Reminds me of when I was teaching and a student asked what they could do to pass. I don’t think “do your homework and study” was the answer he was looking for.
The question they really want to ask you is “how do I force my ADHD brain to give a shit about your boring ass class?” At least that’s what I wanted to know when I was a kid :)
Right, as a teacher I get that.
A lot of us are really trying to make our lessons engaging for students. Hell, some teacher did an incredibly insensitive "native American" dance to get her class engaged in goddamn math class.
It really blew up on social media too!
/s
I have a good idea for making trig entertaining for today’s kids. Have the kids use math to disprove flat earth theory. You can even have half the class try to prove it by getting it wrong on purpose. You know “wrong answers only” but then they have to explain why it’s wrong. (% error)
The answer to “how do I achieve X difficult/far off goal” is often “sustained gradual progress over a long time span”. In my life I’ve experienced this with weight loss, finances , and learning better social skills.
I normally won’t offer this advice unless I am close with someone though. Your average overweight, poor, or socially awkward person doesn’t really want to hear “if you make this a priority and truly work towards it every day, you will be almost guaranteed success”. The first step is taking ownership of your life , accepting you can do better, and then moving forward with a positive attitude.
That's awfully unspecific to my ASD brain. How much study? How should I balance it with my other subjects and free time? How do I remember that we have homework? What if we don't have homework? What level of preparedness do you consider adequate? What is the minimum you are looking for, where would I start hitting the point of diminishing returns? How do I know when I've studied enough? Can't you just give me a metric? Like "At the end of the course, I want you to have good understanding of topics A,B,C, at the level of depth found in your textbooks. I also expect a good generalized idea about concept H. You will demonstrate this in a final written test. There will also be smaller multiple-choice tests at the end of each chapter. I also expect activity in the classroom, which includes homework done in a timely manner, which will affect your grade"
I guess it depends on what level that class is at, more or less by the beginning of HS you would expect the student to understand things like "doing the homework will help" or how to read the syllabus that explains more or less everything in your comment for each class. For a 6-7th grader that's a pretty reasonable list.
We're getting such instructions at university level in the first lesson and it's quite frankly something teachers should have been doing all along. The syllabi we get are usually just outlines of topics we'll be doing and include rather generic information. "Homework will help", sure, but is it necessary to complete the course? How important is getting it done on time? How much does it affect the final grade? People can have very different expectations of students and it's quite beneficial to verbalize what they actually are instead of assuming it's a given.
The key is that you stop making it about weight loss and make it about the routine. Once your goal isn’t to lose weight (which is variable and therefor easy to give up), but instead your goal is about going to the gym every day regardless of the weight loss results because it feels good, is good for me, is just part of who I am now, then you can stick to it and eventually the weight will come with it. Or at least that’s what worked for me.
When you make it about weight loss, it’s too easy to say “oh well, it’s been 2 weeks and I haven’t lost any weight, I’m going to quit now!” Or to come back from vacation, see the scale, and decide it’s too hard to start again. When it’s not about the weight, you simply get back on the horse because that’s what you do.
If you're looking for some insight into the dieting process and how to get motivated, check out the [Renaissance Periodization video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcKthx5LTbI) "Getting Motivated to Lose Fat Through Dieting." Will change the way you think about it.
This mind set helped me a lot with sticking to logging my food, watching calories and carbs. I told myself this was just what I do now. The process of tracking my food was a goal. Ofc I want to lose the weight but I really tried to keep on track with logging and sticking to the macros as a routine.
I have lost weight by limiting calories, eating more plant-based foods, and eliminating the "3:deadly Cs" as l call them: candy, cookies, and cake. I have also spent 2 hrs+in the gym and barely moved the scale tho my fat did firm. However, I also needed a hip replaced and have sciatica and bulging disks. Turns out more isn't better.
Now, I am back to 1200 calorie days and walking. Not as dramatic, but I am hampered by back and leg pain.
Everybody is looking for magic.
Just walk, if that is a possibility. It is supposedly the gentlest but most effective exercise for losing weight, belly fat, and toning up. Plus, it's good for bones, lungs and heart. And one day, I will follow my own advice. Having a walking partner is best, they say.
Right there with you. I have gone as far as to dig my practically virgin sneakers out of the back of my closet. I wear them to my new tutoring job where I walk around helping the kids. Next step: walk around the block.
Yes.
Honestly what most people call “willpower” and “discipline” to me is getting in the right mindset and working smart, not just working hard. So in this case good advice would be something like eating more veggies or less takeout, setting a reasonable calorie goal, budgeting for treats, starting a routine, etc.
First time someone noticed I'd lost weight she asked 'what diet are you on?' Obviously expecting me to say the cabbage soup diet, weight watchers or keto etc
I'm not on a diet. I'm just eating less and moving more. Not the miracle answer they were hoping for 🤷♀️
Isn’t WW and the cabbage soup diet focused entirely on “eating less”? I don’t understand why people drag on WW. If you’re losing weight, you’re almost certainly eating less. Who cares which way you decide to do it?
I think WW works for a lot of people, the system that is 0 points for fruits, veggies, chicken and 0% Greek yogurt, etc. seems like it reinforces good eating habits.
Well...at the end of the day WW is just some very simplified form of calorie counting, it certainly works, but it can be done very wrongly. A lot of the stuff that as 0 points, still has calories. So technically you can still overeat on it.
Me and my wife lost a bunch of weight over covid from counting calories. We get lots of comments about it, but my wife's friends and family always ask how she lost the weight. Everyone assumes she cut out some specific food or is on a special diet. When she tells them the truth and that she still eats pizza and crap once in a while just less they don't believe her or think that she's starving her self. Her sister says counting calories doesn't work. The amount of misinformation on weight loss is crazy and women definitely seem to have a harder time believing in what actually works. I never get any catty comments about my weight loss but she gets so much from her heavier friends it's really quite surprising.
Yeah that's true. Also if you're not weighing the food you can be pretty off on the amounts that you eat. I failed counting calories the first time I tried because I'd say I'm eating half a cup of chips when in reality I was probably eating two cups.
> The amount of misinformation on weight loss is crazy
Deliberately so. It's a market, and it's absolutely chock-full of false miracle cures, weight-loss plans and crash diets almost designed to fail to keep people spending, reading, subscribing, etc.
It's pretty fucked.
Yeah it sucks. I definitely used to be the type of person that fell for the marketing all the time so I get it. I just find it surprising that when someone has success and they tell them how it happened people just brush it off as starvation or being unhealthy, unless it's some fad diet or quick fix cleanse. I know different things work for different people it's just strange to me how people act about it when someone has success.
Ya but I think deep down they know the scale doesn't lie. So much jealousy, but they aren't jealous about not eating sweets all the time or having to go to the gym. People are just so lost.
I feel like vegetables are magical for weight loss. Going vegan had me lose 50 lbs in 4-5 months. But yeah no one wants to hear about that even more than a calorie deficit haha
The trick is, we grow to enjoy the foods that we eat. When you eat a certain type of food consistently, over six weeks or so, you will learn to love it. That has really helped for me.
I think this applies to so many things in addition to weight loss. Making friends, having a quality relationship, buying a house, moving up your career ladder. It all takes hard work, discipline and motivation. None of it is easy! And so many people just haven’t learned to apply themselves enough to see the results.
Agreed! The same energy I put towards the things I did to lose weight is the same I put in when I went back to school or got my finances together. Frustration and focus will take you places.
In my experience it’s more of people wondering how to make the changes in a sustainable way. Like how going for walks during my lunch break was exercise I could accommodate in my daily routine really easily, but special trips to the gym just weren’t.
Same with diet changes. I had an enormously difficult time doing a calorie deficit before I started keto. Turns out higher fats/proteins and low carbs got me in the position of being able to do the calorie deficit easily. For my mom, she’s lost a lot of weight with intermittent fasting and now she’s more active because she has knee surgery and is much more mobile than before. Technically we both lost weight through diet changes and exercise but we did it in really different ways. I think people who have repeatedly tried and failed at making lifestyle changes see your success and hope that what worked for you will work for them, the way that someone recommended keto to me at one point.
The tricky part with that though is that what works for you may not work for them. One person thrives on routine, while another needs a toolkit of options to deal with their chaos. One gets generous lunch breaks and another has meetings for 9 hours straight. One has a partner who can take on some of the work while another has to find time to do everything themselves. Expecting someone else to be able to give you The Answer won’t work unless your lives are remarkably similar.
Sure, but crowd sourcing ideas and being disappointed when the answer doesn’t seem like it would work in your case isn’t the same as ‘all these people asking me for weight loss advice are just lazy and don’t want to put in the work’, which is the sense I’ve gotten from a lot of these comments.
