I moved across the country away from my parents, moved in with much more emotionally healthy sister, went on a keto diet and lost fifty pounds (5″10′ male, ended high school at 160, went from roughly 220 to 170). Getting my shit together happened first—and then the weight loss was almost an afterthought.
That anecdote doesn’t even separate cause and effect. Maybe you lose weight because you moved, and the diet had no effect. Or maybe your emotional state improved because you lost weight, and moving had no effect—big changes in weight are known to cause or at least correlate with emotional changes.
Fat loss is fine and all, but most people got fat for a reason.
Everything happens for a reason, but most events have many complexly interacting causes, not a single unentangled one. So your claim needs a lot of evidence, and as far as I can see you’re not explicitly presenting any.
Maybe you lose weight because you moved, and the diet had no effect.
It was the diet, full stop. The diet was months after moving, and I stayed at the old weight before starting the diet, and I stopped losing weight when I went off the diet.
Or maybe your emotional state improved because you lost weight, and moving had no effect
I wouldn’t have lost weight without the diet, which wouldn’t have happened without moving. It’s really the difference between A->C and A->B->C. The counterfactual where I successfully go on a keto diet without the social support of my sister isn’t something that would have happened.
Everything happens for a reason, but most events have many complexly interacting causes, not a single unentangled one.
Let me be more specific in the counterfactuals I’m envisioning. You tell a person with a comfort eating problem to go on a specific diet, and they wind up saying they’re on a diet but end up hiding their comfort eating. Any amount of diet advice is not going to work for them because dieting is solving the wrong problem. The right solution is teaching emotional awareness, alternative strategies for meeting your emotional needs, and general skills for improving your life.
I’ll retract the “most” part of “most people got fat for a reason”, because even if it’s true I don’t have the data to say that—all I really have is a story about how diets fail for people with certain issues.
That anecdote doesn’t even separate cause and effect. Maybe you lose weight because you moved, and the diet had no effect. Or maybe your emotional state improved because you lost weight, and moving had no effect—big changes in weight are known to cause or at least correlate with emotional changes.
Everything happens for a reason, but most events have many complexly interacting causes, not a single unentangled one. So your claim needs a lot of evidence, and as far as I can see you’re not explicitly presenting any.
It was the diet, full stop. The diet was months after moving, and I stayed at the old weight before starting the diet, and I stopped losing weight when I went off the diet.
I wouldn’t have lost weight without the diet, which wouldn’t have happened without moving. It’s really the difference between A->C and A->B->C. The counterfactual where I successfully go on a keto diet without the social support of my sister isn’t something that would have happened.
Let me be more specific in the counterfactuals I’m envisioning. You tell a person with a comfort eating problem to go on a specific diet, and they wind up saying they’re on a diet but end up hiding their comfort eating. Any amount of diet advice is not going to work for them because dieting is solving the wrong problem. The right solution is teaching emotional awareness, alternative strategies for meeting your emotional needs, and general skills for improving your life.
I’ll retract the “most” part of “most people got fat for a reason”, because even if it’s true I don’t have the data to say that—all I really have is a story about how diets fail for people with certain issues.