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You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

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Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#401
post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

My friend, I suggest seeing an obesity medicine specialist. There are medications that can help. Insurance more than likely will cover it. Obesity is no joke and leads to (or complicates) a vast array of medical issues.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#402
post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

I’ve never been on a calorie deficit and not been hungry. Calorie deficits are always a little unpleasant imo. It’s just suffering through that to get to a place where you want to maintain (which is much easier). I’ve lost 73lbs, 53lbs, 35lbs (different times and gained weight over years in between). Each time the calorie deficit sucked. There is a 3 day hump and two week hump of misery until you get kind of used to…

This is also my experience -- but I'll also note that it was very subjectively different depending on how stable/appropriately-treated my mental health was at the time. That feeling of the deficit hit very, very different when I was dealing with depression/compulsive tendencies. Right now I'm in a much better place, losing weight at a nice pace, and it's shocking to me how much easier it is than it had been, how much less disruptive to my life. Yeah, the math may always boil down to calories-in-calories-out, but comparing my own subjective experiences, I can definitely believe that the same deficit can cause different amounts of misery for different people.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#403
A couple things I wonder about, and maybe someone has research on them(?)

Are many of us hungry because the food we are eating does not have the same vitamins / other nutrients that we used to get from more whole foods?

From craving a sunkist / orange drink and consuming it - only to want more later - is this craving the nutrients in oranges / fruit and we eat something to satisfy the immediate hunger then long for more cuz it didn't absorb from what we ate?

From processed shelf stable food, to industrial farmed foods that may sometime have less nutrients that a properly feed vegetable - we must be getting less vitamins and minerals even if we are getting some tomatoes slices and such in the meals right?

I also have though for a long time that if there was less stigma for mood altering things.. some people I have known would eat ice cream regularly in a way that I think if they had the ability to smoke a joint they would not.. or find some other solace from counseling to spiritual stuff or exercise or mushrooms or whatever... I think we as a society do not have enough socially acceptable / sanctioned things to do to release stress / feel better doing things.. and what is it in ice cream that makes you feel different?

chocolate too - is it dl-phenalmymine or something like that, it gives you a feeling everything is better / love feels a little? - you can buy that as a pill instead of consuming the calories for the feels - but it's not a popular thing.

For some it's socially acceptable to reach for a beer or benzos, but I think we need better options, both short term feels and longer terms heals.

random thoughts I hope someone else has found more info on.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#404

A couple things I wonder about, and maybe someone has research on them(?) Are many of us hungry because the food we are eating does not have the same vitamins / other nutrients that we used to get from more whole foods? From craving a sunkist / orange drink and consuming it - only to want more later - is this craving the nutrients in oranges / fruit and we eat something to satisfy the immediate hunger then long for m…

Oh - and cooking / preparation methods - what has been researched about this and nutrients we are not getting because of them?

From my very limited understanding - cooking some foods a bit helps to unlock calories easier and better - but certainly there must be a sweet spot where things are better and a point where more is lost than gained (?)

Look cooking a food at 350 for 10 minutes is good, but cooking in 500 degree hot oil for 20 minutes burns away stuff?

I was thinking about this when I learned that some folks have an allergy to fresh shrimp being cooked on a stove because proteins are being released into the air... well if you overcook them, or if you are taking cooked then re-burning them them again before eating, is there a substantial amount of protein or/and other things being lost?

Like a 1/3 burger of high fat is cooked down to less than a quarter pound patty, are we still calculating the calories and protein of a 1/3 pound?

I wonder the same with squashes and other vegetables when cooked a long time or and microwaved / re-cooked as well.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#405
post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

Firstly, congrats on the weight loss. 30 pounds is huge. It sounds like you're on the right track.

My thoughts on hunger: I used to treat hunger as if my body was signalling that it needed food right to survive. Then one day I got sick and couldn't keep food down -- even though I was hungry -- so I stopped eating. To my surprise, my hunger went away. After the sickness had passed, eating anything at all would give me tremendous heartburn, so I continued not eating for about another week. I found it unusual that I could walk the streets in a completely fasted state, my body cannibalising its own muscle and fat reserves, and not feel any hunger at all. To me, it demonstrated that hunger wasn't the 'you require food right now' signal that I thought it was. It must mean something else.

When I began eating again, my hunger returned.

I walked away from that experience with a recalibrated understanding of hunger. It now seems more like a suggestion from the body: 'this is the time that food is usually available, so you should eat if at all possible, because we can't be sure when food will be available again', rather than 'I require food right now to survive'.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's genetics. I think it's called the set point theory. You're genetically programmed to keep a certain body fat percentage. Anything below (or above) that set point and you're body will regulate your appetite with hormones. You can manipulate this set point with things like diet or exercise, but there is only so much you can do. If you're genetically programmed to keep a body fat percentage of 25% for example you'r…

The set point theory, in general, is trash. You can think of your body as wanting to maintain homeostasis, which is one thing. That just means that if you binge once, you won't feel the need to continue binging at that level. It does not mean that anyone is genetically predetermined to be say 600 lbs. To use that terminology though, your body could be said to have a "set point" that it aims for, but that "set point"…

> To use that terminology though, your body could be said to have a "set point" that it aims for, but that "set point" can change.

Which I acknowledged. You can decrease (or increase) your set point, but there is a limit to that. Thinking that everybody has the potential to be at BMI x simply does not match reality. The vast range of human physiology is stunning. Everybody is different. Some people need to carefully watch every bite they take and they still struggle with overweight, whereas others can eat "what they want" and they are underweight.

Totally neglecting any genetic component here is equally as false as neglecting the impact of factors like diet, exercise and environmental ones.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#408
post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

Just a theory. May be you are hungry because the bigger you get the more food is needed to maintain the energy levels at current weight? If you tend to over eat even 50% of the times, you are now getting bigger, and more hungry(to maintain the increasing weight) in a never ending loop?

I don't have a solution for this. But it does look like to reverse this you will have to do the exact opposite. Like under eat a little and exercise enough to burn calories, and go into this loop?

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#409
post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

This kind of hunger is what I've felt my whole life too, though my weight is still only in the overweight category. I can eat twice, three times what a normal portion is and still feel like I need to eat. I could easily eat multiple large pizzas by myself with no problem at all. There's a scene from The West Wing where the chief of staff describes his alcoholism and how people would ask him how could he drink so much…

Chiming in to say I had the exact same realization after starting vyvanse. It’s helped me with my relationship to food, because now I know what it feels like to not clean my plate during every meal.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#410
post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

Why do you obey your body?
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