Too good to be true!!?
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I want to correct myself. Here is where we disagree - in scope. The immediate cause of the problem is too many calories. The root cause of the problem* has to do with larger social forces, including the fast food industry.
*the larger social problem of obesity, not any individual's obesity, necessarily.0 -
Anyway, this is off-track. The point is that for those who want to not be hungry and eat fewer calories, it makes sense to attend to macros. And for those who want to be healthy, they should pay attention to micros.0
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Emmaprov2015 - I am totally confused like you. I feel like I have eaten loads, I'm not hungry and still I am way under my calories, this is only day 2 tho!0
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Last point before I go and do the things I need to do: the easiest way to not be hungry, on a calorie budget, is to prioritize macros in a way that is also, as it happens, largely consistent with "healthy eating". (That is not to say that any individual food is bad; the overall pattern of eating, and the amounts, are what matters for loss, can't be clearer on this.) And, at the same time, staying on a budget long-term involves eating foods that are low-value, sometimes, for sanity's sake.0
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amusedmonkey wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »
I realize that you are, for whatever reason, sold on your notion that most fat people are fat because they've never thought to eat anything but fast food and potato chips, and while I find this kind of offensive, I have known someone who ate fast food all the time and was obese. She was also really smart and understood why she was fat. When she decided to lose weight she wasn't ready to change her diet--she liked her diet, weird as it might seem to you and I--so she reduced serving sizes. I thought it was weird at the time (this was during my hard core all natural, local, blah blah phase), but it worked for her, and as she made progress and ate less and lost she continued to modify her diet and eventually ate a much more nutritious one. I don't assume that someone who starts by focusing on calories and just modifies as necessary to meet their needs is going to fail or will never change their diet. It's just that more gradual change works for many or most. Going hardcore to a super healthy (IMO, it's not "clean") worked for me, because that's how I liked to eat already. That doesn't mean I should impose my preferences when not necessary on someone claiming to hate all veggies or love McD's.
You can find it offensive if you want, that's up to you. The reason I believe this is the case is that's there's a strong correlation between eating fast food and obesity. Correlation =/= causation fine fine fine but it's a strong-as$ correlation and it's predictable. No, I'm not going to give a cite, I have things to do today and this is pretty damn obvious, google it. It's been shown wherever fast food goes, globally, so does obesity. I think, as I've said, that this is because the low value (macro content, specifically) of the food means that people lose their sense of satiety, if ever they had it, and as a consequence eat too much.
There's nothing wrong with an individual meal of fast food in itself, but the reality on the ground is, it's just not like that for most people who eat it, is it? It's not just one burger/fries combo. It's that and pizza and whatever the hell else, day in, day out, for most meals. People absolutely can eat it without gaining but must control portions. Those are out of control in FF restaurants, too.
I am not judging you particularly, ? I'm not even judging those who eat fast food. There is a systematic problem here. Evidently.
Can you please stop stalking my posts on the subject?
Yes there is a systematic problem. It's called over-eating. Fast foods are easier to over-eat, true, but they are not the root of the problem. I, for example, rarely had fast food when I was 300+ pounds. What happened is that my portions were too big, and I used too much olive oil on my salads and vegetables.
The root of the problem is too many calories. No argument there. Yes, of course, people can gain weight eating healthy foods. No argument there either.
But to argue that the obesity crisis in so many countries has just nothing at all to do with the prevalance of fast food - its quality AND quantity - and the larger factors that drive that industry is silly and even perverse. Fast foods are easier to overeat; people eat them for many reasons; most of the people who eat it regularly, in the absence of a calorie counting regime - i.e., MOST PEOPLE - gain weight.
Regardless of how you personally feel about fast food, the obesity epidemic will never end as long as people keep trying to find something to blame it on rather than taking the responsibility for themselves. No sense in blaming fast food (or sugar or an illness or anything else). People just need to stop making excuses and take control of their own lives and eat less than they did to gain weight. I don't know why people spend so much time arguing that this or that is the reason for obesity - the ONLY reason is overconsumption. Period.
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All any one person can do is monitor their own consumption, that's true.
But it's ridiculous to suggest everyone randomly at the same time deciding to overconsume can explain the rates. It's more complicated than that.0 -
All any one person can do is monitor their own consumption, that's true.
But it's ridiculous to suggest everyone randomly at the same time deciding to overconsume can explain the rates. It's more complicated than that.
But it's not more complicated than that. Yes, food is easier to come by. Yes, we all have cars and many of us have sedentary jobs. Our caloric needs have decreased because of these things. All we have to do is compensate for that by getting exercise and eating less calories than we burn. Simple, but not easy. You have to work for it, and you have to want it. That is all there is to it.
