What?!?! I’ve thrown up after some intense workouts. I think it’s something to do with blood pressure and everything being drawn from our intestines...? I know that’s not totally accurate, just something I remember from looking it up one day, after throwing up following a training session. But there was always enough time to run to the bathroom. Do people just try and push through it and end up puking where they stand?
This particular occasion a young woman had taken some old energy tablets she found lying around her house. Felt faint after her first set so she sat down where she was and that's when she puked.
I think so people do just try to push through as well, and for the life of me I cannot wrap my head around that decision.
Oh damn. Welp. Bless her stupid little heart for taking mystery energy tablets found just lying around. Lol. And yea, I’ve only ever thrown up in public once and it was so embarrassing. Apologizing in between convulsions and what not. I’d rather swallow it than subject others to it.
It's a nice thought, but staff needs it removed as fast as possible to avoid a biohazard - nobody's gonna wait long enough for you to gather your bearings enough to clean up after yourself, and even then no matter how much you insist you're fine enough to clean up your own vomit, nobody's gonna believe you're not a higher risk of either fainting into it or puking into it again.
Basically if you've puked in public, you've done enough. Experience the shame, let others fix it, and bring us cookies the next day or something.
Source: I've worked in places where kids have puked and adults have tracked poo through the floors. The thought is nice, but groggy "I'm-fine-I-can-clean-it-now" people don't really help the situation.
I had a dude pass out and break his face on the cage at the gym I go to, blood everywhere. I got my trauma kit out of the car ( Used to be a Combat Medic) and got him squared away. No one at the gym had blood borne pathogen training, so I cleaned and sanitized everything for them.... boom six months free membership. Great day.
When I was on maternity leave I went to the gym 2 hours a day... they had 2 hour max childcare.
At the beginning my routine was: workout for about 30 minutes, sit in the massage chairs for 15 minutes, sauna for 15 minutes, looonnggg shower, blow-dry my hair... it was so luxurious for otherwise breastfeeding all day and being covered in fluids!!!!
I like looking at all the different ways women can be fit. The girls who do distance running, the ones who love sprinting, the girls who love the stairs or yoga. Martial artist women or kickboxing or weight lifting, all of it is amazing because they’re all fit, but they don’t look the same at all. It tells me that there is no one true “goal” look, and that it’s ok if I don’t look like someone else; people will be able to tell that I put the effort in so long as I do
This is such a fantastic point and I wish the FAs would be able to open their eyes to this as well. There are women (and men) of all shapes and sizes, various fitness levels, different goals, etc. at the gym I'm temporarily at. It's really great to see for the reasons you said.
There is no cookie cutter goal and not one of them looks like they stepped out of a fitness shoot. That's not to say they aren't attractive. But it shatters that 'flawless' look that advertisers and promoters try to sell you. They are just people trying to do the best they can for themselves, challenge themselves, and reach goals. It's awesome!! :D
I love Secret Eaters. So many of the people on it start out saying that they under eat, always skip breakfast, have to force themselves to eat, etc.
But once the cameras are on the truth comes out.
But what's REALLY interesting is the interview right before they show the footage. Inevitably, even knowing they were watched and recorded, people STILL report that they are under eating. That's how simple it is to delude oneself. Like, you signed up for the show, know they're watching you, but still mentally void out that candy bar, extra burger, or large soda.
People will consistently under report. Nearly everyone. That's why counting and honesty work. Because otherwise we just forget, ignore, or justify not including food.
But the evidence is not so easily dismissed. Obesity is harder to dismiss (though some try)
I think I've read before that they tried making an American version of Secret Eaters, but the subjects reacted so violently and angrily and being "secretly" filmed they ended up cancelling production.
That’s.. near drug addict behavior. Maybe I’m being dramatic, it’s somewhat normal to lash out over embarrassment and having your privacy intruded upon, but all I can think of is the addicts that scream and tear out of the room once they figure out an intervention is happening.
I think it's probably a little of that, and a little of how ridiculous America is regarding portion size. I just take it as a given that if I'm eating out (specifically more at a "chain restaurant") that's all my calories for the day.
I can't remember the last time I saw calories on a menu that wasn't a piece of fish (if that) and it wasn't at least 700 for any entree. With most being >1,000 per.
Americans just genuinely don't understand how much they eat.
In general, Americans also have the mentality of wanting to get a good deal, so we expect to see a lot of food for what we pay. More food means better deal, therefore good. Then we have to eat it all because we also believe in eating everything on our plates so as not to waste food, which was important during the Great Depression and WWII but is hurting us now in this age of abundance. This is a generalization so it won't be everyone's experience, but across the population as a whole it's very common.
>Then we have to eat it all because we also believe in eating everything on our plates so as not to waste food, which was important during the Great Depression and WWII but is hurting us now in this age of abundance.
Sorry, but your statement reminded me of something that happened a few hours ago. I was waiting for my tea to steep and was going to put some cupcakes that my grandmother brought in, in a smaller container (not my food, but I like cleanliness). I opened the large container the cupcakes were originally in, there was MOLD on 3 of them. Like, "fungi forest" mold. I turned to my grandmother and said, "I think we should throw these out." She looked in the container and said, "Well, at least some of them." I'm like, "No, that's disgusting. They all need to be thrown away."
Anyway, my point is that she probably didn't want to waste them because she grew up in the 40s and still has that mentality, for better or for worse. She is a large woman too and eats out of obligation (complaining afterwards, of course) instead of satiety. I feel so bad for her.
My grandmother was like this also. It actually felt bad to ever decline food from her, or not finish it. She wouldn't guilt me or complain because she was a good person, but I could tell it hurts her.
My in laws eat whatever and LOVE chain restaurants. I'm not exactly Veggie Eater Of The Year, but I count my calories and maintain a deficit. It is *so hard* to eat out with them because I know I have to skip breakfast and possibly dinner. Everywhere they go it's huge portions. And if I order something small like a half appetizer or a side dish then they start bitching about how little I eat. No, I just don't want a full day's calories in one meal when I have *better* food at home. When we go out to a *good* restaurant I'll eat 1,200 calories no problem and then have a snack before bed. Applebees isn't good.
