To think that people pretend not to understand obesity

But who has said anything about hating people? I get that weight is a sensitive topic but people saying that most overweight people eat too much for their bodies doesnt mean they hate you or think you are stupid. The 'bile' is coming from you alone. It's pretty sad to see.

It's warped when you think about it though, isn't it?
The food industry is doing everything it can to make the population get fat.
And then the pharmaceutical industry is charging people a fortune to pay for injections to get rid of the build up of fat.

I feel like, as an obese person at 3 stone above a healthy BMI who DOES NOT OVEREAT NOR EAT UPF, I am subjected to prejudice on a daily basis.
I spend my life eating wholegrains, fish, poultry, whole foods, vegetables. I cook every meal from scratch with fresh ingredients. I drink only water and tea. I never eat takeaways, fast food, sugary drinks, chocolate, biscuits, cakes, deserts.
But people assume I'm eating McDonald's, cakes, biscuits, Chinese takeaways, fizzy drinks, confectionery, and that all I need to do is cut it all out and I'd magically lose the weight.
But what does one do when one already eats a low calorie healthy wholefood diet yet remains obese?

THIS! No doubt this viceless paragon of virtue epitomises physical perfection themselves.

Quite. Rather than being so 'polite' why don't some posters just save the time and say I hate fat people, they are all lazy, stupid fucks. At least own your bile!

I believe that given the way the food industry works and the stresses and screens of our lives now, obese will become ever more the default, and not being obese will take special effort, plenty of money and time, those who achieve it will go round feeling superior. Which is so f'd up!! I would like to see some kind of right to healthy weight as part of children's rights, at least in some way to put more pressure on the food manufacturers. When you look at street scenes of the past, nearly everyone was fairly slim, simply because there wasn't all this shit food around, they would maybe all be having a small piece of cake every day and sugar in their tea, but it wouldn't be some calorie hiked additive filled billionaire shortbread salted caramel muffin coffee or whatever. And they wouldn't be snacking because ready to eat snacks were not really available or part of the culture except at fairs or whatever. We can't go back, so we need to find better ways. If the weight loss drugs work, that's a fantastic help to people.

Yes I've had my thyroid checked. Normal.
I've had all my bloods checked. All normal.

In February we, as a family, went away for 5 days. Stayed in a Premier Inn.
DH and DC made full use of the all you can eat breakfast buffet that Premier Inn is famous for. DH piled his plate with sausages, bacon, hash browns, eggs, beans, toast, black pudding, wolfed it down, then he went back up for seconds! Followed by yogurt, fruit and pastries, washed down with hot chocolate and glasses of fruit juice. Every. Single. Morning. For 5 mornings straight. He ate scones with clotted cream at cafes mid morning. He ate baguettes rammed with mayo and cheese at lunch. Then we'd go for a walk through the countryside and he'd declare himself ravenous by dinner time and polished off the biggest meal he could find on the pub menu every single evening, ate side orders of bowls of chips and garlic bread and bowls of deep fried onion rings, enjoyed every pub dinner with a couple of pints of beer, then topped it all off with sticky toffee sponge and custard, and jam rolypoly and custard, and tiramasu, and cheesecake with cream.
He was eating up all the kids leftovers. Oh and I forgot to mention the bags of crisps and peanuts ordered at the bar to eat whilst waiting for his meal to be served. He was also eating random bakewell tarts, chocolate muffins, millionaires slices every time we passed a bakery throughout our 5 days away.
He is literally an eating machine. He does not stop eating. He is 5 ft 7" tall. His BMI is 21. He does not do a manual job, he is desk based. He does not exercise. He returned from our 5 day trip the exact same size as he was when he left.
Now then.
I am also 5ft 7". My job is more physically energetic than his is and I exercise regularly. And if I ate in 5 days what he ate in those 5 days, I would have ballooned. No joke, I would have gained pounds in weight.
Here's what I ate during the same 5 days:
Breakfast - nothing. Not one Premier Inn breakfast. Nadal.
Lunch - nothing.
Cafes - cup of tea only. No food. No cakes. No scones. Nothing.
Bakery stops - nothing for me.
Pub dinner - the lowest calorie meal I could find on the menu. Think salmon with new potatoes and veg. No side orders. No dessert. No alcohol. No sugar drinks. Pub drinks for me were soda water.
I literally ate 1 meal a day for the whole 5 days. And I walked for miles every single day, many more miles than I usually do.
And I also returned home the same size and weight as I was when I left.
I'm convinced, absolutely convinced, that I've got some sort of genuine metabolic abnormality. I just have no clue what it is. There has, has, HAS to be something much more complicated going on with obesity than what we currently understand. There honestly has to be. I'm a screaming example of how some people are obese despite being active and eating less calories than they are expending and the calories I do eat are healthy ones and there is literally NOTHING I can do to lose weight.
I'm trapped inside a body that's 3 stone heavier than it should be yet it's nothing to do with what I'm eating.

