Isn't "deprivation" just a mindset?

I think if you can happily eat a completely clean diet, more power to you! The 'journey' will be a lot easier for you than those who enjoy food as an experience, more than just a way to fuel the body!

Eating a donut doesn't make you overweight. Eating several donuts every day, along with everything else, will probably do it though. It's not the fault of the foods, it's how we choose to consume them. I still like my treats, but in moderation

The food actually has a LOT to do with it. In studies done with lab rats, when presented with high fat, high sugar foods, the rats started to eat in excess, way past the amount they'd usually eat with their typical diet, and became obese. You see the same thing with people. Finishing off a box of donuts or cookies isn't unheard of. Eating a whole stalk of vegetable is. Healthy food simply doesn't induce that "crave" feeling, ever.

You can't say "oh that person is fat because they ate too much." WHAT were they eating that gave them the compulsive need to eat so much of it? I know no one on these boards can truthfully say they've never wanted more than one serving of a crisp/donut/frenchfry/cookie. & yeah some people can train themselves to only have one. But that takes willpower to do. And eating food that's good for you and that doesn't hyper-stimulate your taste buds/pleasure centers in your brain in reasonable amounts doesn't take willpower. It just happens naturally.

1. people are not rats. animal studies have limited benefits when studying humans. Human studies are better, and studies where human's food intake was regulated so that they were eating less than they burned off, in every case the humans lost weight. No exceptions.

2. I can eat half a donut without feeling the need to eat all of it. I have a healthy relationship with food because I allow myself to eat whatever I want in moderation. Once I got the idea into my head that I could have whatever unhealthy foods I wanted, when I wanted, I just don't have to have them *right now*, I've never felt the need to eat more than a small serving of any of them. Also, ensuring I'm getting enough of every nutrient my body needs has gone a long way to eliminating the desire to snack on unhealthy stuff. A lot of cravings are your body's response to nutritional deficiency and/or insufficient calories.

3. yes it's true that if someone eats nothing but very high calorie foods, they will often end up overeating, because these foods are not filling, so by the time you stop eating because you feel full, you've eaten more calories than you need. That's probably what was happening to the rats. However if you are counting calories and keep within your calories, high calorie "unhealthy" foods like donuts will not make you obese. Calories in versus calories out trumps all other factors.

4. there are people who end up fat eating nothing but healthy food, because they have poor portion control. Yes it's harder to get fat if you only eat healthy food, as they're more filling and less calorie dense, but it's possible and it happens. Yes even in people who exercise and eat healthy food. It's also possible to lose weight eating nothing but twinkie bars, and there's a scientist who did that. Now I'd never recommend the twinkie diet because it is not healthy and the guy who did it must have been constantly starving as twinkies are very high calorie and not filling, but you will lose weight on it, because you eat fewer calories than you burn off.

1. Key phrase, their intakes were REGULATED. Take the same people and put them in an environment where their intake isn't controlled, and instead they're given 24/7 access to the richest, fattiest, most sugary food you can imagine with no "calorie target" to reach. 99% of the time they will overeat.

2. That's the "training yourself" thing I was talking about. It took some sort of will power on your part to get to that point where you were eating "a little bit of everything you wanted". If you'd been able to do that your whole life, you wouldn't even be on this website because you would never have become overweight in the first place. And the "cravings are your body wanting nutrients" thing is complete and total bunk. Why would your body ever want refined sugar and fat? For what nutritional purpose? It's your BRAIN that wants it. Cravings are in the mind. Period.

3. That's only part of the issue. No, those foods aren't filling, but that's not the ONLY reason people overeat them. People often binge eat on those sort of things when they weren't even hungry to begin with. It has to do with the pleasure receptors in your brain. Those foods trigger unnaturally strong responses. There have been numerous studies on it, and It doesn't take a research scientist to know that a person eating an entire package of cookies didn't do it because they were "hungry". You need to realize that every human being isn't counting calories, and most people in the world don't even need to because they're not eating foods that would require calorie counting to prevent overeating. Also, the rats had access to their normal rat food AND the high fat/sugar food. After being exposed to the high fat/sugar food, they continued to eat that instead of their normal diet. Which again, is very common in humans as well.

4. It's pretty pointless to mention that because that's like .0001% of cases. When you go into a typical obese person's fridge, you don't find bundles of vegetables and fillets of lean meat. You just DON'T. You can lie to yourself all you want but the basic reason behind obesity is food choices. Calories in vs calories out is meaningless when you're talking to people who DON'T COUNT CALORIES. Humans haven't counted calories our entire existence up until the past 20 years or so, yet obesity rates have skyrocketed within that time frame. The root of the problem is what the diet itself consists of.