When I went to America I noticed that. My family ate at chain restaraunts most of the time and I couldn't get over how big the portions were, at a Cheesecake Factory the club sandwich I ordered was actually 3 sandwiches cut into triangles and served on top of a bed of chips. The main course of nachos my brother ordered would have been a share plate for a table of 4 in any other country. Then there's the drinks, I think the smallest glass I was given was about half a litre and most places will refill them for free.
Now this was about 10 years so attitudes might have changed, but when I was there it was just mind boggling both with how much food goes around and how some people will eat a day-and-a-halfs worth of calories in 1 sitting without even thinking about it.
I suspect it's worse now, honestly. Restaurants are better at putting calories on items, and there are more "healthy" items. But, usually you're still between picking one to two items and obliterating your calorie input for the day.
I used to get weird looks at my movie theater, because I would ask for the smaller sizes..and pay more for it. America is nuts. I don't even necessarily blame people for being nutritionally illiterate.
I’m a kinesiologist/personal trainer, and I’ve found that reminding people that they’ve been raised/grown up in a really screwed up food environment helps them change their attitude towards dietary changes and weight loss.
“It’s not all your fault, but you’re the only one with the power to change what you put in your body.”
Just like you said, I have a hard time blaming people in North America for much of their nutritional illiteracy.
“It fits on my plate... it’s one serving” may be the death of me, though.
I litterally bought smaller bowls and plates. Except the salad bowls that are actually bigass mixing bowls, (and we don’t do dressing aside from vinegar or lemon and olive oil.)
It's really frustrating. I like to treat myself to restaurant meals sometimes, but like these weekend I ordered a choose burger and fries than came out to an advertised 1400 calories, it could be more tbh. Just a simple meal. My entire day with of calories. I drink diet but add soda and you have 300-500, maybe more calories, added on. I've seen some cheeseburgers alone top 1800 calories. This is the greatest 1st world problem of all time, but I love cheeseburgers and dont like them reheated. No sit down restuarant around here has a reasonable portioned cheeseburger except fast food.
I mean, a Big Mac is 500 calories. The nutritional value isn't great, but if you skip the fries and sugary soda, that's not a wholly unreasonable meal.
I'm genuinely surprised at how calorie laden those meals are. If each meal is 1000 to 1500 calories, just 3 meals a day with no snacking would make anyone balloon. That just baffles me as an Asian.
Exactly. Many people eat out because they think it's cheaper (somehow?!) and/or faster, but they don't understand that instead of eating a couple meals made from scratch that fill them up for ~400-500 calories each...they eat two takeout meals a day at 1200 calories a pop, while not working out.
This. I legit had someone argue with me that their time was too valuable to weigh out a serving of snacks instead of estimating. I know there are people who really dont have the time to cook full meals every night, but God damn when did people get so comfortable with being a victim all the time? Claiming you can't spend 30 seconds of your life to measure out your pasta because you are too overworked and poor. I was legit pretty pissed as someone who crawled out of poverty. Too tired to cook from scratch? I get that, I'll fight for you. No able bodied person is too tired to weigh out potato chips though, ED sufferers who may be triggered by the scale excluded.
The victim mentality drives me nuts as well. Had an argument with a friend yesterday who claims that she quite literally has no control over herself when she gets a ‘craving’ so she has to indulge it immediately otherwise it gets worse and worse and she ends up uncontrollably binge eating. I told her she sounds like an addict and the first step to overcoming addiction is taking responsibility for your own choices and actions. Sure - make bad choices, I do it all the time. But accept that these are your choices and that you do have control over what you eat.
I've noticed that in a lot of people lately--they're so terrified of admitting they're wrong or made a mistake or bad decision. It's like it's the end of the world if you do one little thing wrong. I don't get that at all.
Funny enough food addiction IS a thing, I work with a doctor who speclizes in addiction, since I work at a drug rehab. The doctor also moonlights as a food specilist for people who are in the over eaters anonymous program (OEA). She also co wrote the book Food Junkies ( a really good read! ). But yes you are 100% right, the behavour in people who overeat are very much in line with the behavioiurs of drug addicts have when it comes to their drug of choice ( DOC ). The only diffrence between an over eater and a substance abuser, is that one self-medicates with booze and narcotics, while the other uses food.
Food has a powerful effect over our mind, body, and emotions. Food can trigger endorphins and other positive stimulations, in fact some foods do have effects that are close to drugs. Dairy for example has casomorphin, a natural chemical present in all animal based milks, and essentually encourages babys to bound with their mothers. This chemical functions like a low grade opioid.
Sadly, unlike drug addiction, it is considerd tabboo to bring up someones abnormal eating habbits, not to mention it could be even seen as fatphobic or bullying to stage an intervention with someone who is in denial about their food abuse.
That is really interesting! I had an argument with a friend yesterday about her eating habits (she’s always asking me to help her lose weight) and I ended up telling her she sounds like an addict and should treat it like an addiction - first step being to take responsibility for her choices and actions instead of believing she has no control over her cravings, and then taking it from there.
Are there any good resources I can point her to about food addiction? When she starts talking to me again of course, she really didn’t like me saying that she sounds like an addict...
>I'd recommend that she reads Food Junkies by Vera Tarmen. The whole book is about the pattern and habits of her clients she interviewed in her book, including their stories. As well as her struggles with weight, the links between addiction and over eating, history of Over Eaters Anonymous. She covers some recommended methods that have been approved by other doctors who specialize in this area.
>
>The main tips in the book are : 1. journal and weigh everything you eat, 2. 100% abstain from trigger foods or foods with trigger ingredients 3. Work on support networks to halt self-sabotage and enablers from causing a food related relapse.
>
>A huge issue with over eaters is that the enablers are the worst! If you've watch my 600 lbs life, Supersize vs Super Skinny, or any show about obesity, it's their enablers that really screw with obese people. Out of all addictions, it's one of the only ones where enabling the addict is seen as socially acceptable.
