And Arthur Dent can teach you to fly in just five words.
Fall. And. Miss. The. Ground.
What? That didn’t work? Must be you are weak. Or stupid. Or making excuses. Or all of the above. Try again and just try harder you lazy weak idiot.
What works to prevent obesity from developing in the teen years? Calorie counting? No, that increases the risk of obesity (and of eating disorders) developing.
What do most adults who are not overweight do? Calorie count? No, they stop eating when not hungry.
But the obese are weak and/or stupid because they don’t adequately count calories and stop eating according to that external number. An approach fails for the vast majority who attempt it and the problem is of course just that they were all too weak and/or stupid. Maybe if I insult them some more it will work better. Yeah, that’s the ticket. No need to try to improve upon the method and figure out how to get better results by doing it smarter.
Nah. They’s jes lazy and weak. Poke 'em with a stick.
“Even if I ate NO calories, I’d still gain weight!”
or
“I stayed on a 500-calorie diet for a month and gained weight!”
And I assure you I have run into more than a few of these idiots, mostly IRL but sometimes on this message board. The first one is beyond silly, and the second one still implies they must have the metabolic rate of a Gila Monster. And I’ve actually participated in controlled tests where we discovered an amazing ability (yes, even for me) to forget and under-estimate food consumption, day after day. I was convinced I was eating 800 calories, and I was eating 1200-1300.
I defy anyone to find even a single post on here or my message board, or anyplace off-board or IRL, where I’ve mocked overweight people. I’ve been overweight myself too, but ignoring that fact it’s just plain not Right to be a mean bitch.
I ask you this without a trace of snark… are you drinking while posting? Your previous comments were rational and insightful and this just seems like the rantings of a madman or someone who is very, very drunk.
I ask again… what makes you think that people of a “normal” weight do not watch what they eat? Do you really believe it’s just a matter of eating until they are not hungry? You are the one asserting that MOST of these people don’t do it, so where do you get this idea?
You seem very angry about what you perceive to be stereotyping done toward obese people, yet you seem to have no problem with perpetuating the factually inaccurate image of “normal” weight people being people who just don’t have to try at all. Absolute garbage.
Una, I didn’t say you did. But others have. The arrogance displayed by some here on this subject is above even the norms for this board. Yes, some obese folk are idiots and don’t even try. But many try to just eat less, or to eat a defined number of calories, and fail, and if while they do a fine job of beating themselves up over it, the “help” they get from many others is inexcusable.
Gruntled exactly appropriately moronic.
Sleeps the easiest way to answer is at a macro level. How prevalent do you think calorie counting has been in non-Western societies that have, up until recently have virtually no obesity? Anecdotally among males I have only known those who are overweight to be counting calories. Heck, I was a High School wrestler, and even among those cutting weight for competition no one counted calories. Among females more normal weight individuals seem to count but not as part of attempting to maintain their weight, rather they believe they need to lose weight and are counting calories in a pursuit of thinness. I literally have never met a normal weight individual whose tactic to maintain their current normal weight is to count calories (unless they are previously obese).
Oh and a cite for the result of counting calories in adolescents:
Again, I recognize that some obese adults do well counting calories, period. But for most that simple approach fails. The answer is not to use a bigger hammer, but to figure out which tool is the right tool.
And it is equally important to remember that the goal is better placed on long term health outcomes and not the weight alone, which is a mere proxy. Exercise and healthier eating will have beneficial effects on mortality and morbidity even if no fat is lost. The goal is reducing the mortality and morbidity and that is better correlated with the behaviors than with the scale, albeit fat loss will usually follow (and fat amount and location of fat do have independent corralations as well).
People who don’t drink (or drink to excess) don’t have to count the number of drinks they don’t have in order to not be alcoholics either. But I don’t see how that matters at all to people who DO have a drinking problem and are trying to do something about it.
People who count calories and still gain weight are apparently missing the point.
I appreciate the cite regarding teenagers, but what I’m really more interested in is this quote of yours:
Although you say that you have literally never met a normal weight person who counts calories your above quote goes a bit farther than that. You suggest that not only do normal weight people not count calories they also do not consciously control their portion sizes. You seem to think that we all just eat whatever we want until we’re full and go on with our lives. aybe a good number of the people you know
That belief is one that I see alluded to here on the board a lot. “Lucky” people who can eat whatever they want. People think “Oh you don’t know what it’s like to have to watch everything you eat!” Really? That is so not true.
I’ll agree that most normal weight people probably do not count calories daily, but I absolutely disagree that they don’t think about controlling their portion sizes OR what they choose to eat.
