Placebo Effect: Dieting is all in your head

[mongers]

This is both a strange and interesting thread.

Apparently it IS rocket science.

[11B4V]

This is both a strange and interesting thread.

Apparently it IS rocket science.

Not

[11B4V]

 

[viper37]

No, it's not that easy losing weight.  It requires both a constant healthy diet and intense exercising.  it's not just about calories, it's about drinking water and nothing else, it's about having 100g of meat and veggies, it's about finding the right stuff that fits with you (no allergies, no stomach pains, sufficient protein for you daily routine, etc).

wut

the human body is made to stock fat.  as soon as you eat, the body tries to stock as much fat as you can.  It takes a lot of energy to burn just a few calories.  You kinda need to run an hour to spend a can of coke.  And if your metabolism has slown down, "jumpstarting it" requires tremendous efforts.  Probably more so than a fat person can sustain.

The article says diet don't work, and that's been studied, for like, the last 30 years.  You lose weight immediatly, then you regain it.  A diet is not about eating healthy, it's about some kind of voodoo magic that someone found: do not eat potatoes, pastas or bread; eat only proteins and nothing else; eat barely nothing during week-days and give yourself a freepass un sundays where you can eat just about anything you want; stuff like that.  That's all bullshit.

[The Brain]

No, it's not that easy losing weight.  It requires both a constant healthy diet and intense exercising.  it's not just about calories, it's about drinking water and nothing else, it's about having 100g of meat and veggies, it's about finding the right stuff that fits with you (no allergies, no stomach pains, sufficient protein for you daily routine, etc).

wut

the human body is made to stock fat.  as soon as you eat, the body tries to stock as much fat as you can.  It takes a lot of energy to burn just a few calories.  You kinda need to run an hour to spend a can of coke.  And if your metabolism has slown down, "jumpstarting it" requires tremendous efforts.  Probably more so than a fat person can sustain.

I know for a fact that you can lose a lot of weight in a sustainable fashion without working out. You just eat a little less than you need to maintain your fat reserves. The "you need to do X to burn a can of coke" thing is a complete red herring.

[dps]

I'm always confused by the "doing X is easy if you truly want to" arguments.  They strike me as self-contradictory.  Wants are not easy, you have little control over what you want to do, wants are imposed on you.

It's like saying that math is easy if you're supremely intelligent.  Yes, I can confirm that it is easy in that case, but that's not a very useful statement to those who are struggling with math.

I don't get it. What does control of wants have to do with it?

It's simple--people in general want to have a healthy weight.  But having a healthy weight doesn't just happen (well, it does for some people, who are usually despised for it), it takes work.  People don't want to do the work, and their desire to not do the work usually overrides their desire to have a healthy weight.

[CountDeMoney]

the human body is made to stock fat.  as soon as you eat, the body tries to stock as much fat as you can.  It takes a lot of energy to burn just a few calories.  You kinda need to run an hour to spend a can of coke.  And if your metabolism has slown down, "jumpstarting it" requires tremendous efforts.  Probably more so than a fat person can sustain.

The article says diet don't work, and that's been studied, for like, the last 30 years.  You lose weight immediatly, then you regain it.  A diet is not about eating healthy, it's about some kind of voodoo magic that someone found: do not eat potatoes, pastas or bread; eat only proteins and nothing else; eat barely nothing during week-days and give yourself a freepass un sundays where you can eat just about anything you want; stuff like that.  That's all bullshit.

Yeah, the human body's been specifically designed the way it is for the last 10,000 years, and the cult of modern living is going to lose against physiological evolution.

[crazy canuck]

I'm always confused by the "doing X is easy if you truly want to" arguments.  They strike me as self-contradictory.  Wants are not easy, you have little control over what you want to do, wants are imposed on you.

It's like saying that math is easy if you're supremely intelligent.  Yes, I can confirm that it is easy in that case, but that's not a very useful statement to those who are struggling with math.

I don't get it. What does control of wants have to do with it?

It's simple--people in general want to have a healthy weight.  But having a healthy weight doesn't just happen (well, it does for some people, who are usually despised for it), it takes work.  People don't want to do the work, and their desire to not do the work usually overrides their desire to have a healthy weight.

Actually, it doesn't actually take work.  It just takes eating less which ironically is less work than eating as much as most now do.  But if one insists on continuing to eat as much as they did to get fat, then yes, it does take work.

[Tonitrus]

Of course, there is also a significant psychological/chemical factor in overeating as well (even if just a gradual amount over a long period of time).  Even if it may take more work to eat to more food...there is certainly something in the brain that responds to certain kinds of food (sweets, etc) with pleasure/satisfaction.  And a similar feeling just for feeling "satiated", which for many, may only come after intaking a caloric level higher than their metabolism would burn.

