"The most important thing you can do to lose weight"
Replies
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I just wonder why people lie to themselves. Or are they really not aware of what they eat all day?1
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oooo... ouch. I used to be one of those people claiming a 'slow metabolism' for not losing weight.
My PT kinda wacked me over the head with something not unlike this thread. It hurt. A lot. I mean, ever been hit over the head with a thread?
On the upside (once my bruised ego stopped whining), I started losing weight.
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biggsterjackster wrote: »I just wonder why people lie to themselves. Or are they really not aware of what they eat all day?
I think a lot of people don't know what a 'normal' 2,000 calorie a day diet looks like. I know when I'm not watching what I eat I can easily consume 3,000-3,500 a day in fast food and not really feel like I'm overdoing it. I think the calorie counts that are being mandatory everywhere is sort of helping, but denial is certainly the easier option. I think there are a lot of people who recognize they are eating too much, and that's what's making them overweight, they just don't have the desire to do anything about it. I think the deniers are not the majority. Also there are probably some folks who think exercise is the magic bullet. "oh I walked the dog, so I can eat this 1,000 calorie hamburger."
I have a theory there are two kinds of overeaters in the world: bingers and snackers. I am a binger, eat giant meals of huge calories. A lot of the folks in this category know what they are doing is bad for them. But some folks just don't realize how bad, that yeah you just ate a full day's calories in one meal, no joke. Or no, it's not 'normal' to eat out for 14 meals a week, all of them high calorie.
Then there are the snackers. Some people realize they have a problem, 'I just can't stop snacking!' Some people are way in denial. That yes, you ate 10 cookies today, it just didn't seem like that because you kept coming back for one more, and 'nibbled' on cheese while you were cooking, etc etc.
So I think it's easy to be in denial either way. Keeping a food log is a big first step that most people are never going to do. But I've cheated myself with a food log before I began to wonder who I thought I was fooling, myself? Obviously that was more than 1 cup of ice cream, why did I only log it as a cup? Why didn't I take the time to measure it? I might be fooling my brain but I am not fooling my body.12 -
Bump.2 -
Great thread but that documentary vid doesn't work anymore.
I really like the belly dancer vid where she asks if they mean egg and vegetable calories or crème cake calories. "Just calories." Exactly! CICO4 -
@AsISmile I love that show. One man stood out to me. He thought he was eating so healthy .. And for breakfast would pour like half a container of double cream on his cereal. Topped with jam. Yikes.1
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yeah who knew it was never about our metabolism...we just were eating too much...
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@RunRutheeRun @ funny how certain things catch on and never seem to let go.0
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The funny thing is that the ones who think they have a slow metabolism actually have a higher than average metabolism. My 350lb friend can burn 5k calories with 1 hour in the gym lifting and a daily walk. For me at 185 it would take about 6 hours of cardio. So not only did it take him a lot of calories to get to that weight, it takes a lot to maintain it.5
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@eringurl33 yep
I suppose it was easy to believe that lie... 1 -
I have to continuously fight my urge to underestimate, on meals I am not able to weigh. I also have to continuously fight the urge to "write off" bad days by not logging them. We have an incredible capacity for self delusion, but only some of us realize that we do, which is half the battle.
I force myself to log a bad day, like yesterday, even though it actually feels physically painful to note down the extra 50% of calories I stuffed down my face, above my deficit. I don't want to face up to those things, I really don't and I am ashamed that others will look at my diary and judge me. I do force myself though and have logged every piece of junk that has gone in my mouth for almost a year.
It really helps to live in the real world - it is the only way to progress, but it is a battle which requires constant vigilance.
I am 14kgs down, despite many many slips, I dust myself off and try again. If you face your nature, you have to succeed.14 -
blues4miles wrote: »biggsterjackster wrote: »I just wonder why people lie to themselves. Or are they really not aware of what they eat all day?
I think a lot of people don't know what a 'normal' 2,000 calorie a day diet looks like. I know when I'm not watching what I eat I can easily consume 3,000-3,500 a day in fast food and not really feel like I'm overdoing it. I think the calorie counts that are being mandatory everywhere is sort of helping, but denial is certainly the easier option. I think there are a lot of people who recognize they are eating too much, and that's what's making them overweight, they just don't have the desire to do anything about it. I think the deniers are not the majority. Also there are probably some folks who think exercise is the magic bullet. "oh I walked the dog, so I can eat this 1,000 calorie hamburger."
I have a theory there are two kinds of overeaters in the world: bingers and snackers. I am a binger, eat giant meals of huge calories. A lot of the folks in this category know what they are doing is bad for them. But some folks just don't realize how bad, that yeah you just ate a full day's calories in one meal, no joke. Or no, it's not 'normal' to eat out for 14 meals a week, all of them high calorie.