It can be done - but we have to start spreading THAT message rather than a message of blaming fast food/genetics/sugar/the debil/your neighbors/etc. It's not fair to keep leading people to believe that they cannot control their weight because there is just too much food and that we don't have enough sense to not buy it all because the fast food corporations are out to get us.
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mamapeach910 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »SatietyQueen wrote: »
Who is talking about coke vs diet coke but you? Don't think that you are the only person that has heard of the word satiety because it's in your screen name. We're actually pretty good at giving people advice on how to do things properly and have the ability to explain why we say what we do. Don't be one of those people that pop up on scene and claim to have the psychology of how new people think. We were all new at some point. And before you call people idiots pay attention to whom you are actually addressing because you might find yourself in the middle of a debate that you can't handle.SatietyQueen wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »SatietyQueen wrote: »SergeantSausage wrote: »toniwarren106 wrote: »It is not just as simple as calories in/calories out. Yes, that may be the bulk of it, but consuming too much fat and sugar will not help you lose weight. Your body will store all of that fat and sugar if you do not use it up.
Actually, it *IS* just that simple.
Where do these folks come up with this horse hockey?
No, it is not that simple.
We have a bunch of veteran calorie counters on this site talking to each other. For these "veterans," counting calories comes as easy as brushing their teeth or driving a car.
Nonsense. All of us were new once. And understanding how it actually works, instead of believing idiotic myths about the magical powers of eating too much fat made it possible for me, for one, to succeed. Telling people the truth does not hurt them. They are grown ups, they can figure out how not to be hungry.
Now, if you also want to give helpful advice about what worked for you--as opposed to a lie like "if you eat a cookie it will be like a fat pill and make the diet not work"--great. For example, I experimented with different macros and found that eating balanced macros at all meals helped me feel more satisfied. I also found that FOR ME not snacking much and eating 3 decent-sized meals (sometimes with a post workout snack) was the most satisfying and enjoyable way to eat. For me, and I suspect for most, it's helpful to eat a good volume of veggies and some fruit and healthy too. So on.The fact is the vast majority (and I mean vast majority) of people who start a diet, whether they count calories or don't count calories, fail miserably because they are hungry. Look it up.
Do they fail because they are hungry, or because they are unhappy with what they are eating and unsatisfied? Different things. I seriously think a lot more people believe silly myths about how you have to eat in a rigid complicated way when dieting or it won't work (and also have some ingrained idea about self-punishment and sacrifice being good vs. self indulgence being bad) than can't figure out how to eat so as not to be hungry, which is really not very complicated unless you are very dumb. Or, more likely, simply not interested in eating in the way you know would address the issue since you are not yet ready or simply don't like the relevant foods vs. how you are eating (more common).It's tough to go from an "all you can eat" diet to a 1,500-calorie diet just like that.
Reading the forums here proves otherwise. Many, many people even at calories far lower than they need are motivated at the beginning of a diet and not hungry. The reason is that none of us are that hungry--hunger is often a psychological reaction to a belief that you are deprived.
I'm sure some percentage of overweight people are because they honestly have issues with hunger, but I suspect it's a minority and common sense would help them figure out how to deal with the issue.
But perhaps you think they are all idiots.
I make a common sense suggestion of finding foods that fill you up, and somehow you are taken aback. You think I'm making it up that bacon and eggs fill me up more than bagels? You think when you're starting out on this journey you should drink Coke instead of Diet Coke? Give me a break! I'll have to think about who the idiot is.
You win. Eat what you want newbies. It is 100% certain that you will succeed if you just count calories. Don't bother trying to find foods that make it easier for you to avoid hunger pangs and help you stay within your calorie goal. Just because MrM can do it, so can you. It's easy.
And by the way, I was the one who was accused of thinking people on this site are idiots. I did not start this battle.
Stick around a little longer and pay attention to the advice that people actually get about eating foods that meet there macronutrients, macronutrients, Vitamins and Minerals before moving into discretionary calories before you start judging what advice people are giving new members. Also, don't forget, you're new here too.
This.
Also, I think it's absurd that I'm being accused of being anti healthy eating or pro Twinkie or whatever too (although Twinkies are fine in moderation if someone actually likes them). Feel free to look at my diary or read my actual recommendations which are all over the forum, sigh.
psst.... I think bagels are the new Twinkies.
Uh, oh. I actually like bagels.It's obvious that you're pro-moderation from your posts and that you eat a well-varied diet.