Well, thank god you're polite and only remind us that,

1. We're not telling the truth
2. We're eating more than we think
3. We've overloaded our insulin systems
4. We're making excuses
5. We eat crap
6. We have no idea why we're fat
7. We're lying about it being hormones

You're practically a diplomatic embassador in your levels of politeness. I'd imagine you could apply for a job with the Trump administration.

the science behind low carb is broadly understood

it’s a mixture of effects

the first is the insulin thing - when your insulin system is broken your body can’t handle carbs properly

and the second effect is essentially the Atkins diet effect - restrict food diversity and eat more harder to digest food like meat. when monitored carefully - this was decades ago - all those people were found to be eating significantly fewer calories even though they claimed to be eating what they liked to complete fullness and they claimed to be eating way more - they were not , they just thought it

food diveristy o always find interesting- especially given the rise of the “picky bits” meals - how to make it easy for your body to take in more than it needs - something to do with diversity of food implies diversity of vitamins and minerals which your body sees ( correctly) as a good thing and uses the opportunity to load up on what could be a great diverse mix of rare nutrients - even if there are no nutrients in the food as it takes a while for your body to digest and process . You can’t manage another potato but a bit of cake ….

I think it’s because with smoking, gambling, alcohol you have to go cold turkey and never touch it again. You still need to eat food so it’s harder to manage. You can eliminate snacking, have nothing unhealthy in your fridge but controlling the portion size or ordering something reasonably in the restaurant is much more difficult for me.

@wherearemypastnames if I’m honest I really don’t care if you believe me or not

You can’t see what I eat now or ate then but I wasn’t eating junk or lots of it as I explained upthread and cba to again. I’m consuming more calories but from different sources and I’m losing weight.

People didn’t understand low carb diets either. More specifically the science behind them. They just bang on about calories in vs calories out as if we’re all bomb calorimeters. 🥱

It's alright.
I'm probably being over sensitive.
I've had a lifetime of being judged.
I'm sorry if I offended you too.

Unless you carefully weighed and measured everything before and after I don’t think you are telling the truth saying you are eating more and losing weight - it would be very unusual and there are far too many people claiming to be special when it comes to their weight problems

i do agree that once you have screwed up your insulin system by overloading it everything gets a lot more complex

but the excuses on here “it’s more complex” do nothing to explain why the people who eat more and eat more crap are heavier than those who dont

i see a lot of overweight people with “no idea” why they are that big and claiming its hormones and complexity - but politeness prevents me from spelling it out that I can see what they eat

@eggnog7 appetite suppression is almost a side effect. It works in several ways. It increases insulin production, reduces the amount of glucose produced by the liver and slows gut transit to allow you to feel fuller for longer.

You do eat less overall but in my case not much less and I’m having more calories on Mounjaro than before. They are just coming from better sources. And before anyone jumps on that comment to say I must have been eating UPF or sugary stuff before - I wasn’t. I’ve just cut out the stupid pointless carbs in rice, potatoes etc and increased protein.

calories in vs calories out is very simplistic and doesn’t really take into account the complexity of humans as an organism. Works for a lot of people a lot of the time but it also prevents others, including health care professionals, looking further for other reasons for failure to lose. Hence treating the overweight and obese as lazy fatties which in a lot of cases couldn’t be further from the truth. There are some wonderful examples from people on this thread

It is genuinely as simple as calories in Vs calories out BUT for some people their hormones (insulin, ghrelin, leptin etc) causes their body to demand extra calories in and also fail to utilise calories effectively. Drugs like MJ and ozempic help the body to regulate those hormones so you don't constantly feel the need to put calories in but it also supports the bodies ability to optimally utilise those calories.

So whilst yes, calories in/ calories out is correct, the effort taken to output 1 calorie can vary massively depending on hormones.

@Mezzoprezzo I absolutely agree. Obesity is so, so complex and everyone has an opinion on it. I've been on MJ for a little over a month and I'm a very slow loser so far. But I've not thrown in the towel.

I've been overweight/obese since childhood and this is very first time in my life that I feel completely in control of my body. Previous attempts at dieting always ended with either feeling like I'm a failure or lack willpower, but MJ has somehow quieted those negative voices for the first time in my life. And along with that has allowed me to tune out all the naysayers out there because God knows there's a lot of critics out there.

Best of luck to you!

No. Because it was a drug designed for diabetics, it has some sort of effect on insulin (I can't pretend to understand the science). So for those who aren't actually diabetic, BUT have insulin resistance, it makes weight loss a lot easier.

