6 ms·

You see this often with middle class city people in their late 20s and 30s. You go from being athletic in high school and walking all day in college to suddenl

You see this often with middle class city people in their late 20s and 30s. You go from being athletic in high school and walking all day in college to suddenly being in your prime dating age, regularly out eating and drinking with friends or dates, hitting 2-3 cocktails a few nights a week. You start investing more into your ultra-sedentary career, which you drive to, which constantly requires more of your time to get that next promotion. You are unable to have healthy home cooking, instead replacing it with restaurant work lunches and happy hours with your coworkers. In addition, as you make more money, that enables even more convenience. Amazon delivers you products, no need to leave the house. Instacart delivers you groceries, no need to even go to the corner store. Doordash always at the ready to indulge every craving. Uber will happily save you every step you choose not to take. All of that quickly adds up way before you even hit your 40s, and many will claim that it's their metabolism, when in reality it's 100% a result of a dramatic lifestyle change.

paulpauper 2y ago
I don't think it's a s simple as inactivity. IF this were true, then being active would reverse the weight gains, but it does not, at least not for me and others. I was still as active in my 30s as I was in my late teens and 20s but still gained weight. Likewise, gyms are full of people in their 30s and 40s who are not losing weight despite regular attendance. Despite the popularity of fitness apps, people keep getting fatter. It is only GLP-1 drugs that has put some dent in obesity rates. I think metabolism or some other biological, non-environmental variable plays some role. Or some reduction of NEAT that cannot be explained by careers.
- throwaway22032 2y ago
  Counterpoint - everyone I know who counts calories is able to either lose or gain weight roughly according to their plan. This is borne out in essentially every sport which has weight classes at both the amateur and professional level. Part of becoming healthy is calibrating yourself against other healthy individuals. No, not genetic freaks, just that neighbour who actually looks after themselves.
  - raffraffraff 2y ago
    My wife always says that her sister must have some type of "condition" that explains her obesity. PCOS, undiagnosed diabetes, etc. And I keep telling her that it's calories in vs calories out. Recently her sister got drunk with us and admitted candidly that she basically binge eats trash food, regularly eats McDonald's for dinner, and if she ever gets stomach cramps and bloating from overeating, the best "cure" is a litre of ice cream because it "helps settle her stomach". So yeah, no magic physics is happening here. On the other hand me and the wife weigh out things like potatoes, rice, pasta and bread, eat all the fruit and veg we want and don't own a car. So we do minimum 25k steps per day, because we walk the dogs and then walk almost everywhere else we need to go, including buying groceries (which involves back-packing food about half a mile). I also run 3 to 4 times a week. Essentially, this is the same lifestyle I had when I was 18. And guess what? At 47 I'm wearing the same jeans size I wore at 18. It really is that simple. What's hard? Trying to convince an obese lady who drives to the office, sits on her ass for 8 hours, eats chocolate bars and McDonald's for lunch and is too tired to use the gym, that her weight is 100% down to her life choices, and not magic.
    - throwaway22032 2y ago
      I hear you. When I was younger I used to try and convert everyone around me (if you want X, do Y). Back then it was personal finance stuff. Now I just don't bother. My conclusion is that it's just some form of depression, learned helplessness, whatever. There are an infinite number of reasons why you or they are a special case. I don't let it get me down any more. For what it's worth I don't think my lifestyle is at all "hardcore". I have a number for calories and protein that I try to hit, and I have numbers for lifts and cardio that I try to increase. That's it. I have a car, I eat fast food, I drink on nights out etc.
- Macha 2y ago
  As a counter-anecdote, I dramatically increased my exercise at 29, and reversed the weight gain I'd had slowly creeping over my 20s, and now in my 30s am at my lowest weight ans best physical shape since at least my mid-teens, possibly ever.
- meindnoch 2y ago
  >Likewise, gyms are full of people in their 30s and 40s who are not losing weight despite regular attendance. Because they do shit exercises, then drive home, gorge on high-carb trash, and sit on their asses until their next gym appointment.
  - WheatMillington 2y ago
    That's a very judgemental, obnoxious and inaccurate statement.