;-)
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toniwarren106 wrote: »It is not just as simple as calories in/calories out. Yes, that may be the bulk of it, but consuming too much fat and sugar will not help you lose weight. Your body will store all of that fat and sugar if you do not use it up.
Yikes.
You're right though, except for your trashcan last sentence which I'm ignoring. Consuming too much fat and sugar will not help you lose weight. Same for protein. If you consume more than you burn, you will not lose weight. So we come right back to calories in/calories out.
OP, do what someone on the first page suggested and work on hitting your macronutrients, especially protein and fat. Glad you're excited and I wish you success, just be careful not to eat too little - it's counterproductive in the long run.0 -
I want to correct myself. Here is where we disagree - in scope. The immediate cause of the problem is too many calories. The root cause of the problem* has to do with larger social forces, including the fast food industry.
*the larger social problem of obesity, not any individual's obesity, necessarily.
I disagree. It all comes down to personal accountability. In other words, we choose what to eat. Besides this, there is nothing wrong with fast food in moderation. And, this comes from a girl who eats no fast food due to preference only, except for Chipotle, and that's once in awhile.0 -
SpartanChild88 wrote: »what if u burn 1000 through exercise but you eat 1,100 during the day? you wont lose weight?
So you have 100 net? I would say that's eating disorder territory.0 -
Correlation =/= causation fine fine fine but it's a strong-as$ correlation and it's predictable. No, I'm not going to give a cite, I have things to do today and this is pretty damn obvious, google it.
I don't disagree that there's a correlation, so don't need a cite.
That doesn't mean that the reason people are fat is that they don't know how to eat or that they eat fast food.
There are plenty of other things that go along with the presence of fast food or the reasons why people would eat lots of fast food that explain growing obesity and overweight in those populations (or in countries with many such restaurants) that seem a better explanation than the presence of those restaurants, but even if eating fast food caused the obesity that would not be an argument against what I'm saying. You'd have to show that people ignorantly ate the fast food with no clue that it was high calorie or less filling than other options and with no idea that it wasn't ideal from a nutrient perspective. That's what I'm arguing against--that the reason people (specifically people on MFP, who can apparently figure out how to use google, at least) are fat is that they don't understand that their diets are non-ideal.the reality on the ground is, it's just not like that for most people who eat it, is it?
So you acknowledge that you are assuming that people who come in here trying to lose weight are eating constant fast food. I recommend taking people individually. Some may be, and some of those people may honestly not get the connection between satiety and their diets or be unaware that their diets aren't nutritionally ideal (I seriously doubt this, not if they are honest, but I suppose it's possible). I've definitely seen people ask for advice in combating hunger or just in losing when their diets were about 95% fast food, and the near universal advice here was to eat a higher percentage of nutrient dense food. I gave that advice, but so did basically everyone else who commented, because it's common sense.
I'm just saying that there are at least as many people who come here thinking that if they don't do low fat or eat the wrong foods or eat a cookie they won't lose, and telling them they must eat a certain way doesn't help either. What does help is providing the facts. IMO, those include the fact that a deficit is what matters for weight loss. And, also--as is always included--that what you choose may help for satiety and of course for nutrition, although there is room for flexibility and experimentation on that.
Some can't seem to stand to acknowledge that a deficit is what matters for weight loss, though, as they are apparently all tied up in knots inside by the assumption that fat people (being fat and all) will take that as an excuse to eat KFC and Twinkies, err, bagels 24/7, and it's important to scare them straight with the "you won't lose" threat! (See also the claims that if you don't stop drinking diet soda you will stay fat.)Can you please stop stalking my posts on the subject? It is really tiring to have to make the same arguments over again when it's not directly related to the thread.
You commented on the point I made here (by agreeing with someone else's response, but still). Of course I responded. I don't think I'm stalking you, though, we just seem to disagree on this. Or at least you seem to think that we do based on the idea that acknowledging the truth--CICO--somehow means we are telling people that satiety doesn't matter or they should eat fast food 24/7 or some nonsense, when instead I think most people have sufficient common sense that they will modify their diets as necessary to be satisfied.
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SpartanChild88 wrote: »what if u burn 1000 through exercise but you eat 1,100 during the day? you wont lose weight?
The "calories out" part of CICO includes all of your calories burned, not just exercises. It includes anything that adds up to your TDEE (BMR, TEF, exercise calories). If you don't know what those terms mean, its time to do some research.
So short answer to your question, yes you will lose weight (not healthy though).
