Why YSK: many countries have issues with weight, such as mine with 74% of US adults being overweight or obese. The global weight loss industry is over $200 billion yearly, with many influencers, pills, and surgeries promising quick results with little effort. These often come with side effects, or don’t work long term.
Studies suggest filling yourself with foods low in caloric density and high in fiber, like fruits and vegetables, can help reach and maintain a healthy weight. It’s good to have these foods available in our living spaces to make the choice easy. Your taste buds will likely adapt to love them if you’re not there yet.
Better: just learn to live with not feeling satiated all the time.
Not that you shouldn’t make vegies a significant part of your diet, just that a big part of the lifestyle change is learning to be hungry between meals as a normal and non-distressing thing.
You’re saying people should just deal with hunger and fight against everything evolution wants, instead of just eating high fiber food and not being hungry…
How is that “better”?
Evolution isn’t divine, it’s random mutation that generally benefits it’s current environment. Considering most of our evolutionary traits emerged thousands, if not millions, of years ago… I’d say we can safely conclude that a lot of our evolutionary instincts aren’t especially relevant to our current circumstances.
The eating issue is less evolution and more societal.
Society is the one who says we should eat 3 meals a day, not evolution.
Evolution would rather we ate more often throughout the day.
Think of it like a gas tank. Currently people fill it up and wait for it to get empty before filling up again.
When the reality is its better to always keep a half a tank for emergencies.
Evolution would rather we eat as much as possible, cause who knows when our next meal will be.
I’d argue we should be ‘grazing’ more. Not just accept feeling bad.
I think we eat too much in one sitting. It should be spread out more.
Every couple hours we should be adding energy to our reserves not waiting 6+ hours.
This. Really. If it actually hurts to get hungry perhaps you have Helicobacter pylori. Let that get sorted out.
Plus the feeeling of being hungry between meals goes away after a few months if you are still getting what you body needs.
I’m pretty skinny, but I hate being hungry. I wish I were better about tolerating hunger, and it’s something I could work on, but it’s not a requisite skill. Just in case that’s useful info for somebody.
Ricecake’s comment is great. Wanting to eat is also often not actually hunger, and being able to distinguish between sensations is a skill. For example, I always think I’m really hungry the days before menstruating, and I do eat more, but often it’s stomach cramps and hormonal changes that food does not satisfy. You’d be surprised at how long it’s taken to see that pattern.
I find that when food just isn’t working to abate hunger, what I actually need is salt.
Couple of fingers of jalapeno brine, the relief is incredible.
Excuse me, fruit are NOT in GENERAL low caloric density with the exception of strawberries.
This is part of the danger of getting your nutrition advice from some internet randos.
What are you talking about? What’s more filling, an apple or one of those “100-calorie-packs” of hyperprocessed sugar?
The apple is less calories too.
No internet rando. The information is out there, but people don’t want it.
That little clicker in the brain that goes off when you’ve had enough doesn’t really work for me. I have to feel physically full or I still feel hungry. Even worse, my dopamine levels are garbage and eating makes me feel good.
Not saying this doesn’t work. Only that I’m far from the only one where it is this simple.
I’m like you, and no it’s not simple. As others said, calories in, calories out. Nothing else matters, you need to find your own way to keep it. And no, exercise does not help much with weight, only if paired with a good diet. You would need to work out for hours continuously just to lose the calories from a random extra dessert.
But, you can do it. Two things I wish I had known:
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For example, my body was able to keep my weight instead of losing it if I kept calories intake where it should be and had a “cheat day” once a week at most. No cheat days for me, my body is too smart for that.
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Sometimes you feel you are on track, and then you get stuck at a certain weight. Even if you keep your diet, you might get stuck at a certain weight despite losing it well beforehand. Keep at it. You will break through at one point, closer than you think. But you have to keep at it.
It is not as simple as just calories in vs calories out. Your body has a setting point for what weight it thinks it should be. Once you are overweight, your setting point will be higher and your body wants to get back to that higher weight. It will start working actively against you. This might mean your appetite will increase and your metabolism will slow down. I think that is what you are describing here.