Then there are the snackers. Some people realize they have a problem, 'I just can't stop snacking!' Some people are way in denial. That yes, you ate 10 cookies today, it just didn't seem like that because you kept coming back for one more, and 'nibbled' on cheese while you were cooking, etc etc.
So I think it's easy to be in denial either way. Keeping a food log is a big first step that most people are never going to do. But I've cheated myself with a food log before I began to wonder who I thought I was fooling, myself? Obviously that was more than 1 cup of ice cream, why did I only log it as a cup? Why didn't I take the time to measure it? I might be fooling my brain but I am not fooling my body.
I think this is the problem, obesity hasn't been that much of a problem in the world until relatively recently. People used to know how much to eat visually, but now we're bombarded every day with calls to eat, or adverts as they're better known. It plays havoc with the mind in a world when we're more stressed than ever and the usual response to stress is food. To help with the obesity epidemic food adverts really need to be banned in my opinion.
And yes, I know a few people who come up with some weak justification for eating. Like a 30 minute walk meant it was okay to have a couple of doughnuts. But even on here I've seen someone actually say "It's a good thing I burn 1000 calories from doing housework everyday or I'd put on even more weight". I lose count of how many people claim they're eating well/good/right/healthy without actually saying how much they consume. And other myths such as starvation mode where somehow people gain weight from eating less, pushing that myth really should come with an automatic ban.
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biggsterjackster wrote: »I just wonder why people lie to themselves. Or are they really not aware of what they eat all day?
I don't think they're lying so much as not understanding how they can still eat what they want and lose weight.
Completely off topic, but we have a guinea pig very similar to the first one in your photo. They're such funny little things.1 -
The most important thing you can do to lose weight is to choose a sensible and nutritious diet plan that keeps you satisfied, and then NEVER QUIT. Quitting is the only way to fail.5
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I tried explaining this to my friend who told me she wanted to give up sugar to lose weight. I told her forgot about sugar its calories calories calories, but she got mad and wouldn't listen. Why would you listen to someone whose lost 56lb anyway?
Just had this conversation, only the she was a he and the sugar was "carbs".
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Bump
Thanks for sharing!0 -
HappyCampr1 wrote: »blues4miles wrote: »biggsterjackster wrote: »I just wonder why people lie to themselves. Or are they really not aware of what they eat all day?
I think a lot of people don't know what a 'normal' 2,000 calorie a day diet looks like. I know when I'm not watching what I eat I can easily consume 3,000-3,500 a day in fast food and not really feel like I'm overdoing it. I think the calorie counts that are being mandatory everywhere is sort of helping, but denial is certainly the easier option. I think there are a lot of people who recognize they are eating too much, and that's what's making them overweight, they just don't have the desire to do anything about it. I think the deniers are not the majority. Also there are probably some folks who think exercise is the magic bullet. "oh I walked the dog, so I can eat this 1,000 calorie hamburger."
I have a theory there are two kinds of overeaters in the world: bingers and snackers. I am a binger, eat giant meals of huge calories. A lot of the folks in this category know what they are doing is bad for them. But some folks just don't realize how bad, that yeah you just ate a full day's calories in one meal, no joke. Or no, it's not 'normal' to eat out for 14 meals a week, all of them high calorie.
Then there are the snackers. Some people realize they have a problem, 'I just can't stop snacking!' Some people are way in denial. That yes, you ate 10 cookies today, it just didn't seem like that because you kept coming back for one more, and 'nibbled' on cheese while you were cooking, etc etc.
So I think it's easy to be in denial either way. Keeping a food log is a big first step that most people are never going to do. But I've cheated myself with a food log before I began to wonder who I thought I was fooling, myself? Obviously that was more than 1 cup of ice cream, why did I only log it as a cup? Why didn't I take the time to measure it? I might be fooling my brain but I am not fooling my body.
I think this is the problem, obesity hasn't been that much of a problem in the world until relatively recently. People used to know how much to eat visually
I was reading in another thread about a study which showed that people actually aren't eating much more than they did 50 years ago. It's just that we're so much more sedentary than we used to be that our bodies can't use all the energy we're supplying them with. The Gov't has done studies on the overall consumption rate and food production. We're just not as active and we haven't lowered consumption to match.
I wish I remembered which thread that was so I could refer you to it. Pretty sure the studies were linked somewhere in the Nutrition Debate section.
I think it was in the CICO thread in this section that got deleted.
I think it's debatable and we don't really know (and I tend to think we are eating more). There are two ways of tracking consumption, neither great. One about production and sales (that doesn't account for waste, but the question is whether we are wasting lots more today) and the other from personal tracking/recall which has been shown to be quite unreliable. I think the study referenced uses the latter, but one issue with the latter is that the people in the highest weight categories tend to report LOWER consumption than the thinner people, suggesting that there's an unsurprising problem with either honesty in reporting (people get embarrassed or say what they think they should) or simple awareness (which I do think plays into a lot of overeating).
