[leobelle]

Yeah well it's not like I love being fat. We all know fat is bad, and I wish I had less of it, but it's not like my adipose is going to go away by scaring it with more bad news about why it sucks to be fat. Once you're fat, not being fat anymore is a really hard problem, which is why fat people aren't really known for eventually being skinny some day again, but there's a high prevalence of skinny people who once were fat eventually getting fat again. I've been fighting my weight for near a decade now, and I used to be a pretty athletic individual in my 20's.

I don't think skinny people understand. Maintaining weight feels like starvation to fat people, for at least some of them, like me. If you only eat enough food to just maintain your weight it hurts just as much as dieting. That will probably never change for us, even if we lose a lot of weight (and I have lost a lot of weight). So fat people have to be on painful diets the rest of their lives, just to not get fatter.

So my advice to young people is, don't get fat. If you're already fat, you're pretty much fucked.

[nonchalance]

> If you're already fat, you're pretty much fucked.

That's not true, and that's a mentality that justifies self-destructive behavior. I used to be overweight but turned it around a few years ago, and in my case it boiled down to fixing some incredibly unhealthy habits

1) better sleeping habits. I used to go to sleep at 3-4 AM, now I force myself off of electronics by midnight and read a book or write until I doze off. Nowadays, when I first get up in the morning, I roll out of bed and do some pushups to avoid the crawl back to bed.

2) better eating habits. Eating breakfast is probably the best thing you can do for your diet. I found that I was eating much more later in the night, so as I shifted my sleeping pattern I also shifted my eating pattern (eating much more at breakfast and lunch and much less at dinner).

3) better exercise. It started with simple things: going to the grocery store, rather than waiting for the closest parking spot, I would park at the far end of the lot and walk the extra N steps; after a few months, I purchased a collapsable cart and just walked the mile from my house to the store. And bit by bit I would try to increase activity.

Obviously everyone's experience is different, but please don't propagate the idea that overweight people can't lose weight

[leobelle]

I get up at 4 am every day and eat breakfast. I still overeat.

I've swung back and forth between 280lbs and 220lbs for the last 5 years. I'm currently around 250lbs.

I've been under 260lbs for almost 2 years now and I still have to starve myself constantly to get back down to 220lbs even though I sleep well. Nothing works. It's all pain. I eat too much and I'm miserable or I eat just enough or too little and I'm miserable. My ability to figure out when I'm full is completely broken. I'm either sated after having eaten too much or I'm starving.

[dragonwriter]

> I've been under 260lbs for almost 2 years now and I still have to starve myself constantly to get back down to 220lbs even though I sleep well.

I weigh more than you but I've been successfully (if slowly, for most of the time) losing weight for several years, after having lots of the same kind of problems you describe before that. What seems to be working for me is:

1) Eat lots of non-starchy vegetables, especially toward the beginning of trying to establish a lower-calorie pattern. These can satisfy the need for stomach-fullness that develops over a history of overeating (over time, your stomach stretches, and it takes more volume of food to feel full), without the miserable feeling you get from eating too much caloric foods (I used to get different forms of misery from "too much carbs", "too much fat", and "too much protein" when I overate, but they were all misery.)

2) Eat more snacks between meals -- this helps level out your metabolism helps avoid the "starving -- must eat lots at next opportunity" feeling that leads to overeating misery.

3) Find one or more physical activities that you can enjoy for their own sake and do regularly. For me, it's been ballroom/latin/swing dancing, but the particular activity isn't all that important.

4) If you haven't already, try to get your doctor to check for metabolic conditions or vitamin deficiencies that might be making it hard for you to lose weight (I had a pretty significant Vitamin D deficiency and supplementing for that seems to have helped some, lots of other people I know have had bigger impacts when previously undiagnosed metabolic conditions were addressed.)

EDIT to add:

5) There's lots of approaches that are popular as to exact approaches to diet mix, and I've seen lots of people successful on different ones, but all of them -- including mine -- have included really sharply limiting sugar (often pretty much to whole fruit as the only sugar-heavy food, if even that.)

6) Drink plenty of water. For lots of people, hunger and thirst signals easily get crossed

[leobelle]

I definitely am not eating enough vegetables and too much starch, which I know I have to change. Thanks for your other tips.

[com2kid]

> I definitely am not eating enough vegetables and too much starch, which I know I have to change.

To reemphasize this, for some people, eating carbs will never fill them up! I am one of those people for sure, I'll eat cookies until I am physically ill, but I will never be satiated!

Think about this question: Which can you eat more of, twice baked potatoes stuffed with goodies, or just steak?

Next time you sit down for a meal, eat the 10oz sirloin first, before the potatoes. Then wait a few minutes and see how you feel!

Also make sure to avoid "healthy" foods that are anything but.

Bananas are a good example of this. Aside from some potassium, they are no more healthy for you than a candy bar! Granola bars are another great example of "healthy" food that leaves you feeling hungry! (I don't know about you, but I've never been "filled up" from granola bars! I know people who can be, but I am not one of them!) Finally, anything with the word "juice" in it should be avoided!

Finally, realize that your environment is one of the single largest factors in helping you achieve your health goals. Everyone says it is motivation, but hell, odds are you are plenty motivated. Feeling like crap and wanting not to is damned good motivation. But following through, ah, there is the hard part!

