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I eat almost zero processed foods and very little sugar - mostly from fruit. I shop exclusively on the perimeter of the grocery store and eat at a restaurant ma

by rfrey 2y ago

I eat almost zero processed foods and very little sugar - mostly from fruit. I shop exclusively on the perimeter of the grocery store and eat at a restaurant maybe once a month, with all my meals cooked at home. I try my best to limit portions. I have been overweight my entire life. I have successfully lost weight with up to eight months of calorie restriction, so my willpower is just fine, thank you. I have always gained it back, and you calling me out for some kind of moral turpitude is not helpful. Your "eat like an adult" finger waggling is condescending, and claiming anyone who thinks obesity is more complex than "just eat better food, bro" is anti-intellectual and anti-science is just insulting - and not particularly "pro science" either.

andrewmcwatters 2y ago
In 8 months of losing 2 pounds a week, you would have lost roughly 64 pounds. You could have been losing more than that which is common on diets where added sugar is removed. But you're talking to someone who has worked with people with class 3 obesity and has seen the weight successfully stay off. You're omitting details. You simply didn't change your eating habits. Statistically, this detail you shared is also overwhelmingly the documented reason why people fail to keep off weight. Almost entirely, people who reside in higher classes of obesity have no idea what their relative consumption habits are in comparison to those with lower BMIs. This may come as a surprise to you, but most other countries where obesity is not a problem, most sugar consumption is also from fruit and these peoples' diets _don't_ contain anywhere near the amount of added sugar an American diet does. This isn't a special thing to point out, you just think it is because you have no other frame of reference.
- rfrey 2y ago
  2 lbs a week is a 1000 calorie per day deficit. My loss was closer to half a kilo a week. I have fluctuated between 85 and 210 kg since I was 16 or so. I am now 54. Of course I am not saying my body violates the laws of thermodynamics. After some time I succumb to cravings and begin overeating again, a bit at first and then more. I am not denying this is behaviour driven. My only point with the fruit aside was that I'm not consuming my sugar from chocolate milk or sugary breakfast cereal, not that I think fructose is exempt. But to suggest that all I have to do is eat healthfully for a few weeks and my cravings will be gone is infuriating. I have eaten healthfully for years and years, and eaten at a calorie deficit (of healthy food) for many months at a time. And the cravings NEVER go away. I always go to bed thinking of food. Maybe I should get a nutrition degree and then my body will conform to what your textbooks say should happen.
- kelseyfrog 2y ago
  Why not get curious instead of litigating someone's experience? It's part of the HN guidelines after all
  - andrewmcwatters 2y ago
    There are a lot of statistics in dietary behavioral studies and dietary reinforcement that are mostly uninteresting because, frankly, people omit details. You can lose considerable weight at speeds that are actually not recommended simply by dropping added sugar from American diets. So much so that you would need to taper off this removal to stay around 2 pounds of weight loss a week instead of dropping this consumption pattern cold turkey. The biggest difficulty in sourcing food materials or eating out is that we have sugar in everything. We have added sugar in things that in other countries you would have never added sugar into to begin with. The reinforcement habit is directly tied to food reward, sugar consumption, and ghrelin production. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying and is simply refuting what we have come to understand about food science over the years. And frankly, we as a people have not yet completely matured out of the phase of producing or accepting low-fat foods being replaced with high sugar content. Plenty of other nations never had this problem at all, never inherited it, and as a result, don't have to grow out of it. It is staggering how much of our food is incompatible with healthy weight homeostasis, and all of our common supermarkets absolutely work against you unless you are otherwise taught differently. * * * Edit: If you're baking bread for your family every day, even without added sugar, and you don't see the problem here, I don't know how anyone can help you. I'm not calling you a liar. I said you were omitting details. You didn't mention that you're frequently eating carbs. Now you mention that you're baking, and presumably eating, bread every day. This is a big eating habit detail.
    - rfrey 2y ago
      I bake bread for my family every day because I can't get bread in Canada that has no sugar. I'm aware of how insidious sugar is. You obviously deal with a lot of obesity that is caused by excessive sugar consumption. Your conclusion - and smuggled assumption - is that all obesity is caused by sugar. This is trivially refuted by finding obese people in non-high-sugar societies, or from a time period before sugar became ubiquitous. Calling me a liar does not make your position stronger. Response edit: I have four school aged children who get a sandwich for lunch every day. It takes no time at all for a family of six to go through a 650g loaf of bread, and it doesn't require overeating - I'm the only one in my family with a weight problem, and I bake the bread I don't eat it. Your assumption that everyone in the world is exactly like you is truly breathtaking.
- qotgalaxy 2y ago
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by rfrey 2y ago

