> Not that hard to stop yourself from going to the store again or ordering more
Well, actually...
I'm fat. Like BMI 40 fat. Most of my life I have been fat. I was laughed at in school for it, as far back as I can remember. It probably wasn't all that bad when I think back. Certainly not as bad as now. But I was the fat kid in class, and I felt like the fat kid.
Anyway, I have lost a lot of it at a few points. Once by going to a place with more disease than I could handle. Months of intermittent diarrhea helps apparently. And once I reduced intake to about 1200 kcal per day for a year, combined with walking around for 5 hours everyday. I got to BMI 26 or something. Not very obese, but still overweight. It felt amazing to be able to do a lot of things, but it also took a LOT of time and effort.
But then I got a job, and kids. And I started to backslide. Just an hour per day walking during my commute, instead of 5 during the day... And oh, that pastry looks gooood. Slowly at first, with intermittent periods of faster backsliding because life required a bit more from me.
I got it back faster than I lost it.
I have re-lost it a few times after that. Each time the losses are a bit less, and the peaks get a bit higher. I always gain it back faster than I lose it. And annoyingly, initially, gaining it back feels way better than losing ever does. Like finally laying down after a day of strenuous work. Or like the first breaths of fresh air after being cooked up in stale air for a while.
During my losing periods the things you describe help. Keep the food away, and you don't have to expend effort to not eat it. I even enjoy the healthy stuff.
But that's not how it is during my gaining periods, oh no. I get bored with the good food, and start craving the bad. I go to the shops to buy stuff. A small packet of candy at first, or a pastry. But that spirals out of control quickly. Soon I start scheming:
* How can I get the food without my family noticing?
* If I go to multiple shops I can buy twice as much without looking like a greedy fuck.
* Oh, and I won't be able to go tomorrow, so I should make sure I have supplies for the day.
* And eating only candy makes me sick, so I should also buy crisps so I can alternate and keep eating.
I'm in gaining mode now. I ate a box of Pringles, a box of cookies, and a box of candy, just today. In addition to the regular meals with my family. I'm here. I see myself doing this, but I can't seem to stop. Until it runs its course. After a few months or a year or two, I can usually cycle back into a losing mode for a few months.
A doctor might help, but I'm not going. The medical state of the art of dealing with obesity seems to be "just don't". A consult seems pointless and humiliating.
I've learned to take and make fat jokes, and other than that to not think too much about this. My BMI will probably keep oscillating higher and higher, and I guess that means I'll get some obesity disease at some point. Maybe that'll stop it, but I'm not confident it will.
I guess we all have our issues, and this seems to be mine. C'est la vie.
> And eating only candy makes me sick, so I should also buy crisps so I can alternate and keep eating.
This one hit hard. If you swapped "crisps" and "candy" for "MDMA" and "ketamine", people would tell you to go to rehab.
No judgment here, but a lot of your behaviour sounds like addiction underpinned by a coping mechanism. If you replaced <food> with alcohol or drugs people would point out how your relationship with the substance is pathological.
IMO food is the most cruel of addictions as it is fuelled by our most primal of instincts to survive, it is also why I think Big Sugar is the most sinister of institutions...
The problem with food is that you can't cut it completely like drugs or cigarettes, rehab schemes are not going to work because the temptation and use is always there, multiple times a day.
No, but maladaptive coping (eg addictions, including eating your emotions) can be replaced with something healthier. It's also possible they've been emotionally neglected or abused (trauma always makes these things much more messier to address without addressing it first) and that's how maladaptive coping develops (or maybe they never learned them from parents for another reason, or maybe they picked up on a parents unhealthy coping style).
Not even remotely a doctor, so take all this with a grain of salt if you're in a similar spot. Mostly based on my own life experiences and having to work on childhood trauma and what that entailed in my case (food addition being just one amongst many maladaptive coping mechanism).
> A doctor might help, but I'm not going. The medical state of the art of dealing with obesity seems to be "just don't". A consult seems pointless and humiliating.
The point of this article seems to be that that is changing. Doctors actually have something to offer you now.
Thanks for sharing. I didn't really understand it (though I didn't doubt it) until I read your comment. What a hard burden to carry; I completely understand the state of watching myself do something unwanted (though not with food).
One thing that's helped me: I just make a rule to myself, 'go from one healthy thing to another'. I just try to find more and more relatively healthy (or at least harmless) and appealing outlets and tell myself that, whatever I do, I may not do something ideal but I'm going to choose one of them.
(A healthy outlet is one where I feel better after I do it than when I start.)
I don't follow it perfectly, of course, but it has helped result in a major shift.
Have you watched the new Brendan Fraser movie "The Whale"? If so, what did you think about it?
In the movie he does some of the things you mention, but I don't think he was vilified in the movie. I saw him as a hero at the end. Some fat people on youtube were very offended by "The Whale", I'm curious if it is universally offensive to large people.
