"The most important thing you can do to lose weight"

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Replies

  • biggsterjackster
    biggsterjackster Posts: 419 Member
    I just wonder why people lie to themselves. Or are they really not aware of what they eat all day?
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    N5QPbRH.gif

    Bump.
  • Dvdgzz
    Dvdgzz Posts: 437 Member
    Great thread but that documentary vid doesn't work anymore.

    I really like the belly dancer vid where she asks if they mean egg and vegetable calories or crème cake calories. "Just calories." Exactly! CICO
  • Shrinking_Erin
    Shrinking_Erin Posts: 125 Member
    @AsISmile I love that show. One man stood out to me. He thought he was eating so healthy .. And for breakfast would pour like half a container of double cream on his cereal. Topped with jam. Yikes.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    yeah who knew it was never about our metabolism...we just were eating too much...
  • Shrinking_Erin
    Shrinking_Erin Posts: 125 Member
    @RunRutheeRun @ funny how certain things catch on and never seem to let go.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    @eringurl33 yep :smiley: I suppose it was easy to believe that lie...
  • Dvdgzz
    Dvdgzz Posts: 437 Member
    Soopatt wrote: »
    I am 14kgs down, despite many many slips, I dust myself off and try again. If you face your nature, you have to succeed.


    Awesome. It's all about consistency over a long period of time. Momentary stumbles are nothing if you get back on track. Good job!
  • Scamd83
    Scamd83 Posts: 808 Member
    edited March 2016
    blues4miles wrote: »
    biggsterjackster wrote: »
    I just wonder why people lie to themselves. Or are they really not aware of what they eat all day?

    I think a lot of people don't know what a 'normal' 2,000 calorie a day diet looks like. I know when I'm not watching what I eat I can easily consume 3,000-3,500 a day in fast food and not really feel like I'm overdoing it. I think the calorie counts that are being mandatory everywhere is sort of helping, but denial is certainly the easier option. I think there are a lot of people who recognize they are eating too much, and that's what's making them overweight, they just don't have the desire to do anything about it. I think the deniers are not the majority. Also there are probably some folks who think exercise is the magic bullet. "oh I walked the dog, so I can eat this 1,000 calorie hamburger."

    I have a theory there are two kinds of overeaters in the world: bingers and snackers. I am a binger, eat giant meals of huge calories. A lot of the folks in this category know what they are doing is bad for them. But some folks just don't realize how bad, that yeah you just ate a full day's calories in one meal, no joke. Or no, it's not 'normal' to eat out for 14 meals a week, all of them high calorie.

    Then there are the snackers. Some people realize they have a problem, 'I just can't stop snacking!' Some people are way in denial. That yes, you ate 10 cookies today, it just didn't seem like that because you kept coming back for one more, and 'nibbled' on cheese while you were cooking, etc etc.

    So I think it's easy to be in denial either way. Keeping a food log is a big first step that most people are never going to do. But I've cheated myself with a food log before I began to wonder who I thought I was fooling, myself? Obviously that was more than 1 cup of ice cream, why did I only log it as a cup? Why didn't I take the time to measure it? I might be fooling my brain but I am not fooling my body.

    I think this is the problem, obesity hasn't been that much of a problem in the world until relatively recently. People used to know how much to eat visually, but now we're bombarded every day with calls to eat, or adverts as they're better known. It plays havoc with the mind in a world when we're more stressed than ever and the usual response to stress is food. To help with the obesity epidemic food adverts really need to be banned in my opinion.

    And yes, I know a few people who come up with some weak justification for eating. Like a 30 minute walk meant it was okay to have a couple of doughnuts. But even on here I've seen someone actually say "It's a good thing I burn 1000 calories from doing housework everyday or I'd put on even more weight". I lose count of how many people claim they're eating well/good/right/healthy without actually saying how much they consume. And other myths such as starvation mode where somehow people gain weight from eating less, pushing that myth really should come with an automatic ban.
  • Sugarbeat
    Sugarbeat Posts: 824 Member
    biggsterjackster wrote: »
    I just wonder why people lie to themselves. Or are they really not aware of what they eat all day?

