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For most people the key to not gaining lots of weight is making good decisions when you shop at the supermarket. Look at the label of the food you are buying.

by bruceb 3y ago

For most people the key to not gaining lots of weight is making good decisions when you shop at the supermarket. Look at the label of the food you are buying. If the ingredient list is long and there are lots of words you don't recognize or can't pronounce, don't buy it. If most of you food comes in a box/container then you are probably eating sub optimal food. Look at how much sugar is in it. Most processed food has more sugar than you think. A lot more. Limit drinks that are not water. They have sugar in them or chemicals. It is not hard to eat relatively health, if you have time or money. Time to prepare food or money to buy pre cut veggies and other fresh items.

naruhodo 3y ago
Yep. It's easier to have self-control for the one hour a week that you're at the supermarket than 24x7 when there's chocolate and alcohol in the pantry. So the easiest way to control your intake of high calorie foods is to just not buy them. May I also offer some words of wisdom from Dr Rudy... two words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GGf_GlD2RY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GGf_GlD2RY
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- usui 3y ago
  > eat less It is quite literally this simple, but the weight-loss industry keeps growing. So many billions of dollars spent to redirect the answer for people. Some people will have a harder time mentally coping due to genetics, but at the end of the day, this is the answer.
rantallion 3y ago
> They have sugar in them or chemicals. Nitpick: everything is a chemical (even water itself).
- dougmwne 3y ago
  It is possible for a statement to be technically correct, but practically incorrect. Words have different definitions and meanings in different contexts. If you try to force a meaning from one context into another context, you have made an error in your language use. If you take a look at the dictionary, which is a documentation of the practical use of words, you will see that to talk of chemicals in food is entirely coherent. Words do not have absolute definitions, they are defined by their usage in the real language. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/chemical#:~:text=Chemical%20means%20involving%20or%20resulting,substances%20that%20something%20consists%20of https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/chemica....
  - YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
    You linked a dictionary definition which would qualify water as chemical. Even your own source disagrees with you. The purpose of language is communication. If the 'practical' use of the word doesn't communicate anything, then the practical use is wrong.
    - dougmwne 3y ago
      You can’t redefine words as you see fit to suit a simplified model of the world. Meaning is complex and shaded by situation and intent.
      - YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
        Note that the dictionary you provided agrees with me and disagrees with you. The one redefining words here is you. Well, you'd actually have to have defined the word in the first place, but you haven't even done that. If you can't even define the word you're talking about, how can you be in a position to tell other people what it means?
        dougmwne 3y ago
        Definition #2 clearly refers to and includes an industrial chemical process as you can see in the usage examples and synonyms. This is how language works. One word can have many meanings and shades of meanings. When people talk about chemicals in food, everyone knows the definition being used is in the sense of industrially produced chemicals that are not present in plants and animals. Pointing out that other definitions of the word exist is as irrelevant to the conversation as if you were talking about eating oranges and I said, well actually that’s a color and you can’t eat it.
silisili 3y ago
I feel like this is treating obesity as a scientific problem, and not a mental one. It's absolutely, one hundred percent the latter. Losing weight is easy. Eat less calories than you burn. If you don't know what that is, assume 1500ish. I know this, but still have had huge phases of gaining and losing weight in my life. And it was never because I'm so dumb as not to know why or how to fix it, but because fatty foods become some type of 'good part' in an otherwise uneventful day. Or because you're so exhausted fast food is all that's for dinner. We've got to figure out how to fix the mental parts. With the rise of social media and the recently published 'loneliness epidemic', I suspect this will get worse before it gets better.
- switch007 3y ago
  100% agree with this. I just got out a bad relationship and I’ve gained 7kg. You need to be in a really good place mentally to make all the good decisions and fight all the advertising.
- crooked-v 3y ago
  The funny thing is, I've always had an easier time keeping a steady weight in the parts of my life when I relied on fast food or chain restaurants because I could reliably count calories. It's when I cook at home that I have a hard-to-impossible time trying to keep track.
- eternityforest 3y ago
  Many foods are designed to make you want to keep eating them. If you have cookies in the house you will probably eat them, or at least I will, if you have something healthy that takes effort to make you'll probably eat a serving and move on. Too many calories might be bad no matter what the source is, but some foods seem to make people want to eat more of them than others... and some foods have negative effects even aside from weight. They seem pretty sure even lots of stuff that's totally natural isn't that healthy... The thing that I would really like to understand is why social media and internet addiction doesn't make us eat less. I would expect the American diet to be a lot healthier now that phones exist, because we all look at screens all day, you would think we would just eat exactly enough to not be hungry, and maybe a little more as a social thing, and otherwise maybe even forget to eat half the time, like people do when engrossed in a book or a project? Why can't tech fill our pointless dopamine seeking needs just as well as eating crap? Shouldn't intermittent fasting be kind of automatic now? Perhaps one might expect us to even have healthy meals more just to show off on Instagram. Instead we scroll while we eat, and we even doordash now, from what I hear. It almost seems like the scrolling makes it worse!
not_your_vase 3y ago
> It is not hard to eat relatively health, if you have time or money. This is the most important sentence. I would also say `s/or/and/g` When counting calories and spreading eating out through the day, diet planning, food preparation and eating can easily become an almost full time job.
- frankzander 3y ago
  then just don't count calories, don't plan diets. just prepare your food and eat. it takes around 2 hours. at the end this is one of the most important activities because you care about your fuel.
  - not_your_vase 3y ago
    That's more than 2 hours, spread across the day, with constant context switching (unless you like hours old food). I know it is easy to talk about it. Doing is very very different. I know, as I used to talk about it, but I have been about it since quite a while.

