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The Weight I Carry

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Weight I Carry

#101

Post by tracker1 »

guitarbill wrote: post #46
zachruss92 wrote: post #21

I feel for the author. I have also struggled with my weight my entire life. At my heaviest, I was 265lbs. I definitely struggled, and continue to struggle with body issues. I was definitely addicted to food and was an emotional eater. I literally had a term called "stress cheeseburgers" as when I was stressed that's what I'd do. I finally decided to make a significant change last year. It started with me doing meal p…

For me, with keto, I have much less of a hunger feeling, making things more manageable (As I've said in another thread). Agree with the mental clarity also. How did you stick with it though? I can do the diet, but find it hard to do with social stuff. For me, doing keto was quite a lonely thing.

The social piece is hard for me... my GF moved in with me last year... I was eating one meal a day for the most part and doing pretty well, now I'm trying to keep lunch in check and not overdo dinner. The other aspect is the bagels, doughnuts, and birthday cakes etc at work.

Those things have been harder than retraining myself not to eat when watching TV in the evenings.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#102

Post by tracker1 »

Frondo wrote: post #83
guitarbill wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, with keto, I have much less of a hunger feeling, making things more manageable (As I've said in another thread). Agree with the mental clarity also. How did you stick with it though? I can do the diet, but find it hard to do with social stuff. For me, doing keto was quite a lonely thing.

I'll chime in and say, the social stuff has never been a problem when I've done keto. Out at bars, I'll have whiskey + diet cokes, gin + club sodas, basically anything that's a shot and a calorie-free mixer and you're good. Eating out, most cuisines you can adapt. Nowhere serves a keto pizza, for example, but even stuff like Indian, there's a buffet where if you avoid the rice and legume-based stuff and stick to meat…

It's funny but breakfast was really easy... I never felt hungry at breakfast anyway. I have noticed how well I do if I get a fat coffee (coffee+butter+mct oil, and flavored stevia blended) in the morning over ice though. I do that about once a week or so.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#103

Post by tracker1 »

neaden wrote: post #7
johnkpaul wrote: post #2

I've been 400 pounds most of my life. I empathize with every single sentence in this article and cannot imagine making myself write something like this. The vulnerability is incredible. I'm really glad that exercise is being called out as useless to treat obesity more and more. I hope that trend continues and things like Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaigns never happen again. Carbohydrate addiction is no joke, ev…

While I agree exercise isn't very effective to treat obesity, it is still healthy for you to exercise, even if it's not going to help you lose weight. There are a lot of people who are overweight who have healthier hearts and lungs then normal weight people due to exercise.

It's worth noting at that level, it doesn't need to be huge activity... 5-10 minutes a day lifting all you can for a few reps (deadlift, sandbag lift-press, pushups, trx row) and a 15-30 minute walk will yeild huge benefits... you don't increase calories much, but your body response is pretty good.

Eating towards keto macros if you are diabetic and at least intermittent fasting are really helpful too. Not snacking is the hardest part to start with.

edit: as to the exercises, form over function... slow for both up and down movements.

deadlift (hexbar if straight is too difficult) at near max weight for 4-5 reps.

sandbag lift and press, go as heavy as you can handle, for as many slow reps as you can handle. (if you're over 25, increase the bag weight, go s-l-o-w, requires more effort)

trx or regular pushups, 4 sets of 25 reps (100 total)

trx row, or pullups, 4 sets of 25 (100 total)

standing squat / deep knee bends (no extra weight), 4 sets of 25 (100 total)

walk to the nearest convenience store, buy a bottle of water, walk back.

Can generally get it all in well under an hour total.

---

aside: yes, there is more that you can do, and you may want to increase from a walk to swimming, cycling or an eliptical a few times a week as you are able.

there's also more weight training techniques you can do... that said, if you are over 2x the typical weight for your gender and height (mostly from fat), you are so far off, you can get away with just this. Also, if you are looking for just general health, it's a good place to start from.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#104

Post by metabagel »

bproven wrote: post #88

It is a complete lifestyle change (nutrition and exercise)...plain and simple. Any other approach sets you up for failure (I need to lose x pounds for new years, I need to lose this for an event, etc). It is also very much discipline (not motivation..) and hard work to get started and maintain for a while. Like pretty much anything. But after a few years of feeling great you will wonder why you ever lived your previo…

It might be discipline, but it can't come from a feeling of depriving yourself. It has to be associated with positive feelings, or most people can't stick with it.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#105

Post by watwut »

parthdesai wrote: post #94
DanBC wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing in common among everyone I know who is overweight is that they don't even work out at all Exercise does not help people lose weight, and it may make it harder for people to lose weight. Exercise is important, and we need to help more people exercise, but we should avoid suggesting that exercise helps weight loss. It does not.