I absolutely love french fries. Holy crap, I could eat them twice a day every day if I let myself. What makes french fries even more delicious? Chili and cheese. I will occasionally allow myself to eat an order of chili cheese fries, but I don’t let myself do it too often even though I workout 7 days a week/365 days a year unless I am sick. I admit that I could workout every other day instead of every day if I wanted to, but I workout every day to give myself a bit more leeway in what I can eat.
Just like you have literally never met anyone who is at a normal weight who counts calories, all of my friends who are normal weights watch what they eat. They might not count every calorie, but they have a good idea of what they allow themselves daily and adjust accordingly. They also exercise a lot, especially as we all get older.
Do I tell these things to my overweight friends? Not unless they ask me. Even then I am cautious. I had someone that I considered a friend do the old “I would do anything to have your figure” thing and I brushed it off but she said it a couple more times and I said "Come workout with me and we’ll get you started. You’d have thought I had slapped her mother the way she reacted.
Another poster here made a great comparison once in a thread about weight issues. She said that she’s great at knitting/crocheting and over the years has practiced and gotten really good at it. She makes beautiful things. She said people will say to her “I sure wish I could make things like that” as if she just fell out of her mother’s womb knitting. She practiced and practiced and improved. This poster (an overweight woman) said that’s what she feels like when one of her overweight friends remarks on someone who is thin “I sure wish I was built like that.” It requires work and trial and error. It requires getting up out of bed to exercise when you want another hour of sleep. It means saying no to pizza or french fries more often than you say yes.
Am I saying all of this to feel superior and make an overweight person feel bad? Absolutely not. I real a lot of threads here where people are very knowledgeable about certain subjects and I admire it. I’m not brilliant, but I’m not stupid. If I wanted to dedicate the time and effort it takes to learn about the idiosyncrasies of the different world governments I could. It doesn’t mean that I’m weak or stupid because I don’t. It’s just not a priority for me. To me, exercise and eating right is a lot like that. It takes time, preparation*, and habit.
*- I really do believe preparation is a big big big key for eating better. When you take the time to plan out what you’re going to eat and prepare what you can ahead of time you won’t be doing what’s easiest (fast food/junk food/prepared food) when you’re hungry.
Acknowledged that the not “consciously control their portion sizes” was an overstatement, albeit there are some who do get away with that, and I suspect more of those who are normal BMI do than do not … but I cannot prove that with a cite. I will offer this small bit of a story however - two of my boys. Both would take a serving on their plate, and probably a bigger serving than they needed. One would just stop after a bitband ask me if I wanted it before he tossed it. His stomach was quick at getting the message to his brain. He has never had to be concerned about his weight. The other would finish what was there and he had gotten quite fat for a while. Now he has made a conscious effort to modify his lifestyle choices - not to count calories but to choose more healthy foods, to intentionally take a smaller serving and to stop before he takes more to give his body a chance to tell his brain he has had enough, and exercising about an hour a day. Over the past half a year this 15 year old has lost about 30#, lost 4 inches at his waist while growing 3 inches in height. But he has had to make the conscious effort his brother never needed to make to get there - as do I. And if he hadn’t succeeded I would not have felt he was weak.
Genetic predisposition is not destiny even in an obesiogenic society like ours, but going against it is tough and it is irritating at best to hear some lambast those who are struggling in that fight as “weak” and to discourage those who meet the guidelines that I have listed previously from taking advantage of surgery that may work to save their lives where dieting alone has and would very likely continue to fail.
"You suggest that not only do normal weight people not count calories they also do not consciously control their portion sizes. You seem to think that we all just eat whatever we want until we’re full and go on with our lives. "
You’re talking as if normal weight people are a homogenous group.
I know I certainly never did count until 30 years old. I used to just do a lot of activity, was underweight, and basically couldnt gain weight to save my life. Then I went back to university for about 6 years, activity slowly stopped over time as I became a bookworm, eating went up and one day I basically looked at scales and found Id gone from underweight to 20kg overweight. And it got worse after that because strangely enough being overweight can be a bit depressing.
I had to work like buggery to get my weight down to normal BMI again and still have to consciously work at it over 5 years later. Im also quite sure it was a lot easier for me to do so due to having previous experience of what being fit weight was like, there were many times it was quite tempting to just say ‘sod it, Im just going to be overweight now’.
