Why do people struggle to lose weight?

[Jayburner]

It's really not that bad. Are people just afraid of feeling a little hungry? I actually feel energized when I'm slightly hungry. 155 pound club.

[Blueobelisk]

Why are people alcoholics? Are people that afraid to deal with life without being inebriated? I actually feel purer when I'm clear of mind after drinking water. No alcohol club.

[Jayburner]

Why are people alcoholics? Are people that afraid to deal with life without being inebriated? I actually feel purer when I'm clear of mind after drinking water. No alcohol club.

you have a point.

[Super Kami Dende]

Food tastes good. Especially food that is bad for Weight loss.

[Mistame]

I'm a bit overweight and I barely eat. I just can't be bothered with exercise. It's boring as fuck.

[Cybran]

Because:

- Eating healthy is not cheap.
- Most readily available foods have added sugar and salt.
- The Sugar lobby spend billions funding fake studies against fat when sugar is worse.
- Parents are lazy and let children eat all kinds of garbage.
- Once you gain weight even if you lose it there is a new layer under the skin which makes gaining it back much faster.
- Fat children are very unlikely to shed their weight as they grow older due to bad habits.

[Deleted]

Because sacrificing things that bring you pleasure is hard.

[mage21]

It actually is a lot of effort for most people. Exercise and going hungry for prolonged periods of time will have most people questioning if it's worth it. By week 2, they're probably thinking, "What's the point of being thin if I'm going to be unhappy and hungry all the time?" So it's a whole thing.

That said, there's a popular trend nowadays where, instead of acknowledging that something is difficult, we just rebrand it as a different way to live. "Healthy at any size". This is of course not true, you're not healthy if you're overweight, but it's much easier to try and change/scold society into being accepting of the situation than it is to take on the difficult task of losing weight.

All this is easy for me to say, I'm naturally fit in spite of the fact that I eat garbage all day, though my work requires strenuous exercise frequently.

[Jayburner]

People should put the fork down once in a while i think.

[Cyberowl]

Eating is fun (and a refuge for some), exercising is time consuming and not fun in the beginning.

You just have to want it and do the first step.

[Endus]

Why are people alcoholics? Are people that afraid to deal with life without being inebriated? I actually feel purer when I'm clear of mind after drinking water. No alcohol club.

To add to that, if you've got a problem with alcohol, what's the first step? You stop drinking. Ever. Not even a sip. Alcoholics can't have a drop, because they know they can't control themselves, and they're far more likely to slip.

Now, imagine if an alcoholic needed to have a responsible drink three times a day just to keep living. There's a reason that doesn't work out. That's also the reality for anyone with dietary willpower issues; they CAN'T cut "food" out of their lives completely. So it's like an alcoholic trying to never binge even when they have a beer with literally every meal.

[Polyxo]

Some peoples' bodies just cling to weight like nothing else. I'm 4'11" and a little under 130 lbs. I have broad shoulders and hips and a pretty powerful build, and I'm very mesomorphic. It just happens naturally without a ton of effort. I would think if I tried to make myself 'smaller', I'd be kind of just boxy and less trim.

Being that big isn't necessarily meaning one isn't athletic or healthy though. I know a few girls at my gym that are what you might describe as kind of 'fat', but they're pretty good lifters, and they can probably easily outdo 99% of the population in distance running.

[Darththeo]

Genetics play a role ... metabolism and ease of gaining weight are genetic. I know some skinny people who don't exercise or eat right at all and some overweight people who eat right and exercise. The amount of effort is not the same for everyone.

[Jayburner]

Assuming they're actually trying and failing, it's likely a combination of habitual behavior being difficult to change and a poor environment for weight loss, as well as possibly an innately lower ability to exercise self-restraint. I think in general modern society is not a particularly great environment for staying fit, to say nothing of a ton of bad advice floating around. A lot of jobs are very sedentary; food is packed to the gills with fat and sugar to encourage us to eat and buy more; and finding opportunities to exercise can be difficult depending on your location and free time, which leaves you with basically the worst option and fighting your body's evolved desire to hoard calories when the opportunity presents itself.

I read all that. Just confusing how any sane person keeps shoveling the same slop into their mouth. I would like to think we are a society that has information at hand at all times.

[Antius]

Most of the time it all boils down to willpower. There's a few people out there with physical and mental illnesses or disabilities that hinder or nullify their ability to lose weight but alot of it is being able to control your emotions.

[Nelaphim-EX]

The human body wants to hold onto excess fat as much as possible - it is to preserve us during lean times or when food is scarce. In most first and second world countries, that is a rarity - So we get fat.

We have to work more to stay skinny/lean/trim.

[Jayburner]

The human body wants to hold onto excess fat as much as possible - it is to preserve us during lean times or when food is scarce. In most first and second world countries, that is a rarity - So we get fat.

We have to work more to stay skinny/lean/trim.

I was 210 pounds a few years ago..and I'll tell you its life changing when you lose 50 pounds. I was a fatty too.

[Endus]

Genetics play a role ... metabolism and ease of gaining weight are genetic. I know some skinny people who don't exercise or eat right at all and some overweight people who eat right and exercise. The amount of effort is not the same for everyone.

BMR; base metabolic rate.

A lot of people say "it's just energy in, and energy out", but it's not that simple. Some people burn a lot more calories just by sitting around. Some people don't process certain foods the same way. You need to figure out how much of your intake is actually being converted to food energy, rather than being passed through without being absorbed, as well as how much your body consumes for day-to-day basics like walking around and breathing. Same for the "out"; people's energy usage varies somewhat, so some people get way more benefit out of a shorter workout than others.

Once you control for all those factors THEN you can get to "energy in < energy out", but without that, your numbers aren't right to begin with.

[Tommy T]

I used to be pretty fat.
Mostly down to me just eating junk and not exercising much.

Once you realise it's just habits, concentrate on breaking a habit, one by one. The one by one bit is important. Concentrating on one goal at a time.

For example, my bad habit was eating a large bowl of popcorn, a bottle of coke and some crispy m&ms for every Football game I watched. I got to the stage where I found it difficult to watch Football without junk food.

After two or three weeks of resisting that urge, and substituting it with something more healthy (non fat popcorn, bottle of water) my junk food - Football causation subsided.

Losing weight is hard. Don't let anyone tell you different, but it's definitely easier with the right approach.

[Stormspark]

Because:

- Eating healthy is not cheap.
- Most readily available foods have added sugar and salt.
- The Sugar lobby spend billions funding fake studies against fat when sugar is worse.
- Parents are lazy and let children eat all kinds of garbage.
- Once you gain weight even if you lose it there is a new layer under the skin which makes gaining it back much faster.
- Fat children are very unlikely to shed their weight as they grow older due to bad habits.

Carbohydrates are freaking everywhere. I've tried to go low carb before, it's next to impossible without spending a lot more money and getting ingredients and making everything yourself. Not to mention all the fake propoganda that demonizes fat and meat (both of which are good), and says people need to eat a lot of things like bread (which is about the same as eating a handful of sugar). People need to be eating a lot more protein and fat, and a lot fewer carbohydrates. The only people that need the amount of carbohydrates the average person eats are athletes who do things like run marathons.