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The complexity of weight loss

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  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    goldthistime wrote: »
    OP, you suggest "small permanent changes" as the path to meaningful change. I hear it frequently but I have trouble making it fit with my own experiences. Perhaps it's a semantics thing. Care to expound upon that idea?

    This specific episode of Nia Shanks' Lift Like a Girl podcast with Heather Robertson I recall being a really good discussion of that concept: http://webtalkradio.net/internet-talk-radio/2015/05/04/lift-like-a-girl-how-to-lose-weight-and-keep-it-off-long-term/
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
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    goldthistime wrote: »
    I'm in agreement with the blogger that ELMM advice, if given by itself, is unhelpful. I can't imagine someone saying "Wow, that just never occurred to me" unless it was dripping with sarcasm. Helpful as a mantra perhaps.

    Like I said, it was helpful for me to think of it that way.

    Basically (I think I explained this upthread, but since you express doubt that anyone could honestly have this experience will recap), there is so much nonsense about dieting floating about and I'd never really done it and didn't think I ate that much (or differently than in the past) and so I felt like I had to do some kind of special diet or dramatic thing to lose weight and wasn't willing. Then I realized I was really overweight, much more so that I'd acknowledged before my "this must stop" moment (bad photo, mainly). And I decided I had to figure out how to lose weight. Once I did that, and stopped merely perusing "how to lose 20 lbs in a month" type stupidity or "why cutting out X will cause weight loss" articles, I realized that, hey, of course you lose weight by eating less than you burn. And that meant eating less, moving more.

    After that (seemingly obvious, sure, but from what I see on MFP, hardly intuitively obvious in our culture -- the overcomplication is more common) realization, I then had to figure out HOW to eat less and move more, but knowing what I had to do made the rest of it much more doable (and really not that hard once it was simplified in my head).

    I still tried some things that I later discarded -- my initial "how to eat less" program was Ornish, which I quickly decided was not sustainable for me or necessary -- but knowing the goal was to eat less and move more helped. (Moving more was similarly not bad -- once I dropped the idea that I needed to spend an amount of time per day that seemed overwhelming or do some horrible exercise program I found not fun -- a class or video -- and could just run a little or swim and work up and do other things that seemed more enjoyable for me, as movement was the key, that was easy too).

    Probably the main thing that changed was I hit a point where I had a really concrete reason (things have to change), but simplifying the goal helped too. For me, before I started "losing weight" seemed impossible, mysterious, something I didn't believe my body would respond to. Telling myself I needed to exercise and eat better (and less) was much more concrete and solvable, something I could apply my skills and knowledge of myself to.
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    @Azdak fair point. I have indeed reintroduced syrup but at a much smaller quantity. Like a tablespoon.

    j962pbj0byig.jpg
  • Annie_01
    Annie_01 Posts: 3,096 Member
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    goldthistime wrote: »

    Edited for a specific point

    OP, you suggest "small permanent changes" as the path to meaningful change. I hear it frequently but I have trouble making it fit with my own experiences. Perhaps it's a semantics thing. Care to expound upon that idea?

    I look at those "small permanent changes" something like this...

    It is easier to move one small stone at a time than it is to move the entire mountain at one time. In theory it is correct...but...

    When you bring in the emotional aspect...sometimes we feel as if we need that entire mountain gone now.

    I have experienced both mentalities in my life. Many things I have the clarity to realize that by moving one stove at a time I will eventually reach my destination. Other times...life has felt so desperate that if I didn't move the mountain all at one time I wouldn't survive long enough to reach my destination.

    I think that is one reason why so many people choose a drastic route to reach their weight loss goals. Hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't start a thread about eating a VLCD or can I lose xxx weight in xxx weeks. Some of those people ask those type of questions because they just truly don't know. There are some however that I believe they are so desperate for whatever reason that they will try anything.

  • SingingSingleTracker
    SingingSingleTracker Posts: 1,866 Member
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    jgnatca wrote: »
    The doctor who runs my weight loss clinic reposted an editorial that resonates with me and my experience. If I were to summarize the article, trashing the "eat less move more" mantra does not mean I blame carbs, or that I absolve people of personal responsibility.....

    Here's another article that I had bookmarked in 2015:

    "Why Eating Less and Exercising More are the Best Ways to Lose Fat"

    http://www.completehumanperformance.com/eat-less-move-more/

    It's written by former triathlete Armi Legge who is now a nutrition consultant for athletes at CHP (Complete Human Performance) and hosts CHP Radio.