There is not a single person on earth would would have TDEE low enough to maintain on 1100 calories with 1000 calories of exercise built in. Just not possible since their non exercise pieces of TDEE would have to be 100 calories. That would be a mostly dead person (and I'm not sure how a mostly dead guy eats or burns 1000 calories through exercise). And now I'll have "The Princess Bride" stuck in my head all day.0 -
dontjinxit wrote: »Susieq_1994 wrote: »dontjinxit wrote: »I'm losing weight eating cookies every night. I just can't eat half a box, and have to stick to a single serving. So it does work as long as you stay within your limits. You will end up eating less food if you are eating foods higher in calories, but if they are foods that you like and it works for you then go for it.
That's my kind of diet
I'm currently on a search for cookies with slightly less calories. The ones I like are 62 calories each O_o
Where do you get good 60 calorie cookies? O.o The ones I like are 200 calories each!
Hehe. I won't even look at the good cookies. I already know I'd end up starving for them. Generic custard creams are somewhere between 62-65 calories each.Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »dontjinxit wrote: »Alyssa_Is_LosingIt wrote: »Susieq_1994 wrote: »dontjinxit wrote: »I'm losing weight eating cookies every night. I just can't eat half a box, and have to stick to a single serving. So it does work as long as you stay within your limits. You will end up eating less food if you are eating foods higher in calories, but if they are foods that you like and it works for you then go for it.
That's my kind of diet
I'm currently on a search for cookies with slightly less calories. The ones I like are 62 calories each O_o
Where do you get good 60 calorie cookies? O.o The ones I like are 200 calories each!
I got the Gerber Graduates Arrowroot Cookies....they're 20 calories a piece, so you can eat 5 of them for 100 calories and feel like you got a decent little snack. They're great with coffee, too.
Now I want a biscotti, but that would be a 200 calorie cookie.
Ooh, biscotti sounds good, too!
A half of a biscotti is 100 calories.
But, I want the whole thing too.
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SpartanChild88 wrote: »what if u burn 1000 through exercise but you eat 1,100 during the day? you wont lose weight?
I'm going to assume that since you are in jail, this is not a serious question. But for anyone lurking: If you burn 1,000 calories through "exercise" (maybe you're a distance runner or something), that's likely 1,000 calories OVER your BMR. So, assuming your BMR is 1500 calories, and you burn 1,000 calories through exercise, that's 2500 calories burned for the whole day. To created a 500 calorie deficit for that day, you'd need to eat 2,000 calories that day. (This is a broad explanation full of assumptions. I am not Dr. Oz.)0 -
SpartanChild88 wrote: »idk. i eat about 1000 and burn 900-1000 at gym thats what the machne tells me when enter my weight and age. but i sweat crazy during it. idk how to do net and all that just what i eat an what i burn its sometimes off by 300 give r take.
Gym machines overestimate. You are still netting too low. You need to get some help.0 -
All any one person can do is monitor their own consumption, that's true.
But it's ridiculous to suggest everyone randomly at the same time deciding to overconsume can explain the rates. It's more complicated than that.
It's ridiculous to suggest that people are overweight because the presence fast food made them so. Also, it's not very helpful, because it's not going away. Better to learn to deal as we did in earlier times when the existence of fast food didn't mean you ate there more than rarely (hmm, in those halcyon days of the '80s, who knew).
Human beings are basically built for scarcity, so the easy presence of lots of calories is a challenge to begin with.
Add to this that we throughout our history have had to be active to survive, and now don't. Now many people have a challenge to be active in the US given commuting patterns and jobs and numerous towns without sidewalks, etc.
Add to this that much as we may want to think that humans are good at intuitive eating there's no evidence of that. Instead, in most cultures (even without scarcity) eating is highly regulated and filled with ritual. Even through my own childhood in the '80s and my friends who raise their children with healthy eating patterns, that's so. The idea of what a proper meal consists of, when we eat, the idea of eating in a communal way, etc. It's only recently (and most prominently in the US) that eating whenever based purely on personal pleasure has been common at all.
Add to this that something long commonplace--learning to cook or being married to someone who learned to cook--is no longer a valued skill among many, especially as people put off settling down or the family disintegrates some.
And, sure, add to this that the easy presence of lots of calories gets a lot easier if we don't have to cook and what used to be something of a luxury (restaurant meals) is as cheap as cooking much of the time. Some portion of this is fast food, just as much is simply convenience items at stores. All of it is a response to demand, not something that takes away free will.
