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A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity

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Re: A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity

#11

Post by Thriptic »

Personally, I feel like the media frequently tries to over complicate the issue of obesity and make excuses for people who can't lose weight. The individual depicted here clearly has underlying psychological and substance abuse problems, but in no way is he reflective of the general population of obese individuals.

Baring psychological issues, it's really not hard at all to pick a diet and adhere to it. It literally requires a few hours of upfront effort and a bit of time each day. I was able to go from about 300 lbs as a 6'3" male to 210 lbs with significant muscle mass added by following a basic diet and lifting 3 times a week, and I literally started on a whim.

If you want to lose weight, I would start by getting an idea of what you already eat using http://www.myfitnesspal.com/

Once you get an understanding of your habits, head on over to http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/ and select a diet plan which will make you the happiest (low carb, low fat, zone, stricty calorie deficit etc). Every morning, plan your meals using myfitnesspal and the output from iifym.

It's really that simple.

Re: A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity

#12

Post by FLUX-YOU »

tomjen3 wrote: post #3

I sincerely don't understand people like that. Sure you can ignore your physical health, eat too much and become obese (I did so), you can stay obese even, although weightloss isn't that fucking difficult (spoiler-warning: track your food, stay within your calories limit and perhaps move a bit more). But grow to be 300, let alone 600 pounds? To the point where you can't even got to the bathroom so your mother can was…

>I sincerely don't understand people like that.

Go through US cities and realize how much absolute garbage food is produced and made available in place of healthy meals. Then look at the portion size that most places serve. Then realize that obesity and overweight rates are higher the lower you go down the income ladder.

It would be another thing if we had loads of great food and meals being produced with almost no fast food and the obesity rate was still climbing.

What your post illustrates is that you have zero respect for how powerful the environment can play in behavior and the other powerful forces (greed, politics) that go into shoving nutritionally cheap, unhealthy foods in our faces.

You're right about it being 90% mental effort and developing one good habit, and that can really only be conquered once you develop a self-awareness of what's going on with yourself and your environment. IMO that is one reason why obesity is present in the lower income levels at a higher rate, because education is usually lacking there.

Re: A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity

#13

Post by mattmanser »

Thriptic wrote: post #11

Personally, I feel like the media frequently tries to over complicate the issue of obesity and make excuses for people who can't lose weight. The individual depicted here clearly has underlying psychological and substance abuse problems, but in no way is he reflective of the general population of obese individuals. Baring psychological issues, it's really not hard at all to pick a diet and adhere to it. It literally…

So how did you get to be 300lb in the first place?

Obviously it's not that simple is it. You had to dedicate a long and sustained effort to lose weight you didn't want! If it were simple it wouldn't have taken 50% extra body mass for you to act and learn how to lose weight.

I really do congratulate you, but let's not pretend this is an easy problem, or it simply wouldn't exist!

Re: A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity

#14

Post by coverup »

yetanotherthrow wrote: post #8
cellshade wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such empathy. Do you feel the same way about people with a substance abuse problem? To get to that kind of weight, it's more than just being lazy and not tracking calories. It's a serious psychological or physical problem. It doesn't happen just by deciding not to skip dessert. I've always been thin, but I can still empathize with someone in that predicament. Do you think that he didn't want to lose weight and get so…

Calling him names wasn't necessary, but his point remains. You don't eat at McDonalds and drink DrPepper when you want to get thinner. This guy didn't want to get thinner. He didn't want it more than death. And so he died.

That's true, but it's unempathetic, and if everyone stopped thinking there, no one would help each other. Imagine a depressed person who commits suicide. You could say, well, this person clearly wanted to die, and so she killed herself. She wanted to die more than she wanted to be around for her family, etc. and so that was selfish, the end.

But what was making her want to die? Do you think she was unaware of it, or unaware that she was having thoughts that she couldn't seem to control? Could it be the case that living with major depressive disorder might have been so mind-rendingly terrifying that it made even death seem more desirable? But isn't the best solution in this case not really death, but rather for the depression to go away, and only failing that would one ever want to die? Don't you think a suicidal person would be more aware of this than anyone?

