6 ms·

It's not a surprise that people become fat in an environment where food is cheap, delicious, and abundant. But we do know how to stop it. You just have to eat

It's not a surprise that people become fat in an environment where food is cheap, delicious, and abundant. But we do know how to stop it. You just have to eat a little less. A modest, sustainable change in your diet is all that is needed to make dramatic changes over a 6-12 month timescale. Record what you eat to establish an honest food baseline, and reduce from there. Stop eating all food you don't enjoy, and stop eating when you aren't hungry. I put off losing weight for the last decade because of the constant drumbeat of news, blogs, and anecdotal moaning I heard from everyone about how impossible it is to lose weight. But after monitoring my food as described above for 6 months, I am down 20% from my starting weight. Success feels inevitable now, because the changes I have made are small and sustainable for me; for example, I still eat candy, but fun size instead of king size. My main regret is not starting sooner. I lost my 20s to obesity because crash diets failed me and I listened when people said it wasn't possible. reddit.com/r/loseit has been an amazing support community for me throughout this process. I'd encourage y'all to check it out if you want to make a change.

sambe 11y ago
Pretty sad that this is top comment. Obviously increased consumption and decreased physical activity is the direct cause but everyone here knows this already. It's not the key problem. The key problem is that for most people this is hard. And doing it for the rest of your life is almost impossible (for a significant majority). The fact that willpower/compliance is the core problem is also sufficiently well-known that I read this kind of assessment and think "and world peace too: we just have to get along with each other".
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Yet our ancestors, with far fewer resources than we have, managed it just fine. Unlike world peace, this is also an individual problem with an individual solution. If I renounce gluttony I can avoid obesity. If I renounce violence that makes me more vulnerable to murderous thugs.
  - jim-greer 11y ago
    > Yet our ancestors, with far fewer resources than we have, managed it just fine. Wait, how does having fewer resources make it harder to consume fewer resources? I find it easier to not eat ice cream if I don't have any ice cream. Are you KenM trolling us?
    - blfr 11y ago
      More resources means that you can buy things, like gym memberships, pre-made meals in accordance with your (low-carb for example) diet, or just leisure time to work out. It also means that you can largely avoid carbohydrates since their main advantage is low price per calorie.
      - jim-greer 11y ago
        This is true. I am not advocating being fat. I, myself, am not fat. But the parent comment seemed to be saying that our ancestors had more willpower than we do now, making them slimmer. Occam's Razor would suggest that it was the absence of ice cream.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
- madaxe_again 11y ago
  Is it hard, or are we told it's hard so often we all take it as a given that it's hard? Are we told it's super hard so that we will buy an "easy" weight loss solution that doesn't work? Hint: it's not hard. I lost 90 lbs over about six months five years go, and haven't put it back on - and eating less is easy - saved a small fortune, too. If anything it's harder putting on and maintaining excess weight - but the process of getting obese is more immediately gratifying than applying self-control and seeing the long term gains.
  - pluma 11y ago
    If so many people fail to do it, it's hard. If it wasn't hard for you, congratulations: you're different.
  - xlm1717 11y ago
    I do agree that "marketing" is a big part of the problem. We're told over and over that it's hard, and the only time we're told it's easy is when someone is trying to sell us some weight loss program. The first step to winning the battle is gaining some awareness. Barring any pre-existing condition (especially diabetes), someone who wants to lose weight should simply start eating less, and slowly so they can gradually get used to it. Food is so abundant, it's usually not lack of food that makes people feel hungry, but lack of feeding the food addiction, especially addiction to added sugars. People should try fasting every once in a while just to see they can do it and they won't suffer ill effects from feeling hungry for ~16 hours. The biggest obstacle is convincing yourself you can do it.
