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It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

washingtonpost.com

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Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#21

Post by bluedino »

aabajian wrote: post #4

"Weight management is actually much more complex than just ‘energy in’ versus ‘energy out." No, it's not. Maybe it's more difficult to measure calories (that salad ranch dressing has more calories than that hamburger), but people should be encouraged to balance their calorie intake everyday. For what it's worth, here's why Americans are obese: 50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs…

Let's not forget that every year older you get, your body needs less calories, you lose muscle mass, so you can't eat at 40 what you ate at 25.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#23

Post by rogeryu »

Sorry, haven't RTFA, but what I know is that when people get heavier, the babies they get are biased to more weight. These kids, now adults, have a body that is trained or prepared for more weight, and it won't give up that easily.

I'm 5 kg overweight, and should lose another 10 kg to get the ideal weight. My goal is not to gain any weight, and I've kept it stable for about 10 years. I know when I overeat, and I feel really bad when I gain another kg. If that happens, it takes a week or so to lose it again.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#24

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

leoedin wrote: post #10
aabajian wrote: post #4

"Weight management is actually much more complex than just ‘energy in’ versus ‘energy out." No, it's not. Maybe it's more difficult to measure calories (that salad ranch dressing has more calories than that hamburger), but people should be encouraged to balance their calorie intake everyday. For what it's worth, here's why Americans are obese: 50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs…

While you're certainly right that from a thermodynamic sense it is definitely a case of energy in vs energy out, you're presenting it in very simplistic terms and I think you're missing the point of the article. There's all sorts of poorly understood processes happening in our body that affect the amount of energy stored as fat. That "1 lb / 3500 calories" figure you quoted isn't an absolute law, but more like a rule…

> That "1 lb / 3500 calories" figure you quoted isn't an absolute law, but more like a rule of thumb.

And it's not even a very useful rule of thumb. Research suggests [1] that because of how the energy dynamics work in practice (i.e. a sack of ideally functioning fat cells is a pretty unrealistic model for human metabolism), most people need an estimated deficit of much more than 3,500 calories to actually burn a pound of fat.

[1]: http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/biggest-weight-loss-...

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#25

Post by dwc »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #11
Shivetya wrote: post #5

The bias isn't against obese people, it is against morbidly obese people who don't want to accept it. There is a whole collection of groups that sprouted up to fight the "discrimination" against fat people, HAES (Health At Every Size) is the most know, but fat acceptance gets airtime simply because it is so much easier to get a message out. Obesity is an issue, we simply have way too much opportunity to indulge and l…

> exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. Anecdote here, but I've found that for me the key to weight loss has been exercise-first. I decided that I'd never be very good at reducing my dietary input (I really enjoy food) so I focused instead on increasing my energy output by incorporating progressively more physical activity into my lifestyle. Over the past few years I have steadily and gradually r…

Like so many things, there is no single correct answer.

For myself, if I focus on diet and not worry about exercise I find that I have to eat very little if I want to lose more than a few pounds. So little that I'm miserable all the time. Forever. On the flip side, if I exercise[1] I not only burn calories but increase muscle mass which burns more calories. Other people seem to do well with a focus on diet and not so much exercise. Weight loss should be about losing weight in a healthy, sustainable way, however that works out for the individual. To continue doing something that's not working because it's supposed to be The Right Way is counterproductive and demotivating. I think most people can find some balance between eating healthier/less and exercising more, in a way they can keep up.

1. I've only had two effective exercise regimens: resistance training (weight lifting) and martial arts. If I try to jog, walk, or whatever I will become more and more irregular and eventually quit. Other people love to run. Whatever works.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#26

Post by thomasahle »

TL/DR: It's gotten harder to lose weight, because people eat more crap: artificial sweeteners, steroids, pollutants, plastic packaging, pesticides, meat, antidepressants.

A positive read would be: if you want to be healthy, don't focus solely on energy intake, but also what chemicals you are subjecting your body to.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#27

Post by pramalin »

aabajian wrote: post #4

"Weight management is actually much more complex than just ‘energy in’ versus ‘energy out." No, it's not. Maybe it's more difficult to measure calories (that salad ranch dressing has more calories than that hamburger), but people should be encouraged to balance their calorie intake everyday. For what it's worth, here's why Americans are obese: 50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs…

Calories in calories out, hypothesis is proven wrong by many people.

In a Low Corb High Fat diet, excess dietary fat is burned out and excreted. On the other hand High Corb diet, corbs are stored as fat causing obesity.

I have personally seen many people who have transformed their heath with this basic understanding. Ref: http://thepaleodiet.com/stop-counting-calories-start-assessi...

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#28

Post by gozo »

danielbarla wrote: post #9
Shivetya wrote: post #5

The bias isn't against obese people, it is against morbidly obese people who don't want to accept it. There is a whole collection of groups that sprouted up to fight the "discrimination" against fat people, HAES (Health At Every Size) is the most know, but fat acceptance gets airtime simply because it is so much easier to get a message out. Obesity is an issue, we simply have way too much opportunity to indulge and l…

> lastly, exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. This is very true in my personal experience, too. I can quite easily binge-eat an extra 500 calories for dinner because I'm feeling a bit too hungry, but to work that back off with exercise might take 30 - 45 minutes of cardio. With hectic work schedules, it's also very easy to skip exercise sessions, but good eating habits are "working" even at the…

Yes, but it also a losing proposition for most people. Do we really think that people who are overweight, especially in a body focused society as the US, haven't tried to "just eat better"?

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#29

Post by monochromatic »

thomasahle wrote: post #26

TL/DR: It's gotten harder to lose weight, because people eat more crap: artificial sweeteners, steroids, pollutants, plastic packaging, pesticides, meat, antidepressants. A positive read would be: if you want to be healthy, don't focus solely on energy intake, but also what chemicals you are subjecting your body to.

Plastic packaging makes people fat?

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#30

Post by raverbashing »

Shivetya wrote: post #5

The bias isn't against obese people, it is against morbidly obese people who don't want to accept it. There is a whole collection of groups that sprouted up to fight the "discrimination" against fat people, HAES (Health At Every Size) is the most know, but fat acceptance gets airtime simply because it is so much easier to get a message out. Obesity is an issue, we simply have way too much opportunity to indulge and l…

> Go out and play seems to have fallen on deaf ears

Well, to be honest it's a non-solution. It's just something adults say to relieve themselves of the problem

Easier when most parents weren't helicopter parents, litigation happy to sue for every scratch their kids had.

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