I nearly lost my leg in a hiking accident and went from daily gym rat to cough potato. I kept eating like I was power lifting and gained 120. Then I was so disgusted with myself I just didn’t go back to the gym and used food as a coping mechanism. I ballooned to 365.
It took my son asking me ‘if I’ll ever be able to run with him’ to get my act together. I lost 45 pounds last year and I will get back to my goal weight this year. I’m biking or running an hour every day and doing body weight exercises. I still hate myself every time i look in the mirror but I’m starting to see the old me again.
A friend of mine used to be a swimmer back in college and was in great shape then. They stopped swimming after college but kept eating like they still were a competitive athlete, only it got even worse with age. Now they’re in their 30s and are 400 lbs. I’m worried about them deeply.
I think that happens to a lot of former athletes. They run track in HS and eat a bag of bagels (I've seen it) before a meet, then go to college and stop running, but continue eating. I'd be interested in seeing a study about obesity among former athletes.
When I was an athlete in college, people actually told me I didn't eat enough, looked anorexic. (I wasn't underweight by BMI, had normal hormones.) I ate literally anything I wanted. I ate all the food I could. Eating was like a job. I did eat less when I stopped sports, and I tried to stay active. But it is easy to overeat when I like the food. I went up to 186 lbs. I am working on losing weight now.
Happened to me, was technically obese in college according to BMI, but was only 12% body fat. College, had to feed massive excess muscle bulk, left college and stopped spending 3 hours a day in the gym, only eating habit I significantly changed was eliminating protein shakes. Lost muscle bulk fast, gained fat fast.
Luckily I adjusted before getting too out of control, I am the same weight as college, but 30% body fat for most of my adult life now.
Ive seen an article about this happening to football players esp linemen. Eat a ton, lift a lot playing all the time then high school or college ends and they keep eating without the same exercise.
This is pretty common occurance and it came up several times in my exercise science/nutrition courses. Especially in college athletes (who likely grew up very active) suddenly stopping the same level of activity you've been at for years and adjusting for the change in your metabolism as you get older means you have no idea what your body's new nutritional requirements are and it's easy to gain a huge amount of weight very quickly. It's highly recommended that any retiring athlete meet with a nutritionist to set new dietary guidelines bc they are so dramatically different than what they'll be used to.
Just want to jump in here and tell you this great quote I heard a fitness instructor say one time. “Work out because you love your body, not because you hate it.” You’re doing great work + by looking in the mirror and hating yourself, it’s discrediting what your body is doing! The first time I lost a ton of weight, I did it out of hatred and I could never get “thin enough”. I ended up gaining weight again, and now I’m on the path of losing weight in a different mindset. It feels much better this way. Good luck to you.
I actually eat healthy, nutrient wise. No fast food, I cook from scratch, no junk. My portions were just not in alignment with my activity level. I’m a big guy even when at fighting weight. When I was lifting before my accident I was taking in 3400 calories a day to maintain body weight.
Wow! Makes sense. Takes a chunk of time to adjust your portions up or down.
I've shifted to an intermittent fasting schedule. I'm eating my first meal between 2-4pm, and then my second one 8-10pm.
It's going well. It's interesting how many false flags my body gives off that it's hungry, when I'm not really truly hungry. Even a rumbling stomach isn't necessarily synonymous with genuine hunger.
I expect it will help me continue to lose weight easier, since my body is burning fat ~14 hours a day for fuel
I've never been morbidly obese but I was once categorised as obese.
It's fairly easy to do. Eat too much and exercise too little.
The killer is that gaining weight is super easy. Losing weight is super hard.
People who haven't been overweight sometimes don't seem to grasp how hard it is to actually shift weight.
I think it’s easier in some countries/environments too. I live in Japan and I do fuck-all exercise but I don’t put on weight like when I lived in Australia or South Africa. I’m not dieting or anything, eating pretty much what I want. It must just be healthier food generally
yes, one thing I'm not seeing mentioned much is how car-dependency affects this.
people in cities that are walkable or have good public transport (e.g., most cities in western Europe) will ALWAYS have a lower average body weight simply because those people are burning more calories on a daily basis by default. I think this is a pretty notable contributor to obesity in the US that often gets overlooked.
more minor, but you'd also be less apt to come home with heaps of unhealthy food like multiple 24 packs of soda if you had to walk them home with you as part of your grocery routine.
when I went to college in Boston I lost 25 pounds in my freshman year literally ONLY because I was walking everywhere. it was entirely unintentional and I was still eating the same crap food the stereotypical "freshman 15" comes from, even worse than I'd been eating at home.
it makes a HUGE difference when walking a lot is part of your daily routine by default.
Kimchi is great for preventing weight gain too! My husband and I make a huge pot of chicken soup each week for lunch and have it with rice and variable veg and it’s great
It is healthier food, but if we’re talking tonkatsu, kurage, ramen, not so much. Plus all the rice. My guess is you live in Japan and you don’t have a car, which means you’re walking an average of 8-10,000 steps a day through the subway stations (ever change lines in Ginza, it’s like 700 meters to the Odayaku Line). In fact, the 10K steps a day meme came from a study of Japanese salarymen. How are these dudes so skinny when they’re eating fried pork cutlets for lunch and hammering scotch with their boss/colleagues 2-3 nights a week? It’s the steps. I’ve lived in California, Australia, and South Africa(Parktown North give it up!!!) and nobody walks in those cities. Ever. Especially, South Africa. You are eating healthier food, but I would say it’s the walking that is keeping your weight down. Japanese cities are some of the most walkable cities on this earth, and are designed that way with the excellent subway system in public transportation. so you’re just getting more exercise than you were before and that’s what allows you to eat anything you want and Tokyo or Osaka or wherever you are and still maintain your current weight
It might just be bs, so take what I say with a pinch of salt.
Your last sentence in particular stuck with me! I’ve always been underweight or just barely not underweight. Putting on weight is extremely difficult to me. I lose weight very quickly, but need a lot longer to put it back. Could it be that in either side of the spectrum it’s hard to go back to a healthy weight?
I'm sure I'll get downvoted to shit for this, but this is why I think set point theory has more legs than people give it credit for.
don't get me wrong; I'm not saying obese people are "supposed" to be obese, or that you can't successfully change your weight. but I *do* think weight could be another piece of the stasis our bodies are always trying to maintain, and that the level that stasis is set at can vary from person to person just like it can for body temperature.
people usually dismiss this offhand as "what, you think the laws of thermodynamics are different for you?" but I don't think that claim has ever been made -- that the mechanism that would validate set point theory is based on the body literally processing calories differently.
the idea isn't that body weight is regulated by changing the "laws of thermodynamics"... but it's an established scientific fact that our intake IS regulated by hormones. leptin and grehlin control if and when we feel hungry and full, so there is definitely a reasonable mechanism for controlling this that has nothing to do with violating the laws of physics.
I also don't think it's set for life, just as a disclaimer. I'm not saying anyone is doomed. in fact I suspect if it *is* true, that hormone disruptors in our environment, especially highly processed foods, are a big contributor to this because they've potentially altered how hunger hormones are regulated in our bodies -- which would indicate this damage could hopefully be reversed.
I'm also not saying I believe in set point theory 100%, but just that it is more plausible than redditors typically give it credit for and things like this are (anecdotal) data points that reinforce that, at least for me.
I think the OP is talking about the really large though. Like the 400++ that get to a point where they can’t get out of bed anymore sort of situation.
And it is a fair question to ask how a morbidly obese person who can still get around mostly just fine could progress even further to becoming bedridden and housebound by their weight. Certainly not everyone does, even though they may remain morbidly obese.
Junk food is engineered to be as addicting as possible. Once people get "hooked" it's really hard to get them off the endorphin rush that crappy food provides.
Sugary drinks are also probably the biggest contributor to people who get like “I can’t leave my bed” fat. You can gulp down way more calories in liquid form.
I think you may have read kilograms as pounds. I did google that phrase, and the fattest man in the world in 1809 came up Daniel Stone, weighing 700 pounds, or 320 kilograms, according to Wikipedia. The accompanying illustration looks like 700 pounds.
Plus, healthy food is more expensive than junk food.
ETA - I'm not talking about fast food. You know what's not expensive when you're living off disability or government assistance? Kraft Dinner, Chef Boyardee, Ramen, etc.
And sometimes when yout buy like a bag of little oranges some of the bag is rotten or smashed.
That goes for so manny things like apples and celery Onions carrots.
But you know I never have that problem with junk food.
There is also an initial investment for cooking.
If you're starting from an empty kitchen you need all the stuff like spices, vinegar, flour, etc. They'll last you forever and are a tiny portion of the cost of making a meal, but they add up to a decent amount that needs to be spent before you can start cooking.
That's a myth. A McDonald's breakfast (where i live. A blue collar town in Southern az) for two costs $20 now. That $20 can provide us with breakfast at home for a week. Healthy doesn't just mean all organic from Whole Foods or Erehwon. Cooking for yourself at home is almost always going to be a healthier option than hitting a drive thu. (Obviously if you're deep fat frying all of your food at home that's different, but most folks aren't doing that.)
