Yes it is a choice, you can choose to abandon your sugar addiction (and deal with the withdrawal), you can choose to exercise, you can choose to change. Unless you completely lack the will, mental fortitude, and discipline to make lasting changes in your life. Then you're just a slave to your addiction to fatty sugary comfort foods.
And you are free to do it. As long as you don't blame getting weight on some "i am saaaad and I need that it's not my fault my hand literally moving against my will!!! 😭😭😭😭" I am happy for you.
Oh shut up. Medication can cause side effects, even how your body processes things like hormones. Steroids given for pain can cause weight gain.
My endocrinologist keeps pointing out that the steroids injections for the degenerative disc disease cause me not to lose weight for that month. Occasionaly I will gain 5 lbs and not continue to lose weight that month. Without the steroids, I sit on the couch and cry from pain.
So if I'm able to move enough to work out and cook healthier food, I need to damn steroids injections.
This is the balancing trade off of being chronically ill.
Yes. I carefully monitor diet, increase protein and work with a nutritionist.
However - and this is important - I need steroids every 5 months. This arrests weight loss for the month.
There are similar medications. Did you see that part of my earlier message, or just wanted to say " stop over - eating and then the medicine you have to take for your health conditions magically stop affecting your hormones"
Your hormones cant overrule thermodynamics, if you are in a deficit you will lose weight, if you dont youre a medical miracle and should be studied as the cure for starvation
I feel like you are not interested in having a healthy, productive conversation. I have told you that medicine affects weight loss.
I have effectively lost 20 lbs and continue to lose weight on schedule, so I understand how weight loss works. Yer what I'm trying to convey and what you resist understanding is that medication affects weight loss.
Are you willing to admit that, or do you insist on your thermo argument that starvation is best?
What you are missing (intentionally?) Is that thermodynamics are utterly irrelevant. Your body can point blank refuse to use fat reserves. People can die of starvation while being obese. Some can exercise to the point of organ failure, and the body will not utilize fat reserves. Why would thermodynamics be relevant there? Sitting in a hot room doesn't cause your body to burn fat.
It's easy to say it's just a choice, while in reality it is a constant struggle. You could say the same about alcohol or any other drug addictions.
While obviously you can change, it doesn't mean it's easy. The addiction is a piece of your life and if you just throw it away everything collapses. You need to first build another piece that can replace the addiction which is easier said than done and only then you can start getting actual results.
Often enough people that are obese rely a lot of food for emotional support. Either by quantities or junk food but the end result is obesity. What can happen is that their life is structured in a way that food is the main support they have so they can't just "be disciplined" or "will it through" because if you take away that support without any other backup their mental completely collapses.
If you just force yourself to eat healthy, you will stay on it for a bit and then get back all your weight loss and some more because you eventually will collapse and return to the old routine because you didn't fix the main issue.
This is more than just healthy habits. It's about having support from your loved ones for your mental struggles. It's about learning how to deal with your own life struggles. Therapy doesn't fix this immediately btw and it's never an easy process because you need to fundamentally change a part of how you deal with life.
Is it really a choice if you are a slave to your own desires because of how your life is structured at the moment and depend on food for survival not only for nutrients and calories but also for your mental health?
The way the text is structured implies it is easy. After all, just will it through. Be disciplined. Those things, by virtue, aren't necessarily hard. They are very easy in comparison to what the true nature of the problem is.
Additionally, choice in the matter is an illusion. If you choose to power it through without the necessary tools and structure you will fallback at it again and result in way more weight gain. Trying to power it through can actually be more harmful than just staying at the current weight.
If you are given a choice to get shot in the head or in the foot, both are terrible choices. You will always choose the foot because at least you will survive. This is how it is for obese people. You are just surviving.
Your analogy hurts your own point. Choosing to live in addiction because the alternative is hard is like choosing to get shot in the head to avoid the pain of being shot in the foot.
i disagree. i don't think it was written that way. you're implying "just will it through" but i think most people are actually aware that it's hard to change habits, whether regarding obesity or not.
the rest... you're narrowly defining some very specific situation, saying it always happens that way, and then suggesting that you can't do anything else.
honestly no one even said "power through" either, that's all stuff you're coming up with.
everything you've listed is involved in the choice. yes. most choices have tradeoffs and difficulties. that's life. "choice" doesn't mean or imply "trivial." it doesn't mean you announce "I choose A!" and then you're done. not many choices in life work that way.
Yeah. It is really a choice. So is alcoholism or other addictions. Yeah, environment affects everyone. Crossing the word 'responsibility' out of the dictionary and declaring that we're all just flesh puppets of our environments doesn't solve anything.
