3 ms·

> "It's simple math, calories consumed versus calories burned", and the solutions are correspondingly simplistic. Eat less, work out more, or both. > To me, it'

> "It's simple math, calories consumed versus calories burned", and the solutions are correspondingly simplistic. Eat less, work out more, or both. > To me, it's like saying that poverty can be solved by people either working more or spending less. It's important to realize that the weight (loss) boils down to these fundamentals. Many people delude themselves that their extra weight is caused by eating not healthy foods. While that might be partially true, portion control is hugely important as well. Many people then switch to eating healthier food (containing the healthy weight loss calories, not those gain calories), but still in copious amounts, and then wonder how come they're not losing weight. So, breaking such delusions by understanding CICO is an important first step, but of course it's not sufficient on its own and people need to develop more complex strategies based on this.

nine_k 4y ago
Eating less calories than losing is what makes one lose weight. This is why so many calorie-restricting diets are a success in the first few months of them. Keeping the weight at lower levels is a different thing entirely. This is why so many calorie-restricting diets fail when people gradually abandon them. Humans have a built-in sensor of satiety. If the sensor is signaling that they are hungry, they feel uncomfortable, and go looking for food, sooner or later. This can be suppressed by willpower, but it's taxing and distracting. This is why so many calorie-restricting diets get abandoned: the initial serving of willpower allocated to the self-restriction ends, and people want to proceed with their lives without having to fight the feeling of hunger most of the time. Between keeping a healthy weight and performing well on a demanding mental job they usually choose the latter. Whoever can lose weight on pure willpower is a hero; others can strive to emulate them, but should not assume they will be as successful. So substances that help blunt or remove the feeling of not having eaten enough are important. Some of them are medical drugs (say, modafinil has this effect), some are household substances (like caffeine), some are real dangerously addictive drugs (like nicotine or cocaine). But there are mechanical sensors right in the stomach, which are harder to suppress with substances. This is where surgical means can and do help. Cutting a part of your stomach is now done via a very small incision in one's abdomen. Morbid obesity is a disease, and should be treated as such. Shaming someone obese is like shaming someone with a broken leg: both painful and not helpful.

nine_k 4y ago

Eating less calories than losing is what makes one lose weight. This is why so many calorie-restricting diets are a success in the first few months of them. Keeping the weight at lower levels is a different thing entirely. This is why so many calorie-restricting diets fail when people gradually abandon them. Humans have a built-in sensor of satiety. If the sensor is signaling that they are hungry, they feel uncomfortable, and go looking for food, sooner or later. This can be suppressed by willpower, but it's taxing and distracting. This is why so many calorie-restricting diets get abandoned: the initial serving of willpower allocated to the self-restriction ends, and people want to proceed with their lives without having to fight the feeling of hunger most of the time. Between keeping a healthy weight and performing well on a demanding mental job they usually choose the latter. Whoever can lose weight on pure willpower is a hero; others can strive to emulate them, but should not assume they will be as successful. So substances that help blunt or remove the feeling of not having eaten enough are important. Some of them are medical drugs (say, modafinil has this effect), some are household substances (like caffeine), some are real dangerously addictive drugs (like nicotine or cocaine). But there are mechanical sensors right in the stomach, which are harder to suppress with substances. This is where surgical means can and do help. Cutting a part of your stomach is now done via a very small incision in one's abdomen. Morbid obesity is a disease, and should be treated as such. Shaming someone obese is like shaming someone with a broken leg: both painful and not helpful.