I am not the op, but one should not complicate things. There are no secrets. People have been getting ripped since the dawn of time with chicken/tuna and rice and some vegetables.
Eating less (95 out of 100 people in the general population today are eating way too much)--in general, it means ingesting fewer calories, solid and liquid--and keeping protein intake between 100 and 150 g per day is an excellent starting point and likely a final one. What does it mean to eat less? Half of what you eat now is a good starting point. If you are losing weight, go on, if you are not, eat less.
Some disciplines, such as endurance sports, require special dietary modifications, but if you are fat (and most of us are), you already have bigger problems.
My main legacy, much more than my academic research and my work in tech, will be to have encouraged people to get in shape by telling them that they eat too much and are fat (without fat shaming of course, all to their advantage).
Personally, I find telling people to eat less doesn't work. In part because the food manufacturers are such masters at making people addicted to their garbage.
Eating healthy fats and protein is so satiating that one doesn't need to try to eat less, they just naturally do. Yes, there are exceptions to that but, for most people that is true.
It is not my experience at all, and at this point, I have been asked for nutritional advice for 25 years. Any specific recommendations for the general population will be interpreted as that food + all the others that have been eaten before.
And aside from extreme examples, such as people who eat only candy all day, any reduction in calories ingested will lead to some feelings of hunger. Yes, by eating protein and fiber at every meal, which by the way is included in my recommendations, you can reduce hunger by what, 5 or 10 percent? But hunger will kick in.
Should I be eating this food? Eat less. What about this supplement? Eat less. A cheat meal? Eat less. Charles Bronson was asked how he kept in excellent shape in his 50s. His answer? Small portions. Accept you need to eat less, food will be there tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after again (there is a reference there to the movie "The Eclipse" by Antonioni, with Alain Delon and Monica Vitti as protagonists). In a short time, a few weeks, you get used to ingesting fewer calories.
If you actually need to lose weight (which, statistically, most Americans do), in my experience you will be hungry at some point even with a pretty healthy diet. There’s just no way around the body’s response to a reasonable caloric deficit. The key is being able to actually have the willpower to ignore those pangs. Maybe you won’t be hungry immediately, but a 500cal deficit (which, is a pretty light deficit) is quite a lot.
Most folks are likely at a mild surplus of calories, so the swing to actually get you to lose weight is often as substantial as 700-1000cal to actually lose weight. Per day. It’s a lifestyle change, unfortunately.
I would say that this is one of the wrong ways of approaching the problem, which makes it more difficult to lose weight. People who are (severely) overweight who gorge on food have an unhappy lifestyle: they don't look good or feel good, they are prone to energy swings that make them irritable and bad company, and they are obsessed with food.
Fortunately, an all-too-simple lifestyle change would make their lives much better. The food not eaten today will be there tomorrow. No need to obsess over it.
What's your quibble here? The use of the word unfortunately?
My point is that it's not some quick fix, it requires dedication to unlearn bad habits and commit to changing for the better. It cannot be a one-and-done approach, as falling back to similar levels of consumption will just lead them right back to where they started.
"What's your quibble here? The use of the word unfortunately?"
Yes, that's the quibble. 'Unfortunately, you need to do resistance exercises if you want to grow substantial muscles'; 'Unfortunately, you need to stop watching porn like crazy if you want to have normal behavior with men/women'; 'Unfortunately, you need to stop stuffing yourself with food if you want to be in decent shape.'
For the first two examples, 'unfortunately' seems out of place. But for the third example, food, it seems reasonable. And it is because gorging on food until you lose your wits has been normalized, but there is nothing unpleasant about having a normal relationship with food.
I don't really see the issue with unfortunately in either example 1 or 3. 2 is a moral judgment which is unrelated.
If you could take a pill to make yourself grow muscles without downsides, it would be great. There's nothing 'fortunate' about having to spend hours of time on exercise which is otherwise meaningless.
Also, there definitely is something unpleasant about dieting to lose weight. It's not fun. Maintaining a healthy diet less so, but you are absolutely making sacrifices personally and socially if you cannot eat or drink whatever you want whenever you want.
I don't want to get into semantics because it usually leads nowhere. But maintaining a normal weight does not mean suffering hell on earth because you cannot gorge on Oreos. The vast majority of overweight people are not fond of delicacies, but they binge on foods that give them gas like a turbojet engine, are not as altogether capable as they could be, are tired, and experience intolerable mood swings.
But suppose all these negative consequences did not exist, would eating all day like a pig be heaven on earth? What sacrifices do you make when you don't eat ad lib to maintain a normal weight, nothing as extreme as preparing for a bodybuilding competition?
I like food, but I don't feel deprived by eating portions that allow me to maintain a normal weight. And I can eat or drink whatever I want, but not all the time. That hunger feeling may last as long as you pay attention to it, a couple of minutes.