It is worthwhile, it can be done, but it does vary in difficulty between people, and it is a lot harder to keep weight off once you’ve gained it than to never gain it at all. And I didnt even get to morbidly obese, where the challenges increase. If you find it easy and have managed it for over 5 years, thats great, but you are lucky if thats the case rather than the norm. The stats make it quite clear only 10% of seriously overweight people maintain significant loss for 5 years or more. The biggest and easiest thing by far is to never gain significant weight in the first place, once you do the game changes.
If you’ll go back and look you’ll find I was answering HIS idea that “most” normal weight people do this or that. How odd you take issue with my doing it, but not the person I was answering.
I guess I’m not really getting what you’re saying about the 10% maintaining their weight loss. I think you’ll find that many people here have said over and over that long term weight loss requires a permanent change in habits. In my experience working with overweight patients (even those who have had surgery) the weight gain comes about from going back to those old habits.
It’s easier to stay in bed than to exercise. It’s easier to swing by McDonald’s and get a value meal than it is to go to the store, buy the food and cook it. Old habits can be easy to fall back into. Perhaps that’s why there is so much regain on weight.
Or are you suggesting that only 10% keep it off for some other reason other than going back to those old habits which is totally controllable?
“I guess I’m not really getting what you’re saying about the 10% maintaining their weight loss.”
You should if you’ve read anything on the topic. Even with people making major changes in their lifestyle, maintaining it for over 5 years is rare.
“Or are you suggesting that only 10% keep it off for some other reason other than going back to those old habits which is totally controllable?”
Its ‘totally controllable’ in the same way any behavioural change is ‘totally controllable’. ie if you ignore the fact that we are human beings rather than just machines.
Its harder. Something that was just ‘normal’ is now something that has to be constantly monitored. When you eat what you know your body needs, your body will still tell you it wants more, it never just ‘feels like enough’ any more. When you miss exercise, you know it can be the start of things backsliding rather than no big deal. When you get an injury you have to worry about how long till you’re Ok again, and change your diet even further. A week off on holiday means you have to plan for when you get back.
Im wasting my time I know. But its not the same, maintaining weight loss is very different from never having had to lose weight in the first place. The loss of self trust alone makes it a very different scene.
Thank you for your concern about my education in weight loss. I have been working as a nurse with bariatric patients for nearly two years now so I think I do understand a bit more than you assume I do.
I don’t know everything there is to know about the subject, but I don’t know anyone who does.
Nobody said it wasn’t hard. I’m not sure why you feel that’s new territory in this thread.
You’re making very general blanket statements based on your own beliefs, apparently. Personal anecdotes are interesting but prove very little. A few of us have given personal anecdotes (myself included) in this thread as examples but I don’t think anyone here thinks that our experiences are solid gold fact for everyone so forgive me if I don’t just take your personal belief as the gospel when it comes to the science of weight loss.
I do not profess to have all the answers, but I do not accept “it’s hard” as a reason not to do something. Most worthwhile things in life are hard. Getting an education, maintaining a loving relationship, trying to stay as healthy as possible. I’d rather work with people to help them find a way to overcome obstacles rather than pat their backs and tell them it’s okay to give up.
Since you’re so well read on the topic I hope you’ll return with your data on this statement of fact you’re making. Please be sure to indicate how it has been determined how this “major change” in lifestyle is maintained and if the results are self reporting or measurable by scientific data. If you’re going to tell me that even after making lifelong changes (eating less and exercising regularly) and they’re still gaining weight I’d hope you’d be able to back that up.
Actually, they stop eating before they are full - which is an important difference. It takes the stomach quite a bit to tell the mind that its full. Its one of the ways a lot of thin cultures stay thin.
Eat mindfully
Eat small portions of rich foods, and largish portions of the other stuff.
Don’t eat until sated.
Eat slowly.
Culturally, we’ve turned all this around. We snack in front of the TV or eat in the car (the opposite of eat mindfully). We eat supersize candy bars, grande lattes and miniscule side salads. We think eating until you are full is good - we associate it with holiday feasts and so its psychologically engrained. And we eat on the go, not taking enough time for meals - so we’ve managed to stuff in an extra 200 unneeded calories per meal.
I’ve managed to avoid being overweight most of my life - I’ve been close and have dieted to avoid that “technically overweight” BMI, but I’ve spent most of my adult life well managed. Someone in one of our previous “fat threads” said “you don’t know what its like to be hungry all the time.” Yeah, actually, I do. I live my life “a little hungry” - with the exception of those holiday feasts.