Trying to push yourself to lose more weight despite your body working against you can cause rebound weight gain if you are not able to keep the diet (which might become increasingly difficult due to increasing appetite). The most important thing is to keep a healthy diet that does not reduce your quality of life too much and is doable on the long term, I think. If you are struggling everyday, then it might be better to eat a little bit more and stay on a higher weight a bit longer to ensure that you will maintain the weight loss.
Maybe this is already what you meant. But the phrase “calories in vs calories out” and stating that nothing else matters made me want to respond. I think it is a popular oversimplification that causes a lot of unnecessary suffering for people trying to lose weight.
This is propaganda from companies that want you to keep gorging on their slop instead of natural portions of food.
It is not. I am not saying people should not eat healthy or should not try to lose weight. I am just saying that pushing the oversimplification that for everyone it is just calories in vs calories out and that it is only about willpower is not correct. People should get the right help with losing weight and the factors that cause the weight gain or makes people not losing the weight should be addressed.
There is lots of scientific work on this. I copied some links from another comment I made.
For example, this is an article in Journal of Obesity. It discusses the role of willpower and provides an overview of some of the research on other factors that affect whether people lose weight, such as metabolic compensation.
This is another interesting paper in the Irish Journal of Medical Science on patient’s view on obesity as a disease. I think the conclusion of this study aligns well with some of my claims:
The presence of beliefs and perceptions to support the narrative that obesity is a choice, that choosing to eat less and move more effectively treats the disease and willpower is a principle determinant of weight loss maintenance may negatively impact long-term treatment. A belief that obesity is a choice will see prevention and treatment strategies continually focus on education regarding eating less and moving more, which may be suboptimal. Therefore, the narrative must change and align with the science regarding the biology of obesity as a disease.
[This] (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0953620521000029) paper on weight regain also claims that it is not just about compliance with a diet, but that, amongst others, metabolic adaptation and changed appetite play an important role as well.
If you disagree, please provide some substantiation. I would be interested in reading it.
Despite what others are saying, I think you are right in a lot of ways.
There definitely is a set point where your body feels comfortable. You can get above and below a few kilos, and your body will return to that set point if you return to what you eat normally. That’s why it’s hard, to move the set point, you have to get around 5 under and keep at it. So when you are 5 under and your weight loss suddenly stops, that’s when you really started to push the kilos down, that’s why it suddenly gets harder. And you should go that 5 kilos past your set point because you will gain it back when you stop eating less.
With me, with a resting consumption of around 1800 kcal, how it went is that I did 6 months of trying to keep it below 1500 kcal, targeting 1400 if I can - but no less, and more or less kept it. My results have been going from 124 kg to 110 then rebounding to 114, then another round of doing the same got me from 114 to 100 then rebound to 104. After the ~4 kg rebound, it stabilized. Just now, a month after finishing, I just ate nothing but shitty McDonalds for 3 days (have been on the road a lot) and my weight went from 104.2 to 103.9.
I guess what I’m saying is that your only real way of affecting the system is cals in vs cals out, but as you say, the inside of the system is not simple. Also, don’t crash diet, and even if you feel like eating less on one day for some reason, keep your diet from the other side as well. Every time I ate less than 1400, the next day I fucked it up and went to 1800-ish, every single time. It makes it much harder.
Thanks! I think you are describing what a lot of people experience. Weight loss is highly complex and by oversimplifying it, lots of people do not get the help they need and are made to feel bad about themselves.
There is actually quite some scientific work supporting what I am saying. For example, this is an article in Journal of Obesity. It discusses the role of willpower and provides an overview of some of the research on other factors that affect whether people lose weight, such as metabolic compensation.
This is another interesting paper in the Irish Journal of Medical Science on patient’s view on obesity as a disease. I think the conclusion of this study aligns well with some of my claims:
The presence of beliefs and perceptions to support the narrative that obesity is a choice, that choosing to eat less and move more effectively treats the disease and willpower is a principle determinant of weight loss maintenance may negatively impact long-term treatment. A belief that obesity is a choice will see prevention and treatment strategies continually focus on education regarding eating less and moving more, which may be suboptimal. Therefore, the narrative must change and align with the science regarding the biology of obesity as a disease.