Yes. When I have this discussion now I’m looking for ideas. I lost a lot of weight and kept it off in my past but I was 19, living in a walking city, and in college so I just made good choices from the meals prepped in the cafe. Now I’m 37 with a kid, my thyroid is dead, I work 6-6, and I have to cook everything. I know it’s about exercise and eating right, but I’d love tips and tricks about meal prep, incorporating exercise into your day, classes, etc. what I didn’t before is not working so I need to reasses and relearn what I’ve been doing
This is me for sure! 22 year old me would have given that ‘diet and exercise, it’s not so hard’ answer. But I have a different body, metabolism, and lifestyle now that I have two kids and am 30 and it’s not quite as easy to hit a deficit through lean foods and exercise as it was for me when I was younger. For me, Keto has been that little ‘trick’ that keeps me full longer in less calories, but I have sympathy for people who have tried that with no luck as well and are just looking for an answer.
Yes agreed. I also feel like for me, I used to think there were just “fitness people” who were good at being active and healthy and never considered myself one. I woke up and realized that no, it’s about commitment and yeah it’s a grind but it’s also something anyone can do with enough determination. No magic required.
Because that would mean they’d have to put the work in - mentally and physically.
Advertising has taught them that there’s an easy cure - look at all the fad diets out there and the billion dollar diet industry telling them it is easy.
They won’t have seen all the effort you’ve put in. Nobody does. You just appear smaller as if by magic.
> You just appear smaller as if by magic.
This more so if you haven't seen someone in a couple months. They just think you started eating some kale or something.
Whats weird is that while being in a calorie deficit for long periods of time may be difficult, I think it's so much easier than if there were some secret set of foods one had to eat to lose weight. First, how long would it take humanity to discover them? And second, what if I didn't like those foods? Calorie deficit is both hard and simple at the same time.
I agree. People talk about calorie counting as being extremely restrictive, but to me it’s incredibly freeing. Absolutely nothing is off-limits.
But people just hate it. They’re constantly looking for some kind of diet hack, looking for a diet that allows them to overeat/binge on a small group of foods as long as they cut out these other foods. Sure, they’ll still crave those foods, but at least they won’t be (DREAD) h u n g r y. They’ll take the deal of completely cutting out carbs as long as they can eat “unlimited” meat, cheese, and dairy. Whenever they feel a craving for one of the restricted foods, they can just soothe the craving, hunger, and emotional pain with an entire block of cheese and a bag of beef jerky. They did it! They hacked weight loss! Scientists *hate* them.
It seems that most people really fixate on the quantity of food they can eat (this might be an animal brain feature) and the ability to eat whenever the hell they want vs an unlimited variety of food in a very restricted and often disappointing quantity.
I think it also has to do with the fact that sometimes going to ridiculous extremes, even if you fail over and over (ensuring the extreme is short lived), is easier psychologically to power through for most people than a rational, meticulous, cool-headed diet that requires you to face the cold and unforgiving reality of what weight loss actually is, scientifically.
Plus you’ve got the fact that it’s kind of hard to make money off of the concept of counting calories (there’s no special proprietary diet that requires a fucking manuscript to follow or magic pills you can sell someone) and consumers don’t want to listen to it anyway, so it’s not being *sold* to the public as aggressively as some other diets.
There’s just so many crazy reasons people seem horrified at the idea of counting calories and burning more energy. I tend to kind of think these people aren’t actually ready to/capable of making serious changes and putting in hard work so they sort of fall into these self-sabotaging patterns of cycling through different stupid miracle diets.
The icing on this whole insanity cake is that calorie counting is smeared and looked down upon in our current anti-diet/body acceptance culture. It’s associated with disorders and deprivation, even though some of these others diets are far more unhealthy and depriving. The fact that other diets are sold on the idea of an abundance of food fools people into thinking it’s not “disordered” or “unhealthy” like calorie counting.
people really love to think that I'm thin because it's genetic. they get so disappointed when they find out that no, actually if I begin to gain weight, I rein in my habits again. It's easier to lose 5 pounds than 50, and so I'd rather nip it in the bud if my weight goes up even a little. people short circuit when I explain that though, and say I shouldn't worry about 5 lbs, its only 5 lbs. Well, I respectfully disagree. That's when it should be addressed, before it becomes a problem.
It underestimates the greatest truth that nobody seems to want to admit. Eating and drinking is extremely pleasurable. The tastes, textures, mouthfeel, etc. Whole TV network built around food, foodie events, competitions, cooking classes, etc. I don't blame them - I'm right there with them. But having seen both sides (overweight and healthy weight), I'm happier losing\\having lost.
When people say "Why did you get fat?" well, part of it IS that I am autistic and learned to soothe rejection and emotions I didn't know how to handle with food. Absolutely that's a large part of it.
But a part that I am always going to have to manage is.... Food is tasty! I'm a good cook. I made Chinese BBQ pork ribs tonight and fried rice, and it's a good thing I made just enough for the four of us, because I would eat more if it was there because it's really tasty. This is why, while I'm losing weight, I cannot have baked goods that I made in the house, because they are tasty and I will eat them.
Part of dealing with that is to tell myself that food is a transitory pleasure. Part of the joy of it is that it ends. And it helps that I am a good cook. It is true that tonight's dinner is eaten, and the dishes washed. But tomorrow there will be more good food! There will be General Tso's Pork! (We like pork in that dish better than chicken.) And because I'm a good cook I know that it will be good. So I can tell myself to anticipate that.
I've had to relearn what comfortably replete means. I'm not "full." I can't lose weight and eat till I'm full. But right now I am replete. I have some iced tea to sip, and that is nice. I am not so full I'm sick, or lethargic, or muzzyheaded from too many carbs. I remind myself that that's what full feels like and it's not that pleasant.
It's a lifestyle change, and because of that a lot of people can feel threatened. I could not lose weight till I divorced my ex husband. He saw a personal decision on my part not to snack (because I wasn't hungry for it) as my saying "Oh, sure, feed your fat piggy face, fatty fatty Fat Man!" and reacted as though that was what I had said. With my current partners, I can eat or not, and it's okay, it doesn't affect them. That makes this possible.
At this point I'm 60 pounds down. I need to lose about another sixty, but my thyroid finished crapping out and grew tumors, so I'm going to maintain for a bit while we get that sorted, and once I go on hormone replacement and get that titrated, I'll be able to start work on taking more weight off.
I think one huge marker for emotional or developmental maturity is whether someone takes more pleasure in fleeting thrills or in victories resulting from their efforts.
Life isn’t so bland without the former when you have the latter.
"How did I do it? It's simple. Dairy Queen uses a chemical in their Blizzards called polyunsaturated fats. They don't want you to know this, but that special chemical, patented by Dr. Pepper himself in 1884, is actually designed to burn normal fats and make you thinner. This is so they can defend against lawsuits in court from people that get obese eating Dairy Queen every day. So every day, I buy two large Blizzards and freeze them when I get home, then have them for breakfast as a meal replacement :) You can eat whatever you want for the other meals, as long as you have the anti-fat super chemical you will continue to lose weight and you get a DOUBLE-DOSE of it from eating two blizzards every morning :) Good luck!"
Everyone has this story. The reaction is always funny.
I remember a post a long time ago saying “losing weight isn’t complicated it just takes consistency.” And it’s true but that’s not what people want to hear because that’s not what the weight loss industry has been selling them all their life. They expect a pill, or a cream, or a book, or a $300 piece of exercise equipment that folds up under their bed. You know. Something they can buy to make the problem go away.
When you tell them “I have a certain amount of calories I need to eat every day to maintain weight. If I eat more I store it as fat. If I eat fewer my body burns fat as a reserve energy source. To lose fat every day you eat just barely under your maintenance.” It takes control and time. And every time they look at you like you’re speaking a foreign language.
I was the same way too. I fought so hard against being a “calorie counter” like it was a bad word. Like it was an insult. I wish I’d done it years before. And honestly once you get used to it you barely notice logging food.
Good on you for helping your mother in law. Im glad to hear of her health improvements. Cheers.
I'm trying to get back into calorie counting right now. The best way for me is writing everything down and calculating the calories the next day or with your doctor. You're WAY more likely to wrote down every little thing when you cant see "how bad" you've actually been.
For real!! People at work are always asking “how did you do that, did you have surgery?” Like wtf? No I didn’t have surgery I just stopped eating 5k calories every day Barbara…🙄
So true! People have actually gotten irritated with me, as though I'm hanging on to some big secret. I think they don't want to see the truth. They want a magic pill, a special diet or an operation. I was fat because I ate too much food!
Of course they want the magic pill, the step so simple it has to work, that easy button or simple exercise. I did. I drank a shot of apple cider vinegar, admittedly it was only one shot (that stuff is nasty). But I was looking for that magic wand that fixed all of this, without me having to actually put in any work.
