3 ms·

This feels to me like saying "hey, you don't need to buy a fire extinguisher to keep your house safe from bushfires, the primary way of protecting it is clearin

by strken 3y ago

This feels to me like saying "hey, you don't need to buy a fire extinguisher to keep your house safe from bushfires, the primary way of protecting it is clearing vegetation away from the walls." While technically true, it presents the two methods as if they were in opposition to each other, when they are in fact complimentary. You can do both! If you absolutely have to prioritise one, then I guess you could pick one, but why bother? It also assumes you'll "lose" people if you even mention exercising in a positive way unless someone comes along to tell them how pointless exercising is. I think the exact opposite is true: people get burnt out on weight loss because they aren't able to make it stick, and the solution is to incorporate exercise as well as educate them about concepts like losing your weight in stages then stabilising before metabolic adaptation hits, how your BMR needs to be recalculated as the weight comes off, water retention and weight loss plateaus, calorie tracking, satiation, and everything else that's been learnt through trial and error over the years.

DangitBobby 3y ago
> You can do both! If you absolutely have to prioritise one, then I guess you could pick one, but why bother? You should ask someone who is really heavy how excited they are at the prospect of exercising, or permanently altering their lifestyle to frequently include something they don't actually enjoy doing. When faced with the choices "be fat" or "exercise regularly and make good dietary choices to lose and keep weight off" most people choose "be fat". I know for me, I managed to lose and keep off weight through diet and exercise, but most forms of exercise are still a chore. Actually, it was easy to exercise at first because I was enthusiastic about my goals and it felt important for weightloss. But as time has gone on and I've kept the weight off (still exercising), I'm much less enthusiastic. If I woke up suddenly 80 pounds heavier again, I don't know that I'd be able to bring myself to bring it back down. Especially if you told me that exercise was an essential component. > I think the exact opposite is true: people get burnt out on weight loss because they aren't able to make it stick I think they get burnt out because it requires a lot of discipline to control your diet, and cutting back makes you really tired and hungry. It doesn't stick because their body still lies to them about how much they need to eat, and it's exhausting to fight your body and its lies. Ultimately, I think people correctly self-asses their interest level and motivation in maintaining a lifestyle that includes deliberate exercise. Many of the people in my life are thin and completely sedentary, and they've never battled with their diet or weightloss. I'm sure you know some people like that too, and I imagine people who want to lose weight want their lives to be like that. So, like I said, assuming exercise is not actually essential, I think the cultural emphasis on exercise does people trying to lose weight a disservice. It almost feels like wellness gatekeeping instead of actual advice. I don't know one way or another what the numbers show about diet + exercise vs just diet say, but I'm also not sure whether I'd be convinced by statistics that show exercise is a key component to weight loss. People that lose and keep weight off only manage to do so if they are serious about it, and because there is a heavy cultural emphasis on exercise as a part of weightloss, people who are serious will also exercise to lose weight, confounding the correlation between exercise and weight loss.
- strken 2y ago
  > When faced with the choices "be fat" or "exercise regularly and make good dietary choices to lose and keep weight off" most people choose "be fat". I think this is where education comes in, because when I was overweight I used to assume exercise had to be painful to be useful, and it really doesn't. Literally anything other than being 100% sedentary counts as meaningful exercise. It's okay to walk slowly with breaks, run slowly with breaks, walk in a pool where your weight is less of a factor, or whatever helps you. It's perfectly fine to exercise at a volume and intensity where you don't feel any pain at all, and "no pain no gain" is a disastrous lie. As you note, it's hard to make that kind of change twice. I think we do a disservice by discouraging people from exercising, rather than presenting it as an optional but beneficial extra. > Many of the people in my life are thin and completely sedentary, and they've never battled with their diet or weightloss. I'm sure you know some people like that too My (at the time new) boss once said "I bet you don't need to worry about this stuff [diet and exercise]" at a time when I was still eating 3000kJ under my TDEE, which was quite funny. But yes, I agree there really are some people who don't need to exercise to be skinny. The biggest problem I have is with hiding information from people. I agree that exercise isn't necessary or sufficient for weight loss, but I think on the margins exercise does help a considerable number of people succeed who would otherwise fail. That's why I don't like how most weight-related articles that end up on HN have something negative about exercise at the top of the comments.

by strken 3y ago

DangitBobby 3y ago

> You can do both! If you absolutely have to prioritise one, then I guess you could pick one, but why bother? You should ask someone who is really heavy how excited they are at the prospect of exercising, or permanently altering their lifestyle to frequently include something they don't actually enjoy doing. When faced with the choices "be fat" or "exercise regularly and make good dietary choices to lose and keep weight off" most people choose "be fat". I know for me, I managed to lose and keep off weight through diet and exercise, but most forms of exercise are still a chore. Actually, it was easy to exercise at first because I was enthusiastic about my goals and it felt important for weightloss. But as time has gone on and I've kept the weight off (still exercising), I'm much less enthusiastic. If I woke up suddenly 80 pounds heavier again, I don't know that I'd be able to bring myself to bring it back down. Especially if you told me that exercise was an essential component. > I think the exact opposite is true: people get burnt out on weight loss because they aren't able to make it stick I think they get burnt out because it requires a lot of discipline to control your diet, and cutting back makes you really tired and hungry. It doesn't stick because their body still lies to them about how much they need to eat, and it's exhausting to fight your body and its lies. Ultimately, I think people correctly self-asses their interest level and motivation in maintaining a lifestyle that includes deliberate exercise. Many of the people in my life are thin and completely sedentary, and they've never battled with their diet or weightloss. I'm sure you know some people like that too, and I imagine people who want to lose weight want their lives to be like that. So, like I said, assuming exercise is not actually essential, I think the cultural emphasis on exercise does people trying to lose weight a disservice. It almost feels like wellness gatekeeping instead of actual advice. I don't know one way or another what the numbers show about diet + exercise vs just diet say, but I'm also not sure whether I'd be convinced by statistics that show exercise is a key component to weight loss. People that lose and keep weight off only manage to do so if they are serious about it, and because there is a heavy cultural emphasis on exercise as a part of weightloss, people who are serious will also exercise to lose weight, confounding the correlation between exercise and weight loss.

strken 2y ago
> When faced with the choices "be fat" or "exercise regularly and make good dietary choices to lose and keep weight off" most people choose "be fat". I think this is where education comes in, because when I was overweight I used to assume exercise had to be painful to be useful, and it really doesn't. Literally anything other than being 100% sedentary counts as meaningful exercise. It's okay to walk slowly with breaks, run slowly with breaks, walk in a pool where your weight is less of a factor, or whatever helps you. It's perfectly fine to exercise at a volume and intensity where you don't feel any pain at all, and "no pain no gain" is a disastrous lie. As you note, it's hard to make that kind of change twice. I think we do a disservice by discouraging people from exercising, rather than presenting it as an optional but beneficial extra. > Many of the people in my life are thin and completely sedentary, and they've never battled with their diet or weightloss. I'm sure you know some people like that too My (at the time new) boss once said "I bet you don't need to worry about this stuff [diet and exercise]" at a time when I was still eating 3000kJ under my TDEE, which was quite funny. But yes, I agree there really are some people who don't need to exercise to be skinny. The biggest problem I have is with hiding information from people. I agree that exercise isn't necessary or sufficient for weight loss, but I think on the margins exercise does help a considerable number of people succeed who would otherwise fail. That's why I don't like how most weight-related articles that end up on HN have something negative about exercise at the top of the comments.