this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2024
1036 points (95.9% liked)
me_irl
4499 readers
326 users here now
All posts need to have the same title: me_irl it is allowed to use an emoji instead of the underscore _
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
No shit. That's not some great revelation and I'm kinda tired of seeing it posted as if it is.
You don't burn a great deal more calories exercising than you do just sitting on the couch. Your body is very good at conserving energy. Not to say exercise isn't beneficial, it is, it's just not a great weight loss tool. Not at last as good as common wisdom might suggest.
The caveman in your skull is also very persuasive, and wants you to eat far more than you need, because it thinks you might not be able to find food again for a while. The caveman really likes carbs, and foods high in sugar and fat, and will ask for more the second you have any.
Ignoring the caveman is hard, harder for some than others. It's also taxing and after a while the caveman will wear you down.
Effective weight loss isn't just about putting less food on your plate. Fucking anybody can do that and it's exceedingly obvious to those trying that that's what they need to do.
Losing weight is about beating back the caveman in your skull, convincing him that he's had enough, and feeding him in a way that also nourishes the body you both live in.
There's a reason most people fail, and fail repeatedly to lose weight. It's as simple as eating less but it turns out, eating less for people who eat a lot isn't actually that simple. There are psychological and physiological drivers causing them to keep going back for more, to lie to themselves about how they're doing, and to ignore the obvious cues that something isn't working.
It really is the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" or "just don't take any drugs, duh" of weight loss. Like, you can't just ignore all the social, systemic issues in our health and food industries, reduce it all to cals in vs cals out, and expect that to work. It's reductive and unproductive.
People aren't having trouble with math or willpower, they're having trouble with the fact that most (emphasis on "most") readily available, cheap food is bad for you. Most people in poverty grew up with processed, heavily advertised junk and have literal addictions to this shit.
That's literally exactly how it has worked for me. Obviously it takes some will power and discipline, but so does basically everything.
Our individual stories do not always translate to the bigger picture, gmtom. You might have grown up in a household where you were insulated from the predations of the processed food industry. You might have had better habits instilled in you as a child. You might have had a positive body image at one point in your life, to serve as inspiration for your weight loss journey. Maybe none of those are true and you truly are one of the lucky (and hard working!) ones who escaped this situation just like the addicts who recover through willpower alone. Regardless, we cannot all rely on being gmtom.
My final paragraph is not focused on the individual but on the epidemic of obesity. We cannot solve this through brow beating about CICO just like Republicans aren't going to solve the drug addiction crisis through jailing everyone with an addiction. People are using food to fill a hole in their lives, just like drugs, and we have to do the hard work of figuring that root out. Otherwise, we are doomed to become ineffective and unhelpful, leaving people to suffer.