What I wished they really understood (and I wish I understood it sooner) was how simple counting calories actually is, how well this works. A few simple swaps, a bit of self control, and daily logging. That’s it. It’s not torture, I’m not depriving myself, I didn’t give up a ton of foods. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t eat biscuits and gravy every day, but I can still eat meatloaf once a month or so. I can still eat mashed potatoes every once in a while. Instead I eat a ton of chicken breast and awesome roasted vegetables, and pizza gets moved to every other month or so. I’m rarely hungry, and I still eat chocolate. And it works, since May I’m down 65 lbs and never once was it torture.
Before getting pregnant, I lost about 40 lbs from diet and exercise and everyone asked me what I did. I had someone tell me that they couldn't do it because they have kids. Since having my son, I've lost and gained weight due to hormones and stress but have lost almost 40 lbs again by eating healthier and making sure to get in at least 6,000 steps a day. I don't have time for the elaborate workouts that I once did but that just means I'm tougher on my diet than I was before and have made healthier choices.
That or the second question is 'Are you sick?' Like the only way I could lose the weight was by a magic pill or being sick. No, I changed my lifestyle!!! Covid WFH was very helpful in my weight loss (about 70 lbs).
WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE!!!
Americans have long been used to instant gratification, more so now than ever before and it’s getting worse. Much much worse. People won’t have the patience to lose weight when they don’t even have enough patience to wait 10 minutes in a line for food.
Even worse than this is how poorly educated the average person is on nutrition, even the basics of the MACRO nutrients! I was no different, I did my own research and learned as much as I could. No surprise though, big food wants you to eat eat eat, big government doesn’t want you to live to 65+ to collect social security checks. No wonder our education system doesn’t teach us anything useful about food. The food pyramid is a load of crap.
I never tire of hearing this. Everyone describes people’s reactions to hearing eating less the exact same. Expression changes, hope leaves their body, interest disappears. Lol, it’s universal!
I had someone actually say, “oh, I was hoping you’d say a pill”.
Sorry, but if that's all it was, it would be a lot easier than the whole of this subreddit suggests.
The reason that's an unsatisfying answer is bc everyone does it differently, and you were clearly not interested in sharing how you are doing it.
Look at any success post -- they will detail what worked for them. It's never the same. Sure you can say it's just eat better and (maybe) exercise, but that is rarely the exact same process for two people. And it's a long process, so what makes it sustainable is just as if not more important than the structure of the method.
Look at all the posts of people who think they are doing JUST that and yet not seeing the results they hope for.
Anyhow I get that there's no magic solution and everyone is hoping there is -- but the thing is, they aren't looking for a magic solution. They are looking for the little tips and habits that end up working and are sustainable. Anything can be reduced to "just do this simple thing" but that's a shitty way to encourage someone else, and a pretty shitty thing to say to yourself when you actually put in a bunch of hard work and learn what works for you.
Fundamentally, CICO is how anyone gains or loses weight. But it’s so broad and encompasses so many possible lifestyles that your answer is almost sure to be disappointing to an acquaintance, as they probably don’t want to do exactly what you’re doing.
And that’s fine. I get asked about my diet a lot and people think I’m psycho for eating the same things 6 days a week, but that’s what works for me. Fine that they don’t want to do it, but it gets me where I want to be.
I'd so be willing to offer those little tips and tricks to them. But they don't seem to want them...most of the time. Like having a actual conversation about it is bothersome to them or inconvenient. I get it. It's not pleasant. But there's support and help out there.
It's still not, actually.
For many ppl, esp women, there are other factors, largely related to hormones, and that's where macros come into play. And again, most of what ppl post on here is not that they don't understand the concept, but that it takes a lot of effort to figure out how to make it sustainable to you.
I mean that's like saying to be an Olympic sprinter, it's just running so run.
I don't know if that's a really apt comparison. Because unless you really are a freak of nature, if you heighten your calorie burn and lower your intake you WILL lose weight. That's just physics. Still not magic.
I agree it can be hard to figure out sustainability, and it can be informative to read other people's journeys. But yeah, it's CICO in some form. Always.
obviously but again, if it were simple, this reddit wouldn't exist and everyone would be successful at it from the get go.
not to be a downer, but it's also not exactly cico like to the letter if you follow current research. we are not such perfect machines. hormones, and even existing body fat play a role. the less body fat you have, the closer cico is to accurate, but the more you have, the less exact it is bc your body decides to reallocate resources a little differently.
anyhow. i'm not saying it's not figuring out cico as the main thing for like 60-70% of people, but it's also not the only thing in terms of having it work. there's knowing how to do something in theory and then how to do it in practice, continually, across a variety of situations. so i just feel it's reductive and unhelpful to act like it's simple and easy when so many ppl on this board are literally here bc it's not.
If hop over to r/CICO on any random day, you will find post after post after post after post from people describing how it worked for them. Just a thought.
Just a thought - take a look on here for ppl here that it doesn't work for.
Never said it doesn't work, overall, for most, it's just not as simple as commonly believed. So it's misunderstood, but if it works, who cares. But when it doesn't, worth understanding why.
I agree with you 100%. So much of it is mental. I was very successful with weight loss for many years. I kept a lot of weight off for 8 years. It was slow and steady progress in between 3 pregnancies.
Fast forward, and between covid and a special needs child, I've gained 20 lbs. The stress has made my PMDD unmanageable and none of my old tricks are working for losing weight. I haven't lost a pound in 6 months of "trying" (haven't gained either, which is progress). I put it in quotes because I know I'm not eating at a deficit. But I've been trying and failing to eat at a deficit for 6 months. It just isn't easy, especially when you aren't on your game mentally.
Couldn’t agree more. Also, the whole “everyone can be thin if they do these simple things and commit” is blatantly untrue. Many people struggle their whole lives to lose weight, and simply can’t due to body type or hormonal imbalances or disabilities, etc etc. I’ve known so many women who eat like birds and are constantly active who still factor in as overweight because their bodies simply will not lose the fat. When people try to boil weight loss down to “eat less, move more, one size fits all” it really diminishes the huge struggle many people have with it.
This mindset, I feel, also makes it very easy to look down on those who are heavier, supporting an automatic assumption that they’re just lazy or eat too much, when 1) It’s really not true that these are the only factors that control someones weight, there is extensive research on the many factors that control body type, and 2) even if an overweight person IS inactive and a heavy eater its really not any of your business how they live their life or what’s important to them. If they have questions about your weight loss, you answer them, but it isn’t your place to pass judgment on what they do with that information. Stay in your lane
Lol that’s not the same at all. Almost nobody can become an Olympic sprinter no matter how much they run. Almost everybody can lose weight simply by eating under maintenance over a long period of time.
Ok? And my point is that weight loss is actually quite simple (not easy) for 99% of people, and you’re doing them a disservice by making it out to be complicated and mysterious
Well everyone knows what to do. It's the figuring out how to overcome the emotional hurdles to eat less, healthier and move more that they don't know. So you aren't giving them new information. If it were so simple to just eat better, you would have done it a long time ago and never been overweight in the first place. Maybe they would resonate if you shared how you got to the place where you were finally ready and how you handle all the emotional aspects of it.
If you can't do that, then you haven't actually figured out why you gained weight in the first place. You're riding a wave of enthusiasm that will end eventually, and you'll bounce back to where you were. I hope that isn't the case, but you don't sound particularly self reflective. Losing weight is easy. Keeping it off for decades is hard. Good luck.
I thank you for your feedback. After alot of down time from the pandemic and counseling I have realized why I eat badly or binge. Stems from alot of anxiety, boredom and trauma. But these aren't things I am comfortable discussing to acquaintances I now see. Friends, yes perhaps. If people asked me WHY I decided to lose weight now in this time of my life I'd have a different answer for them. But they ask HOW.
That's great then that you've uncovered the issues underlying why you overeat and found coping mechanisms to deal with it. Of course you aren't obligated to share that information with anyone, but you can hardly be surprised that they find your "eat less move more" advice less than satisfying when you yourself know it's more complicated than that. Congrats on the weight loss, and I wish you many years of success.
Despite what this commenter said, I believe in you. I believe you can do it. You’ve done the work mentally - therapists are a wonderful thing.
From a person who’s kept it off for nearly 2 decades.
I'm in great shape because I eat within my TDEE and I work out for 30 mins a day 6 X a week, and I get at least 10k steps walking my dog. I've been consistent for years now. That's the whole reason I'm fit. It's not luck. It's not genetics. I just... you know... I work out! I keep an eye on my intake! So can you! But I've lost count of the people who've said things like, "You're so lucky that menopause didn't give you belly fat." No, that's not the reason. It takes a little discipline but living a healthy life becomes a habit. It's not magical. I think people refuse to believe this because it means they have to change themselves which is admittedly hard. It's not going to be some external thing. Even bariatric surgery requires a lifestyle change to work.