    - meindnoch 2y ago
      I know, truth hurts. I'm also overweight, but at least I'm not deluding myself.
  - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
    It’s crazy how many people lift weights trying to lose weight when they desperately need cardio.
    - ambicapter 2y ago
      Best way to lose weight for me is eating less, and walking. Cardio makes me hungry as hell.
    - 331c8c71 2y ago
      I'd say it's the reverse actually but anyhow the diet is essential.
- pfannkuchen 2y ago
  Gym != being active throughout the day
- tekla 2y ago
  Nope, people eat too much first, and secondly don't move around enough.
- lumb63 2y ago
  It is asymmetrically difficult to lose weight compared to gaining weight. The body wants to maintain homeostasis, but tries way harder when it perceives the threat to be starvation. This makes a lot of sense considering historically that conserving energy rather than expending it would probably have been a massive survival advantage. As an example, say we are discussing someone whose average energy expenditure is 3000 kcal a day and they eat that much currently. Let’s say they start to exercise and their average expenditure rises to 3200 a day, and they start to diet, so their intake falls to 2500. The body wants to minimize that 700 kcal caloric deficit to maintain homeostasis. The person will lose weight, but by the time they’re down, say, 10 lbs, a normal person 10 lbs lighter than they started would expend maybe 2900 kcal, but they’ll be expending 2800, since their body will start to downregulate processes that expend energy to minimize the deficit. This is why when people are losing weight they might feel cold (thermogenesis has decreased), tired (mental processing has decreased), or any other number of negative effects. It’s the body going into self-defense mode. Another factor is fat. Sadly, as weight is gained, fat cells grow, and split when they get too big. When weight is lost, they shrink, but they never re-combine. Fat is an endocrine tissue that releases numerous hormones that regulate energy balance, appetite, etc. This means that people who previously had more fat will never (without medical interventions) be “the same” as someone who is the same weight, but never carried extra fat to begin with. This might sound like “why bother trying when there are so many things stacked against you?” but I couldn’t disagree more. Despite the propaganda masquerading as science that says “diet and exercise don’t work”, they do. Nobody is immune to the laws of thermodynamics - if more energy is consumed than is expended, weight gain results, and if more is expended than is consumed, weight loss results. The main reason all these studies are able to say “diet and exercise are a bust” is because people don’t maintain the lifestyle that reduced their weight to begin with, and usually return to familiar habits. Luckily, our habits are mutable, and just like our body can play tricks like making us more hungry when losing weight, we can fight back if we know what we are up against. For example, caffeine is a commonly consumed substance that suppresses appetite. Staying busy rather than being idle also suppresses appetite. Not having junk food in your house/office/etc. reduces temptations to help aid healthy decisions. Having healthy food available and prepared makes making healthy decisions easier. Scheduling diet breaks or planning free meals (and calling them free meals, not cheat meals) improve diet adherence. In my opinion, the way to sustainable weight loss is slight modifications to the environment and behaviors to nudge the system in the desired direction. Our culture is too focused on motivation and discipline and toughing out situations no matter what to achieve our ends. Meanwhile tiny differences compound and do not feel like an immense burden. It’s also worth mentioning the power of a self-fulfilling prophecy: have you ever known anyone who lost weight via diet and exercise, and said it is impossible to lose weight via diet and exercise? On the flip side of the same coin, there are a lot of people who think diet and exercise will not cause weight loss, and they’re disproportionately overweight. Believing something is possible is nearly always a precondition for achieving it. Thoughts become things. Best of luck on your weight loss journey. You can do it.
- pitdicker 2y ago
  On average man burns ca. 2500 kcal per day, mostly in rest. One hour of reasonably intensive cardio burns 500~600 kcal. If you have two such workouts a week it comes down to an increased energy use of 2*600/(7*2500) = 7%. Or a large meal. Just looking at the numbers it seems spending some time at the gym is not going to do much for loosing weight. Or said differently: eating 7% less is easier. Of course cardio and strength training are useful for building/preserving muscle mass and general fitness. But for weight loss looking at food seems more effective.