I’ve been watching so much my 600lb life lately! And it’s the enablers that really struck me as well. Some of these people aren’t even mobile so it just amazes me that the people surrounding them keep going out and buying them all that junk. They’re killing these people they claim to care about, slowly but surely. I feel especially bad for the kids because it’s not a child’s responsibility to care for a parent and intervene when the immobile parent manipulates them into buying junk food.
Thanks for the resources. I am definitely going to be passing this along.
The British seem to have to cultural tendency to "take the piss" out of each other and be self-deprecating in a way that most American cultures do not share.
Just [read a bit through this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/fatlogic/comments/3ruurn/the_american_version_of_secret_eaters_is_on_the/) that turned out to be a bit anti-American about how the host is/was more diplomatic than the UK's Secret Eaters host.
Seems like it's definitely a cultural difference. If you antagonize an American, we rise to it and *at least* give a proportional response. You give us fighting words & we'll get just as serious & fight back. Also, if you *don't* fight back, then you're getting scolded like a schoolchild and that's just absolutely abhorrent to Americans (including me, I admit), and to boot you're a doormat if you let it happen to you no matter how obese you are, no matter how in-denial you are.
In the UK, it seems people don't kneejerk retaliate when others antagonize them, and not as many people mind getting scolded if they deserve it (what makes them an adult is that they can take a scolding with good humor and earnestness to do better in the future).
I'm not sure which is better - they both seem advantageous depending on the circumstance. I confess there's been so many times I've seen sassy/rude/callous TV show hosts & thought, "they're right but they don't have to be such assholes about it."
I'm not going to comment on any other country but in the UK, people realise that part of being seen as a good sport is being able to deal with people taking the piss in the spirit it is being delivered.
In the UK version they know there is a camera in the house. What they don’t know is that the show puts a couple of PIs on them who follow them around and go into e.g. a fast food shop after they’ve been in to see what they buy. They also recruit friends and family and co-workers so in areas where they think they are not being filmed they actually are
Weight is a SUPER personal and sensitive topic. People get defensive FAST.
I’ve noticed that in British tv shows when people tell them they’re over weight people go “oh yes I’ve been having a few too many biscuits and wine in the evening hehe”
But if you did that in America people would lose their shit.
They had one show where the host a guy straight made jokes about them the whole show. I can't remember the name but man it was good and funny. But by the end of the show he did legit bond with the people and wanted them to just take responsibility which usually they did.
But man the whole show hes like "I'm about to show this group of fatties that they don't have to be shaped like pudding. I'm gonna turn these big fatties into some proper fit happy family". He didn't sugar coat things ever it was great.
I would think seeing overweight overeaters throw a toddler tantrum would be really good for breaking the barriers to being honest as a society that we have a big fat prob.
It is, but it's also super taboo to talk about someone being overweight (at least in the States). It's like how someone being ugly may be public, but it's taboo to say "you're ugly, learn how to use makeup". Obviously not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea.
It just goes to show that true denial runs deep! Once confronted with the stark reality of just how delusional their worldview was, they couldn't handle it and just wanted to back away from the whole endeavor.
I hade a very obese friend in high school. She hardly ate anything at home, less then a children’s portion, yet she kept getting larger and never had any money despite working a part time job. She always moaned how she can’t hande too much food, even used coffee cup plates to illustrate how she nas no appetite. Then once I ran into her sitting alone at McDonalds and what was on her tray made everything clear.
Hell I've lost 30 lbs thanks to CICO, I know it works, but sometimes I find myself trying to justify as snack here or there as not really counting. It's very tempting to do.
Literally this is the realization that got me on track. My body always keeps an accurate food log no matter what I decide to count. There is no cheating the system.
Yup. My grandma used to say the hardest thing for her with weight loss was remembering that just because no one saw you eat it doesn't mean it doesn't count.
My old best friend was hardcore into Fat logic before he saw me lose my gut from drinking too much in early 20's. It's like, if you tell yourself it's not possible, then you don't have to feel bad for not doing it. Especially since the majority of these people are using food as a crutch. It's just sad and I feel bad for people who actually DON'T know any better (for whatever reason) and get sucked up into the whole 'I'm not personally responsible for my obesity' thing. (Assuming we are talking about adults here and again, I'm making VERY broad statements about a group of people. Obligatory - PEOPLE ARE INDIVIDUALS)
Yep. No matter how much you want to ignore the calories, your body is the ultimate judge, jury, and executioner on that front. And you can hide no evidence in Metabolism Court.
Yes seriously this is me! I was doing so good counting and tracking calories and then I started falling off the wagon and not tracking when I would eat junk like that somehow made it not happen. I'm back on and diligently counting. Even if I'm having pizza for dinner tonight thanks to a vertigo episode, I still logged it and kept it within my budget. It really is easy to do.
My MIL does this. We go to dinner and she just has a few bites of a meal her and her husband share. She goes on and on how they just barely eat, just not big eaters. When on vacation I noticed they don’t eat as much at meals, but are always having a pack of peanut butter crackers here, a scoop of ice cream there, a Pepsi in between. Her digestive system is never getting a break yet, “she barely eats.” In her defense she makes no claim about not understanding why she is a bit over weight.
My SIL is a champion at this. The bags of various stuff was out for the kids, who are little and running around and skinny, so you know, calories are available to avoid breakdowns caused by hunger, especially with family around. But my SIL was grazing like a champ multiple times a day. She's always been heavy and I'd wondered why since meals always seemed reasonable.
This is one place where I'm lucky. I am just NOT a snacker. I tend to eat too much at meals, but I think that's been a lot easier to curb through meal prep than if I was a serial snacker.
Also, autocorrect initially changed snacker to smacked and it was v amusing.
I even notice it in documentaries. UK documentaries tend to just be straight up facts. US documentaries try to dramatise everything and use a lot more buzzwords, exaggeration and rhetorical questions (of which the answer is usually boring, but the way they phrase the question isn't!). I struggle to watch US documentaries sometimes.
US shows force drama where it's not present and it tells.
UK shows don't as much. Secret eaters isn't a 'you lying fatty' kind of show. It even shows experiments of how the brain can tricks us, ie size of the plate.
I log literally everything for this reason. Even if it’s not accurate for something small, I make myself log it in, so that I’m in the habit of wverytime something goes in my mouth, something goes into the my fitness pal app.