If you're content with where you are then that's fine. I won't claim it's going to be easy to change things. But I do think there are few things you could change that will nearly guarantee success:
- There's no good or bad food. The number is the only thing that matters. Don't feel bad about eating chips and candy everyday. That's pretty much what I do. All you need is to hit the number.
- Always keep track of how much you've eaten. A big binge is not an excuse to stop counting. After a year or so, counting will become second nature and can be done purely with mental math. But initially, you want to write all the numbers down. Date | calories in | morning weight.
- Don't tie the counting efforts to any other effort. You mention walking 5 hours a day. That's some other unrelated thing. Don't ever mentally link this to your weight loss effort. If you want to do it, do it, but it should have nothing to do with losing weight. Counting and keeping records is your primary job.
- Your family should know what you're up to. They're there to help you achieve your goals. If you've already eaten, they shouldn't let you have a family meal with them. If they just let you get away with this, let them know you don't appreciate it. When you mess up, they should care and think it's a bad thing.
- Get this idea of a "cycle" out of your head. There is no cycle, every day is a new day. Your behavior only looks like some cycle caused by external forces post facto. Everybody trying to form a habit has a similar experience. There is nothing weight loss specific going on here. When you break a good streak everything can go out of the window. This is why it's important to keep the required actions as simple as possible. The more you couple different efforts the harder it's going to be. When you mess up you have to take the loss and move on. A good streak helps but don't dwell on breaking it.
- You have to have a sense of urgency and importance. Those around you should too. "I guess that means I'll get some obesity disease at some point" - just think how ridiculous that sounds. You know you can potentially prevent a serious disease (most people never have that opportunity) but you're just gonna sit there and let some cycle run its course. I mean, come on! How can you wake up everyday and not want to stop it today? What about your children? Perhaps they will inherit your eating habits (stats do show high heritablity), perhaps it would be nice to show them how to keep it under control? You owe it to them. Why doesn't your spouse think that's a huge deal?
It's one of the few things in life where you are literally guaranteed to get a good result if you do what you're supposed to do. There's a lot of advice on how to do this or that, get rich or whatever. But you can never prove these things are guaranteed to work so I can understand if people have a hard time motivating themselves. With weight loss you have a 100% guarantee of success. Personally, I don't see it as some random little problem. Pretty much any effort in life looks like this. You want an outcome, you think of the necessary actions and then the entire ballgame is about actually implementing these actions.
Hilarious and sad that he couldn't control his own impulsiveness in typing that comment and yet couldn't make the obvious connection to what he thought he was criticizing in others.
Well, actually...
I'm fat. Like BMI 40 fat. Most of my life I have been fat. I was laughed at in school for it, as far back as I can remember. It probably wasn't all that bad when I think back. Certainly not as bad as now. But I was the fat kid in class, and I felt like the fat kid.
Anyway, I have lost a lot of it at a few points. Once by going to a place with more disease than I could handle. Months of intermittent diarrhea helps apparently. And once I reduced intake to about 1200 kcal per day for a year, combined with walking around for 5 hours everyday. I got to BMI 26 or something. Not very obese, but still overweight. It felt amazing to be able to do a lot of things, but it also took a LOT of time and effort.
But then I got a job, and kids. And I started to backslide. Just an hour per day walking during my commute, instead of 5 during the day... And oh, that pastry looks gooood. Slowly at first, with intermittent periods of faster backsliding because life required a bit more from me.
I got it back faster than I lost it.
I have re-lost it a few times after that. Each time the losses are a bit less, and the peaks get a bit higher. I always gain it back faster than I lose it. And annoyingly, initially, gaining it back feels way better than losing ever does. Like finally laying down after a day of strenuous work. Or like the first breaths of fresh air after being cooked up in stale air for a while.
During my losing periods the things you describe help. Keep the food away, and you don't have to expend effort to not eat it. I even enjoy the healthy stuff.
But that's not how it is during my gaining periods, oh no. I get bored with the good food, and start craving the bad. I go to the shops to buy stuff. A small packet of candy at first, or a pastry. But that spirals out of control quickly. Soon I start scheming:
* How can I get the food without my family noticing?
* If I go to multiple shops I can buy twice as much without looking like a greedy fuck.
* Oh, and I won't be able to go tomorrow, so I should make sure I have supplies for the day.
* And eating only candy makes me sick, so I should also buy crisps so I can alternate and keep eating.
I'm in gaining mode now. I ate a box of Pringles, a box of cookies, and a box of candy, just today. In addition to the regular meals with my family. I'm here. I see myself doing this, but I can't seem to stop. Until it runs its course. After a few months or a year or two, I can usually cycle back into a losing mode for a few months.
A doctor might help, but I'm not going. The medical state of the art of dealing with obesity seems to be "just don't". A consult seems pointless and humiliating.
I've learned to take and make fat jokes, and other than that to not think too much about this. My BMI will probably keep oscillating higher and higher, and I guess that means I'll get some obesity disease at some point. Maybe that'll stop it, but I'm not confident it will.
I guess we all have our issues, and this seems to be mine. C'est la vie.