But sure, take from all this that it's Ray Kroc's fault that people are fat.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »
I realize that you are, for whatever reason, sold on your notion that most fat people are fat because they've never thought to eat anything but fast food and potato chips, and while I find this kind of offensive, I have known someone who ate fast food all the time and was obese. She was also really smart and understood why she was fat. When she decided to lose weight she wasn't ready to change her diet--she liked her diet, weird as it might seem to you and I--so she reduced serving sizes. I thought it was weird at the time (this was during my hard core all natural, local, blah blah phase), but it worked for her, and as she made progress and ate less and lost she continued to modify her diet and eventually ate a much more nutritious one. I don't assume that someone who starts by focusing on calories and just modifies as necessary to meet their needs is going to fail or will never change their diet. It's just that more gradual change works for many or most. Going hardcore to a super healthy (IMO, it's not "clean") worked for me, because that's how I liked to eat already. That doesn't mean I should impose my preferences when not necessary on someone claiming to hate all veggies or love McD's.
You can find it offensive if you want, that's up to you. The reason I believe this is the case is that's there's a strong correlation between eating fast food and obesity. Correlation =/= causation fine fine fine but it's a strong-as$ correlation and it's predictable. No, I'm not going to give a cite, I have things to do today and this is pretty damn obvious, google it. It's been shown wherever fast food goes, globally, so does obesity. I think, as I've said, that this is because the low value (macro content, specifically) of the food means that people lose their sense of satiety, if ever they had it, and as a consequence eat too much.
There's nothing wrong with an individual meal of fast food in itself, but the reality on the ground is, it's just not like that for most people who eat it, is it? It's not just one burger/fries combo. It's that and pizza and whatever the hell else, day in, day out, for most meals. People absolutely can eat it without gaining but must control portions. Those are out of control in FF restaurants, too.
I am not judging you particularly, ? I'm not even judging those who eat fast food. I eat fast food. I like it. But there is a systematic problem here. Evidently.
Can you please stop stalking my posts on the subject? It is really tiring to have to make the same arguments over again when it's not directly related to the thread.
I can assure you, I got fat eating just plain food. Fast food restaurants were not endemic when I was growing up and I never really liked the stuff. We ate at one once a week, back before double sizes when it was normal to get a regular hamburger and call it a day. And I hated it (always got mine plain, I hated sauces) and gagged down barely enough to not get in trouble.
The problem with your premise is that it's too simplistic. In places like urban deserts, it might have some merit... to a point.
The bottom line is that the root cause of obesity is over-consumption of calories. In urban deserts, the availability of nutritious food is often limited, calorie-dense food is cheap, and not controlling portions of it can lead to over-consumption of calories. Fast food may or may not play a part in that.
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amusedmonkey wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »
I realize that you are, for whatever reason, sold on your notion that most fat people are fat because they've never thought to eat anything but fast food and potato chips, and while I find this kind of offensive, I have known someone who ate fast food all the time and was obese. She was also really smart and understood why she was fat. When she decided to lose weight she wasn't ready to change her diet--she liked her diet, weird as it might seem to you and I--so she reduced serving sizes. I thought it was weird at the time (this was during my hard core all natural, local, blah blah phase), but it worked for her, and as she made progress and ate less and lost she continued to modify her diet and eventually ate a much more nutritious one. I don't assume that someone who starts by focusing on calories and just modifies as necessary to meet their needs is going to fail or will never change their diet. It's just that more gradual change works for many or most. Going hardcore to a super healthy (IMO, it's not "clean") worked for me, because that's how I liked to eat already. That doesn't mean I should impose my preferences when not necessary on someone claiming to hate all veggies or love McD's.
You can find it offensive if you want, that's up to you. The reason I believe this is the case is that's there's a strong correlation between eating fast food and obesity. Correlation =/= causation fine fine fine but it's a strong-as$ correlation and it's predictable. No, I'm not going to give a cite, I have things to do today and this is pretty damn obvious, google it. It's been shown wherever fast food goes, globally, so does obesity. I think, as I've said, that this is because the low value (macro content, specifically) of the food means that people lose their sense of satiety, if ever they had it, and as a consequence eat too much.
There's nothing wrong with an individual meal of fast food in itself, but the reality on the ground is, it's just not like that for most people who eat it, is it? It's not just one burger/fries combo. It's that and pizza and whatever the hell else, day in, day out, for most meals. People absolutely can eat it without gaining but must control portions. Those are out of control in FF restaurants, too.
I am not judging you particularly, ? I'm not even judging those who eat fast food. There is a systematic problem here. Evidently.
Can you please stop stalking my posts on the subject?
