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Being fat is a trap

federicopereiro.com

61–70 of 373 posts

Re: Being fat is a trap

#61
post #12

For me, quitting tobacco was simple, don’t use. Quitting alcohol was simple. Don’t drink. I cannot simply abstain from eating. I can relate to the struggles and feelings from this article.

It can be this simple if you eat a controlled diet. Say Soylent or similar only for 3 months. Compliance is very easy to detect at least

Controlled diet + controlled exercise. Freshly prepared daily full-day meals delivery + personal trainer at the gym 2x/week combo is the only thing that ever worked for me. And it worked every time (3 times) in different countries. I would get fat again in between those periods, like I am now, after staying in a rural area without those facilities.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#62

Losing weight is hard. Maintaining weight is easier, except that you have to do it forever. It was incredibly hard and took me a long time to lose 15 pounds as a always had been skinny person whose weight slowly crept up. I've never been obese and I'm sure it's super challenging to change, considering how hard loosing 15 lbs was for me. But if I were, I do think I'd try a GLP-1 agonist to get my weight down.

> Losing weight is hard. Maintaining weight is easier, except that you have to do it forever. That second part makes it harder. Losing weight was pretty simple for me, but maintaining that low weight was much harder. Someone said that it takes about half a year to form a habit. I maintained lower weight for about a year, then it came back.

Adipocytes live like 10 years[0]. You need to maintain for a long time for those cells to die off. Otherwise, it is easy to regain.

[0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adipocyte#Cell_turnover

Re: Being fat is a trap

#63
post #12

For me, quitting tobacco was simple, don’t use. Quitting alcohol was simple. Don’t drink. I cannot simply abstain from eating. I can relate to the struggles and feelings from this article.

Cannabis made me lose 20kg in a short span (~2 months). But the main reason was extreme loss of appetite. I cooked normal and after 40% of a plate I was full. You do this for a few days and then you start changing your cooking habbits. This was a year ago and I've held the weight since and simply started eating less. My old eating habbits did not make me gain weight though as my old weight was constant for 10 years.…

Tea is a nice alternative to water, and I say this as someone who doesn't like most drinks other than water.

There's a huge variety of tastes among green teas, white teas, oolong, black teas... Specific tea variety, different locations where the plants are grown, different manipulations, all concur to a lot of different tastes. However, a lot of people I've met just say it tastes like "earthy/dirty water"

Re: Being fat is a trap

#64
Don’t forget the millions and millions of dollars companies invest into marketing their cheap junk food. It works, makes them rich and us unhealthy.

There is a constant supply of pressure and propaganda from the junk food makers that most people don’t notice and can’t fight against. It is brutal. This t should be regulated, but …

Re: Being fat is a trap

#65
post #34

Some people are going to ding him for including exercise, and it's true that the physical calorie expenditure of exercise won't achieve much for weight loss unless you make cycling a major hobby. However, I think exercise goes a long way towards loosening the mental trap. It helps you build an identity as a healthy person, it relieves the guilt about not taking care of yourself, and it takes the edge off of emotions…

Exercise is also a very strong predictor of long-term success in keeping weight off. Plus it's important for overall health anyway. Protects lean body mass, so that when you're shedding the pounds, you lose less muscle and more fat.

That's one effect people are less aware of. One reason your metabolism drops as you lose weight is you can also lose lean body mass. Muscle and organs.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#66
post #18

Ok, but there's also an environmental (and one completely reasonable mental) factor: I live in a place where it is unpleasantly hot (upper 90s and humid) most of the year and there are few public outdoor spaces generally thanks to rampant overdevelopment, I hate gyms and toxic gym culture, I have a quaint bungalow that doesn't have space for equipment, I work an intense job that keeps me focused for hours at a time,…

Different gyms have very different cultures. Try going to different ones to see if there is one you like. For example, Gold's Gym has a lot of bodybuilders whereas I've found the YMCA is mostly older folks trying to stay active.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#67

I am going to be blunt here. Why is everyone using time as an excuse? In fact, it should be easier to lose weight if you are truly busy, because the only thing that will make you lose weight is eating less. This whole idea about exercising to lose weight is unhelpful when the truth is that no amount of exercise is going to compensate for eating more calories than you have to. And yes, you will go to bed slightly hung…

being able to still focus and complete your daily busy schedule while restricting is a different sort of obstacle, so that mostly moves the costs around.

I found the best weight loss success eating about 1200 or 1300 measured calories a day and using a fairly strict routine, but it left me on edge and distractible. And that kind of diet has social costs too - much more of a pain to eat with coworkers at lunch, for instance.

CICO is easy to say, but the trick is actually knowing both of those measurements and being able to control them.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#68

I have extremely lucky genes and have managed to stay just within the green BMI range despite eating all the carbs and fats you can imagine and at times consuming 200-300g of milk chocolate a day. Some of my friends are obese despite exercising heavily every day. Finding ways you enjoy to keep an active lifestyle is a great idea, probably the highest impact thing you can do for your long term well being (for people i…

Visceral fats leading to diabetes can be present without someone being visibly overweight.

Similarly people who appear overweight may have low volumes of visceral fat. Health is hard to determine without analysis and testing.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#69
post #25
post #18

Ok, but there's also an environmental (and one completely reasonable mental) factor: I live in a place where it is unpleasantly hot (upper 90s and humid) most of the year and there are few public outdoor spaces generally thanks to rampant overdevelopment, I hate gyms and toxic gym culture, I have a quaint bungalow that doesn't have space for equipment, I work an intense job that keeps me focused for hours at a time,…

> Put another way, there are plenty of situations where all the mental fortitude, discipline, self-honesty, commitment to change, and persistence won't be enough in the face of it simply being difficult to find time, space, or money to be healthy. If that was true, then literally everyone would be fat in your area. You can learn to cook, you have room for bodyweight exercises. You don't need equipment to feel really…

You totally discount genetics. I know more "not fat" people who are very unhealthy than I do people who are mentally strong and dedicated to a fitness regime. They're just skinny with a different set of issues related to diet and low activity.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#70
post #12

For me, quitting tobacco was simple, don’t use. Quitting alcohol was simple. Don’t drink. I cannot simply abstain from eating. I can relate to the struggles and feelings from this article.

You can recognize foods that trigger the addiction cycle and quit those.
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