By choosing to skip the donuts at work, what are you missing out on, really?

Also...I am not a lab rat. Please don't refer to studies unless they are of humans...thanks.

Lol, what? When it comes to the most basic biological functions, in most cases, humans & animals work the same way. Which is why they are used in lab studies. That was a very ignorant comment for you to make.

I eat anything and everything I want. In moderation. I don't feel deprived and don't have cravings. The ticker at the bottom of this post shows my results (along with the fact that I've also lost somewhere around 15% bodyfat). OP, you've been a member here for about 16 months - how's your weight loss ticker coming along doing it your way? Just curious.

I eat anything and everything I want. In moderation. I don't feel deprived and don't have cravings. The ticker at the bottom of this post shows my results (along with the fact that I've also lost somewhere around 15% bodyfat). OP, you've been a member here for about 16 months - how's your weight loss ticker coming along doing it your way? Just curious.

^This. Yep, I eat pizza and ice cream (with the aid of lactaid because I'm lactose intolerant), donuts, chocolate, chips, and various other foods that one might throw in the junk food category. I just do so in moderation and I've lost over 60lbs and down 4% bf.

It wasn't the food I was eating that made me overweight. It was the fact that I overate on food period. I'll take responsibility for stuffing my face way too much and not blame this food or that food. And seeing the success of so many people who have also lost weight/body fat and who still eat the foods that you say "make you fat" - I'm going to stick with - it wasn't the "food", it was ME.

i don't mean this as an attack, but to only lose 4% bf to go along with 60lbs means you are probably losing muscle mass as well... don't you think if you ate better foods, you might also be able to lower your body fat % at a similar rate to your overall weight?

I eat anything and everything I want. In moderation. I don't feel deprived and don't have cravings. The ticker at the bottom of this post shows my results (along with the fact that I've also lost somewhere around 15% bodyfat). OP, you've been a member here for about 16 months - how's your weight loss ticker coming along doing it your way? Just curious.

^This. Yep, I eat pizza and ice cream (with the aid of lactaid because I'm lactose intolerant), donuts, chocolate, chips, and various other foods that one might throw in the junk food category. I just do so in moderation and I've lost over 60lbs and down 4% bf.

It wasn't the food I was eating that made me overweight. It was the fact that I overate on food period. I'll take responsibility for stuffing my face way too much and not blame this food or that food. And seeing the success of so many people who have also lost weight/body fat and who still eat the foods that you say "make you fat" - I'm going to stick with - it wasn't the "food", it was ME.

i don't mean this as an attack, but to only lose 4% bf to go along with 60lbs means you are probably losing muscle mass as well... don't you think if you ate better foods, you might also be able to lower your body fat % at a similar rate to your overall weight?

That would be more a function of protein intake and strength training, as well as genetics.

you can get whatever body you want primarily from food. exercise is only 20% of it. (arbitrary number, don't try and make me cite it, I just mean that it's significantly less important.)

4. there are people who end up fat eating nothing but healthy food, because they have poor portion control. Yes it's harder to get fat if you only eat healthy food, as they're more filling and less calorie dense, but it's possible and it happens. Yes even in people who exercise and eat healthy food. It's also possible to lose weight eating nothing but twinkie bars, and there's a scientist who did that. Now I'd never recommend the twinkie diet because it is not healthy and the guy who did it must have been constantly starving as twinkies are very high calorie and not filling, but you will lose weight on it, because you eat fewer calories than you burn off.

4. there are people who end up fat eating nothing but healthy food, because they have poor portion control. Yes it's harder to get fat if you only eat healthy food, as they're more filling and less calorie dense, but it's possible and it happens. Yes even in people who exercise and eat healthy food. It's also possible to lose weight eating nothing but twinkie bars, and there's a scientist who did that. Now I'd never recommend the twinkie diet because it is not healthy and the guy who did it must have been constantly starving as twinkies are very high calorie and not filling, but you will lose weight on it, because you eat fewer calories than you burn off.

I am not trying to be a smart aleck here at all, but have you ever met anyone personally who was fat and had gotten that way eating nothing but healthy food? And if so, what foods were they considering "healthy?" I know it is theoretically possible but I can't imagine someone wanting to eat excess calories if all they were eating was fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean protein, etc.