Yes there is a systematic problem. It's called over-eating. Fast foods are easier to over-eat, true, but they are not the root of the problem. I, for example, rarely had fast food when I was 300+ pounds. What happened is that my portions were too big, and I used too much olive oil on my salads and vegetables.
The root of the problem is too many calories. No argument there. Yes, of course, people can gain weight eating healthy foods. No argument there either.
But to argue that the obesity crisis in so many countries has just nothing at all to do with the prevalance of fast food - its quality AND quantity - and the larger factors that drive that industry is silly and even perverse. Fast foods are easier to overeat; people eat them for many reasons; most of the people who eat it regularly, in the absence of a calorie counting regime - i.e., MOST PEOPLE - gain weight.
Nope. Sorry. I think you're missing the real root cause. It's not fast food. That just masks the real problem. Poverty is more of a driving force behind obesity than the fast food industry is. It's CHEAP to eat fast food. It's cheap to eat pasta and potatoes, and most people overeat them.
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tomatoey, I'm really not stalking you and I'd like to have a friendly conversation about it, and so I actually just had a thought that might help clear this up.
It seems to me that two different topics are getting blurred here.
One is what advice is useful for someone newly dieting (especially someone newly using MFP to diet). The second is why is the obesity rate what it is.
Even if social factors play into the second question (as of course they do, as my own analysis upthread suggests), that does not mean that an understanding of (a) the facts, and (b) individual appetite, food preferences, and personality differences (which will have to be done by the dieter) won't be the primary issue for decision-making by a successful dieter. That people may be in a habit of over-relying on fast food--which I think is NOT as universal among overweight people as you seem to assume, but we can drop that (it seems that most of us arguing on my side never really ate lots of fast food)--doesn't mean that the reason why is that they don't get that it's non-ideal from a caloric, satiety, or nutrition POV. It likely has more to do with their taste preferences and (even more significant, IMO) convenience factors. So the answer is not to tell them its bad, but to help them, if they need help, figure out how to change their eating patterns--how to make cooking possible, how to learn to like a broader expanse of foods. These are often hard, so not having to do it all right away might be a ray of hope even for those who fit more into the model that you are assuming.0 -
mamapeach910 wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »
I realize that you are, for whatever reason, sold on your notion that most fat people are fat because they've never thought to eat anything but fast food and potato chips, and while I find this kind of offensive, I have known someone who ate fast food all the time and was obese. She was also really smart and understood why she was fat. When she decided to lose weight she wasn't ready to change her diet--she liked her diet, weird as it might seem to you and I--so she reduced serving sizes. I thought it was weird at the time (this was during my hard core all natural, local, blah blah phase), but it worked for her, and as she made progress and ate less and lost she continued to modify her diet and eventually ate a much more nutritious one. I don't assume that someone who starts by focusing on calories and just modifies as necessary to meet their needs is going to fail or will never change their diet. It's just that more gradual change works for many or most. Going hardcore to a super healthy (IMO, it's not "clean") worked for me, because that's how I liked to eat already. That doesn't mean I should impose my preferences when not necessary on someone claiming to hate all veggies or love McD's.
You can find it offensive if you want, that's up to you. The reason I believe this is the case is that's there's a strong correlation between eating fast food and obesity. Correlation =/= causation fine fine fine but it's a strong-as$ correlation and it's predictable. No, I'm not going to give a cite, I have things to do today and this is pretty damn obvious, google it. It's been shown wherever fast food goes, globally, so does obesity. I think, as I've said, that this is because the low value (macro content, specifically) of the food means that people lose their sense of satiety, if ever they had it, and as a consequence eat too much.
There's nothing wrong with an individual meal of fast food in itself, but the reality on the ground is, it's just not like that for most people who eat it, is it? It's not just one burger/fries combo. It's that and pizza and whatever the hell else, day in, day out, for most meals. People absolutely can eat it without gaining but must control portions. Those are out of control in FF restaurants, too.
I am not judging you particularly, ? I'm not even judging those who eat fast food. There is a systematic problem here. Evidently.
Can you please stop stalking my posts on the subject?
Yes there is a systematic problem. It's called over-eating. Fast foods are easier to over-eat, true, but they are not the root of the problem. I, for example, rarely had fast food when I was 300+ pounds. What happened is that my portions were too big, and I used too much olive oil on my salads and vegetables.
The root of the problem is too many calories. No argument there. Yes, of course, people can gain weight eating healthy foods. No argument there either.
But to argue that the obesity crisis in so many countries has just nothing at all to do with the prevalance of fast food - its quality AND quantity - and the larger factors that drive that industry is silly and even perverse. Fast foods are easier to overeat; people eat them for many reasons; most of the people who eat it regularly, in the absence of a calorie counting regime - i.e., MOST PEOPLE - gain weight.