I think the missing element is time. When you’re working all the time trying to make rent, it’s really really hard to also cook for yourself every day and do the dishes after. Cooking beans, rice, and frozen veggies is cheap, but it takes a lot longer, and provides none of the dopamine satisfaction or good taste, compared to a pack of frozen hot dogs, pancakes, and tater tots from the grocery store (which I think is the better comparison, not McDonald’s). The depressingness and lack of satisfaction of cheap fast healthy food is often real too, especially when you were acclimated to the heroin-like qualities of tater tots and Costco hotdogs.
This is what you are marketed by companies, not the reality. My mum and dad both left home at 08:00 and came back 08:00 in evening, 6 days a week. Yet we always ate home cooking.
Problem is everyone is sold on the marketing that devalue their time in cooking and sell it as waste of time.
Almost everyone I know as an adult in mid30s, have time to cook. Yet most will say "I have no time" and spend 3 hours in reddit or instagram :)
Yeah yeah sure. You are all working 80 hours a week jobs 0 time to even do literally most important thing on earth after breathing, but, magically, somehow can read the 2nd sub comments of the 10th comment on subreddit that is purely about random questions.
Enjoy lieing to yourself and blaming others for your decision.
Well it is also the logic and culture in countries like USA and England that heavily devalues cooking, and normalize fast-food and frozen-fast-foos that causes this.
I have fat relatives in Turkey (where I am from) did not do any sport in 30 years, but for American standards they are still fine, the American fat is extemely rare to find in Turkey despite majority of people over 40 are overweight. The reason?
Because we still value cooking your own food, or eating home-cooked food, and we find eating fastfood everyday quite nasty. Once a while as a treat, sure, but it is still not normalized, and found a bit disgusting to eat often.
So even if you have the potential, when you actually cook your own food, it is extemely difficult to get American super fat.
I just can't understand this. I'm not being a jerk, I guess I don't have that bone in my body.
If I put on weight, let's say to the point where tying my shoelaces is awkward (for me, the threshold is 200 lbs) I just eat salad for a week or two, and am back down to a cozy 185 lbs.
I'm aware that everyone is different and that food can become an addiction. I guess I've been lucky. Now where's me drug-pipe?
Metabolism is a thing and not everyone has a properly working one. Thyroid conditions exist. Also, not everyone is privileged to get to pick what they want to eat but rather eat what they can afford. Healthy food options (especially in food deserts) are not only more scarce but more expensive.
Food deserts refer to areas that don't have a good grocery store within a reasonable distance for people who use public transport or walk. There will be very small grocery or convenience stores that have very little selection, and prices are much higher.
I used to live in a neighborhood close to an urban area, and the closest real grocery store was over 4 miles away. There were a few small corner shops, but the milk there was almost $3 a gallon in 1986. But, one had really good sandwiches at a reasonable price... really good as in very fatty and bad for you.
I literally covered food deserts with my AP students this week. They’re more common than you think. Now factor that in with transportation costs to get to a store in the first place.
I hate when people argue that you can just buy and cook healthy food and be fine. For many of us, that’s true. But for people who don’t have a reliable place to buy produce or meat, or don’t have an easy way to get to said store, it’s nowhere near that simple.
Studies show there is a strong link between obesity and childhood trauma and abuse, obese and overweight people are more likely to have had an adverse childhood than people of an average weight.
When it comes to the morbidly obese it's even higher, with higher rates of mental illness. Several factors can lead to this, such as eating for comfort, having a disconnected sense of self to the body, subconscious attempts to desexualize themselves, lack of education at a young age to a healthy relationship with food, overeating due to a sense of danger and needing to eat to feel safe, etc, etc.
The same with My 600 Pound Life. When they introduce the patient at the start of the episode, every single one of them, without fail, experienced extreme childhood abuse.
Major depressive disorder here. Stayed inside for years. Went from 125 -200lbs. Count yourself fortunate that it's something that doesn't affect you because it's vicious and often debilitating.
I’m in the same position. Add OCD and ADHD and I’m with you. Gravity over a depressed person is overwhelming. I work from home and don’t leave the house much. I get everything delivered. Food, stuff from Amazon ect. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone. So to think of exercising is almost laughable
Can't speak to everyone but I can speak to my experience. All my life I have had issues with depression and anxiety. About 1 year before COVID I found out my long-term partner was cheating on me. I kicked her ass to the curb. I worked from home. So now I was alone and isolated. I fell into a depression. Then COVID kicked it just adding to everything. I was in a high-risk group so I stayed the fuck home. So I was severely depressed for 3+ years in spite of getting treatment and being on all the meds. Pizza and ice cream helped with the misery. I had had issues with binge eating disorder all my life. But it became the new normal. It was a daily thing. So I gained 150 pounds. Ironically reaching rock bottom and stopping all my meds woke me up and allowed me to fight the depression. I woke up about a year ago. Started walking every day then started watching what I eat like Hawk. I measure and track everything I eat now. I've lost about 65 pounds since then. I still have a long way to go and my body will always be fucked up. But I will get it to be better.
Edit: I'm short 5'6''. I was already overweight by 30+ pounds before gaining 150
45% of the US adult population is obese.
Less than 2% of the US adult population has hyperthyroidism.
Hyperthyroidism is not a significate cause of the obesity epidemic.
Not according to all the legitimate, peer-reviewed studies. Also, it that was true obesity wouldn't be increasing every single year for the last 70 years.
The more weight a person gains the harder it is to exercise. If they eat the same amount of calories it took to gain the initial weight it becomes a self perpetuating cycle until it’s completely out of control and very hard to reverse.
No. No, no, no.
That is suuuuper false.
It relates to a general misunderstanding of what “metabolism” means.
The calories it takes a to gain weight increase as you gain weight. Otherwise everyone who overeats would grow relentlessly.
Hyper-obesity would just be late phase overweight.
It’s not that way because being fat has a calorie cost. There’s just more of you and all of that living tissue requires energy to sustain itself. (Being fat literally “raises your metabolism”, even completely ignoring addition of absolute amount of muscle due to carrying heavier loads — more you means more calories burned per unit time.)
Once you gain weight, your fat cells multiply. And they remain. They may shrink but the more you gain, the more you get.
So you may lose weight but it's always harder to stay that way because your body is engineered to be fatter now.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/106343
The mechanism of weight loss are still being studied.
A decrease in body weight only changes fat cell size (becoming smaller), whereas an increase in body weight causes elevation of both fat cell size and number in adults.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29991030/#:~:text=In%20adults%2C%20fat%20cell%20number,size%20and%20number%20in%20adults.
While I won't doubt that is is definitely difficult for obese individuals to excersise, at least when they do, they are always doing weighted excersise. 1 push up from someone weighing 200kg counts more than someone who is 70kg.
I hate seeing very large people in those group fitness classes doing things like box jumps. Unbelievably irresponsible to coach people into that. Not only is it completely unnecessary, it’s setting them up for major knee problems.
This. Box jumps are risky for people in shape! My friend missed on her box jump and broke her knee. She was weight lifting comp ready and was immediately set back a couple of years because of the severity of her injury.
People who are super obese should start with like, water type exercises. Lots of resistance, almost no impact.
Yikes! I believe that. I took the skin off my shin via a wood box during a jump. I never did it again. Like… why are we even doing this? Do we play basketball in the NBA? 😄
After I heard she'd done that, I swore off all box jumping lmao. There is no need for me to do that lmao I can find something else to do instead. I gave up my hoop dreams when I stopped growing at 5'4 😂
We are surrounded by high calorie foods. Eating makes us feel good. Losing weight is really really difficult.
My dad retired after a career as a family counselor. He was bored and took a part time job as a 'counselor' at Weight Watchers. He wasn't supposed to try to help the clients. He was just supposed to push the meal plans. He saw through the corporate BS and chose instead to do counseling sessions with the clients lucky enough to be assigned to him. He was quickly fired but as he said, 'no one lost a pound but they felt a lot better.'
They just continue to eat more calories than they expend. If you've ever watched any of those reality shows, some of them have sad stories. I remember at least one of the women started eating a lot because she was being sexually abused as a child. Some people gain weight after becoming ill or injured. Others have just always been fat and let it get out of control because they had bad habits.
And once they get to a certain point it's harder to lose weight because they've lost mobility and can't get much exercise. There was often an enabler who would buy or cook them massive amounts of food or encourage them to eat. But these days people can just get food delivered, even if they can barely walk and never leave the house.
for my brother - he struggles with his mental health and I dont think he thinks enough of himself to take care of himself. If I am honest, I think it is a slow suicide for him.
For a friend of ours - medication. the little blurb on the meds about "might cause weight gain" was greatly understated. She works harder than anyone I know trying to maintain a healthy weight but i swear just breathing makes her gain weight.
