[armchairhacker]

Moralizing about weight loss is upsetting, as someone whose thankfully considers themselves "naturally thin".

It's 100% true the vast majority (including me) needs to put some discipline into eating and exercise: normal people can't just eat whatever they want whenever they feel hungry. But normal people don't get fat eating whole foods, working out, eating below their demographic's daily intake; and normal people don't suffer immense fatigue on tiny calorie deficits or even maintenance. People with thyroid and other metabolic issues do. Which IMO completely destroys the "moral" argument for weight.

(And it's also probably true that most overweight people don't eat whole foods and work out daily. That doesn't mean its right to call out some random fat person eating a mildly-unhealthy meal. You have no idea what else they've eaten that day, what else is going on around them, and you wouldn't call out a skinny person who eats the same.)

[mrcrumb1]

I'm a person who has vacillated between being close to normal weight and obese. I think people who don't have problems controlling their diet tend to underestimate just how hard it can be to eat at a calorie deficit or even just maintenance when you've lost a large amount of weight. When I'm at my lowest weight I literally am thinking about food constantly and my maintenance calorie intake drops to about 1500-1800 calories.

[Aloha]

It's really hard to explain to someone the agony of being hungry all the time - without experiencing it, they just cant understand.

[pton_xd]

> It's really hard to explain to someone the agony of being hungry all the time - without experiencing it, they just cant understand.

This can easily happen if you eat the wrong food and train your gut to prefer the wrong types of food.

And by "wrong food" I mean the typical American diet -- processed food and soda.

[sneak]

"processed" food is fine - all food is processed. The issue is with huge amounts of fast carbs coupled with high fat. It can occur even with "unprocessed" foods such ice cream.

[DoreenMichele]

FWIW, I lost multiple dress sizes without counting calories or starving myself by eating a more nutrient dense diet.

[jjeaff]

It's also interesting to note that while thyroid and other similar issues are not usually the cause of a person's initial weight gain, those types of issues are much more common in obese people. So it makes it much more likely that an obese person has some underlying medical issues making their battle to lose weight even more difficult.