Nope. Sorry. I think you're missing the real root cause. It's not fast food. That just masks the real problem. Poverty is more of a driving force behind obesity than the fast food industry is. It's CHEAP to eat fast food. It's cheap to eat pasta and potatoes, and most people overeat them.
I agree that poverty seriously plays into it, absolutely0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »A lot of people fail at diets because they think it must be complicated and there are millions of rules or special eating plans needed or because they think they hate all the foods they must eat (or that they must eat ridiculously low calories).
A lot of people also fail at diets because actual implementation of CICO - a conceptually simple idea - is bloody hard to actually stick to in a world full of tasty temptations.
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mamapeach910 wrote: »Poverty is more of a driving force behind obesity than the fast food industry is. It's CHEAP to eat fast food.
It's cheaper to not eat it.
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OP - I felt similar to you when I started, and I also had a goal of losing around 15 pounds! It's something I've been trying to do for my entire adult life with little succcess, and it's not too good to be true - I lost 10 in the first couple months of using MFP. My problem was that I was always quite knowledgeable about nutrition, but didn't know very much about how to effectively gauge portion control. I realized that at a lot of meals I was eating past the point of being full simply because the food was there, having the portions spelled out for me has been incredibly helpful. Thanks to being able to track macros I also learned that I wasn't getting nearly enough protein and fibre, so hitting those goals has helped tremendously I think.
The way I use the app most of the time is as a meal planner - I consider what foods I have and i build a menu for the day with the goal of hitting all my macros (protein in particular, it's important to try to get in all the protein as it helps with weight loss and satiety). I can then add or remove items, or adjust portions to make everything fit within my calorie and macro goals. It's not as easy of course when you're eating out or don't have the time to plan ahead, but I find that by doing this as many days of the week as possible, I don't feel too stressed about the occasional day (usually on the weekend, or when going out for dinner with friends) where I don't log, or at least not as accurately as I'd like. Now that I'm almost at my goal weight I usually try to aim for a 500 calorie per day deficit during weekdays (which for me is 1340), and for maintenance on weekends (1840).
Best of luck!0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »SatietyQueen wrote: »The fact is the vast majority (and I mean vast majority) of people who start a diet, whether they count calories or don't count calories, fail miserably because they are hungry. Look it up.
Do they fail because they are hungry, or because they are unhappy with what they are eating and unsatisfied? Different things. I seriously think a lot more people believe silly myths about how you have to eat in a rigid complicated way when dieting or it won't work (and also have some ingrained idea about self-punishment and sacrifice being good vs. self indulgence being bad) than can't figure out how to eat so as not to be hungry, which is really not very complicated unless you are very dumb. Or, more likely, simply not interested in eating in the way you know would address the issue since you are not yet ready or simply don't like the relevant foods vs. how you are eating (more common).It's tough to go from an "all you can eat" diet to a 1,500-calorie diet just like that.
Reading the forums here proves otherwise. Many, many people even at calories far lower than they need are motivated at the beginning of a diet and not hungry. The reason is that none of us are that hungry--hunger is often a psychological reaction to a belief that you are deprived.
I'm sure some percentage of overweight people are because they honestly have issues with hunger, but I suspect it's a minority and common sense would help them figure out how to deal with the issue.
But perhaps you think they are all idiots.
This is a really interesting question to me. I've wondered in the past about whether I have a form of insulin resistance as I had a number of symptoms that seemed to correspond with this problem. A few months ago I was diagnosed with an endocrine disorder that is pretty common in women, and though I wasn't officially tested for it, insulin resistance is indeed usually one of the issues. I was prescribed a medication to control some of the symptoms, it's actually just a diuretic and has historically been prescribed for other medical problems, but it was found to have some success for my disorder, so it's now commonly prescribed. One of the most noticeable effects it's had for me is that my appetite has been significantly reduced. I've worked hard over the years at making healthy food choices and trying to stay within a healthy weight range, but it's always been a struggle. This medication has helped me in numerous ways, and now I wonder if my appetite on this medication is more "normal" that my previously often insatiable appetite. I feel like I have what seems to be a more "normal" appetite now, and am less preoccupied with food and hunger.