- fpgaminer 11y ago
  > but everyone here knows this already. I doubt that. Most people do not have a good enough understanding of what will help them lose weight easily. In fact the statement "increased consumption and decreased physical activity is the direct cause" illustrates my point, in that decreased physical activity has little to do with weight gain. I suspect the vox populi have the same beliefs when it comes to weight loss that I did until a few years ago. That is, to lose weight one must eat lots of veggies, cut fat, cut junk food, etc. and exercise a lot. While doing that specific thing will certainly lead to the intended result, it is but one of many ways to achieve the goal of weight loss. More importantly it masks the mechanics of weight loss, which are simple to understand and from which a plethora of lifestyle changes can be derived that are nearly effortless and malleable enough to fit into anyone's lives. The truth is simple. People gain weight when they consume more calories than they expend. Carbs, fat, sugar, veggies, exercise, etc. don't magically bend the equation. It's just calories. From that simple fact everything else can be derived. My advice to anyone is to grab a calorie tracking app, and use it for two weeks. Set a calorie budget for yourself (good apps will ask questions and do this for you), and then stay within that budget. Your life will change forever. You know how humans intuitively believe that a bowling ball falls faster than a pebble? Well our intuitions about food are just as bad. You'll quickly learn that breads are awful, meat is amazing, and exercise is useless (for losing weight). Most of that is counter intuitive. I bet most people will think a chicken sandwich is healthy, and fat, juicy steak is bad. But the opposite is true (in the context of losing weight). The chicken sandwich comes on bread, which is calorie dense and will quickly blow your calorie budget without filling you up. The steak, on the other hand, can be surprisingly low calorie and will fill you up for a long time (fats are satiating). And yes, again, exercise is useless. People will jump to the exercise part of the app, plug in their 20 minutes of treadmill, and see that through all their sweat and tears ... they've earned half a cookie worth of calories. Not worth it. That doesn't jive with what your average joe off the street believes about weight loss. After the two weeks? Ditch the app if you want. Those two weeks will change your lifestyle, and you'll be able to guessimate calories without it to maintain weight. Want to keep losing weight? Keep using it; you'll have learned that calorie apps aren't scary, or hard. You'll go to the store, check the nutrition facts, and you'll realize you now have a special new power. The power to understand what those numbers mean and how they'll impact your life. It becomes second nature and doesn't require any extra brain power. Seriously, it's easy. This stuff is not taught in schools, nor by most parents, nor by most of vocal society. We get the tired, old rhetoric about vegetables and exercise. For goodness' sake, we were taught the food pyramid when I was growing up! What a load of bollocks that was. I get funny looks by almost everyone when I say things like "Bacon is good for you!" and "Fat is healthy for you!" They look at me like what I said was a joke. I think that's telling about what "everyone here knows". P.S. This comment is all within the context of losing weight. Eating healthy is a different matter, one which is much more complex, far less understood, and far more open to debate. In the grand scheme of things, if you're overweight, that's going to kill you before "Ah, well, looks like you didn't eat enough of this unheardof berry that we just discovered last week in the Caribbean forests". So take care of weight first, then in roughly this order: stop eating sugar. No really, stop eating sugar. Fat is good for you (except trans, that's terrible. Sat/unsat is whatever; probably doesn't matter and we don't know one way or the other). Yes, seriously, fat is good for you. Exercise. No, cardio is not for everyone, so do weight training if that makes you happier. Or do cardio if that makes you happier. Whatever gets you into the gym. No, it doesn't matter how many reps/sets you do; just work hard. Multi vitamins. Fish (or fish oil) ... maybe. Your heart will thank you. Fiber. Seriously, fiber. Mr. colon needs love too. Oh, and get some sun, but not more than 20 minutes without sunblock. Careful balance between vitamin D and skin cancer... But no, really, the sun is scary. Some day we will master the art of genetic manipulation and put racism behind us so we can make everyone some nice shade of brown. Until that day, if you were unfortunate enough to be born without natural melanin in your skin (aka white), stay the hell away from the giant freaking nuclear reactor core in the sky. Future you will thank you for not having to get gapping, cancerous holes cut out of your face and arms because you wanted to be tan for a summer 40 years ago. Did all that? Okay, go chase the latest fad diet if that makes you happy. No, seriously, happiness priceless. Find it wherever you can.
