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Being fat is a trap

• anovikov 1y ago
  [flagged]
  • chickenzzzzu 1y ago
    I'd rather not fry my kidneys. Have muscle problem, just take steroids?
    • esotericquant 1y ago
      [flagged]
      • PaulHoule 1y ago
        I think that bird thinks GLP-1 and anabolic steroids are similarly dangerous.
        • esotericquant 1y ago
          [flagged]
    • wiseowise 1y ago
      > Have muscle problem, just take steroids? Unironically, yes. This, or grind for decades, or both.
      • chickenzzzzu 1y ago
        With absolutey no side effects, right? Just take steroids right?
        • wiseowise 1y ago
          Of course not. That's why I've provided an alternative – grind.
          • throwaway290 1y ago
            I try to avoid meds usually but sometimes gotta wonder if people who flag+kill comments about GLP or steroids are just thin and buff people who lucked out on genetic lottery and secretly want to maintain their superiority. Like why, gene editing a baby is okay but if your gene expression sucks and your parents couldn't afford crispr you now are to suffer the entire life from body dysphoria and bringing up an easy way out is to be silenced or stigmatized? What are downsides exactly? The rich do these things all the time right?
            • anovikov 1y ago
              I think deep inside of people, the truly miraculous drugs like GLP-1 are subconsciously rejected because they are seen as an attempt to cheat God.
            • wiseowise 1y ago
              > Like why, gene editing a baby is okay but if your gene expression sucks and your parents couldn't afford crispr you now are to suffer the entire life from body dysphoria and bringing up an easy way out is to be silenced or stigmatized? Because when I do it – it is Gods gift/destiny/I deserve this/whatever other bullshit reason to maintain my edge, when you do it – it is because you're weak/just train like others do/you don't deserve it/whatever other bullshit reason why it is your natural place to be there. There was a comment recently how it is "cringe" when you're investing in your looks and learn how to date, because apparently if you weren't born with innate ability to attract – you're supposed to stay this way and be miserable forever.
    • anovikov 1y ago
      Ironically, GLP-1 causes a great improvement in kidney and liver function too, and studies are ongoing for a multitude of other weight-unrelated (as well as related) diseases. Everyone should be on it. Benefits for non-overweight people with no addictions are rather marginal but there are almost no downsides.
      • throwaway290 1y ago
        I just noticed that OP actually noted GLP in a later comment. Just more evidence that HN downvotes/flags often mean actually you're right and people just feel too butthurt about it.
• mrbluecoat 1y ago
  > I believe that the fat trap is also physical and mental. This is the key for all addictions and compulsions.
  • Trasmatta 1y ago
    Yes. The emotional is the part of addictions that many people miss, and one of the primary reasons it can be so hard to break out of them. Addictions are almost always fulfilling some emotional need, or covering up some emotional pain, and if you remove the addiction without addressing the underlying issue, you almost certainly will either relapse or replace it with something else. It's not about willpower.
    • bravesoul2 1y ago
      This plus abundance of bad food. It's easier to stay thin if your diet is what we evolved to eat. That norm would take most people incredible will power to stick to with all the high carb food. Harder than not drinking.
      • mytailorisrich 1y ago
        Make a shopping list, stick to that, ignore and don't buy from the "bad aisles". If you have nothing "bad" at home and in your fridge you can't eat badly, and personally I have found that it is much easier not to buy than not to eat what you already have.
        • Trasmatta 1y ago
          The problem, again, though is if the food you were eating was fulfilling an emotional need that you don't try to address after you start to make changes like this. That's why it's hard to sustain for a lot of people. You buy better food for a few weeks, and then suddenly you find that you're eating takeout every day again.
          • tonyedgecombe 1y ago
• LoganDark 1y ago
  I feel like the author is generalizing by assuming that everyone who is fat has an "obsession with food".
  • almost_usual 1y ago
    Most people I know who are overweight have more of an obsession with beer/alcohol and they make poor food choices when intoxicated. They eat snacks before bed, consume high calorie foods with low nutritional value. Then they feel too tired or hungover to be active the following day due to a poor night of rest.
    • LoganDark 1y ago
      I struggle to pay attention to diet because of ADHD. The closest thing I'd have to food obsession is just the normal level of hate for myself that's common to everything. My doctor says I'm quite close to obesity, and my own research suggested most people my age and gender are supposed to weigh roughly a third less than I do. That's not anything quite like morbid obesity, but it's still something I occasionally hate myself for. Yes I would have to develop quite the food obsession to change habits about this because I don't think I've changed habits about anything for reasons like this before. Worth noting I have BPD so it's nearly impossible for me to do anything for myself. But I don't think I have that obsession right now.
  • didgeoridoo 1y ago
    I think he’s more saying that if you’re fat and you want to lose weight (and keep it off) you have to develop an obsession with food — that it requires an enormous amount of constant attention and effort, unlike the relationship with food that normal-weight people can enjoy. This is why GLP-1s are so interesting. They suppress hunger, but more importantly they suppress “food noise” — the state of constantly thinking about food. You can separate this effect from appetite suppression due to its seemingly global (although still anecdotal) effect on ALL compulsive behavior, from drinking to smoking to shopping.
    • LoganDark 1y ago
• maztaim 1y ago
  For me, quitting tobacco was simple, don’t use. Quitting alcohol was simple. Don’t drink. I cannot simply abstain from eating. I can relate to the struggles and feelings from this article.
  • waynenilsen 1y ago
    It can be this simple if you eat a controlled diet. Say Soylent or similar only for 3 months. Compliance is very easy to detect at least
    • maztaim 1y ago
      Truth, but I also argue that I am not addressing the underlying emotional traps that I attempted to escape using tobacco and alcohol. Those same mental/emotional traps just shifted/intensified with my eating. Perhaps it is that simple, but I also feel it’s important to address the root factors, which I haven’t, admittedly.
    • admissionsguy 1y ago
      Controlled diet + controlled exercise. Freshly prepared daily full-day meals delivery + personal trainer at the gym 2x/week combo is the only thing that ever worked for me. And it worked every time (3 times) in different countries. I would get fat again in between those periods, like I am now, after staying in a rural area without those facilities.
    • dnpls 1y ago
      yuck - while the soylent diet might be efficient on short term, it's not sustainable. It's harder at first to eat better, healthier foods (more vegetables and fruits, meat and eggs, less fried foods and stuff with a zillion additives or refined sugars) but so much easier to maintain once the habit is formed. Stuff yourself with whole foods 80% of the time, it's going to be ok to eat a burger with fries or a pizza every now or then, and it doesn't feel like a sacrifice. Bonus: you'll feel the difference in energy levels.
  • netdevphoenix 1y ago
    You don't need to abstain. You can either eat less or simply eat more low caloric food (greens, potatoes, lentils, etc)
• krzat 1y ago
  Body is reflecting one's lifestyle. I would say the trap is attempting to lose weight while keeping the fat person lifestyle. "I'll do this temporary measure for X days and I will stay lean forever afterwards".