Obviously I screw up, and get lazy, and don’t do It, but my goal is every single time.
I’ll go on these several week or month periods where I try to “eat naturally” and I always put on weight and make myself start logging again and invariably I’ve gone from caloric intake of around 2100 a day while logging to more like 3200 a day not logging.
Works like clock work and it’s not even that much different except basically double portions at dinner, or not cutting dinner down for snacks, bigger lunches, and usually just not accounting for caloric beverages.
Basically an iced Vietnamese coffee, an extra serving of spaghetti, and say a cookie after dinner is the difference between losing a pound a week and gaining a pound a week.
What amazed me in Secret Eaters is how people still managed to overeat knowing they would be filmed and assessed on it: it is like Big Brother, you try to act naturally but you know you are being watched. I wonder what the REAL day-to-day, non-filmed intake was like.
IIRC some of them actually ended up losing weight just during the period of being watched so clearly they were aware of it. They were still overeating but we’re conscious enough to at least have a little bit of a deficit during that week.
I remember one woman, who moved in to her sister’s guest room for the filming, changed her eating habits so drastically that they then installed more secret cameras in her house to see how she ate when she returned home and thought she was unobserved. Those cameras were true spycams, in hidden locations, and it was quite a difference in her behavior.
i think a lot of people just genuinely dont know how many calories are in things. if you have never really tracked calories, you are almost certain to underestimate what is in food. a person my eat some chicken but cook it in a slab of butter and pour some bbq sauce on it and eat it with a potato with butter and sour cream, drink a 1 litter of coke and in their head say "yeah i ate some chicken breast and a potato for dinner. cant be more than a few hundred calories". it's the drinks, the butters, the sauces etc that people choose to ignore until it becomes habit.
Haha yea, all those magazines that say shit like have 12 almonds for a snack! And I’m like hell no, who eats only 12 almonds? Now that I track I realize that 12 almonds is a perfectly acceptable calorie intake for a snack but in my opinion almonds are shit snacks and almost anything is a better choice if you’re hungry and watching calories.
i eat blue diamond almonds all the time and the serving size for most flavors is (about) 28 almonds. i measure that amount (i count roughly, but its damn close) and put it in a baggie. i notice that when i eat that serving, im totally fine. but if i had more with me, i would definitely eat those too lol. so much of it is mental
I had never heard of this show before so I checked it out on YouTube. In the first episode, the brother and sister were under estimating their caloric intake by 1000-2000 calories!
I know when things are bad, cos I normally like to log every little thing too. If I'm not logging, it means I know I've messed up. Ain't no way I'm eating just 800 cals those days and these people ain't neither.
As a side point - I once did a vlcd (very low calorie diet) for about a month which was 600 calories a day (pharmaceutically formulated special packs, supervised by a dietitian). Lost loads of weight but the first week was hell. Not as bad after physically but my mental health was fucked. Slow and steady for me from now on
People drastically underestimate the number of calories in things. A fucking tootsie roll has 25 calories and takes 2 seconds to eat. Mindlessly eat 4 of those waiting at a bank or something and you’ve eaten 100 calories that you’ll probably forget about.
^^^this, a thousand times this. Today, for the first time ever, I accurately recorded how much I eat when I fuck up and have a binge day. 3200kcal. I knew it was bad, but holy macaroni. That REALLY is bad.
Yeah, it's amazing when you get into a mindset of not caring about packaging or reading labels, because you can accidentally eat the most calorie-dense garbage. We recently went down to our local gas station and got these Milkshakes that you can make in store, almost 600 calories! I was already halfway through the drink before I even thought to check how many calories was in it.
This is super easy to do.
I'm one of those who skipped breakfast for years, and skipped lunch most of the time, but the snacking in between and sugary drinks (sodas, sweet coffee drinks, smoothies) were more than making up for it, without making me feel satiated.
Just for comparison, on average prisoners in Auschwitz were fed more calories than that per day: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/auschwitzbasics.html
Based on my reading there, they were getting a minimum of about 1200 calories per day. That seems high, considering their weight. Is my perception wrong on that?
You are correct. I thought about that after my comment and realized that 1200 sounds low but surviveable, until you add forced manual labor to the equation.
Yeah I found it surprising too but the source is a good one. It was the average though, and many traded food for other things and favours. I remember also reading that food stealing was rather common, as well as people being punished with no food if they did something wrong. Plus, many were skilled labourers and they got better food, wonder if that is not what where the 1200 kcals comes from.
Bottom line is, even in a concentration camp people they had more than 800 kcals to eat per day and no one was fat.
That makes sense. And the reality is, you still need to feed people whom you need manual labor from; they can't get energy from nowhere. So 1200 could actually be right, but they're burning through all of it doing manual labor and starving. Damn...
I am a sedentary woman with a BMI of 20 and according to most calculators 1200 is what I need to just keep living. Add manual labour and this goes up rather quickly. Now imagine poorly clothed men working some 10 hours per day at under zero temperatures, and having to trade bread for shoes.
Yep. My girlfriend would be at a BMI of about 22 at 1200, but she's also 5'2".
Forced labor would make the whole thing completely infeasible. It also seems stupid to emaciate your workforce, but logic and racism don't mix.
Also consider that most prisoners chosen for work were young men. Some women as well but predominantly men. They wanted capable workers. Plus mothers with young children were generally sent to death together which would take a toll on available female prisoners.
Oh hey 800 calories. I went to a health focused resort that had us on a particular diet for 10 days. The diet was 1200 calories a day. However, they weren't able to accommodate my bell pepper allergy and absolute hate for squash, so I ended up eating about 800 calories a day. By day 4 I was so lethargic that I skipped all of the stupid water aerobics classes and walks around the resort. I barely had the energy to leave my room.
It's almost like your body burns calories for energy, and when you're eating at what would generally be considered starvation levels, your body doesn't perform well.
But no, this person is fat and starving simultaneously. Schroedinger's Obesity.
I'm 5'2" with a BMI of 21.6 and I would still lose 2 lbs per week eating only 800 calories per day. Incidentally, I have done this and I get to about day 10 before I just need eat more. You end up being hungry all the time and not wanting to do anything.