  - paulpauper 2y ago
    One hour of reasonably intensive cardio burns 500~600 kcal. If you have two such workouts a week it comes down to an increased energy use of 2600/(72500) = 7%. Or a large meal. Just looking at the numbers it seems spending some time at the gym is not going to do much for loosing weight. Or said differently: eating 7% less is easier. Not sure about this. Herman Pontzer's work shows that the body adapts by burning fewer calories later, so your energy expenditure is the same. Burning 600 calories with exercise means burning 600 fewer later, like burning fewer calories during sleep or fidgeting less.
    - mint2 2y ago
      Not this again: “Burning 600 calories with exercise means burning 600 fewer later.” No it doesn’t. That work is highly misinterpreted. Because it doesn’t ELI5 how body mass and composition and steady vs unsteady state actually play into it, people take away a meaningless self serving interpretation. If you start running 4-5 times a week, I guarantee you’ll be eating significantly more and burning significantly more. Unless you’re intentional about restricting your eating, weight will most probably stay the same, but you’ll be burning far more calories. But keen eyed reader perhaps you object with “but you’ll move less and nap on the couch more, it will balance out like Pontzer’s work seems to say!” Haha, but no. Well yes to napping, but no to balancing out. It’s literally impossible. There’s no amount of napping that makes up for 13+ miles runs. There’s a lot of people who regularly do 10 to 20 mi runs on weekends. They can literally burn more calories just in the run than a sedentary person does in an entire day. And that’s their regular routine. Take a look at Boston to see 30ish thousand examples of it. As one example, My weight has been steady state for decades, but I started running marathons two years ago. I had to start eating an extra meal. And when I take it easy for a couple weeks after each marathon, my appetite ramps down. And if you don’t start eating more you’ll just get injured and be forced to stop running. Pontzers work is bad. Ask any endurance sport club and they’ll laugh at it.
- nrdxp 2y ago
  A lot of people put minimal possible effort in at the gym or other kinds of exercising. I often see people "jogging" that are basically just walking with a bit of a skip, for example. I believe this is correlated with diet, which most people think is just nutrition, but it's a lot more complex now. There are petrochemicals and toxins in basically everything, avoiding them is expensive and incredibly difficult and you will still inevitably be exposed. There are many of these chemicals that have been shown to have a direct correlation to slow metabolism, so it can make it seem to make everything more difficult if you are consuming large quantities of say, glyphosate. Most people also don't realize that the bioavailability of food is important. Probiotics, enzymes, etc are usually completely dead or stripped by the time they reach your mouth after the highly processed pipeline. Another note, there are literally thousands of micronutrients that we barely know anything, so that's also another variable. This is also just not looked at often, so you have to actually know to look to even understand their are natural compounds that may be useful, and then you have to deal with the quality control problem in the industry, and find a reliable, preferably third party tested supplier. And also just discipline, which is harder when you don't have good nutrition, or your body is constantly processing mass amounts of toxic material. It also just requires willpower though, and applying it will build will to wade through the complex landscape of not poisoning yourself constantly. If you want to get ahead, you are gonna have to push yourself to an uncomfortable position. Most folks would rather walk for 2 hours than do sprints for 5 minutes, even the the later has been shown to have significantly more effect on your metabolism, and requires much less time. So in a way I agree, it's not as simple as just activity, it is moreso intentional activity at a level that is just above your comfort zone enough to make consistent progress, and hopefully you can do that without constantly consuming mass amounts of toxins that makes that whole process harder.
- mint2 2y ago
  2 to 3 hours in a gym, (especially casual weights) does not even come close to scratching the surface of all the reduced activity that comes with office jobs, commutes and screen oriented amusement.
  - lotsoweiners 2y ago
    2-3 hours how often?
    - red-iron-pine 2y ago
      presumably daily
Zambyte 2y ago
