Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

I gained half of that weight that I lost back pretty quick because I couldn't keep up the strenuous exercise routine. So, the next time I instead focused on my eating habits and skipped formal exercise entirely (mostly just went for walks instead). I had much more consistent and predictable weight loss week-over-week and now I'm about to surpass the goal I had the first time I tried in 1/3 of the time. It really came down to small portions -- I didn't have to give up many types of food, I just didn't eat nearly as much of it as I would have in the past.

This echoes experiences from people I know. They start out with a strenuous exercise routine and it's fun in the beginning to push yourself, but most people can't sustain it. Or they get injured and that sets them down a path of being lazy and gaining the weight back.

This is, respectfully, fatlogic. "The psychological mechanisms of saying I will go to the gym tomorrow but then not going are difficult to defeat." This is not true. It's fatlogic to say so. I'm about to make the OPPOSITE point to what you think, so read the rest of this paragraph carefully. Do you have enough money? Do you have workout clothes? Do you know of a gym nearby? Are you comfortable enough showing up to work out?

Personally, if I were as overweight as my girlfriend the last one would be a "No". I literally wouldn't go to the gym - instead I would LITERALLY work out at home for a few weeks until I started to look more normal.

But guess what! I only arrived at that by first IDENTIFYING that the statement "there is a psychological mechanism keeping me from going to the gym" is FALSE - it's fatlogic.

There's an ACTUAL -- NOT PSYCHOLOGICAL -- reason not to go to the gym, which is that until some progress is made via home workout the other people at the gym will judge you and it's not a good enough experience. But there's an easy way to combat this, by first starting to work out at home.

This is an actual, real, fact. Also, let me tell you something. There's no PSYCHOLOGICAL REASON that a person can't eat a salad so bad I would throw it out. It's an actual reason: it's next to inedible! It doesn't taste good enough.

So by removing your fatlogic, we can arrive at the correct transition:

Wrong, fatlogic: "There's a psychological thing keeping me from eating plain lettuce with a bit of vinegar after I choose to eat plain lettuce with a bit of vinegar. I just need more willpower." Wrong. There's an ACTUAL REASON.

Corrected: "There's an actual reason I don't eat lettuce with a bit of vinegar, it doesn't taste good enough for me. It's next to inedible, it's like physical torture." (I know it's like physical torture, because that's what it is for me, and I'm not overweight.) "... So I should learn how to make a tasty fucking salad. I need to google how to make a fucking salad, because I suck at it, I should learn the caloric and especially protein contents of different foods, and learn to make a fucking rocking salad. Then it'll be delicious to eat a salad. Let me start by buying some cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, a couple of kinds of cheese, some salad dressings after I look at their ingredients, croutons, sardines since I like them, tuna, and because of what my boyfriend is saying some chicken to grill, then I'll just experiment for a few days and see if I can concoct something edible."

You see! By the way I don't require anyone to eat salads all the time, I was just using this as an example. Eat whatever you want.

But the fatlogic version stops at "but I have psychological problems." Nope! That's fatlogic.

Phasma, I was hugely for banning the fatshaming reddit that you mention. I specifically defended banning it. You can read me doing so here:

https://www.reddit.com/user/throwaway22382/

So, check it out. I wrote that it was appropriate for that hate speech to be banned.

So, guess what. It kind of turns out that I was completely wrong. I'm not going to get into the details of how I found this out, but actually, I was completely off-base with that declaration.

By the way, in purely technical terms, yes, there is actually a "conspiracy to make people fat." A conspiracy is any two people working in secret against a third.

You don't think this happens? Really? You need to take a marketing class. By the way, I don't like the word conspiracy as you've used it. By this definition 100% of all marketing departments everywhere are conspiracies, since there are some things they don't share with their customers. So I don't like your use of this term.

But to circle back to what we were talking about. The psychological mechanisms are not difficult to defeat and it puts zero strain on my girlfriend or any of my friends whom I've helped when I point it out. People just need to identify them.

I don't believe in fat shaming whatsoever. But fatlogic is real, and it's super easy to fix. Let me point out that I've easily done this with multiple of my friends.

It doesn't involve any judgment or shaming whatsoever. I can give you specific examples of a "conspiracy" (don't like this term) against fat people by marketing departments, if you really want me to.

Obviously, it varies person to person - if someone enjoys a team sport enough to exercise and still combine it with good diet, great. Those people don't tend to be the ones struggling with weight loss, however.