I’m hungry right now. I should be working, but all I want to do is to eat. I have already eaten more than enough today, and I would like to lose weight.
I could take more caffeine to reduce my desire for food, but it is already too close to bedtime. I could try to focus on work (I am) but I keep getting intrusive thoughts about the fact that I could just get ice cream/cookies/chicken fingers/burrito/quesadilla/insert food here in just a few moments.
I wish I could take these drugs, unfortunately I cannot. Terrible side effects.
Strangely, after visiting Japan I found it quite easy to eat a healthy low calorie diet for about two weeks. Now I’m back to constant food noise, despite trying to stick to a Japanese-style diet (lots of fish and vegetables and fermented foods).
The people who say “just eat less” don’t understand what the actual problem is.
Well, the difference is just eat less does work. Calories in calories out is literally thermodynamics. We are an energy equation. We don't collect energy from the air or the sun either. If you cease to eat, you will starve. And of course if you do not want to just eat less, you can increase your burn rate. Once again going back to the energy equation. Actually bust your ass. A good intense run should make you feel like you are going to puke afterwards. You may in fact puke. A hard set on the weights should get your heart rate surging and prevent you from even formulating words.
The issue with these things isn't that they don't work. It's that people attempt them and do not go all the way. They go on a little diet in some ways but fail to account for all their daily calories from stuff like beverages or snacks, maybe they aren't weighing their food either and just assuming a lot with what they are eating. They try and work out but it looks like walking on a treadmill or moving some 5lb weights around, far from running until lactic acid stops you or lifting to failure.
I think there is a lot of misjudgement of how intense a workout really is or how a diet should look like. And that feeds into this idea that it will not work.
But, you can't argue against thermodynamics. We don't make energy from nowhere. We are bound by the same laws of physics as anything else. If you can't lose weight with how you are eating, then the answer is obvious why that is the case: you are still eating too much given your activity level.
> And of course if you do not want to just eat less, you can increase your burn rate.
Multiple studies prove you wrong, IRL. Humans are not isolated test guinea pigs in a cage. It is simply not feasible to live one's life by a spreadsheet of accounting values.
HN guidelines strongly encourage me not calling you an asinine twat, so I won't do that. As your other reply highlighted, no one's arguing thermodynamics with you. It's clearly a behavioural phenomenon, and one that isn't half as well understood as we may like to believe. It's at the intersection of advertising, biology, dietetics, economics, genetics, neuroscience, nutrition, psychiatry, psychology, sociology, the disciplines go on. Consider all the myriad ways those factors may interact and compound, then look at the statistics: that the overwhelming majority of adults fail to lose significant weight long term through "eat less" should tell you all you need to know about the state of the problem. If your conclusion is as simple as "they mustn't have considered to put the fork down and try harder, en masse," I feel it says more about you than anything else.
Try filling your stomach with water and low/zero calorie rufflage like greens. Bonus, it will help you get right out of bed in the morning. Secret native american method for waking up early for war without alarm clock technology, using the bladder.
It's all the fructose in western diets. Tens of centuries of Europeans eating bountifully in the fall and then fasting through winter and spring evolved metabolic reactions that fructose means "pack on weight now because we'll be needing it"
The issue is not lack of knowledge about appropriate amounts to eat, it's the physical sensations and mental state of being satiated at those amounts and the self control to limit yourself when you are not.
Surely that must go down when you are several stone lighter with lower metabolic demands than when you were heavier maintaining all that mass. But even then, you'd be aware of these things, presumably you'd limit yourself somewhat. Especially if you were noticing weight coming back on.
I was on a GLP-1 a few years ago and lost 70 lbs. After I got off, I kept a ton of diet changes (no more Pepsi or Gatorade and a lot of water instead, switching to whole grains and fiber/protein variants on pasta, etc.) and gained the weight back in a year and a half. The literature backs this up: keeping up weight loss is hard.
All research points to a "no" answer - weight is regained, and quickly. Which helps explain why obesity is so prevalent - it is something in the brain's chemistry.
Weight would only be regained if you start eating more, no? I would think that would be hard to do if you've already seen what appropriate portions are.
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what GLP-1 agonists help with. In simple terms, they make you less hungry. If you stop the drugs, it's not surprising you go back to being hungry. It would be a miracle drug if you didn't.
