losing weight is so simple (just eat less) but so fuckin difficult (it is insanely difficult to eat less)
when I get below my average weight (85kg) say down to like 80kg, my body acts like it’s dying
Anon goes on a diet
Submitted 3 weeks ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to greentext@sh.itjust.works
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/09d3c393-931f-493e-beb2-938788c4397a.png
Comments
Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Big part of this is to eat healthy. Fruits and veggies aren’t as calorie dense as junk food, so you can still eat enough to feel full(ish as you still need calorie deficit)
TootSweet@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Can confirm. Eating healthy helps a lot. The first time I tried to lose weight, didn’t change what I ate, just how much I ate. So I was still eating crappy, completely non-nutritious food. Just less of it. I plateaued well before reaching my target weight, was desperate to eat all the time, felt like shit, got frustrated, gave up, and gained all my weight back.
The second time, I did better. Ate healthier, but still not as well as I could. But I got down to my target weight and kept it off for a good long time.
Now, I keep my weight at my target weight mostly without thinking about it. I eat healthy, but not specifically for the purpose of keeping my weight at a good level per se. More because… well I want to be healthy.
Moral of the story, try not to fixate on your weight. Eat healthy for your health. Health is about more than just your weight. And being healthy will help you meet your weight goals more than losing weight will help you reach your health goals.
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
And healthy food tends to be more fiber rich, which will make you feel fuller for longer
fraksken@infosec.pub 3 weeks ago
Should be first comment.
Wanna lose weight and still eat? Eat carrots and lettuce. Nothing but. You’ll lose 10 kg a week.
frog@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
That’s understandable. Even when some people eat less, they plateau. It gets harder and harder to lose weight.
sniggleboots@europe.pub 3 weeks ago
it’s simple, but it ain’t easy
slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org 3 weeks ago
Asdicted to crack? Stop doing crack.
Dragon@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I find that if I just eat less, I start to feel sickly and unhealthy. I learned recently that when you lose weight, like 25% of it ends up being from muscle loss. Started lifting weights and eating extra protein while I diet, and it feels great, much easier. I feel energetic and healthy and the lack of food doesn’t bother me so much.
halvar@lemy.lol 3 weeks ago
Yeah I’m on calorie counting right now and while so far it’s going better than expected (started from well above my average weight and just got a deskjob, so I basically don’t move all day) in the past I did feel the momentum dying and eventually I always failed and I fear it’s coming again.
blarghly@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This trend, where you feel initial motivation, but then motivation stalls and you fall off the wagon, is why calorie counting doesn’t work for most people. You aren’t a robot. You do not have an unstoppable iron will. You are human. You get hungry. You get bored. You get flat tires on the same day your friend invites you over for pizza and beer. Stalling out on calorie counting isn’t strange - it is what we would expect any normal person to do.
A far better approach is to take a more wholistic approach to health, and let the fat loss follow naturally. Stop focusing on calories. Focus on eating whole foods, mostly food you cook at home. Eat more vegetables, eat more protein, drink more water. Avoid processed junk food. Avoid drinking your calories. Avoid added sugar, white flour, and vegetable oil. Find a couple different kinds of exercise that you find enjoyable, from soccar to hiking to zumba to powerlifting to mui thai, and do them regularly. Get good sleep, and get enough sleep. Reduce stress. Spend more time with friends, and meeting interesting new people. Spend time outside in the fresh air and sunshine.
You’re far more likely to lose weight this way, because these aren’t a goal to hit by a deadline. They are just little choices to make throughout the day, course corrections you can make now and again, and fun things to do that add to the quality of your life.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
You don’t want to count calories that’s not the way to do it. What you want to cut down on his carbs, pasta potato that sort of stuff.
DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Addicted to alcohol: Stop drinking. You can’t control an addiction so you have to completely stop.
Addicted to cigarettes: Stop smoking. You can’t control an addiction so you have to completely stop.
Addicted to crack: Stop smoking crack. You can’t control an addiction so you have to completely stop.