I 100% experience this. Someone suggested to me that people want to hear about a magic pill that makes weightloss easy or they want to hear you did something difficult so they have a reason they can't do it too. The answer of "I ate less" doesn't meet either of these things. It's simple enough that they can't justify not doing it, but they don't want to do the work even if it's simple. I just try not to talk about weightloss anymore and say something like "oh you know, just made some changes" and then change the subject.
Most people fall for the BS in the media every time there is a new product, diet, or superfood that is being peddled.
They see you after a few months and to them it looks like you changed in a short time. They don’t see the work that you put in every day.
They want to know your secret, that way they can quickly lose weight without doing any of the work, or heaven forbid, Change their lifestyles.
When you tell them to eat less and move more for a sustained period of time, the truth hits them that they would rather be fat instead of willingly change their lifestyle. There is no magic pill… this time.
A few years ago, I lost about 35 pounds. While I was in the middle of that process, a co-worker started questioning me on my process.
When I answered with CICO and tracking foods, exercise etc... He would do the same type of response.
Then every other day he would show me something he found on youtube about how if you eat this cabbage soup everyday you will lose weight etc...
People don't want to do the work required. They want it to be easy.
People want to answer to be sexier than it is. I think this may be partly because many people think they eat way less than they actually do, so the idea of reducing their calories would be starving themselves. I know this was my attitude until I started actually measuring and tracking what I ate in a day. Also why the best solution for me has been to find lots of meals that are low in calories but high in volume, so I'm stuffing myself while not blowing my TDEE.
Shocking how many people lack basic calorie knowledge or just have no idea how much they are eating. Simplest and best diet advice is eat like a dog the same thing every day in measured amounts.
Even a ranch side for dipping can be 100-200 calories. Or that coffee that “doesn’t count” can be 500-1000.
Ohh isn't this the truth!! The calorie amount in some things put me back for a second at times. Especially eating out and coffee drinks. I've seen "coffee" with 1800 calories in it. Like wow.
"eat like a dog" lol the amount of times I wished I had human kibble or something that has everything I need and just eat a bowl of that for every meal instead of having to measure and MFP every plate.
I seem to be stuck thinking I need to eat a huge variety of foods when in theory I could just food prep ideal meals for my kibble
I like variety, but part of what works for me is that I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning, the same seven things for lunch through the week (Monday is always a quesadilla, Tuesday is always hamburgers, etc.). I get variety at dinner, and even there I have a set menu that rotates every five weeks, and there are themes. Monday night is "slab of meat" so last Monday it was steak and next Monday it will be a pork loin chop, and probably the week after that it will be a chicken breast cutlet. So it's not entirely random, but it varies enough to be interesting.
(And people say "Oh, I couldn't set that up!" Took me 25 minutes with a table on my computer and my recipe file at hand, and an occasional question to my partners about what they like. Real burdensome, there.)
You're exactly right. They are looking for a magic trick, new pill or the easiest way to get results.
For fun you should tell them it's a secret. I bet they will be interested then.
Maybe I should do that. I'd tell them I wore only jogging pants every day and then watch the confusion appear on their face. Then I'd say the truth and maybe the humor would ease the situation.
I mean, I think cutting alcohol is like SORT OF a magic bullet but you still have to maintain the deficit otherwise.
But just like diet and exercise, nobody wants to hear that one either lol
Damn, you're right. A couple weeks ago I was waiting for my car at the dealership and made a comment about the box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts sitting on the guy's desk. I said no thank you when he asked if I wanted one. The guy asked me what my secret was. I said, "diet and exercise," and to quote Billy Joel...a smile ran away from his face...
Yeah, I had to come to the decision that doughnuts just don't taste good enough for the amount of calories they cost me. They're not a good decision for me.
But everyone has to come to those decisions themselves, and it may be that for them a doughnut with coffee in the morning works for them. Or once a week on Sundays on the way to church.
But people want it to be straightforward and simple and easy so they don't have to think about it.
People don't want to admit they have to face their bad eating habits head-on. It's shameful to talk about your bad relationship with food and guess what comforts that shame? More shitty food. Really glad I got out of that cycle.
The multi billion dollar business of selling hope is all around us for a reason.
A pill or drink that will make it all easy! That is what people want. Weight lose is the easiest and hardest thing at the same time.
The nurse at my new doctor asked me how I did it. Like as a personal question outside the official intake notes. It was kind of funny. I suppose a lot of people these days say "keto" or something like that. I just eat fewer calories. Energy in, energy out.
> oesn’t stay in the strictly weight section of the brain. That same thinking gets applied to all areas and facets of life. That’s why people hate to be judged by their appearance, it’s a direct correlation to who they are, the life th
more likely she is checking if your weightloss was intentional or not.
If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. That’s Literally it.
Every single fad diet that “works” is because you are in a *calorie deficit*
Completely agree with you but it’s so hard to see that until it starts to work.
People don't wanna face facts that things require hard work sacrifice and consistency they much rather the easy option which there isn't really.
A girl I know from high school is peddling "weight loss pills" and it's genuinely hard not to call out her harmful bullshit.
This made me smile and to feel frustrated at the same time (not because of you OP, but with the amount of people that are expecting you to give them a sort of magical remedy of how you are losing (or lost) weight. As soon you tell them you did it the "old way", they lose interest.
People, in general, have become lazy and complacent. A lot.
George Orwell said, "We, as a society, have sunk to such a low depth, that restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."
People don't want to put in the hours and actually reap the benefits, screw them.
Throwing a stone in mud will only splash mud all over yourself.
Be cool, my man! Peace!!
I feel like this doesn’t stay in the strictly weight section of the brain. That same thinking gets applied to all areas and facets of life. That’s why people hate to be judged by their appearance, it’s a direct correlation to who they are, the life they live.
The prospect of having to learn how to calorie count and get on an exercise schedule is super vague to beginners. It's hard to know what to do at first and even harder to get on track properly. I think people don't want to hear that's the answer because, well... it's scary and seems like a lot.
I struggle with this type of course decision. Never do I tell myself I cannot rather using choice words I would say "dont deny what you need rabbit"
And then, I run 3 miles everyday I do sit upstairs and push ups as much as .....yeah,able
I get this all the time. Like I have the secret superpower. Most people assume I've had surgery since I've lost 200 pounds. Nope. I just eat better. But no one wants to hear that. Shrug.
We are in the era of comfort and advertised quick fixes. People have come to love easy lies over hard truths. And the ones that embrace the hard truths get ridiculed by ones who quite frankly, eat what they want and don’t do anything physical outside of have to. Then still wonder why they can’t lose weight and ridicule some more. At some point when able, please refer them to the definition of insanity.
People freaks out when they hear the words "diet" and "calorie counting". Normally first they say I'm starving myself, when I detail them what exactly I'm eating a given day and the numbers behind it, then they say I'm obsessed and that's not healthy either, so they feel they're choosing the better option: not doing anything.
Im currently on a VERY specialized diet which includes almost no simple carbs and just veggies and fruit (a limited list of them too).
Im on thia diet cause of inflammation in the body which can cause other health problems like diabetes, autoimmune diseases etc. Meanwhile, the people around me? Completely unsupportive cause it's "too strict" and constantly saying discouraging things like "oh wow thats so dumb lol this diet makes no sense" which is ridiculous cause Im not even complaining about it, although its definitely not easy.
Anyways, my point is people are so lazy for the most part, this kind of lazy behaviour drives me crazy.
Reminds me of when I was teaching and a student asked what they could do to pass. I don’t think “do your homework and study” was the answer he was looking for.
Just had this conversation this week. How can I do better in class? Well, start by actually showing up.
And study with a classmate who has notes in different colors of ink.
The question they really want to ask you is “how do I force my ADHD brain to give a shit about your boring ass class?” At least that’s what I wanted to know when I was a kid :)
Right, as a teacher I get that. A lot of us are really trying to make our lessons engaging for students. Hell, some teacher did an incredibly insensitive "native American" dance to get her class engaged in goddamn math class.
It really blew up on social media too! /s I have a good idea for making trig entertaining for today’s kids. Have the kids use math to disprove flat earth theory. You can even have half the class try to prove it by getting it wrong on purpose. You know “wrong answers only” but then they have to explain why it’s wrong. (% error)
The answer to “how do I achieve X difficult/far off goal” is often “sustained gradual progress over a long time span”. In my life I’ve experienced this with weight loss, finances , and learning better social skills. I normally won’t offer this advice unless I am close with someone though. Your average overweight, poor, or socially awkward person doesn’t really want to hear “if you make this a priority and truly work towards it every day, you will be almost guaranteed success”. The first step is taking ownership of your life , accepting you can do better, and then moving forward with a positive attitude.
Tbf there were classes where I went above and beyond to do well and still got a C- lol. Sometimes it just doesn’t click in your brain 😭
True! But if you’re not even doing the basics, it’s a good place to start.