pitchka 11y ago
It's very hard to eat less when you eat sugar and meat. The most calorie dense foods on the planet. Having a diet abundant in veggies allows you to eat as much as you want any time you want. The best diet for those who like to eat a lot and often. Given the evidence it is obviously true that majority of people have no emotional maturity to control themselves. They've been given, through tax incentives of meat and dairy, an opportunity to fill themselves with large amounts of cheap meat, and it is easy to overdose with meat. Try eating carrots, kale, lettuce, eggplants, legumes, beans, buckwheat, corn like a madman (which is what obviously the majority is doing with meat) and see if you get fat. People think meat has a place in every meal. It's obviously not a good choice.
cat-dev-null 11y ago
There is a greater need for lower calorie (or slightly higher protein), non-compromise, taste-equivalent or better replacements across most food products. If people can't stop eating, lower caloric density seems like the best way to reduce overall caloric intake. PS: I need to lose 20 lbs myself
- Jach 11y ago
  On the low caloric density front, diet soda is great if you can't get yourself to kick soda entirely. I can easily drink multiple cans of soda per day if I have some on hand, the simple rule that they have to be diet cuts out at least 500 calories. On the other side, high caloric density diets (that is, high fat, adequate protein, very low carb diets like the keto diet (r/keto is alright for basic info and motivation)) work pretty well too. I can consume a lot of calories via sugar, and even via complex carbs, but it's much harder for me to consume the same amount if most of those calories are coming from fat. I don't have a strong will when it comes to reducing the amount I eat of something delicious, so I make up for it by restricting what I have available and ready to eat.
  - fpgaminer 11y ago
    Calorie density (calorie/volume) is a useful metric, but as you've discovered it's important to also consider satiation/calorie which sometimes is not proportional to calorie density, as well as calorie/serving which also often differs from calorie density. Not only are fats satiating, but they satiate quickly and for a long time. When they hit your intestines they immediately signal your body that it is full. This is because fats are calorie dense and are the longest burning category of calorie, so the body benefited from an early warning system to keep its satiation estimate accurate. And, to be honest, while fat itself is obviously the most calorie dense (what was it, like 6 or 8 per g, compared to 4 for protein and sugar?), fatty foods often are not dense in terms of calorie/service. Bacon, for example, while often perceived as a fatty, terrible food, is really low on the calorie/serving metric and the fats boost its satiation metric very high. There are also some subtleties to satiation/calorie. There's the biological satiation; your body telling your brain that you've consumed enough calories. And then there's mental satiation; your mind being happy with what you just ate. And biological satiation is sometimes inaccurate to the extent that it's really a dual purposed signal. It signals "you're full", but it's interpreted as both "I'm full" and "I have enough calories". Fat is ideal in that it triggers "I'm full" while also providing the calories to back it up. Vegetables will fill you up, but they don't have any energy to back them up, so they can be problematic. They work best as a way to tune the density of a meal. And, of course, they provide much needed fiber, vitamins, and minerals, but I was focusing mostly on the weight-gain aspect of foods. Just a little food for thought to perhaps enhance the way you quantify various diets.
akerro 11y ago
>You just have to eat a little less. Not less, but smarter, less sugar, more vegetables and meat, but not highly processed meat, more water, less water-sugar-juice. >Stop eating all food you don't enjoy, and stop eating when you aren't hungry. I enjoy donuts, but I don't enjoy cauliflowers, yet I don't eat donuts.