I know this is just anecdotal, but since I've had the experience of being on both sides of this issue, I can tell you my previous hunger levels weren't psychological, they were biologically rooted, and the medication has helped correct the hormonal imbalance that was likely responsible, or at least a contributor. I think that people who struggle less with weight maintenance and persistent hunger issues would benefit from the knowledge that not everyone's experience is the same as theirs, they don't necessarily have stronger "will power", it's likely that many (not all, but many) people who struggle with their weight may also have an underlying medical issue that makes it especially challenging for them.0 -
WOW 100 notifications! And a massive debate! I only started this feed for advice and encouragement lol!
I've had bangers and mash at a pub and couldn't count calories properly and feel really guilty!!!0 -
mamapeach910 wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »
I realize that you are, for whatever reason, sold on your notion that most fat people are fat because they've never thought to eat anything but fast food and potato chips, and while I find this kind of offensive, I have known someone who ate fast food all the time and was obese. She was also really smart and understood why she was fat. When she decided to lose weight she wasn't ready to change her diet--she liked her diet, weird as it might seem to you and I--so she reduced serving sizes. I thought it was weird at the time (this was during my hard core all natural, local, blah blah phase), but it worked for her, and as she made progress and ate less and lost she continued to modify her diet and eventually ate a much more nutritious one. I don't assume that someone who starts by focusing on calories and just modifies as necessary to meet their needs is going to fail or will never change their diet. It's just that more gradual change works for many or most. Going hardcore to a super healthy (IMO, it's not "clean") worked for me, because that's how I liked to eat already. That doesn't mean I should impose my preferences when not necessary on someone claiming to hate all veggies or love McD's.
You can find it offensive if you want, that's up to you. The reason I believe this is the case is that's there's a strong correlation between eating fast food and obesity. Correlation =/= causation fine fine fine but it's a strong-as$ correlation and it's predictable. No, I'm not going to give a cite, I have things to do today and this is pretty damn obvious, google it. It's been shown wherever fast food goes, globally, so does obesity. I think, as I've said, that this is because the low value (macro content, specifically) of the food means that people lose their sense of satiety, if ever they had it, and as a consequence eat too much.
There's nothing wrong with an individual meal of fast food in itself, but the reality on the ground is, it's just not like that for most people who eat it, is it? It's not just one burger/fries combo. It's that and pizza and whatever the hell else, day in, day out, for most meals. People absolutely can eat it without gaining but must control portions. Those are out of control in FF restaurants, too.
I am not judging you particularly, ? I'm not even judging those who eat fast food. There is a systematic problem here. Evidently.
Can you please stop stalking my posts on the subject?
Yes there is a systematic problem. It's called over-eating. Fast foods are easier to over-eat, true, but they are not the root of the problem. I, for example, rarely had fast food when I was 300+ pounds. What happened is that my portions were too big, and I used too much olive oil on my salads and vegetables.
The root of the problem is too many calories. No argument there. Yes, of course, people can gain weight eating healthy foods. No argument there either.
But to argue that the obesity crisis in so many countries has just nothing at all to do with the prevalance of fast food - its quality AND quantity - and the larger factors that drive that industry is silly and even perverse. Fast foods are easier to overeat; people eat them for many reasons; most of the people who eat it regularly, in the absence of a calorie counting regime - i.e., MOST PEOPLE - gain weight.
Nope. Sorry. I think you're missing the real root cause. It's not fast food. That just masks the real problem. Poverty is more of a driving force behind obesity than the fast food industry is. It's CHEAP to eat fast food. It's cheap to eat pasta and potatoes, and most people overeat them.
Yep. There's a whole category with fast food. Less physical labor for a living, easy transportation for many of us, and with food so plentiful that it almost seems a crime not to eat it all. There are so many possible contributors that the easiest thing for me is to treat this as a math problem and avoid playing the blame game0 -
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SpartanChild88 wrote: »
they put he jail thing bc my image they got all pissed about kinda lame since unidealistic people can show themselves but i cant have afrench art drawing as my icon
I must admit I was surprised that you could post with the jail thing going on so I had a look at your profile. It may by a French art drawing but I found it a little creepy. It looks like naked photos of a child. I know it is not but it does give you that impression when you first look.
Now all of that is way of subject and I hope you get out of make believe jail soon. 0 -
mamapeach910 wrote: »Poverty is more of a driving force behind obesity than the fast food industry is. It's CHEAP to eat fast food.
It's cheaper to not eat it.
In urban deserts where people are struggling, it's not. There aren't grocery stores there. Work all day, take a bus 2 hours to get to a dead end job, come home with another 2 hour commute, dead tired, what are you going to do for a meal? Take another bus to another neighborhood for a big grocery shop?
There are convenience stores where people can buy necessities for inflated prices. It's ridiculous. The dollar menu at Mickey D's is a cheap option.
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