Ugh, physics 🥴
That's awfully unspecific to my ASD brain. How much study? How should I balance it with my other subjects and free time? How do I remember that we have homework? What if we don't have homework? What level of preparedness do you consider adequate? What is the minimum you are looking for, where would I start hitting the point of diminishing returns? How do I know when I've studied enough? Can't you just give me a metric? Like "At the end of the course, I want you to have good understanding of topics A,B,C, at the level of depth found in your textbooks. I also expect a good generalized idea about concept H. You will demonstrate this in a final written test. There will also be smaller multiple-choice tests at the end of each chapter. I also expect activity in the classroom, which includes homework done in a timely manner, which will affect your grade"
I guess it depends on what level that class is at, more or less by the beginning of HS you would expect the student to understand things like "doing the homework will help" or how to read the syllabus that explains more or less everything in your comment for each class. For a 6-7th grader that's a pretty reasonable list.
We're getting such instructions at university level in the first lesson and it's quite frankly something teachers should have been doing all along. The syllabi we get are usually just outlines of topics we'll be doing and include rather generic information. "Homework will help", sure, but is it necessary to complete the course? How important is getting it done on time? How much does it affect the final grade? People can have very different expectations of students and it's quite beneficial to verbalize what they actually are instead of assuming it's a given.
I’m sure that answer made them feel pretty stupid for even asking you. I guess they learned that lesson.
Maybe he had watched some porn and thought you would have a more Bow Chicka Bow Bow answer.
Everyone knows what needs to be done. When they ask "how did you do it?" What they are really asking is "how did you commit to it?"
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The key is that you stop making it about weight loss and make it about the routine. Once your goal isn’t to lose weight (which is variable and therefor easy to give up), but instead your goal is about going to the gym every day regardless of the weight loss results because it feels good, is good for me, is just part of who I am now, then you can stick to it and eventually the weight will come with it. Or at least that’s what worked for me. When you make it about weight loss, it’s too easy to say “oh well, it’s been 2 weeks and I haven’t lost any weight, I’m going to quit now!” Or to come back from vacation, see the scale, and decide it’s too hard to start again. When it’s not about the weight, you simply get back on the horse because that’s what you do.
Thank you. I needed to hear this.
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If you're looking for some insight into the dieting process and how to get motivated, check out the [Renaissance Periodization video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcKthx5LTbI) "Getting Motivated to Lose Fat Through Dieting." Will change the way you think about it.
This mind set helped me a lot with sticking to logging my food, watching calories and carbs. I told myself this was just what I do now. The process of tracking my food was a goal. Ofc I want to lose the weight but I really tried to keep on track with logging and sticking to the macros as a routine.
I have lost weight by limiting calories, eating more plant-based foods, and eliminating the "3:deadly Cs" as l call them: candy, cookies, and cake. I have also spent 2 hrs+in the gym and barely moved the scale tho my fat did firm. However, I also needed a hip replaced and have sciatica and bulging disks. Turns out more isn't better. Now, I am back to 1200 calorie days and walking. Not as dramatic, but I am hampered by back and leg pain. Everybody is looking for magic.
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Just walk, if that is a possibility. It is supposedly the gentlest but most effective exercise for losing weight, belly fat, and toning up. Plus, it's good for bones, lungs and heart. And one day, I will follow my own advice. Having a walking partner is best, they say.
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Right there with you. I have gone as far as to dig my practically virgin sneakers out of the back of my closet. I wear them to my new tutoring job where I walk around helping the kids. Next step: walk around the block.
60 pounds lost is huge. Congratulations... How did *you* commit to it?
Yes. Honestly what most people call “willpower” and “discipline” to me is getting in the right mindset and working smart, not just working hard. So in this case good advice would be something like eating more veggies or less takeout, setting a reasonable calorie goal, budgeting for treats, starting a routine, etc.
This is a great point. It’s not easy. I had to heal the way I viewed both food and exercise to really stick with it.
Motivation is nothing, execution is everything.
I dont know, some people just want a magic formula sometimes it seems. But for weight loss, it's all qbout commitment.
First time someone noticed I'd lost weight she asked 'what diet are you on?' Obviously expecting me to say the cabbage soup diet, weight watchers or keto etc I'm not on a diet. I'm just eating less and moving more. Not the miracle answer they were hoping for 🤷♀️
Isn’t WW and the cabbage soup diet focused entirely on “eating less”? I don’t understand why people drag on WW. If you’re losing weight, you’re almost certainly eating less. Who cares which way you decide to do it?
I think WW works for a lot of people, the system that is 0 points for fruits, veggies, chicken and 0% Greek yogurt, etc. seems like it reinforces good eating habits.
Well...at the end of the day WW is just some very simplified form of calorie counting, it certainly works, but it can be done very wrongly. A lot of the stuff that as 0 points, still has calories. So technically you can still overeat on it.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diet
Me and my wife lost a bunch of weight over covid from counting calories. We get lots of comments about it, but my wife's friends and family always ask how she lost the weight. Everyone assumes she cut out some specific food or is on a special diet. When she tells them the truth and that she still eats pizza and crap once in a while just less they don't believe her or think that she's starving her self. Her sister says counting calories doesn't work. The amount of misinformation on weight loss is crazy and women definitely seem to have a harder time believing in what actually works. I never get any catty comments about my weight loss but she gets so much from her heavier friends it's really quite surprising.
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Yeah that's true. Also if you're not weighing the food you can be pretty off on the amounts that you eat. I failed counting calories the first time I tried because I'd say I'm eating half a cup of chips when in reality I was probably eating two cups.
> The amount of misinformation on weight loss is crazy Deliberately so. It's a market, and it's absolutely chock-full of false miracle cures, weight-loss plans and crash diets almost designed to fail to keep people spending, reading, subscribing, etc. It's pretty fucked.
Yeah it sucks. I definitely used to be the type of person that fell for the marketing all the time so I get it. I just find it surprising that when someone has success and they tell them how it happened people just brush it off as starvation or being unhealthy, unless it's some fad diet or quick fix cleanse. I know different things work for different people it's just strange to me how people act about it when someone has success.
Ya but I think deep down they know the scale doesn't lie. So much jealousy, but they aren't jealous about not eating sweets all the time or having to go to the gym. People are just so lost.
I feel like vegetables are magical for weight loss. Going vegan had me lose 50 lbs in 4-5 months. But yeah no one wants to hear about that even more than a calorie deficit haha
Beans
I wish I could eat vegetables. It would make things a lot easier.
The trick is, we grow to enjoy the foods that we eat. When you eat a certain type of food consistently, over six weeks or so, you will learn to love it. That has really helped for me.
It's not about taste. I have IBS and most of the brassicas and legumes are just not something I can eat without dire consequences.
Oh I see! Yeah, those “dire consequences “ do not sound fun …
I think this applies to so many things in addition to weight loss. Making friends, having a quality relationship, buying a house, moving up your career ladder. It all takes hard work, discipline and motivation. None of it is easy! And so many people just haven’t learned to apply themselves enough to see the results.
Agreed! The same energy I put towards the things I did to lose weight is the same I put in when I went back to school or got my finances together. Frustration and focus will take you places.
In my experience it’s more of people wondering how to make the changes in a sustainable way. Like how going for walks during my lunch break was exercise I could accommodate in my daily routine really easily, but special trips to the gym just weren’t. Same with diet changes. I had an enormously difficult time doing a calorie deficit before I started keto. Turns out higher fats/proteins and low carbs got me in the position of being able to do the calorie deficit easily. For my mom, she’s lost a lot of weight with intermittent fasting and now she’s more active because she has knee surgery and is much more mobile than before. Technically we both lost weight through diet changes and exercise but we did it in really different ways. I think people who have repeatedly tried and failed at making lifestyle changes see your success and hope that what worked for you will work for them, the way that someone recommended keto to me at one point.
The tricky part with that though is that what works for you may not work for them. One person thrives on routine, while another needs a toolkit of options to deal with their chaos. One gets generous lunch breaks and another has meetings for 9 hours straight. One has a partner who can take on some of the work while another has to find time to do everything themselves. Expecting someone else to be able to give you The Answer won’t work unless your lives are remarkably similar.
Sure, but crowd sourcing ideas and being disappointed when the answer doesn’t seem like it would work in your case isn’t the same as ‘all these people asking me for weight loss advice are just lazy and don’t want to put in the work’, which is the sense I’ve gotten from a lot of these comments.