Addicted to food: Must be your fault for being weak-willed. Just don’t consume so much of that thing that you’re addicted to. You can control your addiction. Just stop being a loser…
The literal solution to every addiction is stop it, cold turkey. One Day At A Time But you can’t stop eating food.
vaionko@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
The literal solution to every addiction is stop it, cold turkey.
Except alcohol, stopping cold turkey after prolonged heavy drinking can kill you
frostysauce@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Alcohol and benzos.
Cocopanda@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
People that tell people to go cold turkey. Are just as clueless about addiction as the people they’re trying to convince. The greatest conquest of my life was quitting cigarettes. It took a process.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Some people can quit cold turkey, most can’t. Assume you’re part of the majority and take away whatever emotional or social attachment you have to your addiction and gradually reduce whatever it is until it’s completely under control.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
It really depends on the person and the drug. People can and do quit cigarettes cold turkey and succeed relatively often. Harder drugs like benzos or opiates have a much smaller percentage who do that, and even then most dont do it by choice.
theangryseal@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I’m thankful that food has never been an issue for me.
If I eat more than twice a day, I’ll be so sick I can’t stand it. If I’m going to a party or family gathering where food will be served, I skip dinner and breakfast leading up to it so that I’ll be able to enjoy it.
Drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes though. Good god. Lifelong struggle. I’ve been sober from everything but alcohol and nicotine for a decade now. It’s time to get the ball rolling.
I have been in positions where the world forced me to stop drinking for short periods of time. I handled it fine, I just need to make the jump.
I would walk 5 miles in the snow for a single cigarette though. I would fight anyone for the chance to smoke if I haven’t had one for a while. You could catch me in a trap like a wild animal if you just stuck some cigarettes on there where the bait would normally go.
It has been the hardest thing I have ever dealt with in my life. I quit for 12 days one time and got fired from job for cussing the boss out. I lose my head so damn bad when I haven’t had nicotine that it is unreal.
DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
I absolutely replaced cigarettes with food. 100%
Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
One guy did in Australia. He was 250kg or something and did it with medical supervision. Nothing for about a year other than vitamin supplements.
burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 2 weeks ago
Was that the fella who literally checked himself in at a hospital and just said, ‘don’t let me die,’ then said year passed by?
Valmond@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The thing with modern food is that we’re addicted to sugar (all processed crap has lots, plymus sodas etc.). It’s literally a drug and so bad for us the body tried to use it up ASAP (storing any fat in the meantime) when we eat it.
When you eat too much sugar the body will use only sugar to function, and not eating sugar feels instantly like withdrawal/hunger.
So you can quit that crap cold turkey (you need to let go of slow sugars too like pasta, rice, potatoes etc at least until you get over it/found your comfort weight).
It is hard but it is definitely easier than alcohol or cigarette addiction, at least IMO 🤷🏼♀️
hanrahan@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
The literal solution to every addiction is stop it, cold turkey. One Day At A Time But you can’t stop eating food.
There’s no such thing in the DSM as “food addiction” though. You’re trivialising addiction
Insolentjellyfish@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Hello,
While food addiction is not described in the DSM V, binge eating is described as eating until uncomfortably full, eating large ammounts of food when not physically hungry, eating more rapidly than normal, eating alone due to embarassment over consumption, and/or feeling disgusted, depressed or guilty with oneself during or after an episode. There is also a carve out for Other Specified Eating and Feeding Disorder that might interest you. While these behaviors are not described as addictions, they often require professional intervention to meaningfully change. Describing them as addictions does not trivialize addiction, but rather indicates how uncontrollable and pathological they can be for some individuals.
Cheers!
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 6 days ago
Youre referencing the book that once called gay people insane?
JackbyDev@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Whatever you wanna call it, some people do struggle with that. I get your point, but by suggesting there’s no such thing at all you’re trivializing a genuine problem so people have.
Katzimir@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
explain please. I dont see it.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Theres no logical reason for this to be fake but constantly thinking of shoving things in your mouth can definitely be classified as gay.