You say this guy wanted to get thinner but he also wanted to keep overeating, and unfortunately he didn't seem to want to get thinner enough, so he kept eating. But what he really wanted was for his uncontrollable desire to overeat to go away, and he could not make that happen himself.

Re: A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity

#15

Post by Thriptic »

mattmanser wrote: post #13
Thriptic wrote: post #11

Personally, I feel like the media frequently tries to over complicate the issue of obesity and make excuses for people who can't lose weight. The individual depicted here clearly has underlying psychological and substance abuse problems, but in no way is he reflective of the general population of obese individuals. Baring psychological issues, it's really not hard at all to pick a diet and adhere to it. It literally…

So how did you get to be 300lb in the first place? Obviously it's not that simple is it. You had to dedicate a long and sustained effort to lose weight you didn't want! If it were simple it wouldn't have taken 50% extra body mass for you to act and learn how to lose weight. I really do congratulate you, but let's not pretend this is an easy problem, or it simply wouldn't exist!

> So how did you get to be 300lb in the first place?

I never paid attention to what I ate, I ate until I was stuffed, I drank way too much beer, and I never exercised. Basically I was lazy and didn't give a shit. This was the normal lifestyle of most people I knew who were 16-22. The ramifications of being fat were not enough to overcome the perceptions of the difficulty of dieting and exercise I gleaned from most people, so I didn't even try. In fact, dieting was not difficult, so when I actually tried it with an established plan I had immense success.

Re: A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity

#16

Post by mdemare »

Thriptic wrote: post #15
mattmanser wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how did you get to be 300lb in the first place? Obviously it's not that simple is it. You had to dedicate a long and sustained effort to lose weight you didn't want! If it were simple it wouldn't have taken 50% extra body mass for you to act and learn how to lose weight. I really do congratulate you, but let's not pretend this is an easy problem, or it simply wouldn't exist!

> So how did you get to be 300lb in the first place? I never paid attention to what I ate, I ate until I was stuffed, I drank way too much beer, and I never exercised. Basically I was lazy and didn't give a shit. This was the normal lifestyle of most people I knew who were 16-22. The ramifications of being fat were not enough to overcome the perceptions of the difficulty of dieting and exercise I gleaned from most pe…

And because it worked for you, it'll work for everybody...

Re: A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity

#17

Post by riffraff »

maxerickson wrote: post #10
riffraff wrote: post #6

obesity, even if not at this levels, is an understated problem, and seems to me the US is one of the worst hit. If you can, I'd recommend watching "Fed Up" [0], a documentary which tries to show that the problem is a bit more complex than just people being lazy ("light" food being effectively worse, complete lack of food education, lobbying at it's worse etc). As many documentaries, it has a rather clear agenda, but…

What do you mean by understated? Whenever I see stuff about it, it's called an epidemic or a public health crisis. And it is often accompanied by statistics.

I mean that very little is done to actually face the problem.

I probably should have said "underestimated", please forgive a foreign speaker :)

Re: A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity

#19

Post by Thriptic »

mdemare wrote: post #16
Thriptic wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So how did you get to be 300lb in the first place? I never paid attention to what I ate, I ate until I was stuffed, I drank way too much beer, and I never exercised. Basically I was lazy and didn't give a shit. This was the normal lifestyle of most people I knew who were 16-22. The ramifications of being fat were not enough to overcome the perceptions of the difficulty of dieting and exercise I gleaned from most pe…

And because it worked for you, it'll work for everybody...

Yup, that's kind of how metabolism works. If you run a caloric deficit, you will lose weight...

Re: A Life Apart: The Toll of Obesity

#20

Post by yasth »

Thriptic wrote: post #11

Personally, I feel like the media frequently tries to over complicate the issue of obesity and make excuses for people who can't lose weight. The individual depicted here clearly has underlying psychological and substance abuse problems, but in no way is he reflective of the general population of obese individuals. Baring psychological issues, it's really not hard at all to pick a diet and adhere to it. It literally…

You will gain it all back in 5 years with 80% probability. (and likely worse odds because of the size of the weight loss and the fact you are male)

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/82/1/222S.long

It isn't that hard to lose weight. It is very hard to keep it off.

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