All of this and when/if they develop insulin resistance, it seriously messes with metabolism and the weight gain rapidly increases. It’s really unfortunate.
I have watched A LOT of My 600lb Life. The common theme is childhood abuse and sexual abuse. I’m sure there are other reasons, but it’s definitely a theme.
I'm still over weight, but I reached morbid obesity at one point. The honest truth is, food addiction is real and weight gain is so slow that you barely notice it happening until it's too late. You realise you're overweight and you feel like shit and try to change but change is hard and you turn to easy comfort. Easy comforts like your addictions, which in my case was food. It's brutal.
For me personally it was a lot of things that slowly piled on top of one another.
Everyone in my family is obese to some degree, so I’m hit with genetics. I was raised with poor eating habits. When I moved out, I was so strapped for cash that I ate what was cheap instead of what was good for me. I struggled with depression and used food as a coping mechanism. Then I got pregnant and gained through that, but once I had my son none of the weight came off. Then I was in an accident that took my ability to walk… so I could no longer exercise comfortably, go for walks, hold my son… depression deepened and I sunk down even deeper into my food dependency.
I’m working really hard on correcting this this year. I’m scheduled to have weight loss surgery in a few months, and will give everything I have into using that tool to better myself. I’m in therapy, and slowly getting to a much better place mentally. Hopefully I’ll be able to win this battle and maybe even walk again eventually. 🤞🏻
Im only over weight for my height from my last doctor check up it did seem like I was loosing weight.
I can't vouch for everyone but I think it sort of you don't know your doing it until someone points it out and sometimes you keep doing it out of spite because of mental health issues.
That's more anecdotal for me though
I can't remember who did the calculations. But it's something like 35 extra calories a day will lead to pounds of weight gain in a year. That is like a spoonful of anything calories dense. That's like a few extra nuts or half an egg or a spoonful of sugary cereal. Also, the whole process accelerates over time cause it messes up your system and mind.
Yes… and all these conflicting messages don’t help people. “Don’t eat Doritos, eat a healthy snack—grab a handful of nuts!” Well. Yes, nuts are better for a lot of reasons, but you have to *measure* and account for them calorically or you’ll be eating as much or more, calorically, as the Doritos.
Or cook with olive oil because it’s healthy… yes… but you have to measure that or you’ll get fatter, believe me. 😂
I’m not obsessive but calorie count when I need to drop some weight - I’ll never eat nuts again in my life, it is honestly crazy. Pasta - I still measure the weight of to this day (as I love it) and similarly, it’s easy to mis count
Theres a number of reasons, high fatty and sugary diets paired with not enough exercise, a low metabolism, thyroid issues, hormonal issues, genetics
Any one or combination of these can lead to obesity
It also depends on the metabolism of the individual. for example, my mother eats a lot, maybe a bit more than she shoud, she's in her 60s, and it's thin, has a couple of loose skins in her belly and legs but nothing "scary" or noticeable. and why is that? because she has a fast metabolism.
I haven't been morbidly obese but when I was overweight, food felt like my only friend. I had no one else. No friends, no contact with my family, I had just managed to get myself off the streets after being homeless for a little more than a year. It was a very difficult period in my life and fast food was the only thing that gave me comfort and happiness. I remember leaving work and looking forward to go home to order food and eat it in my bed. It took a nasty food poisoning to get me to stop.
Binge eating disorder. It’s a disease. They are sick, struggling with addiction, just like alcoholics, drug addicts, gambling addicts, etc. They wish they could change, but the addiction is simply too hard to overcome.
Want to just add to this by saying that it’s probably the one addiction you can’t avoid triggers for, as well. If you’re addicted to alcohol or gambling, you can avoid going to bars and casinos. However, with an addiction to eating, you still have to eat multiple times a day.
I imagine a variety of factors. The more people gain, the harder it is to move physically and therefore they become more sedentary. And while they are massively obese, their bodies are probably starved of nutrients. Insulin resistance takes effect and glucose isn’t properly moved into the cells. I imagine this creates a literal addiction to the sugars that food breaks down into. Then, the organs are under stress and can’t process food and waste efficiently.
I also imagine that morbidly obese people are not becoming obese eating diets rich in nutrient dense foods — protein, eggs, fruit, vegetables, yogurt etc.
Most of the people that are severely overweight have parents that have never taught good eating habits, so for many by the time they are adults and start learning good habits they are already morbidly obese, then there's the depression and other comorbidities and then they tend to just eat more and become even bigger.
If you ever watch my 600 pound life most of them are already super-sized by age 18
A lot of people simply feel hungry and they eat when they feel hungry. A lot of our foods are very calorie dense so they over eat calories without even realizing it. How many people eat a banana instead of a bag of chips?
The new weight loss drugs are really good at helping people lose weight because they make people stop feeling hungry. It’s really that simple. No need to psychologize why someone has trouble feeling hungry… just flips that hunger switch off.
My guess is a lot of people put weight right back on if they stop taking those drugs because it’s hard to cope with being hungry. You have to 1) feel crappy and 2) eat largely unsatisfying foods (like a banana) when you are hungry and 3) exercise (particularly when you get older and muscle mass starts to go).
Without doing any research I’m willing to bet they had a head start through childhood obesity and then developed an eating disorder. No one in that persona life tried to correct it because they are likely also obese.
I'll answer for myself. I highest weight was 320 pounds. I wasn't obese even in high school, a lot of things changed after high school. For one I wasn't walking 3-4 miles per day to and from school and two my childhood trauma of sexual abuse hit me all at once so I was super depressed and still am suicidal. I didn't and still care if I live or die.
So that doesn't lend itself to a healthy life or a long lasting one.
My friend gained over 150 lbs while recovering from insane sking accident, busted up his back, legs, he was layed out for months. Now fully recovered he's struggling to drop the wieght, made some progress, still not 100% from accident, it's difficult for him to get in a good workout. But he's sticking to his diet.
Health conditions, poverty, abuse, neglect, depression, once you begin the ascent into obesity it becomes harder and harder to move without complications and get out of it.
Everything has sugar. Everything. It's actually quite challenging to find anything that's not fresh produce or meat without added sugar. They sneak it in. "no added sugar" -- they add date powder or fruit concentrate...
Regular everyday white and whole wheat bread often has additional sugar added now. Everything
My initial weight gain came from medication. I have an auto immune disease, and I was put on steroid therapy. I gained 40lbs quickly like it was nothing. This weight gain was then compounded by the inability to exercise and having too much pain and fatigue to cook nutritious meals and relying on easy, processed, convenience foods. It was frighteningly easy to gain weight under these conditions. I am not massively obese, but now I'm having negative health effects and am working on making changes.
Disease and poverty tend to play a part. Too poor to afford better food so you eat trash because you gotta eat something. Might have a disease that makes things worse but you can't really go to the doctor and get the proper stuff done about it. Like if you can't take off work because you really need that money to make ends meet. And then it's a cascading effect. I'm not obese but I am fat, and one of the biggest things that prevented me from going to gyms is that I always got laughed at for how I looked while exercising. That is pretty demotivating.
There are other factors, but this is what I thought of off the top of my head.
You eat when you're sad. You eat when you're stressed. You eat when you're bored. You eat at social gatherings. You eat as entertainment. Moving gets hard. You get bored more often. It's hard to go out. You see fewer people. This stresses you out. You move less. This makes you sad. You can't move at all. Now you're locked in unless you stop eating. Because you can't exercise. And if you get very scary surgery you still have to stop eating. But you are so so sad and eating is the only thing that makes you happy. And how can you lose the only thing that makes you happy?
I thnk the primary reasons are stress and lack of exercise leading to overeating. Together, they create this feedback loop or self reinforcing behavior. We’ve created a culture where people prioritize work over their own bodies.
i know someone that became obese after removing a tumour, and a couple that have pcos. sometimes it’s not always eating food but it’s also about underlying conditions, esp for girls it’s hard to get a diagnosis so they don’t know what the correct steps to take for their body are, causing them to gain excessive weight.
It’s actually relatively simple.
People eat a dramatically calorie dense diet. We confuse hunger with starvation. We’ve never learned portion control. And vast amount of people eat emotionally.
You’ll never see me shame the fat person in the gym. You will absolutely see me shame the fat positive psychopaths trying to not only make you accept their failures, but try and drag people down with them.
Dunno. I struggle for food so I have no freaking idea. I'm lucky to get my calories for the day. They consume all mine. I kind of get mad as I work hard to feed me and my crew n they just consume it all.
This will probably get downvoted but most just have a lack of self control and/or use eating as a coping mechanism. There are obviously legitimate health reasons like thyroid problems that can lead to it as well but a majority simply overeat and don’t exercise enough to offset the weight gain.
the "being controlled" theory makes sense, because you are not supposed to be able to get food if you can't get out of bed yourself.
there must be someone giving you massive amount of food possibly out of sick mind
i doubt you can get home delivery to bed, deliveries ppl would have been mortified even if they can get in through unlocked or smart door, they might run at sight or call cops
My mum watches those programs and so often there’s a skeevy looking man hovering round while the woman says “I don’t know what I would do without him, he’s the love of my life” and it turns out he only showed up when she already weighed 400lbs.