sambe 11y ago

Pretty sad that this is top comment. Obviously increased consumption and decreased physical activity is the direct cause but everyone here knows this already. It's not the key problem. The key problem is that for most people this is hard. And doing it for the rest of your life is almost impossible (for a significant majority). The fact that willpower/compliance is the core problem is also sufficiently well-known that I read this kind of assessment and think "and world peace too: we just have to get along with each other".

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Yet our ancestors, with far fewer resources than we have, managed it just fine. Unlike world peace, this is also an individual problem with an individual solution. If I renounce gluttony I can avoid obesity. If I renounce violence that makes me more vulnerable to murderous thugs.
- jim-greer 11y ago
  > Yet our ancestors, with far fewer resources than we have, managed it just fine. Wait, how does having fewer resources make it harder to consume fewer resources? I find it easier to not eat ice cream if I don't have any ice cream. Are you KenM trolling us?
  - blfr 11y ago
    More resources means that you can buy things, like gym memberships, pre-made meals in accordance with your (low-carb for example) diet, or just leisure time to work out. It also means that you can largely avoid carbohydrates since their main advantage is low price per calorie.
    - jim-greer 11y ago
      This is true. I am not advocating being fat. I, myself, am not fat. But the parent comment seemed to be saying that our ancestors had more willpower than we do now, making them slimmer. Occam's Razor would suggest that it was the absence of ice cream.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
madaxe_again 11y ago
Is it hard, or are we told it's hard so often we all take it as a given that it's hard? Are we told it's super hard so that we will buy an "easy" weight loss solution that doesn't work? Hint: it's not hard. I lost 90 lbs over about six months five years go, and haven't put it back on - and eating less is easy - saved a small fortune, too. If anything it's harder putting on and maintaining excess weight - but the process of getting obese is more immediately gratifying than applying self-control and seeing the long term gains.
- pluma 11y ago
  If so many people fail to do it, it's hard. If it wasn't hard for you, congratulations: you're different.
- xlm1717 11y ago
  I do agree that "marketing" is a big part of the problem. We're told over and over that it's hard, and the only time we're told it's easy is when someone is trying to sell us some weight loss program. The first step to winning the battle is gaining some awareness. Barring any pre-existing condition (especially diabetes), someone who wants to lose weight should simply start eating less, and slowly so they can gradually get used to it. Food is so abundant, it's usually not lack of food that makes people feel hungry, but lack of feeding the food addiction, especially addiction to added sugars. People should try fasting every once in a while just to see they can do it and they won't suffer ill effects from feeling hungry for ~16 hours. The biggest obstacle is convincing yourself you can do it.
fpgaminer 11y ago
> but everyone here knows this already. I doubt that. Most people do not have a good enough understanding of what will help them lose weight easily. In fact the statement "increased consumption and decreased physical activity is the direct cause" illustrates my point, in that decreased physical activity has little to do with weight gain. I suspect the vox populi have the same beliefs when it comes to weight loss that I did until a few years ago. That is, to lose weight one must eat lots of veggies, cut fat, cut junk food, etc. and exercise a lot. While doing that specific thing will certainly lead to the intended result, it is but one of many ways to achieve the goal of weight loss. More importantly it masks the mechanics of weight loss, which are simple to understand and from which a plethora of lifestyle changes can be derived that are nearly effortless and malleable enough to fit into anyone's lives. The truth is simple. People gain weight when they consume more calories than they expend. Carbs, fat, sugar, veggies, exercise, etc. don't magically bend the equation. It's just calories. From that simple fact everything else can be derived. My advice to anyone is to grab a calorie tracking app, and use it for two weeks. Set a calorie budget for yourself (good apps will ask questions and do this for you), and then stay within that budget. Your life will change forever. You know how humans intuitively believe that a bowling ball falls faster than a pebble? Well our intuitions about food are just as bad. You'll quickly learn that breads are awful, meat is amazing, and exercise is useless (for losing weight). Most of that is counter intuitive. I bet most people will think a chicken sandwich is healthy, and fat, juicy steak is bad. But the opposite is true (in the context of losing weight). The chicken sandwich comes on bread, which is calorie dense and will quickly blow your calorie budget without filling you up. The steak, on the other hand, can be surprisingly low calorie and will fill you up for a long time (fats are satiating). And yes, again, exercise is useless. People will jump to the exercise part of the app, plug in their 20 minutes of treadmill, and see that through all their sweat and tears ... they've earned half a cookie worth of calories. Not worth it. That doesn't jive with what your average joe off the street believes about weight loss. After the two weeks? Ditch the app if you want. Those two weeks will change your lifestyle, and you'll be able to guessimate calories without it to maintain weight. Want to keep losing weight? Keep using it; you'll have learned that calorie apps aren't scary, or hard. You'll go to the store, check the nutrition facts, and you'll realize you now have a special new power. The power to understand what those numbers mean and how they'll impact your life. It becomes second nature and doesn't require any extra brain power. Seriously, it's easy. This stuff is not taught in schools, nor by most parents, nor by most of vocal society. We get the tired, old rhetoric about vegetables and exercise. For goodness' sake, we were taught the food pyramid when I was growing up! What a load of bollocks that was. I get funny looks by almost everyone when I say things like "Bacon is good for you!" and "Fat is healthy for you!" They look at me like what I said was a joke. I think that's telling about what "everyone here knows". P.S. This comment is all within the context of losing weight. Eating healthy is a different matter, one which is much more complex, far less understood, and far more open to debate. In the grand scheme of things, if you're overweight, that's going to kill you before "Ah, well, looks like you didn't eat enough of this unheardof berry that we just discovered last week in the Caribbean forests". So take care of weight first, then in roughly this order: stop eating sugar. No really, stop eating sugar. Fat is good for you (except trans, that's terrible. Sat/unsat is whatever; probably doesn't matter and we don't know one way or the other). Yes, seriously, fat is good for you. Exercise. No, cardio is not for everyone, so do weight training if that makes you happier. Or do cardio if that makes you happier. Whatever gets you into the gym. No, it doesn't matter how many reps/sets you do; just work hard. Multi vitamins. Fish (or fish oil) ... maybe. Your heart will thank you. Fiber. Seriously, fiber. Mr. colon needs love too. Oh, and get some sun, but not more than 20 minutes without sunblock. Careful balance between vitamin D and skin cancer... But no, really, the sun is scary. Some day we will master the art of genetic manipulation and put racism behind us so we can make everyone some nice shade of brown. Until that day, if you were unfortunate enough to be born without natural melanin in your skin (aka white), stay the hell away from the giant freaking nuclear reactor core in the sky. Future you will thank you for not having to get gapping, cancerous holes cut out of your face and arms because you wanted to be tan for a summer 40 years ago. Did all that? Okay, go chase the latest fad diet if that makes you happy. No, seriously, happiness priceless. Find it wherever you can.