Genuine question. I said it's calories in vs calories out, and people told me I was wrong. I do not understand MJ all that well but isn't it basically just an appetite suppressant, which makes you eat less, therefore you lose weight? In which case, it really is calories in vs calories out. And if you need a drug to "make" you eat less, then great. If there is other science at play, I am open and keen to hear!

Do you think the weight lost on your diet won't be regained when you stop dieting?

Since 1959, research has shown that 95 to 98 percent of attempts to lose weight fail and that two thirds of dieters gain back more than they lost.

Speaking as a person for whom fasting 3 days a week (when cutting down to 1000 calories a day didn't work - with medical supervision) only to find that I still couldn't lose weight, absolutely for some people eating less doesn't lead to weight loss.

Insulin resistance.

I really don’t understand the I find it hard but I do it so everyone else should too attitude, like has been said so many times here it’s not a level playing field. Even if it was why does someone failing where another person succeeds mean their fair game for judgement, people fail at all kinds of things surely the decent response is to give sympathy and encouragement not sneer at them for not doing as well as you are.
I'm currently obese and barely leave the house as I struggle with how I imagine people judge me, I fully perceive myself as a fat greedy monster who has no willpower and absolutely despise myself for it.
I was an over weight child with a mother who would constantly berate me for being a fat greedy pig whilst simultaneously feeding me heaping plates of stodge. Treats were heavily restricted which she claimed was good parenting but looking back they were used as a weapon, do what she wanted and you’d be allowed a bag crisps, if she was in a bad mood I was told I disgusting and greedy for even asking. Lunch wasn’t a thing in our home outside of school and you were just being greedy if you were hungry outside dinner and breakfast. She started weighing and measuring me when I was around ten so we could lose weight together as of course she was also overweight herself. Of course she kept serving up huge plates of stodge so I was never going to get smaller despite being very active but of course I was told it was down to me having two yogurts and a couple of boiled sweets in a week…

As an adult my attitude to food is beyond messed up, I'm 40 now and still stuck in the same cycle of binging and starving myself as I have been since childhood. I know ultimately I’m responsible for myself and my bad choices but not everyone is given to tools to make good choices early on, and it’s so hard to overcome deeply engrained decades long habits. I sometimes think being fat is a special kind of hell because you can’t hide your failings, you can’t spot a person who lacks the willpower to not over spend on the street, most people are probably weak when it comes to something but few things make it as obvious as being fat and people seem to think that entitles them to judge.

Have you had your thyroid checked?

@Van34 we have very similar stories although I used to maintain my weight fairly well on low carb in the past and I have IBS-C rather than D.

I was put on a very restrictive diet by my consultant to manage my IBS. Gluten free, Low fat, low sugar, low calorie by default. I’ve stuck to it religiously for nearly a decade. I exercise, I don’t eat UPF or any sort of treat. I’m not allowed fruit and the only times I’ve veered off track involved some grapes and a mango. It’s been hard work and miserable and quite often I just cba to eat as it’s the same old stuff day in and day out.

I too should be thin as a rake but I’ve gained 2.5 stone. On between 1000 and 1200 calories a day. Not obese in terms of BMI but body fat scores through the roof. Eat less, move more 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I’m on Mounjaro now and I’m half way to losing that 2.5 stone. I too have seen profound improvements in my health. The IBS having gone being the biggest one. As soon as I’ve lost the weight the low cal, low fat approach put on me I’ll titrate down and stay on it long term.

In case anyone is interested I’m eating more calories every day but losing weight. I think that proves an underlying condition as well

Not everything is about eat less move more. Smaller portions. Bad choices. I have spent years battling my weight. Living off next to nothing. Exercising until exhaustion. Couldn't shift a pound. And on top of that having IBS-D, which at times was debilitating and made me incredibly poorly, in theory I should have been thin. I was diagnosed with PCOS with insulin resistance a couple of years ago and again told "just lose weight and it will get better". Again, tried many diets, calorie counting, SW, low carb, low fat, zero sugar. Mounjaro has almost reset my body. I feel so much better in so many ways and it has had a profound impact on my hormones. The IBS is all but gone, I no longer feel waves of fatigue, I'm not constantly hungry, my skin is better, my hair is better and I am generally much healthier because of it.

If that's not proof of an underlying condition causing the obesity I don't know what is. Some people are naturally hormonally balanced, other people like me clearly need a bit of help. But that's no different to my blood pressure being fine but my husband needing pills to lower his...?

I really don't see another way that 'people who are obese obviously don’t try hard enough' can be read.

My post was SOLELY aimed at the posters who had said they were addicted to eating sugary foods, snacks and processed foods (as those types of food are made to be addictive) and how they’d have no problem eating through a whole packet of biscuits for example. It was not a judgemental post, it was just a question posted to people who had been talking about their addictive behaviours.

My post was certainly not meant as being a judgemental statement, or opinion, about anyone who is obese but I’m sorry for causing you offence.