In a sense I am thankful I graduated into the covid lockdowns. It made this dramatic change obvious to me, and I made a similarly dramatic change in my diet. I went from literally having a buffet every meal in college to having a cup of coffee for breakfast, and what I would consider a normal sized meal for dinner. I realized after about 2 years of this that I was borderline under-weight, so I decided to start eating more. It was a struggle to gain weight, but now I am at a much healthier weight. My extended family does not understand how I have not been gaining weight while I work from home. The truth is I simply do not eat more than I need to.
- jrs235 2y ago
  I eat when I'm hungry, not when a clock says I should. Edit: My family doesn't understand why I haven't gotten the family beer belly most males in my family and extended family have.
  - snikeris 2y ago
    Hunger is anchored to our circadian rhythm which nearly coincides with the clock. So we tend to be hungry around the same time each day.
- iseletsk 2y ago
  you are still young. Let's see how it works for you once you are 35+
throwaway22032 2y ago
Completely agree with this. I'm fitter (can run further, lift more, more aesthetic figure) than I was in my late teens / early twenties and it was all down to one decision - I stopped prioritising maximum income and started prioritising fitness and diet. Not everyone wants to do that, and with pre existing health and lifestyle choices it can be much more challenging for some than for others. But it's there as a choice, it's possible, and it's a hell of a lot easier than it seems once you start to see the results.
- monero-xmr 2y ago
  You don’t have to stop maximizing income in order to get fit and healthy. I schedule time to work out in my calendar. My wife and I prioritize workouts as necessary time. You can eat at a restaurant and order healthy options and drink water. People who blame their work for being unhealthy are making excuses. I’ve worked 60 - 70 hours a week for 2 decades and I’m in excellent physical condition.
  - throwaway22032 2y ago
    I agree. A better way to word it might just be that I prioritise it. I find that a lot of people say "I can't do that because X". I see it more as, well, I have to do that, so I can't do X, then. As you say, scheduling time.
    - monero-xmr 2y ago
      On Saturday night my kids went to sleep, wife goes to sleep, I work out for 2 hours at 10pm. What was everyone else doing? Watching Netflix? People pretend there’s no time but it’s all illusionary.
      - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
        You answered your own question? It sound like everyone else was sleeping. It's odd to suggest that people will have enough time to exercise if they just cut into their bedtime. Is the idea here that you sleep in the next morning, and then your wife wakes up earlier to take up your slack? Is this your suggested solution for everyone? Increase your free time to exercise by reducing someone else's?
dukeyukey 2y ago
I dunno about this - at least here in the UK, London (jam-packed with that demographic, including me and most of my friends) is the fittest, least overweight part of the country, with among the highest life expectancy.
- pseudocomposer 2y ago
  Do you and your friends in London all drive to work? Or do you walk/metro? The lifestyle shift the grandparent poster was referring to is typical of suburban and rural areas, but not really urban areas. I suspect people in more rural parts of the UK are very different from your London cohort.
  - dukeyukey 2y ago
    Nobody drives - they all either work from home (most), take public transport, or walk/cycle in. Parent comment explicitly called out "middle class city people" so I figure this is more than valid.
    - acdha 2y ago
      “City people” in the United States still often means people who drive anywhere more than a block away to avoid such extreme exertion. I think driving is really under-discussed in these discussions because once you raise the issue of so much sedentary time you realize we need to change so much of our culture and built environment.
    - lazide 2y ago
      By ‘city people’ they probably meant suburbs in the US. 99% if suburbs are car-mandatory.
    - specproc 2y ago
      The UK is obsessively into exercise. It might be because a trip to the doctors for anything short of a bullet to the head invariably involves being told to exercise more.
lotsoweiners 2y ago
Your version is a little low on the drinking calories in my opinion. I was skinny as a rail until my wife and I got together when I was 23 and started going to reverse happy hour at TGIFridays, Applebees, etc pretty much every night. Add drinking roughly another six pack most nights after the reverse happy hour along with smoking weed + more munchies and I never had a chance no matter how much exercise I did. I probably put on around 30-40 lbs in my first year of that lifestyle.
- xenospn 2y ago
  Six beers AFTER happy hour?
  - water_556 2y ago
    [dead]
xenospn 2y ago
“People in Europe metabolize differently, that’s why they’re so skinny”