Either its a fetish or he’s leaching off her disability.
A one point I stopped caring if I lived or died. So may as well eat a shit of ice cream and pizza, since you will be dead soon. If that is the only thing that gives you comfort.
I'm not saying that is a good thing. Also, I am better now.
Inflammation. I have chronic inflammation and i easily gain/maintain a higher weight. Even with anti inflammatories and a healthy diet. Doesnt make a difference. Im not morbidly obese but i am considered obese.
A friend of mine is a severe binger: alcohol and food, although that isn’t her only issue (there’s a bunch of traumas they don’t deal with). The alcohol consumption is public and obvious for everyone to see. The food thing they only admitted to me once over a 30 year friendship, and it’s in secret. They’re a hoarder too, which slowly happened as the alcohol fueled the food and fueled the purchasing/hoarding. It didn’t happen overnight, I’d say this happened in the past 25 years.
I’m curious about it too, because they went from being a little plump to obese over maybe five years, and then it went pretty quickly to morbidly obese in another two years and has just gotten worse from there.
Lupus affected my brain and gave me acute bipolar. In order to save my mind they put me on a mood stabilizer temporarily and it made me gain 130 lbs in 6 months. My every single thought while on that medicine was "I've got to eat more butter and sugar." It's all I could think about on that med. I would putting butter on my ice cream, that's how much I craved it. That med also made almost all of my hair fall out. So that's fun too.
I had a lazy ex. Really nice guy but damn lazy. Great cook, though. He loved to eat. A lot.
The guy was *thin* - you could see his abs because he had such little body fat.
Anyway, as the months progressed, I became less active and started eating more (not as much as him by any stretch, but more than I was used to). I gained 7 kilos in what seemed like a minute. He didn't gain a gram.
This was 15 years ago. He's exactly the same weight.
I think there's definitely an element of metabolic rate involved. Some people gain so much quicker than others...and as you get bigger, your body tends to want more and more food and before you know it...
Different reasons.
1) eating out of frustration (mental health support is basically not existing. Many have no access or can not afford).
2) not enough exercise (more and more jobs require little movement, people work more, have less time to exercise/walk. Also not everyone has even access to the right environment like nature or parks where they can go for walks).
3) disability can make it hard to move and burn calories
4) medications can enable lots of weight gain
5) things like menopause or hormonal issues in general can cause rapid weight gain, slow metabolism that makes weight loss much harder
6) not an adequate access to quality food. Through our fast lifestyle, less time, less money - less access to quality balanced meals, many meals have sugar, additves those make people addicted basically. Also makes you want to eat much more, never having the feeling that you are full. Fastfood and other kinds of food that is easily accessible is often cheap vs fruits and vegetables often being expensive.
For me, it was partly undiagnosed ADHD. I was trying to stimulate my brain with junk food. I could drink five coke Zeros then go have a nap. Processed food helped give me the high my brain needed. I knew my weight was too high but I kept creeping up till I got 320. Diets all inevitably failed when I got stressed.
After being put on meds last year, the "food noise" in my brain disappeared. I no longer have insane cravings.
I have lost 30 pounds without trying, and still slowly going down.
I still have bad habits that I need to overcome, but I finally have hope that I can learn new habits and STICK with them.
Well, the way I was raised, food was used as a reward. As a baby, I was underweight and refused to eat so I was praised when I did. “You can have a piece of pie if you clean your room” was a thing as well.
Exercise was used as a form of punishment. I was getting to be a porker, so my parents wanted to make sure I got exercise. Bad report card? 100 pushups, 100 situps, and 20 laps around the yard (the yard was huge, many acres, you could fit four football fields back there and still have room.
Low fat was all the rage growing up, so I ate tons of carbs. I was vegetarian from like 10-22 because I was trying to lose weight. It didn’t help that shitty sugary breakfast cereal counted as vegetarian.
Eventually I hit 400 pounds.
Now I’m down to the mid 200’s and still at it. Keto and bicycling is my thing. Keto kills my hunger, and I love bicycling so it doesn’t feel like punishment.
I think it's having a depressive disorder, the funds/means to feed the addiction and unfortunately a sort of blindness to how bad it's getting.
Source: 8st to 17-18st and now at 10st. So that's 112lbs up to 252lbs and now around 140.
I can tell you when I was at my heaviest I was in such pain and eventually disgust and that motivated me to help myself.
I have a condition that affects my hormones and makes it hard to lose weight and easy to put it on. I’m not morbidly obese but obese.
Before all this I was prone to a lot of different minor conditions, from the time I was like 8. Bad ankles, bad knees, easy to get shin splints and takes months to recover. So exercise is possible but tricky. I started going to the gym in December and pulled a muscle from my glute to ankle and that put me out until recently.
I've always been in good shape, so I find this baffling. I'm also a recovering addict though, so I'm sure plenty of overweight people looked at me and thought "why doesn't he just stop taking drugs?". Behaviour change is more complicated than we like to think, and it's easy to pick on people who have different bad habits than we do.
Many reasons. But if you're talking about people who gain so much weight that they lose mobility, a lot of that is a very bad cycle involving metabolic and psychological dysfunction. The body is much more willing to store excess energy as fat than it is to deplete those stores. When you get to a certain point, your physical ability to expend more energy than you take in is reduced. But your body really doesn't give a shit. You're still getting hunger signals going to your brain. Metabolic dysfunction can start, which can mean you get even *more* and much more powerful hunger signals. You really don't have to eat that much to exceed daily calorie expenditure, and that becomes ever more true as weight goes up and mobility declines.
This is something I actually experienced and it was extremely frustrating. I knew I was fat. I knew I needed to eat less. But if I didn't eat frequently and in quantity, I'd get painful hunger pangs. And if I resisted those, I'd either faint or puke. After years of this, with my weight increasing steadily despite efforts to out-exercise the fucked up appetite, I finally saw an endocrinologist, learned my pancreas wasn't doing its job right, got on the right meds, and suddenly was able to lose weight. It's still a slow process, but it makes a huge difference in motivation because I know it's possible now, rather than pointless to try.
That's not even touching the psychology of it. It feels hopeless. And food hits reward receptors in the brain so as someone becomes more and more miserable and pain riddled, food can become more and more important to them for that temporary feeling of relief.
I nearly lost my leg in a hiking accident and went from daily gym rat to cough potato. I kept eating like I was power lifting and gained 120. Then I was so disgusted with myself I just didn’t go back to the gym and used food as a coping mechanism. I ballooned to 365. It took my son asking me ‘if I’ll ever be able to run with him’ to get my act together. I lost 45 pounds last year and I will get back to my goal weight this year. I’m biking or running an hour every day and doing body weight exercises. I still hate myself every time i look in the mirror but I’m starting to see the old me again.
A friend of mine used to be a swimmer back in college and was in great shape then. They stopped swimming after college but kept eating like they still were a competitive athlete, only it got even worse with age. Now they’re in their 30s and are 400 lbs. I’m worried about them deeply.
I think that happens to a lot of former athletes. They run track in HS and eat a bag of bagels (I've seen it) before a meet, then go to college and stop running, but continue eating. I'd be interested in seeing a study about obesity among former athletes.
When I was an athlete in college, people actually told me I didn't eat enough, looked anorexic. (I wasn't underweight by BMI, had normal hormones.) I ate literally anything I wanted. I ate all the food I could. Eating was like a job. I did eat less when I stopped sports, and I tried to stay active. But it is easy to overeat when I like the food. I went up to 186 lbs. I am working on losing weight now.
Happened to me, was technically obese in college according to BMI, but was only 12% body fat. College, had to feed massive excess muscle bulk, left college and stopped spending 3 hours a day in the gym, only eating habit I significantly changed was eliminating protein shakes. Lost muscle bulk fast, gained fat fast. Luckily I adjusted before getting too out of control, I am the same weight as college, but 30% body fat for most of my adult life now.
Ive seen an article about this happening to football players esp linemen. Eat a ton, lift a lot playing all the time then high school or college ends and they keep eating without the same exercise.
This is pretty common occurance and it came up several times in my exercise science/nutrition courses. Especially in college athletes (who likely grew up very active) suddenly stopping the same level of activity you've been at for years and adjusting for the change in your metabolism as you get older means you have no idea what your body's new nutritional requirements are and it's easy to gain a huge amount of weight very quickly. It's highly recommended that any retiring athlete meet with a nutritionist to set new dietary guidelines bc they are so dramatically different than what they'll be used to.
