Why is it hard to make friends over 30? (2012)

Yes, the statistics of people in weight loss programs keeping their weight off is really low, but this could have many explanations:

* Are they included because they wanted a one-time solution to a permanent problem?

* Did they initially get coaching that they later lost?

* Did the changes they made temporarily not work for them personally in the long term?

Even if this is statistics of everyone that has ever tried losing weight, does it matter? Humans haven't evolved in the 50-100 years that obesity has exploded. This makes it conclusive that it can't be physiological, does it not?

So it could be culturally behavioral, as a society, or individual, and it's looking like the former, but does it matter?

What is more likely, that we as a culture fixes the obesity problem against any market forces pushing it, or that you die of obesity before that happens, unless you individually go against the grain of what is pushed upon you?

The only way to lose weight is to make changes you can see yourself living with for the rest of your life. This sounds heavy, but none of your reflex habits seem heavy to you, but might to someone else. That's exactly why thin people seem to have it so easy (which they do). They have had a healthy habit of exercise and limited portion sizes their entire life, so they don't even have to think about it.

You don't need exercise to lose weight, but you definitely need it to feel healthy. You need to find something you can either bare to do for the rest of your life, or best case enjoy doing. Soon enough it will be a habit you don't consider anyways.

Same goes for food. There is no trick to it, and not one diet that works for everyone (in terms of psychology). Some can do it by counting everything they put in their mouth. Some can do it by forcing them to sit down everytime they put something in their mouth (so you don't walk around and snack without realizing). Some just cut out any drink that isn't water. Some cut out any snacks that isn't their one absolute favorite. Some just eat once a day without regards to portion size. Etc etc etc. It is harsh, but no one else will do it for you. You don't have to do anything about it if you don't want to, but it's not productive to hide behind lies as to why you can't.

I've found that competitive gaming has been pretty good for this, with the stipulation that it mainly applies to 1v1 games which are usually played at live events (such as fighting games like Street Fighter and Super Smash Bros Melee, or card games like Magic: The Gathering), rather than games which tend to have more of an online presence (MOBAs like League of Legends and digital card games like Hearthstone are less good for this). Pretty much any game that has an active local scene will have at least one local business (usually a game store or an arcade) that runs weekly events for a nominal entry fee.

The immediate benefit to playing a competitive game that has an active local scene is that you'll find yourself in the same space and spending time with the same group of people for several hours at a time on a weekly basis, so at the very least you'll become acquainted with most of the locals. Attend enough of these weekly events and it's usually pretty easy to get plugged in with people who run smaller, less-official events on the other days of the week. One of the things I like about Magic: The Gathering is that I can move to any major city, go to a Friday Night Magic event, and quickly get plugged into a local network of people who share my interests.

If you ever take your game beyond the local level, then you'll also probably end up forming more social connections with people in the local scene, as traveling to events becomes much more economical when you do it with a group of people to split the cost of hotel room and gas. When you travel to an event with a group, you end up spending a lot of time with the same group of 3-4 people over a period of a weekend, which can be a great bonding experience. There's also the fact that traveling to events like this has the effect of making you feel like you're competing together as a "team," even if you're all competing individually; it's fun to root for people from your own city, and it's these sorts of experiences that really offer the kind of "struggle" that I think is good for facilitating bonding. Part of the benefit of traveling to an event as a group is having people to commiserate with after you get knocked out of the tournament.

The "commiserate with and/or root for people I recognize from my own city" can also apply to people you didn't travel with, and in fact having serendipitous encounters with people you know but didn't travel with can also be a great bonding experience. When you drive four hours to an event and then see someone you recognize from home, it can make for a great, "Hey, good to see us!" moment, and even if it's not someone you know really well, you always have "so how's your tournament run going?" as an icebreaker. These moments can often end in making dinner plans where you get all of the dozen or so people from your home city to meet up at a bar or diner, and a lot of the most memorable experiences I have from competitive gaming come from those late-night dinners.

I've found that any hobby that offers "casual regular events on a weekly basis, plus occasional group trips for the people who take it more seriously" is a great recipe for bonding; I played competitive Pokemon for several years despite not enjoying the game particularly simply because of the great social experiences that I had with playing it. I have friends who are into cosplay and anime conventions who have had analogous experiences. Competitive gaming is the main one that I engage in that I consider "strictly recreational," but I've also had some similar experiences with the local game dev scene and with local writing groups, which are adjacent to my professional life. Some of my favorite experiences in game development have come from going to a big event like PAX and just having friends (both from internet and from back home) stop by my booth to chat. There's just something great about traveling across the country to an unfamiliar city and seeing a familiar face that I find really special, and events like these can also be a great chance to turn "internet friends" into "real friends."

I think this is, in its own way, a kind of shared struggle: meeting with groups of expats provided you with a group that you could bond with over the shared experiences and modern "hardships" of adapting to life in a new city.