• flkiwi 1y ago
  Ok, but there's also an environmental (and one completely reasonable mental) factor: I live in a place where it is unpleasantly hot (upper 90s and humid) most of the year and there are few public outdoor spaces generally thanks to rampant overdevelopment, I hate gyms and toxic gym culture, I have a quaint bungalow that doesn't have space for equipment, I work an intense job that keeps me focused for hours at a time, I live in a country that prioritizes fast, processed, sugary foods, etc. Much like fighting climate change, placing all the responsibility on the end user without changing some of the social conditions is a flawed approach, even if there are some things individuals can do to help. Put another way, there are plenty of situations where all the mental fortitude, discipline, self-honesty, commitment to change, and persistence won't be enough in the face of it simply being difficult to find time, space, or money to be healthy.
  • netdevphoenix 1y ago
    Calisthenics and bodyweight exercises require no equipment and can be done at home
    • j1elo 1y ago
      And some exercises can be really intense, too! I have to repeat this over and over to people who complain about not being able or wanting to go to a gym: just start from (carefully) doing some squats or any other youtube-guided exercise in your living room! anything else is just an excuse they're forming in their head to cover for their lack of will to do it. Try to do Saitama's training (from anime One Punch Man, just a tongue-in-cheek way to mean do lots of push-ups and squats) and afterwards tell me you don't feel like you've done some serious exercise!
  • atrus 1y ago
    > Put another way, there are plenty of situations where all the mental fortitude, discipline, self-honesty, commitment to change, and persistence won't be enough in the face of it simply being difficult to find time, space, or money to be healthy. If that was true, then literally everyone would be fat in your area. You can learn to cook, you have room for bodyweight exercises. You don't need equipment to feel really sore the next day! It's not going to be easy, it will be miserably hard, but it is possible.
• mschuster91 1y ago
  > Getting out of the physical fat trap, strictly speaking, is simple: Develop basic sleep habits so that you get decent sleep. Exercise daily or almost daily. Reduce refined carbs, unhealthy fats and alcohol from your diet. Focus on getting enough vegetables, fruits, complex carbs and healthy fats. Well... and that's the problem. It sounds easy on paper but in fact it is not easy at all in practice for the wide masses: - work 8 hours, add 1h overtime and lunch, add 2 hours for commute, so out of the 24 hours a day, you already lose 11 hours to work related matters. Add 8 hours for a decent sleep time and whoops, only 5 hours remaining in the day for everything else: getting ready for work in the morning (0.5h), do chores (1h), make, eat and digest dinner (1.5h) have some quality time with your partner (1h) and children (1h), and whoops the entire day is gone before even considering anything actually relaxing, hobbies, or working out. - shift work, particularly rotating shifts, or on-call work that's effectively being abused as regular overtime, makes developing healthy sleep patterns outright impossible. - many people are outright unable to afford healthy groceries, which is why they're going for unhealthy highly processed food - of those that are able to afford groceries, good luck getting them in one of the way too many food deserts Our health issues (and the lack of children) to a very large degree tie back right into the expectation that people have to work 40 hours a week just to afford bare survival. That is the true trap - systemic forces leave the wide masses no other way.
  • romellem 1y ago
    [Simple is not easy][1]. [1]: https://www.entropywins.wtf/blog/2017/01/02/simple-is-not-easy/ https://www.entropywins.wtf/blog/2017/01/02/simple-is-not-ea...
  • SietrixDev 1y ago
    Another trap I see in your list is wasting 3-4 hours for unpaid work: - 2 hours commute daily? This seems crazy. Never had such a commute and most of my life I could walk or cycle to the university/work, so I gained some free exercise time. - 1 hour overtime daily? What for? - Lunch outside of work? (This is where my additional hour came from) Thankfully this never happened to me in my actual career.
    • 1y ago
• adamgordonbell 1y ago
  Losing weight is hard. Maintaining weight is easier, except that you have to do it forever. It was incredibly hard and took me a long time to lose 15 pounds as a always had been skinny person whose weight slowly crept up. I've never been obese and I'm sure it's super challenging to change, considering how hard loosing 15 lbs was for me. But if I were, I do think I'd try a GLP-1 agonist to get my weight down.
  • yetihehe 1y ago
    > Losing weight is hard. Maintaining weight is easier, except that you have to do it forever. That second part makes it harder. Losing weight was pretty simple for me, but maintaining that low weight was much harder. Someone said that it takes about half a year to form a habit. I maintained lower weight for about a year, then it came back.
    • okwhateverdude 1y ago
      Adipocytes live like 10 years[0]. You need to maintain for a long time for those cells to die off. Otherwise, it is easy to regain. [0]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adipocyte#Cell_turnover https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adipocyte#Cell_turnover
    • sorcerer-mar 1y ago
      IME the key is a very simple mindset shift. People generally try to ignore or overpower the sensation of hunger. That is super, super difficult over long periods of time. Instead what they should do is very directly and explicitly manage that felt sensation. The key insight is that your sensation of hunger is primarily driven by the weight of your stomach (not the caloric contents or volumetric fullness of it). So the question is how do you increase the weight of your stomach (decrease sensation of hunger) without increasing caloric consumption. You just eat a lot of low caloric density foods! Divide calories by grams on the nutrition label. Lower is better. Replace as many items as you can in your diet with the nearest alternative that is of lower caloric density. Nonfat greek yogurt and seitan are the two biggest hacks ever. Adopting this mindset will also probably astound you how many calories modern engineering can fit into a gram. Would be a pretty great achievement if we had to trek long distances, but here we are munching on this stuff while sitting all day.
• sircasss 1y ago
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• lanfeust6 1y ago
  > Getting out of the physical fat trap, strictly speaking, is simple: Because it's CICO. Focusing on whole-foods can make you resistant to undesirable weight-gain, but losing substantial amounts of weight requires caloric restriction in some form or another. That isn't easy to adhere to, it needs to be done in whichever way is the most sustainable. Low-hanging fruit is to boost protein and fiber at higher-than-normal amounts for satiety. All of the programs/diets that don't have you track calories are just tracking something else as a stand-in, obfuscating restriction. If you go low-carb and hit a wall, what are you going to do next, cut out negative carbs? If you go low-fat, will you cut out fat that's no longer there? > The notion of two traps, a physical trap and a mental trap, comes from Allen Carr’s fantastic Easy Way To Stop Smoking. He states, quite convincingly, that there is a physical aspect to smoking (nicotine addiction) and a mental aspect to smoking (feeling that you need it). I think Carr's perspective is very strong advice for kicking a bad habit. However, "emotional" and/or binge-eating may benefit from more targeted therapy.
  • mytailorisrich 1y ago
    I found that removing carbs and calorie counting together works well. Psychologically (and perhaps physically), allowing for one weekly "cheat day" helps to keep to it a lot, IMHO.