TheLunatickle@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Fake: Anon tried to better themselves
Imadethis@lemmynsfw.com 2 weeks ago
It’s not my mouth that I want tall, long, and thicksome to be stopping in. Getting it all the way into the throat makes it feminine again.
zartcosgrove@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
i finally told my doctor that I wasn’t able to do it on my own. My whole adult life I’ve been trying to lose weight, and always felt like a failure. Even when I really buckled down, I’d lose a few kilos, but then put them back on, every time. I have always loved to exercise, but my intake always exceeded my outflow.
A big part of the problem is that I couldn’t remember NOT being hungry. Anytime somebody said “do you want to eat?” my answer was always yes. And when in calorie deficit, I would be constantly thinking about when my next meal would be, what I could eat, it was all consuming, if you’ll pardon the pun.
Getting medical help has been life changing. I’ve lost 15 kilos over the course of 7 months and I hope to continue that steady decline. The drugs silence the constant food noise. I feel like this must be what normal people feel like.
RedSnt@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
15 kg’s over 7 months sounds incredibly healthy, well done. I’ve been a bit skeptic of semaglutide, that it’d result in losing weight too quickly and in an unhealthy manner, but half a kilo a week sounds like it’s been going really well for you. Happy to hear!
Zorcron@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
If you’re interested, here are some stats from the approval studies for semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound), so you can see how fast participants lost weight over the course of the studies.
In the semaglutide study, participants weighed ~105kg/230lbs at the start and lost about 500g/1lb per week for the first 20 weeks, then it started to level out slowly. (You can skip to figure 1.)
In the tirzepatide study, participants started around 94kg/207lbs and lost about 400g/0.9lbs per week for 24 weeks until the weight loss slowed down. (Reference figure 2).
(These studies aren’t directly comparable to each other since they had different study populations, but this should give you a ballpark idea of how fast people on these meds lose weight on average.)
Taalnazi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
What we feel is normally nothing, when we feel hungry (ie not starving, but just need food), we feel a little empty in the stomach, maybe some growling there.
When we feel starving, it is all-focusing the attention on the stomach growling and hurting.
When we have eaten enough, we feel no emptiness, but not overt fullness either. If we have eaten a bit too much, we feel full; but when we eat way too much, we can feel ill.
RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 3 weeks ago
“Oh no I want to lose weight by eating less but my stomach is always hurty and I don’t like it!”
The deviously diabolical cigarette:
ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Even when I got used to feeling hungry all the time while dieting, I never got used to the fact that I was constantly tired and sleepy. I was way less productive than I had been while eating as much as I wanted to.
It was different when I took medicine that messed with my appetite. ADHD medication pretty much made eating optional. I still enjoyed it when I did eat, and if I paid attention I would be able to tell that I was hungry, but if I was distracted by other stuff I would often just forget to eat all day.
ILoveUnions@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
With adhd meds I couldn’t tell when I was hungry but still got more clumsy and hot headed when I was hungry. That wasn’t great
Sybilvane@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
I’m used to feeling sleepy and tired. It’s feeling cold that I hate. I’m dieting in the middle of a heat wave and I’m shivering so much!
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Interesting perspective, thanks. I tend to get mostly tired and less social when hungry, which is a really bad combination when you are with people who get active and
misteloct@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
For anyone trying to lose weight, that is way too fast to be sustainable. You didn’t gain 5kg/mo, and you won’t lose it that fast.
Cort@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
About half that is what’s recommended for a target. I don’t think 5kg/mo is crazy unusual for the first month or two of a diet, but would typically be followed by a plateau. Could also be dehydration from additional exercise, but that wouldn’t account for all of it.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah not very crazy if they cut back on their daily intake of Big Gulps, 12 pack sodas and jerrycan of orange juice they suddenly have a significantly lower daily calorie intake. Obese people need more calories just to maintain their weight. Since even fat cells need to use energy to stay alive. Obese people can drop the first kilos very fast just by cutting calories.
Psythik@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Exactly. If you’re still hungry after eating, then you’re starving yourself.
The point is to eat until you’re satisfied, not until you’re completely full. If you have a difficult time determining when that point is, count calories for a week or two until you figure it out. I consume an average of 2300 calories a day. That’s a lot of food—about two large meals a day (or one large meal + constant snacking throughout the day)—but I’m still losing about half a kilogram (1.1lb) per week on average. All because I’m burning more than I eat. And I barely even work out.