Environment matters. I got rid of all snack food from my house. All of it. Eating at home now involves zero willpower. My fridge has nothing but raw food that I need to cook. I have will power for all of the 5 minutes I am grocery shopping each day. If I am too lazy to cook my food, I go hungry, it is that simple. Each day on the way back from work I buy exactly the food I need to cook the meal for that day. (And yes, guests get used to this! "Sorry we have exactly the right amount of this awesome home made food!")

[stefan_kendall3]

Change your diet. I don't mean "diet", I mean change what you eat forever.

What you're eating, in addition to how much you eat, is extremely important. If you eat crap (sugar cereal), you're going to feel like you're starving two hours later when your blood glucose levels spike.

[lbruder]

Risking to be the 52768th guy to propose a fad diet: Have you tried going ketogenic (/r/keto)? I've lost 50 lbs within about six months without really trying. No hunger pains at all (the first week is hell on earth though).

Just avoiding carbs and vegetable oils and eating lots of (mostly saturated) fat made my weight drop. Don't count calories. Just start eating when you feel physically hungry (cravings don't count), stop eating when you aren't hungry anymore (not when you're completely stuffed).

[jrs235]

Out of curiosity, do you eat diet foods low in fat? Do you eat a large percentage of packaged/processed meals or made from "scratch"? Margarine or butter?

[mettle2]

Please, for anyone worried about their health and weight, consider a ketogenic diet.

It is restrictive: high fat, very low carb, adequate protein. However, it is comparatively easy to maintain since a high-fat diet leaves you feeling much fuller.

After the adaptation phase (~3weeks) your metabolism shifts to becoming much more efficient at burning fat. As a result if you go on a slight calorie deficit, the rest of the calories come from stored fat and you don't feel hungry.

Many people do these diets for nutritional health (myself included). There is lots of new research about it and while its nutritional benefits may be debated --its well understood to be the most effective way to loose fat sustainability.

ketotic.org is a good place to start research on it. It has research summaries on ketogenic diets by Zooko Wilcox O'Hearn (a well-known cryptographer and open-source dev of Tahoe-LAFS) and Amber Wilcox O'Hearn, a researcher who found that a stricter variant of a ketogenic diet completely cured a major health issue of hers.

reddit.com/r/keto is actually the best place to start once you've decided you interested. They have a good FAQ and the focus is mostly weight loss.

[tekalon]

My husband and I tried this for a while, but we couldn't come up with good food that we would both eat (we're both picky eaters).

[mettle2]

The hardest part is finding a routine and meal plan that works for you I think. I failed in attempts to enter ketosis a couple times simply because I wouldn't find enough keto food to eat, get hungry, and start eating normal or sugary food.

Lettuce wrap burgers (with cheese and advocado!) are great when you need food on the go. In-and-out is my savior when I travel now. I also ended up hacking together my own ketogenic Soylent(fat-protein shake with nutrients) to supplement for about 1/2 a days worth of calories. This suddenly made being in ketosis completely sustainable for me.

I suspect its slightly easier for those loosing weight rather then maintaining, simply because it can be difficult to eat enough fat and calories through normal food. If your loosing weight you can lower your fat intake a bit and go on a slight calorie deficit once your used to ketosis.

Its a fairly big life-style commitment, and I wish it wasn't so absolutist, but its what works and its helped me with energy levels and mood quite a bit. I feel better overall and don't crave food all the time.

[yen223]

Put it this way, at least you have a fucking choice.

Sincerely, a short guy.

[leobelle]

Misery isn't a zero sum game. We can all have infinite amounts of misery.

[laichzeit0]

And for skinny people trying to gain weight it's the exact opposite. Trying to eat at a 500 calorie surplus feels like you're constantly full to the point of discomfort, you shit 3 times a day and you're spending about 2 hours a day just eating, such an awful waste of time.

[AutoCorrect]

I had to wait until my 40's to gain weight. In HS I weighed 125lbs (at 6'1"). Boot camp (PI) put on 17lbs in 3 months through a combination of a sadistic DI and good food. I stayed at 142 until... I don't know when. Now, in my late 40's, I weigh 220lbs. I'm lifting weights (StrongLifts) and trying to get rid of my spare tire.

[laichzeit0]

I should have mentioned that it's eating at a surplus + lifting weights trying to gain muscle weight :) I think it takes as much discipline as trying to lose fat. I lost 10kgs in 2 months by just not eating enough after having my appendix removed in November 2013. A natural skinny person has as much difficulty maintaining weight as someone trying to keep fat off. It's a full time job.

[robodale]

I did this while training for my marathon. I'd bring a giant bag of food every day...just to maintain weight.

[ramblerman]

What a load of self pitying drivel. I hope no one takes your self justifications seriously as a reason to not attempt getting healthy.

[robodale]

I'm with you. Healthy is (largely) a choice. It's a 3-legged stool though (food, exercise, rest/sleep)...fuck up any one of those and you and your goals simply fall over.

[robodale]

You are definitely not 'fucked'. What others are saying - it's all about habits...and these can be changed. It sounds like your mindset is such that since you are fat...you are fat. For you, it's not about eating less, exercising more...it's going to be changing that underlying destructive thought process of yours.

...says the skinny guy.

[callesgg]

It's a habit thing, at least for me.

If I eat litle for a prolonged time eventually I will feel full whenever I eat a normal amount. Same go's for me in the other direction.

However I agree with you to some extent. Once you have been fat once the time to get used to larger food amounts is significantly reduced.

[Cless]

Genetics probably has some influence over it, too, if you believe other mice experiments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/health/overweight-maybe-yo...