To wonder why people can't lose weight?

[Wishiwasholsk]

Medical conditions aside.

We moan about being fat but it's never enough to really change.

I'm 5 stone overweight and already the NYE goal is gone.

The thing is Jaygee61 that nobody needs crisps, cakes, biscuits etc. They are completely superfluous. If we have a decent breakfast , lunch and dinner we do not NEED the crap. But it's everywhere and sold to us as normal. It's not. It's extra! And generally now it's literally crap. Made with transfats and crap chemical sugars designed to make us want more. It's addictive.

I'm not getting at you btw. We are all the same. We move less generally as out lifestyles are generally more sedentary due to time saving appliances and cars etc etc.

We move less and we eat more crap. And a lot of us drink everyday. A glass of wine has the same amount of calories as a jam doughnut! I can have four of those and call it a reasonable evening!

And then we want magic. We want to go on n a diet and lose it all real fast. So we starve. And lose a bit. But then our bodies go 'hell no! We want food! We are starving!' So we binge. Etc etc etc.

I've decided to just eat three meals a day. Lots of veg. Protein. Water. Nothing banned per se but no crap. Whole grains. What I call no 'crap' carbs. And no alcohol Monday to Thursday. A walk every day. An aim of a loss of a pound a week.

But th focus is not weight loss. It's making sure each meal is balanced and healthy. And no crap.

The processed foods and constant exposure to sweets and biscuits and total crap is a major issue. And we all feel we need t. We deserve it. But we don't! It's totally unnecessary.

But I don’t eat crap. I eat healthily. We cook our meals from scratch, I take my own lunch to work every day. I lost nearly 2st on WW four years ago and put it back on and probably made my underactive thyroid worse in the process.

10things Whilst putting the Christmas decorations away , I found a box containing a set of china from the 50's I forgot I had , it is a serving bowl and six individual bowls . I remember buying it and remarking to the woman in the shop how tiny the bowls seemed and she said they were all like that in her childhood , pudding being a rare treat and something you only got a little of .

Hmm, why can't I lose weight? Where to start:

1. 20 years of binge/purge eating has completely fucked up my metabolism.
2. 20 years of exercising intensely for 3 hours a day has left me with 2 herniated discs, making a 30 minute walk excruciatingly painful.
3. 20 years of hating myself and thinking that my body & figure where my only value has left me sick of that shit.
4. Wanting to teach my DD & DS that how they look is not the most important thing.

I could probably go on. I know how to lose weight, in fact I find it very easy, I simply stop eating. However, the problem is that that isn't a long term solution, and eventually I will binge.

My focus now is on being mentally healthy, social, happy, etc. It's not an easy process, but I'm starting to find now that I'm happier and feel healthier at a stone overweight, than I ever did in the middle of a healthy BMI.

Thanks for the advice Talkinpeace but I don't want to! I like booze, I like chocolate. If I die a bit younger, so what? Rather than than end up in a nursing home.

Zolabudder, really?

Two of my friends in their 40s (with your attitude) just had strokes it is not what I would choose at all, ever

My BIL whose 50 also just had a mojor stroke. It was caused by his type two diabetes which is caused by his overeating of crap food. He’s got 2 young dds and they and his wife have been put through absolute hell. He’s still in hospital after 5 months.

Its getting more and more common for relatively young people to have major illnesses caused by poor diet. The British public need to take responsibilty for themselves and the govt need to encourage and help by making laws to support healthy eating, education etc. Bring back Home economics.

The NHS is in dire straights, it will callapse unless people take some responsibility and try to stay healthy.

And how many people in the 40's who are a bit overweight haven't had strokes? Any stats? Oh and whilst you are at it, people who are not overweight (but who perhaps smoke) having strokes?

Two friends is not really an in depth study on the subject is it.

My risk of a stroke in the next ten years is 1.6%
qrisk.org/2016/index.php
What is yours Zolabudder ?

I’m slightly overweight currently and mine is 0.2%

(I’m 33 though)

I used the Fitbit app for a while to log my food. Most of the time I was in the green zone but I didn’t lose any weight.

