As it happens, this was the real epiphany, as in it woke me up to a way of looking at things that I had not noticed before:
It is the real epiphany, isn’t it? I actually had this one years before I actually started applying it. My mother had been an overweight child and terribly bullied by her older sister about it. She worked hard and lost the weight, but then spent her adulthood panicked about becoming fat again and worrying on my behalf about my weight even before I became overweight. I just refused to become like her about it. And some of that was the realization that calorie counting wasn’t working for many of the people I knew. So I ignored it and enjoyed my food.
I was not surprised when I did start gaining weight because I had to give up running and moved from a physically active job to a desk job at the same time. I was used to eating whatever I wanted because of the running. So I cut back on the treats but did not lose weight and, in fact, continued to gain at a slower pace.
There’s a lot of psychological stuff behind my weight gain, such as depression creating carb cravings and so forth but ultimately, my lifestyle made it hard to stick to a specific eating plan until Covid. At that point, I found myself determined to eat less because I was stuck at home with a bad back and barely able to walk so I knew I had to eat less. And that meant eating better to be sure I got the nutrition. So I started paying attention to what I ate. And some weight has come off. Exciting times.
In my considerable layman role as an amateur dietician, I think this is one of the unsung keys of dieting. Getting my leptin and ghrelin cycles to normalize was huge to me losing 50+ lb.
I guess the epiphany for me was that caloric restriction almost always leads to overeating. I have really only ever gained weight after trying to lose it.
I’ve been focused not on my weight but eating my meals at home rather than ordering in, reducing red meat consumption, cutting out sugar drinks, and most importantly, getting outside every day - which is tough in winter! One thing I’ve started doing when waiting for my son’s bus is just speed walking or jogging up and down my driveway. That’s a ten minute workout right there.
I don’t know what’s going to help everybody, and I have no idea if I’m losing weight because I’m not trying. But moving beyond black or white thinking about nutrition and exercise has been important for me and has caused me to make more healthier choices more often.
I hate ghrelin. Along with fat cells that don’t die but just shrink and then start shrieking to be fed.
Well this is kind of a tautology for an argument. The only possible way to burn fat is through calorie restriction.
If we over-eat, we gain weight. We know that!! This is the problem.
The epiphany, is we have to stick with the program, long term, and permanent lifestyle changes.
The statistics it is true, are not good. I read somewhere that something like 90% of people who “lost weight” gained it all back, and more, within 2 years.
No it’s not. That statement is very misleading.
That may be your epiphany, but it isn’t mine.
Research demonstrates that long-term, sustained weight loss is basically impossible for 97% of people. I don’t believe this is a personal responsibility thing, it’s an environmental and socioeconomic thing. But we are left to muddle through in the circumstances we were given, so we do the best we can as individuals to mitigate the damage of our environment.
One of the first things they teach disordered eaters is to stop restricting calories. If you compare people who never dieted to people who dieted, the dieters are fatter. The only sensible conclusion is that the odds are overwhelming that attempts to lose weight will result in more weight gain in the future.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight, or even trying to lose weight, because it’s hard to be fat in this society, so I can’t blame anyone for trying. I can’t blame myself for trying. Certainly there is a billion dollar “wellness” industry extremely invested in us trying - and it works! I’ve seen posters on this board uncritically celebrate severely disordered eating because it’s leading to weight loss therefore it must be worthwhile, never mind what it was potentially doing to that person’s health.
For my own personal goals, I’m more interested in categorical things that will improve my health regardless of whether they result in weight loss. If they do, great. If not, I’m taking active steps toward what I really want - better health. Better mobility, better cardiovascular fitness, better strength, better nutrition, better mental health, all of those things can be had at any time by anyone, if we can get past the extreme black and white thinking. “Oh, it doesn’t count if I only exercise for five minutes.” Yes it does! “It’s not worth it unless I’m losing weight.” Yes it is!
It is true that you can restrict calories without counting them, that is one result of what I have been doing. I think @Common_Tater’s main point is that temporary diets don’t work, eating changes have to permanent for the results to last, and (this is my add-on) those changes will probably need to get more stringent over time as we age and our natural metabolic levels slow down.
As for alternatives to calorie restriction, it is pretty difficult to lose more than a little weight through exercise alone, without also restricting calories. At least this has been my experience. Exercise certainly helps keep one’s metabolism up and calories burning, but you have to strategize ways to avoid an increase in appetite caused by increased exercise.
I’m one of the odd ones who was only able to lose weight by counting and restricting calories (and have kept it off). Cutting back on unhealthy foods just wasn’t enough. No idea why it worked this time vs all the times I couldn’t stick with it; something just seemed to click.
Who told you that? LOL
That may be your epiphany, but it isn’t mine. Research demonstrates that long-term, sustained weight loss is basically impossible for 97% of people. I don’t believe this is a personal responsibility thing, it’s an environmental and socioeconomic thing. One of the first things they teach disordered eaters is to stop restricting calories. If you compare people who never dieted to people who dieted, the dieters are fatter. The only sensible conclusion is that the odds are overwhelming that attempts to lose weight will result in more weight gain in the future.
“Yes - it is impossible! The experts tell us this is so. There is no hope, there is nothing we can do.”
Oh well? Is that the message you’re trying to convey?
Not for me either. I also reduced the total amount of what I was eating by a quarter to a third (guesstimate), including hugely reducing between-meal eating. So I’m eating much less food, and most of it better quality than before.