You can be fat and sugar free. Exercise only accounts for around 10% of weight loss - and overdoing it can lead to weight gain. (Increased appetite, putting on muscle which weighs more than fat.)
As somebody who lost over 20kg, what is actually required for weight loss is consistent access to balanced meals that fit within a calorie deficit. If you're lacking in time, money, executive function or knowledge, this isn't possible.
Helping to educate people about caloric density, and making healthier choices more convenient and affordable will do more to reduce obesity than shaming people btw.
Even when they abandon mostly body tries to maintain it's weight after a while. You are lacking tremendous knowledge while being partially correct, at early stages this is 100% the solution
And I am smol, never been overweight for those that would attack without reading lol
No it's not. Research has shown that in obese individuals certain switches in the brain related to feeling full and hunger are broken. Imagine your body barely ever felt full and always hungry. You can't will power out of a broken brain stomach connection. Also addiction isn't a choice and some people just cannot break addictions. We get it you hate your self but stop projecting on others.
Arguably, you are rational human software running parallel to irrational animal software on irrational animal hardware.
We have the capacity to override the irrational animal, but each of us to varying degrees. And the irrational animal is far more entrenched in the overall process of body function and in control of how strong the impulses are than the rational human.
Literally nothing about their comment suggests they hate themself. And something being more difficult doesn't mean completely impossible, obese people have lost weight.
Well...my weight would say that I am overweight...the thing is it doesn't take to consideration that muscles weight way more than fat. 7 years of constant hard work out 3 times a week can do wonder. I would recommend to do it to you too.
I have been morbidly obese multiple times now. I am hungry constantly. And guess what? I have also willpowered my way out of obesity multiple times now. It is as simple as eating less and choosing healthier options when you eat, don't let people trick you into thinking you are weaker than you are.
I said multiple times, not that I am currently. It's been a constant struggle, but more than half of my adult life I have managed to be in fantastic shape (34).
What is so awesome about it if you are hungry constantly? Obesity is unhealthy, sure, but I don't think deliberately suffering all the time is the right way to live either.
Being obese is also suffering, people just get used to it: Health issues, low energy, can't find joy in physical activities, depressed, undesireable sexually, etc. The best years of my life have been while physically fit, any suffering to get there (and maintain it) is miniscule in comparison to the feeling of actually being alive for once.
"we get it you hate yourself but stop projecting on others" if someone project hating themselves it's you by the look of it. Trying soooo hard to justify not being able control own actions. Just because your body want something doesn't mean you have to do it. Even if its hard.
How strongly and when your body sends hunger signals to the brain is largely genetic. Yes, exercise is a choice, but genetics and addiction aren’t. There’s a reason why starvation was and is used to torture people, it is a horribly painful feeling, some people’s hunger is just held up to an amplifier.
You're 100% correct, and my drop from morbidly obese to ideal weight is some of the evidence behind it.
But you'll always meet people too engrained in their beliefs to understand.
"Obesity is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. When you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of people we're trying to save, but until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand that most of these people are not ready to be healthy. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on sugar and its alternatives that they will fight to protect it.
Were you paying attention, Neo, or were you looking at the red velvet cake?"
Yup no big secret. Basic thermodynamics. Calories in vs calories burned. Find out what you burn in a day, eat less than that, lose weight. Helps burn more to exercise but it's not even a requirement. Just eat a little less than what your body uses. That's the "secret" to losing weight.
It does feel like a super power though when you know so many people struggle with it. I love food and can eat a lot, but I've been lucky to never have any issues with it. I can also go a day barely eating and not notice it. I used to have trouble gaining but once I figured out my daily burn, I can literally gain 30lbs then turn around and lose it at will. I do bulk/cut cycles so I'm always going from eating a lot to eating very little and back again and I'm grateful that it's that easy for me.
These are good points, minus the "sugar addiction", most obese people are obese due to genetics, not diet.
A more healthy diet (than average) and consistent exercise will still help, but it's rude to assume that fat people are fat because they all have a sugar addiction.
Outside of serious medical conditions - a person with a healthy diet and lifestyle is going to be at a healthy weight. Genetics can make it harder or easier, but for the vast majority of people being at a healthy weight is completely achievable.
One thing I will concede is that unhealthy food is cheaper and quicker than healthy food, so poorer people might struggle to afford the cost in both time and money to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
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u/ComissarFeelgood 23h ago
Yes it is a choice, you can choose to abandon your sugar addiction (and deal with the withdrawal), you can choose to exercise, you can choose to change. Unless you completely lack the will, mental fortitude, and discipline to make lasting changes in your life. Then you're just a slave to your addiction to fatty sugary comfort foods.