losing weight is "easy"?
 

This very young/fit/well meaning friend of mine who is in med school right now just said this to me. I wanted to B#$ slap him lol. It felt like he was discounting all of my hard work. Am I the only one that finds this philosophy insulting? grrrrrrrrr

I would say that losing weight is scientifically "simple" (eat more calories than you burn and you DO lose weight), metabolically "complex" (what "what you burn" value is highly variable between individuals, and can change depending on what you eat, how you exercise, your level of muscle, your hydration level, how you're sleeping, etc), and practically "challenging" (because making major changes in lifestyle is difficult to do, even if it will result in what you ultimately want)

So "easy" is a little over-generalized. From a pure science level, he's correct, but that ignores all the metabolic and practical issues.

ETA: Amanda and I posted at the same time :D

I haven't met too many people who think that! LOL! Only the naturally trim. And most of them know better than to say stupid things like that!

Now the concept is easy...I'll give him that. But the process? Uh-uh. :no:

exactly! in principle it is "easy" but if it were REALLY easy 30+% of this country would not be overweight!

mandalinn, I couldn't have said it better.

I have actually described losing weight as "easy" before. Sometimes when I look back on it, it was quite easy in theory. I simply didn't eat crap all the time. I take 5 minutes every night to plan my meals and calories, stick to my plan, and get at least a moderate amount of exercise in each day. It really is just diet and exercise. It takes some guess work and trial and error, but "eat less, move more" is really the formula for success in nearly every case.

However, the mental and psychological aspects are quite challenging, no question about that. Otherwise everyone would be skinny.

In theory, yes, it's easy. In practice, challenging.

I think this could be true of the (probably a minority) people who disassociate eating with any kind of emotion.

To me, the only 'easy' part of weight loss is the equation of calories out > calories in=weight loss.

But that's of course not considering any of the mental/emotional struggles to stay on track. Or people starting at higher weights where they may not be able to exercise.

He is also not considering the maintenance part of weight loss, which never stops.

It just sounds like something someone who has never experienced dieting, or weight related body images issues...

You know you are working hard and achieving something worth having most importantly. Sometimes other people are just intimidated by other peoples success, so they downplay it :)
Congrats on all your progress so far :)

I've always said weight loss is both the easiest thing and hardest thing I have ever done.

For example, an apple is a healthy snack - easy. Having a fresh crisp tasty apple on hand and eating that apple when you're hungry in the afternoon and your coworker offers you a brownie - hard (both the planning to have it and resisting the temptation to eat something else).

My signature says losing weight is easy. I mean it the same way one hears the old saw, "Quitting smoking is easy - I've done it a hundred times."

Of course those above are quite correct who have pointed out that the hard part comes in the exercise of will necessary to overcome the physical and emotional temptations of overeating. Part of the reason my signature states that "losing weight is easy" is because my personal approach - this time - is to cut out all the mishugas and force myself to focus on the parts that are easy. I don't want to clutter up my mind-space with coddling and theories and corny motivational phrases. I just want to not be fat any more. And in light of that, it just becomes a matter of not shoving enormous portions of food into my pie-hole.

Easy.

I'm not saying this approach will work for everyone - heck, I'm not even sure yet whether it will work for me, it remains to be seen.

Having said all of that, I'd be pretty cross if someone who had never struggled with his or her own weight felt the need to tell me that "losing weight is easy." It's one thing for me to impose that idea upon myself as a tool for managing the psychological complexities of the process. It's an entirely different thing coming from someone who has no idea what's going on in my head.

LOLOLOLOLOL

Actually a friend of mine has a major weight struggle with apples. She was eating 500-600 calories a day in apples. She was recently diagnosed severely anemic and they think her apple craving was a very mild form of pica. Possibly. Or she just likes apples a lot.

I agree that the majority of people who say that it is easy have never struggled with more than a few pounds.

And for some folks it IS easy. My husband for example. He noticed he was having to tuck in his shirts to keep his pants up this summer because he has lost weight. Probably because the cook at the work cafeteria kinda sucks this year so most days for lunch he has soup and salad and then I usually cook my healthy dinners with lots of veggies that he doesnt eat. But if he wants to lose weight he cuts back from2 beers to 1. :p Of course except for the time he was on high dose prednisone he has never been more than about 10-15 lbs overweight.

My all-his-young-life thin father used to constantly say that to my mother and I, "weight loss is easy, just eat less" he would say.

