this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
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Yes, let's blame it on moral failure rather than the destruction of walkable spaces, endangering as many outdoor spaces as possible with 3-ton emotional support vehicles, portion sizes at restaurants and grocery stores that are double of other countries because going anywhere requires committing to driving 15mins both ways and parking, and having fuck all for a health care system.
I'm dealing with all those things and I still maintain a healthy weight.
The primary difference between skinny people and fat people is that fat people are simply hungrier. People have different set points that their bodies try desperately to stay at. And this set point is largely affected by the diet you experience in early childhood, and it's set for life.
Yes, obviously it is possible for a person with a fat set point to lower their weight through constant grinding effort and calorie counting. But that's not how human beings are supposed to have to live. Most skinny people don't have to count calories, they simply rely on their natural hunger levels to maintain their weight.
If a skinny person tries to eat past their set point, their body will actually fight them. If you try to eat past your set point, your body will force you to burn off calories in all sorts of ways. Your energy levels will soar, so you spend more time active. You'll experience insomnia, so you spend more time active and burning more calories.
If a fat person tries to lose weight just by counting calories, their body constantly fights them over it. Their energy levels decline so they'll burn less calories. They'll get tired earlier and find themselves sleeping for 10 hours as their body forces them to preserve calories.
Weight is not a moral issue. It is a simple health issue. Our modern food systems create unnatural foods that fuck up people's internal set points. Instead of your body trying to get you to maintain a healthy weight, it tries to maintain an unhealthy weight.
We see now through the invention of drugs like Ozempic that the whole idea of calorie counting and brute force willpower to maintain weight is a Medieval and barbaric approach to the problem. We've taken a medical problem and turned it into a moral failing. It's no different than how people used to ostracize, demonize, and banish those who caught leprosy.
Congratulations, me too. Systemic problems don't affect every individual in the system in the same way.
But they do affect a lot of individuals in the same way. Those individuals can manage to maintain a healthy weight with a little planning and effort. Simply following CICO is enough for most people. I wouldn't say being overweight is really a moral failing but it does typically show that someone who otherwise doesn't have health problems is not making an effort to stay healthy. Most of my social circle falls into this category.
I guarantee you don't know shit about anyone's health in your social circle because you think of yourself so highly that you can diagnose others just by how they 'look'.
'Simply follow CICO' is another way of saying 'I don't understand how metabolic and hormonal disorders work, I am privileged with access to healthy food and don't live in a food desert, I don't work multiple jobs and feed a family of 4, I don't know what it's like to lack the biochemistry to ever feel full after eating a meal, I don't struggle with eating disorders.
Obesity is a health problem. Saying that 'someone who otherwise doesn't have health problems is not making an effort to stay healthy' is as stupid as saying depressed people who don't have health problems aren't making an effort to stay happy.
'Not making an effort' from you says more about how easy and privileged you have it than how lazy other people are. Grow up and learn to have more empathy than a 3 year old.
I don't base it off how they look. I base it off their actions. I see them going out and getting 1000 calorie fast food combo meals for lunch every day and then talking about their Uber order on discord later that night. Eating an entire pizza and then getting an entree when we go out to the bar. Shit like that.
I don't eat healthy food. I eat mostly fast food and boxed crap from costco my housemates make and I rarely feel full after eating a meal. Feeling full is not the goal when I eat, If you're eating calorie dense stuff you have to get used to not being full. Your stomach also gets smaller over time if you do this so it takes less to feel "full" when you do.
Yes, CICO works, since energy is a conserved quantity. That much is very true. What isn't true at all is that CICO is simple.
It takes time and energy to figure out how many calories you're ingesting. And that's the simple part. Knowing how many calories you're actually absorbing and how many you're actually burning takes professional help. And finally, those things are highly volatile and change a lot throughout your life, depending on a plethora of factors.
Many people don't have the resources to access that stuff, starting with enough free time.
You don't need a professional. You don't have to have it down to an exact science. There are calculators online that will get you in the ballpark and from there you just keep track of if it's working or not and adjust your intake according to your goals.
For example, on paper I'm supposed to be consuming about 1600 calories a day to maintain but I've found that if I actually do that I gain weight. The real number is around 13-1400. Which can be quite challenging with the food options that I have but I do it. If I keep it under 1200 I lose weight until I get down to about 13-14% body fat (according to the scale I have which admittedly is probably not 100% accurate) and it levels off. I don't go below that because I start feeling like shit all the time. This is all while living off mostly fast food and the boxed crap from costco that my housemates prepare.
Your personal experience does not make universal truth. Many people have highly fluctuating hormones and digestion. It's great that it works for you, but it won't work for everyone. There's a myriad of invisible diseases that can affect this. And that's not even counting that some people don't have the resources to even think of anything outside work, eat whatever is accessible, sleep, repeat.
Even if personal experience was universal: based on MY experience, nobody should be able to figure out how much to eat, even with professional help.
I desperately wanted to gain weight for over a decade. I started counting calories. The amount I was supposed to be consuming to safely gain would make me gain a few kilos over a few months and then, keeping the same amount since I wasn't at my goal yet, would make me lose them again. The rates of gaining and losing would vary wildly, too. After reaching my goal and eating for what was supposed to be maintenance, I suddenly lost 5 kg in less than a month. And I'm seeing a specialist for hormone tests once a month. Imagine how bad it would be if I couldn't.
Physics tells us that CICO predicts weight gain and heaps of empirical data tells us it's one of many relevant factors.
Most people don't really control their weight by counting calories. They go by how they feel and our feelings,are heavily influenced by our biochemistry. Semaglutide doesn't work by giving people will power or self control; it works by targeting GLP-1 receptors to make them feel full sooner.
Yeah, and that's why they're overweight and that's why I said it takes planning and effort. Wanting to feel "full" is a big part of the problem. The easy food options are too calorie dense for that.
Weight is a pretty poor predictor of planning and effort.
The overwhelming evidence is that for some people it takes far more work to maintain a healthy weight than it does for others.
AKA planning and effort
Get off your high horse, buddy.
Sounds like not a very good approach then. I'll stick to the physics, thanks.
That approach always fails in the long run. Yes, you can lose weight by just counting calories. But you are fighting your body every step of the way. And even after you reach your target weight, your body will constantly be trying to return to the overweight state. In the end, your will will almost certainly fail. Are you prepared to religiously count calories, be constantly tired, and miserable for the rest of your life? Then sure, you can rely on physics alone to keep your weight down.
But that is not how human beings were meant to live. We're meant to simply eat until we're full. What we're talking about is a massive public health problem. And public health problem is not obesity. The public health problem is that the "full meters" of hundreds of millions of people have been irrevocably damaged by modern processed foods. Your set point, your full meter, your satiation reflex, whatever you want to call it. This is as a part of your body as any other organ or gland. When someone breaks their arm, we don't demonize them for having a broken arm. When someone has a broken full meter however, we decry it as a moral failing.
That's a lot of words to say you don't understand the mental healthcare crisis in this country.