4 ms·

I'm obese (bmi 31, i'm a big guy) but active: i walk several miles most days, lift weights, rock climb, and use the rowing machine, adding exercise on to my wal

I'm obese (bmi 31, i'm a big guy) but active: i walk several miles most days, lift weights, rock climb, and use the rowing machine, adding exercise on to my walks about 4 days a week. Still, it's easy to gain weight and hard to lose it. There is some reason to think that environmental pollutants are impact hormones in humans causing an overall rise in obesity. Genetic factors definitely play a role. My father never exercised, ate what he wanted, and was always skinny. I was not so lucky.

skeptical1 5y ago
Luck has nothing to do with it. It's your diet, full stop. You are eating junk, and/or simply eating TOO MUCH, guaranteed.
- cecilpl2 5y ago
  The luck is in how strong your appetite is, which is the real driver of how much food one eats.
  - urban_strike 5y ago
    I think appetite itself has a lot to do with the nutritional density of what you're eating. I can eat 1000kcal of gummy worms and just be getting started, but 1000kcal of ground beef and I can't look at food for a few hours. Or in other words, it seems like your body will keep giving you hunger-signals regardless of volume, until it gets what it needs (e.g. protein, minerals, vitamins).
    - cecilpl2 5y ago
      Oh that's fascinating. I can eat 1000kcal of ground beef and go looking for more, but 200kcal of gummy worms and I'm hoping I never see them again.
      - bhelkey 5y ago
        For anyone else who is curious, 1000kcal of ground beef is ~1lb or ~ 500g or ~4 burger patties [1]. 200kcal of gummy worms is 7 gummy worms [2]. [1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/beef https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/beef [2] https://www.nutritionix.com/food/gummy-worms https://www.nutritionix.com/food/gummy-worms
    - bhelkey 5y ago
      For anyone else who is curious, 1000kcal of ground beef is ~1lb or ~ 500g or ~4 burger patties [1]. 1000kcal of gummy worms is 34 gummy worms [2]. [1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/beef https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/beef [2] https://www.nutritionix.com/food/gummy-worms https://www.nutritionix.com/food/gummy-worms
  - skeptical1 5y ago
    The real problem here is self-control and self-discipline, or the total lack thereof. It's just like the people I see on here who have some bad habit, like browsing Facebook or HN all day when they should be doing something more productive. They will do things like set up a special program to lock themselves out of the computer or out of the web browser--using some technical hack rather than the correct approach: which is to simply DECIDE not to do these things and WILL oneself not to do it, in the process developing self-control and self-discipline. The reason an obese person has such a raging hunger is because they are in the HABIT of eating so much. Habits are hard to break, because it takes willpower and dedication, which the average person in our corrupt society has been brainwashed and trained from birth not to have. In this society, we are trained to be weak, passive consumer drones, to indulge every feeling and craving foisted upon us by media "influencers"; to always give in to impulse, to never to make own decisions or say NO to anything, and if we try, to quickly give up and make excuses for failure. And look what destruction it has wrought. One might slip up at first and not perfectly follow through on the decided agenda, especially after a lifetime of being trained to just give up and give in, but the correct response is to note when one is slipping up and CONSCIOUSLY take corrective action, rather than give up and blame "luck" or whatever--which is a loser mentality, like the cigarette smoker who "just can't quit" as he takes another drag, until he dies of lung cancer. I was not myself born as a perfect snowflake who never got into bad habits or screwed up in life. I have done plenty of both. The difference is I CHOSE to give up the bad habits and live differently, for the long term benefit. Once the good habit is locked in place, doing the right thing is effortless. If a fat or obese person decides to make a change, they will. If they quit eating garbage and cut back on portions, they will crave it for a time, but over time the cravings will lessen, and then disappear entirely. It's simply a matter of breaking old habits and forming new, better ones. There was a time I used to drink soft drinks and eat fast food and Doritos like the typical fat ass does. The very conveniently placed vending machines at the government-owned school, with all the conveniently located fast food establishments, helped and encouraged me to develop these habits. Now after breaking the habit, none of this junk appeals to me AT ALL. There is ZERO appeal. From the outside, now I can see it to be what it actually is: JUNK. It is repulsive. In time, as people change their habits, not only will much of this JUNK no longer appeal to them at all, but if any of it still does to some degree, they can indulge in it a little without harm--because they have developed the SELF-DISCIPLINE to control themselves.
300bps 5y ago
it's easy to gain weight and hard to lose it. It's the same process either way. As I've taught all my children, you can spend an hour on a treadmill and burn 400 calories. And you can then eat a 10 piece chicken McNugget and large fry from McDonald's to consume about 1,000 calories. Add a sugary soda to that and you can blow the vast majority of your daily calories in about 20 minutes. My father never exercised, ate what he wanted, and was always skinny There are definitely multiple factors in play but the #1 factor is how much you eat. I have two sons; one is extremely skinny and the other is overweight. Not coincidentally, the skinny one "eats whatever he wants" which isn't much at all. My overweight son thinks nothing of eating 3-4 slices of pizza for dinner and my skinny son eats 1 slice and he doesn't like cheese so he scrapes that off first.
cecilpl2 5y ago
> My father never exercised, ate what he wanted, and was always skinny. You hit the nail on the head when you said he "ate what he wanted". People who are "naturally skinny" are that way because they don't want to eat much. They have low appetites in general and will frequently simply forget to eat meals.