    I don't think they're lying so much as not understanding how they can still eat what they want and lose weight.

    Completely off topic, but we have a guinea pig very similar to the first one in your photo. They're such funny little things.
  • successgal1
    successgal1 Posts: 996 Member
    Bizurke51 wrote: »
    I tried explaining this to my friend who told me she wanted to give up sugar to lose weight. I told her forgot about sugar its calories calories calories, but she got mad and wouldn't listen. Why would you listen to someone whose lost 56lb anyway?

    Just had this conversation, only the she was a he and the sugar was "carbs".
  • led2012
    led2012 Posts: 26 Member
    Bump

    Thanks for sharing!
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited March 2016
    HappyCampr1 wrote: »
    Scamd83 wrote: »
    blues4miles wrote: »
    biggsterjackster wrote: »
    I just wonder why people lie to themselves. Or are they really not aware of what they eat all day?

    I think a lot of people don't know what a 'normal' 2,000 calorie a day diet looks like. I know when I'm not watching what I eat I can easily consume 3,000-3,500 a day in fast food and not really feel like I'm overdoing it. I think the calorie counts that are being mandatory everywhere is sort of helping, but denial is certainly the easier option. I think there are a lot of people who recognize they are eating too much, and that's what's making them overweight, they just don't have the desire to do anything about it. I think the deniers are not the majority. Also there are probably some folks who think exercise is the magic bullet. "oh I walked the dog, so I can eat this 1,000 calorie hamburger."

    I have a theory there are two kinds of overeaters in the world: bingers and snackers. I am a binger, eat giant meals of huge calories. A lot of the folks in this category know what they are doing is bad for them. But some folks just don't realize how bad, that yeah you just ate a full day's calories in one meal, no joke. Or no, it's not 'normal' to eat out for 14 meals a week, all of them high calorie.

    Then there are the snackers. Some people realize they have a problem, 'I just can't stop snacking!' Some people are way in denial. That yes, you ate 10 cookies today, it just didn't seem like that because you kept coming back for one more, and 'nibbled' on cheese while you were cooking, etc etc.

    So I think it's easy to be in denial either way. Keeping a food log is a big first step that most people are never going to do. But I've cheated myself with a food log before I began to wonder who I thought I was fooling, myself? Obviously that was more than 1 cup of ice cream, why did I only log it as a cup? Why didn't I take the time to measure it? I might be fooling my brain but I am not fooling my body.

    I think this is the problem, obesity hasn't been that much of a problem in the world until relatively recently. People used to know how much to eat visually

    I was reading in another thread about a study which showed that people actually aren't eating much more than they did 50 years ago. It's just that we're so much more sedentary than we used to be that our bodies can't use all the energy we're supplying them with. The Gov't has done studies on the overall consumption rate and food production. We're just not as active and we haven't lowered consumption to match.

    I wish I remembered which thread that was so I could refer you to it. Pretty sure the studies were linked somewhere in the Nutrition Debate section.

    I think it was in the CICO thread in this section that got deleted.

    I think it's debatable and we don't really know (and I tend to think we are eating more). There are two ways of tracking consumption, neither great. One about production and sales (that doesn't account for waste, but the question is whether we are wasting lots more today) and the other from personal tracking/recall which has been shown to be quite unreliable. I think the study referenced uses the latter, but one issue with the latter is that the people in the highest weight categories tend to report LOWER consumption than the thinner people, suggesting that there's an unsurprising problem with either honesty in reporting (people get embarrassed or say what they think they should) or simple awareness (which I do think plays into a lot of overeating).

