I don’t just see how eating less and getting more exercise is either “weird” or a “trick.” What’s weird is saying both
“I’m so glad Xeni decided to point out to fat people that they should eat less and exercise more. No one has ever suggested that before! Such wow. Many innovative. So helping.”
and
“Please, continue to inform us of how we just need to try this ONE WEIRD TRICK to lose weight.”
If eating less and getting more exercise is the normal approach, and everyone knows it, how does that make it the weird thing to do?
Beats the hell out of me, but you can read the headline Xeni chose same as I can.
You’d think at some point lower-weight people might catch on that perhaps fat people have heard it before. Or, if you’re lower-weight, you might think that - higher-weight people know how often others announce to us “you know, you just need to eat less and exercise more!” like they’re the sole voice of sanity in a mad, mad world.
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Because it’s hard, so a lot of people have made a lot of money spinning it in a different way to make it sound easier. Like the weightwatchers points system, which is essentially calorie counting, or intermittent fasting, which gets you less kcal/day, or the Atkins/Keto/Paleo diets, which through one method or another get you to not eat so much calorificly dense food. Low carb diets have the benefit of making you drop a load of water weight at the start, so it looks on the scales like you’ve made great initial progress.
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That’s probably referring to the subject of the article, calling it an “insane diet plan”, as though it’s something either weird or new.
As someone who tends to gain weight or barely stay steady while eating roughly half the number of calories any calculator I’ve used has recommended, I’ll admit to being a bit annoyed seeing an article subject like that too. (And that was even before I had to stop riding a bicycle over hills for hours every day.)
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So I wonder if he could send all that excess skin off to a tannery and get a really novel backpack made from it. Perhaps a fanny pack?
I’ve gone from a high of 372 to 240. Still have a way to go yet. But you’re right on both counts. The calorie intake and calorie expenditure (eat less, move more) is simple physics. The mental part of it for those of us who have struggled with weight is what’s hard.
What’s worked for me is keeping a food diary. I write down everything I eat and if I don’t know the calories, I look 'em up later. The big thing about a food diary is that it pops the illusion of “I don’t eat all that much” by making it clear that you are likely eating more than you think, often mindlessly with a bite here and a taste there.
Hope I get to the point that I need to raise money for skin removal surgery. Sucks in a big way that health insurers, the VA, Medicare and Medicaid don’t pick up the costs for this in full automatically for the morbidly obese who manage to lose large amounts of weight. The weight loss implies much better health and lower medical costs over the long haul. Seems to me as if that ought to be rewarded, because it rewards the insurance companies and the government with lower costs also.
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Wow - people get really nasty when this subject comes up. I wonder why?
Let me start by saying that Brian has clearly made a very positive change and is doing something great and I wish him the best.
However, given the way the headline and some of the comments in this thread were written, we need to be clear about what the major positive change was here. Hint: it had very little to do with eating less or exercising more.
This dude was an alcoholic drinking a fifth of vodka mixed with a liter of soda every night.
That’s 2000 calories and a pass-out.
This dude could eat less and exercise all he wanted - within the limits of the human body - but if he kept drinking a fifth of vodka and a liter of soda every night, he’s not going to lose weight.
He wasn’t suffering from some magical metabolic condition that made him fat in spite of the laws of thermodynamics, he didn’t find one weird trick, and this wasn’t a conventional diet.
His insane diet plan was conquering his alcoholism.
I’m amazed at how people stop being able to think critically when the words diet and exercise are uttered.
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In defense of Jardin’s headline, I read it as a play on the seeming infinity of ridiculous diet fads. And the guy needs money to pay for surgery, because we have a shite health-care system where we want people to lose weight, but consider accompanying complications mere inconveniences.
I do think it’s important to highlight that weight-loss involves real work, is often unpleasant, and in a world where people’s bodies belong to them, is entirely optional. I happen to know a lot of RDs from a past life, and you’re right, it’s often not that simple. I remember one story of a diabetic who had trouble controlling his weight because his vision was failing and he couldn’t see the numbers on the scale. Old guy on a fixed income too, which didn’t help.