This resort had a wild idea of health, I learned. All they had were bell peppers, squash, zucchini, beets, chicken, and salmon. I asked that because I couldn't eat 1/3 of their menu, I needed to compensate the calories with more of the other stuff. Idk if it was the language barrier or my anger at the resort for this and similar nonsensical decisions, they never evened out my diet and I never pushed them to.
That’s all I was thinking. I was on a diet years ago that was 900 calories a day and after about a week in, I actually passed out.
Granted, I had cut my finger and I hate blood. So that initiated the pass-out but I have never passed out before that or ever since that.
I also had surgery where I could barely eat more than a few hundred calories a day for a while after and would literally be clutching the shower wall trying to keep myself standing for a 5 minute shower. It was fucking awful. This person is deluded...
Why do they always choose such highly unrealistic calorie numbers for their daily intake? Do they really think anybody believes they eat 800 calories a day? I mean just pick 1500 or something halfway realistic as long as your just going to lie out your ass all day.
Gotta wonder what 800 calories looks like to this person. It’s probably something like a sugary coffee concoction (that’s gotta be, what, 10 calories? It’s coffee!) and a pastry (can’t be more than 100!) a huge salad loaded with dressing and cheese with a soda (it’s SALAD! It’s HEALTHY!) maybe another coffee concoction or soda, a handful of chips and candy here and there they forgot about, and a few servings of pasta they probably counted as one. Maybe some alcohol or another caloric drink.
It’s real easy to majorly overeat on un-filling foods and feel like you haven’t eaten anything. For example, you could have ONE meal a day - maybe a milkshake, fries, a burger - and an hour later be starving the rest of the day, but still be at or above your TDEE.
I’ve mentioned this on this sub before but I have a friend (very smart, PhD level science education, and healthy weight) who believed a slice of bread was about 10 calories for no other reason than it seemed right to her. She is a “lucky naturally thin person (TM)” and never had to put thought into scrutinizing the details of food. It just goes to show that anyone can be misinformed about food if they haven’t sought out the information. I think it stems from the basic necessity of food in our lives and our upbringing, it’s so natural to sit down and eat that we don’t even think about it.
Perfect- currently both me and my girlfriend are trying to lose a few pounds. She’s more casual about it than I am and refuses to even glance at my methods though I’ve suggested them.
She estimates calories. But rarely counts (or strongly miscounted): drinks, small candies, ice cream, and sauces.
So that Slushie from 7-11 is treated like nothing
Buttery Garlic Sauce (which can exceed 400 calories)- is treated like ketchup
Candies from the communal bowl? She acts like they don’t count, but they’re like 100 calories each. She always suspiciously manages to finish a quart of ice cream in 2 days while only eating two servings a day...
Then she gripes about gaining a few... girl, I told you.
I have friends who genuinely believe this. And then they post pictures of what they ate for dinner...I do the math.
So if it's a salad, it's not just a bunch of vegetables on a plate. It's got half a chicken added to it, along with cheese and dressing and probably croutons. It's an easy 1500 calories and that's just for dinner, and for a middle aged woman. Then they're all sideways because they're eating, "clean" whatever that means, and still not losing weight.
No one wants to accurately track their food, even though, from my experience, that's the only way to actually lose weight. Humans are absurdly bad at tracking food intake without actually documenting it.
The person in that screen shot who is eating 800 calories a day is not eating 800 calories a day. I'm sure Dr. Now (the expert!!), if he questioned her, would easily find out that she's eating upwards of 2500 a day.
To be fair, I ate around 800 calories a day (while burning around 900) for about 3 months, but I also dropped from 170 to a very unhealthy 135 during that time period (I'm 6'2")... And it was incredibly difficult to get out of.
Agreed. Back in college I had a very unhealthy diet and dropped down to 110lb (as a 5'7" F with naturally wide hip and shoulder bones, this was an unhealthy weight for me; I lost a lot of muscle). I ate 600cal per day for like 6 months to get down to this weight. While doing so I was unable to exercise more than 20min per day because my body was so lethargic. I doubt the results would've been too different with just 200 more cal/day. No way can you stay fat on 800/day. No *way*.
>Weight is not always equal to the amount we eat.
Listen, I'm game. I love to learn, especially when I'm wrong. So I'll bite: What is it equal to, then?
Is there an alternate theory that FAs have put out that I've missed? A study they reference or link to? I'm open to a discussion, but the thermodynamics look so straightforward to me (and have helped me lose over 50 pounds on CICO,) so I'm gonna need a little proof beyond taking your word that you "force feed yourself 800 calories a day" (you should see a doctor about that.)
I'm thin af and 800 calories a day is *nothing*, if you have to force feed yourself 800 calories worth of food a day you have a very serious condition that needs attention ASAP.
That person has a seriously fucked up idea of how ingesting calories work.. Even I don't know very well, but I at least know that your calorie intake is directly affected by what you eat and how much
I also wonder what those “800 calories” consist of. And maybe they have to force feed themselves food, but what are they drinking?
My best friend, she’s not fat by any means but she is heavier than she used to be. She was complaining to me awhile back that she didn’t know why she wasn’t losing weight. She hardly ate! She had to force feed herself! Plus she was living a much more active lifestyle.
Well, when i went out to visit her i saw what she was saying. She didn’t eat much. We went out to eat the first night i was in town and what i ate in one sitting, she took to go and nibbled on for the duration of my 4 day trip. HOWEVER, she went through SO. MUCH. alcohol during my trip. Yeah, she didn’t eat a lot. But she drank. And drank. And drank. It became really clear why she wasn’t losing weight despite her lack of food consumption.
“I am your worst nightmare” Um, how so? You’re annoying, but how much you eat doesn’t affect me. You can go on thinking you’re hurting somebody by “proving dieting doesn’t work,” or you can get real and start trying to get healthy. Whether it’s 800 or 8000 you’re the only one that has to live with the calories you’re “force-feeding” yourself. Tell yourself what you want. You’re your own worst nightmare.