    • lanfeust6 1y ago
      It can of course. The calories have to come from somewhere. The point was that merely restricting one macro or another from one's plate won't guarantee a deficit (Over time. Yes when you're starting from 0 on what was an Americanized diet, you will lose weight in the beginning).
    • nemomarx 1y ago
      It's interesting to me that if you're rigorous enough the other six days the cheat day still works. I would order in restaurant food and have some alcohol with it, get ice cream or whatever, and was still losing weight overall. I guess one day isn't enough to get your body used to the high calories or something? Diet science is weird
• lucidphreak 1y ago
  One of the most dead-on articles I've ever read on HN.
• tonyhart7 1y ago
  I think is just simply to diet and culture take this quick video as example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg3Y3tCmBWo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg3Y3tCmBWo the different portion size is ridiculous and now you compare it to serving size from asian country, you would find it very hard to get fat at this places and I mean it, even if you get fat its nowhere near american fat
  • Someone1234 1y ago
    Except portion size in a lot of Asian countries is LARGER. It is WHAT they're portions of, and how satiating it is that matters. For example a popular Asian Fast-Food dish might be a huge bowl of udon noodles, with assorted veggies (e.g. bok choy, carrots, mushrooms), a little meat/tofu, in a salty broth. 500~ calories total. Then add on a Green Tea/Thai/Jasmine/Oolong Tea at an additional 100~ calories or less. A McDonalds large french fry is also 500 calories alone for comparison. A Big Mac is another 580 calories on top, and a Medium Coke is 200 calories. So we're at 1280 calories for McDonald's most popular meal in the US. I'd put it to people that the udon bowl is more satiating ("filling") than the Big Mac meal by a lot. It is also a large portion. You'll be full most of the day, whereas on the carb/fat/sugar explosion from McDonald's you'll need a snack when you crash late-afternoon.
    • tonyhart7 1y ago
      Yeah but American size is not only pack a heavy calories but also packs a lot of "food" its insane you can order 1 litre coke for your drink
  • AstroBen 1y ago
    As someone that moved to the US somewhat recently.. the portion sizes here still blow my mind. My girlfriend orders chinese food and makes 3-4 meals out of it + food is viewed strongly as entertainment here + everything is very noticably sweeter or saltier than I'm used to. So many brands of plain bread taste like cake! I very much sympathize with americans that are pushed by their environment to be overweight
• alfanick 1y ago
  It’s super complicated and anecdotal topic. I have phases: a) “good phase” - I can compete in ultramarathons, I can run 100km a week, I can lift some insane weighs, b) I cannot. Temporary burnout. No physical activity, gain like 10kg. Then I need something that motivates me again and move from b) to a). Long term fat is bad, but if you are able to burn it, it is the fuel
• sanitycheck 1y ago
  I sympathise with the author but I fear what he's doing here is adding one more item to that list of thoughts: "I'm in a trap" There's a lot of stuff I started writing from personal experience but I've just deleted it because I sense what's being talked about in the article is probably classifiable as an eating disorder and I am in no way qualified to say anything about eating disorders. People who identify with the sentiments expressed in the article may want to consult a doctor.
• almost_usual 1y ago
  One of the easiest ways to lose weight if you drink is sobriety. Alcohol is an even bigger trap.
• dkarl 1y ago
  Some people are going to ding him for including exercise, and it's true that the physical calorie expenditure of exercise won't achieve much for weight loss unless you make cycling a major hobby. However, I think exercise goes a long way towards loosening the mental trap. It helps you build an identity as a healthy person, it relieves the guilt about not taking care of yourself, and it takes the edge off of emotions like anxiety. All of these things make it easier to avoid excessive eating. I don't think exercise is a must-have for everybody for weight loss, but I think more people should try it, and I think it gets overlooked because most of the claims about the calorie burn aspect of it haven't stood up.
  • lanfeust6 1y ago
    Exercise is also a very strong predictor of long-term success in keeping weight off. Plus it's important for overall health anyway. Protects lean body mass, so that when you're shedding the pounds, you lose less muscle and more fat. That's one effect people are less aware of. One reason your metabolism drops as you lose weight is you can also lose lean body mass. Muscle and organs.
    • tonyedgecombe 1y ago
      It also helps with stress which is a major contributor to overeating.
  • cubefox 1y ago
    Exercise is also something you can "get into". For example, you force yourself to go to the gym a few times, or to go running a few times. And then you start beating your previous records, at which point you get more ambitious. You try to research the best supplements on the web, or the best pull-up bar for at home, and before you know it, you are transforming into a "gym bro" without previously intending to. It's remarkably easy to get into various obsessions, even if they are entirely healthy.
  • bluetidepro 1y ago
    There is also something to be said about doing exercise at a gym/class and seeing other healthy/fit people. It gives you practical evidence right in front of your eyes on how you COULD look. As well as likely becoming friends with people in those spaces that also have healthy habits. I have always found that motivation to be very strong.
• SonOfLilit 1y ago
  I have extremely lucky genes and have managed to stay just within the green BMI range despite eating all the carbs and fats you can imagine and at times consuming 200-300g of milk chocolate a day. Some of my friends are obese despite exercising heavily every day. Finding ways you enjoy to keep an active lifestyle is a great idea, probably the highest impact thing you can do for your long term well being (for people in this community I strongly recommend trying rock climbing or martial arts, especially BJJ, both very mentally challenging sports). However, author's recipe doesn't work for everyone, and you shouldn't feel terrible if it doesn't work for you. Also, I'm hearing amazing things about those new drugs.
  • almost_usual 1y ago
    Visceral fats leading to diabetes can be present without someone being visibly overweight. Similarly people who appear overweight may have low volumes of visceral fat. Health is hard to determine without analysis and testing.
  • cowsandmilk 1y ago
    I had an overweight BMI when I could run a sub 3-hour marathon, I’ve concluded my body just doesn’t match the normal range.
    • gruez 1y ago
      Since BMI can't differentiate between fat and muscle, it breaks down for people who are very muscular. That said, most people are sedentary and hardly even exercise, so BMI is a good approximation. The people who are very muscular are probably well informed about this caveat that no buff bodybuilder thinks they're the same as an overweight person just because their BMI is the same.
    • hiq 1y ago
      It bears repeating that BMI at an individual level is at best a hint that something is wrong (and never that someone is healthy). Another point is that you can be good athletically speaking and yet have too much body fat to be considered healthy. An extreme example is that of professional fighters in open-weight categories.
• mamonster 1y ago
  >Reduce refined carbs, unhealthy fats and alcohol from your diet. Focus on getting enough vegetables, fruits, complex carbs and healthy fats. Alcohol is by far the biggest one(was the case for me). Used to work at a place where "lets go grab a pint or two after work" was the norm every day. A pint is like 250kcal, you do that for a month you will gain like half a kilo easy. Liquid calories in general are the most dangerous thing because of how easy it is to ingest.