Do you have any sources to back you up? I was never obese, but i definitely was on the "healthier" side back in the day (~182 pounds at 5'8"). Going to gym and running or working out gives you a perspective of how much work you need to do to burn even 100 calories. Iirc, A can of coke contains ~160 calories, two oreo cookies contain around that amount as well. Once you start thinking about how many calories you need…

It definitely did not worked for me that way. I was never obese, but exercise like lifting weight made me more hungry and that was pretty much impact of it on food. The diet did not became healthier at all - just bigger.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#106

Post by RealityVoid »

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #37

"No matter where you stood, you were no more than 10 feet from fried chicken." I'm sorry but I just can't relate to this, which is probably why everyone in my family is thin. I can't even remember the last time I ate fried chicken. Maybe its a cultural thing (my parents were European), but there is no reason to bring fried chicken into your house. None. This is the kind of decisions that lead to being 460 pounds. Gro…

> but there is no reason to bring fried chicken into your house

There obviously is. It's frigging' delicious for once (might sound easily dismissed, but pleasant things are worth being experienced) . And eating a portion is obviously not going to lead you to have 460 pounds.

Your dismissal of "fried chicken" is all the more puzzling considering that 100g of the stuff has 246 calories [1] whereas the 100g "grilled chicken" has 226 calories [2]. Sure, it's a bit less calorie dense, contains more protein, so it is a bit better but by no means the astronomic difference you seem to suggest.

The man obviously has problems, but your dismissal, lack of empathy and misplaced sense of superiority are really not called for.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-ab&q=fried+ch... [2] https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-ab&ei=Du84XPT...

Re: The Weight I Carry

#107

Post by metabagel »

Qwertystop wrote: post #98
metabagel wrote: post #93

I feel like one of the best things you can do if you're trying to lose weight is to consciously avoid the urge to finish everything on your plate. Try to habitually leave some food on your plate. I call it leaving an offering to the food gods. I think this leads to better mindfulness about what and how much we are eating.

While it might help with eating less, it does mean you're deliberately wasting food (unless you collect all the scraps into leftovers for a later meal), which is... not good. Try deliberately reducing your serving size instead.

Yes, you should do that. But, many times you will end up with too much food anyway. When possible, save food, rather than throwing it away, but it's better to waste food than to add to a weight problem.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#108

Post by parasubvert »

gamblor956 wrote: post #87
DanBC wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing in common among everyone I know who is overweight is that they don't even work out at all Exercise does not help people lose weight, and it may make it harder for people to lose weight. Exercise is important, and we need to help more people exercise, but we should avoid suggesting that exercise helps weight loss. It does not.

That's extremely wrong and dangerous advice. Exercise is absolutely essential for healthy weight loss unless your sole focus is on lost mass. Exercising while dieting (meaning restricting calories) minimizes the loss of muscle tissue when trying to lose >1 lb/week. If you're losing >2lb/week dieting without exercise, a sizable portion of the weight loss is actually muscle. It is possible to take the exercise to an un…

It is not wrong advice. It is not dangerous.

Exercise is essential for health. From a purely scientific numbers perspective, it has little impact on weight loss in the morbidly obese. The vast majority of impact is from food consumption.

Too much Aerobic exercise can be detrimental to weight loss as it encourages metabolic slow down and increases cravings for easy energy. It also has near zero impact on preserving lean body mass. Modest aerobic activity is always healthy, but in the morbidly obese, any more than that is counter productive.

Weight lifting on the other hand does have a major impact on preserving lean body mass during a diet, but it also depends on you eating a lot of protein. Without the protein, you’re also not going to be conserving lean body mass.

Again, what you eat is the most important. You can lose trmeendous fat , water, and muscle mass purely by eating less. It’s going to be fat-loss with with 20-30 minutes of walking 5 days a week, and some modest dumbbells or resistance band work, and a decent amount of lean protein ingestion.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#109

Post by CJefferson »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #26
neaden wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think exercise for weight loss/management isn't going to be a good idea for the vast majority of people. As you said, you get hungrier when you burn those calories and it's very easy to spend five minutes and eat all the calories you burned working out for an hour.

When I exercise, it puts me on a health-minded path every day that snowballs into other good decisions. It's like how they say making your bed in the morning helps put you on task the rest of the day. I find your line of thought unconvincing. The thing in common among everyone I know who is overweight is that they don't even work out at all. The amount of people I know who don't do anything is astonishing. The proble…

I think it goes the other way around -- once people get overweight, they stop exercising.

When I was overweight (I've lost about 80kg), just walking around the shops was a significant exercise, I'd be short of breath. Now I need a 15 mile bike ride to achieve the same level of exertion. Also, after any kind of exercise it used to be every joint would hurt.

Re: The Weight I Carry

#110

Post by parthdesai »

watwut wrote: post #105
parthdesai wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any sources to back you up? I was never obese, but i definitely was on the "healthier" side back in the day (~182 pounds at 5'8"). Going to gym and running or working out gives you a perspective of how much work you need to do to burn even 100 calories. Iirc, A can of coke contains ~160 calories, two oreo cookies contain around that amount as well. Once you start thinking about how many calories you need…

It definitely did not worked for me that way. I was never obese, but exercise like lifting weight made me more hungry and that was pretty much impact of it on food. The diet did not became healthier at all - just bigger.

Well yeah, they say weight loss starts in the kitchen/80% of gym is in the kitchen/abs are made in the kitchen. If you aren't informed of what you eat then it's not gonna make a difference. Though your heart will thank you for exercising.
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