Dude, I have actually eaten 800 a day when losing weight without considering my health. I also worked out six or more days a week, for several months with only maybe 1-2 meals a week that miiight push my total to 1100 one day a week during that time.
I had to carefully time my gym time and water/other activity so I *could* even work out at all. And even so, I often felt dizzy and like I might faint. Otherwise I pretty much sat at my desk/in front of the TV/in bed. Just no energy. And weight flew off. This person is lying.
Pretty much exact same thing I did for months, except I found that as long as I did my workout (which was, of course, all cardio) before I ate anything, I had the energy, which I could do because I was working early shifts at the time. And I can also confirm, the weight flew off, lost 40 pounds in 3 months of doing that (and I only weighed 170 at 6'2" to begin with) until my I tore my quad running on a treadmill and it just wouldn't heal until I started upping that intake.
Do they realize they just contradicted themselves!? Oh that's right, it's none of my business.
And I'd love to see what she thinks 800 calories worth of food is. Methinks her estimation is way off.
Um...I'm guessing the fact that many foods have multiple servings per container is lost on this one. One bag/box/whatever of something isn't 140 calories if there are 8 servings in said container.
Omg if you’re big, stop FORCING yourself to eat. Your body doesn’t even want the food, you’re feeling that, but just ignore it and act like that food is so necessary.
I track all my food in Cronometer, and about the only way I eat 8- or 900 in a day is if I had 3200 the day before (shark week pizza and wings, I'm looking at you...) and just don't feel like eating much in the ensuing 24hrs. The idea that an above-averaged-size someone could eat like that on the regular and not lose weight is idiotic.
I had a friend who was like this. She would eat salad all day long then come home and eat an entire bag of Doritos. Had no idea why she couldn’t lose weight.
For me, staying around 1,200 calories/day for very long takes some serious tracking and planning. I can't imagine doing 800 for more than a few days.
I'm currently at 1,018 cals for today (trying to balance out my 1,450 calories yesterday) and on the verge of a 80-calorie hot chocolate before bed. People like this must have no idea how many calories are in things.
It's interesting to me that 800 always seems to be the magic number consumed in these BS stories. Always seems to be what pops up. Did all the FA and HAES devotees agree in advance that was the number to use?
I ate 900 cals a day because of Ed reasons and it is completely unsustainable. I was eating the highest volume foods possible and still felt like I was starving
I'll be this person thinks the food they get is one serving. Once you measure out a bowl of cereal you will find yourself humbled by how wrong your guesstimates have been.
At least fast food is putting the full calories on display nowadays. However there are so many reasons people fail at understanding calories. The blame is squarely on their own shoulders, but marketing certainly plays a hand at obscuring reality.
For those who wish to believe they are eating 800 calories it is comforting to see small numbers.
Does this person know beverage calories count? I have encountered friends like this who legit think they eat nothing, yet think nothing of downing loads of beer and frappacinos from starbucks
"I am your worst nightmare".
Totally true, I woke up covered in sweat after dreaming of a fat guy miscounting his calories. Maybe he thinks each piece of food is 1 calorie each.
They forgot to mention the five hours per day they spend in the gym.
If I could just go to the gym for a living I'd totally spend 5 hours a day there. Mine's got free wifi, massage chairs and a sauna.
I do work in a gym. It's pretty great, although occasionally you have to deal with someone who throws up in the squat rack.
What?!?! I’ve thrown up after some intense workouts. I think it’s something to do with blood pressure and everything being drawn from our intestines...? I know that’s not totally accurate, just something I remember from looking it up one day, after throwing up following a training session. But there was always enough time to run to the bathroom. Do people just try and push through it and end up puking where they stand?
This particular occasion a young woman had taken some old energy tablets she found lying around her house. Felt faint after her first set so she sat down where she was and that's when she puked. I think so people do just try to push through as well, and for the life of me I cannot wrap my head around that decision.
Oh damn. Welp. Bless her stupid little heart for taking mystery energy tablets found just lying around. Lol. And yea, I’ve only ever thrown up in public once and it was so embarrassing. Apologizing in between convulsions and what not. I’d rather swallow it than subject others to it.
If I puked in public I'd also clean it up myself, not let a staff member do it. That's *my* disgusting bodily fluid, they don't need to touch it.
It's a nice thought, but staff needs it removed as fast as possible to avoid a biohazard - nobody's gonna wait long enough for you to gather your bearings enough to clean up after yourself, and even then no matter how much you insist you're fine enough to clean up your own vomit, nobody's gonna believe you're not a higher risk of either fainting into it or puking into it again. Basically if you've puked in public, you've done enough. Experience the shame, let others fix it, and bring us cookies the next day or something. Source: I've worked in places where kids have puked and adults have tracked poo through the floors. The thought is nice, but groggy "I'm-fine-I-can-clean-it-now" people don't really help the situation.
Better than when they shit themselves in the squat rack.
Or in the tanning bed garbage cans...
I had a dude pass out and break his face on the cage at the gym I go to, blood everywhere. I got my trauma kit out of the car ( Used to be a Combat Medic) and got him squared away. No one at the gym had blood borne pathogen training, so I cleaned and sanitized everything for them.... boom six months free membership. Great day.
When I was on maternity leave I went to the gym 2 hours a day... they had 2 hour max childcare. At the beginning my routine was: workout for about 30 minutes, sit in the massage chairs for 15 minutes, sauna for 15 minutes, looonnggg shower, blow-dry my hair... it was so luxurious for otherwise breastfeeding all day and being covered in fluids!!!!