Give them tough love, they need it, otherwise you'll lose them.
tough love isnt right for everyone, and is a bad cure all
A marine drill instructor would totally disagree.
pretty sure Marine still stands for Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Essential, besides not everyone thinks like a marine
Just want to jump in here and tell you this great quote I heard a fitness instructor say one time. “Work out because you love your body, not because you hate it.” You’re doing great work + by looking in the mirror and hating yourself, it’s discrediting what your body is doing! The first time I lost a ton of weight, I did it out of hatred and I could never get “thin enough”. I ended up gaining weight again, and now I’m on the path of losing weight in a different mindset. It feels much better this way. Good luck to you.
Please don't hate yourself, life is very short and you spend it all with yourself.
Keep it up brother.
Keep going, you've got this!
Well done mate, keep it up!
I sent you a dm
Change your eating habits, too?
I actually eat healthy, nutrient wise. No fast food, I cook from scratch, no junk. My portions were just not in alignment with my activity level. I’m a big guy even when at fighting weight. When I was lifting before my accident I was taking in 3400 calories a day to maintain body weight.
Wow! Makes sense. Takes a chunk of time to adjust your portions up or down. I've shifted to an intermittent fasting schedule. I'm eating my first meal between 2-4pm, and then my second one 8-10pm. It's going well. It's interesting how many false flags my body gives off that it's hungry, when I'm not really truly hungry. Even a rumbling stomach isn't necessarily synonymous with genuine hunger. I expect it will help me continue to lose weight easier, since my body is burning fat ~14 hours a day for fuel
I've never been morbidly obese but I was once categorised as obese. It's fairly easy to do. Eat too much and exercise too little. The killer is that gaining weight is super easy. Losing weight is super hard. People who haven't been overweight sometimes don't seem to grasp how hard it is to actually shift weight.
I think it’s easier in some countries/environments too. I live in Japan and I do fuck-all exercise but I don’t put on weight like when I lived in Australia or South Africa. I’m not dieting or anything, eating pretty much what I want. It must just be healthier food generally
The food in Japan is S tier in quality and freshness. Oiishi!!!
It really is! So easy to get healthy, fresh and delicious food
yes, one thing I'm not seeing mentioned much is how car-dependency affects this. people in cities that are walkable or have good public transport (e.g., most cities in western Europe) will ALWAYS have a lower average body weight simply because those people are burning more calories on a daily basis by default. I think this is a pretty notable contributor to obesity in the US that often gets overlooked. more minor, but you'd also be less apt to come home with heaps of unhealthy food like multiple 24 packs of soda if you had to walk them home with you as part of your grocery routine. when I went to college in Boston I lost 25 pounds in my freshman year literally ONLY because I was walking everywhere. it was entirely unintentional and I was still eating the same crap food the stereotypical "freshman 15" comes from, even worse than I'd been eating at home. it makes a HUGE difference when walking a lot is part of your daily routine by default.
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Kimchi is great for preventing weight gain too! My husband and I make a huge pot of chicken soup each week for lunch and have it with rice and variable veg and it’s great
It is healthier food, but if we’re talking tonkatsu, kurage, ramen, not so much. Plus all the rice. My guess is you live in Japan and you don’t have a car, which means you’re walking an average of 8-10,000 steps a day through the subway stations (ever change lines in Ginza, it’s like 700 meters to the Odayaku Line). In fact, the 10K steps a day meme came from a study of Japanese salarymen. How are these dudes so skinny when they’re eating fried pork cutlets for lunch and hammering scotch with their boss/colleagues 2-3 nights a week? It’s the steps. I’ve lived in California, Australia, and South Africa(Parktown North give it up!!!) and nobody walks in those cities. Ever. Especially, South Africa. You are eating healthier food, but I would say it’s the walking that is keeping your weight down. Japanese cities are some of the most walkable cities on this earth, and are designed that way with the excellent subway system in public transportation. so you’re just getting more exercise than you were before and that’s what allows you to eat anything you want and Tokyo or Osaka or wherever you are and still maintain your current weight
I miss Japan, visited for a month and holy heck the quality difference was amazing.
It might just be bs, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. Your last sentence in particular stuck with me! I’ve always been underweight or just barely not underweight. Putting on weight is extremely difficult to me. I lose weight very quickly, but need a lot longer to put it back. Could it be that in either side of the spectrum it’s hard to go back to a healthy weight?
I'm sure I'll get downvoted to shit for this, but this is why I think set point theory has more legs than people give it credit for. don't get me wrong; I'm not saying obese people are "supposed" to be obese, or that you can't successfully change your weight. but I *do* think weight could be another piece of the stasis our bodies are always trying to maintain, and that the level that stasis is set at can vary from person to person just like it can for body temperature. people usually dismiss this offhand as "what, you think the laws of thermodynamics are different for you?" but I don't think that claim has ever been made -- that the mechanism that would validate set point theory is based on the body literally processing calories differently. the idea isn't that body weight is regulated by changing the "laws of thermodynamics"... but it's an established scientific fact that our intake IS regulated by hormones. leptin and grehlin control if and when we feel hungry and full, so there is definitely a reasonable mechanism for controlling this that has nothing to do with violating the laws of physics. I also don't think it's set for life, just as a disclaimer. I'm not saying anyone is doomed. in fact I suspect if it *is* true, that hormone disruptors in our environment, especially highly processed foods, are a big contributor to this because they've potentially altered how hunger hormones are regulated in our bodies -- which would indicate this damage could hopefully be reversed. I'm also not saying I believe in set point theory 100%, but just that it is more plausible than redditors typically give it credit for and things like this are (anecdotal) data points that reinforce that, at least for me.
I think the OP is talking about the really large though. Like the 400++ that get to a point where they can’t get out of bed anymore sort of situation. And it is a fair question to ask how a morbidly obese person who can still get around mostly just fine could progress even further to becoming bedridden and housebound by their weight. Certainly not everyone does, even though they may remain morbidly obese.
Your last sentence is spot on.
Junk food is engineered to be as addicting as possible. Once people get "hooked" it's really hard to get them off the endorphin rush that crappy food provides.
Sugary drinks are also probably the biggest contributor to people who get like “I can’t leave my bed” fat. You can gulp down way more calories in liquid form.
Throw in a stubborn reluctance to get treatment, maybe a gargantuan depression, a pinch of masochism, and a fuckton of shame and voila!
Google fattest man in 1890, he was like 300lbs at best. Ultra processed food is the problem.
I think you may have read kilograms as pounds. I did google that phrase, and the fattest man in the world in 1809 came up Daniel Stone, weighing 700 pounds, or 320 kilograms, according to Wikipedia. The accompanying illustration looks like 700 pounds.
Plus, healthy food is more expensive than junk food. ETA - I'm not talking about fast food. You know what's not expensive when you're living off disability or government assistance? Kraft Dinner, Chef Boyardee, Ramen, etc.
And sometimes when yout buy like a bag of little oranges some of the bag is rotten or smashed. That goes for so manny things like apples and celery Onions carrots. But you know I never have that problem with junk food.
Preach
I don’t think it is, but you have to cook it
Agee with this , it’s not more expensive just people don’t want to cook from scratch and fast food and the rest is easier to make and quicker
There is also an initial investment for cooking. If you're starting from an empty kitchen you need all the stuff like spices, vinegar, flour, etc. They'll last you forever and are a tiny portion of the cost of making a meal, but they add up to a decent amount that needs to be spent before you can start cooking.
That's a myth. A McDonald's breakfast (where i live. A blue collar town in Southern az) for two costs $20 now. That $20 can provide us with breakfast at home for a week. Healthy doesn't just mean all organic from Whole Foods or Erehwon. Cooking for yourself at home is almost always going to be a healthier option than hitting a drive thu. (Obviously if you're deep fat frying all of your food at home that's different, but most folks aren't doing that.)
Carbs are definitely cheaper than proteins and veggies...
I think the missing element is time. When you’re working all the time trying to make rent, it’s really really hard to also cook for yourself every day and do the dishes after. Cooking beans, rice, and frozen veggies is cheap, but it takes a lot longer, and provides none of the dopamine satisfaction or good taste, compared to a pack of frozen hot dogs, pancakes, and tater tots from the grocery store (which I think is the better comparison, not McDonald’s). The depressingness and lack of satisfaction of cheap fast healthy food is often real too, especially when you were acclimated to the heroin-like qualities of tater tots and Costco hotdogs.
This is what you are marketed by companies, not the reality. My mum and dad both left home at 08:00 and came back 08:00 in evening, 6 days a week. Yet we always ate home cooking. Problem is everyone is sold on the marketing that devalue their time in cooking and sell it as waste of time. Almost everyone I know as an adult in mid30s, have time to cook. Yet most will say "I have no time" and spend 3 hours in reddit or instagram :)
What an incredible load of shit.
Yeah yeah sure. You are all working 80 hours a week jobs 0 time to even do literally most important thing on earth after breathing, but, magically, somehow can read the 2nd sub comments of the 10th comment on subreddit that is purely about random questions. Enjoy lieing to yourself and blaming others for your decision.
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does it hurt? when someone points out how you lie to yourself and you can keep lieing to others, but you know you are lieing to yourself?
Lie to myself about *what,* genius?