Cort@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If you’re still hungry after eating, then you’re starving yourself.
Or ghrelin insensitivity
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Hunger means it is working.
It is the feeling of your stomach shrinking or something.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As much as I try to advise people to be healthy, the easiest time i have had losing weight was pretty much starving myself
lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Yep, that’s leptin resistance for you. Obesity is really a hormonal condition, and this is why GLP-1 inhibitors are so effective - they actually treat the hormonal condition and allow the recipient to manage their food intake without having their body hormonally work against them.
A layman’s explanation of my best understanding of the subject:
Hunger is controlled by 2 hormones:
As fat cells accumulate, leptin levels also increase, but a person that has developed leptin resistance will not feel the appropriate amount of hunger suppression from the leptin, leading to chronic hunger unless large energy intake is sustained.
SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
The annoying thing for me is, that I feel the urge to eat something, even though I don’t feel hungry
I feel it’s a trained habit from eating snacks and dinner while watching stuff in the evening
It’s a “I’m not hungry, but having a tasty dinner or snacks to watch this show would be great” urge
It’s super annoying, because ADHD meds already take care of most of my hunger feeling, but getting rid of that conditioning feels a lot harder
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
My “food noise” in my brain slows down a lot when I reduce my carb intake. I tend to eat fewer calories when I’m not eating as many carbs from processed foods (including bread, pasta, white rice). If I limit my carb sources to higher fiber, higher protein foods, I tend to naturally eat significantly less, and can go a lot longer before feeling hungry.
I’m not sure how the insulin, leptin, ghrelin, and blood sugar levels play into all of it, but I know that I generally stop thinking about food as much when I’m not eating too many processed carbs.
Sc00ter@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Im right there with you, but with beer. I used to have a beer or 2 every night after everyone was in bed. Sit down in the basement and load up a game or show. Decided to stop doing that, and had no urge to drink through out the day, but as soon as id go downstairs and fire up the games, id reach for beer that wasnt there. It was purely habit at that point for me.
As others do to curb their snacking habits, i just dont buy it, because that urge doesnt exist during the day
Cort@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The Japanese have a word for it: kuchisabishii 口寂しい - lonely mouth.
lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
I learn so many great things from reading the comments in Lemmy greentext posts.
stray@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
Does either of those cause/prevent actual starvation feelings, like headaches and fatigue? Do they influence your non-exercise activity thermogenesis? (ie, feeling like you need to sit while you wait for the bus instead of standing or pacing) Or is it just a vague munchiness?
GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
I don’t know the subject well enough to tell, unfortunately.
isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
yeah, mostly
if there’s no readily available food i can go a full day without feeling anything, and i only eat again only because of munchiness, not because of hunger. There’s the occasional stomach rumble after 12hrs of not eating but nothing significant enough to tell the brain “you should try to not die”
Gustephan@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’ve been on a glp1 medication to treat obesity for about 2 months now, and its wild how well it works. Im down about 25 lbs. The most striking part to me is that I took a week off during month 2 because I needed a break from feeling sick and fatigued all the time, and during my break week I was getting full on just under half the food I’d eat in a sitting prior to starting the medication.
All that being said, im still convinced that the most effective part of ozempic is how fucking sick it makes you feel all the time. In my case its gotten to the point that the threat of digestive pain caused by eating while on ozempic is a bigger motivator than hunger; 5 days a week lately my food intake is “enough greens to make fibrous poop, enough crackers to absorb some of the excess stomach acid and mitigate heartburn, and a multivitamin”
RBWells@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah I think I have a normal appetite, my kids will laugh at me when I say I’m not hungry because I ate a big meal, they say “that was hours ago” but I stay full, or not hungry, my body wants to weigh more than I personally want it to (have BMI of 22) but doesn’t want to weigh more than it does now I guess.
So I understand when people say they used to be hungry and the drugs made them normal, it’s not a willpower thing, I don’t have to use willpower, just am not that hungry, naturally.