Been reading a thread about Britain’s ‘obesity epidemic’, and it’s amazing how many thin people know how to fix it.
People clamber over themselves to wax lyrical about how we should encourage more exercise (we should), and how fast food joints should be held to account (they should), but the loudest voices never talk about it being a mental health issue.
I’m a fat fuck, I know I should exercise more and eat better. I did that for a year once and lost 30kg. Then I put it all back on again.
@DJDarren as some of the replies to this thread indicate, people are so dead set on giving you a fucking lecture as if you don't know what to do they don't want to embrace the key point here which is that obesity is 100% a mental health issue.
And I speak from the position of somebody who has lost 15kg this year, I got the gym 6 days a week, I am super dedicated, yada yada.
That's not the point, the point is that I am addicted to shitty food, I love shitty food, I am like a recovering 'foodoholic' and can never be trusted around food generally ever, like ever. I have to maintain some kind of strict control forever or I'll pile it back on.
For me, I'm sure you can relate, the issue is food is one of the best drugs going, best ways of dealing with stress/anxiety/etc.
The only way I am making changes really is by having a totally bloody minded mentality at the gym and using the desire to gain muscle/lose fat to reveal the muscle to cope with giving up that drug/being strict.
Without that I'd just fuck it again, and maybe I still will I can't guarantee it. And hey I can look forward to bulking phases right? ;)
Thin people giving you long patronising lessons about caloric deficit while not grasping the mental health aspect is one of the most irritating aspects of this whole thing, fuck me haha.
@ljs This is where my problem lies; I have ADHD, my impulse control is poor to start with. Add in an addiction to shitty food and my life is just day after day of shame around eating.
Not ‘crying into a tub of ice cream at 6am’ shame, but “should I be using that much olive oil to fry onions?” shame.
Dieting, losing weight, takes that and amplifies it by a million. And you have to maintain that day after day after day for a year to see any noticeable ‘improvements’.
@ljs And yeah, I hate the gym. It’s boring exercise for its own sake, and I’ve never been able to switch my stupid brain into a place where it’s easy to go.
It doesn’t matter how helpful it is, I have to muster up the executive function to go to a place that I don’t wish to be. Two weeks, maximum, before I fall off the wagon.
@DJDarren in 2021, I was the lightest I'd been since my early 20s. Because I was so horribly depressed, I had no appetite or enthusiasm for foods I usually love.
Me being heavier now is likely partly due to the medication that finally got me out of the hole, but also the result of caring about food and pleasure again. Thin =/= healthy.
@DJDarren Doctors love to be the one to explain to a fatty that cheeseburgers are bad for you, like it's some new astounding revelation, but they never seem to understand that the 5 minutes I spend eating one may actually be the only time I feel OK on that particular day.
@guffo@DJDarren this is it right here. Eating a delicious meal is one of few consistent pleasures in the world. We can know that long-term, it’s not great, but that hit of dopamine can be enough to help you keep going.
I know exactly how to lose weight, but it’s really. fucking. hard. Like, the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do. You have to spend months or years depriving yourself of the things that you’ve learned bring you a shard of happiness.
But say you manage that and you lose loads of weight and everyone is complementing you on how good you look. Then what?
Then you have to spend every waking moment being aware of the things you just can’t have, because you can’t be trusted.
@DJDarren 'Then what?' is a really good question. Doctors tell me to lose weight, but there's never any suggestion of how my life will be better at the end. My bodily organs are all fine. My brain is fucked over by stress and anxiety and trauma. What exactly is losing weight going to do, apart from keeping me miserable?
I mean, I've no doubt there are people for whom losing weight will be a really good and important thing. Absolutely! But we need to stop having it presented as some weird mix of moral obligation and universal panacea.
But you do let yourself have the odd treat. And before you know it you’re right back where you started and you have to do it all over again.
There are no short cuts, no easy ways to lose weight. Weight Watchers is a lie, Slimming World is a lie, Lighter Life is a lie. They’re all businesses that are built on their customers never being thin enough.
The older we get (for some it seems to start much much earlier poor sods) the slower our metabolism gets, and the less calories our bodies need (since it's in the process of shutting down as opposed to gearing up), yet still demand. The psychological bit is the real motherfucker, as it turns out, for the vast majority, eating feels good and releases endorphins and dopamine, and when we severely limit the amount and enjoyable type of food we get very fucking depressed. In the fight.
I love riding a bike, but I’m damned if I can afford a new one right now, so I sure as shit can’t afford a gym membership.
So I walk places where I can. That walking is the only thing that’s keeping me at 140kg. But wherever I walk, I walk past shops selling all manner of food that I can’t have.
@DJDarren There's also the issue that people on the lowest incomes are more likely to live places where the parks have been built over/there's limited public space, the kids' schools don't have playing fields. And the streets aren't particularly safe.
I know my TSH levels would have me treated for thyroid issues in other countries. So the NHS will have to put up with me being fat and sleepy, because they're the ones saying This Is Fine.
@DJDarren If you have ever been infected with human adenoviruses 5 or 26 (if I recall the numbers correctly), your body has been reprogrammed epigenetically to preferentially store fat instead of increasing activity or energy levels. There's also an avian adenovirus--that is partially zoonotic--that makes chickens fatter while starving.
Part of the obesity epidemic is, in fact, driven by transmissible pathogens.
@DJDarren Have you tried the ketogenic diet? High fat, low carbs it's a life changer. Convert your body from using glucose as your energy source to using fat.
@gavinho Yep, been there, tried that, lost a bit, put it back on again.
But these diets just aren’t sustainable. You can’t deprive yourself of the treats that everyone else takes for granted forever. Any diet that forces someone to each unusually cannot be maintained forever. Not without significant outside assistance, which rolls back to the last point of my first post in this thread. Weight gain is mental.
Societally we could stop with all the over processed foods that are unhealthy. Maybe hiking minimum wage to $20/hr would put the fast food (we call “junk food”) places out of business or al least make it so everyone could afford better food.
@DJDarren there’s a good reason why weight loss is often the given example of something that is simple, but not easy. “Eat less and move more” is what it boils down to, sure… but actually doing those things, consistently, for long enough to have an appreciable effect?! Oof. 😥
I could diet perfectly for two years straight and maybe - MAYBE - hit my “ideal” weight. Thin people have NO FUCKING CLUE how hard it is to maintain that level of willpower for two fucking years.
Hell, ask them not to tell fat folks how to lose weight for a week and they’ll fail.
@billyjoebowers We have Uber for taxis and Just Eat for food delivery, but what we really need are guys nipping about on scooters, kicking folks in the crotch worldwide on our behalf.
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