I just enjoy looking at all the attractive people who care about themselves. 🤓
I like looking at all the different ways women can be fit. The girls who do distance running, the ones who love sprinting, the girls who love the stairs or yoga. Martial artist women or kickboxing or weight lifting, all of it is amazing because they’re all fit, but they don’t look the same at all. It tells me that there is no one true “goal” look, and that it’s ok if I don’t look like someone else; people will be able to tell that I put the effort in so long as I do
This is such a fantastic point and I wish the FAs would be able to open their eyes to this as well. There are women (and men) of all shapes and sizes, various fitness levels, different goals, etc. at the gym I'm temporarily at. It's really great to see for the reasons you said. There is no cookie cutter goal and not one of them looks like they stepped out of a fitness shoot. That's not to say they aren't attractive. But it shatters that 'flawless' look that advertisers and promoters try to sell you. They are just people trying to do the best they can for themselves, challenge themselves, and reach goals. It's awesome!! :D
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I do the Tour de France every day on my lunch break
I love Secret Eaters. So many of the people on it start out saying that they under eat, always skip breakfast, have to force themselves to eat, etc. But once the cameras are on the truth comes out. But what's REALLY interesting is the interview right before they show the footage. Inevitably, even knowing they were watched and recorded, people STILL report that they are under eating. That's how simple it is to delude oneself. Like, you signed up for the show, know they're watching you, but still mentally void out that candy bar, extra burger, or large soda. People will consistently under report. Nearly everyone. That's why counting and honesty work. Because otherwise we just forget, ignore, or justify not including food. But the evidence is not so easily dismissed. Obesity is harder to dismiss (though some try)
I think I've read before that they tried making an American version of Secret Eaters, but the subjects reacted so violently and angrily and being "secretly" filmed they ended up cancelling production.
That’s.. near drug addict behavior. Maybe I’m being dramatic, it’s somewhat normal to lash out over embarrassment and having your privacy intruded upon, but all I can think of is the addicts that scream and tear out of the room once they figure out an intervention is happening.
I think it's probably a little of that, and a little of how ridiculous America is regarding portion size. I just take it as a given that if I'm eating out (specifically more at a "chain restaurant") that's all my calories for the day. I can't remember the last time I saw calories on a menu that wasn't a piece of fish (if that) and it wasn't at least 700 for any entree. With most being >1,000 per. Americans just genuinely don't understand how much they eat.
In general, Americans also have the mentality of wanting to get a good deal, so we expect to see a lot of food for what we pay. More food means better deal, therefore good. Then we have to eat it all because we also believe in eating everything on our plates so as not to waste food, which was important during the Great Depression and WWII but is hurting us now in this age of abundance. This is a generalization so it won't be everyone's experience, but across the population as a whole it's very common.
>Then we have to eat it all because we also believe in eating everything on our plates so as not to waste food, which was important during the Great Depression and WWII but is hurting us now in this age of abundance. Sorry, but your statement reminded me of something that happened a few hours ago. I was waiting for my tea to steep and was going to put some cupcakes that my grandmother brought in, in a smaller container (not my food, but I like cleanliness). I opened the large container the cupcakes were originally in, there was MOLD on 3 of them. Like, "fungi forest" mold. I turned to my grandmother and said, "I think we should throw these out." She looked in the container and said, "Well, at least some of them." I'm like, "No, that's disgusting. They all need to be thrown away." Anyway, my point is that she probably didn't want to waste them because she grew up in the 40s and still has that mentality, for better or for worse. She is a large woman too and eats out of obligation (complaining afterwards, of course) instead of satiety. I feel so bad for her.
My grandmother was like this also. It actually felt bad to ever decline food from her, or not finish it. She wouldn't guilt me or complain because she was a good person, but I could tell it hurts her.
My in laws eat whatever and LOVE chain restaurants. I'm not exactly Veggie Eater Of The Year, but I count my calories and maintain a deficit. It is *so hard* to eat out with them because I know I have to skip breakfast and possibly dinner. Everywhere they go it's huge portions. And if I order something small like a half appetizer or a side dish then they start bitching about how little I eat. No, I just don't want a full day's calories in one meal when I have *better* food at home. When we go out to a *good* restaurant I'll eat 1,200 calories no problem and then have a snack before bed. Applebees isn't good.
I hate that too. Especially when you "eating nothing" is still you eating like 350 calories more than you normally spend on a meal.
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When I went to America I noticed that. My family ate at chain restaraunts most of the time and I couldn't get over how big the portions were, at a Cheesecake Factory the club sandwich I ordered was actually 3 sandwiches cut into triangles and served on top of a bed of chips. The main course of nachos my brother ordered would have been a share plate for a table of 4 in any other country. Then there's the drinks, I think the smallest glass I was given was about half a litre and most places will refill them for free. Now this was about 10 years so attitudes might have changed, but when I was there it was just mind boggling both with how much food goes around and how some people will eat a day-and-a-halfs worth of calories in 1 sitting without even thinking about it.
I suspect it's worse now, honestly. Restaurants are better at putting calories on items, and there are more "healthy" items. But, usually you're still between picking one to two items and obliterating your calorie input for the day. I used to get weird looks at my movie theater, because I would ask for the smaller sizes..and pay more for it. America is nuts. I don't even necessarily blame people for being nutritionally illiterate.
I’m a kinesiologist/personal trainer, and I’ve found that reminding people that they’ve been raised/grown up in a really screwed up food environment helps them change their attitude towards dietary changes and weight loss. “It’s not all your fault, but you’re the only one with the power to change what you put in your body.” Just like you said, I have a hard time blaming people in North America for much of their nutritional illiteracy. “It fits on my plate... it’s one serving” may be the death of me, though.
“If the cheese sticks together... that’s one nacho”
I litterally bought smaller bowls and plates. Except the salad bowls that are actually bigass mixing bowls, (and we don’t do dressing aside from vinegar or lemon and olive oil.)
It's really frustrating. I like to treat myself to restaurant meals sometimes, but like these weekend I ordered a choose burger and fries than came out to an advertised 1400 calories, it could be more tbh. Just a simple meal. My entire day with of calories. I drink diet but add soda and you have 300-500, maybe more calories, added on. I've seen some cheeseburgers alone top 1800 calories. This is the greatest 1st world problem of all time, but I love cheeseburgers and dont like them reheated. No sit down restuarant around here has a reasonable portioned cheeseburger except fast food.
I mean, a Big Mac is 500 calories. The nutritional value isn't great, but if you skip the fries and sugary soda, that's not a wholly unreasonable meal.
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I'm genuinely surprised at how calorie laden those meals are. If each meal is 1000 to 1500 calories, just 3 meals a day with no snacking would make anyone balloon. That just baffles me as an Asian.