paulpauper 2y ago

I don't think it's a s simple as inactivity. IF this were true, then being active would reverse the weight gains, but it does not, at least not for me and others. I was still as active in my 30s as I was in my late teens and 20s but still gained weight. Likewise, gyms are full of people in their 30s and 40s who are not losing weight despite regular attendance. Despite the popularity of fitness apps, people keep getting fatter. It is only GLP-1 drugs that has put some dent in obesity rates. I think metabolism or some other biological, non-environmental variable plays some role. Or some reduction of NEAT that cannot be explained by careers.

throwaway22032 2y ago
Counterpoint - everyone I know who counts calories is able to either lose or gain weight roughly according to their plan. This is borne out in essentially every sport which has weight classes at both the amateur and professional level. Part of becoming healthy is calibrating yourself against other healthy individuals. No, not genetic freaks, just that neighbour who actually looks after themselves.
- raffraffraff 2y ago
  My wife always says that her sister must have some type of "condition" that explains her obesity. PCOS, undiagnosed diabetes, etc. And I keep telling her that it's calories in vs calories out. Recently her sister got drunk with us and admitted candidly that she basically binge eats trash food, regularly eats McDonald's for dinner, and if she ever gets stomach cramps and bloating from overeating, the best "cure" is a litre of ice cream because it "helps settle her stomach". So yeah, no magic physics is happening here. On the other hand me and the wife weigh out things like potatoes, rice, pasta and bread, eat all the fruit and veg we want and don't own a car. So we do minimum 25k steps per day, because we walk the dogs and then walk almost everywhere else we need to go, including buying groceries (which involves back-packing food about half a mile). I also run 3 to 4 times a week. Essentially, this is the same lifestyle I had when I was 18. And guess what? At 47 I'm wearing the same jeans size I wore at 18. It really is that simple. What's hard? Trying to convince an obese lady who drives to the office, sits on her ass for 8 hours, eats chocolate bars and McDonald's for lunch and is too tired to use the gym, that her weight is 100% down to her life choices, and not magic.
  - throwaway22032 2y ago
    I hear you. When I was younger I used to try and convert everyone around me (if you want X, do Y). Back then it was personal finance stuff. Now I just don't bother. My conclusion is that it's just some form of depression, learned helplessness, whatever. There are an infinite number of reasons why you or they are a special case. I don't let it get me down any more. For what it's worth I don't think my lifestyle is at all "hardcore". I have a number for calories and protein that I try to hit, and I have numbers for lifts and cardio that I try to increase. That's it. I have a car, I eat fast food, I drink on nights out etc.
Macha 2y ago
As a counter-anecdote, I dramatically increased my exercise at 29, and reversed the weight gain I'd had slowly creeping over my 20s, and now in my 30s am at my lowest weight ans best physical shape since at least my mid-teens, possibly ever.
meindnoch 2y ago
>Likewise, gyms are full of people in their 30s and 40s who are not losing weight despite regular attendance. Because they do shit exercises, then drive home, gorge on high-carb trash, and sit on their asses until their next gym appointment.
- WheatMillington 2y ago
  That's a very judgemental, obnoxious and inaccurate statement.
  - meindnoch 2y ago
    I know, truth hurts. I'm also overweight, but at least I'm not deluding myself.
- BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
  It’s crazy how many people lift weights trying to lose weight when they desperately need cardio.
  - ambicapter 2y ago
    Best way to lose weight for me is eating less, and walking. Cardio makes me hungry as hell.
  - 331c8c71 2y ago
    I'd say it's the reverse actually but anyhow the diet is essential.
pfannkuchen 2y ago
Gym != being active throughout the day
tekla 2y ago
Nope, people eat too much first, and secondly don't move around enough.
lumb63 2y ago
