| HN Mirror

Most fat people have tried to lose the weight. Some have tried incredibly hard and done rather crazy-sounding things, to no avail.

I half wish we didn't have these kinds of comments about weight loss; it comes from the Puritan-work-ethic-suffering-is-laudable style of thinking, and implicitly carries messages like: a) weight loss must include suffering, b) it must include hard work or you aren't earning it, c) 'quantity of trying' is something in and of itself which is praiseworthy, regardless of what is tried or how effective it was, d) crazyness is a proxy for trying hard by implication of exhausting all less-crazy options, regardless of whether that's actually true, e) defending 'why someone didn't lose weight' and whether they endured enough suffering to be allowed to live without criticism is more important than understanding, empathising, fixing, almost anything.

To quote from a blog about going the other way - muscling up:

Just because we’re tired doesn’t mean we had a good muscle-building workout, just that we had a tiring one. Depending on what you’re doing, there’s a good chance there’s a workout that’s less tiring but does a better job of stimulating muscle growth.

Similarly, being full doesn’t mean we ate enough calories, just that we ate a filling meal. Maybe there’s a less filling meal that provides more calories and nutrients.

And in the same idea, just because someone tried hard and suffered to lose weight, doesn't mean they did the most effective things to lose weight. Just because they felt starving doesn't mean they were sustaining long term calorie deficit, just because they tried for years doesn't mean they found a good way and it didn't work, but that they spent years doing things which didn't work. Just because they suffered while exercising doesn't mean it was an optimal calorie burning workout, just that it was unpleasant..

The two (effort/suffering and fat loss) aren't necessarily directly connected at all, yet we discuss as if one is a proxy for the other. It might well be that fat loss implies effort, but effort does not imply fat loss. Or it might be that effective fat loss doesn't necessarily imply effort although that's one way for it. I anecdotally note P.J. Eby's comment once that he'd tried an awful lot of weight loss attempts, but it wasn't until he found Vitamin K supplements that he started to see progress. Vitamin K supplements aren't hard work or major suffering (and undoubtedly they aren't a panacea for all obese people).

The wider context of the quote is:

we’re going to slip, we’re going to “fail”. That’s part of the process. A setback is just an opportunity for us to figure out what went wrong, what needs adjusting, and how to move forward more effectively. A setback shouldn’t be seen as a failure, and it certainly has nothing to do with our ability to build muscle. The moment we stop thinking about change as binary—either as success or failure—but rather as a process that’ll evolve, the more likely we are to actually reach our goals.

So when looking at our routines and our efforts, we need to look at them objectively. If our routine was failing, which part is holding us back? What piece is missing?

If our routine is working but is tough to maintain, what part was enjoyable and sustainable? What is wearing us down? What’s the part that’s actually responsible for our results? What’s useless filler that just wears us down?

This is how we gradually develop lifestyles that work for us—making things more effective, more enjoyable, easier. This is how we get to consciously decide who we want to become. Then eventually those habits become what we do automatically—unconsciously.

In that context, of a life and a way to live, what benefit of talking about "I tried hard", in the past tense, at all?

It's almost tautological to say people who tried hard and are still fat, weren't trying the right things - and yet actually saying that is liable to bring about a reply describing in detail how much effort and suffering and time was involved, as if the sentence was "you didn't try hard enough". Which it isn't.

Empathizing with disease, with medications, with psychological problems, with car-park focused urban sprawl, with disability, with thyroid problems and metabolic disorders and absorption disorders and poor education and stressful busy lives and constraints on money and food availability and susceptibility to peer pressure - these are all things that can usefully and helpfully be discussed. Praise of "they tried something and suffered for it, so if anything was going to work, suffering was going to work, and it didn't work", should fade from the world. It's unproductive, unhelpful, and focuses on all the wrong things.

( - quote source: http://bonytobeastly.com/why-skinny-guys-fail-build-muscle-w... )