to think that losing weight isn't as complicated as it's made out to be?

[upsylazy]

NB I am not saying that losing weight is EASY as i have learned from personal experience. But there do seem to be this plethora of methods, books, videos, personal plans out there about it. Through my lifetime, I've had to listen to people drone on endlessly abouy the grapefruit diet, the F plan diet, the Cambridge diet, diets where you can't mix food groups right up to Atkins and all the low carb stuff.
My understanding from biology at school is that food contains units of energy (calories) and I seem to remember this being demonstrated by burning a peanut and seeing how much it raised the temperature of a test tube of water.
The understanding I have is that if you consume more calories than you burn off, you'll put on weight and vice versa. I've never found that idea particularly complex. I don't doubt that a lot of these diets work but they can only work if you burn up more calories than you consume.
Also, can someone please please tell me why carbs have suddenly become so bad for you? I can understand that saturated fat is bad as it clogs up your arteries and that too much salt is bad as it can raise blood pressure and reduce bone density but what do carbs DO to you that make them so terible?
I'm sitting in an office with that food pyramid thingy on the wall which basically says that carbs are good and that your diet should contain more of them than meat or dairy products. So are they wrong about this?
I don't have a problem with things like weight watchers as I can see that group suport can be invaluable. It's just all the new books and plans and programmes which various people (none of whom seem to be dieticians) are obviously making a packet from. I am perfectly prepared to stand corrected BTW.

Yep....I eat because I am thinking 'fuck it, I will start my diet tomorrow so will binge and enjoy today"....along those lines.

However, this seems to have stopped now so fingers crossed I don't go back to it. I was a typical yo yo dieter but hopefully have those issues under control. I know exactly what to do as I am sure we all do, the hard bit is enforcing it.....

I have also struggled in the past with a vague sense of "calorie target hit stop eating".

But when I was pregnant the message used to arrive with the force of a juggernaut! I occasionally had to spit out food in my mouth because my brain had switched to "no more calories needed".

Of course the target was still in the wrong place....so actually all things considered I think I am better off with the vague message which it is easier to ignore the absence of.

betty okay so that probably explains why we were at cross purposes. I would put on weight even if I never ate past full. I think a lot of people must be in the same position as me, even if a lot of people are in the same position as you also.

I have to stick to low cal not to put weight on. I try not to have more than 1200 cals a day (I do heaps of exerise too) and I know that the average woman should have 2000. If I had 2000 I would put weight on for sure. It's bloody frustrating that's for sure and it is something I will have to work on for ever!

Worra and the rest of you: what does it matter? Why would it make you feel so good if it was clear (which it isn't) that most fat people are greedy? Why is this so important to argue? What's your stake in this?

Where did I say it would make me feel good or that it's so important to argue?

I wrote my first post on this thread due to someone saying they didn't believe in food addiction.

It's not more or less important to me than any other discussion on this forum today.

Why, what's your 'stake' in this while we're asking weird questions?

My stake in all this is to defend myself from moral judgements.

"Greedy" is a moral judgement (it may even been one of the big 7).

Being overweight is not something that you should be judged on from a moral stand point, as many many people who are fat are behaving no differently from those who have had a "lucky" genetic break.

("lucky" in the current economic and cheap food based society...come the great financial crashes of 2015, those of us who can do serious exercise on minimal calories - possibly derived from cockroaches - will inherit the earth)

My pcos makes it v hard - I think hormones have a lot to do with it - eg pcos, thyroid problems where it becomes not the same simple calculation you describe.

Then there is the psychology - the fact the brain rewards you with happy chemicals foe eating fat etc.

Then there's the excercise bit........

ICBINEG I'm not sure how or why this thread became mostly about you, but I was answering curry. I thought that was clear because I quoted her post.

You said way back that you have a problem with the word 'greedy'.

I explained what I meant by greedy people when I mentioned the threads on MN/FB etc from people who were eating a very excessive amount of food because it was Christmas.

I'm not sure why I'm explaining this to you again, or why you're taking this thread so personally.

Worra, I think it is clear from my (over-long) post above what my stake is. In case it is not: I have suffered physically, emotionally, mentally, financially and in my career from my very serious, utterly committed and hopelessly misguided attempts to follow "healthy eating" advice of the "common sense" sort. It hurt me a lot. I am annoyed that self-righteous people think they know all about what makes other people fat and assume that they just aren't trying hard enough to stay away from the doughnuts. I would like there to be better understanding of this, partly so I get less hurt and offended by people spouting crap, and partly because if someone in the position that I was in learns something that I learnt painfully, it might help, or if not, well let's just suspend the pointless stupid badly informed judging and not hurt them.

So because you've suffered curry, that makes everyone else who hasn't suffered and who has a different point of view 'self righteous'?

I'm sorry but YABVU if you think anyone else who doesn't see things your way is 'self righteous'.

Well I am 4 stone overweight because I ate too much of the wrong food, and for the past two years I have been in denial. I do not have an issue with food I know that my self control was rubbish I was greedy and as a result I am a fatty.

I know that I need to eat less and move more. I can talk the talk and I am trying at the moment to walk the walk.

It is small changes that I am making, and at the same time if I am hungry I will have an apple instead of a biscuit. I am making changes and choices everyday. I realise that it took years for me to gain the weight so I am not going to lose it overnight.