    Armi does a pretty good job of supporting the ELMM mantra.

  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited December 2016
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    Annie_01 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    goldthistime wrote: »
    I'm in agreement with the blogger that ELMM advice, if given by itself, is unhelpful. I can't imagine someone saying "Wow, that just never occurred to me" unless it was dripping with sarcasm. Helpful as a mantra perhaps.

    Like I said, it was helpful for me to think of it that way.

    Basically (I think I explained this upthread, but since you express doubt that anyone could honestly have this experience will recap), there is so much nonsense about dieting floating about and I'd never really done it and didn't think I ate that much (or differently than in the past) and so I felt like I had to do some kind of special diet or dramatic thing to lose weight and wasn't willing. Then I realized I was really overweight, much more so that I'd acknowledged before my "this must stop" moment (bad photo, mainly). And I decided I had to figure out how to lose weight. Once I did that, and stopped merely perusing "how to lose 20 lbs in a month" type stupidity or "why cutting out X will cause weight loss" articles, I realized that, hey, of course you lose weight by eating less than you burn. And that meant eating less, moving more.

    After that (seemingly obvious, sure, but from what I see on MFP, hardly intuitively obvious in our culture -- the overcomplication is more common) realization, I then had to figure out HOW to eat less and move more, but knowing what I had to do made the rest of it much more doable (and really not that hard once it was simplified in my head).

    I still tried some things that I later discarded -- my initial "how to eat less" program was Ornish, which I quickly decided was not sustainable for me or necessary -- but knowing the goal was to eat less and move more helped. (Moving more was similarly not bad -- once I dropped the idea that I needed to spend an amount of time per day that seemed overwhelming or do some horrible exercise program I found not fun -- a class or video -- and could just run a little or swim and work up and do other things that seemed more enjoyable for me, as movement was the key, that was easy too).

    Probably the main thing that changed was I hit a point where I had a really concrete reason (things have to change), but simplifying the goal helped too. For me, before I started "losing weight" seemed impossible, mysterious, something I didn't believe my body would respond to. Telling myself I needed to exercise and eat better (and less) was much more concrete and solvable, something I could apply my skills and knowledge of myself to.

    I doubt too many people struggle with the concept that they have to "eat less" in order to lose weight. It is the "HOW" IMO that creates the problem.

    I actually disagree with this. I think a LOT of people are in denial that they need to eat less and claim they don't eat that much (I thought that) or focus on how it's unfair because lots of people they know eat just as much or latch onto theories about how they don't eat a lot, but the wrong foods, or just looking at carbs or cheese or sweets makes them gain, or even that they gained from eating too little (starvation mode, you know). This allows for confusion and relying on others to tell you how to lose when what makes it clarifying, for me, is acknowledging "yeah, I am eating too much for how much I am burning, now I just have to figure out how to fix that."

    It's funny, because many of the people who seem to argue that everyone knows ELMM, so it's not helpful -- and I don't mean the blogger here -- go on to claim that fat people need to have it explained to them that they should eat a nutritious diet or vegetables or less sweets or less fast food some such. That stuff seems to me to be as likely to be met with "duh, no kidding" than ELMM. Or in some cases, like mine, "but I am doing that already!"

    Bigger point is that knowing in the back of your head that weight loss is about eating less isn't the same thing as realizing "all I have to do is figure out how to eat less and move more." When you have a simple goal, I think it's easier to figure out how to do that or, if you cannot, to ask the right questions. I find the idea that it's insulting or unhelpful to focus on ELMM as a goal to be weird. Sure, you still have to figure more stuff out, but no one said otherwise.
    Moving more can also be frightening. Many people don't know where to start. The fitness industry has almost as many whacko plans out here as the diet industry does. It is mind boggling...do this for a great behind...this exercise will take inches off your waist...do 5 million squats for whatever reason.

    I never found moving more to be frightening, but I agree with this -- tried to address it in my post above also.
    It took me a long time after reading that post to just do my own thing...do what I could...push for improvement...not worry about what others thought I should be doing.

    Yup, agreed. I do think that for particular goals some things work better than others, but so easy to let the perfect be the enemy of the good and for most people it doesn't matter. BEST thing I did was start by focusing on just moving more, walking a lot, not stressing myself out about meeting a perfect workout plan.
    It took time for me to trust myself and that I could ELMM on my own terms and not someone elses.