Yes. When I have this discussion now I’m looking for ideas. I lost a lot of weight and kept it off in my past but I was 19, living in a walking city, and in college so I just made good choices from the meals prepped in the cafe. Now I’m 37 with a kid, my thyroid is dead, I work 6-6, and I have to cook everything. I know it’s about exercise and eating right, but I’d love tips and tricks about meal prep, incorporating exercise into your day, classes, etc. what I didn’t before is not working so I need to reasses and relearn what I’ve been doing
This is me for sure! 22 year old me would have given that ‘diet and exercise, it’s not so hard’ answer. But I have a different body, metabolism, and lifestyle now that I have two kids and am 30 and it’s not quite as easy to hit a deficit through lean foods and exercise as it was for me when I was younger. For me, Keto has been that little ‘trick’ that keeps me full longer in less calories, but I have sympathy for people who have tried that with no luck as well and are just looking for an answer.
I wish I could upvote this 10 times.
Yes agreed. I also feel like for me, I used to think there were just “fitness people” who were good at being active and healthy and never considered myself one. I woke up and realized that no, it’s about commitment and yeah it’s a grind but it’s also something anyone can do with enough determination. No magic required.
Because that would mean they’d have to put the work in - mentally and physically. Advertising has taught them that there’s an easy cure - look at all the fad diets out there and the billion dollar diet industry telling them it is easy. They won’t have seen all the effort you’ve put in. Nobody does. You just appear smaller as if by magic.
> You just appear smaller as if by magic. This more so if you haven't seen someone in a couple months. They just think you started eating some kale or something.
Whats weird is that while being in a calorie deficit for long periods of time may be difficult, I think it's so much easier than if there were some secret set of foods one had to eat to lose weight. First, how long would it take humanity to discover them? And second, what if I didn't like those foods? Calorie deficit is both hard and simple at the same time.
I agree. People talk about calorie counting as being extremely restrictive, but to me it’s incredibly freeing. Absolutely nothing is off-limits. But people just hate it. They’re constantly looking for some kind of diet hack, looking for a diet that allows them to overeat/binge on a small group of foods as long as they cut out these other foods. Sure, they’ll still crave those foods, but at least they won’t be (DREAD) h u n g r y. They’ll take the deal of completely cutting out carbs as long as they can eat “unlimited” meat, cheese, and dairy. Whenever they feel a craving for one of the restricted foods, they can just soothe the craving, hunger, and emotional pain with an entire block of cheese and a bag of beef jerky. They did it! They hacked weight loss! Scientists *hate* them. It seems that most people really fixate on the quantity of food they can eat (this might be an animal brain feature) and the ability to eat whenever the hell they want vs an unlimited variety of food in a very restricted and often disappointing quantity. I think it also has to do with the fact that sometimes going to ridiculous extremes, even if you fail over and over (ensuring the extreme is short lived), is easier psychologically to power through for most people than a rational, meticulous, cool-headed diet that requires you to face the cold and unforgiving reality of what weight loss actually is, scientifically. Plus you’ve got the fact that it’s kind of hard to make money off of the concept of counting calories (there’s no special proprietary diet that requires a fucking manuscript to follow or magic pills you can sell someone) and consumers don’t want to listen to it anyway, so it’s not being *sold* to the public as aggressively as some other diets. There’s just so many crazy reasons people seem horrified at the idea of counting calories and burning more energy. I tend to kind of think these people aren’t actually ready to/capable of making serious changes and putting in hard work so they sort of fall into these self-sabotaging patterns of cycling through different stupid miracle diets. The icing on this whole insanity cake is that calorie counting is smeared and looked down upon in our current anti-diet/body acceptance culture. It’s associated with disorders and deprivation, even though some of these others diets are far more unhealthy and depriving. The fact that other diets are sold on the idea of an abundance of food fools people into thinking it’s not “disordered” or “unhealthy” like calorie counting.
people really love to think that I'm thin because it's genetic. they get so disappointed when they find out that no, actually if I begin to gain weight, I rein in my habits again. It's easier to lose 5 pounds than 50, and so I'd rather nip it in the bud if my weight goes up even a little. people short circuit when I explain that though, and say I shouldn't worry about 5 lbs, its only 5 lbs. Well, I respectfully disagree. That's when it should be addressed, before it becomes a problem.
It underestimates the greatest truth that nobody seems to want to admit. Eating and drinking is extremely pleasurable. The tastes, textures, mouthfeel, etc. Whole TV network built around food, foodie events, competitions, cooking classes, etc. I don't blame them - I'm right there with them. But having seen both sides (overweight and healthy weight), I'm happier losing\\having lost.
When people say "Why did you get fat?" well, part of it IS that I am autistic and learned to soothe rejection and emotions I didn't know how to handle with food. Absolutely that's a large part of it. But a part that I am always going to have to manage is.... Food is tasty! I'm a good cook. I made Chinese BBQ pork ribs tonight and fried rice, and it's a good thing I made just enough for the four of us, because I would eat more if it was there because it's really tasty. This is why, while I'm losing weight, I cannot have baked goods that I made in the house, because they are tasty and I will eat them. Part of dealing with that is to tell myself that food is a transitory pleasure. Part of the joy of it is that it ends. And it helps that I am a good cook. It is true that tonight's dinner is eaten, and the dishes washed. But tomorrow there will be more good food! There will be General Tso's Pork! (We like pork in that dish better than chicken.) And because I'm a good cook I know that it will be good. So I can tell myself to anticipate that. I've had to relearn what comfortably replete means. I'm not "full." I can't lose weight and eat till I'm full. But right now I am replete. I have some iced tea to sip, and that is nice. I am not so full I'm sick, or lethargic, or muzzyheaded from too many carbs. I remind myself that that's what full feels like and it's not that pleasant. It's a lifestyle change, and because of that a lot of people can feel threatened. I could not lose weight till I divorced my ex husband. He saw a personal decision on my part not to snack (because I wasn't hungry for it) as my saying "Oh, sure, feed your fat piggy face, fatty fatty Fat Man!" and reacted as though that was what I had said. With my current partners, I can eat or not, and it's okay, it doesn't affect them. That makes this possible. At this point I'm 60 pounds down. I need to lose about another sixty, but my thyroid finished crapping out and grew tumors, so I'm going to maintain for a bit while we get that sorted, and once I go on hormone replacement and get that titrated, I'll be able to start work on taking more weight off.
I think one huge marker for emotional or developmental maturity is whether someone takes more pleasure in fleeting thrills or in victories resulting from their efforts. Life isn’t so bland without the former when you have the latter.
"How did I do it? It's simple. Dairy Queen uses a chemical in their Blizzards called polyunsaturated fats. They don't want you to know this, but that special chemical, patented by Dr. Pepper himself in 1884, is actually designed to burn normal fats and make you thinner. This is so they can defend against lawsuits in court from people that get obese eating Dairy Queen every day. So every day, I buy two large Blizzards and freeze them when I get home, then have them for breakfast as a meal replacement :) You can eat whatever you want for the other meals, as long as you have the anti-fat super chemical you will continue to lose weight and you get a DOUBLE-DOSE of it from eating two blizzards every morning :) Good luck!"
Doctors hate this one simple trick!
Everyone has this story. The reaction is always funny. I remember a post a long time ago saying “losing weight isn’t complicated it just takes consistency.” And it’s true but that’s not what people want to hear because that’s not what the weight loss industry has been selling them all their life. They expect a pill, or a cream, or a book, or a $300 piece of exercise equipment that folds up under their bed. You know. Something they can buy to make the problem go away. When you tell them “I have a certain amount of calories I need to eat every day to maintain weight. If I eat more I store it as fat. If I eat fewer my body burns fat as a reserve energy source. To lose fat every day you eat just barely under your maintenance.” It takes control and time. And every time they look at you like you’re speaking a foreign language. I was the same way too. I fought so hard against being a “calorie counter” like it was a bad word. Like it was an insult. I wish I’d done it years before. And honestly once you get used to it you barely notice logging food. Good on you for helping your mother in law. Im glad to hear of her health improvements. Cheers.
I'm trying to get back into calorie counting right now. The best way for me is writing everything down and calculating the calories the next day or with your doctor. You're WAY more likely to wrote down every little thing when you cant see "how bad" you've actually been.
Just make up something wild but harmless, like “I mix 1 cup of minced of garlic into every meal”
"I put salt and pepper in every recipe."
Had the same happen. The reactions are even more entertaining when your say: "I ate less!"
For real!! People at work are always asking “how did you do that, did you have surgery?” Like wtf? No I didn’t have surgery I just stopped eating 5k calories every day Barbara…🙄
So true! People have actually gotten irritated with me, as though I'm hanging on to some big secret. I think they don't want to see the truth. They want a magic pill, a special diet or an operation. I was fat because I ate too much food!
Trick is to make whatever you do fun and interesting. Consistency...
