I'd challenge you to square your statement that "it's not hard" with the fact that 65%+ of the US population is overweight.
just listen before you talk
just breath before you send that email
Just just just
We are humans just anything is hard and lacking compassion isn’t helping
y u not just have compassion?
so many folks don’t try because they feel bad.
the key isn’t to up the shame, it’s to show how even a little bit can help.
encourage people to walk more today than yesterday, make one healthy food substitution. small baby steps with encouragement makes people generally happier and less likely to shame binge. Or give up.
you can white knuckle this stuff or find love and enjoy the journey.
What’s more sustainable?
"Just eat 80% of TDEE" is easy advice for someone who only has attention span for "quick tips" or wants it to sound easy.
"spend 6 weeks attempting to eat at maintenance until the scale stops moving, and use this formula to calculate what delta from TDEE is, before then making any changes to diet. Then once you're ready to start making changes to your diet remember two things increase the volume and make it permanently sustainable. Some examples are almond milk replaces full fat milk, or whole unprocessed fruit replaces sugary things, replace excess grains with leafy greens, choose lower fat meats like chicken/turkey breast, white fish or shrimp, over fatty meats like pork ribs or 85% fat ground beef. At most lose 1% of body weight per week, keep tracking everything you eat so you know the calories you ate and keep using the delta formula to recalculate the calories you should eat this week cause the TDEE is going to literally change every day but we'll settle for recalculating each week. "
see how complex that gets? People's eyes glaze over. There's a balance between good advice being short, and good advice being nuanced enough.
buy Apple Watch it tracks it all for you.
switch 2% for whole milk.
Do it for a week. Then do it again the following week. In 12 weeks tell them you should start to see changes and not before.
right expectations is Key.
Many people are overweight because their sense of hunger is poorly calibrated. To overcome that, they need to change something permanently. They need changes in their lives that help them to stay at a healthy weight without being hungry for the rest of their lives.
Yes, the common pathway is energy imbalance, but the implication that "fixing" that is in the realm of basic human choice is disrespectful.
Consider that obesity is heavily influenced by your food environment, genes, and lifelong habits. Do any of those things sound easy to change?
I am interested in the complicated part, which is why that delta exists, and how to actually do something about it. You implied in another comment that following a diet is a solution. I think you should acknowledge how disingenuous this comes across given that doesn't work for millions of people. I think other commenters have gotten this across: how simple your response sounds compared to what it actually takes to "follow a diet" for the rest of your life. Do you tell people with high blood pressure to "just relax"?