• EduardoBautista 1y ago
  I am going to be blunt here. Why is everyone using time as an excuse? In fact, it should be easier to lose weight if you are truly busy, because the only thing that will make you lose weight is eating less. This whole idea about exercising to lose weight is unhelpful when the truth is that no amount of exercise is going to compensate for eating more calories than you have to. And yes, you will go to bed slightly hungry for weeks or even months if you want to lose a lot of weight.
  • arp242 1y ago
    It's not so much about "time", but rather mental bandwidth. It takes effort and energy, that you may not have if you have lots of things going on. When people say they "don't have the time" this is often what they mean. It's like the joke from Airplaine!: "Guess I picked a bad time to quit smoking", "Guess I picked a bad time to quit drinking", "Guess I picked a bad time to quit sniffing glue", "Guess I picked a bad time to quit amphetamines", etc.
  • nemomarx 1y ago
    being able to still focus and complete your daily busy schedule while restricting is a different sort of obstacle, so that mostly moves the costs around. I found the best weight loss success eating about 1200 or 1300 measured calories a day and using a fairly strict routine, but it left me on edge and distractible. And that kind of diet has social costs too - much more of a pain to eat with coworkers at lunch, for instance. CICO is easy to say, but the trick is actually knowing both of those measurements and being able to control them.
  • imzadi 1y ago
    The less time you have, the harder it is to make healthy choices. You're more likely to grab fast food or something that is easy to throw together in the microwave. It's not just time, but also energy. The more you work and the harder your job, the less energy you have to expend on preparing food. Add in mental health issues and/or chronic illness, and you have even less energy. Usually, when I say I don't have time, I mean that I don't have energy. I don't have enough time to mentally prepare myself for the task, then execute the task, and then recover from doing the task.
• rckt 1y ago
  The article is basically describing one's addiction to anything. It can be any habit at all. So whether it's a fat trap or any other trap the way out is always the same - willpower. And it comes from the sincere desire for something. I spent overall around 5 years quitting smoking. It was extremely hard, for the most part because of the mental trap. Physically I got rid of the addiction in a couple of weeks. And physical exercises were the thing that helped me. I still do my routine, because it became the substitute for my smoking habit. But in a healthy way. And from my experience this is how everything works, regarding the quality of life that you have control over. And I agree that judging and shaming is not helpful. You need to clear your mind and concentrate on the better future you want rather than reflecting on bad things that you have in your present or past.
  • tstrimple 1y ago
    > So whether it's a fat trap or any other trap the way out is always the same - willpower. Which is completely wrong according to science on the topic. Trying to willpower your way out of addictions is a recipe for failure. It's been shown over and over again. People who are aren't addicted don't have more willpower. They have to exercise their willpower far less than someone who struggles with addiction. Identifying and eliminating environmental triggers will do far more for an addict than "willpower" will. Instead of inane advice like "just have more willpower bro" we should be teaching people about environmental triggers and how to structure your life to avoid them without relying on willpower constantly.
    • Jensson 1y ago
      > Identifying and eliminating environmental triggers That requires a lot of willpower, which is why that advice typically doesn't work. Dieticians are often fat so you know there is more to it than just knowledge, there is a big willpower factor to it still.
• timcobb 1y ago
  > but you have the choice to step out of the fat trap. People should also talk about the volition trap. I'm 40 and it feels like I've had more than a life's worth of people talking about how "you can do it if you just try!" > ... advertising signs that con / you into thinking you can do what's never been done / meantime life goes on all around you The sheer scope of the obesity pandemic should make it clear that we are not the problem, that our volitions are not the problem. Certainly so many people can't be too weak to regulate one of the most basic facets of existence? How did we come all this way as a species if we are so fundamentally flawed at basic metabolic regulation? Certainly so many people shouldn't have to try so hard? Sure, some people succeed, but in world where the overwhelming majority are failing, maybe "trying harder" is just akin to insanity?
  • abirch 1y ago
    I love Dr Jason Fung. His position is that our current system focuses on calories and not eating all the time, not avoiding processed foods, being insulin insensitive, and eating real food. Here's a good video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgmFEb0b0TI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgmFEb0b0TI His hypothesis is that having high levels of insulin is the issue. People need to remember that being insulin resistant and being overweight are chronic conditions. You won't be able to fix them overnight. Don't focus on decreasing calories, focus on eating real food. The article mentions this too. One thing that was counterintuitive to me is that most people's bodies produce insulin in response to artificial sugar so there's no real difference between diet coke and coke on your body.
    • lanfeust6 1y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzdwiOfW4b8&pp=ygURbGF5bmUgbm9ydG9uIGZ1bmc%3D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzdwiOfW4b8&pp=ygURbGF5bmUgb...
    • birksherty 1y ago
      In India, most people don't take huge junk food. They still get diabetes because of calorie heavy food and eating all time without letting the stomach get empty even for a minute. It's the food addiction. People can't stop eating just like alcohol, cigarette or drugs.
• p1dda 1y ago
  Stop eating junk food. It's as simple as that.
  • zffr 1y ago
    It’s not as simple as that. All people don’t get fat for the same reasons. I never eat junk food, and yet I still got fat during the pandemic. For me the issue was that I stopped exercising during the lock down, but continued to eat the same amount out of habit. This led to me putting on a bunch of fat without realizing it. To fix the issue, I primarily scaled back the quantity of food I ate without changing its composition too much.
    • dgfitz 1y ago
      Most people only burn 150-200 calories when they work out. If you were eating the exact same and just not working out, you wouldn’t have put on “a bunch of fat” at all. Maybe 10lbs over two years.
      • dragonwriter 1y ago
        Assuming not working out vs. working out for 150-200 calories burned 3-6 times a week, you would gain (assuming the entire surplus went to fat, @ 3500 calories surplus -> 1 lb fat gain), 13.37 to 35.66 lbs of fat, which assuming starting at the US median adult male weight of ~200lbs, is a gain of 6.7-18% of starting body weight, all in fat, which would, especially at the high end but even near the middle to low end, be "a bunch of fat".
        • dgfitz 1y ago
          You can’t assume the entire surplus went to fat. That’s nuts.
  • lanfeust6 1y ago
    Junk food easily to blame for the initial weight-gain (most of the time), but cutting it out usually isn't enough to reach optimal weight, unless the excess weight is marginal.
• atemerev 1y ago
  Absolutely all mental trap issues were resolved when my doctor finally approved Ozempic. Apparently, all this was caused by a tiny chemical disbalance in my neural circuits. Snap, instant cure. No side effects. I lost 26 kg (57 pounds) in 18 months. I finally eat normally. I am no longer prediabetic. My cholesterol is now fine. So, I constantly thank the researchers for making this wonder drug, and I hope the same success can be repeated for other disorders. This is not a question of "discipline", or "willpower", or "mental trap". Just a physiological imbalance that can be easily resolved. For some people, staying lean is easier because they don't have this disbalance. For others, it is much harder, but this is not their fault.