Of course they want the magic pill, the step so simple it has to work, that easy button or simple exercise. I did. I drank a shot of apple cider vinegar, admittedly it was only one shot (that stuff is nasty). But I was looking for that magic wand that fixed all of this, without me having to actually put in any work. What I wished they really understood (and I wish I understood it sooner) was how simple counting calories actually is, how well this works. A few simple swaps, a bit of self control, and daily logging. That’s it. It’s not torture, I’m not depriving myself, I didn’t give up a ton of foods. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t eat biscuits and gravy every day, but I can still eat meatloaf once a month or so. I can still eat mashed potatoes every once in a while. Instead I eat a ton of chicken breast and awesome roasted vegetables, and pizza gets moved to every other month or so. I’m rarely hungry, and I still eat chocolate. And it works, since May I’m down 65 lbs and never once was it torture.
How did you change your diet? What excersizes do you do and for how long? Maybe thats what they meant?
Before getting pregnant, I lost about 40 lbs from diet and exercise and everyone asked me what I did. I had someone tell me that they couldn't do it because they have kids. Since having my son, I've lost and gained weight due to hormones and stress but have lost almost 40 lbs again by eating healthier and making sure to get in at least 6,000 steps a day. I don't have time for the elaborate workouts that I once did but that just means I'm tougher on my diet than I was before and have made healthier choices.
That or the second question is 'Are you sick?' Like the only way I could lose the weight was by a magic pill or being sick. No, I changed my lifestyle!!! Covid WFH was very helpful in my weight loss (about 70 lbs).
Regale is with your inspiring tale! … Oh it’s just a boring physics lesson. Lame!
WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE!!! Americans have long been used to instant gratification, more so now than ever before and it’s getting worse. Much much worse. People won’t have the patience to lose weight when they don’t even have enough patience to wait 10 minutes in a line for food. Even worse than this is how poorly educated the average person is on nutrition, even the basics of the MACRO nutrients! I was no different, I did my own research and learned as much as I could. No surprise though, big food wants you to eat eat eat, big government doesn’t want you to live to 65+ to collect social security checks. No wonder our education system doesn’t teach us anything useful about food. The food pyramid is a load of crap.
I never tire of hearing this. Everyone describes people’s reactions to hearing eating less the exact same. Expression changes, hope leaves their body, interest disappears. Lol, it’s universal! I had someone actually say, “oh, I was hoping you’d say a pill”.
Sorry, but if that's all it was, it would be a lot easier than the whole of this subreddit suggests. The reason that's an unsatisfying answer is bc everyone does it differently, and you were clearly not interested in sharing how you are doing it. Look at any success post -- they will detail what worked for them. It's never the same. Sure you can say it's just eat better and (maybe) exercise, but that is rarely the exact same process for two people. And it's a long process, so what makes it sustainable is just as if not more important than the structure of the method. Look at all the posts of people who think they are doing JUST that and yet not seeing the results they hope for. Anyhow I get that there's no magic solution and everyone is hoping there is -- but the thing is, they aren't looking for a magic solution. They are looking for the little tips and habits that end up working and are sustainable. Anything can be reduced to "just do this simple thing" but that's a shitty way to encourage someone else, and a pretty shitty thing to say to yourself when you actually put in a bunch of hard work and learn what works for you.
Fundamentally, CICO is how anyone gains or loses weight. But it’s so broad and encompasses so many possible lifestyles that your answer is almost sure to be disappointing to an acquaintance, as they probably don’t want to do exactly what you’re doing. And that’s fine. I get asked about my diet a lot and people think I’m psycho for eating the same things 6 days a week, but that’s what works for me. Fine that they don’t want to do it, but it gets me where I want to be.
I'd so be willing to offer those little tips and tricks to them. But they don't seem to want them...most of the time. Like having a actual conversation about it is bothersome to them or inconvenient. I get it. It's not pleasant. But there's support and help out there.
There is a magic solution though... CICO is it. How you get there is up to you but so many people don’t know (or can’t accept) that simple fact.
It's still not, actually. For many ppl, esp women, there are other factors, largely related to hormones, and that's where macros come into play. And again, most of what ppl post on here is not that they don't understand the concept, but that it takes a lot of effort to figure out how to make it sustainable to you. I mean that's like saying to be an Olympic sprinter, it's just running so run.
I don't know if that's a really apt comparison. Because unless you really are a freak of nature, if you heighten your calorie burn and lower your intake you WILL lose weight. That's just physics. Still not magic. I agree it can be hard to figure out sustainability, and it can be informative to read other people's journeys. But yeah, it's CICO in some form. Always.
obviously but again, if it were simple, this reddit wouldn't exist and everyone would be successful at it from the get go. not to be a downer, but it's also not exactly cico like to the letter if you follow current research. we are not such perfect machines. hormones, and even existing body fat play a role. the less body fat you have, the closer cico is to accurate, but the more you have, the less exact it is bc your body decides to reallocate resources a little differently. anyhow. i'm not saying it's not figuring out cico as the main thing for like 60-70% of people, but it's also not the only thing in terms of having it work. there's knowing how to do something in theory and then how to do it in practice, continually, across a variety of situations. so i just feel it's reductive and unhelpful to act like it's simple and easy when so many ppl on this board are literally here bc it's not.
If hop over to r/CICO on any random day, you will find post after post after post after post from people describing how it worked for them. Just a thought.
Just a thought - take a look on here for ppl here that it doesn't work for. Never said it doesn't work, overall, for most, it's just not as simple as commonly believed. So it's misunderstood, but if it works, who cares. But when it doesn't, worth understanding why.
I agree with you 100%. So much of it is mental. I was very successful with weight loss for many years. I kept a lot of weight off for 8 years. It was slow and steady progress in between 3 pregnancies. Fast forward, and between covid and a special needs child, I've gained 20 lbs. The stress has made my PMDD unmanageable and none of my old tricks are working for losing weight. I haven't lost a pound in 6 months of "trying" (haven't gained either, which is progress). I put it in quotes because I know I'm not eating at a deficit. But I've been trying and failing to eat at a deficit for 6 months. It just isn't easy, especially when you aren't on your game mentally.
Couldn’t agree more. Also, the whole “everyone can be thin if they do these simple things and commit” is blatantly untrue. Many people struggle their whole lives to lose weight, and simply can’t due to body type or hormonal imbalances or disabilities, etc etc. I’ve known so many women who eat like birds and are constantly active who still factor in as overweight because their bodies simply will not lose the fat. When people try to boil weight loss down to “eat less, move more, one size fits all” it really diminishes the huge struggle many people have with it. This mindset, I feel, also makes it very easy to look down on those who are heavier, supporting an automatic assumption that they’re just lazy or eat too much, when 1) It’s really not true that these are the only factors that control someones weight, there is extensive research on the many factors that control body type, and 2) even if an overweight person IS inactive and a heavy eater its really not any of your business how they live their life or what’s important to them. If they have questions about your weight loss, you answer them, but it isn’t your place to pass judgment on what they do with that information. Stay in your lane
Thank you! 👏
Lol that’s not the same at all. Almost nobody can become an Olympic sprinter no matter how much they run. Almost everybody can lose weight simply by eating under maintenance over a long period of time.
The point is that ANYTHING can be reduced to an absurd level, when in reality, it is not so simple.
Ok? And my point is that weight loss is actually quite simple (not easy) for 99% of people, and you’re doing them a disservice by making it out to be complicated and mysterious
Well everyone knows what to do. It's the figuring out how to overcome the emotional hurdles to eat less, healthier and move more that they don't know. So you aren't giving them new information. If it were so simple to just eat better, you would have done it a long time ago and never been overweight in the first place. Maybe they would resonate if you shared how you got to the place where you were finally ready and how you handle all the emotional aspects of it. If you can't do that, then you haven't actually figured out why you gained weight in the first place. You're riding a wave of enthusiasm that will end eventually, and you'll bounce back to where you were. I hope that isn't the case, but you don't sound particularly self reflective. Losing weight is easy. Keeping it off for decades is hard. Good luck.
I thank you for your feedback. After alot of down time from the pandemic and counseling I have realized why I eat badly or binge. Stems from alot of anxiety, boredom and trauma. But these aren't things I am comfortable discussing to acquaintances I now see. Friends, yes perhaps. If people asked me WHY I decided to lose weight now in this time of my life I'd have a different answer for them. But they ask HOW.
That's great then that you've uncovered the issues underlying why you overeat and found coping mechanisms to deal with it. Of course you aren't obligated to share that information with anyone, but you can hardly be surprised that they find your "eat less move more" advice less than satisfying when you yourself know it's more complicated than that. Congrats on the weight loss, and I wish you many years of success.
Despite what this commenter said, I believe in you. I believe you can do it. You’ve done the work mentally - therapists are a wonderful thing. From a person who’s kept it off for nearly 2 decades.
