Obesity/losing weight/maintaining weight loss is one of the most complex subjects we can deal with - any poster who posts something oversimplified is not doing the complexity of it justice.
Simply getting older changes how your body deals with food and gaining weight.
Any medical condition can change how overweight you are.
Any medication you take can change how overweight you are (including birth control).
The time of year can change how your body responds to food and exercise.
The people you hang out with and socialize with can affect how you eat.
As some people have mentioned, you really can’t overstate how important the psychology of food and eating is.
Most people aren’t just dealing with one factor, either - they have their family history of how they learned to eat and relate to food, they’re getting older and more sedentary, they might have multiple medical conditions that are complicating things, they’re busy at work and at home and don’t have a lot of time for making everything they eat from scratch - all of these factors make weight loss and maintaining weight loss the most complicated issue that vast swathes of people are dealing with.
Can some people *truly *not lose weight? Given the wide spectrum of human physiology, I have no problem saying yes, there can be people like that. I’d say for the majority of people who are unsuccessful at weight loss, as others have said already, it is so incredibly difficult/complicated that it might as well be impossible.
You’re assuming that poster was correct intheir estimation of the number of calories they were consuming. (And I remember that thread.)
That assumption is usually wrong, even when coming from smart people. Aside from the fact that 800 calories a day is a preposterously, unbelievably low number, most people simply aren’t aware of how many calories they’re eating, and the tendency is to enormously underestimate it.
I agree, but leaving absurd statements like a 50lb weight gain in 6 weeks with no change in diet unchallenged leaves people with the belief that they can never lose weight because the laws of thermodynamics seemingly don’t apply to them.
It certainly is harder for some people to lose weight and that needs to be recognized. If we recognize it in a way that is helpful and productive then it leads to better results than just throwing our hands up and complaining about how hard it is for some people to put away the twinkies.
That’s not difficult, per se, but I can’t imagine eating a diet like that and coming on a message board and claiming that my weight gain was hormonal. If anyone thinks that eating food like that DAILY is normal, then that is step one to solving their weight problem.
You know, I’m sure this will blow Boo Boo Foo’s mind, but I put on 19 pounds in a week.
Now, I had PIH, the weight was my body’s/heart’s way of protecting itself and my hands looked like Eddie Murphy’s in * The Nutty Professor* and as soon as the nasty little parasite that was causing the problem (also known as my beloved infant son) was cut out of my body, I went back to normal.
My point is, not all weight and fattness is actually necessarily fat - edema - caused by a variety of things including PCOS, pregnancy, heart desease, and a whole host of drugs can be a major player for some folks. It’s foolish to dismiss this medical fact out of hand just because it limits your self-rightousness.
Also, FWIW, I’m a woman with hypothyroidism who still manages to maintain a perfectly healthy bmi so there is no fat apologizing going on here.
Anecdotal, but I would like to mention the experience of my morbidly obese mother, who I would say is one of those folks the OP has in mind. To say it’s literally impossible for her to lose weight would of course be false. Laws of thermodynamics and all that. But it’s fantastically difficult. Her metabolism is incredibly low and she can’t exercise due to disability issues. For many years, she has wrestled with the problem by ordinary diet, taking her consumption down to 1200 calories per day. Although she stopped gaining weight, she didn’t lose either. Do the skeptics have any idea how maddeningly hungry one gets at this calorie intake? Or how maddeningly frustrating it is still not to lose weight notwithstanding such a level of sacrifice? Obviously this isn’t the problem for all obese people, of even most, but the syndrome under discussion (and attested by others) definitely exists.
At my urging - and with the reluctant support of her doctors (they don’t like it, but don’t see any other solution) - she embarked a few months ago on a radical ketotic very low calorie diet. She’s now eating only 600 calories a day, careful to get sufficient protein. In three months, she’s managed to lose 25 pounds. of which about ten probably are simply water released by depleting glycogen. She’s desperate and committed, so I hope she can stick to it. But for the skeptics to claim it’s just a matter of not stuffing her face says to me they have no idea how difficult are the hard cases.
