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 …
I think the chance that the food companies are going to lie down and accept regulations without complaint is close to zero.
Yes, and we shouldn’t accept that there is not regulation either.
> Getting out of the physical fat trap, strictly speaking, is simple: Develop basic sleep habits so that you get decent sleep. Exercise daily or almost daily. Reduce refined carbs, unhealthy fats and alcohol from your diet. Focus on getting enough vegetables, fruits, complex carbs and healthy fats. Well... and that's the problem. It sounds easy on paper but in fact it is not easy at all in practice for the wide masse…
Another trap I see in your list is wasting 3-4 hours for unpaid work: - 2 hours commute daily? This seems crazy. Never had such a commute and most of my life I could walk or cycle to the university/work, so I gained some free exercise time. - 1 hour overtime daily? What for? - Lunch outside of work? (This is where my additional hour came from) Thankfully this never happened to me in my actual career.
> 2 hours commute daily? This seems crazy.
This is the norm in many places of the world. I live in London and am lucky to only need to take one tube train into the office. It's still 1 hour each way - 10 mins to station, 5 mins wait - if i'm lucky, but it could be as much as 15, 45 min train, another 10 mins walk, 1hr each way is just a good smooth day for me. Many of my colleagues have even longer journeys. I only belabour this because I actually feel lucky in the length of my commute compared to many people in the UK.
As for 1hr overtime daily - if you're a salaried employee you aren't doing overtime to begin with, you're just doing your job - sure you can just not, but it probably won't go in your favour - at most agencies I've worked (this is in the UK) I was asked (i.e. required) as part of the onboarding to opt out of the working hours directive (https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/weekly-maxim...). There was no overtime, there was just work.
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.
> if I were, I do think I'd try a GLP-1 agonist to get my weight down. Don't they only prescribe these for the morbidly obese? As someone "merely" overweight (BMI ~27) I'd like to try but I don't think I'm fat enough to get a prescription.
I think the definition of "fat enough" will come down quickly as these drugs become better understood. If the side effects are mild or manageable, why not prescribe it to anyone who even comes within striking distance of "overweight"? There are other kinds of medications, like those for high cholesterol, where it's a no-brainer to just start taking them when your cholesterol crosses some threshold.
It’s not as simple as that. All people don’t get fat for the same reasons. I never eat junk food, and yet I still got fat during the pandemic. For me the issue was that I stopped exercising during the lock down, but continued to eat the same amount out of habit. This led to me putting on a bunch of fat without realizing it. To fix the issue, I primarily scaled back the quantity of food I ate without changing its comp…
Most people only burn 150-200 calories when they work out.
If you were eating the exact same and just not working out, you wouldn’t have put on “a bunch of fat” at all. Maybe 10lbs over two years.
> if I were, I do think I'd try a GLP-1 agonist to get my weight down. Don't they only prescribe these for the morbidly obese? As someone "merely" overweight (BMI ~27) I'd like to try but I don't think I'm fat enough to get a prescription.
I think the definition of "fat enough" will come down quickly as these drugs become better understood. If the side effects are mild or manageable, why not prescribe it to anyone who even comes within striking distance of "overweight"? There are other kinds of medications, like those for high cholesterol, where it's a no-brainer to just start taking them when your cholesterol crosses some threshold.
>no-brainer
Many experts including cardiologists maintain that the current mainstream protocols for statin drugs do more harm than good.
It’s not as simple as that. All people don’t get fat for the same reasons. I never eat junk food, and yet I still got fat during the pandemic. For me the issue was that I stopped exercising during the lock down, but continued to eat the same amount out of habit. This led to me putting on a bunch of fat without realizing it. To fix the issue, I primarily scaled back the quantity of food I ate without changing its comp…
Most people only burn 150-200 calories when they work out. If you were eating the exact same and just not working out, you wouldn’t have put on “a bunch of fat” at all. Maybe 10lbs over two years.
Assuming not working out vs. working out for 150-200 calories burned 3-6 times a week, you would gain (assuming the entire surplus went to fat, @ 3500 calories surplus -> 1 lb fat gain), 13.37 to 35.66 lbs of fat, which assuming starting at the US median adult male weight of ~200lbs, is a gain of 6.7-18% of starting body weight, all in fat, which would, especially at the high end but even near the middle to low end, be "a bunch of fat".
It's interesting to me that if you're rigorous enough the other six days the cheat day still works. I would order in restaurant food and have some alcohol with it, get ice cream or whatever, and was still losing weight overall. I guess one day isn't enough to get your body used to the high calories or something? Diet science is weird
Yeah if your weekly average calorie-intake is still in deficit, you will lose weight. BUT, it's possible to blow your weekly average with one day of binging. So even on cheat days, be careful.
It’s really solid to do one big cheat meal, dinner+drinks+dessert. An entire day I agree, not the play.
> you need to find a way to take care of yourself Here's the crux of the issue; for most people who are fat, finding a way to take care of themselves is so onerous, complex, and difficult that they're not technically stuck, but they're effectively stuck. If you need to drive more than an hour to get access to food that won't be terrible for you, it's not surprising that so many people have a problem.
Slowly getting into fasting is not onerous, complex, and difficult. It just sucks, especially when you're physically addicted.
As a single almost 40yo overweight man I've gotta disagree. McDonald's doesn't taste better, it tastes worse, but what working adult has the time next to their day job to eat healthy? You have to be either 1. Rich enough to be able to spend a premium at restaurants for most of the week 2. Be rich enough to have a partner that doesn't have to work a 40-50h work week 3. Be rich enough to have a personal cook 4. Not wor…
Unless you’re working 16h per day, every day, you have time to cook. There are many things that are very easy to cook and don’t even take that much effort, but people just refuse to learn how to use the tools they have. All you need is an oven and some baking pans, and you can easily make a well balanced meal in less than an hour. Roasted chicken, potatoes, vegetables. Done. There’s only a little bit of prep, then it…
100% agree that people should cook more.
But your example of roast chicken in under an hour is misleading since it doesnt include the time to go grocery shopping or to clean up. Add those in and your roast chicken dinner is probably taking up at least 2 hours.
Why do people always think fat people are drinking sugary drinks? I can't stand sugary drinks. I don't drink soda. I don't put sweetener in my coffee. I mostly drink water.
Because people drink an absurd quantity of their calories: https://www.healthyfoodamerica.org/sugary_drinks_in_america_...
177 calories per day on average according to your link. More in teenagers, less in adults. Long term trend is decreasing consumption.