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> Weight loss isn't "known intractable". Indeed, weight loss is "simple", as you said. The problem arises when you have managed to get to your target and you r

• mukundmr 9y ago
  I switched to one full meal a day and fruits / salads / soup for the other times. This takes care of hunger issues and helps with losing weight. Change of habit is required and it is not easy. Bariatric surgery can help, but it has it's own annoying side effects and long term (>7 years) reports aren't available widely.
  • pif 9y ago
    > Change of habit is required Sure, obesity is clearly (also) a problem of bad habits. The question that still needs an answer is: when will the new habit become natural for me? Hunger is not like exercising: while a couple years of training can make a marathon feel natural for the body of a former sedentary person, no amount of training (AFAIK) can either ease the feeling of satiety with the correct amount of calories or set your stomach/brain system to "hunger is normal" state. Edit to add: I'd lovee to be proven wrong :-)
    • pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      Satiety is apparently a complex mix including mental aspects but also chewing. Have you tried chewing more? Either "over chewing" (just keep each mouthful of food in your mouth longer and chew it to a complete pulp) or lower calorie foods that you physically have to work on more to actually eat (carrots, celery, ...)? Water before eating may help you slow down too, which means your body can realise you're sated at an earlier point through the meal. Just suggestions, YMMV, IANADietician and haven't fully researched these ideas scientifically (though they are based on research I've heard about in passing).
    • ghettoCoder 9y ago
      This might sound glib but it's not meant to be; habit and discipline take over after desire fails. Meaning you need to establish a new normal for yourself. Maybe that means no more soda (not even the sugar free crap) and no ketchup on your fries. After a while weight comes off and stays off without you missing the extra calories.
    • Cthulhu_ 9y ago
      The main challenge is that a lot of people try and change too many habits at once - when new year comes around, lots of people go on a diet, go to the gym, etc. But changing too much at once will only cause people to revert to old behaviours. Change one thing at a time. I started by weaning myself off of sugar in coffee, one step at a time. Stopping candy was easy, I never had a problem with that, the stuff makes my teeth hurt. And stopping friday/saturday/sunday snacking was relatively easy too once I was no longer living with my parents and it was just put on the table. Current / most recent change is having a big salad for lunch at work, now that I've got a new assignment that has a big salad bar. Making it big is important; there's pretty much no nutritional value in the green stuff, and it helps me get through the afternoon without feeling hungry.
• m00x 9y ago
  Do you mean no known way for obese people? If you're already fit, it's incredibly easy to stay fit. Also, most of the time, obese people don't only eat to satisfy hunger, but much past that.
  • pif 9y ago
    > If you're already fit, it's incredibly easy to stay fit. You are right! Thanks for pointing it out. > obese people don't only eat to satisfy hunger, but much past that. They surely don't eat for the pleasure of adding some more fat to their body.
    • pbhjpbhj 9y ago
      >They surely don't eat for the pleasure of adding some more fat to their body. // We surely do, isn't that the problem, we're tailored to times of famine & plenty meaning eating is pleasurable even when we're physically sated to allow us to gain weight ready for the next famine? I'm on the line of obesity, I eat most when I'm lethargic, depressed, bored. I eat less when I'm exercising, occupied mentally, distracted, physically tired.
• CogitoCogito 9y ago
  > there is no known way to keep your weight stable with an acceptable life quality. Firstly, why does your weight need to be stable? Personally I tend to go on yearly (maybe biennially) cycles with shifts between 170 and 195 pounds. Basically I force myself to get down in the weight (my weight-loss method is to restrict calories pretty dramatically). After that I will have eating habits that tend to keep me low for a while, but over time as I go back in my regular eating style (I am naturally a bit of glutton), I'll usually go back up in weight. After that the cycle starts again. I think that this is a much easier approach than trying to stick to a target weight. It also allows you to "live" (most people don't want to count calories forever). Secondly, what is an "acceptable life quality"? Like I said, I lose weight by restricting calories greatly. This leaves me pretty much constantly hungry for a couple months, but I quickly am able to just push it into the background mentally and accept it. For me this is acceptable. But yes if basically any approach that _works_ is considered _unacceptable_ to you, you're basically screwed. (I don't want to sit on a high horse. You might have stress in life or obligations that make it basically impossible for you to be productive and hungry for a couple months, so I can totally understand my method as being unacceptable to many.) In the end, you do need to figure out how to take action somehow, or you'll never solve the problem. > By the way, surgery actually looks like an option. Yeah most don't realize how extremely successful gastric bypass is. It's way more successful on average than any popular weight-loss routine. Obese people should seriously consider the possibility. It can be life-changing.