by bruceb 3y ago

naruhodo 3y ago

Yep. It's easier to have self-control for the one hour a week that you're at the supermarket than 24x7 when there's chocolate and alcohol in the pantry. So the easiest way to control your intake of high calorie foods is to just not buy them. May I also offer some words of wisdom from Dr Rudy... two words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GGf_GlD2RY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GGf_GlD2RY

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
usui 3y ago
> eat less It is quite literally this simple, but the weight-loss industry keeps growing. So many billions of dollars spent to redirect the answer for people. Some people will have a harder time mentally coping due to genetics, but at the end of the day, this is the answer.

rantallion 3y ago

> They have sugar in them or chemicals. Nitpick: everything is a chemical (even water itself).

dougmwne 3y ago
It is possible for a statement to be technically correct, but practically incorrect. Words have different definitions and meanings in different contexts. If you try to force a meaning from one context into another context, you have made an error in your language use. If you take a look at the dictionary, which is a documentation of the practical use of words, you will see that to talk of chemicals in food is entirely coherent. Words do not have absolute definitions, they are defined by their usage in the real language. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/chemical#:~:text=Chemical%20means%20involving%20or%20resulting,substances%20that%20something%20consists%20of https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/chemica....
- YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
  You linked a dictionary definition which would qualify water as chemical. Even your own source disagrees with you. The purpose of language is communication. If the 'practical' use of the word doesn't communicate anything, then the practical use is wrong.
  - dougmwne 3y ago
    You can’t redefine words as you see fit to suit a simplified model of the world. Meaning is complex and shaded by situation and intent.
    - YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
      Note that the dictionary you provided agrees with me and disagrees with you. The one redefining words here is you. Well, you'd actually have to have defined the word in the first place, but you haven't even done that. If you can't even define the word you're talking about, how can you be in a position to tell other people what it means?
      - dougmwne 3y ago
        Definition #2 clearly refers to and includes an industrial chemical process as you can see in the usage examples and synonyms. This is how language works. One word can have many meanings and shades of meanings. When people talk about chemicals in food, everyone knows the definition being used is in the sense of industrially produced chemicals that are not present in plants and animals. Pointing out that other definitions of the word exist is as irrelevant to the conversation as if you were talking about eating oranges and I said, well actually that’s a color and you can’t eat it.

silisili 3y ago

I feel like this is treating obesity as a scientific problem, and not a mental one. It's absolutely, one hundred percent the latter. Losing weight is easy. Eat less calories than you burn. If you don't know what that is, assume 1500ish. I know this, but still have had huge phases of gaining and losing weight in my life. And it was never because I'm so dumb as not to know why or how to fix it, but because fatty foods become some type of 'good part' in an otherwise uneventful day. Or because you're so exhausted fast food is all that's for dinner. We've got to figure out how to fix the mental parts. With the rise of social media and the recently published 'loneliness epidemic', I suspect this will get worse before it gets better.

switch007 3y ago
100% agree with this. I just got out a bad relationship and I’ve gained 7kg. You need to be in a really good place mentally to make all the good decisions and fight all the advertising.
crooked-v 3y ago
The funny thing is, I've always had an easier time keeping a steady weight in the parts of my life when I relied on fast food or chain restaurants because I could reliably count calories. It's when I cook at home that I have a hard-to-impossible time trying to keep track.
eternityforest 3y ago
Many foods are designed to make you want to keep eating them. If you have cookies in the house you will probably eat them, or at least I will, if you have something healthy that takes effort to make you'll probably eat a serving and move on. Too many calories might be bad no matter what the source is, but some foods seem to make people want to eat more of them than others... and some foods have negative effects even aside from weight. They seem pretty sure even lots of stuff that's totally natural isn't that healthy... The thing that I would really like to understand is why social media and internet addiction doesn't make us eat less. I would expect the American diet to be a lot healthier now that phones exist, because we all look at screens all day, you would think we would just eat exactly enough to not be hungry, and maybe a little more as a social thing, and otherwise maybe even forget to eat half the time, like people do when engrossed in a book or a project? Why can't tech fill our pointless dopamine seeking needs just as well as eating crap? Shouldn't intermittent fasting be kind of automatic now? Perhaps one might expect us to even have healthy meals more just to show off on Instagram. Instead we scroll while we eat, and we even doordash now, from what I hear. It almost seems like the scrolling makes it worse!

not_your_vase 3y ago

> It is not hard to eat relatively health, if you have time or money. This is the most important sentence. I would also say `s/or/and/g` When counting calories and spreading eating out through the day, diet planning, food preparation and eating can easily become an almost full time job.

frankzander 3y ago
then just don't count calories, don't plan diets. just prepare your food and eat. it takes around 2 hours. at the end this is one of the most important activities because you care about your fuel.
- not_your_vase 3y ago
  That's more than 2 hours, spread across the day, with constant context switching (unless you like hours old food). I know it is easy to talk about it. Doing is very very different. I know, as I used to talk about it, but I have been about it since quite a while.