pitchka 11y ago

It's very hard to eat less when you eat sugar and meat. The most calorie dense foods on the planet. Having a diet abundant in veggies allows you to eat as much as you want any time you want. The best diet for those who like to eat a lot and often. Given the evidence it is obviously true that majority of people have no emotional maturity to control themselves. They've been given, through tax incentives of meat and dairy, an opportunity to fill themselves with large amounts of cheap meat, and it is easy to overdose with meat. Try eating carrots, kale, lettuce, eggplants, legumes, beans, buckwheat, corn like a madman (which is what obviously the majority is doing with meat) and see if you get fat. People think meat has a place in every meal. It's obviously not a good choice.

cat-dev-null 11y ago

There is a greater need for lower calorie (or slightly higher protein), non-compromise, taste-equivalent or better replacements across most food products. If people can't stop eating, lower caloric density seems like the best way to reduce overall caloric intake. PS: I need to lose 20 lbs myself

Jach 11y ago
On the low caloric density front, diet soda is great if you can't get yourself to kick soda entirely. I can easily drink multiple cans of soda per day if I have some on hand, the simple rule that they have to be diet cuts out at least 500 calories. On the other side, high caloric density diets (that is, high fat, adequate protein, very low carb diets like the keto diet (r/keto is alright for basic info and motivation)) work pretty well too. I can consume a lot of calories via sugar, and even via complex carbs, but it's much harder for me to consume the same amount if most of those calories are coming from fat. I don't have a strong will when it comes to reducing the amount I eat of something delicious, so I make up for it by restricting what I have available and ready to eat.
- fpgaminer 11y ago
  Calorie density (calorie/volume) is a useful metric, but as you've discovered it's important to also consider satiation/calorie which sometimes is not proportional to calorie density, as well as calorie/serving which also often differs from calorie density. Not only are fats satiating, but they satiate quickly and for a long time. When they hit your intestines they immediately signal your body that it is full. This is because fats are calorie dense and are the longest burning category of calorie, so the body benefited from an early warning system to keep its satiation estimate accurate. And, to be honest, while fat itself is obviously the most calorie dense (what was it, like 6 or 8 per g, compared to 4 for protein and sugar?), fatty foods often are not dense in terms of calorie/service. Bacon, for example, while often perceived as a fatty, terrible food, is really low on the calorie/serving metric and the fats boost its satiation metric very high. There are also some subtleties to satiation/calorie. There's the biological satiation; your body telling your brain that you've consumed enough calories. And then there's mental satiation; your mind being happy with what you just ate. And biological satiation is sometimes inaccurate to the extent that it's really a dual purposed signal. It signals "you're full", but it's interpreted as both "I'm full" and "I have enough calories". Fat is ideal in that it triggers "I'm full" while also providing the calories to back it up. Vegetables will fill you up, but they don't have any energy to back them up, so they can be problematic. They work best as a way to tune the density of a meal. And, of course, they provide much needed fiber, vitamins, and minerals, but I was focusing mostly on the weight-gain aspect of foods. Just a little food for thought to perhaps enhance the way you quantify various diets.

akerro 11y ago

>You just have to eat a little less. Not less, but smarter, less sugar, more vegetables and meat, but not highly processed meat, more water, less water-sugar-juice. >Stop eating all food you don't enjoy, and stop eating when you aren't hungry. I enjoy donuts, but I don't enjoy cauliflowers, yet I don't eat donuts.