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Being fat is a trap

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Re: Being fat is a trap

#271

Post by nradov »

timcobb wrote: post #44

> but you have the choice to step out of the fat trap. People should also talk about the volition trap. I'm 40 and it feels like I've had more than a life's worth of people talking about how "you can do it if you just try!" > ... advertising signs that con / you into thinking you can do what's never been done / meantime life goes on all around you The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we a…

Do or do not, there is no try.

When you frame the issue as a matter of willpower or trying harder then you're already setting yourself up to fail. Everyone that I know who has succeeded in maintaining a healthy body composition has done so through permanent lifestyle changes in which they set up better defaults and positive habits. The daily exercise program then becomes something that they have to do whether they want to or not, rather that something that they can really choose. And some of these people literally used to be obese alcoholics, so it's totally possible. Discipline has to be progressively built up over time through exercising it, just like a muscle.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#272

Post by s1artibartfast »

maketheman wrote: post #213
tuesdaynight wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to wrap your head around that when you got fit working out. They will firmly believe that obesity will be solved by people working out and having a stricter diet. I took me years to understand that it's doesn't work for an entire population. Honestly, even if that happened (everybody started working out), people would have a lot of problems with body image, as we can see in teenagers boys nowadays.

Dieting and working out definitely does work , the problem is that the median person attempting it will badly yo-yo over the years while feeling terrible about themselves and probably not really getting that much healthier over the long term. So it does work, but it also doesn't, practically at all, for the overwhelming majority of people who attempt it. That's why a lot of these posts end up having people talking (w…

I seems like people cant help but discuss this issue in a black or white way, when it isnt a binary. Choice obviously matters. It is difficult to change. Environment obviously matters. It is difficult to change.

When talking about human society, environment is a culmination of collective choice.

People who say willpower is futile are still faced with choice of if they feed their kids soda and McDonalds for breakfast.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#273

Post by swat535 »

chneu wrote: post #216
xnx wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people mentioning willpower but not as much attention is given to the fact that everything in our millions of years evolutionary design is biased toward heavy reward for caloric foods, and within the past 100 years we are suddenly in an environment where those cravings can be fulfilled in abundance.

A modern diet is a restrictive diet. We live in a time when half of our produced food is thrown away. That's why veganism makes so much sense nowadays. Nothing about the modern diet is "natural" for most people. Meat was awesome when calories were sparse/intermittent. Now it's just excess for the sake of a status symbol. Same can be said about a lot of our foods.

How does veganism help in this case? The problem is not meat, the problem is junk food, high sugar and carbs.

If by "veganism", you simply mean healthy diet, then I agree.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#274

Post by mschuster91 »

SietrixDev wrote: post #150
mschuster91 wrote: post #14

> 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.

> 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.

Good luck for you. Here in Munich, I have multiple colleagues who commute 1.5h single direction, I myself (since I can't afford rent in that fucking city, so gotta commute in from Landshut) have anything from 1 to 3 hours one way depending on how shitty the train service is on that day.

> - 1 hour overtime daily? What for?

I work in the creative industry. Thankfully we are a unionized shop which means we're not affected by that problem too much - but virtually everyone I know from other agencies that are not unionized is working easily 50 hour weeks. Every company in the industry has decimated staffing, much more than the incoming work fell, so everyone is working extra to not be the next whose head rolls.

> - Lunch outside of work? (This is where my additional hour came from) Thankfully this never happened to me in my actual career.

Germany has a mandatory 30 minute break by law during the day, in practice it's more like 45-60 minutes.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#275

Post by rsynnott »

mcosta wrote: post #105
timcobb wrote: post #44

> but you have the choice to step out of the fat trap. People should also talk about the volition trap. I'm 40 and it feels like I've had more than a life's worth of people talking about how "you can do it if you just try!" > ... advertising signs that con / you into thinking you can do what's never been done / meantime life goes on all around you The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we a…

> The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we are not the problem The "obesity pandemic" is a very distinct trait of USA. The rest of the world does not have this problem at this magnitude.

While the US is one of the most severe cases (and in particular has a large number of _very_ obese people, making it more _visible_), most of the world does have an obesity problem.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#276

Post by bitmasher9 »

HPsquared wrote: post #264
EduardoBautista wrote: post #38

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…

I think people forget that mild hunger is a normal part of existence.

I think people are oversensitive to hunger stimulation.