Fitbit (and other trackers) vastly over estimate the amount of calories you have burned via exercise. *"even the most accurate of trackers were off by 27%"

www.nbcnews.com/better/diet-fitness/your-apple-watch-or-fitbit-making-you-fat-n764066

For me, at the moment, it's lack of motivation and will power also tiredness.
I'm not massively overweight I'm 5'10 and in size 14/16. Half a stone will bring me back into healthy bmi but ideally I want around another stone off on top of that.
I'm not actively buying crap, I am watching what I eat mostly. I still have 'rubbish' kicking about from Christmas which I'm occasionally having but just can not get my arse into gear.
I have lost a lot of weight before (4 stones) so know I can do it. I'm an all or nothing type of person so I can and have previously become obsessive about food/weight loss while dieting.
I try to stay away from low fat/ low cal diets as I know I feel better eating normal foods but just less of them. I batch cook from scratch and freeze so there's always something healthy available.
I've never followed SW or WW but see recipes pop up on facebook and to be honest it amazes me how many people are willing to add things like coca cola to a joint of meat in a slow cooker.... Surely that is not sensible advice, I don't understand why you'd want to do that when trying to eat healthy. It was a SW recipe if I remember correctly but it could just have been someones version of it. I don't know.
I don't give a monkey's about what others think of me, I stopped being concerned years ago. I want to lose weight for me, so I feel better and feel healthy.

I am fairly active, on my feet all day at work, I walk where I can. I own a treadmill which is folded in the corner of the bedroom I love kettlebells but as I said my motivation just isn't there right now :(

There is a lot more going on in our bodies than the stupid "east less, move more" merchants believe.

I did 6 months on keto plus IF and at the end of it had only lost 7lb.

Xmas I went right off the wagon and have been on a massive daily binge and carbfest ever since - must be nearly a month now. Weight gain? 2lb. And SO worth it!

I just read upthread the comments about strokes etc.

I've weighed more than 20 stones for more than 20 years now, and am 60 yrs old and only 5ft 3.

I have never had a stroke.
I have never had a heart attack.
I am not diabetic.
My cholesterol is always under 6 and currently 3.9.
My BP is normal.
All my organs are functioning correctly.

I'm not recommending people be overweight to this extent, for other reasons, but to assume it always comes with life threatening side effects is just wrong.

OP
We moan about being fat but it's never enough to really change.

Speak for yourself. I'm losing weight quite nicely and steadily.
Superlandlady
the stupid "eat less, move more" merchants.

Well I guess I must be stupid then, because that's exactly what I'm doing and it's working very well. No fad diets or special foods required, just ordinary basic food.

Dieting makes you feel deprived.
Sugar is addictive & makes non-sweetened food appear less attractive in comparison.
Good quality protein is often expensive, as are many fresh fruit & vegetables.
Supersizing of portions has distorted most people's idea of what a normal portion size should be.
People are often not taught to cook properly & healthily, if at all (although the internet is available for this!)
Continual snacking encourages a lack of willpower; a lot a snacks are also relatively high calorie but low in essential nutrients. So you either eat less at mealtimes & potentially miss out nutritionally, or overeat.
Most families own at least one car, & rarely walk except for pleasure - and not enough of that.

These are all things that have changed in the last few decades - just as obesity rates have increased. I don't pretend to know how to fix it though.

6.1 billion a year obesity costs the NHS.

People go for the 'biggies' when it comes to obesity - stroke, heart attack, diabetes. The picture is much more complex than that.

My DM died in March last year at 71. At 25st, she was 'fit and fat' - she didn't have diabetes, she had low cholesterol, she had low blood pressure. She spent her whole life telling me that her size was unimportant since all her health 'numbers' were OK.

She did, however, have a benign mystery mass over her left kidney which bled every now and again, causing her chronic anaemia.

No surgeon would touch her to remove it, however, because she was too fat for a GA.

This resulted in her having bags and bags of blood transfusions and iron infusions over years, gradually chipping away at her immune system.

She developed a strange abscess under her skin. This could easily have been evacuated, but again, no surgeon would touch her because she was too fat, and it was treated with masses of antibiotics and a colostomy bag to catch the endless exudate once it burst. That was horrible.