If someone had a problem with alcohol, you wouldn't say to them, “I'm very sorry that you have to make this sacrifice of not drinking all day every day to have a normal life,” but for some reason eating smaller portions seems, because that's the narrative of these fat times, an unbearable sacrifice. And it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that leads to yo-yo swings in weight.
If there was a pill that would make me grow muscles without exercising would I stop exercising? I would not, it is fun and engaging, makes me test my will and my intelligence.
There's a difference between your framing of "gorging and binging" on food and the fact being that portion sizes in American are just not sustainable for many people. If a meal at a restaurant is 1000 calories, and drinks are 200 each... is having a meal and two drinks gorging or binging? I would argue no, but 1400cal in a meal is almost certainly going to lead to excess if you have even somewhat normal food the rest of the day.
I'm not suggesting that having a pill that allows you to eat unlimited amounts of food without consequence would be "heaven on earth", I'm just saying that for most people's lifestyles you are placed into an environment that by default will lead to over consumption. That's the sacrifice. You cannot choose the default behavior anymore, and it requires foresight, thought, and planning to execute. All of that is unfortunate, because it is not easy especially if you're not used to it.
The time spent on exercise is hardly meaningless. It builds mental discipline, and the neurological pathways necessary to use the muscles effectively. Those attributes are as important as the muscle tissue itself.
As someone that exercises a lot, that’s just cope. Sure, it has side benefits, but the primary overwhelming benefit is improving health and improving aesthetics. You can build mental discipline in plenty of other ways. You can build grit in ways that don’t involve lifting weights. At a minimum of 3 hours a week (often much more for many people), it’s a pretty big cost to pay.
Regarding building pathways to use muscles, it’s effectively like riding a bike. You spend some initial time learning good technique, but year 2, 3, 4, and onwards isn’t really doing much in that department. It’s just grinding to get stronger/more muscular.
I don't think it's just coping, but it depends on the level of mastery you want to achieve in the specific discipline. For any skill, including weightlifting, the more you practice, the better the quality of the skill. And becoming competent at something is one of the pleasures of life.
For the amateur athlete, one has to take into account the opportunity cost of doing something else, and life is full of opportunities.
As for grit, I agree it is more about showing a personality trait than developing it, and grit appears to be mostly discipline-specific: many athletes show admirable grit when training and less than admirable grit in other areas of their lives.
That’s fine if you want it to be a hobby. Admirable even. But not everyone wants yet another hobby. If you could get the benefits then the vast majority of folks I don’t think would miss anything meaningful. You’ve got to enjoy the tertiary benefits to stay sane, but I’m not kidding myself that I wouldn’t enjoy ~5 hrs/week back to pursue other activities.
When I first started, I was rarely hungry in the classical sense. Instead, I knew I was hungry because I would suddenly get tired. When I ate, my energy almost immediately returned.
Also, sometimes when we think we're hungry, we're actually dehydrated.
So, I would argue that nobody needs to ignore hunger pangs. First, drink some water and wait a few minutes. Still hungry? Then eat something[1]. It's ok.
1: See my earlier post about what to eat. If you want to keep being hungry an hour after eating, eat food from the Standard American Diet.
It seems like you're taking a personal anecdote and generalizing it to everyone. Some people will need to ignore hunger pangs, because the alternative is eating too many calories. Also, it may be the compromise between eating the food you want (occasionally) and having less satiety. Expecting people to eat gruel (or, generally radically redefining their entire diet) is, in my opinion, less realistic than just admitting that if you eat that <insert unhealthy food here> then the downside is you might end up feeling hungry because you cannot eat more food and adhere to your caloric goal.
Also, we'll have to disagree on your opinion that food manufacturers are poisoning us, though. I don't subscribe to that hyperbole. Additionaly, organic and locally grown has essentially nothing to do with nutritional properties of the food we eat. It may be better for sustainability, but that has nothing to do with how healthy it is.
At the risk of anecdote extrapolation, I did a 1000 deficit to lose 1kg a week and never felt hungry to do it.
There are enough fruit and vegetables like celery, carrots, cucumbers, apples, pears etc that you can eat if you feel hungry, and you'll feel physically sick well before you've eaten too many calories.
While it's a diet change, it's far less intrusive than just having to put up with being hungry.
One caveat I would say is that dieting is a personal journey, so always pay attention your energy levels and weight as you try to different diets. Your ideal diet is going to be unique to you and it will change over time.
I tried restrictive diets a few times in my 20s and they always made me feel tired and messed with my stomach. Now in my late 30s reducing carbs and fats have been really helpful.
I think this is the attitude that makes it difficult to lose weight. Dieting is not a personal journey or a spiritual endeavor; you have to eat less and serve smaller portions. It should not be restrictive beyond what is reasonable (I assure you that no one has died in the past because Oreos were not available).
Interestingly, when a person gains weight they are not asked to do so under medical treatment, but when the same person wants to lose the fat and get down to a reasonable weight there are all these warnings, dangers and side effects. It's all autosuggestion. Eat less, and do that reasonably.