Do you seriously believe you’re contributing to this thread by introducing causation such as water retention into a thread which obviously refers to body fat?
Seriously?
Clearly, this thread is about body fat, and if some people find it impossible to lose that body fat.
The post above by PBear42 absolutely has my utmost empathy. They pointed out their mother can’t exercise due to disability issues. End of discussion. Weight loss becomes very hard under those circumstances and people in that position have my utmost empathy.
Same deal with people who are genuinely knocked flat by an unavoidable thyroid problem. Lethargy and all that, mixed with an inability to exercise and be normally active.
The hormone problem doesn’t make you gain body fat though. Nor is it a glandular problem. It’s the excess of calories you’re eating in relation to the amount of calories you’re burning.
People who insist on denying that last sentence do themselves no favours.
In closing alice_in_wonderland, your post doesn’t blow my mind - it doesn’t even make a ripple. What blows my mind is Dara Torres at age 41, making her 5th Olympics and winning three Silver medals. That’s what rocks my world. She set a 100m freestyle time in 2008 a full 2.4 seconds faster than her previous fastest ever time 20 years earlier back in 1988.
I’ve got the utmost respect in the world for a woman like that. Her work ethic. Her devotion. Her ability to juggle motherhood with training. Her ability to get down to 8% body fat.
I’m curious what you think you’re contributing, actually.
However, I’m not willing to debate with someone who obviously has no idea what they’re talking about, and discusses an olympic swimmer in thread about people who can’t healthfully lose weight as if it were relevant.
A display of magnanimity on your part would allow you to note that I’ve addressed the OP on 4 separate occasions. I also addressed your personal condescension with regards to myself and you would do well to remember that in life, we often get back what we put out.
Your opinion that I “obviously have no idea” what I’m talking about is just that - an opinion - and it’s the 2nd display of personal condescension towards my position on your part now. Long term followers on this messageboard will be aware of my sporting history and background. Having undergone the most stringent scientific tests into my biology for year ater year after year - as in, at the Australian Institute of Sport level, it’s my view that I am eminently qualified to speak on matters regarding weightloss - especially in the field of athletic performance.
Indeed, at a personal level, I’m involved in a very successful weightloss health program with my local state government in which overweight people take up cycling and come on organised training rides. It is a very successful program and we have a rule of thumb which proves itself to be true, time after time, namely - if you can get fit enough to ride 200km per week, you WILL lose 2kg a month - healthily and consistently. I take immense pride that the “Cycle of Life” program that I’m involved in is consistently getting better longterm results than pretty much every other weightloss program out there. So next time you, or anyone else out there on this messageboard cares to express a view that I don’t know what I’m talking about? Ask yourself this question… are you getting up at 5am every day of the week, meeting up with folks of all ages and sizes, and taking them on training rides and showing them a new way to live their life? Because I am, I’ve helped hundreds of people thus far to change their lives through this program.
So, I will address the OP now for a 5th occasion… clearly, it is physically possible for any person to lose excess body fat through eithher calorie deprivation and/or excess energy expenditure. It really is quite a simple formula at the end of the day - energy in versus energy out.
However, the consensus indicates that our genetic body fat minimum slides upward with age - naturally - and also, once it is set at a higher level it doesn’t like to be dragged downwards again without great protest. This latter situation can be offset with a lifestyle change which involves loads of hard work. Some people naturally embrace hard work (either through sporting persuits or hard work in the work place) whilst some folks kinda struggle with the concept, whilst yet more are absolutely lazy fuckers.
There is inarguably a global obesity epidemic. Anecdotally this thread alone would indicate that no less than 15% of people who are defined as obese are clutching at the “health causation” excuse. My view is that less than 1% of people around the world who are defined as obese have a genuine health issue which causes their obesity, but 99% are trapped in the psychological tug-of-war which their new genetic body-fat-minimum has placed them in.