  • imzadi 1y ago
    I've been on compound semaglutide for about 5 months and lost 40 pounds without really trying. Not because it's a magic cure that makes food calories disappear, but because it freed my brain from thinking about food all the time. I just got back from a two week trip without the medication and can feel how different things are when I am not on it. Without semaglutide, it feels like I need to have my stomach full all the time. As soon as my stomach empties at all, I get intense hunger pains and my stomach starts growling and grumbling. Even though I logically know that I don't need to eat yet, it feels like I do and it is all that I can think about. Meanwhile, when I am on semaglutide, I don't think about food until I am truly hungry.
• pryelluw 1y ago
  Don’t forget the millions and millions of dollars companies invest into marketing their cheap junk food. It works, makes them rich and us unhealthy. There is a constant supply of pressure and propaganda from the junk food makers that most people don’t notice and can’t fight against. It is brutal. This t should be regulated, but …
  • tonyedgecombe 1y ago
    I think the chance that the food companies are going to lie down and accept regulations without complaint is close to zero.
    • deleted 1y ago
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    • pryelluw 1y ago
      Yes, and we shouldn’t accept that there is not regulation either.
• davidguetta 1y ago
  Just do insanity bro: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9EmDyARAMtlZ21FdmZZYzY1R3M?resourcekey=0-qKbRWrBsgl23dtMwmpE8Ng&usp=drive_link https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B9EmDyARAMtlZ21FdmZZ... 2 3 and 5 in a loop (3 sessions per 4 days), the other are useless Two important changes : - remove the stretching after the warmup, it's considered harmful nowadays - don't do the jumps and replace by squats (for knee problems) It's only 35 min per day and I've lost 2.5 kg in basically a month. Please note that watever your sport level is, you WONT be able to do the workout completely at least the first 10 times
• zekethefreak 1y ago
  I've been overweight and obese for most of my life, and on several occasion i've managed to lose a bunch of weight through diet and excersice, but always ended up regaining it a year or two later. Finally at 40 i got a health scare, heart arrythmia, and i decided to try again. I found a pretty good nutritionist that emphasized 'relearning' to eat over just an efficient weight loss diet. That was the key, and that i managed to modify my environment by buying 95% unprocessed foods and never keeping more than a very small stock of cheat meals. Here in Argentina we still have a lot of options to buy meat and vegetables fairly cheap and accessible, outside of the supermarkets. That said, the first two years after i lost most of the weight were harsh, not so much because of keeping eating healthy, which happily took less and less effort each month, but because of 'not recognizing myself in the mirror' after 25kgs gone. I started questioning if i needed to keep changing things, like breaking up my marriage for example, or changing careers. And i still have a recurring nightmare where i wake up and i'm 115kgs again. So i can totally relate with the 'fat trap' concept, even though i haven't been 'fat' for close to 5 years now. Great article!
• ShrugLife 1y ago
  Something that's really helped me work with my body weight and my own self-image is intuitive eating, an "anti-diet" approach I was introduced to by my registered dietician. Essentially, it's about recognizing when my body is hungry and being more accepting of who I am. My weight hasn't changed much, but there has been a much more marked improvement in my mental state. It feels much better than when I was tracking calories using a food scale and app (basically going into starvation via calorie deficit). https://www.intuitiveeating.org/about-us/10-principles-of-intuitive-eating/ https://www.intuitiveeating.org/about-us/10-principles-of-in... https://www.health.harvard.edu/nutrition/feeding-body-and-soul https://www.health.harvard.edu/nutrition/feeding-body-and-so... https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/quick-guide-intuitive-eating#basics https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/quick-guide-intuitive-e...
• k3vinw 1y ago
  If you can handle the responsibility adopting a dog can be a very rewarding experience with physical and emotional benefits. Many adoption centers will work with you to make sure you are a good match and can provide a loving home.
• CuriouslyC 1y ago
  To chime on this topic as one that's also quite personally relevant to me, I was obese as a youth. I got extremely into physical culture and healthy eating and pushed myself to become an elite athlete so that I would have another positive feedback mechanism for my diet and exercise habits besides just looking good. This worked quite well, and for years I enjoyed going to the gym 5 days a week and eating a strictly regimented diet because in addition to looking phenomenal I was chasing records and tracking clear metrics that I could derive satisfaction from on a weekly basis. This part of my life ended in December 2020 when I was t-boned by a drunk driver going 130Mph. I'm no longer able to engage in intense exercise the way I once was, and the combination of my physical limitations and emotional issues (in addition to losing my life-long hobby and being in constant pain, my son had birth complications in 2022 and required brain surgery, and is now heavily special needs) pushed me towards alcoholism and emotional eating. I gained a _lot_ of weight, and my previous strategies no longer provided me with the guardrails and motivation to deal with the problem. I've always had an issue with insatiable appetite my entire life, and while I was able to deal with it via a militantly regimented lifestyle and mindset change, I recognize that solution is itself incredibly challenging to implement (if it's even possible in an individual's case). Thankfully Monjourno was able to help me address the problem, and I look forward to GLP medications becoming more widely available as I do think there are a lot of people who suffer from appetite dysregulation due to genetics and emotional trauma who shouldn't have to wage an epic battle with their body to feel normal.
• jitl 1y ago
  My one weird trick on this subject, as a person who enjoys sweets & a dessert, was to switch my late night sweets habit to fruit juice popsicles. Still super tasty and sweet, but generally I find them much lower in calories per satisfaction compared to other sweets. I really like these pineapple ones, although they vary in quality depending on where you are in the US; here in Florida they're fantastic but in California they're just okay: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Outshine-Pineapple-Frozen-Fruit-Bars-6-Count-1-Pack-14-7-oz/16935639 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Outshine-Pineapple-Frozen-Fruit-B...
• thanatropism 1y ago
  Maybe I wasn't receiving the full Fitness Message as someone proudly sedentary, but the way I experienced the world (seen through what I think I know now), it always seemed like people overemphasize weight loss and being thin as a marker of health. People, people, I know many of you don't want to look like you lift, but skeletal muscle has moby advantages in minimizing the annoyances of old age. It also literally helps in weight loss. I'm also told it regulates insulin. Plus weight training also strengthens your tendons and bones. If you start deadlifting heavy at age 40, you will develop strong spinal erectors which will likely protect you from herniated discs when you're 60. Losing weight is fine and will help preventing coronary / fatty liver etc diseases. But please make it priority number 2. Build muscle and try, as a bonus, to lower your body fat percentage. If you never do, it's better to be 35% bodyfat and yoked than to be 30% and made of blubber and chalk.
• pabna 1y ago
  Gained 45 pounds in a year due to light-depression from the economy. Just got on Ozempic/Semaglutide last week so hopefully should be back to my goal weight in 3-6 months.
