The challenge is what is the closest hack to get around it, as most people, admittedly myself included, are not willing to exercise? Semaglutide seems to be the best bet right now.
Passive exercise, that you do throughout the day, though, is a great way to expend calories. Walk more, bike for transport, use a standing desk, etc. That's the difference between 1500 calories and 2200.
Exercise is not a bad way to lose weight.
For a simple empirical study, ask every person you meet/know that is fit, and nearly everyone will say they exercise.
Specifically, cardio. If you're goal is to lose weight, you shouldn't touch weights until your BMI < 22. Just run or swim a few times a week.
Diet + cardio with no strength work can put people into 'gotta make it through this famine' mode, where their metabolism slows right down to eke out the stores as long as possible.
As a counterpoint, I also live in the US and have never found making time to exercise to be some kind of insurmountable task -- even when I was commuting almost 3h/day. Exercising requires just a few hours out of your whole week
Exercise is important for many reasons, but not for preventing obesity. Unless you're running marathons, or exercising like somebody who is, the amount of calories you will burn from exercising will in no way whatsoever compare to what you eat. If you start eating more because you go to the gym, you'll almost certainly end up gaining weight.
The answer today is the same as it's been for thousands of years.
At 190lb, my BMI is 26.5, but I'm relatively muscular with a body fat % of around 15%. I have more than 5lbs more muscle than an average person, but my required daily caloric needs are only a few hundred cals more a day at most.
That volume is good for keeping your body limber, but it’s not really exercise in terms of weight loss or cardio conditioning.
You may want to double check that math.
https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/fitness-and-training/how-ma...
Perhaps 500 calories/hour is a rough estimate. 100 miles @ 15 mph = 6.66 hours = 3333 cals or roughly what it takes to burn 1lb of fat.
I would think the 20-40 hours/week of exercise I do has more of an impact on how my calories are burned than the raising of my basal metabolism of the extra 20lbs of muscle I have over a very passive version of myself.
Like if I took a week off and ate the same, I as well would put on fat. Just 50-200 x 7 calories (.10 to .4 lbs) less of it. And that is if my eating habits were the same, which they would not - exercise is an incredibly good appetite stimulant, which people who attempt to exercise to lose weight find out quickly.
What I'm getting at - and maybe what you're getting at to is: long term - decades let's say of lifestyle choices leads to things like diabetes. It's not change that happens in a year. Hard for humans to grok.
I obviously can't tell from your hn post (and IANA doctor), but sometimes I get headaches because I haven't drank enough water, or I've just gone out too hard.
Making sure you're adequately hydrated is important, as is supporting the cellular activity with nutrition.
Where things go off the rails is when the body spends excess energy and inflammatory responses on things not connected to repair and replenish operations. You get acid reflux, allergies, tumors, even dementia-related diseases.
Of course it's not that simple, but for nearly every single one of those pathologies, exercise improves the chances to avoid them, or helps reduce their negative outcomes. (IANA doctor either.)
How much time for that do you have? Pushing around a walker when you're 65? Spending hours on the phone with Customer Support for some insurance issue?
If I have to go way out of the way to binge on junk I'm probably not going to do it.
there's no way a drug that effective has no side effects
I know people who have lost weight using Ozempic...you only lose weight...you do not become healthy...you do not gain muscle...you just are a flabby person who is less fat
in cases of Ozempic use I have observed - less food is consumed but it is still tending to be garbage
weight is lost but I doubt there is a substantial health gain
I have read that the intent was to bootstrap better habits and then stop taking Ozempic once the better habits took hold...instead people will just take it forever and keeping eating (fewer) burgers
I'll never get that, we only get one shot at life, even a few hours of exercise per _week_ will greatly increase your quality of life and healthy life span, there are no better medicine, nothing will give you your body back once it's too late. Some people on this forum will grind 60+ (even much more) hours per week at work, absolutely wrecking their body for "success" just to be shadow of themselves at 40. I see it everywhere online "after 40 everything hurt" "I can't sneak on my kids because my knees pop at every steps". What a sad state of affair...
Get out there, get in shape, it's life's best cheat code, everything gets better, your body evolved for that very thing for hundred millions of years, you don't even need that much dedication or time. Learn to master your body, learn about nutrition, learn self control. Run, swim, climb, lift weight, yoga, dance, try everything and keep what you enjoy
I'll always remember the day a 60+ years old climber absolutely humiliated me on the wall by effortlessly completing a climb on the first try while I couldn't even get to the half point, I was 25 and in what I though was a good shape
Not exercising is like buying a high performance car and waiting for the engine check light to do an oil change. Take care of your body, once it's gone it's gone
But I'm with you - I find that exercise works well for me as the one of the best things that makes life better. But I also avoid things like video games, drugs, too much sex with too many different partners (I keep it to one at a time) - that sort of thing, as I know it'll just throw me off.
That's why I said it train self control, you focus on "future you", not "immediate you"
Dog will get you out and moving in any weather. They really don't understand why you're too tired for a walk this evening.
YT cooking shows will show the fun side of cooking and get you to make food at home more. Then you're less likely to put so much oil/butter/sugar/etc into dishes vs. eating out. And you also get a taste for vegetables. You kinda tend to eat healthier in general-ish.
Combine all that with a good sleep routine and you're pointed in the right direction. Takes about 3 months though.
I owe it to you to be capable of (among other things): a few minutes of chest compressions, running a mile or so for help, and dragging an adult body a few hundred feet to safety.
I owe that to you and we owe it to each other.
There will be no hack to "get around it".
Conversely: If you can do these things, I don't care what you look like or what your actuarial table shows or what you ate for lunch.