It is asymmetrically difficult to lose weight compared to gaining weight. The body wants to maintain homeostasis, but tries way harder when it perceives the threat to be starvation. This makes a lot of sense considering historically that conserving energy rather than expending it would probably have been a massive survival advantage. As an example, say we are discussing someone whose average energy expenditure is 3000 kcal a day and they eat that much currently. Let’s say they start to exercise and their average expenditure rises to 3200 a day, and they start to diet, so their intake falls to 2500. The body wants to minimize that 700 kcal caloric deficit to maintain homeostasis. The person will lose weight, but by the time they’re down, say, 10 lbs, a normal person 10 lbs lighter than they started would expend maybe 2900 kcal, but they’ll be expending 2800, since their body will start to downregulate processes that expend energy to minimize the deficit. This is why when people are losing weight they might feel cold (thermogenesis has decreased), tired (mental processing has decreased), or any other number of negative effects. It’s the body going into self-defense mode. Another factor is fat. Sadly, as weight is gained, fat cells grow, and split when they get too big. When weight is lost, they shrink, but they never re-combine. Fat is an endocrine tissue that releases numerous hormones that regulate energy balance, appetite, etc. This means that people who previously had more fat will never (without medical interventions) be “the same” as someone who is the same weight, but never carried extra fat to begin with. This might sound like “why bother trying when there are so many things stacked against you?” but I couldn’t disagree more. Despite the propaganda masquerading as science that says “diet and exercise don’t work”, they do. Nobody is immune to the laws of thermodynamics - if more energy is consumed than is expended, weight gain results, and if more is expended than is consumed, weight loss results. The main reason all these studies are able to say “diet and exercise are a bust” is because people don’t maintain the lifestyle that reduced their weight to begin with, and usually return to familiar habits. Luckily, our habits are mutable, and just like our body can play tricks like making us more hungry when losing weight, we can fight back if we know what we are up against. For example, caffeine is a commonly consumed substance that suppresses appetite. Staying busy rather than being idle also suppresses appetite. Not having junk food in your house/office/etc. reduces temptations to help aid healthy decisions. Having healthy food available and prepared makes making healthy decisions easier. Scheduling diet breaks or planning free meals (and calling them free meals, not cheat meals) improve diet adherence. In my opinion, the way to sustainable weight loss is slight modifications to the environment and behaviors to nudge the system in the desired direction. Our culture is too focused on motivation and discipline and toughing out situations no matter what to achieve our ends. Meanwhile tiny differences compound and do not feel like an immense burden. It’s also worth mentioning the power of a self-fulfilling prophecy: have you ever known anyone who lost weight via diet and exercise, and said it is impossible to lose weight via diet and exercise? On the flip side of the same coin, there are a lot of people who think diet and exercise will not cause weight loss, and they’re disproportionately overweight. Believing something is possible is nearly always a precondition for achieving it. Thoughts become things. Best of luck on your weight loss journey. You can do it.
pitdicker 2y ago
On average man burns ca. 2500 kcal per day, mostly in rest. One hour of reasonably intensive cardio burns 500~600 kcal. If you have two such workouts a week it comes down to an increased energy use of 2*600/(7*2500) = 7%. Or a large meal. Just looking at the numbers it seems spending some time at the gym is not going to do much for loosing weight. Or said differently: eating 7% less is easier. Of course cardio and strength training are useful for building/preserving muscle mass and general fitness. But for weight loss looking at food seems more effective.
- paulpauper 2y ago