You are, in my opinion, 100% right. Unfortunately doctors have only so much time with patients and just hand out generic information and almost a “one size fits all” approach to losing weight. Doubly irritating is that insurance companies will usually not pay for preventative measures for obesity. There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding weight loss not to even mention all of the crazy diets that are being sold to people.
If insurance companies would pay for x number of meetings with a nutritionist I think they’d find that over time their costs would decrease when paying out claims for obese patients. Hell, most insurance companies pay for one nutritionist appointment for someone who has been diagnosed with diabetes but many doctors fail to even tell their patients this.
I realize you’re having a lot of fun playing jerkwad here in this thread, but can’t you find some old person crossing the street somewhere you can mock?
If you can honestly sit there and profess that there isn’t a lot of conflicting information out there about weight and weight loss then I’m really not sure how much attention you’re paying to the world around you. There are arguments in the medical community about weight loss tools and methods among people who’ve spent the majority of their careers studying food and its relationship to the body. How relieved they’ll be when someone finally tells them that the amazing Gruntled on the Straight Dope Message Board has ALL the answers they seek.
“Thank you for your concern about my education in weight loss. I have been working as a nurse with bariatric patients for nearly two years now so I think I do understand a bit more than you assume I do.”
And Im a psychologist with an obvious reason for interest in the area, and if you are experienced in this area Im flabbergasted you dont know that stat or similar.
“Only a few studies have followed participants for longer intervals; in these studies, 13–20% maintain a weight loss of 5 kg or more at 5 y.”
“Thus, although the data are limited and the definitions varied across studies, it appears that 20% of overweight individuals are successful weight losers.”
A whopping great 5kg.
I can try and track down cites for the weight loss level success rates I managed if you really want to quibble over the percentages but I would hope the point has been made.
And this is a paper trying to make a case not to think of it as impossible. Further down is the National Weight Control Registry and the strategies people are following to maintain significant weight loss, ie >30kg at moroe than 5 years which I work on emulating. I do not consider the amount of work involved trivial.
Obviously my case is anecdotal but it makes the point that it doesnt just ‘get ok’ for people after X months, and I know that the success level of my case is rare rather than common because of the numbers above. If you have anything to show its common for long term weight loss to be maintained Id be interested to see it.
I see that your cite is a self reporting study which was conducted by randomly calling 500 numbers and finding 228 people with a BMI greater than 27. Of these 228 people 47 of them are self-reporting their success as keeping 10% off their body weight loss of for 1 year with only 28 of them getting under a BMI of 27.
Perhaps I am a big skeptical of self reporting results since I’ve too often seen food diaries where patients will turn in either that they ate 1 portion and then when I work with them their idea of a portion is 3x bigger than it should be OR they report that for 6 months they ingested approximately 1500 calories a day yet have gained close to 40 pounds in that amount of time.
So I guess you’ll just have to continue to be “flabbergasted” by my ignorance as you perceive it. If patients really are (as you vaguely put it) maintaining major changes to their lifestyles and 90% of them are STILL gaining weight back then I suggest they get to a specialist posthaste so they can be given head to toe tests and treatment and have their diet and exercise monitored in a medical facility so it can be determined exactly how their body is not performing as science shows bodies perform.
As a psychologist I know you’re well aware that patients are going to paint themselves in the best light possible. Do you really think that these people who are failing are truly exercising for an hour a day and keeping their caloric intake below 2000 calories and are just turning science on its ear by actually gaining weight or do you think maybe their falling back into their old habits and saying that their still doing their maintenance properly?
If you really believe that 90% of these people are scientific miracles then I think you have the opportunity to make a lot of money by proving this to the medical community.
I think we’re talking at cross purposes though. Im not saying that people wont be losing weight if they’re doing the tasks. The problem is ‘doing the tasks’ is a bit like saying ‘just dont inject the heroin then’. Its true but sort of misses the point.
Maintaining those regimes is a lot more work to maintain and harder to do in the long run than many people realise. It is not a simple process.
If I ate in the same fashion as my friends and coworkers, I would be as fat as them. But I’m not fat. It’s not because I am blessed with “good genes” or have a fast metabolism. It’s because I am *very *careful about what I eat, and how much I eat. Like you, I am always a little bit hungry, and I never eat until my belly is stuffed.
It’s not easy. I’ve been doing this for around 15 years, and it’s a daily struggle. I still crave French fries, ice cream, and fried foods, but I never touch them. I have given up a ***lot ***of foods, but in the end it’s all worth it.
The secret? Mental strength and discipline. 90% of fat people simply don’t have the strength and discipline to permanently alter their diet. No amount of education is going to change this.