[This] (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0953620521000029) paper on weight regain also claims that it is not just about compliance with a diet, but that, amongst others, metabolic adaptation and changed appetite play an important role as well.
I am personally quite interested in work on obesity due to eating disorders. The reason for this is that I suffered from an eating disorder causing obesity for most of my life (fortunately, I do not have the disorder anymore). The constant pressure to just eat less and getting blamed if you fail, severely increased my eating disorder and I saw the same thing happen to others with similar issues. I know that this is anecdotal and not everyone that is obese has an eating disorder and not everyone with an eating disorder is the same. However, there is some limited evidence that weight neutral treatment of binge eating disorder has better outcomes. This and treatment for my CPTSD is exactly what worked for me.
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Same here. I use popcorn to get there. We probably go through three air poppers a year.
It doesn’t work for me when it comes to any sort of fried potato variation (fries, tots, crispy crows, etc). No matter how full I am, I can keep eating those.
If you would accept a suggestion: Just fast for a few days. Your stomach will shrink and you can go back to eating normal portions after. Plus it’s good for the soul, there’s a reason so many religions recommend it.
A few days? Depending on the person’s condition, it might turn out badly.
First, start with one day. Second, and most importantly, consult with a medical professional to make sure you don’t have any counter-indications.
Holy fuck we hit 74%? Goddamn
Percent of adolescents ages 12–19 years with obesity: 22.2% (2017-March 2020)
Percent of children ages 6–11 years with obesity: 20.7% (2017-March 2020)
Percent of children ages 2–5 years with obesity: 12.7% (2017-March 2020)
This shit is child abuse people. Not ok.
Go for 100%…I know you can do it.
Would you be satisfied with 100% minus 1 person?
Minus 2 people. I’m back at a healthy weight and steady for a year now. Amazing what cutting out all the crap does.
Fruits are high in sugar, how are they considered low calorie foods?
It doesn’t say low calories but low caloric density and high in fibre. It’s a combo that matters. Though one can definitely overdo on fruit.
Fruits have plenty of fiber, which helps increase satiety, which is what’s important here. Also check the difference between a candy bar and a piece of friut, and then think about which fills you up better with fewer calories. Density matters too, it’s much easier to snarf down a bunch of candy than to eat the same caloric value in fruit.
Despite all the interesting advice in this thread the thing that helped me the most was accepting and getting used to the fact that if you’re going to lose weight you’re going to be hungry.
You’re not starving to death, you’re not dying, but there are times where you’re going to just have to be hungry and deal with it. Our bodies are very good at doing their best to keep us alive, and hunger is our bodies way of saying “we need to look for food”. The problem is we didn’t evolve that skill at a time when looking for food only takes a few minutes and can involve thousands of calories.
If you’re overweight your body is going to sound alarm bells that it’s eating into the reserves, but you need to acknowledge that and let the reserves get used so you can lose weight.
thats plain wrong. you dont have to go hungry to loose weight. thats ONE method, yes. but there are others. the human body is not a car you put petrol into.
If I eat lower glycemic index foods, I can eat reduced calories without feeling like I’m starving or having hunger cravings. I also consume psyllium husk after a meal, which slows digestion of simple carbs and makes me feel fuller. This helps maintain an even blood sugar and avoid spikes which lead to cravings.
But I have experience with diet and fitness. Other people though aren’t so lucky. Some people feel such intense cravings who have no idea what to do and can’t maintain a proper diet for shit. I remember taking a medication that jacked up my food cravings like crazy and that reminded me how hard other people have it with dieting.
My own advice:
The diet I’m on, which has lost me 36 pounds (196 to 160) and counting since early April, is simple calorie restriction - I try my best not to go over 1500 calories/day, and if I do go over, I try to make up for it by going under on following days until things average out.
Every time I’ve tried this diet or similar diets, I’ve had great success, as long as I’ve meticulously tracked and wrote down how many calories I ate each day. The times I’ve tried this diet without tracking have all ended up failing, even when I “tried” sticking to it for months. The moment I start writing numbers down, things just fall into place. So for me at least, that’s the key.