    Agreed, but this is why I think it's really helpful to focus on how ALL that is necessary is ELMM, and however you want to do it is great.

    (I also think trying things and finding out it's not the way to ELMM for you is valuable, or was for me. Just know that it's ELMM that matters or, if something works, why it works. Like I said above, I tried Ornish and didn't like it, so tried something else. I did paleo for a while and liked it, but when I decided it didn't make logical sense and wanted some dairy again I modified easily because I knew I was losing because of ELMM, not because paleo was magic. First time I lost I changed my diet, as I wasn't cooking much. This time I couldn't have focused on changing my diet since I was still cooking and eating pretty nutritiously, so if I'd thought that was the magic and not how much I ate, I'd have been in trouble. But knowing it's just ELMM (or CICO) made it feel doable and something I could figure out.)
  • Gallowmere1984
    Gallowmere1984 Posts: 6,626 Member
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    Annie_01 wrote: »
    goldthistime wrote: »

    Edited for a specific point

    OP, you suggest "small permanent changes" as the path to meaningful change. I hear it frequently but I have trouble making it fit with my own experiences. Perhaps it's a semantics thing. Care to expound upon that idea?

    I look at those "small permanent changes" something like this...

    It is easier to move one small stone at a time than it is to move the entire mountain at one time. In theory it is correct...but...

    When you bring in the emotional aspect...sometimes we feel as if we need that entire mountain gone now.

    I have experienced both mentalities in my life. Many things I have the clarity to realize that by moving one stove at a time I will eventually reach my destination. Other times...life has felt so desperate that if I didn't move the mountain all at one time I wouldn't survive long enough to reach my destination.

    I think that is one reason why so many people choose a drastic route to reach their weight loss goals. Hardly a day goes by that someone doesn't start a thread about eating a VLCD or can I lose xxx weight in xxx weeks. Some of those people ask those type of questions because they just truly don't know. There are some however that I believe they are so desperate for whatever reason that they will try anything.

    To be fair though, certain VLCD protocols are quite safe and extremely effective. Just as with anything else though, there is a problem: those most likely to want to use them are the least likely to have any long term success with cycling them.

    Why? Because if they had the discipline to follow these protocols properly, they wouldn't have needed them to begin with.

    There are those like myself though, on the other end. I use one in particular for my hellcuts, because I want to get back to eating at a reasonable surplus, and training as hard as possible, as quickly as I can. When I can bulk for three months, and only have to cut for three weeks, it's a win in my book.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Annie_01 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    goldthistime wrote: »
    I'm in agreement with the blogger that ELMM advice, if given by itself, is unhelpful. I can't imagine someone saying "Wow, that just never occurred to me" unless it was dripping with sarcasm. Helpful as a mantra perhaps.

    Like I said, it was helpful for me to think of it that way.

    Basically (I think I explained this upthread, but since you express doubt that anyone could honestly have this experience will recap), there is so much nonsense about dieting floating about and I'd never really done it and didn't think I ate that much (or differently than in the past) and so I felt like I had to do some kind of special diet or dramatic thing to lose weight and wasn't willing. Then I realized I was really overweight, much more so that I'd acknowledged before my "this must stop" moment (bad photo, mainly). And I decided I had to figure out how to lose weight. Once I did that, and stopped merely perusing "how to lose 20 lbs in a month" type stupidity or "why cutting out X will cause weight loss" articles, I realized that, hey, of course you lose weight by eating less than you burn. And that meant eating less, moving more.

    After that (seemingly obvious, sure, but from what I see on MFP, hardly intuitively obvious in our culture -- the overcomplication is more common) realization, I then had to figure out HOW to eat less and move more, but knowing what I had to do made the rest of it much more doable (and really not that hard once it was simplified in my head).

    I still tried some things that I later discarded -- my initial "how to eat less" program was Ornish, which I quickly decided was not sustainable for me or necessary -- but knowing the goal was to eat less and move more helped. (Moving more was similarly not bad -- once I dropped the idea that I needed to spend an amount of time per day that seemed overwhelming or do some horrible exercise program I found not fun -- a class or video -- and could just run a little or swim and work up and do other things that seemed more enjoyable for me, as movement was the key, that was easy too).