Here's an article that goes into the calorie estimates, among other things: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/upshot/americans-are-finally-eating-less.html?_r=00 -
HappyCampr1 wrote: »I was reading in another thread about a study which showed that people actually aren't eating much more than they did 50 years ago. It's just that we're so much more sedentary than we used to be that our bodies can't use all the energy we're supplying them with. The Gov't has done studies on the overall consumption rate and food production. We're just not as active and we haven't lowered consumption to match.
I agree with this. Prior to WWII my family were a bunch of farmers. You could eat a lot when you were keeping a whole farm going with just your growing kids. Probably didn't have access to as much convenience food or candy as I did, probably the bread they ate might not be as nutritious and calorie dense as the bread I get, but still they could eat a fair amount with all the work they were doing. 1941 sent their sons and daughters to war and to work. It enabled them and their children to choose non-farming occupations post-war. It enabled many of their grandkids to be the first in their families to go to college.
I suspect many families could tell the same story. Maybe 3 to 4 generations ago, people had to work HARD, physically, to survive. And when they sat down to ate, the food just wasn't as nutritious and high calorie as it is now. Look at WWII soldiers and how scrawny they are in comparison to the modern soldier. What we've done for food has been amazing. People were starving and working hard just to get by and feed themselves a couple generations ago. Now the food is so much higher quality and cheaper. I wouldn't trade my walks or my running for going back on the family farm just to be thinner. We should be amazed with the advancements in industrialization and food quality. We just need to be careful. Maybe in 50 years from now they'll be devising food that is high volume and low calorie in order to deal with our new modern problems. But the food we have now was fixing an amazing survival issue from 50+ years ago.10 -
I'm just giving useful old posts a bump. Don't mind me.3
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bump1
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Is it true that youre body will start slowing down in losing weight after losing the water weight? and also losing weight is it solely based on counting calories,6mi jogging, should amp up how long you jog or how many miles you jog or is it just calorie counting and the fact youre just plain doing something that will help you lose weight lol3
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blues4miles wrote: »HappyCampr1 wrote: »I was reading in another thread about a study which showed that people actually aren't eating much more than they did 50 years ago. It's just that we're so much more sedentary than we used to be that our bodies can't use all the energy we're supplying them with. The Gov't has done studies on the overall consumption rate and food production. We're just not as active and we haven't lowered consumption to match.
I agree with this. Prior to WWII my family were a bunch of farmers. You could eat a lot when you were keeping a whole farm going with just your growing kids. Probably didn't have access to as much convenience food or candy as I did, probably the bread they ate might not be as nutritious and calorie dense as the bread I get, but still they could eat a fair amount with all the work they were doing. 1941 sent their sons and daughters to war and to work. It enabled them and their children to choose non-farming occupations post-war. It enabled many of their grandkids to be the first in their families to go to college.
I suspect many families could tell the same story. Maybe 3 to 4 generations ago, people had to work HARD, physically, to survive. And when they sat down to ate, the food just wasn't as nutritious and high calorie as it is now. Look at WWII soldiers and how scrawny they are in comparison to the modern soldier. What we've done for food has been amazing. People were starving and working hard just to get by and feed themselves a couple generations ago. Now the food is so much higher quality and cheaper. I wouldn't trade my walks or my running for going back on the family farm just to be thinner. We should be amazed with the advancements in industrialization and food quality. We just need to be careful. Maybe in 50 years from now they'll be devising food that is high volume and low calorie in order to deal with our new modern problems. But the food we have now was fixing an amazing survival issue from 50+ years ago.
I gardened for 5 hours over the weekend. I was exhausted and my hamstrings are sore. I can only imagine how much I could eat if I did this 10-12 hours per day. During the height of the season, it's not unusual for my mom to put in 8 hours per day gardening and her weight always hovers around Under Weight.3 -
audiovisual1980 wrote: »Is it true that youre body will start slowing down in losing weight after losing the water weight? and also losing weight is it solely based on counting calories,6mi jogging, should amp up how long you jog or how many miles you jog or is it just calorie counting and the fact youre just plain doing something that will help you lose weight lol
Many people have really good numbers when they begin losing weight due to losing water weight and weight doesn't come off as easy as you go along. The thing to remember is something you will hear here often, weight loss isn't linear. You will have weeks you don't lose as much and weeks you may even gain. From your picture I am guessing you are female. You will have the added frustration of your period and water retention one week a month at least. This is a long term process and you have to take a long view and not react to every up and down. Stay to a plan.