  • dnpls 1y ago
    Don't forget to add some form of exercise so you minimize muscle mass loss, to increase your chances of keeping the fat off.
• import_awesome 1y ago
  Become healthier through diet and exercise. Don't worry about your weight. Gaining muscle through weight lifting will increase your weight. Cardio exercise will increase your weight due to increasing blood volume. Just cut the sugar calories. You probably eat the appropriate amount of calories for you, just eliminate the calories you drink.
• keiferski 1y ago
  I think the obesity problem isn’t a unique one, but is in fact emblematic of a “class” of problems that are prevalent in the modern world. They are all characterized something like this: the problem is on the face of it an individual one, with individual solutions. Just stop eating so much. Work out. Eat less unhealthy food. Etc. But a deeper look and you see that the overall system makes it difficult or impossible for the average individual to really solve the problem. Because it’s too complex, too expensive, takes too much time, and mostly because the framework around “solving the problem” is still locked into the individual mindset. The same pattern is in voting or affecting the democratic process (an individual action is what matters, but it simultaneously doesn’t really do anything unless you are wealthy/have free time to be an activist.) Curbing social media addiction is another. It’s seen as an individual problem, but fighting against it requires you to essentially be against the entirety of society. These are all consequences of the world getting more complex but the tools for dealing with that complexity not keeping pace. The solution is maybe that we need a new agent or entity that operates in between the individual and the system. Traditionally that was something like your local neighborhood, extended family, etc. but nowadays I don’t think it really exists, because the solutions have been offloaded to individual-focused ones. For example, there are apps which let you order healthy groceries every month that are delivered to your door. But it’s an individual thing, not a group or community one. You as an individual need to organize and order this stuff.
• Rick76 1y ago
  I was overweight my entire life up to when I was 21. In less than 2 years I went from 300lb to 198lb (136kg to 89kg). I'm 6'4 so 198 personally was not maintainable, but I was working out, and I felt my best at 205, which I sat at for 3ish years. Recently I hit 240, I got an office job, so working out and just life in general is harder to do right now but I'm actually doing pretty well about eating again. I agree with what he is saying, but I think the trap starts earlier than that. I think a huge aspect is your eating habits as a child. I feel like my hunger is not normal, I can have a giant meal and still feel the need to continue eating, my brain just loves it. It is frustrating to feel the need to eat 24/7, I believe my family has some form of ADHD because we all have addictive personalities, mine and my sisters were eating. My eating habits as a child is something that I ALWAYS have to fight against, it can get pretty tiring. What I can tell you though is losing weight is also a feedback loop, I'm not saying positive or negative because I believe it depends on who you ask. When I was losing weight, it was so much easier once the ball was rolling, I'm less hungry, I have more energy, but you also start thinking about everything you eat. I was refusing to have dinner with college roommates because it didn't fit my daily caloric intake, and I never truly felt like I looked better, I was never satisfied. At my skinniest you could see my ribs and my arms were twigs. The inverse is true, I truly believe that most American food is designed to make you eat more than to provide enjoyable nutrition. I visited Europe once, and it was crazy how much weight I was losing because I could have a great meal and feel content, something that I rarely feel here. The weird thing is I wouldn't change a thing, maybe I did overcorrect, but it taught me a ton about nutrition, and seeing my weight go down made me feel more passionate to keep going, I'm not sure if I had stuck with it if I did the healthier slow and steady approach. I'm back on the grind and have been working out more, it sucks that I don't have the time to dedicate to my health that I used to during covid, but that's something I'll have to figure out.
• deleted 1y ago
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• deadbabe 1y ago
  > it might astonish you to find out that most fat people are painfully and constantly aware that they are fat I really don’t believe this is true. It may have been at some time in the 1900s when being skinny was the norm, but most people will look around these days and see that other people are fat just like them, and it just becomes accepted as the norm. The “fat” person is always someone fatter than them. And even if they know they are fat, most simply refuse to see it as a problem. Most have been fat so long I do not think they are even aware how much better life could be if they were a proper weight, anymore than a skinny person thinks how much harder life would be if they were carrying an extra 45 pounds everywhere they went. I hear the little pains they feel everyday from being fat often getting attributed to age when really it’s just from being fat and inactive. If you take care of yourself you should feel just as good at 40 as you did in your 20s, and maybe even better. But here’s the grim truth: it’s pretty much impossible for 99% of people to ever lose weight long term. Once you’ve reached a certain level of weight, you’re pretty much not going to be much lower than that for the rest of your life, no matter how hard you try. Nearly 99% of people who lose significant weight gain it back it after year. Imagine, when was the last time you were top 1% of anything? That’s the level of effort you have to go through to be one of the success stories, and I don’t think people realize this. Your ONLY hope is stuff like Ozempic and other GLP-1s.
• francisofascii 1y ago
  > There is a range of body fat percentage that is healthy. If you are outside (probably above) this percentage, you are damaging your health. The science is unequivocal on this. Yes and no. I think it is more individual. Robert Lustig has an interesting assertion that about around 20% of slightly overweight people are metabolically healthy and they simply have a higher "normal for them" body fat percentage.
• AstroBen 1y ago
  I don't think you need to do the things the author says. Based on their definition I'm in both a physical and mental fat trap.. but I've maintained ~12% body fat and a healthy BMI my entire life. I also: - can gain weight, and fat, easily. I've intentionally done it when weight training - have gone through periods of years where I exercised very little. Certainly not daily exercise or even their prescribed 7500 steps. No weight gain - can't really trust myself with food. Put a bunch of snacks in my house and they'll be gone very quickly I think the things that are really making a difference is simple, and more strategic: I know how many calories the foods I eat have (was very into weight training in the past), I cook 90% of my own meals (usually 4-5 days worth at a time so I'm not tempted to order - I can just reheat) and I don't keep junk food in my house That last point is huge. They sent me a free pizza with my grocery delivery the other week - I threw it out. I've thrown out countless bottles of coke/pepsi I'm sent for free. If I keep it around I'll eat it
• Ekaros 1y ago
  Just as with being fat. Stopping being poor is easy. Earn more, spend more time earning money. Cut down spending. Evaluate what you spend money and remove the too expensive parts. After those steps it is simple. And for some reason people just don't accept this truth.