There is no doubt that a small minority of overweight people are overweight because of medical reasons. However a huge majority will be overweight because they eat too much of the wrong food and do not exercise but I am not allowed to say that am I

To those doubting food addiction

When you feel fat in your mouth the brain releases chemicals that make you happy - as this brain developed when we were stoneage folk and fat carries more calories per gram so is a good fat store.

I would imagine this is similar to gamblers getting a good and excited feeling from gambling.

they are called endorphins.....exercise gives the same chemical off too.

Worra, because I have suffered I know such suffering exists; and therefore I know people who say that it does not, to be speaking untruths. I know this. This is not a difference of opinion.

This is not like "people with brown eyes shouldn't wear brown".

This is as if I had a child with brown eyes and some dickhead said "you can't have a child with brown eyes if your own eyes are green." That person would be talking rubbish: and you could go into the science, or you could show them your child and say, "look at his eyes", or you could make no effort to persuade people who refuse to listen. But if you have seen it, you know it is true and you KNOW MORE THAN PEOPLE WHO INSIST THAT IT IS NOT TRUE. Our opinions are not equal. I know what I am talking about; you don't.

Given the amount of misery that this issue causes, yes I have a vested interest in pointing it out when people are talking crap about it.

what is your vested interest? in your casually spouted and erroneous and hurtful and harmful opinion?

By the way I do not believe anyone who says that their vested interest in "common sense" about weight loss ("all fat people are greedy and should just eat low fat") is to promote health. They may believe this but it isn't going to work. they have just unthinkingly adopted mainstream attitudes driven by the profit motive. Here are a selection of reasons why I think people think this:

It is simple, and sounds like it should be true, and people like things that sound simple

It stops them having to feel sorry for fat people, which is inconvenient and painful

It allows them to feel good about themselves, if they are not fat. This replaces the old-school hit that people used to get out of looking down on the sexually lax or those who didn't scrub their steps, in the olden days

It is being sold to us all the time by a series of CONSUME CONSUME CONSUME (LOW FAT STUFF) messages that are being played to us all the time, and it has become ingrained into their psyches

Oh sorry I forgot the main thing: fat-shaming makes people fatter, not thinner, so if you honestly believe that some "straight talking" is going to "help" people, it won't

It's as simple as only eating when you are hungry. I've lost 10 stone.

"People who still think it's as easy as eat less, move more - need to educate themselves."

I must be really uneducated then, despite my science degree. Because I've never been fat, but I do put on a bit of weight if I eat too much and stop going for walks. When I put down the chocolate and do more walking, suddenly the waistbands aren't tight again. Wow. How does that work?

Clearly I am imagining it. Never dieted, never counted calories, never been fat. Love my food but don't have issues about it, don't feel guilty about eating...oh dear, I am so stupid according to this person.

It IS that easy. Except it involves effort, and people don't like effort so they seek quick fixes.

notsofrownieface - you and me both. Good on you.

the bares bones of it is not complicated
you eat less and move more and you will lose weight. This then has to be carried on for maintained weightloss and then weight maintenance

the complex nature of emotional eating/immobility and disability/and all sorts of other shit is complicated though and people who think it's because people need to make more of an effort well, need more than a science degree to comment

what is your vested interest? in your casually spouted and erroneous and hurtful and harmful opinion?

You really do need help Curry

It's one thing having your own issues but it's quite another to randomly insult people who don't share those issues.

What have I said that's hurtful?

Was it the bit where I said that lots of people on FB and MN were posting and laughing about eating an obscene amount of food over Christmas and I think that's greedy?

Are you on my Facebook or did you start a thread joking about the amount of mince pies/cakes/biscuits/cheese/meat etc that you were eating?

Or do you just have a vested interest in hurling random insults around?

So... my current plan is to eat less pasta, less bread, less rice, less crisps, less chocolate, less biscuits and less potatoes.

This means I'm mainly eating meat, fruit and veg. And a bit of milk/cheese.

Is this going to cause me to weigh less?

I get dizzy if I don't eat only carbs for breakfast and lunch so upping my protein intake seemed like a good plan. I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to up the calories from protein without reducing the calories from another food group.

Jolly - you could have a slow releasing carb such as porridge for breakfast - would keep you full for a good long while......you don't have to give up carbs altogether but just try and stick to brown, such as wholemeal pasta, brown bread etc. Saying that, I do find my weight loss speeds up if I cut them out but like I keep saying, everyone is different.

Cutting out wheat and sugar has made a huge difference to me. Both are rubbish anyway.

CURRYEATER speaks a lot of sense, her experience mirrors mine and I think she's getting a hard time for saying recent healthy eating guidlines are making a lot of people sick, and fat. People have got sicker and fatter these past few decades as the lowfat message took hold - about a third of the population is clinically obese now, and rising with even more people overweight, I think this shows a significant % of the population can't cope with a diet low in fat and high in carbs without really fucking up their health, but yet they are being blamed for getting fatter and fatter and that the cure for this is to eat even less fat, and more carbs.

THIS is what humans should be eating, it is based on what we evolved to eat.

www.scienceofhealthindex.com/pyramid.html

Eat like this and you WILL lose weight but more importantly you will gain health.