Then he retired, and the slim, active man started to look pregnant. When he tried to lose weight, he found it was a lot easier said than done, and soon he was uttering the same complaints that had earned us his "it's easy" lectures. He started complaining that he was "hardly eating anything, and still not losing."

Mom and I did have to throw in a few "I told you so's," but in the end, we're all a lot more sympathetic to one another.

I chalk it up to ignorance - there are a lot of things that seem easy in theory, but are much more difficult in practice.

Your friend is a man... it is easier for men to lose weight than women. My boss has lost 50 lbs in just a few months, while it ihas taken me a year to lose 25. good grief!

Carter, I actually thought of that mark twain quote when he said it. lol

I told him that he, as a healthcare professional, needed to be careful about how he said things and that, had I come to him as a patient, I would not have come back but that, as a friend, I knew that he did not mean to be offensive.

I really feel like it is difficult to find doctor's who are sensitive to this issue. I have left doctor's offices feeling humiliated before by how they reacted to my weight. My sister refuses to go to the doctor anymore because she has had bad experiences in this respect and I'm really worried about her because I KNOW she has heart/lung/endocrine problems that require a doctor's care.

Snarky Star would have said, "Yeah, but so is being a doctor. I mean, a C- average still gets you a DM, right?"

Cause you can make a bad doctor out of pretty much anyone. But, I might be mean.:devil:

Actually, I did find weight loss fairly easy. Maintenance on the other hand, requires a lot more effort. Weight loss required a focused determination to achieve something and I found it quite easy to do that. Maintenance is a constant balancing act that I'm going to have to do forever; much tougher in my opinion.

Oooh, I'll apologize now for the length of my post because this pushes one of my buttons. :mad: Indeed... The traditional medical approach to weight loss has been a dismal failure for decades. Calories in/calories out is an oversimplification; people are different, and the way we metabolise food is different. When addressing weight issues, many (most?) doctors (a) don't bother checking for underlying problems and (b) if we don't follow their sage advice we will be dismal failures in our struggle against weight. There are so many advancements in medical science every day -- it boggles my mind to still hear the same things my mother heard in the 1970's!

A lot of people, including myself, have lifestyle issues and underlying problems. About 5 years ago I was told by the dietician (doctor's referral) that I couldn't lose weight and control my hypoglycemia - I'd have to chose between one and the other. Can't find the words to express how helpful that was. :?: Around the same time, I was arguing with my doctors (plural, because I fired a couple over this) that my weight gain was not all due to lifestyle and diet -- turned out I had thyroid cancer. If I hadn't insisted, I would still be struggling with the wisdom of calories in/calories out, trying harder because I obviously wasn't trying hard enough, and failing. :(

My rule is nobody knows my body better than I do, and I have to actively listen to it and be my own advocate. My doctor has to actively listen to me. Hopefully, by the time your friend finishes medical school, he'll be more open minded and will have stopped spouting off generalizations.

/standing down from my soapbox now; thanks for listening/

I'm losing right now and I have to say it is a lot easier than I thought it would be. Now, I'm on a medically supervised 800 calorie a day shake fast. Doesn't sound easy does it? It is the easiest plan I've ever done. There aren't any options. I know exactly what I'm going to eat...it takes the plotting and scheming of each meal out of the equation. It has allowed me to work on my triggers and focus on the psychological BS that comes from over-eating. I know that the maintenance will be the most difficult. Its like giving alcohol to an alcoholic and telling them to keep it under control...its going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done. I have to agree with your friend....the weightloss has been easy.

well weight loss hasnt been easy for me. my body has been fighting me the whole way. Im having a hard time trying to incorporate the exercise I want to do without my body stalling and I frequently plateau. It is only since I've started a doctor supervised VLCD and cut out exercise completely (I'll add back in my exercise when I'm closer to goal, I guess. I mean, with the exercise, I was basically maintaining a lot of the time anyways) that I've actually started to have more consistent success. But I'm not complaining because I AM finally having success!!!

I don't find weight loss easy, either. I've changed my entire style of eating, given up a bunch of bad food habits, and I'm trying to break free from a pattern of binging. It definitely requires energy, attention, and focus for me to be successful.

Weight loss involves at lot of "not doing" something. Not eating junk. Not buying junk. Not binging on junk. It seems like it is a passive activity, maybe that's where the whole "it's easy" comes from, but it sure doesn't *feel* like a passive process. And my goodness, it is definitely the most difficult test of patience I've ever experienced.