Well, the way you framed it makes it sound like a bad thing, rather than a liberating thing, which is how I experienced it. Kind of the same way a therapist once told me, “All signs point to you having a biologically based mental illness. It isn’t going away.”
A certain kind of person might take that as a doom prophecy, but for me it was like, “Yes, I can stop reaching for this impossible to obtain narrowly defined arbitrary goal and start focusing on the business of living.” And the upshot of that is that once I stopped trying to cure myself, my mental health improved considerably.
I see the same process at work with regard to losing weight. I reject the notion that thinness is an unequivocal good. I recognize that most people wouldn’t give two shits about being fat if it weren’t so heavily stigmatized, as evidenced by all the thin people who neglect their own health and feel morally superior anyways. Seems to me the best place to start is self-acceptance, then you can get past extreme ways of thinking about diet and exercise, because your self-respect does not absolutely depend on being thin. I ask myself, what do I actually want? Better mobility, increased strength, eating more fruits, less eating out (it’s eating a hole in my wallet), fewer of those sugar crashes, you know, quality of life stuff. Some people do enough of that and they start losing weight. An even smaller fraction of those people keep the weight off. But the good news is, most of us get to be healthier no matter what.
There’s a book about making life changes called The Magic of Momentum by Stephen Guise (the mini habits guy.) One of the concepts presented there is that at any given point in time, there is always something we can do to move a little bit closer to the life we value. For me, right now, it could be getting off my ass and drinking a half bottle of water. Or running up and down my driveway while I wait for my kid to get off the bus. Or stretching when I’m feeling stressed out. Or if I’m too depressed to do anything, simply standing up. Every day it’s just finding the ways to ask yourself, what’s the next thing I can do? And that has a snowball effect.
And if it leads to weight loss, great! And if it doesn’t, somehow I’ll manage.
(Guise also has a book: Mini-Habits for Weight Loss, which I found pretty sensible.)
Every person who ever lost weight from increased activity, changes to their diet, and other lifestyle changes. Not laughing.
Sugar is the big one. Starchy carbs are converted to Sugar.
3-4 years ago I was 105kg (191cm tall). I did a 4 week diet program based on the Insulin Index and learned a lot about what to eat. experimented with what worked, got regular exercise going (easier to do when you weigh less) Now I’m 83kg.
I exercise before breakfast, avoid starchy carbs and sugar in the main, make sure I get enough fibre, protein and good fats and no snacks between meals.
Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy. I can eat a burger and chips if I want, or pasta, but I just know that needs to be the exception rather than the rule. 2 or 3 days of bad eating, the scales start going up again. 1 day in 4 or 5, no issues.
More important than just the weight, prior to dropping the weight my blood sugar was pre-diabetic and my cholesterol was worrying. Now my blood sugar is fine and while my cholesterol number is similar, the good and bad have reversed so I’m a lot healthier.
I had a very eye-opening exchange with my Aunt a few months ago that really changed my outlook on things. She is my best friend, she is a former bulemic who had binge eating disorder for most of her life, and she was recently diagnosed as diabetic. She told me that the medication has made it so that food is no longer rewarding to her.
Horrified, I asked her, “Without food, how do you regulate your emotions?”
“I just have to feel them. It sucks.”
In that moment I was able to see outside of myself a little and realize how deeply problematic my operating assumption was in that conversation. Of course food is for regulating your emotions. What, you don’t expect me to actually feel what I’m feeling, do you? It was such an automatic reaction, but I was never really aware of it as acutely as I was in that moment.
This inspired in me a greater willingness to be aware of stress when it first manifests in my body and attend to it that moment rather than push it aside, but most importantly to just be willing to sit with it. This can get really Buddhist really fast. I found that often times I am more than equipped to handle whatever I’m feeling. (This doesn’t just apply to food, but screen time as well.)
Currently, I am tracking two things. Whether I prepared/ate all meals at home and whether I abstained from sugar drinks. I use a habit tracking app so I can see exactly how often I am lapsing, and I use a bad habit tracker that allows notes to contextualize the circumstances in which the lapse occurred, so I can see developing patterns.
I find my brain just accepts categorical changes more easily than the constant negotiation and decision fatigue that comes with using my best judgment.
Yes! Brilliant self-awareness, and now that you’ve said it, I can see that it parallels what I’ve been doing. Thank you.
Don’t wait! The key here is to learn to enjoy the exercise you do. Do you like any sport? Shoot hoops, go to the batting cage, play pickle ball, try frisbee golf, take your dog to the dog park and chase her…to quote Caillou’s dad, “exercise is just another word for play.”
Or, if you really want to change your body composition…
Do what @InternetLegend did
Building muscle will help you burn fat. Muscles require calories to maintain (unlike fat), so if you can fall in love with being strong, then lifting weights is where it’s at.
This is incorrect. And I don’t just speak from personal experience.
(My bold)
As for diet, don’t fear the carb. Instead, think of sugar as the bad stuff. You want to minimize it, which means eating carbs that usually have fiber in them. And if you are trying to build muscle (you should try it!), you need protein too.
Don’t think of food as a vice. It’s fuel. You need fuel so you can be active. Like nature intended.
And stay hydrated. It will help keep you feeling full. Plus, water is good for you. We’re mostly made of the stuff!
Aha, this could be a big reveal for me as well because I am aware that I eat more carbs when I am down, and I am frequently down, so I am likely feeding the problem instead of reaching for the solution. Hmm. I was already thinking I should speak to a nutritionist about my current work schedule/eating problem. I need to work this awareness into the mix.