• theGeatZhopa 1y ago
  I'm on the other side. Its extremely difficult for me to gain weight. I've never weighted more than 64kg @ 177cm - the only time I really gained weight was when I ate 3x a day like 2-4 warm dishes for few months (chinese food). Actuall I'm pending between 59.5-61.0kg. What was an eye-opener for me: once i was prescribed 20mins ergometer. So they put on cables and connected me to the monitoring system - the system is adjusting the power level of the ergometer to keep high power, while monitoring heart rate and that the power level is not set too high / heart rate. To my astonishing, that 20 minute ride was HELL! constantly keeping the muscles at continuous high load nearly "killed" me - I've fallen asleep afterwards while doing MRT. It really was hell. and then - the evaluation told me, I've burned the equivalent of 180 kcal. ONE HUNDRED EIGHTTY kilocalories!!!! My body was on full force for 20 minutes and I burned just a burger ??? - ??? Not to speak of the fanta I usualy drink to spill down my four ordinary hamburgers which I eat 3x a week (doing a fat-diet). So, I realized, that there's no way other than that of of counting kcal - One can exercise as much as one wants, but the burned energy (output) must somehow correspond to the input (eat & drink). If one eats more than one can burn, it will be stored for bad times in the hips-storages or in the belly-town. If you want to lose weight - check first how much energy are you capable of burning when doing heavy exercise. And then you have to count the in-put kilocalories. Just for visualizing and assess how and how much you need to exercise, if you put in that burger... and that coke.. and that dessert. for me, to see how much has been burned cleared up that much: - exercising doesn't stop me on my way to become round - no need to count kcal except assuring intake of roundabout the equivalent of burned energy while exercising (not much, though) - I won't gain weight, because I can't eat that much anyway. So, start loving myself is a better option for me. If you really all-in about loosing weight, find the exercises that burn the most. That depends on your constitution. You need professional help to get the knowledge. Look for a university doing sport-studies and ask them if they want to conduct a study on this or, at least, whether they can measure what exercises do the best burning. And then count & asses. Or use the new medication emerged. Or try a stool-transplant. But without, definitely, one has to control the input kcals. Wish everyone to achieve what one's soughing so hard!!!
• dooglius 1y ago
  There is an extremely glaring omission of any discussion of GLPs, which makes me suspect the author has a mental block of some kind.
• username135 1y ago
  I would argue that being fat is a direct result of capitalism. The US hesitates to regulate major food corporations because they're core domestic economic drivers and employ millions, which contribute significantly to GDP. Also lobbying. Europe has more of a middle ground. They have major food companies but stronger traditions of balancing corporate and consumer interests. Check any major health metric (obesity rates, life expectancy, etc) between the two and there is a clear winner. THe US food system has clear stratification based on economic access and geographic distribution. Wealthy areas have greater access to fresh, minimally processed foods, while lower-income communities are disproportionately served by retailers offering processed options. Food industry executives/policymakers often have purchasing patterns that differ significantly from the products their companies produce or the regulations they oversee. This creates a disconnect between decision-makers' lived experiences and the food environment they help shape for the broader population. The economic incentives favor processed food production due to longer shelf life, lower costs, and higher profit margins. Healthcare costs associated with diet-related diseases are largely socialized through public health systems, while profits from food sales remain private. Geographic food access varies significantly by income level. You find premium pricing on minimally processed foods which creates economic barriers. The regulatory framework reflects input from industry stakeholders who may have limited personal exposure to the food environments experienced by lower-income consumers. There are two distinct food ecosystems: one accessible to higher-income consumers with diverse options, and another serving price-sensitive consumers with fewer alternatives. The structural incentives maintain this division through market mechanisms rather than explicit policy design. You could go on and on...tie in wages, taxes, etc. It all flows back to the all mighty dollar and profit motive regardless of all else. And why shouldn't it? We're in the land of the free, home of the brave! We can do what ever we want because it's out choice! /$
• ericmay 1y ago
  One of the pillars of weight loss is "eating right" as we all undoubtedly know. It's eating whole foods, fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and lean meat, and all that good stuff. If you ever go to a nutritionist they'll tell you that, and they may even give you recipes! But this is mostly an exercise in futility. Why? Because going to McDonalds tastes better. So people will revert and not solve their problem. Diets don't work, and new fad diets come out, and the industry cycle continues. The problem with diets and lifestyle changes that are proposed in common social discourse is that we are always missing the most important step which is teaching citizens how to cook. As a nation I wish we would spend more time focusing on good culinary skills, and that is an investment that would pay dividends not only in healthier waistlines, but also in an increased interest in the quality of our food and produce.
  • iamwpj 1y ago
    I tend to agree. It's pretty easy to have cooking skills that out pace the trouble of driving, waiting, and ultimately only kind of enjoying fast food. The advice I give people when rarely solicited, is that you work all day to ensure you have food and shelter. 1/3 work, 1/3 food, 1/3 shelter. If you routinely don't have time to cook and enjoy your food -- frankly, what are you doing with you life? Planning a menu, shopping for groceries, cooking meals, these things should take up your time! It's what you need to be doing. That's the point of this all!
    • ericmay 1y ago
      Completely agree - we focus on spending time rushing to get food and things so we can get back home and spend time scrolling, but we should actually be spending time, in my humble opinion, cooking and enjoying life. I think over the long-term people in America will recognize this more and more. Also, after a while you realize at least outside of some dishes like maybe ramen or something like that, you can cook day-to-day better than just about anywhere you can go out to eat. It also makes you appreciate really good restaurants a bit more too. At least that has been my experience.
  • ffsm8 1y ago
    As a single almost 40yo overweight man I've gotta disagree. McDonald's doesn't taste better, it tastes worse, but what working adult has the time next to their day job to eat healthy? You have to be either 1. Rich enough to be able to spend a premium at restaurants for most of the week 2. Be rich enough to have a partner that doesn't have to work a 40-50h work week 3. Be rich enough to have a personal cook 4. Not work and get by via other avenues.
• ofcourseyoudo 1y ago
  Regarding the mental element, many people report that GLP-1 drugs help calm the "food buzz" running thoughts constantly obsessing about food all day. It can help you step out of the cycle and most likely would make therapy, meditation and books more effective.
• atmavatar 1y ago
  Obesity is much like poverty. Telling someone that losing weight is as simple as calories in < calories out is about as useful as telling a homeless person that building wealth is as simple as money in > money out. There are environmental, genetic, and cultural influences, and while you can always find a token individual who overcomes them all to become fit/wealthy, there's no denying that they have significant impact on outcomes at a population level. For example, a tall, attractive person born in the US into a wealthy household who's introduced to other wealthy people throughout their lives and taught how to manage and increase their wealth is going to have it far easier becoming/staying wealthy than an ugly, smaller person born in South Sudan into a poverty-stricken household who's forced to struggle their entire lives. Similarly, someone born to exceptionally fit parents in a country like Japan with a culture focused more on health is going to be far more likely to be themselves fit than someone born to a family with a history of obesity in a country like the US where it's harder and more expensive to buy and make healthy foods than unhealthy foods. And yet, in classic US style, just like with wealth, we add a thick layer of moral valuation to being fit so that people can feel better about themselves by viewing and treating anyone less fit than themselves as lesser, evidenced quite strongly throughout these very comments.