Not even to mention the habitual or situational (e.g. one must have dessert after dinner, or eating out of boredom).

[crazy canuck]

Of course, there is also a significant psychological/chemical factor in overeating as well (even if just a gradual amount over a long period of time).  Even if it may take more work to eat to more food...there is certainly something in the brain that responds to certain kinds of food (sweets, etc) with pleasure/satisfaction.  And a similar feeling just for feeling "satiated", which for many, may only come after intaking a caloric level higher than their metabolism would burn.

Not even to mention the habitual or situational (e.g. one must have dessert after dinner, or eating out of boredom).

Sure, but "work" is the exercise part.  If one is not able to do enough exercise to balance the food intake, the answer is pretty obvious.

[DGuller]

I'm always confused by the "doing X is easy if you truly want to" arguments.  They strike me as self-contradictory.  Wants are not easy, you have little control over what you want to do, wants are imposed on you.

It's like saying that math is easy if you're supremely intelligent.  Yes, I can confirm that it is easy in that case, but that's not a very useful statement to those who are struggling with math.

You can level with us, you're a porker aren't you? 

Not at all, I'm marginally overweight at worst, I weigh 190 pounds at 6'2".  I'm just astute enough to understand that simple solutions that empirically don't work on the whole are maybe not that simple.  My point was that it's very hard to make yourself want something, wants are emotional and not intellectual things.  Wanting to do something that is good for you is a stroke of luck.

[mongers]

I'm always confused by the "doing X is easy if you truly want to" arguments.  They strike me as self-contradictory.  Wants are not easy, you have little control over what you want to do, wants are imposed on you.

It's like saying that math is easy if you're supremely intelligent.  Yes, I can confirm that it is easy in that case, but that's not a very useful statement to those who are struggling with math.

You can level with us, you're a porker aren't you? 

Not at all, I'm marginally overweight at worst, I weigh 190 pounds at 6'2".  I'm just astute enough to understand that simple solutions that empirically don't work on the whole are maybe not that simple.  My point was that it's very hard to make yourself want something, wants are emotional and not intellectual things.  Wanting to do something that is good for you is a stroke of luck.

I wouldn't have thought at all, I'm 3 inches shorter than you and I think an ideal weight for me would be 175lbs*, don't know ifthat was based on BMI or govt.charts, so you're well within the normal band. Though guess you could be a 'bean poll' with a pot belly. 

I get the rest of your points, I suppose the issue I have is, sometime people have to take some responsibility for a few of the their action, particularly when it directly affects their own wellbeing.


* annoyingly I'm probably a stone less than that, say160lbs and ideally would like to put some weight on, but being reasonable active, I find that next to impossible.

[Malthus]

Not an illness, but not a simple cure either - even though everyone knows what the cure is (eat less, exercise more).

While depression is classified as a mental illness, 'situational' depression isn't simply a chemical imbalance - more like a bad cycle of behaviors and thoughts.

The "cure" in both cases is indeed a mental one. It is similar to the "cure" for smoking (which is of course to ... stop smoking).

All three (overeating, smoking, depression) are similar to each other in this way - that how to stop the problem is, on the surface "obvious", but in practice some find it hard to do. In all three cases, those without those particular problems often have scant sympathy - the solution is so obvious, so why the overweight, smoking or chronically sad person can't just successfully pull themselves out of it by a simple exercise of willpower must be because they are weak.

You are again equating over eating to an addiction (smoking) or a mental illness (depression) and then you say they are similar because it they are hard to "cure".  I grant you that addictions and mental illness are difficult to cure.  I also grant you that some people are fat because they suffer from addictions or mental illness or both.  But why do you think that all people who are fat will have the same difficulty exercising or eating less as a person who suffers from an addiction or a mental illness?
[/quote]

Well, obviously I don't think everyone has the same difficulty doing anything.  Where are you getting that from? People have different difficulties doing all sorts of things, because individuals vary a lot.

However, on average, "trying to lose weight" is typically less successful that "trying to quit a serious addiction". There is plenty of evidence for this.

http://www.yourdoctorsorders.com/2014/11/weight-regain-after-diets-is-it-that-bad/

[The Brain]

Speaking generally my impression is that complete infantilization isn't the answer to humanity's ills.

[Eddie Teach]

I'm always confused by the "doing X is easy if you truly want to" arguments.  They strike me as self-contradictory.  Wants are not easy, you have little control over what you want to do, wants are imposed on you.

It's like saying that math is easy if you're supremely intelligent.  Yes, I can confirm that it is easy in that case, but that's not a very useful statement to those who are struggling with math.

You can level with us, you're a porker aren't you? 

Not at all, I'm marginally overweight at worst, I weigh 190 pounds at 6'2".

How much did you weigh when you got mugged?