[jncfhnb]

Yeah but shut up.

Talking about things that are feasibly solved with willpower as if they should be achievable because people ought to be able to willpower their way through any plausible challenge is just bullshit. The world is full of people who are so eager to say that they did it ergo everyone else is just being lazy. But just… shut up. Everyone has different circumstances. Things that are very mentally hard are very mentally hard and we don’t need to pretend otherwise. It’s complete bullshit and moral high grounding. It’s not helpful in the slightest. It’s not an easy way out. It’s a way out.

[hombre_fatal]

Also we’ve stacked our whole culture against health and nutrition. Just compare 7/11 in the US vs Japan. This goes far deeper than saying everyone just needs to pull a small easy lever in their life. To come back from the brink in the US you have to win the fight every second of the day forever and inoculate yourself against a world poised against you.

[spaceprison]

100%. after a lifetime of being overweight I found the will to make diet changes and ended up losing about 90lbs. The thing that's missed in these 'it's just calories in, calories out and will power' types of comments is that the commitment required to accomplish the weight loss is nothing compared to life consuming commitment required to maintain the loss over multiple years.

After 5 years of vigilance the mental and social toll was just too much and I gradually let down my guard within about 3 years I was up 50+lbs.

So now 10 years on it's corner cutting because there's a medical intervention that can help or just weakness because I can't find the will to do it to myself and people around me all over again?

Not helpful.

[SamPatt]

1 in 50 obese people being able to escape obesity on their own is still tens or hundreds of thousands of people.

Telling people who've lost weight through willpower to just shut up is rude and unhelpful.

I lost 90 lbs through diet and exercise. When I say that others could do what I did - which is true for many - I often get people asking me for advice, which I give. What's wrong with that?

[amazingman]

Telling people who couldn't muster the sustained willpower to lose weight through diet and exercise that they "just didn't want it enough" is rude and unhelpful. It's a little bit like telling bereaved parents they didn't pray hard enough for their deity to save the child. I'm happy for you, and hopefully the advice you're giving isn't some form of willpower woo-woo. The hard truth is that you were lucky; none of us can truly account for why we did or did not succeed at a practically achievable long-term goal. If the other 49 obese people had the capability to will themselves to health, they would have done so.

[jncfhnb]

Your advice is shit that’s what’s wrong. Your situation is not the same as others. Everyone knows what you’re saying. You’re not giving useful info saying “power through it”. You’re bragging.

So good job. But shut up. Whatever rudeness you feel from me saying shut up is FAR less rude and unhelpful than the poor people you’re telling to “power through it” who are certain that they cannot. Because you are implicitly calling them weak. And that’s fucked up.

Because for the third time, it might be MUCH harder for them to lose weight than you.

[SamPatt]

You admit you don't know what advice I'm giving, yet you insist it's me just telling them to power through it and my motivations are as a braggart.

You can't see how presumptuous and rude this is? And how weak you are presuming all of these people are? Treating them as if they have no agency and they cannot handle hearing someone else's life experience.

While I don't doubt for many people it would be harder to lose weight than it was for me, you also have no idea how hard it was for me to lose weight. So what? Other people like me exist.

I lost weight by listening to other people who lost weight and learning from their experience, and I'm available to do the same for others. Why you think this is "fucked up" and demand I shut up is just bizarre.

[jncfhnb]

I have no issue telling you where to shove your unsolicited advice. Especially when the advice is suggesting people, who have almost certainly tried suffering through to suffer through it in the context of looking at an alternative that works for people that have struggled with the approach you’re injecting here.

If people want your advice on diet and exercise they can ask for it. Otherwise, I trust they know it’s an option