While both of those things are important, the consensus amoung medical researches for a consider time in the literature, especially the more-controlled, less “interventional” studies is that self-discipline is minimally effective at sustained weight loss. I say consensus among medical researchers because the field is really heterogenous; “weight-loss experts” can mean all sorts of things depending on who you’re talking to. The medical and biological analysis has consistently shown a strong link between certain genes and obesity, but the critical factor there is that ‘activated biology’ (my term) is key: what people eat in the first few years of their life, combined with their genes has a huge determinative effect. (I think there is some really interesting research in the bizarrely-strong but little-understood prenatal effects too)
The problem I’ve heard from researchers and doctors is that the field is strongly distorted by ‘industry’, by which I mean all the fields that blend into the private market for dieting and weight loss. The number of studies that suggest this or this factor of weight loss massively outnumber the holistic studies. The researchers and professionals who write books, advise patients, design diet plans and so on need there to be that one alternative method to losing weight. (To be fair, it is a complex issue)
Take this article for example: Are You Really Doomed to Regain Your Lost Weight? The author, who seems to have valid credentials, takes a solid NYT article, agrees with the obvious parts (which as a doctor he cannot ethically or scientifically deny), but then offers ‘his take on what will help’, and also this illuminating bit of spin:
What do I think? I think negative depends on approach and attitude. For instance where Tara might use the word vigilance, I’d use the word thoughtfulness and that being aware of every calorie doesn’t mean you’re not eating indulgent ones.
So yeah… most of the information out there is similar bullshit.
TLDR; self discipline is important, but biology and early nutrition/development are pretty much the reason people gain weight and can’t lose it.
(reading back, I’m not sure I’m interpreting you correctly… so sorry if not).
By periodic, I mean “once a year.” Here, in the Seattle area, they’ve been running ~$100 (since my insurance doesn’t cover it for body-composition purposes).
1- Calorie counting apps exist and take all the pain out of calorie counting.
2- Regular exercise that increases cardio vascular health will increase energy/endurance levels for day to day activities even if it does NOT result in significant weight loss.\
Long-term weight loss considered nearly impossible
Weh-he-ell, my already shitty day just got worse.
I do know I weighed the least, exercised the most, and ate the least in my life when I was suicidally depressed. Then I got therapized and happy and gained even more weight than I had ever lost. Now I’m fat and getting depressed about it… and so the circle of life continues?
Point is, fat people gonna fat. Haters gonna hate. I’m already tired of expressing just how agonizingly annoying the whole cultural discussion around obesity is. Everyone needs to:
A) Calm the fuck down. Fatness isn’t going to reduce us all to chubby soul-less wraiths with heart disease.
B) Stop pretending that weight loss is easy, fun, or quite possibly even worth the effort.
Maybe then we’ll all start sounding a little more like reasonable adults.
That’s a very fair response, and I will think about that. Given the obsession with weight as the primary metric, through, I remain unconvinced that some abstract concept of “health” is really the driving force for most people.
I am talking about a “sensible long-term health and exercise regimen”, not “I tried exercising for a while and it was strenuous so I stopped and never tried again.”
“Fit people are boring, self-obsessed and don´t like food” is a common story for out of shape people to tell themselves and it´s hardly ever true.
Human bodies do work roughly the same within certain genetic variation and I am not especially gifted in the genetics department.
I’m curious if there’s a “seven-year-cell-effect”, where if you drop the weight and live in dysphoric calorie-counting hell and keep the weight off for the full 5 to 10 years, whether the fat cells that die will tend not to be replaced to the full pre-loss population, as well as the body’s liver and other organs changing the metabolism in more permanent ways. The trick is to keep the weight off for that entire time. That’s a hell of a commitment. If there’s anything to this study (next year there will be another study that says the opposite) maybe the time horizon just hasn’t run long enough.
“You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or… hot fudge?”
“Those were thought to be unhealthy… precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.”