As far as calorie counting, the point of calorie counting is to maintain a calorie deficit. Eat less calories than you burn. Burning more calories will allow you to eat more, but exercise isn't needed to lose weight. There are many people here who lost weight without exercising at all or never exercised for many months. That isn't to say exercise doesn't have a place, it helps make your body perform better, it can help you feel better about yourself, it can be a social activity, it can allow you to eat more, it can greatly increase your quality of life.
There are some great threads and tips to help you if you are new here in the getting started section:
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/categories/getting-started
Read the threads here and if people sometimes seem to have a nasty tone ignore it. A lot of highly successful people don't waste a lot of time on sugar coating what works, but they give awesome advice. Sometimes a good shock to the system is what people need.
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kshama2001 wrote: »blues4miles wrote: »HappyCampr1 wrote: »I was reading in another thread about a study which showed that people actually aren't eating much more than they did 50 years ago. It's just that we're so much more sedentary than we used to be that our bodies can't use all the energy we're supplying them with. The Gov't has done studies on the overall consumption rate and food production. We're just not as active and we haven't lowered consumption to match.
I agree with this. Prior to WWII my family were a bunch of farmers. You could eat a lot when you were keeping a whole farm going with just your growing kids. Probably didn't have access to as much convenience food or candy as I did, probably the bread they ate might not be as nutritious and calorie dense as the bread I get, but still they could eat a fair amount with all the work they were doing. 1941 sent their sons and daughters to war and to work. It enabled them and their children to choose non-farming occupations post-war. It enabled many of their grandkids to be the first in their families to go to college.
I suspect many families could tell the same story. Maybe 3 to 4 generations ago, people had to work HARD, physically, to survive. And when they sat down to ate, the food just wasn't as nutritious and high calorie as it is now. Look at WWII soldiers and how scrawny they are in comparison to the modern soldier. What we've done for food has been amazing. People were starving and working hard just to get by and feed themselves a couple generations ago. Now the food is so much higher quality and cheaper. I wouldn't trade my walks or my running for going back on the family farm just to be thinner. We should be amazed with the advancements in industrialization and food quality. We just need to be careful. Maybe in 50 years from now they'll be devising food that is high volume and low calorie in order to deal with our new modern problems. But the food we have now was fixing an amazing survival issue from 50+ years ago.
I gardened for 5 hours over the weekend. I was exhausted and my hamstrings are sore. I can only imagine how much I could eat if I did this 10-12 hours per day. During the height of the season, it's not unusual for my mom to put in 8 hours per day gardening and her weight always hovers around Under Weight.
My godfather was a farmer and I remember spending time on his farm. He was about six foot tall and probably was 160 pounds of all muscle. He would eat close to a dozen eggs in the morning, a few sandwiches for lunch and often his wife would make two casseroles for supper, one for her and her two kids and one for him. I would guess he ate 6000 calories a day easily during heavy work times, but he was up at 5am and worked hard labor straight through until 6 or 7 at night. I don't know what it would have taken for people working that hard to actually get fat.8 -
The poor woman--she sometimes eats 3 cream cakes all by herself, but she's convinced herself that she routinely eats 1400 calories a day.2
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Ah, the good old "slow metabolism" reasoning. In college I had my thyroid tested repeatedly, with the same results of always being "normal." But I was SO SURE something was wrong with my body, and my 20 lb college weight gain had nothing to do with our buffet-style cafeteria, the giant boxes of Goldfish I'd eat during all-nighters, the copious amounts of alcohol, the GIGANTIC cinnamon rolls the cafeteria made once a week, the free food at every meeting everywhere, the Mexican hot chocolate and chocolate peanut butter smoothies I'd grab between classes... I mean, I was walking everywhere! I worked out! I drank green tea! It MUST be my thyroid, right???
Yeah, no. Amazing how quickly the weight fell off once I started accurately tracking calories.17 -
I have to continuously fight my urge to underestimate, on meals I am not able to weigh. I also have to continuously fight the urge to "write off" bad days by not logging them. We have an incredible capacity for self delusion, but only some of us realize that we do, which is half the battle.
I force myself to log a bad day, like yesterday, even though it actually feels physically painful to note down the extra 50% of calories I stuffed down my face, above my deficit. I don't want to face up to those things, I really don't and I am ashamed that others will look at my diary and judge me. I do force myself though and have logged every piece of junk that has gone in my mouth for almost a year.
It really helps to live in the real world - it is the only way to progress, but it is a battle which requires constant vigilance.
I am 14kgs down, despite many many slips, I dust myself off and try again. If you face your nature, you have to succeed.
I could have written this post, word for word. Facing up to your failures is a tough thing to do.7 -
This thread could use a bump.
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diannethegeek wrote: »This thread could use a bump.
Best bump gif ever.2
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