A small amount of hunger will completely distract some people, cause them to become overly emotional and overspend.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#277

Post by sotix »

Balgair wrote: post #143
knighthack wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I remember two churches I attended. In the first one, the communion was actual wine. The priest was adamant about it being real wine. But, we had a guy who was a recovering alcoholic in the congregation. Now, if you know anyone that is recovering from alcohol abuse, then you know that even one sip of booze is enough to send you on a bender. But, our priest was adamant that we all take communion in full bodied wine. T…

Many churches meet in the middle with heavily watered down wine

Re: Being fat is a trap

#278

Post by nradov »

maketheman wrote: post #172
knighthack wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Science disagrees. On an individual level, yes, "try harder" is all we personally can do (well, until GLP-1 agonists, LOL). So, sure, it's "good advice" in that it's all there is. On a policy level? As far as medical intervention efficacy? It's entirely useless. Even crazy-expensive interventions involving several hours of professionals' time per week, for months on end, are wildly less effective than one might think…

Science is a process, not an agent that can agree or disagree.

On a personal level we can do a lot more than just try harder. We can make permanent lifestyle changes in which healthier options become the default rather than something that we have to actively choose. This can be done in (almost) any environment.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#279

Post by swat535 »

silotis wrote: post #181
wiseowise wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You’d be surprised just how little you eat. I’m also like that, thinking that I eat shitton and don’t get fat at all while my friends can’t lose 5 kilo. When I’ve started counting, even with all the junk food, I’ve been b…

Yep. I have IBD and have to track calories to keep my intake _up_. It's shocking how much food you have to eat to get much more than 2k a day.

It's not at all difficult if you are eating junk food. For example a single Medium Pizza alone is enough to fill your entire day's worth of calories.

I know because I've experimented with this when I started measuring my weight, heck sometimes having a single Wendy's Baconator will not only fill your entire calories but even make you gain weight.

Your activity levels of course also matter but I'm assuming sedentary lifestyle.

This is much more different for healthy foods however.

Re: Being fat is a trap

#280

Post by okwhateverdude »

tuesdaynight wrote: post #204
maketheman wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science disagrees. On an individual level, yes, "try harder" is all we personally can do (well, until GLP-1 agonists, LOL). So, sure, it's "good advice" in that it's all there is. On a policy level? As far as medical intervention efficacy? It's entirely useless. Even crazy-expensive interventions involving several hours of professionals' time per week, for months on end, are wildly less effective than one might think…

It's hard to wrap your head around that when you got fit working out. They will firmly believe that obesity will be solved by people working out and having a stricter diet. I took me years to understand that it's doesn't work for an entire population. Honestly, even if that happened (everybody started working out), people would have a lot of problems with body image, as we can see in teenagers boys nowadays.

It's difficult to do but demonstrably possible. That's why it is hard to consider any non-willpower solution. And why it is very easy to be consumed by ego if you've done it. I used to be in the militant-willpower camp because I pulled myself up by the bootstraps, so to speak. I had to study... me, in order to make it work. I had to be smarter than default mode network me and anticipate my behavior.

To change my lifestyle meant somehow incorporating all the good behaviors I wanted to do but within the limitations of being me. It took a lot of work. I carefully measured my caloric intake (gram scale all the things) and expenditure (fitness watch with optical HR, fancy schmancy scale that does body fat estimation) plus doing things like: always taking the stairs, combine my morning run/cycle with my commute (shower at the office), taking the longer way, etc. Dropped 40kg. Went from couch to running half-marathons and cycling centuries. I had to completely change my relationship with food and study all of the nutrition stuff that was never taught to me. I had to unlearn habits instilled by my parents (emotional eating, boredom eating) which meant finding different ways to deal with stress and relieve boredom. ADHD is a bitch. And weed is awesome. Learning how to accommodate munchies without putting on weight also requires forethought.

No. It really isn't all that realistic for everyone to do what I did much less have the same privileges and opportunities. I had to treat my body like a biologist studying a critter. I was incredibly lucky to be at the right spot in my life where I hit a glass ceiling at work and had so much fuck you energy pent up from feeling out of control of my life. I chose to exert maximum control over my body in order to cope and prove something.

It was a monumental amount of effort over a two year period. It is extremely unrealistic to ask people to use a gram scale for their food consistently. Or to log/track their food intake for every bite. Or to always monitor their heart rate to estimate/track your caloric output. Hyper monitoring your body is a weird hobby.

I really do think instead we should be legislating and regulating food more strictly. Labeling isn't really enough. Food science is being weaponized, much like psychology has been with advertising. We shouldn't allow that kind of manipulation for profit.

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