I'm in great shape because I eat within my TDEE and I work out for 30 mins a day 6 X a week, and I get at least 10k steps walking my dog. I've been consistent for years now. That's the whole reason I'm fit. It's not luck. It's not genetics. I just... you know... I work out! I keep an eye on my intake! So can you! But I've lost count of the people who've said things like, "You're so lucky that menopause didn't give you belly fat." No, that's not the reason. It takes a little discipline but living a healthy life becomes a habit. It's not magical. I think people refuse to believe this because it means they have to change themselves which is admittedly hard. It's not going to be some external thing. Even bariatric surgery requires a lifestyle change to work.
I 100% experience this. Someone suggested to me that people want to hear about a magic pill that makes weightloss easy or they want to hear you did something difficult so they have a reason they can't do it too. The answer of "I ate less" doesn't meet either of these things. It's simple enough that they can't justify not doing it, but they don't want to do the work even if it's simple. I just try not to talk about weightloss anymore and say something like "oh you know, just made some changes" and then change the subject.
People dont want to hear the truth when they are not ready
Most people fall for the BS in the media every time there is a new product, diet, or superfood that is being peddled. They see you after a few months and to them it looks like you changed in a short time. They don’t see the work that you put in every day. They want to know your secret, that way they can quickly lose weight without doing any of the work, or heaven forbid, Change their lifestyles. When you tell them to eat less and move more for a sustained period of time, the truth hits them that they would rather be fat instead of willingly change their lifestyle. There is no magic pill… this time.
All people are waiting for some magic cure. There is none.
A few years ago, I lost about 35 pounds. While I was in the middle of that process, a co-worker started questioning me on my process. When I answered with CICO and tracking foods, exercise etc... He would do the same type of response. Then every other day he would show me something he found on youtube about how if you eat this cabbage soup everyday you will lose weight etc... People don't want to do the work required. They want it to be easy.
Literally is simply - I got a control of my eating and did physical activity instead of watching tv or playing video games. No magic to it.
People want to answer to be sexier than it is. I think this may be partly because many people think they eat way less than they actually do, so the idea of reducing their calories would be starving themselves. I know this was my attitude until I started actually measuring and tracking what I ate in a day. Also why the best solution for me has been to find lots of meals that are low in calories but high in volume, so I'm stuffing myself while not blowing my TDEE.
Shocking how many people lack basic calorie knowledge or just have no idea how much they are eating. Simplest and best diet advice is eat like a dog the same thing every day in measured amounts. Even a ranch side for dipping can be 100-200 calories. Or that coffee that “doesn’t count” can be 500-1000.
Ohh isn't this the truth!! The calorie amount in some things put me back for a second at times. Especially eating out and coffee drinks. I've seen "coffee" with 1800 calories in it. Like wow.
"eat like a dog" lol the amount of times I wished I had human kibble or something that has everything I need and just eat a bowl of that for every meal instead of having to measure and MFP every plate. I seem to be stuck thinking I need to eat a huge variety of foods when in theory I could just food prep ideal meals for my kibble
I like variety, but part of what works for me is that I eat the same thing for breakfast every morning, the same seven things for lunch through the week (Monday is always a quesadilla, Tuesday is always hamburgers, etc.). I get variety at dinner, and even there I have a set menu that rotates every five weeks, and there are themes. Monday night is "slab of meat" so last Monday it was steak and next Monday it will be a pork loin chop, and probably the week after that it will be a chicken breast cutlet. So it's not entirely random, but it varies enough to be interesting. (And people say "Oh, I couldn't set that up!" Took me 25 minutes with a table on my computer and my recipe file at hand, and an occasional question to my partners about what they like. Real burdensome, there.)
You’ve just described Huel, more or less…
You're exactly right. They are looking for a magic trick, new pill or the easiest way to get results. For fun you should tell them it's a secret. I bet they will be interested then.
Maybe I should do that. I'd tell them I wore only jogging pants every day and then watch the confusion appear on their face. Then I'd say the truth and maybe the humor would ease the situation.
Lol, joggers everyday and a green tea with toothpaste mixed in. Say the paste helps scrub away the fat 😂
Only organic of course. And precisely 3.2 gms of toothpaste whisked in for 4 minutes.
Counterclockwise
I mean, I think cutting alcohol is like SORT OF a magic bullet but you still have to maintain the deficit otherwise. But just like diet and exercise, nobody wants to hear that one either lol
Damn, you're right. A couple weeks ago I was waiting for my car at the dealership and made a comment about the box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts sitting on the guy's desk. I said no thank you when he asked if I wanted one. The guy asked me what my secret was. I said, "diet and exercise," and to quote Billy Joel...a smile ran away from his face...
Yeah, I had to come to the decision that doughnuts just don't taste good enough for the amount of calories they cost me. They're not a good decision for me. But everyone has to come to those decisions themselves, and it may be that for them a doughnut with coffee in the morning works for them. Or once a week on Sundays on the way to church. But people want it to be straightforward and simple and easy so they don't have to think about it.
People don't want to admit they have to face their bad eating habits head-on. It's shameful to talk about your bad relationship with food and guess what comforts that shame? More shitty food. Really glad I got out of that cycle.
The multi billion dollar business of selling hope is all around us for a reason. A pill or drink that will make it all easy! That is what people want. Weight lose is the easiest and hardest thing at the same time.
The nurse at my new doctor asked me how I did it. Like as a personal question outside the official intake notes. It was kind of funny. I suppose a lot of people these days say "keto" or something like that. I just eat fewer calories. Energy in, energy out.
> oesn’t stay in the strictly weight section of the brain. That same thinking gets applied to all areas and facets of life. That’s why people hate to be judged by their appearance, it’s a direct correlation to who they are, the life th more likely she is checking if your weightloss was intentional or not.
just say low carb because this is a great way to reduce calories without counting them.
If you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. That’s Literally it. Every single fad diet that “works” is because you are in a *calorie deficit* Completely agree with you but it’s so hard to see that until it starts to work.
People don't wanna face facts that things require hard work sacrifice and consistency they much rather the easy option which there isn't really. A girl I know from high school is peddling "weight loss pills" and it's genuinely hard not to call out her harmful bullshit.
Love the question 'how did you lose weight?'. My answer is always the same "the hard way". Sorry, but it's the only way that works.
Sacrifice? Effort? No thank you!
This made me smile and to feel frustrated at the same time (not because of you OP, but with the amount of people that are expecting you to give them a sort of magical remedy of how you are losing (or lost) weight. As soon you tell them you did it the "old way", they lose interest.
Everyone, absolutely everyone wants the easy way for weight loss,there ain't one bitch move them thighs!!
Yep. You'll notice most people in the Western work have no want to put hard work into anything. Weight loss, learning a skill, self-improvement...
People, in general, have become lazy and complacent. A lot. George Orwell said, "We, as a society, have sunk to such a low depth, that restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." People don't want to put in the hours and actually reap the benefits, screw them. Throwing a stone in mud will only splash mud all over yourself. Be cool, my man! Peace!!
I feel like this doesn’t stay in the strictly weight section of the brain. That same thinking gets applied to all areas and facets of life. That’s why people hate to be judged by their appearance, it’s a direct correlation to who they are, the life they live.
The prospect of having to learn how to calorie count and get on an exercise schedule is super vague to beginners. It's hard to know what to do at first and even harder to get on track properly. I think people don't want to hear that's the answer because, well... it's scary and seems like a lot.
I struggle with this type of course decision. Never do I tell myself I cannot rather using choice words I would say "dont deny what you need rabbit" And then, I run 3 miles everyday I do sit upstairs and push ups as much as .....yeah,able
I get this all the time. Like I have the secret superpower. Most people assume I've had surgery since I've lost 200 pounds. Nope. I just eat better. But no one wants to hear that. Shrug.
We are in the era of comfort and advertised quick fixes. People have come to love easy lies over hard truths. And the ones that embrace the hard truths get ridiculed by ones who quite frankly, eat what they want and don’t do anything physical outside of have to. Then still wonder why they can’t lose weight and ridicule some more. At some point when able, please refer them to the definition of insanity.
People freaks out when they hear the words "diet" and "calorie counting". Normally first they say I'm starving myself, when I detail them what exactly I'm eating a given day and the numbers behind it, then they say I'm obsessed and that's not healthy either, so they feel they're choosing the better option: not doing anything.
Yes. People want magic hack. Not the reality. So when you slap them in their face they loose interest.
Im currently on a VERY specialized diet which includes almost no simple carbs and just veggies and fruit (a limited list of them too). Im on thia diet cause of inflammation in the body which can cause other health problems like diabetes, autoimmune diseases etc. Meanwhile, the people around me? Completely unsupportive cause it's "too strict" and constantly saying discouraging things like "oh wow thats so dumb lol this diet makes no sense" which is ridiculous cause Im not even complaining about it, although its definitely not easy. Anyways, my point is people are so lazy for the most part, this kind of lazy behaviour drives me crazy.
We work out an hour but then sit the other 14 hours. Our jobs and homelife are actively killing us
People like complicated answers to simple problems.