Some notes:
- Over the last 127 days my actual average calories/day has been 1472/day
- I try to avoid meals where counting is very difficult or impractical. That means I try to avoid going to restaurants that don’t post calories and I’m not big on “real” cooking. If I do have a meal where a good count isn’t possible I try my best to overestimate - usually with 2500 or 3000 depending on how full I am since it’s really hard to eat more than that at once. I find it very difficult to go to most restaurants without getting more than 1500 calories, also, so I don’t eat at restaurants all that often anymore. Fast food places like McDonald’s are actually some of the easier options to work with, though.
- I’ve made little to no effort to eat healthier - just less. I can have a blizzard from Dairy Queen if I want, but that’s 1100 calories and then I’ve only got 400 left for something else. I have mastered making delicious ice cream that’s just 300 calories/pint though. In practice I usually eat processed foods from a can, box, or bag that you just need to heat up or follow the instructions on the box for.
- A scale is essential for getting accurate calories out of things like butter, milk, ketchup, ice cream ingredients, etc.
- In general meats are a pretty poor choice - compared to other foods they make me a lot less full compared to how many calories they take up. I can eat 8 hotdogs (without buns) and fill up my daily calories in that one meal, and still be hungry - or I can have two cans of spaghettios (580 calories total), and be so full I almost can’t finish.
- For me at least, after the first week or so I just stop feeling hungry in general most of the time. There are occasionally days where I only eat because I know I should, rather than because I got hungry.
- When I’m on this diet, I basically never get heartburn, even after a day where I eat something that would usually have given it to me badly - probably the nicest part of all this.
- Despite what the post says, I eat basically no fruits or vegetables in my day-to-day life.
- In the past, I’ve incorporated extremely heavy daily exercise into my routine as well - I’m talking multiple hours a day, every day, for at least two months. While it did have some noticeable benefits like a very noticeably lower resting heart rate and increased strength, it had basically no visible effect on my rate of weight loss - looking at the graph, you couldn’t even tell which portions of the diet were subject to heavy exercise vs. heavy leisure. The lesson learned is that diet is far, far more important than exercise - you can offset an entire workout with a single cookie.
- When I’m not making any dieting attempts at all, I’m a huge glutton. I’ve never gotten over 200 pounds, because any time I get close I start doing this diet - but if I ate the way I wanted to all the time, I could easily weigh 350+ pounds. I can very easily eat single 1200-2000 calorie meals multiple times a day. I’ve yo-yo’d a lot in the past few years but I’m hoping to more or less keep things permanently under control this time - once I get to 140ish I plan to raise my daily calorie allowance to the point where I maintain, rather than gain or lose, over time.
An added bonus of writing things down is getting to graph things too!
Note that I’m not claiming this is healthy. Just effective. Anyone can lose weight eating nothing but chocolate cake, as long as they eat sufficiently little. It doesn’t mean you won’t die from it.
I’ve made little to no effort to eat healthier - just less. I can have a blizzard from Dairy Queen if I want, but that’s 1100 calories and then I’ve only got 400 left for something else.
In addition to choosing not to have something in the first place, choosing not to finish something is another great skill. Lowest calorie blizzard is still hundreds of calories, but choosing to eat only half of the smallest size can work.
Definitely a harder habit to change compared to not ordering in the first place when raised to always clean the plate.
While that’s true, and while it’s something I’d definitely recommend for others, I can’t honestly say that’s something I’ve mastered doing myself. To me, not finishing just means I have more work to do when it comes to figuring out how many calories I actually ate. While I could just guesstimate that I had 60% of that blizzard, I find that in practice I’m really not okay with being that wishy-washy with the numbers. The days where I have to just guesstimate kill me inside.
And this situation with the blizzard is something I’ve dealt with. I had a mostly finished blizzard but couldn’t finish it. I had to mark the level of ice cream still remaining, empty the cup, then get weight measurements for the empty cup (c), cup full of water (f), and cup full of water up to the level of remaining ice cream (w) - at which point the total calories eaten were (w-c)/(f-c) * B, where B is the number of calories in the full blizzard. If I could have avoided all of that by finishing the last 28% of that blizzard, you bet I would have.
I either go for about half and call it good or just round it up to the full amount when counting and then not worry too much if some other things are 5-10% higher than they should be.
It isn’t like the menu calories are precise. Heck, for a blizzard it could be up to 15% more when served if it is above the cup line.