  One hour of reasonably intensive cardio burns 500~600 kcal. If you have two such workouts a week it comes down to an increased energy use of 2600/(72500) = 7%. Or a large meal. Just looking at the numbers it seems spending some time at the gym is not going to do much for loosing weight. Or said differently: eating 7% less is easier. Not sure about this. Herman Pontzer's work shows that the body adapts by burning fewer calories later, so your energy expenditure is the same. Burning 600 calories with exercise means burning 600 fewer later, like burning fewer calories during sleep or fidgeting less.
  - mint2 2y ago
    Not this again: “Burning 600 calories with exercise means burning 600 fewer later.” No it doesn’t. That work is highly misinterpreted. Because it doesn’t ELI5 how body mass and composition and steady vs unsteady state actually play into it, people take away a meaningless self serving interpretation. If you start running 4-5 times a week, I guarantee you’ll be eating significantly more and burning significantly more. Unless you’re intentional about restricting your eating, weight will most probably stay the same, but you’ll be burning far more calories. But keen eyed reader perhaps you object with “but you’ll move less and nap on the couch more, it will balance out like Pontzer’s work seems to say!” Haha, but no. Well yes to napping, but no to balancing out. It’s literally impossible. There’s no amount of napping that makes up for 13+ miles runs. There’s a lot of people who regularly do 10 to 20 mi runs on weekends. They can literally burn more calories just in the run than a sedentary person does in an entire day. And that’s their regular routine. Take a look at Boston to see 30ish thousand examples of it. As one example, My weight has been steady state for decades, but I started running marathons two years ago. I had to start eating an extra meal. And when I take it easy for a couple weeks after each marathon, my appetite ramps down. And if you don’t start eating more you’ll just get injured and be forced to stop running. Pontzers work is bad. Ask any endurance sport club and they’ll laugh at it.
nrdxp 2y ago
A lot of people put minimal possible effort in at the gym or other kinds of exercising. I often see people "jogging" that are basically just walking with a bit of a skip, for example. I believe this is correlated with diet, which most people think is just nutrition, but it's a lot more complex now. There are petrochemicals and toxins in basically everything, avoiding them is expensive and incredibly difficult and you will still inevitably be exposed. There are many of these chemicals that have been shown to have a direct correlation to slow metabolism, so it can make it seem to make everything more difficult if you are consuming large quantities of say, glyphosate. Most people also don't realize that the bioavailability of food is important. Probiotics, enzymes, etc are usually completely dead or stripped by the time they reach your mouth after the highly processed pipeline. Another note, there are literally thousands of micronutrients that we barely know anything, so that's also another variable. This is also just not looked at often, so you have to actually know to look to even understand their are natural compounds that may be useful, and then you have to deal with the quality control problem in the industry, and find a reliable, preferably third party tested supplier. And also just discipline, which is harder when you don't have good nutrition, or your body is constantly processing mass amounts of toxic material. It also just requires willpower though, and applying it will build will to wade through the complex landscape of not poisoning yourself constantly. If you want to get ahead, you are gonna have to push yourself to an uncomfortable position. Most folks would rather walk for 2 hours than do sprints for 5 minutes, even the the later has been shown to have significantly more effect on your metabolism, and requires much less time. So in a way I agree, it's not as simple as just activity, it is moreso intentional activity at a level that is just above your comfort zone enough to make consistent progress, and hopefully you can do that without constantly consuming mass amounts of toxins that makes that whole process harder.
mint2 2y ago
2 to 3 hours in a gym, (especially casual weights) does not even come close to scratching the surface of all the reduced activity that comes with office jobs, commutes and screen oriented amusement.
- lotsoweiners 2y ago
  2-3 hours how often?
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    presumably daily