skeptical1 5y ago

Luck has nothing to do with it. It's your diet, full stop. You are eating junk, and/or simply eating TOO MUCH, guaranteed.

cecilpl2 5y ago
The luck is in how strong your appetite is, which is the real driver of how much food one eats.
- urban_strike 5y ago
  I think appetite itself has a lot to do with the nutritional density of what you're eating. I can eat 1000kcal of gummy worms and just be getting started, but 1000kcal of ground beef and I can't look at food for a few hours. Or in other words, it seems like your body will keep giving you hunger-signals regardless of volume, until it gets what it needs (e.g. protein, minerals, vitamins).
  - cecilpl2 5y ago
    Oh that's fascinating. I can eat 1000kcal of ground beef and go looking for more, but 200kcal of gummy worms and I'm hoping I never see them again.
    - bhelkey 5y ago
      For anyone else who is curious, 1000kcal of ground beef is ~1lb or ~ 500g or ~4 burger patties [1]. 200kcal of gummy worms is 7 gummy worms [2]. [1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/beef https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/beef [2] https://www.nutritionix.com/food/gummy-worms https://www.nutritionix.com/food/gummy-worms
  - bhelkey 5y ago
    For anyone else who is curious, 1000kcal of ground beef is ~1lb or ~ 500g or ~4 burger patties [1]. 1000kcal of gummy worms is 34 gummy worms [2]. [1] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/beef https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/foods/beef [2] https://www.nutritionix.com/food/gummy-worms https://www.nutritionix.com/food/gummy-worms
- skeptical1 5y ago
  The real problem here is self-control and self-discipline, or the total lack thereof. It's just like the people I see on here who have some bad habit, like browsing Facebook or HN all day when they should be doing something more productive. They will do things like set up a special program to lock themselves out of the computer or out of the web browser--using some technical hack rather than the correct approach: which is to simply DECIDE not to do these things and WILL oneself not to do it, in the process developing self-control and self-discipline. The reason an obese person has such a raging hunger is because they are in the HABIT of eating so much. Habits are hard to break, because it takes willpower and dedication, which the average person in our corrupt society has been brainwashed and trained from birth not to have. In this society, we are trained to be weak, passive consumer drones, to indulge every feeling and craving foisted upon us by media "influencers"; to always give in to impulse, to never to make own decisions or say NO to anything, and if we try, to quickly give up and make excuses for failure. And look what destruction it has wrought. One might slip up at first and not perfectly follow through on the decided agenda, especially after a lifetime of being trained to just give up and give in, but the correct response is to note when one is slipping up and CONSCIOUSLY take corrective action, rather than give up and blame "luck" or whatever--which is a loser mentality, like the cigarette smoker who "just can't quit" as he takes another drag, until he dies of lung cancer. I was not myself born as a perfect snowflake who never got into bad habits or screwed up in life. I have done plenty of both. The difference is I CHOSE to give up the bad habits and live differently, for the long term benefit. Once the good habit is locked in place, doing the right thing is effortless. If a fat or obese person decides to make a change, they will. If they quit eating garbage and cut back on portions, they will crave it for a time, but over time the cravings will lessen, and then disappear entirely. It's simply a matter of breaking old habits and forming new, better ones. There was a time I used to drink soft drinks and eat fast food and Doritos like the typical fat ass does. The very conveniently placed vending machines at the government-owned school, with all the conveniently located fast food establishments, helped and encouraged me to develop these habits. Now after breaking the habit, none of this junk appeals to me AT ALL. There is ZERO appeal. From the outside, now I can see it to be what it actually is: JUNK. It is repulsive. In time, as people change their habits, not only will much of this JUNK no longer appeal to them at all, but if any of it still does to some degree, they can indulge in it a little without harm--because they have developed the SELF-DISCIPLINE to control themselves.

300bps 5y ago

it's easy to gain weight and hard to lose it. It's the same process either way. As I've taught all my children, you can spend an hour on a treadmill and burn 400 calories. And you can then eat a 10 piece chicken McNugget and large fry from McDonald's to consume about 1,000 calories. Add a sugary soda to that and you can blow the vast majority of your daily calories in about 20 minutes. My father never exercised, ate what he wanted, and was always skinny There are definitely multiple factors in play but the #1 factor is how much you eat. I have two sons; one is extremely skinny and the other is overweight. Not coincidentally, the skinny one "eats whatever he wants" which isn't much at all. My overweight son thinks nothing of eating 3-4 slices of pizza for dinner and my skinny son eats 1 slice and he doesn't like cheese so he scrapes that off first.

cecilpl2 5y ago

> My father never exercised, ate what he wanted, and was always skinny. You hit the nail on the head when you said he "ate what he wanted". People who are "naturally skinny" are that way because they don't want to eat much. They have low appetites in general and will frequently simply forget to eat meals.