andrewmcwatters 2y ago

In 8 months of losing 2 pounds a week, you would have lost roughly 64 pounds. You could have been losing more than that which is common on diets where added sugar is removed. But you're talking to someone who has worked with people with class 3 obesity and has seen the weight successfully stay off. You're omitting details. You simply didn't change your eating habits. Statistically, this detail you shared is also overwhelmingly the documented reason why people fail to keep off weight. Almost entirely, people who reside in higher classes of obesity have no idea what their relative consumption habits are in comparison to those with lower BMIs. This may come as a surprise to you, but most other countries where obesity is not a problem, most sugar consumption is also from fruit and these peoples' diets _don't_ contain anywhere near the amount of added sugar an American diet does. This isn't a special thing to point out, you just think it is because you have no other frame of reference.

rfrey 2y ago
2 lbs a week is a 1000 calorie per day deficit. My loss was closer to half a kilo a week. I have fluctuated between 85 and 210 kg since I was 16 or so. I am now 54. Of course I am not saying my body violates the laws of thermodynamics. After some time I succumb to cravings and begin overeating again, a bit at first and then more. I am not denying this is behaviour driven. My only point with the fruit aside was that I'm not consuming my sugar from chocolate milk or sugary breakfast cereal, not that I think fructose is exempt. But to suggest that all I have to do is eat healthfully for a few weeks and my cravings will be gone is infuriating. I have eaten healthfully for years and years, and eaten at a calorie deficit (of healthy food) for many months at a time. And the cravings NEVER go away. I always go to bed thinking of food. Maybe I should get a nutrition degree and then my body will conform to what your textbooks say should happen.
kelseyfrog 2y ago
Why not get curious instead of litigating someone's experience? It's part of the HN guidelines after all
- andrewmcwatters 2y ago
  There are a lot of statistics in dietary behavioral studies and dietary reinforcement that are mostly uninteresting because, frankly, people omit details. You can lose considerable weight at speeds that are actually not recommended simply by dropping added sugar from American diets. So much so that you would need to taper off this removal to stay around 2 pounds of weight loss a week instead of dropping this consumption pattern cold turkey. The biggest difficulty in sourcing food materials or eating out is that we have sugar in everything. We have added sugar in things that in other countries you would have never added sugar into to begin with. The reinforcement habit is directly tied to food reward, sugar consumption, and ghrelin production. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying and is simply refuting what we have come to understand about food science over the years. And frankly, we as a people have not yet completely matured out of the phase of producing or accepting low-fat foods being replaced with high sugar content. Plenty of other nations never had this problem at all, never inherited it, and as a result, don't have to grow out of it. It is staggering how much of our food is incompatible with healthy weight homeostasis, and all of our common supermarkets absolutely work against you unless you are otherwise taught differently. * * * Edit: If you're baking bread for your family every day, even without added sugar, and you don't see the problem here, I don't know how anyone can help you. I'm not calling you a liar. I said you were omitting details. You didn't mention that you're frequently eating carbs. Now you mention that you're baking, and presumably eating, bread every day. This is a big eating habit detail.
  - rfrey 2y ago
    I bake bread for my family every day because I can't get bread in Canada that has no sugar. I'm aware of how insidious sugar is. You obviously deal with a lot of obesity that is caused by excessive sugar consumption. Your conclusion - and smuggled assumption - is that all obesity is caused by sugar. This is trivially refuted by finding obese people in non-high-sugar societies, or from a time period before sugar became ubiquitous. Calling me a liar does not make your position stronger. Response edit: I have four school aged children who get a sandwich for lunch every day. It takes no time at all for a family of six to go through a 650g loaf of bread, and it doesn't require overeating - I'm the only one in my family with a weight problem, and I bake the bread I don't eat it. Your assumption that everyone in the world is exactly like you is truly breathtaking.
qotgalaxy 2y ago
[dead]