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Metabolism has to be a part of the weight loss equation too, I would think. I was one of those lucky assholes for my first 29 years who could eat whatever and not really exercise. There was was no internal fortitude or sacrifice that made me be able to be thin while other people gained weight. Just born that way. I assume that it works the other direction as well from birth.
Now I’m 32 and the free ride is over and I gained 40lbs from where I used to hover without any effort and probably need to exercise more. It just really bugs me when people who were born like me feel smug about how superior their lifestyle must be to those who are overweight.
Edit - Not that I’m saying smugness is happening here in this thread or even by the guy in the article. More just something I’ve been mulling over recently.
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Whenever anyone asked me what the best exercise is, I’d always tell them that it’s the one that you stick with. If you like doing it, and you want to get better, forget the charts and graphs; just enjoy yourself and stay off the scale for at least a month.
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“Losing weight is easy! You just need to burn more calories than you ingest!” is as simultaneously true and unhelpful as “Flying is easy! You just need to generate enough lift to overcome gravity!”
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Environment seems to have quite a bit to do with it - on a basic level, as it’s not just genetics or people’s natural weight that’s making the average weight in certain countries increase over time, or making immigrants and their children fit the general trends of their host country. Individually, unhealthy eating and exercise habits (not just ‘eating too much’) could probably be exacerbated by the environment (in a similar way to the ‘rat park’ experiment). My father-in-law recently moved from Kansas City to Germany to live with us. He’s had problems with his weight for a while, but now he’s gradually losing weight and feeling healthier. We’re not starving him and he’s not on any sort of fixed diet, but we cook almost all of our own food, cycle or take public transport rather than driving and don’t eat a lot of desserts or sweet food. We also spend more time outdoors in general. I think finding a lifestyle that you can enjoy is pretty key; losing weight without becoming healthier is fairly pointless, and seeing a diet as something foreign to you that gets in the way of your lifestyle is not a good sign for its success.
I’m 40 and still skinny, probably because I regard food as a constant hassle. It’s nice and all, but I can never be arsed preparing any myself, and takeaway is expensive, so I tend to skip breakfast. Occasionally I’ll skip lunch too.
So, I avoid hassle and expense, and I get to avoid obesity while I’m at it. Maybe I do feel a bit smug that I’m not missing out on such a great deal. CBFed? Win.
I kid you not, this was my first thought. Thanks for sharing.
The “losing weight is easy” part definitely is bunk. But burning more calories than you consume is the core concept. There is so much folkism and junk science surrounding weight loss. This is not.
There is also a lot of planning, patience and mental hard work (and occasionally physical hard work) that goes into accomplishing that goal.
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I was motivated to eat right and exercise after viewing a cardio cath procedure. Seeing a 40-something year old man crying on a gurney after being told he’s in need of bypass surgery is a real kick in the pants. It was like clinical version of “Scared Straight”. I don’t want to find myself in that situation anytime soon.
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Oh it IS that simple. It just isn’t even vaguely easy.
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Oh look, yet another fat-bashing article care of an imperiously smug stick-insect.
I do, of course, look forward to the sequel where he puts back on most or even all of the weight, plus extras, as the vast majority of diets fail. Obesity remains a complex issue that’s not helped by arseholes who latch onto it as the last respectable prejudice.
Or, to put it another way, I can reasonably assume this man has been on loads of diets before and his problems started in childhood when a parent or teacher started criticising his ‘BMI’ (don’t get me started on that discredited nonsense - btw). And all that has done is made it even worse for him.
How about this for an insane diet plan - why not try leaving people alone?
(For the record, I’ve got a healthy body fat percentage and I go to the gym at least 3-4 times a week. I just resent people shitting on others and feeling rather self-righteous about it.)
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