People, on average, eat until they're no longer hungry. Problem is, there's only a loose relationship between your caloric needs and your hunger response. That's how you end up with underweight people who are trying to put on muscle saying they can't possibly eat any more and still can't put on weight, while having overweight people who eat twice as much as that guy and have to actively choose not eat more. Both people can make a conscious choice to disobey their signals, just like how you can choose to hold your hand to a hot stove. But it takes a lot of energy to keep up that willpower. Effective weightloss drugs solve that problem, by treating the actual problem: the hunger.
I don't misunderstand. I understand they stop you from feeling as hungry. That is why it is even more perplexing. Eating until you are no longer hungry isn't how most people eat I'd say. Most people eat a given quantity of food. A plate of food. A bowl of soup. An entree with the provided side perhaps. People don't generally order food, eat it, and order more food. Maybe they do I guess, but I haven't seen it personally. I mean I think a lot of people could shove a dozen hotdogs down their gullet if they wanted to, but that reaction isn't a typical expectation. Plus once you've seen normal portions, surely you'd realize when you are going beyond those.
Speed of eating might also be an underrated factor in all this. Stretching out ones meals and slowing down the pace might lead to satiety triggers coming before the meal is done, whereas if one scarfs down the plate before that signal happens, well, one already scarfed down the plate and might be working into the next before those signals hit. This meta analysis suggests this is a possibility (1).
It's possible that your internal hunger mechanism is different from other people's. In my experience, hunger leads me to eat, and I stop eating when I feel full. Perhaps I will go back for seconds if I am eating at home, or, if I am eating at a restaurant, I will likely not eat everything on my plate (giant US portions).
> I would think that would be hard to do if you've already seen what appropriate portions are.
This would be true if not knowing what an appropriate portion size is was the one thing keeping most people from losing weight. If that was the case, traditional dieting would have a far better track record with long term weight loss.
People notoriously don't know what an appropriate portion size is. Usually those failed diets come from failing to appreciate the quantity of calories coming in. Those sugary drinks and snacks add up fast. I've seen it among people I know. I might drink water, they opt to drink 250 calories. Does that make them feel any full? Probably not, its merely sugar water, but it accounts for calories and can kill diets. We order a 750 calorie entree and they get a refill. We walk away from the same meal but one of us had almost twice as many calories.
Nope, the body will adjust to regain it no matter what.
Australia's health organization did a meta study on people who had bariatric surgery. They found that every single one regained 70% of their original weight after five years, even though they were physically incapable of eating the way they did before.
This happened to my grandmother, she had a bypass in the 2000s, lost over a hundred pounds, and then regained it again and was back to her original weight when she passed in 2022. The woman couldn't eat more than 4 ounces per meal without throwing up.
I lost 40 pounds in 2017 from gastritis. I kept it off for three years, and then regained 50 pounds despite starting ozempic.
Except if your body is unnaturally screaming at you to eat more. The obesity epidemic is not caused by ignorance or lack of willpower. It's natural differences in how people's bodies work compounded by modernity's changes to physical activity levels and diet.
People do learn to fast and deal with those signals. Once you are aware of what they are it probably gets easier. I've fasted before, by choice and via circumstance in less fortunate times in my life. Is it uncomfortable? Sure. But it is no punch in the face. It is something you can learn to push aside and handle the task. One can learn to go to sleep hungry, sadly.
And you mention exercise, that is an excellent point. Hunter gatherers might forage for 8 miles a day, while many peoples daily walking effort can be measured in a few dozen feet. Our bodies are built to be used. It is no surprise that when they are not, systems designed for a certain baseline load are no longer functioning as intended.
I could take more caffeine to reduce my desire for food, but it is already too close to bedtime. I could try to focus on work (I am) but I keep getting intrusive thoughts about the fact that I could just get ice cream/cookies/chicken fingers/burrito/quesadilla/insert food here in just a few moments.
I wish I could take these drugs, unfortunately I cannot. Terrible side effects.
Strangely, after visiting Japan I found it quite easy to eat a healthy low calorie diet for about two weeks. Now I’m back to constant food noise, despite trying to stick to a Japanese-style diet (lots of fish and vegetables and fermented foods).
The people who say “just eat less” don’t understand what the actual problem is.