If you’re obese? Either low level, or upper mobidly obese? If you’re trying, really trying, to make lifestyle changes which raise the energy out ratio in relation to your energy in ratio? You’ll get my support and assistance every day of the week. I’ll introduce to similar folks who have already turned their life around and offer you every imaginable support group. But if you insist on clutching at dubious health causation reasons as to why you can’t make the lifestyle change? I can’t help you, not at all.
Long time follower of this message board here, often participating in threads about health and fitness, and nope, your history and background do not register at all. Sorry. Also, breaking news: don’t care.
Nice that you do good work. Does not make your points any more valid or invalid. Or your participation in this thread any more or less out of touch with the rest of the discussion. Or you an expert on Polycystic Ovary Disease. Which is a disease associated with insulin resistance and altered energy expenditure. The poster that you stated was not telling the truth stated something that medically is not at all impossible to have occurred as described: sudden hormonal shift associated with dramatic weight gain, some sizable portion of which, as evidenced by her description of swollen ankles, was fluid retention. She had, notably, made no claim that it was impossible that her calories in went up during that time, only that she was eating healthy foods only and exercising regularly, as she had been before.
True enough as far as it goes, and no one here has claimed anything else, so not sure who you think you are arguing with. The formula however is not as simple as some make it out to be when one digs at what regulates the different sides of that equation. That gets very complex, and from my point of view, very interesting. Those who find it interesting and want to discuss it are not making excuses, whether they are themselves obese, or, like me, a fitness/nutrition nut who spends part of his professional pediatrician life trying to help families prevent obesity in the first place. (Which no more allows me to argue from expertise than does your participation in your cycling program.)
And this is the tone, and the implied message, that you brought to this discussion by coming in stating that a poster was not telling the truth. In, frankly, a very arrogant manner.
Funny thing, I have not read a single example of that. I have read some people discussing what the scientific research has shown about a very interesting subject in a manner appropriate for GQ after the direct question was itself answered, and some sharing their own experiences with specific hormonal conditions. All very much on target for responding to a GQ question.
I do need to ask you, in your “expert” opinion, given that you think obesity is caused by some being “absolutely lazy fuckers”, why there has been an epidemic of lazy fuckdom spreading across the globe specifically over the last several decades?
Where did you get the idea that any one here wanted your help?
Could I get a link to that cycling program? The idea is interesting, but I couldnt find it.
“Having undergone the most stringent scientific tests into my biology for year ater year after year - as in, at the Australian Institute of Sport level, it’s my view that I am eminently qualified to speak on matters regarding weightloss.”
Uh no. This is a forum where its about cites and links to empirical research, not about ‘I am my cite’. Way too many people on the internet that are nobel laureates or whatever.
Theres nothing wrong with really caring about an issue. But the way you are making your case here is more likely to damage your case than to help it.
My daughter-in-law’s Mom used to work as a nurse in a dialysis clinic. She said that she’s seen obese recluses finally brought in by family or by emergency workers. They’d shed 75-80 pounds of retained water in their first dialysis.
Ok first of all, using the term “fatties” is completely disrespectful and rude. And how dare you name call on someone’s struggles. Everyone has their own unique flaws and it’s absolutely rude and wrong to point out other people’s instead of focusing on your own. The person who started this discussion is obviously having a hard time losing weight and is looking for help and answers, not ridicule. How would you like it if you were seeking help for something you are struggling with and you had people start degrading you and calling you names. Think before you speak. You don’t know what this person is going though.
Hi ColBrod, this thread is almost 4 years old. Generally we do not recommend posting to such old threads as some posters may not still be active or may not remember the discussion sufficiently well.
I would agree with you that the comment was insensitive and ignorant (on at least two levels), but that still wouldn’t be considered sufficient reason to re-open the thread.
Colbrod, we generally ask that old threads be revived in GQ only to add new factual information. Since this does not, I’m closing it. If you wish to discuss this further, you may start a new thread in IMHO.