• fpereiro 1y ago
  Hi HN! OP here. Thank you everyone for reading and commenting. Thanks to your feedback I have done the following edits to the post: - Added a comment on GLP-1 agonists. I wrote the article like it was 2023, not 2025. These drugs now exist and their benefits massively outweigh their drawbacks, particularly for people that really need help. Anything that helps out of the trap, particularly with this effectiveness, should be front and center. Thank you for pointing it out. - Added a comment on my take on the usefulness of exercise for this process. I don't believe in exercise as a calory burner, but as something you need in order to be strong, fit, flexible and feel better mentally. It supports you in your journey. Exercise in order to burn calories to get lean is counterproductive. It is a thick wall of the mental fat trap. - I realize that my struggles (and I don't say this lightly) have been a small fraction of what many of you had to go through, or are still going through. I also mentioned this in the article now. For some, it can be ten, a hundred, a thousand times harder than for others to break free from being overweight and be able to regulate their food in a way that is mentally healthy. - I also added this: "Incidentally, I don't think this is about willpower (this is another parallel with Carr's insight). The decision to change comes from a deeper source. When I was most obsessed about asserting willpower over my eating, I was having the worst time and making bad choices. Getting out involves awareness, work, and a willingness to fail and keep on trying. The authors above say it much better than I can." Hope again this was helpful for those with like struggles.
  • thijsb 1y ago
    good article, I can (unfortunately) relate. another aspect of the trap is when you have set backs (stress, life events) or get tired (long days, less sleep, emotional events) typically the first recourse is to stop the hardest parts: physical fitness, e.g., you take a car instead of bike/walk, skip sports, alcohol instead of water. it's sometimes a vicious circle, you're tired due to overweight, thus eat more to get energy, making you more overweight.
  • pandaman 1y ago
    You brought up smoking and were mere inches near the truth but quickly ran away back into the lalaland... Smoking used to be more prevalent than obesity. Did we bring it down with "smoking positivity" and did shaming and harassing smokers only brought harm? What do you think?
• QuiEgo 1y ago
  I’m a huge fan of vice taxes. Let people do whatever they want, as long as they are (literally) willing to pay up for what it costs society. I’m not quite sure exactly how you price this in, but Coca-Cola and refined sugar in general should cost a hell of a lot more than they do now.
• burnt-resistor 1y ago
  Especially when you take a medication that pits choosing crushing depression without or obesity with, and insurance companies refuse to cover GLP-1 for this purpose.
• nunez 1y ago
  > Now, I believe the body positivity movement is a great step forward. Body positivity is about accepting others’ bodies, as well as your own, without regard to size, shape and gender. For those inside the fat trap, this brings tremendous relief. Being judged for being fat, or for being obsessed about fat, is almost always extremely counterproductive. It is harmful. If you are a non-fat person that goes around judging fat people, it might astonish you to find out that most fat people are painfully and constantly aware that they are fat, as well as the fact that that’s bad for them and they should make a change. There is nothing to be gained and everything to lose by judging someone for being fat. LOUDER for people in the back. Some people are hungrier than others. Some are more predisposed to weight gain than other. All bodies are good. Also, stock inventory for bigger people in clothing stores, for fuck's sake.
• zazazx 1y ago
  Here we go again. This post clearly comes from a place of personal reflection and empathy, but it contains several outdated and overly simplistic assumptions about body weight, health, and the nature of long-term weight regulation. While the author emphasizes that they’re not judging others, their framing of being “fat” as a “trap” reinforces a medicalized and moralized view of weight that doesn’t align with what we now understand from current research. Body fat is not inherently unhealthy; what matters far more are metabolic indicators, lifestyle, and psychological well-being. The notion that health can be reduced to a body fat percentage (10–20% for men, 15–25% for women) has been widely challenged by longitudinal studies showing that people classified as overweight by BMI often live as long—or longer—than those in the “normal” range. The author writes as though sustained weight loss is a matter of difficult but straightforward lifestyle choices—sleep better, move more, eat clean. However, we now know that long-term weight regulation is biologically defended by the body. After weight loss, metabolic rate drops and hunger signals increase, making it difficult to maintain the new weight. This is not a matter of willpower, but of physiology. The success of GLP-1 receptor agonists like semaglutide further proves this point: the most effective interventions for significant weight loss target biology, not discipline. To say that most people can “get out of the fat trap” with a few months or years of effort severely underestimates the chronic, relapsing nature of obesity. Moreover, the suggestion that aches, low energy, and poor sleep stem primarily from being fat is misleading. These symptoms can be caused by stress, overwork, inflammation, sleep disorders, depression, and poor nutrition—regardless of weight. The author’s framing implies that fat bodies are inherently dysfunctional, which not only ignores counterexamples (such as metabolically healthy fat individuals) but also contributes to the very stigma they claim to reject. In fact, weight stigma itself is a proven source of health harm, leading to increased cortisol, disordered eating, avoidance of medical care, and reduced physical activity. To the author’s credit, the discussion of the mental and emotional dimensions of eating—especially the anxiety, guilt, and obsession around food—is insightful and compassionate. They are correct that healing from disordered eating patterns often involves therapy, mindfulness, and internal self-work, not just external changes. Their acknowledgement that body positivity and self-acceptance are vital steps is also important. Still, framing recovery as a journey out of the “fat trap” subtly undermines those same values, by implying that fatness itself is the problem to be escaped. Ultimately, this post would be stronger if it embraced a more nuanced understanding of health at every size, acknowledged the role of genetics and biology in body weight, and moved away from binary thinking about “traps” and “freedom.” Compassion, flexibility, and science-based awareness are essential—not just for others, but for oneself. Weight is not a moral failure or a mental prison. It’s one part of a complex picture of health, identity, and lived experience.
• hiAndrewQuinn 1y ago
  Many people here are talking about what they percieve as the systematic issues that prevent them from losing weight. I no longer buy any of this, because I moved from the US to Europe a few years ago and have since gained around 10 kg. No amount of public transit-friendly infrastructure is going to stop me from putting more food in my mouth than I need at any given time. No belief that cooking needs to be an hour long affair or it's worthless is going to change the fact that I can cook a week's worth of lentils in a rice cooker with 5 minutes of prep time on a Sunday. 5 more minutes gets me a week's worth of boiled eggs. Rather, I think most people are incentivized to make themselves look good, and want to chatter about conspiracy theories as to why their lives secretly suck. I can understand this, I'm liable of both of these myself in the same way. But at the end of the day, I am fat because I chose over a long period of time to put more food into my body than I needed, and the way I get out of being fat is by putting in less. When I reach a healthy weight the mission changes to a much easier, match caloric income with caloric expenses. Focusing my efforts on that simple fact is the only way I have ever successfully lost weight. The theories are fun, in the same way quantum physics is fun even though 99.9% of what we do in everyday electromagnetics is in the boring house that Maxwell built.
  • msgodel 1y ago
    I actually lost about 30 lbs after moving out of the city back to the rural town I grew up in where I have to drive everywhere. Taking care of yourself is about your attitude/worldview and I think the attitude city living encourages makes that harder.