The important thing is paying more attention to what we are eating, how high in calories things are, and whether we actually know what a portion size is.
The worst part is that I know the menu calories aren’t precise at most restaurants, but I still won’t let myself be wishy-washy with them. I actively recognize there’s no point in relying on how many calories Outback Steakhouse says are in a Bloomin’ Onion (1900 btw) when the largest bloomin’ onion I’ve had in the past is close to double the size of the smallest I’ve had. But my entire system relies on precise tracking so I still feel I have to make the effort.
Rounding up to the full amount after eating >85% or so is something I do though. I’m much more okay with it if I know I’m overestimating than if I think I might possibly be underestimating.
Yes! The biggest factor with body weight is calories in vs calories out. Foods with volume and mass but fewer calories displace calorie dense foods. Even as simple as substituting popcorn vs potato chips is huge on calorie savings. Protein and fats (ideally plant based) can also help you feel full longer than say simple carbs like potato chips/white pasta.
I highly recommend Harvard’s Nutrition Source for science-based nutrition info and recipes, the language is very accessible too!
Edit: fixed link
Correcting link https://nutritionsource.hsph.harvard.edu/
Thanks!
I used to be uninterested in foods like broccoli, apples, oranges, and blueberries, but after a transition period I love them and have them every day. I’d like to hear anyone’s story who’s also been able to integrate more of these foods.
Personally I’m luckyish in having the opposite problem from most, I’ve been entirely unable to gain weight, and before I started working out to put on muscle weight I weighed about 120 lbs
One of the fun parts about rapidly building muscle is your body will start asking for healthier foods. I’ve had a couple of times where I’ll make a big steaming plate of veggies and be all about it until the moment I put some in my mouth and went “oh yeah, I still don’t like steamed broccoli stems”
I also yesterday tried to challenge myself on a new personal record distance in biking, and was biking in the morning rather than the evening like I usually do. I quickly learned that I need a very different fuel in my body first thing in the morning if I’m going to be engaging in physical activity shortly later.
Modern fruits have too much fructose for good health these days. They’ve been bred to be way too sweet.
Unless your brain is fucking broken like mine, lol.
Fruits and veggies are great for gut biome and the fiber helps keep you moving, but there is such a thing as too much bowel movement.
TBH, the best weightloss options are actually a liquid supplement diet, the kind that come in bins of powder with a plastic scoop inside and PROTEIN written across the front. Most of them are meal replacers, and some of them are also low calorie.
If you stick to a vegan diet expecting to lose weight you’ll usually fall into the trap of a high carb diet instead.
I’m vegan and struggling with my weight for a while, bought a Huel subscription and it is really helping. I’ll get my measured out meal, then fill up on water and tea, but the shakes by themselves are surprisingly filling.
Portion control had been my biggest struggle. It’s easier to say no to another meal shake than getting seconds of something else, and the shakes do taste good. Well, the chocolate does, the Vanilla is… not amazing.
I’m also keeping up on it more cause I don’t want the hassle of modifying the order.
The other big thing that keeps me at it is weighing myself every day and logging it in a health app.
This next statement is off topic a bit, but I bought a Muscle Milk Strawberry powder once and it was just bland vanilla with little tiny bits of occasional strawberry. 0/10
I’ll sometimes try protein shakes when I see vegan ones I don’t recognize at the store. I’ve had a few very bad ones. Most fall into that “well, it tastes decent for a protein shake I suppose.”
Sometimes I add some cinnamon amd a tiny bit of ground cloves and ginger, turns just about any bland protein drink into a spice cake flavor.
I feel like protein mixes are trying to be flavored like dairy products when instead they should try to be flavored like eccentric tea and coffee house beverages.
So sitting on my ass eating candy isn’t the way to lose weight?
Technically it still depends on the amount of candy.
Indeed, reminds me of the ones that give you a “power wash [for] your intestines”:
https://www.mashed.com/444725/read-this-before-eating-haribo-sugar-free-gummy-bears/
Humans don’t need grains.
Pretty simple.
I don’t want a pickle.
I just want to ride on my motorcycle
Funniest shit I ever saw…
Edit: autocorrect screwed me.