    Here's an article that goes into the calorie estimates, among other things: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/upshot/americans-are-finally-eating-less.html?_r=0
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    I'm just giving useful old posts a bump. Don't mind me.
  • biosciencegal
    biosciencegal Posts: 16 Member
    bump
  • audiovisual1980
    audiovisual1980 Posts: 2 Member
    Is it true that youre body will start slowing down in losing weight after losing the water weight? and also losing weight is it solely based on counting calories,6mi jogging, should amp up how long you jog or how many miles you jog or is it just calorie counting and the fact youre just plain doing something that will help you lose weight lol
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    blues4miles wrote: »
    HappyCampr1 wrote: »
    I was reading in another thread about a study which showed that people actually aren't eating much more than they did 50 years ago. It's just that we're so much more sedentary than we used to be that our bodies can't use all the energy we're supplying them with. The Gov't has done studies on the overall consumption rate and food production. We're just not as active and we haven't lowered consumption to match.

    I agree with this. Prior to WWII my family were a bunch of farmers. You could eat a lot when you were keeping a whole farm going with just your growing kids. Probably didn't have access to as much convenience food or candy as I did, probably the bread they ate might not be as nutritious and calorie dense as the bread I get, but still they could eat a fair amount with all the work they were doing. 1941 sent their sons and daughters to war and to work. It enabled them and their children to choose non-farming occupations post-war. It enabled many of their grandkids to be the first in their families to go to college.

    I suspect many families could tell the same story. Maybe 3 to 4 generations ago, people had to work HARD, physically, to survive. And when they sat down to ate, the food just wasn't as nutritious and high calorie as it is now. Look at WWII soldiers and how scrawny they are in comparison to the modern soldier. What we've done for food has been amazing. People were starving and working hard just to get by and feed themselves a couple generations ago. Now the food is so much higher quality and cheaper. I wouldn't trade my walks or my running for going back on the family farm just to be thinner. We should be amazed with the advancements in industrialization and food quality. We just need to be careful. Maybe in 50 years from now they'll be devising food that is high volume and low calorie in order to deal with our new modern problems. But the food we have now was fixing an amazing survival issue from 50+ years ago.

    I gardened for 5 hours over the weekend. I was exhausted and my hamstrings are sore. I can only imagine how much I could eat if I did this 10-12 hours per day. During the height of the season, it's not unusual for my mom to put in 8 hours per day gardening and her weight always hovers around Under Weight.
  • upoffthemat
    upoffthemat Posts: 679 Member
    audiovisual1980 wrote: »
    Is it true that youre body will start slowing down in losing weight after losing the water weight? and also losing weight is it solely based on counting calories,6mi jogging, should amp up how long you jog or how many miles you jog or is it just calorie counting and the fact youre just plain doing something that will help you lose weight lol

    Many people have really good numbers when they begin losing weight due to losing water weight and weight doesn't come off as easy as you go along. The thing to remember is something you will hear here often, weight loss isn't linear. You will have weeks you don't lose as much and weeks you may even gain. From your picture I am guessing you are female. You will have the added frustration of your period and water retention one week a month at least. This is a long term process and you have to take a long view and not react to every up and down. Stay to a plan.

    As far as calorie counting, the point of calorie counting is to maintain a calorie deficit. Eat less calories than you burn. Burning more calories will allow you to eat more, but exercise isn't needed to lose weight. There are many people here who lost weight without exercising at all or never exercised for many months. That isn't to say exercise doesn't have a place, it helps make your body perform better, it can help you feel better about yourself, it can be a social activity, it can allow you to eat more, it can greatly increase your quality of life.


    There are some great threads and tips to help you if you are new here in the getting started section:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/categories/getting-started

    Read the threads here and if people sometimes seem to have a nasty tone ignore it. A lot of highly successful people don't waste a lot of time on sugar coating what works, but they give awesome advice. Sometimes a good shock to the system is what people need.
  • WendyLaubach
    WendyLaubach Posts: 518 Member
    The poor woman--she sometimes eats 3 cream cakes all by herself, but she's convinced herself that she routinely eats 1400 calories a day.
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    diannethegeek wrote: »
    This thread could use a bump.

    Gg6wa3S.gif?noredirect

    Best bump gif ever.

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