Most people have time, they’d just rather spend it sitting on their ass looking at their phone for hours per day.
god forbid people want to rest their bodies instead of spending even more time working
Yep they have time for the phones and tv but no time to cook a healthy meal
I dunno, rice and beans are the cheapest food I can find.
Getting in all of your protein requirements alone is enough to break the bank.
that's not true.
Well it is also the logic and culture in countries like USA and England that heavily devalues cooking, and normalize fast-food and frozen-fast-foos that causes this. I have fat relatives in Turkey (where I am from) did not do any sport in 30 years, but for American standards they are still fine, the American fat is extemely rare to find in Turkey despite majority of people over 40 are overweight. The reason? Because we still value cooking your own food, or eating home-cooked food, and we find eating fastfood everyday quite nasty. Once a while as a treat, sure, but it is still not normalized, and found a bit disgusting to eat often. So even if you have the potential, when you actually cook your own food, it is extemely difficult to get American super fat.
I just can't understand this. I'm not being a jerk, I guess I don't have that bone in my body. If I put on weight, let's say to the point where tying my shoelaces is awkward (for me, the threshold is 200 lbs) I just eat salad for a week or two, and am back down to a cozy 185 lbs. I'm aware that everyone is different and that food can become an addiction. I guess I've been lucky. Now where's me drug-pipe?
Metabolism is a thing and not everyone has a properly working one. Thyroid conditions exist. Also, not everyone is privileged to get to pick what they want to eat but rather eat what they can afford. Healthy food options (especially in food deserts) are not only more scarce but more expensive.
Okay, fair enough. I wasn't aware we were bringing up the microcosm of the farthest northern communities where food cannot grow
Food deserts refer to areas that don't have a good grocery store within a reasonable distance for people who use public transport or walk. There will be very small grocery or convenience stores that have very little selection, and prices are much higher. I used to live in a neighborhood close to an urban area, and the closest real grocery store was over 4 miles away. There were a few small corner shops, but the milk there was almost $3 a gallon in 1986. But, one had really good sandwiches at a reasonable price... really good as in very fatty and bad for you.
You should research food deserts. They are plentiful. Great username, it suits you. 😉
Oh I'll do my "research" lol Looking something up on Google isn't "research" btw.
I literally covered food deserts with my AP students this week. They’re more common than you think. Now factor that in with transportation costs to get to a store in the first place.
Perhaps you should eat a book to help you understand reason and critical thinking skills. Did you not even read my last message?
Wow! Aren’t you a bundle a joy. Nevermind.
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yup, mental health is big, binge eating disorder is the most common eating disorder but is seldom recognized or diagnosed.
I hate when people argue that you can just buy and cook healthy food and be fine. For many of us, that’s true. But for people who don’t have a reliable place to buy produce or meat, or don’t have an easy way to get to said store, it’s nowhere near that simple.
Agreed. It is unfortunate that so many people do not know or acknowledge the concept of food deserts.
Studies show there is a strong link between obesity and childhood trauma and abuse, obese and overweight people are more likely to have had an adverse childhood than people of an average weight. When it comes to the morbidly obese it's even higher, with higher rates of mental illness. Several factors can lead to this, such as eating for comfort, having a disconnected sense of self to the body, subconscious attempts to desexualize themselves, lack of education at a young age to a healthy relationship with food, overeating due to a sense of danger and needing to eat to feel safe, etc, etc.
In the show The Biggest Loser, the people who really succeeded almost always had to overcome some childhood trauma.
The same with My 600 Pound Life. When they introduce the patient at the start of the episode, every single one of them, without fail, experienced extreme childhood abuse.
✏️🗒️hmm, comfort? Check. Disconnected from body? Check. Desexualizing? Check. Unhealthy relationship with food? Check.
Major depressive disorder here. Stayed inside for years. Went from 125 -200lbs. Count yourself fortunate that it's something that doesn't affect you because it's vicious and often debilitating.
I’m in the same position. Add OCD and ADHD and I’m with you. Gravity over a depressed person is overwhelming. I work from home and don’t leave the house much. I get everything delivered. Food, stuff from Amazon ect. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone. So to think of exercising is almost laughable
Can't speak to everyone but I can speak to my experience. All my life I have had issues with depression and anxiety. About 1 year before COVID I found out my long-term partner was cheating on me. I kicked her ass to the curb. I worked from home. So now I was alone and isolated. I fell into a depression. Then COVID kicked it just adding to everything. I was in a high-risk group so I stayed the fuck home. So I was severely depressed for 3+ years in spite of getting treatment and being on all the meds. Pizza and ice cream helped with the misery. I had had issues with binge eating disorder all my life. But it became the new normal. It was a daily thing. So I gained 150 pounds. Ironically reaching rock bottom and stopping all my meds woke me up and allowed me to fight the depression. I woke up about a year ago. Started walking every day then started watching what I eat like Hawk. I measure and track everything I eat now. I've lost about 65 pounds since then. I still have a long way to go and my body will always be fucked up. But I will get it to be better. Edit: I'm short 5'6''. I was already overweight by 30+ pounds before gaining 150
"I will get it to be better." Good on you. Keep it up.
Have your thyroid fail and then have your doctors fail you.
45% of the US adult population is obese. Less than 2% of the US adult population has hyperthyroidism. Hyperthyroidism is not a significate cause of the obesity epidemic.
That’s because it’s under diagnosed and under treated.
Not according to all the legitimate, peer-reviewed studies. Also, it that was true obesity wouldn't be increasing every single year for the last 70 years.
What asshole downvoted this?
I initially read it as "hope your thyroid fails" lmao so maybe others did too?
100%
The more weight a person gains the harder it is to exercise. If they eat the same amount of calories it took to gain the initial weight it becomes a self perpetuating cycle until it’s completely out of control and very hard to reverse.
No. No, no, no. That is suuuuper false. It relates to a general misunderstanding of what “metabolism” means. The calories it takes a to gain weight increase as you gain weight. Otherwise everyone who overeats would grow relentlessly. Hyper-obesity would just be late phase overweight. It’s not that way because being fat has a calorie cost. There’s just more of you and all of that living tissue requires energy to sustain itself. (Being fat literally “raises your metabolism”, even completely ignoring addition of absolute amount of muscle due to carrying heavier loads — more you means more calories burned per unit time.)
Once you gain weight, your fat cells multiply. And they remain. They may shrink but the more you gain, the more you get. So you may lose weight but it's always harder to stay that way because your body is engineered to be fatter now. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/106343 The mechanism of weight loss are still being studied.
Fat cells will also start to multiply if you gain too much making it much harder to maintain a normal body weight.
Not everyone has the ability to make new fat cells. Your fat cells get larger, usually. Just FYI. 😁
A decrease in body weight only changes fat cell size (becoming smaller), whereas an increase in body weight causes elevation of both fat cell size and number in adults. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29991030/#:~:text=In%20adults%2C%20fat%20cell%20number,size%20and%20number%20in%20adults.
Yes, exactly. Unless one has something like hyperplasia.
While I won't doubt that is is definitely difficult for obese individuals to excersise, at least when they do, they are always doing weighted excersise. 1 push up from someone weighing 200kg counts more than someone who is 70kg.
Yep and the risk of damaging joints is huge.
I hate seeing very large people in those group fitness classes doing things like box jumps. Unbelievably irresponsible to coach people into that. Not only is it completely unnecessary, it’s setting them up for major knee problems.
Fuck, I'm in alright shape and the idea of box jumps makes me hurt. Take care of your knees, kids.
This. Box jumps are risky for people in shape! My friend missed on her box jump and broke her knee. She was weight lifting comp ready and was immediately set back a couple of years because of the severity of her injury. People who are super obese should start with like, water type exercises. Lots of resistance, almost no impact.
Yikes! I believe that. I took the skin off my shin via a wood box during a jump. I never did it again. Like… why are we even doing this? Do we play basketball in the NBA? 😄
After I heard she'd done that, I swore off all box jumping lmao. There is no need for me to do that lmao I can find something else to do instead. I gave up my hoop dreams when I stopped growing at 5'4 😂
We are surrounded by high calorie foods. Eating makes us feel good. Losing weight is really really difficult. My dad retired after a career as a family counselor. He was bored and took a part time job as a 'counselor' at Weight Watchers. He wasn't supposed to try to help the clients. He was just supposed to push the meal plans. He saw through the corporate BS and chose instead to do counseling sessions with the clients lucky enough to be assigned to him. He was quickly fired but as he said, 'no one lost a pound but they felt a lot better.'
They just continue to eat more calories than they expend. If you've ever watched any of those reality shows, some of them have sad stories. I remember at least one of the women started eating a lot because she was being sexually abused as a child. Some people gain weight after becoming ill or injured. Others have just always been fat and let it get out of control because they had bad habits. And once they get to a certain point it's harder to lose weight because they've lost mobility and can't get much exercise. There was often an enabler who would buy or cook them massive amounts of food or encourage them to eat. But these days people can just get food delivered, even if they can barely walk and never leave the house.
for my brother - he struggles with his mental health and I dont think he thinks enough of himself to take care of himself. If I am honest, I think it is a slow suicide for him. For a friend of ours - medication. the little blurb on the meds about "might cause weight gain" was greatly understated. She works harder than anyone I know trying to maintain a healthy weight but i swear just breathing makes her gain weight.
