WHAT? Spoiled, lazy, immediate gratification? In America? I thought those were written into the Bill of Rights!

I totally agree. We don't have to work hard for anything ... at least, not in the ways previous generations have had to work. My step-mother drives her car ONE BLOCK to her job every day, even in beautiful weather.

Yep, I'm the first one to admit that I am a lazy bug. I don't want to exercise and I hate to watch how much and what I eat but I have to if I want to get down to my healthy weight and [act] like a mature adult. And boy, does it get harder as you get older......

Okay, how many times have I had someone say "I'd do anything to lose weight, how are you doing it?" As soon as I mention exercise and limiting food, I've lost their interest. Well, they'd do anything except that..... Where's the magic pill????

All or nothing mentality. We have been trained to think we must suffer to lose weight. Virtually all of the diets have "BAD" foods and act like one iota of the bad food will derail you.

Which leaves us with the impression that to be thin we must never again eat foods we like and we must only eat foods we despise.

And that we must follow a prescribed diet to the letter or it is no good. I actually had someone tell me once that she couldnt do SBD because she didnt like V-8 and she was allergic to fish and in phase one she HAD to eat fish and V-8. And so there was no point in trying.

Oh and diet mentality anyway...its not a life change its just a diet and the more you suffer the more successful you will be....Its virtuous to suffer.

There are a lot of diet myths and assumptions that have become ingrained. There seems to be this impression that change has to be immediate, drastic, and complete to have any success at all. One must find a diet guru (in the form of a book, weight loss program in a magazine...) and follow their rules to the letter for the rest of time...

I must wake up tomorrow, eat 1100 calories (not 1101) of "diet" food (1100 calories of regular food won't work), run for an hour, drink 10 or more glasses of water (not 9.5, and not 8 glasses of water, and 2 glasses of milk....). If I don't lose weight 1 week, I have hit a "plateau."

It's "magical thinking," and the "diet industry" encourages it, because people trying to sell you stuff want to convince you that you can only lose weight with their product or service.

Right on, kaplods! You GO!

Jay

the weird thing though, is that even though everyone is always talking about weight loss and diets and blah blah blaaah, i know very few people on "diets" who know the first thing about nutrition! for example my best friend (a primary school teacher) thinks that chewing gum makes you fat because you breathe more when youre chewing and so you gain weight from the air... or theres my boyfriends mother who is significantly over weight and is always going on about how she "HAS" to lose weight but then does literally not a thing about it! she goes out and spends loads of money on low fat crisps and yoghurts and low fat chocolate bars, and then eats 12 of them at once! why? because theyre low fat! she then proceeds to advise me (professional dieter using actual food, no chemicals allowed!) that bagels are a brilliant subsitute for bread because you can eat several of them and not gain weight! whats so bad about a bit of bread? and unless ive been misled, your average white bagel is a good few more calories and fat grams than 2 slices of wholewheat bread. its the fads and the marketing that are really messing up peoples knowledge of whats good for them and what isnt. vulnerable people who are trying to lose weight and dont really know how to go about it are being exploited on all sides, and i think its really very sad.

haha, I function very well, thank you very much!

I'm one of those people--to me, vegetables ARE the evil "diet" food. I can't stand most veggies (exceptions being the starchy ones--white potatoes and yellow corn). I used to like more veggies as a child that I can't stand now (example: I liked peas as a kid--can't stand them now!). I WISH I liked veggies--would make weight loss much easier as they are the one thing you can really eat a lot of for not a ton of calories (bar the starchy ones I love, of course). Every once in a while, I buy a whole bunch of fresh and frozen veggies thinking maybe my tastes have changed or maybe if I prepare them this one other way...but it never seems to work

Talk about not "getting it" what about the 2 people I know that ate whatever they wanted then...are ready for this?...drank a bottle of Slim Fast! after the meal....guess they thought the stuff in the bottle was little "food eater" creatures!

That makes as much sense as the college...YES! I said college! roommate my daughter had one year, she believed if you MOVED AROUND at the beach you WOULD NOT get a sunburn....both stories absolutely true!!

I remember when TCBY (a national frozen yogurt chain) served slim-fast shakes made with frozen yogurt. Um, not a whole lot better than making it with ice cream! Especially since I had a friend who didn't read the fine print, and thought they were the same 220 - 250 calories she was getting in her slimfast shake at home. They were closer to 400.

When I taught preschool health and nutrition (to preschool teachers, not preschoolers), I was astonished at the ignorance. The number of people who knew the difference between calories, fat, protein, and carbohydrate was suprisingly low, and I'm not talking about a high level distinction, but being able to answer a question on a test such as... Butter is primarily a. protein, b. fat, c. carbohydrate

And do you have any idea how many people think "Sun Chips" are a heatlh food?

Instant gratification ... yup. The easy route ... yup.

Why, do you think, do some of us do understand basic nutrition and some don't?

Let me see if I can put a nebulous thought into words ... We find a new gadget or weight loss method. Perhaps we hope it might work but a small part of us knows it's too good to be true. When it doesn't work ... it's not our fault that we're still as heavy as ever. We're not stupid. We knew it probably wouldn't work. We tried but the 'new thing' didn't work.
Is pre-absolved a word?

I'm thinking of my mom when I say this. I think along the way she's tried some fat free foods and hated them. She now equates anything "healthy" or "reduced fat" with being evil and tasting horrible. She won't try the new reduced fat items that actually taste decent (IMO, like Light Done Right dressing, etc.). They've really come a long way in terms of that kind of diet food! Also, she scoffs at the fact that we actually eat turkey bacon. Now, for me, turkey bacon approximates what I sometimes crave in real bacon enough to satisfy me most of the time. But if I were serving it to others, I would go with the real stuff. And if I'm out to breakfast, I eat the real stuff. I just really don't mind making substitutions like that on a daily basis, whereas the thought of it completely offends my mom.

I was simply never taught it. Never once was nutrition taught in my elementary, middle, or high school gym class (which is apparently where it is taught in some schools now). The college I went to didn't have a gym or nutritional class requirement. I learned on my own when I was a teenager because I was about 30-40 pounds overweight and wanted to know how to lose it.

This reminds me of that comedian (can't think of his name! argh!) who said:

"You know what the baby boomer slogan is, right? 'Give me that it's MINE!' "

Not singling out the boomers for this, but it is a bit indicative of a society that's gone a bit mad with entitlement. You are on to something, Gary!

I went to a really inspiring talk given by a nutritionist....she said that one of the biggest myths among her college aged clients is that when they are having a venti chocolate chip frappaccino it's "just a coffee....."

She says: this is not "a coffee", it's a hot fudge sundae in a glass, often taken with a GIANT muffin that is the size of three muffins -- she sez she's known young girls who were mystified at their weight gain drop 15 pounds just by stopping the Starbucks and Jumba Juice habit.