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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

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.
- EduardoBautista 1y ago
  It takes the same amount of time to quit all sugary drinks and alcohol and only drink water for the rest of your life. It’s an extreme, but just doing that alone will save you a couple thousand calories a month. Fast food doesn’t necessarily mean high calorie either. Almost all fast food places have meals for under 600 calories, yes even McDonald’s.
  - imzadi 1y ago
    Why do people always think fat people are drinking sugary drinks? I can't stand sugary drinks. I don't drink soda. I don't put sweetener in my coffee. I mostly drink water.
    - j_w 1y ago
      Because people drink an absurd quantity of their calories: https://www.healthyfoodamerica.org/sugary_drinks_in_america_who_s_drinking_what_and_how_much https://www.healthyfoodamerica.org/sugary_drinks_in_america_...
      - ac29 1y ago
        177 calories per day on average according to your link. More in teenagers, less in adults. Long term trend is decreasing consumption.
        Jensson 1y ago
        Which is a lot over time. With 3500 calories per pound that means quitting soda would on average make people lose a pound every 3 weeks, that is about 15-20 pounds a year.
        ItsMonkk 1y ago
        Mostly agreeing with you here but I've been through this journey and this shocked me when I ran the numbers one time so I'm sharing. A better way to be thinking about this is at what point will you stop gaining weight? If you are someone who burns 2000 calorie a day but eats 2170 calories a day, you will be gaining 170 calories on that first day. But then you will add some fat, and you will burn 2001 calories, and only gain 169 calories the next day. Eventually you will reach equilibrium where you burn 2170 calories. But fat isn't like muscle, it's very efficient because that is it's main purpose - it just sits there. So it actually takes a lot to reach that new equilibrium. The rule of thumb is 100 calories surplus will lead to a long run gain of about 15 pounds. So the 177 calorie average would end up yielding about 25 pounds of fat above what they should have. Then the next question is if you will ever reach equilibrium, or if when you start burning 2001 calories, you start eating 2171 calories...
mrgoldenbrown 1y ago
Eating healthy takes more time than eating junk. The busier I am the less time I have for food shopping and the more likely I am to be away from home and need food, which means eating out.
- dnpls 1y ago
  Also cooking. If you don't have your groceries sorted and a little planning for prepping some meals ahead, suddenly you have a fridge full of ingredients and nothing to eat.
- EduardoBautista 1y ago
  No it doesn’t. Just eat half of what you order while eating out. Save the rest for later. Now you have two meals instead of one. A huge part of eating healthy is eating less.
chneu 1y ago
Somewhat on/off topic, but I'd also wager that a lot of folks who call themselves "busy" are really just bad at time management. They're not so much "busy" as they are wasting a ton of time and then using that lost time as an excuse to not have to do things. So they are busy but it's because of a lack of time management which then plays into their inability to make good dietary choices. Being "busy" is their excuse and they make it happen by not managing their time. Things like having to hit up starbucks before work, which wastes 10-15 minutes. Then going to grab lunch instead of bringing it from home, which wastes 45 minutes. Then they spend a large amount of time doing their outfit for the day, which wastes time in the morning. 30 minutes on social media before/after bed. Etc. These things add up to hours every day. And then "I'm too busy to eat healthy" comes out. I say this cuz I know plenty of people who are "busy" but still manage to make great choices. I've noticed it has more to do with how people manage their time and the priorities they make throughout that time management. Time management is a skill that needs to be worked on. When one avoids managing their time well then of course they're going to be so inefficient that things get difficult.
- EduardoBautista 1y ago
  This is true. I don't meal prep myself since I am fortunate enough to be able to afford a meal delivery service where I can then just microwave my meals, but meal prepping can be done for about an hour a week, two hours at most if you want to get fancy.
HPsquared 1y ago
I think people forget that mild hunger is a normal part of existence.
- bitmasher9 1y ago
  I think people are oversensitive to hunger stimulation. A small amount of hunger will completely distract some people, cause them to become overly emotional and overspend.
  - Jensson 1y ago
    Probably because they aren't used to it, its like how people in warmer climates wear more clothes for the same outdoor temperature since they aren't used to being cold.