    Probably the main thing that changed was I hit a point where I had a really concrete reason (things have to change), but simplifying the goal helped too. For me, before I started "losing weight" seemed impossible, mysterious, something I didn't believe my body would respond to. Telling myself I needed to exercise and eat better (and less) was much more concrete and solvable, something I could apply my skills and knowledge of myself to.

    I doubt too many people struggle with the concept that they have to "eat less" in order to lose weight. It is the "HOW" IMO that creates the problem.

    I actually disagree with this. I think a LOT of people are in denial that they need to eat less and claim they don't eat that much (I thought that) or focus on how it's unfair because lots of people they know eat just as much or latch onto theories about how they don't eat a lot, but the wrong foods, or just looking at carbs or cheese or sweets makes them gain, or even that they gained from eating too little (starvation mode, you know). This allows for confusion and relying on others to tell you how to lose when what makes it clarifying, for me, is acknowledging "yeah, I am eating too much for how much I am burning, now I just have to figure out how to fix that."

    It's funny, because many of the people who seem to argue that everyone knows ELMM, so it's not helpful -- and I don't mean the blogger here -- go on to claim that fat people need to have it explained to them that they should eat a nutritious diet or vegetables or less sweets or less fast food some such. That stuff seems to me to be as likely to be met with "duh, no kidding" than ELMM. Or in some cases, like mine, "but I am doing that already!"

    Bigger point is that knowing in the back of your head that weight loss is about eating less isn't the same thing as realizing "all I have to do is figure out how to eat less and move more." When you have a simple goal, I think it's easier to figure out how to do that or, if you cannot, to ask the right questions. I find the idea that it's insulting or unhelpful to focus on ELMM as a goal to be weird. Sure, you still have to figure more stuff out, but no one said otherwise.

    This. So much this. This was me, and this thinking is very, very prevalent. There is a decent segment of the morbidly obese population convinced that they are well over 300 pounds eating 1500 calories or so a day. Or something like that.

    The truth is that of course, people are terrible at judging how much they eat and more to the point, our ability to delude ourselves is, at times, fathomless.

    ELMM oftentimes needs to a firm reality check to happen before someone even can realize they can, indeed, eat less. I was convinced I was eating so very little.

    It wasn't simplistic advice for me, it was liberating once I realized that there was room for me to implement it.

  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,214 Member
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    ELMM is Yoda-esque in its succinctness. "Be the fork" kind of advice. Inspirational if delivered in just the right way. I mentioned using it as a mantra earlier. So I don't at all disagree that it's helpful if it's advice you are giving yourself. Telling others to ELMM though, in the many situations risks insult, imo. I don't know how we would debate it, and not sure it's worth it, but telling someone to eat more vegetables or eat fewer treats is less insulting than ELMM to me because it's more specific, but context matters. A lot.

    I want to get back to the concept of small permanent change as perhaps substitute or corollary advice. But I also want to read the link that Lemurcat posted and consider go back and read some "nudging change" stuff I kept links for. @jgnatca your list looks like great examples for someone to consider. Your posts are often inspiring.

    At the moment I'm leaning towards the idea that our usual method of presenting several approaches to weight loss (including the concept of small permanent change) is probably the best one. Hopefully there will be something in there that a poster resonates with. My own view tends to be more like "Look for ways to make the process as enjoyable as you can. A smaller deficit might help with that".
  • singingflutelady
    singingflutelady Posts: 8,736 Member
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    Gallowmere1984 wrote: »
    tomteboda wrote: »
    Christine_72 wrote: »
    vingogly wrote: »
    jgnatca wrote: »
    The very poor have trouble saving up for sales, transportation to get to and from big box stores, and stocking up on staples. They may not have a large freezer, or limited cooking facilities.

    Yeah, it's called living in a food desert:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert

    Interesting. I've never heard that term before. It would be horrible living in a food desert. Where i live atleast, there's a major supermarket in just about every suburb, all of them have a good selection of fresh fruit, veggies and meat.

    In the USA, a "food desert" is defined as being more than a mile from a grocery store.

    It's actually really patently absurd given the way that most people live in this country. Heck, I'm in a "food desert" at the moment. The grocery store is 6 whole miles away from me. This isn't really a big deal, I happen to have a car (a 1995 sedan, for the record), but even if I didn't, there's bus service. I took the bus or rode my bicycle to get groceries for a long time.