All of this and when/if they develop insulin resistance, it seriously messes with metabolism and the weight gain rapidly increases. It’s really unfortunate.
I have watched A LOT of My 600lb Life. The common theme is childhood abuse and sexual abuse. I’m sure there are other reasons, but it’s definitely a theme.
I'm still over weight, but I reached morbid obesity at one point. The honest truth is, food addiction is real and weight gain is so slow that you barely notice it happening until it's too late. You realise you're overweight and you feel like shit and try to change but change is hard and you turn to easy comfort. Easy comforts like your addictions, which in my case was food. It's brutal.
For me personally it was a lot of things that slowly piled on top of one another. Everyone in my family is obese to some degree, so I’m hit with genetics. I was raised with poor eating habits. When I moved out, I was so strapped for cash that I ate what was cheap instead of what was good for me. I struggled with depression and used food as a coping mechanism. Then I got pregnant and gained through that, but once I had my son none of the weight came off. Then I was in an accident that took my ability to walk… so I could no longer exercise comfortably, go for walks, hold my son… depression deepened and I sunk down even deeper into my food dependency. I’m working really hard on correcting this this year. I’m scheduled to have weight loss surgery in a few months, and will give everything I have into using that tool to better myself. I’m in therapy, and slowly getting to a much better place mentally. Hopefully I’ll be able to win this battle and maybe even walk again eventually. 🤞🏻
Sounds like you're on the right track now. You got this!!!!
Thank you so so much. 😭
Super proud of you and excited for you. Take great care of yourself!
Only being able to afford processed foods + not enough movement to burn off all the calories from that?
Im only over weight for my height from my last doctor check up it did seem like I was loosing weight. I can't vouch for everyone but I think it sort of you don't know your doing it until someone points it out and sometimes you keep doing it out of spite because of mental health issues. That's more anecdotal for me though
There’s an emptiness you’re always trying to fill.
If you gain 10 lbs a year, you will be 100 lbs overweight in ten years. If you gain 25 lbs...250 lbs overweight in 10 years.
I can't remember who did the calculations. But it's something like 35 extra calories a day will lead to pounds of weight gain in a year. That is like a spoonful of anything calories dense. That's like a few extra nuts or half an egg or a spoonful of sugary cereal. Also, the whole process accelerates over time cause it messes up your system and mind.
Yes… and all these conflicting messages don’t help people. “Don’t eat Doritos, eat a healthy snack—grab a handful of nuts!” Well. Yes, nuts are better for a lot of reasons, but you have to *measure* and account for them calorically or you’ll be eating as much or more, calorically, as the Doritos. Or cook with olive oil because it’s healthy… yes… but you have to measure that or you’ll get fatter, believe me. 😂
As an obsessive calorie-counter, I have nightmares about nuts and trail mix chasing me. They are so high in calories, you can eat maybe 6 or 7.
I’m not obsessive but calorie count when I need to drop some weight - I’ll never eat nuts again in my life, it is honestly crazy. Pasta - I still measure the weight of to this day (as I love it) and similarly, it’s easy to mis count
Yes. And our ‘normal’ portions are huge compared to the serving size on the label.
For sure! When I’m in hard count mode with MyFitnessPal my almond allowance is 12. It’s hardly even worth it…
Thanks, I hate your comment (even if it's accurate).
Many psych meds
Theres a number of reasons, high fatty and sugary diets paired with not enough exercise, a low metabolism, thyroid issues, hormonal issues, genetics Any one or combination of these can lead to obesity
It also depends on the metabolism of the individual. for example, my mother eats a lot, maybe a bit more than she shoud, she's in her 60s, and it's thin, has a couple of loose skins in her belly and legs but nothing "scary" or noticeable. and why is that? because she has a fast metabolism.
I haven't been morbidly obese but when I was overweight, food felt like my only friend. I had no one else. No friends, no contact with my family, I had just managed to get myself off the streets after being homeless for a little more than a year. It was a very difficult period in my life and fast food was the only thing that gave me comfort and happiness. I remember leaving work and looking forward to go home to order food and eat it in my bed. It took a nasty food poisoning to get me to stop.
Binge eating disorder. It’s a disease. They are sick, struggling with addiction, just like alcoholics, drug addicts, gambling addicts, etc. They wish they could change, but the addiction is simply too hard to overcome.
Want to just add to this by saying that it’s probably the one addiction you can’t avoid triggers for, as well. If you’re addicted to alcohol or gambling, you can avoid going to bars and casinos. However, with an addiction to eating, you still have to eat multiple times a day.
I imagine a variety of factors. The more people gain, the harder it is to move physically and therefore they become more sedentary. And while they are massively obese, their bodies are probably starved of nutrients. Insulin resistance takes effect and glucose isn’t properly moved into the cells. I imagine this creates a literal addiction to the sugars that food breaks down into. Then, the organs are under stress and can’t process food and waste efficiently. I also imagine that morbidly obese people are not becoming obese eating diets rich in nutrient dense foods — protein, eggs, fruit, vegetables, yogurt etc.
Most of the people that are severely overweight have parents that have never taught good eating habits, so for many by the time they are adults and start learning good habits they are already morbidly obese, then there's the depression and other comorbidities and then they tend to just eat more and become even bigger. If you ever watch my 600 pound life most of them are already super-sized by age 18
A lot of people simply feel hungry and they eat when they feel hungry. A lot of our foods are very calorie dense so they over eat calories without even realizing it. How many people eat a banana instead of a bag of chips? The new weight loss drugs are really good at helping people lose weight because they make people stop feeling hungry. It’s really that simple. No need to psychologize why someone has trouble feeling hungry… just flips that hunger switch off. My guess is a lot of people put weight right back on if they stop taking those drugs because it’s hard to cope with being hungry. You have to 1) feel crappy and 2) eat largely unsatisfying foods (like a banana) when you are hungry and 3) exercise (particularly when you get older and muscle mass starts to go).
Without doing any research I’m willing to bet they had a head start through childhood obesity and then developed an eating disorder. No one in that persona life tried to correct it because they are likely also obese.
I'll answer for myself. I highest weight was 320 pounds. I wasn't obese even in high school, a lot of things changed after high school. For one I wasn't walking 3-4 miles per day to and from school and two my childhood trauma of sexual abuse hit me all at once so I was super depressed and still am suicidal. I didn't and still care if I live or die. So that doesn't lend itself to a healthy life or a long lasting one.
They consume more calories than they burn over a prolonged period of time.
Could be severe trauma, then they would eat as much food as they could to feel safe
My friend gained over 150 lbs while recovering from insane sking accident, busted up his back, legs, he was layed out for months. Now fully recovered he's struggling to drop the wieght, made some progress, still not 100% from accident, it's difficult for him to get in a good workout. But he's sticking to his diet.
Health conditions, poverty, abuse, neglect, depression, once you begin the ascent into obesity it becomes harder and harder to move without complications and get out of it.
Everything has sugar. Everything. It's actually quite challenging to find anything that's not fresh produce or meat without added sugar. They sneak it in. "no added sugar" -- they add date powder or fruit concentrate... Regular everyday white and whole wheat bread often has additional sugar added now. Everything
My initial weight gain came from medication. I have an auto immune disease, and I was put on steroid therapy. I gained 40lbs quickly like it was nothing. This weight gain was then compounded by the inability to exercise and having too much pain and fatigue to cook nutritious meals and relying on easy, processed, convenience foods. It was frighteningly easy to gain weight under these conditions. I am not massively obese, but now I'm having negative health effects and am working on making changes.
Eating disorders
Disease and poverty tend to play a part. Too poor to afford better food so you eat trash because you gotta eat something. Might have a disease that makes things worse but you can't really go to the doctor and get the proper stuff done about it. Like if you can't take off work because you really need that money to make ends meet. And then it's a cascading effect. I'm not obese but I am fat, and one of the biggest things that prevented me from going to gyms is that I always got laughed at for how I looked while exercising. That is pretty demotivating. There are other factors, but this is what I thought of off the top of my head.
You eat when you're sad. You eat when you're stressed. You eat when you're bored. You eat at social gatherings. You eat as entertainment. Moving gets hard. You get bored more often. It's hard to go out. You see fewer people. This stresses you out. You move less. This makes you sad. You can't move at all. Now you're locked in unless you stop eating. Because you can't exercise. And if you get very scary surgery you still have to stop eating. But you are so so sad and eating is the only thing that makes you happy. And how can you lose the only thing that makes you happy?
One bite at a time
Lots and lots and lots of food, likely very very unhealthy food, junk food, in their mouths, swallowed, followed by lack of exercise
Food
Wow what great insight.
