didn't seem to have the energy or interest in pursuing any of the pursuits that made her get the surgery in the first place.
4) Long term results. Long term results for gastric bypass are not great. Most people will shrink down over the course of a year or two to a low weight and then will start packing the weight back on. Slowly at first but usually more and more rapid as time goes on.
I'm not trying to say that gastric bypass isn't an option for a lot of people-but I wish people (obese and non-obese) would stop looking at it as a cure all. Its at best a staving off. Lack of willpower, deep seated problems with food, and self-esteem are almost always the demons at the bottom of the obese pyramid and until you exorcize them, surgery is going to just paper over your problems.
It is possible I know more than one person who has had gastric bypass, if the rest have not told me about it.
Rudeness intended :-)
rudeness intended.
At this point I actually like the feeling of lingering hunger, I focus better, probably a hunting instinct. I've attached it as a pavlovian response to ambition I think. At first knowing I was losing weight, but now detached from that and more general.
For example, after a strength workout, I experience a different kind of hunger than "morning hunger" (protein craving, the urge very consistently appears about a half hour after my workout, vs something small to start the day), which is in itself distinct from hunger around lunchtime (habit-formed hunger, you ate at this time yesterday). Also, thirst sometimes seems to manifest itself as another sort of hunger, or else a craving for salt/electrolytes (especially after a sweaty cardio workout).
Listening to your body is a curious exercise to do while you're sick. Your body really tells you what you need, if you're willing to listen. But too often it's like, well, you have this lunch meeting, and you're not hungry but you can't miss it/don't want to miss the social interaction. And suddenly you're ignoring your body again and eating because it's convenient...
http://www.runnersworld.com/tools/calories-burned-calculator
I could gain those calories back and more in 15 minutes just eating a burger. A lot of people do exactly this and sabotage themselves a bit.
Personally if I bump up my running training and want to lose weight, I can never depend on it happening naturally. I always gain weight if I don't actively try to lose it. So I think no matter what you need to be careful. If you exercise more, you'll be able to eat more, but if you want to lose weight, you'll still need to eat less than your body wants. So I still think fundamentally losing the pounds starts in the kitchen.
The guy's reasoning was: You exercise for an hour doing something like walking or golf, then reward yourself with a snack? Net intake of calories [1]. And it's easier to cut a snack from your diet than to find the time and motivation to do an hour's exercise.
To put it another way, when you're obese exercising is like a job that pays ten cents an hour.
Of course, once you've become thin and athletic, you gain access to more time-efficient types of exercise. But that snack might still need 15 minutes of vigorous cycling, or competitive soccer or basketball.
[1] e.g. an hour's dog-walking or golf are roughly equivalent to a 16 fl.oz can of Coca-Cola and a 2 oz packet of skittles, respectively.
Plus getting buff costs a lot of effort, it's easier to reduce intake.
But, besides weight loss, anyone should probably do both, especially if bound to a computer; back pain isn't primarily caused by obesity, but also due to under or overdevelopment of certain muscles, posture, movement or lack thereof, etc.
And being on a healthy weight whilst still being weak or low in energy is no fun.
In general, you probably can't get rid of a little hunger. If you want to lose weight and be in a calorie deficit, you might be 500 calories short. If you add 1,000 calories of exercise, and 1,000 calories of food, you're still 500 calories short, and still likely to experience hunger.
I feel stupid for how long it took me to "see" my own evidence. Like many people, I have a mental aversion to paying extreme attention to what I eat, to eating less, and to counting calories. The very idea of doing that is off-putting, and I didn't notice how subconsciously strong that mental aversion is until recently. It wasn't easy, but I did the hard mental work before I started the diet. Once I got going and formed some new habits, I didn't have to think about it much. One of my mental tricks was to realize that a little hunger is exactly how I'm supposed to feel. Rather than focusing willpower on combating my hunger and reminding myself not to eat, I came to the realization that not being hungry at all is the bad state, that is the feeling I have when I've eaten too much. Being a little hungry is a good thing.
Counting calories worked for me relatively quickly, and it worked regardless of whether I was exercising (as long as I tracked my exercise calories too.) It took less time than exercising, and it helped me see the differences more clearly between losing weight and getting strong. Those are two mostly different things. There's some cross-talk between them, but the main way to target each of them is different. Gyms all advertise weight loss, but now I see gyms as a place to get strong, and eating less as the way to lose weight.
My experience counting calories and adjusting to the hunger are all about being just a little more hungry. I'm not starving or ravenous at any point, I stay only a sliver shy of satisfied. I don't let the hunger get uncontrollable, and if I'm ever crazy starving, I eat. I never get crazy starving when I'm counting calories, though, because if I exercise a lot I eat a lot, and if I don't work out then I don't get as hungry.
Before I mentioned adjusting mentally to seeing a little hunger as good rather than bad. That helps. Quality of life is a relative and subjective idea, and within reasonable limits, people can and do adjust to being equally happy with less. If weight loss is a goal, then I'm suggesting that seeing a little hunger as a good thing is a way to re-calibrate your quality of life detector, not a way to compromise. If you want to lose weight, then the feeling of being sated, and the weight gain that comes with it, isn't a higher quality of life. It's more than you need and includes potentially negative side effects.
Another mental change I made that I didn't mention before is that when I had success counting calories, I set my calorie limit to what it "should" be forever, based on standard age / height / goal weight charts. I never had a life after weight loss, I didn't temporarily reduce it further than that like most people who diet try to do. I just set it to what it should be for the long term. I knew this would make it take longer to lose weight, but I wanted to form a habit and feel like I was always eating a normal amount, rather than suffering a temporary sacrifice. I wanted to set it and forget it, rather than have to adjust again later. I was still eating 3 solid meals a day, and having snacks. Just a little less than before, controlled and accounted for so I knew when I was about to go over.
I also like to go a little light during the day so I have a calorie budget for a dessert treat after dinner. This way I usually feel like I'm splurging just a little rather than suffering through hunger. Instead of feeling like I need to summon more willpower, I feel like I'm always cheating just a tiny bit.
From my own experience, I didn't find that counting calories and being a little bit hungrier on average than I was before affected my quality of life negatively. Not at all. My appetite changed when I changed my diet. I became more comfortable with being just a little hunger, and perhaps surprisingly, I think I have more energy.
Anyway, it depends, I don't judge anyone's choices, and I think this is a lot more complicated and difficult than having willpower or overcoming hunger. But I also think an adjustment is an adjustment - the steady state of living with weight loss should be expected to feel different than before.
There are foods that help with feeling hungry. High fiber and low calorie foods can be eaten in larger volumes than high fat foods.
As I understand it from a study [1] that someone here posted the last time I mentioned it, the training changes our body's way of dealing with oxygen. It basically does naturally what happens to athletes that take EPO, though without the dangers of that rightfully-banned substance. That raises the body's basal metabolic rate, which should help in losing weight and keeping it off.
Like most other things weight-loss-related, it's probably not a magic bullet, so YMMV, but my sample size of one resulted in my accidentally losing 20% of my body weight and keeping it off for about a year now.
Locking people up away from food is even more intractable!
Quitting some drugs cold turkey can be dangerous, so "simple" isn't quite correct.
Claiming weight loss is "simple" is like claiming that climbing Mount Everest is simple because you simply put one foot in front of the other and repeat until you reach the top