Zambyte 2y ago

In a sense I am thankful I graduated into the covid lockdowns. It made this dramatic change obvious to me, and I made a similarly dramatic change in my diet. I went from literally having a buffet every meal in college to having a cup of coffee for breakfast, and what I would consider a normal sized meal for dinner. I realized after about 2 years of this that I was borderline under-weight, so I decided to start eating more. It was a struggle to gain weight, but now I am at a much healthier weight. My extended family does not understand how I have not been gaining weight while I work from home. The truth is I simply do not eat more than I need to.

jrs235 2y ago
I eat when I'm hungry, not when a clock says I should. Edit: My family doesn't understand why I haven't gotten the family beer belly most males in my family and extended family have.
- snikeris 2y ago
  Hunger is anchored to our circadian rhythm which nearly coincides with the clock. So we tend to be hungry around the same time each day.
iseletsk 2y ago
you are still young. Let's see how it works for you once you are 35+

throwaway22032 2y ago

Completely agree with this. I'm fitter (can run further, lift more, more aesthetic figure) than I was in my late teens / early twenties and it was all down to one decision - I stopped prioritising maximum income and started prioritising fitness and diet. Not everyone wants to do that, and with pre existing health and lifestyle choices it can be much more challenging for some than for others. But it's there as a choice, it's possible, and it's a hell of a lot easier than it seems once you start to see the results.

monero-xmr 2y ago
You don’t have to stop maximizing income in order to get fit and healthy. I schedule time to work out in my calendar. My wife and I prioritize workouts as necessary time. You can eat at a restaurant and order healthy options and drink water. People who blame their work for being unhealthy are making excuses. I’ve worked 60 - 70 hours a week for 2 decades and I’m in excellent physical condition.
- throwaway22032 2y ago
  I agree. A better way to word it might just be that I prioritise it. I find that a lot of people say "I can't do that because X". I see it more as, well, I have to do that, so I can't do X, then. As you say, scheduling time.
  - monero-xmr 2y ago
    On Saturday night my kids went to sleep, wife goes to sleep, I work out for 2 hours at 10pm. What was everyone else doing? Watching Netflix? People pretend there’s no time but it’s all illusionary.
    - RoyalHenOil 2y ago
      You answered your own question? It sound like everyone else was sleeping. It's odd to suggest that people will have enough time to exercise if they just cut into their bedtime. Is the idea here that you sleep in the next morning, and then your wife wakes up earlier to take up your slack? Is this your suggested solution for everyone? Increase your free time to exercise by reducing someone else's?

dukeyukey 2y ago

I dunno about this - at least here in the UK, London (jam-packed with that demographic, including me and most of my friends) is the fittest, least overweight part of the country, with among the highest life expectancy.

pseudocomposer 2y ago
Do you and your friends in London all drive to work? Or do you walk/metro? The lifestyle shift the grandparent poster was referring to is typical of suburban and rural areas, but not really urban areas. I suspect people in more rural parts of the UK are very different from your London cohort.
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  Nobody drives - they all either work from home (most), take public transport, or walk/cycle in. Parent comment explicitly called out "middle class city people" so I figure this is more than valid.
  - acdha 2y ago
    “City people” in the United States still often means people who drive anywhere more than a block away to avoid such extreme exertion. I think driving is really under-discussed in these discussions because once you raise the issue of so much sedentary time you realize we need to change so much of our culture and built environment.
  - lazide 2y ago
    By ‘city people’ they probably meant suburbs in the US. 99% if suburbs are car-mandatory.
  - specproc 2y ago
    The UK is obsessively into exercise. It might be because a trip to the doctors for anything short of a bullet to the head invariably involves being told to exercise more.

lotsoweiners 2y ago

Your version is a little low on the drinking calories in my opinion. I was skinny as a rail until my wife and I got together when I was 23 and started going to reverse happy hour at TGIFridays, Applebees, etc pretty much every night. Add drinking roughly another six pack most nights after the reverse happy hour along with smoking weed + more munchies and I never had a chance no matter how much exercise I did. I probably put on around 30-40 lbs in my first year of that lifestyle.

xenospn 2y ago
Six beers AFTER happy hour?
- water_556 2y ago
  [dead]

xenospn 2y ago

“People in Europe metabolize differently, that’s why they’re so skinny”