With repeated hospital admissions, her mobility, already awful because of the huge weight going into through her knees, became even worse, and I had the horror of looking for a residential home for her. I had 15 refusals, because of her size - she was too much of a risk to staff to evacuate in an emergency situation. I never told her any of this.

Two weeks after we finally got her placed, the (entirely fixable, but for her size) mass in her abdomen haemorrhaged and the (entirely fixable, but for her size) abscess under her skin went septic, and she was dead within 24 hours of admission to hospital, from the residential home she hated, and was mentally far too young for.

Please don't assume a life of indulgence means you'll go out in a quick and painless blaze of happy, over-indulged glory. And please, please consider the impact of your lifestyle choices on your loved ones, particularly those you may become dependent on. Being bitter towards my much-loved mother about her shitty decisions and self-delusions isn't much fun.

Super. Good for you. Many others aren’t as fortunate as you and won’t be. According to numerous studies, obese people will get many more series illness. Granted not every single person, but we all make choices and have to live with the consequences.

It’s exactly the same with smokers, my grandma lived until she was 85 and only gave up when she was 70. From her 60s however she had numerous, dreadful chest infections and coughs, which affected her quality of life. She used to say she’d always had a weak chest. No Grandma, face facts that will be the smoking.

Because each person has a specific psychological reason why they are overweight, and this never gets addressed by any diet.

Once we realise why we are overweight, and tackle that issue, it becomes easier to work on the very obvious ' eat less, eat better, move more ' stuff.

WW and SW are great for a quick weight loss, but their whole business model depends on repeat custom so they rarely lead to a ' forever' weight loss.

I'm a fatty, still looking for the key to why I insist on being 4 stone overweight when I hate everything about it, but I refuse to go on another diet . I would rather spend the money on a couple of sessions with a counsellor.

Elphaba, it is devestating isn't it

People who say:" Id rather die a bit sooner and fat and happy, than being a misery guts 105 year old. As if those are the choices!) do my head in....

I know quite a few people who had blood clots or heart problems in their 40s, joint and mobility issues, amputations even

Being obese does not mean you'll go out in a blaze of glory at 45 or 50, that is just a fairy tale for young people who cannot yet imagine ever being as old as...45

Sophie Hagen in the Guardian was another one "choosing to die young"

The illusion of control that young people think they have over their health and their death is astounding

Disordered eating, self loathing, chronic low self esteem, emotional eating, binge eating, dieting from 11 years old before even being overweight and a whole heap of other complex reasons.

The reason I'm not losing weight right now though is because I have stopped dieting. I have realised dieting only perpetuates the binge/restrict cycle. It encourages the constant weight cycling (which is also linked to major health issues like diabetes, heart attack, strokes). Every time the diet ended my weight was only getting higher and higher. Having stopped dieting 2 years ago my weight has stayed exactly the same. I'm not happy about being this size but not getting any larger is such a relief, now I can focus on being mentally healthy.

What has changed is my obsession with food. It no longer occupies my every waking moment, it no longer has any moral quality assigned to it and my relationship with food is the best it has ever been in my adult life. I don't fear food anymore. I eat what I want when I'm actually hungry. I don't binge any more!

Dieting is a lie. How obsessing about food could ever be the solution to eating too much I will never know.

I think because diets are long and boring! I've you want to lose several pounds, it will take you a few months. It does get hard to keep going. When I had ds1, I gained 10 kilos. I went to a diet group. I lasted a day because it was so restrictive. Then years later I joined a gym as I had a bad back and wanted to be stronger. Then after working out, I wanted to eat healthily. The weight fell off without trying. I think people need to focus on changing habits.

@AnachronisticCorpse
I’m doing well on Weight Watchers, almost at my goal after three months.

I think you need to find a plan that suits you and stick to it. WW works for me...

Absolutely not getting at you personally AC, but every time I see someone saying how amazing WW/SW/whatever plan is, I always wonder how come these big weight loss companies are still in business. I mean, why haven't they made every one who wants to join them thin and then gone bust?