    This is why I always found the idea ridiculous. I live about 2.5 miles from the nearest grocery store. Clearly, I should weigh 400 lbs., have T2D, and every blood ailment known to man.

    What's that? Walking five miles everyday for groceries is helping to prevent those?

    The funny part is, people are always asking me why I don't have a car, when I lost my license, etc. Their faces when I inform them that I actually own two vehicles and have a commercial driver's license with all endorsements...at what point did walking "because I have legs" become such an alien concept?

    Just another reason that I lose more faith in people as a whole, every day.

    Hey I should be 800 lbs. I have no car, am very poor (I get 735 a month on disability)
  • jgnatca
    jgnatca Posts: 14,464 Member
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    @Annie_01 a pet peeve of mine with exercise is slotting the overweight with "cardio" to fat burn.

    I had a weird concept that I had to do a set bunch of exercise to be successful. When I reframed my approach to do whatever looked interesting, and keep doing what I loved, I got way more active. The spin class still looks miserable to me. All that effort and you don't end up anywhere.
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,214 Member
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    goldthistime wrote: »
    OP, you suggest "small permanent changes" as the path to meaningful change. I hear it frequently but I have trouble making it fit with my own experiences. Perhaps it's a semantics thing. Care to expound upon that idea?

    This specific episode of Nia Shanks' Lift Like a Girl podcast with Heather Robertson I recall being a really good discussion of that concept: http://webtalkradio.net/internet-talk-radio/2015/05/04/lift-like-a-girl-how-to-lose-weight-and-keep-it-off-long-term/

    Lots of great stuff in this conversation. One of my favourite bits was when Heather talked about giving up the "I'm gonna do it right or I wasn't gonna do it at all" attitude, and changing her messages to herself to be kinder and gentler, as though she were giving advice to someone she loved unconditionally, like her son: "What would you say to Max if he made that same mistake?"

    The part about "small modifications that you are willing to make forever", was helpful too. I think I had too narrow a view when considering "small permanent changes". I've seen advice (not necessarily on MFP) where people are told to change one thing and one thing only for a period of time, before adding another change. Like "switch from cream to milk in your coffee week 1, start an every other day walking program week 2, introduce more veggies week 3" etc. I couldn't see what was so wrong with doing all three on day 1 if that's what I felt like doing. If a progression of change is meant to be more like @jgnatca's increasing steps, to walking lots, to learning to run and then training for events, I'm completely on board.

    The word "permanent" had me twitching a little too. I experimented a lot as I lost my weight. Few of my early changes ended up to be permanent. (I tried a variety of macro settings for instance). But seeing it in terms of losing weight by implementing sustainable choices only (even if they didn't end up to be permanent) helps.
  • goldthistime
    goldthistime Posts: 3,214 Member
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    GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Annie_01 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    goldthistime wrote: »
    I'm in agreement with the blogger that ELMM advice, if given by itself, is unhelpful. I can't imagine someone saying "Wow, that just never occurred to me" unless it was dripping with sarcasm. Helpful as a mantra perhaps.

    Like I said, it was helpful for me to think of it that way.

    Basically (I think I explained this upthread, but since you express doubt that anyone could honestly have this experience will recap), there is so much nonsense about dieting floating about and I'd never really done it and didn't think I ate that much (or differently than in the past) and so I felt like I had to do some kind of special diet or dramatic thing to lose weight and wasn't willing. Then I realized I was really overweight, much more so that I'd acknowledged before my "this must stop" moment (bad photo, mainly). And I decided I had to figure out how to lose weight. Once I did that, and stopped merely perusing "how to lose 20 lbs in a month" type stupidity or "why cutting out X will cause weight loss" articles, I realized that, hey, of course you lose weight by eating less than you burn. And that meant eating less, moving more.

    After that (seemingly obvious, sure, but from what I see on MFP, hardly intuitively obvious in our culture -- the overcomplication is more common) realization, I then had to figure out HOW to eat less and move more, but knowing what I had to do made the rest of it much more doable (and really not that hard once it was simplified in my head).

    I still tried some things that I later discarded -- my initial "how to eat less" program was Ornish, which I quickly decided was not sustainable for me or necessary -- but knowing the goal was to eat less and move more helped. (Moving more was similarly not bad -- once I dropped the idea that I needed to spend an amount of time per day that seemed overwhelming or do some horrible exercise program I found not fun -- a class or video -- and could just run a little or swim and work up and do other things that seemed more enjoyable for me, as movement was the key, that was easy too).

