To think that people pretend not to understand obesity

[Mezzoprezzo]

After 30 plus years of failed diets I've recently started on mounjaro. Because I've placed an order and spent weeks searching stuff about weight loss medication, my Facebook feed is full of adverts from suppliers, many of which use vlogs from real clients who have lost weight. And the vast majority of comments are along the lines of, couldn't you just eat less, haven't you heard of exercise, why not just stop eating crap etc. Surely people are faking ignorance to have the fun of fat bashing. Obesity is rife! Everyone knows someone who struggles with their weight and who talks openly about it. I and every other obese person I know have tried every diet under the sun. Walk into any gym and you'll see a fair number of larger people trying bloody hard. And I know someone's going to reply to this post by talking about an obese friend who they once saw eating an entire packet of biscuits. Well numerous times I've given in to the overwhelming urge to do that too. And hated myself afterwards. It's part of the horrible condition. People have got eyes and ears and they seriously know full bloody well how hard obese people try to lose weight. They just pretend not to so they can have the fun of hating.

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.

@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. 🥱

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.

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 ….

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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?

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.

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.

Did you miss this post? It's one of many on here.

wherearemypastnames · Today 11:41
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

Three big differences really. One, more of the adults smoked. Two, if you go back more than about 90 years, a decent chunk of the population genuinely didn't have enough food. Child malnutrition was widespread in the 1930s. Three, people used more calories to keep themselves warm before central heating. The first two are clearly very bad things that brought their own health problems, and I don't think the third is coming back either.

Agree that we need to find better ways and obese will otherwise become more the default. Because nothing in human history has prepared us for environments where the majority live in abundance. For most of our history, we'd have had no use for the concept of restraint around food, especially the fatty stuff. If anything, the inclination would be a disadvantage. The ability to shove as much high calorie food down your throat as you can hold really might've been the thing that got you through the next lean period. We get obese easily because our bodies still think it's an advantage. The weight loss jabs really have come around at just the right time.

You see I just don't believe this. Well, it's certainly not the case for me. I generally walk 10,000 -15,000 steps a day. That's my only exercise (and I know some people say walking isn't exercise. I disagree!).
During lockdown I reduced this to about 6000 steps a day, simply because I had only one walk a day, the kids were there and moaning the whole time. I actually ate less during lockdown as I was aware I was walking less. Between March and August I put on 12lbs!! So I put on nearly a stone when I was eating slightly less but walking less.
My friend is very fit and active. Eats a lot but stays slim because she walks about 20,000 steps a day. When she broke her ankle and couldn't exercise she put on half a stone fairly quickly. Again, she was eating slightly less than usual.
I'm absolutely certain that activity levels affect weight.

I don’t disagree about the food industry but at the end of the day you have to eat the junk they produce to get fat and I don’t. I’ve been put on the most restrictive diet you can imagine by my gastro consultant and haven’t touched a upf for over a decade yet I’m still overweight with body fat measurements into obese. I’m not alone. Just look how many people on this thread say the same. I’d also wager that many long term overweight and obese people know more about nutrition and the science behind weight gain and loss than most.

It’s one thing saying that we clean eating fatties are the exception but look how many exceptions have popped up and told their stories on this thread. Some have been heartbreaking. And this is one thread on a forum.

We’ve all been patronised for a long time with the eat less and move more mantra even by medical professionals. I’m delighted that the science behind weight loss has been exploited by the drug companies. It can only lead to a healthier population. Eventually in another decade or two I hope people will understand the science better.

Just as someone doesn't have to be shouting racial slurs for it to be clear they are racist, someone doesn't have to be shouting I hate fatties for it to be clear that they do. It's dripping off many posts on this thread. We are liars, we are stupid, we are making excuses, we are lazy.... It's amazing how much other people seem to know about what's going on in our lives and with our bodies, when we ourselves are often still trying to work it out.
It's sad that people chose to judge overweight people the way that they do, but as they do it would be less disingenuous to own it.

