I don’t recommend having this argument. It’s useless in almost every respect.
There are two fundamental issues. First, most people don’t understand what a Calorie looks like, and think the difference between a healthy weight and an unhealthy weight is a large amount of food, rather than a small amount of food compounded over long periods of time. Want to lose weight in a sustained and sustainable fashion? Subtract a small amount of food over a long period of time. Instead, people crash-diet, then go back to normal eating habits.
An extra apple a day translates, over years, to up to 50 extra pounds. Looking at two people’s daily diets, one is overweight, one is healthy, and most people couldn’t tell the difference by looking at what they ate.
The second problem is that exercise is incredibly unpleasant if you’re overweight. If you’re currently in shape, try tossing 50 lbs of weights into a backpack the next time you exercise. Or better yet, don’t, because you could hurt yourself pretty easily in exactly the ways overweight people injure themselves when doing things like jogging.
It takes physiological issues to gain serious amounts of weight in the first place; these won’t stop you from losing weight, but they’ll make it harder to maintain a steady weight. Normal people fidget or otherwise increase their base level of activity when they overeat, burning off excess calories. Overweight people have to be more deliberate and conscious of these things.
An extra apple a day translates, over years, to up to 50 extra pounds.
No it doesn’t. You use up more calories when you weigh more. If you eat an apple a day you will reach an equilibrium where you have just enough extra weight to burn a number of calories per day equivalent to an apple. 95 calories in an apple will still get you to about 9.5 kilograms extra, which is a lot, but not near 50 pounds and it won’t increase without limit.)
No it doesn’t. You use up more calories when you weigh more. If you eat an apple a day you will reach an equilibrium where you have just enough extra weight to burn a number of calories per day equivalent to an apple. 95 calories in an apple will still get you to about 9.5 kilograms extra, which is a lot, but not near 50 pounds and it won’t increase without limit.)
The information I have seen suggests a pound of fat requires 2-3 kilocalories per day to maintain itself, which implies a range of 30-47.5 pounds from a 95 kilocalorie deviation, which would be 13-20 kilograms.
I have no idea how accurate that is, but it doesn’t matter too much, as the underlying point remains the same: People’s expectations of food consumption necessary to be overweight are entirely inaccurate. Fat people think thin people must be eating almost nothing at all, thin people think fat people must be eating three hamburgers per meal, where the actual difference is quite small, relative to our out-of-whack expectations.
It’s not just “harder”, it requires skills and knowledge, which most people don’t actually have.
The point is that “exercise” isn’t helpful advice to lose weight. First, it’s not terribly effective at it over short durations, and people need to know that what they’re doing is working. Second, if somebody isn’t already exercising, they’re going to hurt themselves, have a six week recovery time, try again, hurt themselves, and give up on losing weight. Third, you’re communicating something different than what you think you are; “Go for a walk every day” is good advice, by comparison to “exercise”. The temptation is to object that that is exactly exercising—but it isn’t what people think when you tell them to exercise.
I’ve been both. My natural tendency, absent constant pressure, is to settle 40-50 pounds over my ideal weight—and it’s relatively easy for me to lose weight now, but mostly because I know it’s possible. The first time I lost weight, willpower had nothing to do with it—I had a minimum-wage job that kept me constantly active, and I didn’t feel like I could afford to waste money on anything but the minimum sustenance of food. So I was dieting and exercising against my preferences. Since then, I’ve been able to lose weight—because I knew it was possible. Without the prior experience of having lost weight, it feels like an impossible achievement.
I don’t recommend having this argument. It’s useless in almost every respect.
There are two fundamental issues. First, most people don’t understand what a Calorie looks like, and think the difference between a healthy weight and an unhealthy weight is a large amount of food, rather than a small amount of food compounded over long periods of time. Want to lose weight in a sustained and sustainable fashion? Subtract a small amount of food over a long period of time. Instead, people crash-diet, then go back to normal eating habits.
An extra apple a day translates, over years, to up to 50 extra pounds. Looking at two people’s daily diets, one is overweight, one is healthy, and most people couldn’t tell the difference by looking at what they ate.
The second problem is that exercise is incredibly unpleasant if you’re overweight. If you’re currently in shape, try tossing 50 lbs of weights into a backpack the next time you exercise. Or better yet, don’t, because you could hurt yourself pretty easily in exactly the ways overweight people injure themselves when doing things like jogging.
It takes physiological issues to gain serious amounts of weight in the first place; these won’t stop you from losing weight, but they’ll make it harder to maintain a steady weight. Normal people fidget or otherwise increase their base level of activity when they overeat, burning off excess calories. Overweight people have to be more deliberate and conscious of these things.
I don’t think I disagree anywhere.
No it doesn’t. You use up more calories when you weigh more. If you eat an apple a day you will reach an equilibrium where you have just enough extra weight to burn a number of calories per day equivalent to an apple. 95 calories in an apple will still get you to about 9.5 kilograms extra, which is a lot, but not near 50 pounds and it won’t increase without limit.)
The information I have seen suggests a pound of fat requires 2-3 kilocalories per day to maintain itself, which implies a range of 30-47.5 pounds from a 95 kilocalorie deviation, which would be 13-20 kilograms.
I have no idea how accurate that is, but it doesn’t matter too much, as the underlying point remains the same: People’s expectations of food consumption necessary to be overweight are entirely inaccurate. Fat people think thin people must be eating almost nothing at all, thin people think fat people must be eating three hamburgers per meal, where the actual difference is quite small, relative to our out-of-whack expectations.
There are fat athletes. I can believe that starting from being very sedentary is harder if you’re fat.
It’s not just “harder”, it requires skills and knowledge, which most people don’t actually have.
The point is that “exercise” isn’t helpful advice to lose weight. First, it’s not terribly effective at it over short durations, and people need to know that what they’re doing is working. Second, if somebody isn’t already exercising, they’re going to hurt themselves, have a six week recovery time, try again, hurt themselves, and give up on losing weight. Third, you’re communicating something different than what you think you are; “Go for a walk every day” is good advice, by comparison to “exercise”. The temptation is to object that that is exactly exercising—but it isn’t what people think when you tell them to exercise.
I’ve been both. My natural tendency, absent constant pressure, is to settle 40-50 pounds over my ideal weight—and it’s relatively easy for me to lose weight now, but mostly because I know it’s possible. The first time I lost weight, willpower had nothing to do with it—I had a minimum-wage job that kept me constantly active, and I didn’t feel like I could afford to waste money on anything but the minimum sustenance of food. So I was dieting and exercising against my preferences. Since then, I’ve been able to lose weight—because I knew it was possible. Without the prior experience of having lost weight, it feels like an impossible achievement.
still don’t disagree. weight loss is hard. good habits help.