    Probably the main thing that changed was I hit a point where I had a really concrete reason (things have to change), but simplifying the goal helped too. For me, before I started "losing weight" seemed impossible, mysterious, something I didn't believe my body would respond to. Telling myself I needed to exercise and eat better (and less) was much more concrete and solvable, something I could apply my skills and knowledge of myself to.

    I doubt too many people struggle with the concept that they have to "eat less" in order to lose weight. It is the "HOW" IMO that creates the problem.

    I actually disagree with this. I think a LOT of people are in denial that they need to eat less and claim they don't eat that much (I thought that) or focus on how it's unfair because lots of people they know eat just as much or latch onto theories about how they don't eat a lot, but the wrong foods, or just looking at carbs or cheese or sweets makes them gain, or even that they gained from eating too little (starvation mode, you know). This allows for confusion and relying on others to tell you how to lose when what makes it clarifying, for me, is acknowledging "yeah, I am eating too much for how much I am burning, now I just have to figure out how to fix that."

    It's funny, because many of the people who seem to argue that everyone knows ELMM, so it's not helpful -- and I don't mean the blogger here -- go on to claim that fat people need to have it explained to them that they should eat a nutritious diet or vegetables or less sweets or less fast food some such. That stuff seems to me to be as likely to be met with "duh, no kidding" than ELMM. Or in some cases, like mine, "but I am doing that already!"

    Bigger point is that knowing in the back of your head that weight loss is about eating less isn't the same thing as realizing "all I have to do is figure out how to eat less and move more." When you have a simple goal, I think it's easier to figure out how to do that or, if you cannot, to ask the right questions. I find the idea that it's insulting or unhelpful to focus on ELMM as a goal to be weird. Sure, you still have to figure more stuff out, but no one said otherwise.

    This. So much this. This was me, and this thinking is very, very prevalent. There is a decent segment of the morbidly obese population convinced that they are well over 300 pounds eating 1500 calories or so a day. Or something like that.

    The truth is that of course, people are terrible at judging how much they eat and more to the point, our ability to delude ourselves is, at times, fathomless.

    ELMM oftentimes needs to a firm reality check to happen before someone even can realize they can, indeed, eat less. I was convinced I was eating so very little.

    It wasn't simplistic advice for me, it was liberating once I realized that there was room for me to implement it.

    I have witnessed in person a case where a friend felt that the rules of CICO just didn't apply to her, and nothing I could say managed to convince her otherwise. She switched from trying to follow WW (basically CICO) to a system that provided her with shakes and other nutrition and she finally started losing weight. Ultimately she understood that she had just been in denial about how many calories she was actually consuming (refusing to record her three daily extra large triple triple coffees for instance, because "they're just coffees, not food"). She needed an overhaul of her eating to convince her that CICO applied to her.

    But in her case I don't think even a compassionate, eloquent ELMM argument would have worked anyway. She needed physical proof.

    That friend is my one and only example of that extreme a level of denial. Pretty much everyone I know recognizes the validity of CICO and ELMM. Or at least I think they do.
  • Packerjohn
    Packerjohn Posts: 4,855 Member
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    ELMM is a gross oversimplification. However, in a reference to the Pareto Principal, it's the solution in 80%+ of the cases.

    Definition of Pareto Principal: The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    edited December 2016
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    goldthistime wrote: »
    Telling others to ELMM though, in the many situations risks insult, imo.

    Telling others ANY advice out of the blue risks insult, IMO, and I'd consider telling them to eat more vegetables (especially if I didn't know their diet) or fewer treats out of the blue probably more insulting. When I was fat it always annoyed me that people would think I gorged myself on sweets or fast food (when I didn't) or knew nothing about nutrition (as if being fat meant being uninformed). I preferred the idea that people would think I just enjoyed food or didn't mind being fat. To me, the message "eat less, move more" doesn't assume we don't know that, but reminds us that is all that is actually necessary.

    I get that this varies from person to person and probably within different social groups (interestingly, the demographics I live in are thinner than the US average, as well as more educated and more likely to be annoying foodies, which probably plays into this!). ;-) I have been interested that among some on MFP (and I have a certain idea of the demographics applicable but that's anecdotal) it seems that people are more comfortable thinking that they never ate much at all (even after giving it some thought) but ate "bad food" or were "addicted." It's as if that's more socially acceptable to them. (I do think for many women, even today, and even in the ideas I grew up with, see eating a lot as somehow not appropriate for a woman so this probably plays into it.) Admittedly, lots of theorizing here, not claiming to be certain about anything.