  • pif 9y ago
    I'd like to clarify: I think that big sacrifices are easily acceptable while you're losing weight. What can make life miserable is the perspective that sacrifices will always be necessary, just to maintain the status quo. Your method is indeed interesting, as you basically found a way to concentrate "suffering" in few months per year, still it is another example of a cure that lacks an important bullet point: it never ends. Solving the hunger problem would let obese people loose their excess weight, no matter the sacrifices involved, and then forget they ever were obese.
    • CogitoCogito 9y ago
• nradov 9y ago
  Why do people consider mild hunger to be something that seriously impacts their quality of life? Hunger is the natural state of all animals.
  • pif 9y ago
    Indeed all animals' life is a constant battle against hunger. No brain evolved to accept hunger, but to recognize it and fight it as the no. 1 priority.
    • nradov 9y ago
      No, you're describing the intense hunger associated with starvation, not the mild hunger associated with gradual weight loss. If you're doing other stuff then mild hunger is easy to ignore. It's an alert, not a command.
      • pif 9y ago
        Mine is a honest question, no rudeness intended: do you know what you're talking about? Have you experienced it first person?
        • nradov 9y ago
          Yes of course I've experienced it. Being a little hungry is just like being a little too cold or feeling minor pain. Put it aside and get on with life.
          • pif 9y ago
            Thanks for replying. Now it's clear that you don't know what you are talking about. Rudeness intended :-)
            • nradov 9y ago
              Apparently you don't know what you're talking about, and just want to whine and complain. Too bad.
• rebuilder 9y ago
  Regarding the hunger problem - is increasing calorie consumption a viable option? A physically active male with significant muscle mass can fairly reasonably find himself needing about 3000 kcal a day without having to be a pro athlete. Would becoming much more active and gaining lean mass help, or would the amount of food needed to feel sated just increase?
  • CogitoCogito 9y ago
    You have to be pretty careful. It's actually quite common for people to _gain_ weight when training for a marathon because they often end up eating more than they burn during the runs. For me at about 185 pounds, I'll burn around 870 calories by running 10k: http://www.runnersworld.com/tools/calories-burned-calculator http://www.runnersworld.com/tools/calories-burned-calculator I could gain those calories back and more in 15 minutes just eating a burger. A lot of people do exactly this and sabotage themselves a bit. Personally if I bump up my running training and want to lose weight, I can never depend on it happening naturally. I always gain weight if I don't actively try to lose it. So I think no matter what you need to be careful. If you exercise more, you'll be able to eat more, but if you want to lose weight, you'll still need to eat less than your body wants. So I still think fundamentally losing the pounds starts in the kitchen.
  • michaelt 9y ago
    I heard a radio program a few years ago about childhood obesity. They had an expert on who said something I'd never really thought of before: They said the conventional causality of sports curing obesity is the wrong way around. The reason you don't see fat marathon runners isn't because running makes you thin, it's because being thin makes it easier to run. The guy's reasoning was: You exercise for an hour doing something like walking or golf, then reward yourself with a snack? Net intake of calories [1]. And it's easier to cut a snack from your diet than to find the time and motivation to do an hour's exercise. To put it another way, when you're obese exercising is like a job that pays ten cents an hour. Of course, once you've become thin and athletic, you gain access to more time-efficient types of exercise. But that snack might still need 15 minutes of vigorous cycling, or competitive soccer or basketball. [1] e.g. an hour's dog-walking or golf are roughly equivalent to a 16 fl.oz can of Coca-Cola and a 2 oz packet of skittles, respectively.
• curun1r 9y ago
  In case there are obese people here who are looking for other options, I found an obscure one that has stabilized my weight 30lbs below where it had been previously. I found that by doing apnea training that freedivers do to increase their breath-hold times, I naturally dropped the weight and it hasn't come back. The exercise itself can be done in 15-20 min per day and is done in either sitting or lying down, so anyone without respiratory issues can do it. As I understand it from a study [1] that someone here posted the last time I mentioned it, the training changes our body's way of dealing with oxygen. It basically does naturally what happens to athletes that take EPO, though without the dangers of that rightfully-banned substance. That raises the body's basal metabolic rate, which should help in losing weight and keeping it off. Like most other things weight-loss-related, it's probably not a magic bullet, so YMMV, but my sample size of one resulted in my accidentally losing 20% of my body weight and keeping it off for about a year now. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19850416 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19850416