I think I also have a problem as a single woman that my friend's lives revolve around junk food and alcohol. Both of which I cant have. So I have to either hang out and watch them consume stuff I love that I cant have all of the time OR not have a social life (what Ive been choosing most of the time, sadly lol) I dont know ANYONE in my "real" life who actually has a health focused lifestyle!!!

As far as the binging goes, food is DEFINITELY an addiction for me. I quit smoking years ago and that was INSANELY hard. This is HARDER (because you can't go cold turkey on food). But people dont say "quitting smoking is easy. all it involves is putting out the cigarette"

I have to agree... when you find a plan that you can stick with, it does become fairly easy. Mine would go (bolded is what I've changed from above):

My plan gives me the flexibility I need for my lifestyle, with the calorie/carb framework that allows me to lose weight. Knowing that "cake" or "pasta" is not on my plan isn't hard... it actually makes it easier! I just shrug and say "oh, well, I can't eat that right now... but look what I CAN eat!"

And slowly but surely, the weight is coming off.

Oh but yes you can my friend. You can go cold turkey on the junk food and alcohol. You don't NEED sugar and greasy carbs to live. You don't need beer or mixed drinks to live...you don't need cookies, chips, nachos, or hot dogs to live. You CAN cut out trigger/junk/crap foods and live a perfectly normal wonderful life. Thing is, no one wants to, so they use the wonderful excuse that you need food to live. I'm still looking for sugar and chocolate on the food pyramid. :D

I gotta say, when I finally got it together, some 2+ decades in the making - it was fairly easy.

Once I made up my mind, once I quit making excuses and started making solutions, once I started doing what was necessary and required to get the job done - day in and day out, once I devised a solid plan that not only could I stick to, but much more important, was WILLING to stick to, once I set myself up for success, once I planned ahead, cut out the garbage, (no ifs ands or but) stopped feeling sorry for myself and looking at not eating garbage as deprivation, but to EAT IT as deprivation, once I focused on what I was gaining instead of giving up, once I got excited about the process, instead of dreading it, once I looked how I could add in activity instead of avoiding it, once I made it a top priority and realized that it mattered and should be one - it was almost dare I say - easy.

I think this is a good mindset.

What is true deprivation?

1. Not being able to eat a bag of potato chips
2. Not living long enough to meet your great-grandchild or even grandchild?

Tell me, what IS deprivation?

Spot on correct!

Deprivation is realizing that you gain weight even without eating potato chips or other junk food. I NEVER was a junk food junkie. Ever. I've always eaten predominantly healthy whole food. I was raised eating organic veggies straight from the garden.

Deprivation is realizing that tonight my meal of fresh corn, fresh tomatoes, fresh onion, fresh basil, and shrimp probably put me over my calorie budget for the day and so the nectarine I have been eyeing all afternoon is out. Deprivation is realizing that no matter how I eat I will ALWAYS have to choose between being satisfied and being a healthy weight.

Loosing weight is NOT easy but for me it is keeping weight off that has always been the struggle.

I have always felt this way, which is why I focus instead on DOing. I'm not "not eating", I'm eating more vegetables. I'm not "not drinking pop", I'm drinking more water. I'm DOing more exercise. I'm planning and chopping and preparing. I'm actually DOing quite a lot, when you flip it around.

Weight loss is easy. It's the emotional issues, cravings, medical problems, and lack of motivation that make it difficult.

Yes!

We've got to focus on not what we are giving up, but what we are getting. Not what we are missing out on, but we what are having and accomplishing. We have to focus not on what we can't do/can't have - but on what we CAN do/can HAVE.

It's definitely a mindset.

Focus on the positive. Not the negative. Face this with excitement, not with dread. Look for the joy, not the sadness.

As far as being hard, and I feel once you get into it - and focus on the good, it's not all *that* hard (most of the time), who ever said it was supposed to be *easy* as in effortless. All things that matter and are important require time, effort, dedication, discipline. Parenting, marriage, money management/finances, holding down a job, running a household, - you stop putting forth the effort - there WILL be a price to pay. Why should maintaining a healthy weight be any different?

I think many people have a hard time realizing this. I think many people think losing and than maintaining weight should be a G-d given right that we are born with. That is should just be and happen - like the sun rising and the sun setting. It's just not the case. Eating well, living well, being our best. is not a given, but a choice.