    Anyway, I'm talking about what messages are helpful not when lectured to you by someone telling you you are fat and should stop being fat, but if you ask for advice or are reading, looking for advice. Or in some cases from a doctor. There, I do think that starting with "it's actually quite simple, but not always easy, weight loss is caused by eating less than you are burning -- so if you've been gaining or maintaining, just eating less and increasing activity will cause weight loss" is not insulting at all, unless phrased to be such.

    Of course, were I giving the advice I'd continue with: "now, figuring out how to cut calories depends on how and why you are overeating, so may require some thought to figure out, and it helps to think about what your biggest difficulties are. One thing I did that was helpful was just to write down what I was eating -- and to be as complete and honest as possible -- and then look at how I could cut calories or when I was tending to eat too much. What I discovered was that it was pretty easy to cut calories because I was eating a lot of them thoughtlessly and could keep my meals basically as filling and tasty while cutting lots of calories. I also realized I tended to thoughtlessly eat snacks that happened to be around for emotional reasons, so cutting this out -- for me, by creating a habit of not snacking at all and working on my habit of using food for self comfort was important, but of course your particular issues might be very different."

    To me, that seems 100% more helpful than "eat less sugar" or some such, which would have made me mad (why are you assuming I eat a lot of sugar) and defensive and not helped, as I really didn't eat tons of sugar and even cutting out added sugar (which I've done at times) on its own would not have meant I cut calories, as finding other sources of calories if I kept the habit of snacking/emotional eating was easy, and it did not address the issue of cutting calories at meals which was easy and effective.
  • MelodyandBarbells
    MelodyandBarbells Posts: 7,725 Member
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    I actually consider those who know about ELMM or CICO to the point of considering them useless to be very fortunate. It means you already know the basics, and that to me is a good thing

    In my case, I was at the point where all I heard about weight loss were shakes, appetite suppressants, cleanses, intermittent fasting, and that sort of thing. I wasn't willing to make those "sacrifices" and had pretty much decided to just continue exercising, which had to at least be good for my health, even if it meant staying fat. So when I heard about eating fewer calories than you burn (which I'm using as equivalent to ELMM), yeah, it was a light bulb moment and very empowering.

    Cakewalk? Nope. And I don't just mean the day to day grind. I struggled with exercise and did eventually find out that I had exercise/exertion induced asthma. As for eat less, my first reaction to MFP calories was they want me to eat HOW MANY calories per day??? Did a bunch of searches and came up with a plan.

    The graphic from earlier in the discussion is fairly interesting, but IMO attempts to present a much more complicated situation than most users will encounter. For example, if you do not have mental health issues or are not a woman, you can just cross out entire segments of the graphic. I don't think it'd look as complicated once it's actually pared down to fit the individual.
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
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    GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    Annie_01 wrote: »
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    goldthistime wrote: »
    I'm in agreement with the blogger that ELMM advice, if given by itself, is unhelpful. I can't imagine someone saying "Wow, that just never occurred to me" unless it was dripping with sarcasm. Helpful as a mantra perhaps.

    Like I said, it was helpful for me to think of it that way.

    Basically (I think I explained this upthread, but since you express doubt that anyone could honestly have this experience will recap), there is so much nonsense about dieting floating about and I'd never really done it and didn't think I ate that much (or differently than in the past) and so I felt like I had to do some kind of special diet or dramatic thing to lose weight and wasn't willing. Then I realized I was really overweight, much more so that I'd acknowledged before my "this must stop" moment (bad photo, mainly). And I decided I had to figure out how to lose weight. Once I did that, and stopped merely perusing "how to lose 20 lbs in a month" type stupidity or "why cutting out X will cause weight loss" articles, I realized that, hey, of course you lose weight by eating less than you burn. And that meant eating less, moving more.

    After that (seemingly obvious, sure, but from what I see on MFP, hardly intuitively obvious in our culture -- the overcomplication is more common) realization, I then had to figure out HOW to eat less and move more, but knowing what I had to do made the rest of it much more doable (and really not that hard once it was simplified in my head).

