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If the stats on long term weight loss are so bad, why bother?
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Ugh! The sentiments in this article are why so many of us are fat/still fat. Until you suck it up and do the hard work and stop comparing yourself, your progress, your life, or anything else to anyone else, you'll still tread water. That last bit of her gazing wistfully at thin people eating "bad foods" just got my goat. I am nowhere near done but I eat pizza, I eat cupcakes, I drink Dr. Pepper. Not all the time and not nearly in the quantities that I used to. Is it easy? No. It's the hardest thing I've done in my life but it'll be worth it when I can wake up in the morning and hop out of bed instead of levering my bulk out and shambling toward the shower. When I can fit an airline seat without an extender. THOSE are the things home chick should be "gazing wistfully" at. Not the *kitten* cupcakes.
EDIT: Because proofreading is a thing.
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If Harvard only accepts something like 5% of all freshman applicants, why do people even bother applying?28
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estherdragonbat wrote: »If Harvard only accepts something like 5% of all freshman applicants, why do people even bother applying?
BOOM!6 -
While regain/relose the same five-ten pounds, the original forty I dropped is still off...and I finished losing it almost three years ago. I'm in no danger of ballooning up like a cartoon character, because to lose weight, I changed. I'm a different person than I was, and I no longer worry that the weight is going to magically come back. For one, I'm more vigilant. For another, I'm more active. And I care, generally, more about my health and choices.
Losing weight for vanity's sake alone probably won't produce the same results. It comes down to the "why" and the "how."7 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »If Harvard only accepts something like 5% of all freshman applicants, why do people even bother applying?
Exactly!
Quite proud of my record of breaking statistical barriers.
The misapplication of statistics is a pet peeve. It is irrelevant that 60% of a given population succeeds or fails. What matters is that you succeed....and those times that you fail....you learn and implement appropriate changes to ensure you don't fail in the same manner.9 -
estherdragonbat wrote: »If Harvard only accepts something like 5% of all freshman applicants, why do people even bother applying?
Exactly!
Quite proud of my record of breaking statistical barriers.
The misapplication of statistics is a pet peeve. It is irrelevant that 60% of a given population succeeds or fails. What matters is that you succeed....and those times that you fail....you learn and implement appropriate changes to ensure you don't fail in the same manner.
I love being a statistical anomaly
I'm the only one in my family who's reversed the progression of prediabetes, and I'm the only one in my family who's maintained significant weight loss long term. Oh, and I was the first to graduate from college, but my sisters and cousins were right behind me in that one
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Because I'd rather strive to be part of the successful few, than give up and languish in the unsuccessful many.18
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Alatariel75 wrote: »Because I'd rather strive to be part of the successful few, than give up and languish in the unsuccessful many.
***Stolen*** thanks 2 -
Life is what happens when you are between diets.1
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I think the discipline you gain from weight lost is something you can apply to every corner of your life. When you decide to lose fat and transformer yourself, it changes you as a person. On the other hand, it can also hurt you! When I was losing fat and saw real results it causes me to eat less and workout more (not good), I ended up being tried, not motivated, and hurt. Once I saw what I was doing I reverted back to my original plan and has gotten better results. That's why I do what I do! People even admire the discipline you gain alone the way.6
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It's something that always bothered me. We went from blaming fast food and processed food to now saying it's "who I am, I am a fat and I accept myself." I don't know about being good with being fat, I have never been good with my weight especially coming from a fit power lifting past. But the truth is I got fat because I made poor choices and stuffed my face, oh ya and I carried my weight well (seriously WTF kind of lie is that to tell ourselves). It took getting diagnosed with Kidney disease to realize my bad choices got me to this place and I either continue on or change. It's not fricken easy, but possible if we do the work. I got a health coach this time and I changed my relationship with food. I do not deny myself anything, I just choose to eat things that fuel and heal my body. When I started thinking in those terms, it became easier to make the right choices. I started on MFP in March of 2011 and lost 73 lbs and then gained back 40 of it. This round I have lost 53lbs since Feb 27th when I went into the hospital. I'm now 17lbs away from 100lbs lost from my highest weight of 371. I think the only thing that saved me this time was getting real with myself and as somebody else said on here, I got busy and did the hard work. To me, I am choosing a way of eating that promotes health and the weight is falling off without even trying and I am eating tons of food, but the right ones. I was one of those folks on here who would down a 24-ounce porterhouse and then cry about not losing. Hello, denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Fight the good fight and be the oddball who beats the odds. Don't be a statistic, be a PITA to the number crunchers and prove them wrong.
Good luck!4 -
gatamadriz wrote: »Life is what happens when you are between diets.
Maintenance and lean bulking really are life. 5 -
Last I looked, the statistics on long-term living are pretty bad too.13
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I'm not a statistic. I'm an individual with free will. Maybe that's why I've maintained at goal for over 5 years now, with no plans to stop. Other people's failures have no bearing on me. I do what I want.
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"We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win."
- John F. Kennedy, September 12, 19628 -
Well, I guess it's kind of like building the pyramids of Egypt, you gotta have something to build your economy around.0
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Why not?1
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Because we all believe that 'we are special' and 'that won't happen to me'1
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moogie_fit wrote: »Because we all believe that 'we are special' and 'that won't happen to me'
To be fair, the longest running veterans here seem to be having no issues. Assuming that a dieter accepts reality (CICO) and keeps habits that are conducive to working within the framework of that reality (calorie and weight trend tracking), things seem to keep humming along just fine.
It's when people try to go back to eating intuitively in the modern food environment without being picky about food choices that things tend to slide sideways. The IIFYM style of eating only actually works well, when you know what macros you are shoving in your face.15 -
I liked this, I feel like you're describing me (and I'm starting to feel like a veteran - been here since Dec 2013)Gallowmere1984 wrote: »moogie_fit wrote: »Because we all believe that 'we are special' and 'that won't happen to me'
To be fair, the longest running veterans here seem to be having no issues. Assuming that a dieter accepts reality (CICO) and keeps habits that are conducive to working within the framework of that reality (calorie and weight trend tracking), things seem to keep humming along just fine.
It's when people try to go back to eating intuitively in the modern food environment without being picky about food choices that things tend to slide sideways. The IIFYM style of eating only actually works well, when you know what macros you are shoving in your face.
I'd like to cosign what you're saying about food choices, this is exactly what I've done - I eat meals, I cook from scratch, I don't buy lots of junk to "keep" (those things just don't seem to "keep" well). My everyday meals look very much like everyday meals from the past, like my uncles and aunts and grandparents ate. People moved more on the daily. People were normal weight then. I take the stairs, I walk, run, dance, play. I'm normal weight. Not much to ponder.7
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