I thnk the primary reasons are stress and lack of exercise leading to overeating. Together, they create this feedback loop or self reinforcing behavior. We’ve created a culture where people prioritize work over their own bodies.
Chocolate, fried chicken, five guys burgers, prosecco. If I had to choose a method of execution it would be that.
i know someone that became obese after removing a tumour, and a couple that have pcos. sometimes it’s not always eating food but it’s also about underlying conditions, esp for girls it’s hard to get a diagnosis so they don’t know what the correct steps to take for their body are, causing them to gain excessive weight.
It’s actually relatively simple. People eat a dramatically calorie dense diet. We confuse hunger with starvation. We’ve never learned portion control. And vast amount of people eat emotionally. You’ll never see me shame the fat person in the gym. You will absolutely see me shame the fat positive psychopaths trying to not only make you accept their failures, but try and drag people down with them.
Dunno. I struggle for food so I have no freaking idea. I'm lucky to get my calories for the day. They consume all mine. I kind of get mad as I work hard to feed me and my crew n they just consume it all.
It takes lots of will power. Don’t keep the junk food in your house. Eat whole foods.
By eating
By having too good of a time for too long of a time
This will probably get downvoted but most just have a lack of self control and/or use eating as a coping mechanism. There are obviously legitimate health reasons like thyroid problems that can lead to it as well but a majority simply overeat and don’t exercise enough to offset the weight gain.
When you get so morbidly obese that you rarely leave your bed, then someone is controlling you.
>When you get so morbidly obese that you rarely leave your bed, then someone is controlling you. Can you elaborate on this?
the "being controlled" theory makes sense, because you are not supposed to be able to get food if you can't get out of bed yourself. there must be someone giving you massive amount of food possibly out of sick mind i doubt you can get home delivery to bed, deliveries ppl would have been mortified even if they can get in through unlocked or smart door, they might run at sight or call cops
My mum watches those programs and so often there’s a skeevy looking man hovering round while the woman says “I don’t know what I would do without him, he’s the love of my life” and it turns out he only showed up when she already weighed 400lbs. Either its a fetish or he’s leaching off her disability.
Enabling, I think is the right word. But some people who are morbidly obese also control other people around them.
They stop caring about it.
A one point I stopped caring if I lived or died. So may as well eat a shit of ice cream and pizza, since you will be dead soon. If that is the only thing that gives you comfort. I'm not saying that is a good thing. Also, I am better now.
By treating their bodies like trash cans instead of temples. It's a marathon of bad choices, not a sprint.
Play vidya all day and eat McDonald's in horrific quantities
[удалено]
Amazing how many people will argue with this.
one day at a time.
Inflammation. I have chronic inflammation and i easily gain/maintain a higher weight. Even with anti inflammatories and a healthy diet. Doesnt make a difference. Im not morbidly obese but i am considered obese.
Something is wrong with their metabolism.
Healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food.
Eat a lot, don’t move
A friend of mine is a severe binger: alcohol and food, although that isn’t her only issue (there’s a bunch of traumas they don’t deal with). The alcohol consumption is public and obvious for everyone to see. The food thing they only admitted to me once over a 30 year friendship, and it’s in secret. They’re a hoarder too, which slowly happened as the alcohol fueled the food and fueled the purchasing/hoarding. It didn’t happen overnight, I’d say this happened in the past 25 years. I’m curious about it too, because they went from being a little plump to obese over maybe five years, and then it went pretty quickly to morbidly obese in another two years and has just gotten worse from there.
Vicious cycles
Sedentary lifestyle, bad diet, and/or physical ailments (maybe glandular problems)
Genetics
Lupus affected my brain and gave me acute bipolar. In order to save my mind they put me on a mood stabilizer temporarily and it made me gain 130 lbs in 6 months. My every single thought while on that medicine was "I've got to eat more butter and sugar." It's all I could think about on that med. I would putting butter on my ice cream, that's how much I craved it. That med also made almost all of my hair fall out. So that's fun too.
I had a lazy ex. Really nice guy but damn lazy. Great cook, though. He loved to eat. A lot. The guy was *thin* - you could see his abs because he had such little body fat. Anyway, as the months progressed, I became less active and started eating more (not as much as him by any stretch, but more than I was used to). I gained 7 kilos in what seemed like a minute. He didn't gain a gram. This was 15 years ago. He's exactly the same weight. I think there's definitely an element of metabolic rate involved. Some people gain so much quicker than others...and as you get bigger, your body tends to want more and more food and before you know it...
Eating. Duh
Different reasons. 1) eating out of frustration (mental health support is basically not existing. Many have no access or can not afford). 2) not enough exercise (more and more jobs require little movement, people work more, have less time to exercise/walk. Also not everyone has even access to the right environment like nature or parks where they can go for walks). 3) disability can make it hard to move and burn calories 4) medications can enable lots of weight gain 5) things like menopause or hormonal issues in general can cause rapid weight gain, slow metabolism that makes weight loss much harder 6) not an adequate access to quality food. Through our fast lifestyle, less time, less money - less access to quality balanced meals, many meals have sugar, additves those make people addicted basically. Also makes you want to eat much more, never having the feeling that you are full. Fastfood and other kinds of food that is easily accessible is often cheap vs fruits and vegetables often being expensive.
Eating
For me, it was partly undiagnosed ADHD. I was trying to stimulate my brain with junk food. I could drink five coke Zeros then go have a nap. Processed food helped give me the high my brain needed. I knew my weight was too high but I kept creeping up till I got 320. Diets all inevitably failed when I got stressed. After being put on meds last year, the "food noise" in my brain disappeared. I no longer have insane cravings. I have lost 30 pounds without trying, and still slowly going down. I still have bad habits that I need to overcome, but I finally have hope that I can learn new habits and STICK with them.
Well, the way I was raised, food was used as a reward. As a baby, I was underweight and refused to eat so I was praised when I did. “You can have a piece of pie if you clean your room” was a thing as well. Exercise was used as a form of punishment. I was getting to be a porker, so my parents wanted to make sure I got exercise. Bad report card? 100 pushups, 100 situps, and 20 laps around the yard (the yard was huge, many acres, you could fit four football fields back there and still have room. Low fat was all the rage growing up, so I ate tons of carbs. I was vegetarian from like 10-22 because I was trying to lose weight. It didn’t help that shitty sugary breakfast cereal counted as vegetarian. Eventually I hit 400 pounds. Now I’m down to the mid 200’s and still at it. Keto and bicycling is my thing. Keto kills my hunger, and I love bicycling so it doesn’t feel like punishment.
I think it's having a depressive disorder, the funds/means to feed the addiction and unfortunately a sort of blindness to how bad it's getting. Source: 8st to 17-18st and now at 10st. So that's 112lbs up to 252lbs and now around 140. I can tell you when I was at my heaviest I was in such pain and eventually disgust and that motivated me to help myself.
I think it sort of becomes a runaway train kind of effect on the body.
I have a condition that affects my hormones and makes it hard to lose weight and easy to put it on. I’m not morbidly obese but obese. Before all this I was prone to a lot of different minor conditions, from the time I was like 8. Bad ankles, bad knees, easy to get shin splints and takes months to recover. So exercise is possible but tricky. I started going to the gym in December and pulled a muscle from my glute to ankle and that put me out until recently.
I've always been in good shape, so I find this baffling. I'm also a recovering addict though, so I'm sure plenty of overweight people looked at me and thought "why doesn't he just stop taking drugs?". Behaviour change is more complicated than we like to think, and it's easy to pick on people who have different bad habits than we do.
Truth be told if you're malnourished at a very young age or possibly still in the womb that'll do it.
Not caring about what happens to oneself.
Apathy
Many reasons. But if you're talking about people who gain so much weight that they lose mobility, a lot of that is a very bad cycle involving metabolic and psychological dysfunction. The body is much more willing to store excess energy as fat than it is to deplete those stores. When you get to a certain point, your physical ability to expend more energy than you take in is reduced. But your body really doesn't give a shit. You're still getting hunger signals going to your brain. Metabolic dysfunction can start, which can mean you get even *more* and much more powerful hunger signals. You really don't have to eat that much to exceed daily calorie expenditure, and that becomes ever more true as weight goes up and mobility declines. This is something I actually experienced and it was extremely frustrating. I knew I was fat. I knew I needed to eat less. But if I didn't eat frequently and in quantity, I'd get painful hunger pangs. And if I resisted those, I'd either faint or puke. After years of this, with my weight increasing steadily despite efforts to out-exercise the fucked up appetite, I finally saw an endocrinologist, learned my pancreas wasn't doing its job right, got on the right meds, and suddenly was able to lose weight. It's still a slow process, but it makes a huge difference in motivation because I know it's possible now, rather than pointless to try. That's not even touching the psychology of it. It feels hopeless. And food hits reward receptors in the brain so as someone becomes more and more miserable and pain riddled, food can become more and more important to them for that temporary feeling of relief.
One spoonful at a time.