I genuinely don't think that most people give enough thought to 'fatties' to hate 50%+ of the population. We all know overweight people, we all know there are a variety of reasons for it ranging from illness to eats a few too many calories every day for years and the weight creeps on. I don't think most people imagine overweight people to be stupid people gorging themselves on McDonald's everyday, most people have had a bit of weight creep up on them at them some point and know how it easily it can happen. I think some posters are being defensive and self loathing and jumping to extremes.

Agreed. Using energy to exercise (and I'm the same as you, I walk a lot as my form of exercise) literally burns calories, and if you have not eaten enough calories, your body will have no choice but to start using its fat stores. It's why exercise bulimia is a recognised eating disorder, it's a legitimate way of controlling and maintaining weight. There will always be outliers in everything, but this blanket 'exercise has no effect on weight' thing is nonsense.

I wasn't talking about 'most people'. I was talking about posters who come to a thread like this to say things like, for eg, 'No disrespect but people who are obese obviously don’t try hard enough as they wouldn’t be obese'.
It wouldn't cross my mine to join a thread about how hard quitting drinking is, or how difficult it is to manage depression and tell alcoholics that they are weak minded or depressed people that they should just smile more. It would make me an ignorant, closed minded idiot. Yet when it comes to weight it seems to be open season.

That's different. That's a medical reason so not relevant.

I'm speaking about people who CAN lose weight if they WANT to.

If I has a £ for every time someone told me "maybe you don't understand x" to do with my weight I could probably afford mounjarno.

Honestly. Every time someone tells me I don't understand something, or don't realise whatever to do with food and exercise they are implying I'm stupid. When in fact I probably know more than them. For example, when I was diagnosed with T2 diabetes and decided to switch to a low carb diet so declined jacket potatoes when with a community group I'm part of, more than one of them tried to explain to me that potatoes are healthy and I should eat them. Totally ignoring my own knowledge (and that of my diabetes specialist) and the fact that I had been losing weight by low carbing.

And before I was diagnosed with T2 and other conditions people assumed I was fat and lazy. I was fat due to medical issues, we just didn't know it yet.

@Winifredtabago. I agree with you. There is a need for deferred gratification and that's not easy when you can eat anything at anytime, anywhere. I started to gain weight in my late twenties and later found that my thyroid had packed up. It was so very hard to lose the weight I'd gained and at times I just gave up the struggle. But at other times I persevered and was able to lose a bit. But by far the biggest weight losses came when I found I had gall stones and the pain from eating fats or oils when gall stones are present is awful. So I had to cut out all fats and oils until I came to the top of the waiting list and that took a year. I lost weight then! A real eye opener for me. After couple of years after that I had a colonoscopy because of other digestive problems. The consultant found nothing untoward and suggested that (as he said) the vast majority of the adult population cannot process dairy (because we are not designed to do so) to cut it out for one month. Magically, no more digestive problems and steady weight loss. I've changed the way I eat mainly to avoid pain and discomfort and I am back to the weight I was when I was in my twenties. I hated being overweight but it didn't stop me eating foods I thought I enjoyed, such as lots of cheese, crisps, chocolate, ice creams and cake. Just my experience I know, but the vast majority of people do lose weight if they eat differently. I was looking at some photos of the seaside town I used to live in as a child. They were taken in the 50's and 60's. The sea front was packed. The pool was packed. Everyone was slender. There was no fast food appearing at the blink of an eye then. We live differently now and it is definitely a case of "The Men Who Made Us Fat" to line their own pockets and now they have people in their pockets because the food they sell is designed to appeal to our primitive need to search out sweet, salty and high calorific foods which worked well when you have to go and get the food from the earth, but not not it's all on the click of an app.

@HaddyAbrams, I couldn't agree more. My ex would say, but cheese is healthy! It's full of protein. 🙄🙄🙄And well, just have fruit then, but I'd say, full of sugar and he'd be confused. But it's FRUIT not chocolate!

MJ/Ozempic etc, makes you much more efficient at responding to insulin, so it has cut how much fast acting insulin I need to take to avoid my BG shooting up in response to perfectly healthy foods like fruit and veg (never mind the carbs!), by TWO THIRDS.

Its the difference between stacking on both fat and retained fluid and actively losing it. For someone who can't move, in my case beacuse I am a wheelchair user, this is a game changer. The reduction in hunger is a nice side effect, but that is all it is.