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.

EduardoBautista 1y ago
It takes the same amount of time to quit all sugary drinks and alcohol and only drink water for the rest of your life. It’s an extreme, but just doing that alone will save you a couple thousand calories a month. Fast food doesn’t necessarily mean high calorie either. Almost all fast food places have meals for under 600 calories, yes even McDonald’s.
- imzadi 1y ago
  Why do people always think fat people are drinking sugary drinks? I can't stand sugary drinks. I don't drink soda. I don't put sweetener in my coffee. I mostly drink water.
  - j_w 1y ago
    Because people drink an absurd quantity of their calories: https://www.healthyfoodamerica.org/sugary_drinks_in_america_who_s_drinking_what_and_how_much https://www.healthyfoodamerica.org/sugary_drinks_in_america_...
    - ac29 1y ago
      177 calories per day on average according to your link. More in teenagers, less in adults. Long term trend is decreasing consumption.
      - Jensson 1y ago
        Which is a lot over time. With 3500 calories per pound that means quitting soda would on average make people lose a pound every 3 weeks, that is about 15-20 pounds a year.
        ItsMonkk 1y ago
        Mostly agreeing with you here but I've been through this journey and this shocked me when I ran the numbers one time so I'm sharing. A better way to be thinking about this is at what point will you stop gaining weight? If you are someone who burns 2000 calorie a day but eats 2170 calories a day, you will be gaining 170 calories on that first day. But then you will add some fat, and you will burn 2001 calories, and only gain 169 calories the next day. Eventually you will reach equilibrium where you burn 2170 calories. But fat isn't like muscle, it's very efficient because that is it's main purpose - it just sits there. So it actually takes a lot to reach that new equilibrium. The rule of thumb is 100 calories surplus will lead to a long run gain of about 15 pounds. So the 177 calorie average would end up yielding about 25 pounds of fat above what they should have. Then the next question is if you will ever reach equilibrium, or if when you start burning 2001 calories, you start eating 2171 calories...

mrgoldenbrown 1y ago

Eating healthy takes more time than eating junk. The busier I am the less time I have for food shopping and the more likely I am to be away from home and need food, which means eating out.

dnpls 1y ago
Also cooking. If you don't have your groceries sorted and a little planning for prepping some meals ahead, suddenly you have a fridge full of ingredients and nothing to eat.
EduardoBautista 1y ago
No it doesn’t. Just eat half of what you order while eating out. Save the rest for later. Now you have two meals instead of one. A huge part of eating healthy is eating less.

chneu 1y ago

Somewhat on/off topic, but I'd also wager that a lot of folks who call themselves "busy" are really just bad at time management. They're not so much "busy" as they are wasting a ton of time and then using that lost time as an excuse to not have to do things. So they are busy but it's because of a lack of time management which then plays into their inability to make good dietary choices. Being "busy" is their excuse and they make it happen by not managing their time. Things like having to hit up starbucks before work, which wastes 10-15 minutes. Then going to grab lunch instead of bringing it from home, which wastes 45 minutes. Then they spend a large amount of time doing their outfit for the day, which wastes time in the morning. 30 minutes on social media before/after bed. Etc. These things add up to hours every day. And then "I'm too busy to eat healthy" comes out. I say this cuz I know plenty of people who are "busy" but still manage to make great choices. I've noticed it has more to do with how people manage their time and the priorities they make throughout that time management. Time management is a skill that needs to be worked on. When one avoids managing their time well then of course they're going to be so inefficient that things get difficult.

EduardoBautista 1y ago
This is true. I don't meal prep myself since I am fortunate enough to be able to afford a meal delivery service where I can then just microwave my meals, but meal prepping can be done for about an hour a week, two hours at most if you want to get fancy.

HPsquared 1y ago

I think people forget that mild hunger is a normal part of existence.

bitmasher9 1y ago
I think people are oversensitive to hunger stimulation. A small amount of hunger will completely distract some people, cause them to become overly emotional and overspend.
- Jensson 1y ago
  Probably because they aren't used to it, its like how people in warmer climates wear more clothes for the same outdoor temperature since they aren't used to being cold.