    I still tried some things that I later discarded -- my initial "how to eat less" program was Ornish, which I quickly decided was not sustainable for me or necessary -- but knowing the goal was to eat less and move more helped. (Moving more was similarly not bad -- once I dropped the idea that I needed to spend an amount of time per day that seemed overwhelming or do some horrible exercise program I found not fun -- a class or video -- and could just run a little or swim and work up and do other things that seemed more enjoyable for me, as movement was the key, that was easy too).

    Probably the main thing that changed was I hit a point where I had a really concrete reason (things have to change), but simplifying the goal helped too. For me, before I started "losing weight" seemed impossible, mysterious, something I didn't believe my body would respond to. Telling myself I needed to exercise and eat better (and less) was much more concrete and solvable, something I could apply my skills and knowledge of myself to.

    I doubt too many people struggle with the concept that they have to "eat less" in order to lose weight. It is the "HOW" IMO that creates the problem.

    I actually disagree with this. I think a LOT of people are in denial that they need to eat less and claim they don't eat that much (I thought that) or focus on how it's unfair because lots of people they know eat just as much or latch onto theories about how they don't eat a lot, but the wrong foods, or just looking at carbs or cheese or sweets makes them gain, or even that they gained from eating too little (starvation mode, you know). This allows for confusion and relying on others to tell you how to lose when what makes it clarifying, for me, is acknowledging "yeah, I am eating too much for how much I am burning, now I just have to figure out how to fix that."

    It's funny, because many of the people who seem to argue that everyone knows ELMM, so it's not helpful -- and I don't mean the blogger here -- go on to claim that fat people need to have it explained to them that they should eat a nutritious diet or vegetables or less sweets or less fast food some such. That stuff seems to me to be as likely to be met with "duh, no kidding" than ELMM. Or in some cases, like mine, "but I am doing that already!"

    Bigger point is that knowing in the back of your head that weight loss is about eating less isn't the same thing as realizing "all I have to do is figure out how to eat less and move more." When you have a simple goal, I think it's easier to figure out how to do that or, if you cannot, to ask the right questions. I find the idea that it's insulting or unhelpful to focus on ELMM as a goal to be weird. Sure, you still have to figure more stuff out, but no one said otherwise.

    This. So much this. This was me, and this thinking is very, very prevalent. There is a decent segment of the morbidly obese population convinced that they are well over 300 pounds eating 1500 calories or so a day. Or something like that.

    The truth is that of course, people are terrible at judging how much they eat and more to the point, our ability to delude ourselves is, at times, fathomless.

    ELMM oftentimes needs to a firm reality check to happen before someone even can realize they can, indeed, eat less. I was convinced I was eating so very little.

    It wasn't simplistic advice for me, it was liberating once I realized that there was room for me to implement it.

    My issue was similar to this, but I realized I was eating too much. In my case after a thyroidectomy I just gave up on any thoughts of being physically active anymore and resigned myself to conventional thinking. About 2 years ago my wife was using MFP to get back in shape after our third child and I had just accepted a scout leader position. CICO was so mind numbingly simple. I started out slowly, just with light cardio and light lifting. All the walls I had constructed in my mind broke down one after another.

    After I was down 60 lbs people asked me how I lost it and I would just watch eyes glaze over when I mentioned MFP and just being aware of the calories I was ingesting. Another person in my company had spent a year project work in Germany and lost about the same, although he did so more from a cultural process. The endpoint is the same - we simply ate less and moved more.
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
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    Christine_72 wrote: »
    Geez that makes no sense. 1 mile is nothing, that's an easy walkable distance for most people.

    Read the section titled "Affordability" in the Wikipedia article. It's about more than walking distance:
    Chain supermarkets, which benefit from economies of scale to offer consumers low prices are also less prevalent in low-income urban areas. For example, only 22% of the chain supermarkets in Minneapolis were located in the inner-city compared to more than 50% of the non-chain supermarkets.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    Not sure if it's been addressed, but one of the things a lot of people get wrong is the impact of exercising on weight loss. People think they can lose weight by doing stupid amounts of working out and then get frustrated when they gain weight (usually because they are hungry from the exercises).

    I prefer to say it as eat less than you burn. Simply because ELMM may not be enough to put you in a deficit (how much less, how much more). Also, if I move a whole bunch more and eat less, am I actually fueling my body properly? ELTYB might not be as neat an acronym, but I think it better describes what the process is.

    Still a simple concept. Just not easy to do.

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