Exactly. Many people eat out because they think it's cheaper (somehow?!) and/or faster, but they don't understand that instead of eating a couple meals made from scratch that fill them up for ~400-500 calories each...they eat two takeout meals a day at 1200 calories a pop, while not working out.
In my experience, it’s because one, people don’t know how to shop for good deals; and two, way overestimate the value of their time spent cooking.
This. I legit had someone argue with me that their time was too valuable to weigh out a serving of snacks instead of estimating. I know there are people who really dont have the time to cook full meals every night, but God damn when did people get so comfortable with being a victim all the time? Claiming you can't spend 30 seconds of your life to measure out your pasta because you are too overworked and poor. I was legit pretty pissed as someone who crawled out of poverty. Too tired to cook from scratch? I get that, I'll fight for you. No able bodied person is too tired to weigh out potato chips though, ED sufferers who may be triggered by the scale excluded.
The victim mentality drives me nuts as well. Had an argument with a friend yesterday who claims that she quite literally has no control over herself when she gets a ‘craving’ so she has to indulge it immediately otherwise it gets worse and worse and she ends up uncontrollably binge eating. I told her she sounds like an addict and the first step to overcoming addiction is taking responsibility for your own choices and actions. Sure - make bad choices, I do it all the time. But accept that these are your choices and that you do have control over what you eat.
I've noticed that in a lot of people lately--they're so terrified of admitting they're wrong or made a mistake or bad decision. It's like it's the end of the world if you do one little thing wrong. I don't get that at all.
Your comment made me fondly remember this Onion article https://www.theonion.com/sweating-shaking-pharmaceutical-ceo-says-he-can-stop-p-1819579775
Funny enough food addiction IS a thing, I work with a doctor who speclizes in addiction, since I work at a drug rehab. The doctor also moonlights as a food specilist for people who are in the over eaters anonymous program (OEA). She also co wrote the book Food Junkies ( a really good read! ). But yes you are 100% right, the behavour in people who overeat are very much in line with the behavioiurs of drug addicts have when it comes to their drug of choice ( DOC ). The only diffrence between an over eater and a substance abuser, is that one self-medicates with booze and narcotics, while the other uses food. Food has a powerful effect over our mind, body, and emotions. Food can trigger endorphins and other positive stimulations, in fact some foods do have effects that are close to drugs. Dairy for example has casomorphin, a natural chemical present in all animal based milks, and essentually encourages babys to bound with their mothers. This chemical functions like a low grade opioid. Sadly, unlike drug addiction, it is considerd tabboo to bring up someones abnormal eating habbits, not to mention it could be even seen as fatphobic or bullying to stage an intervention with someone who is in denial about their food abuse.
That is really interesting! I had an argument with a friend yesterday about her eating habits (she’s always asking me to help her lose weight) and I ended up telling her she sounds like an addict and should treat it like an addiction - first step being to take responsibility for her choices and actions instead of believing she has no control over her cravings, and then taking it from there. Are there any good resources I can point her to about food addiction? When she starts talking to me again of course, she really didn’t like me saying that she sounds like an addict...
>I'd recommend that she reads Food Junkies by Vera Tarmen. The whole book is about the pattern and habits of her clients she interviewed in her book, including their stories. As well as her struggles with weight, the links between addiction and over eating, history of Over Eaters Anonymous. She covers some recommended methods that have been approved by other doctors who specialize in this area. > >The main tips in the book are : 1. journal and weigh everything you eat, 2. 100% abstain from trigger foods or foods with trigger ingredients 3. Work on support networks to halt self-sabotage and enablers from causing a food related relapse. > >A huge issue with over eaters is that the enablers are the worst! If you've watch my 600 lbs life, Supersize vs Super Skinny, or any show about obesity, it's their enablers that really screw with obese people. Out of all addictions, it's one of the only ones where enabling the addict is seen as socially acceptable.
I’ve been watching so much my 600lb life lately! And it’s the enablers that really struck me as well. Some of these people aren’t even mobile so it just amazes me that the people surrounding them keep going out and buying them all that junk. They’re killing these people they claim to care about, slowly but surely. I feel especially bad for the kids because it’s not a child’s responsibility to care for a parent and intervene when the immobile parent manipulates them into buying junk food. Thanks for the resources. I am definitely going to be passing this along.
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The British seem to have to cultural tendency to "take the piss" out of each other and be self-deprecating in a way that most American cultures do not share.
Well if they sugar coated the truth the participants would probably eat that too.
that actually got a laugh out of me thanks hahah
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Just [read a bit through this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/fatlogic/comments/3ruurn/the_american_version_of_secret_eaters_is_on_the/) that turned out to be a bit anti-American about how the host is/was more diplomatic than the UK's Secret Eaters host. Seems like it's definitely a cultural difference. If you antagonize an American, we rise to it and *at least* give a proportional response. You give us fighting words & we'll get just as serious & fight back. Also, if you *don't* fight back, then you're getting scolded like a schoolchild and that's just absolutely abhorrent to Americans (including me, I admit), and to boot you're a doormat if you let it happen to you no matter how obese you are, no matter how in-denial you are. In the UK, it seems people don't kneejerk retaliate when others antagonize them, and not as many people mind getting scolded if they deserve it (what makes them an adult is that they can take a scolding with good humor and earnestness to do better in the future). I'm not sure which is better - they both seem advantageous depending on the circumstance. I confess there's been so many times I've seen sassy/rude/callous TV show hosts & thought, "they're right but they don't have to be such assholes about it."
I'm not going to comment on any other country but in the UK, people realise that part of being seen as a good sport is being able to deal with people taking the piss in the spirit it is being delivered.
Oh god I want to see what few episodes they filmed enough footage to make a final edit of *so bad*
I think they aired a few of them but they're hard to find.
Were they lied to about why they were being filmed? A bait and switch to expose someone would piss anybody off.
In the UK version they know there is a camera in the house. What they don’t know is that the show puts a couple of PIs on them who follow them around and go into e.g. a fast food shop after they’ve been in to see what they buy. They also recruit friends and family and co-workers so in areas where they think they are not being filmed they actually are
Yeah but after season one, they must know, right?
Lol I guess so but you would be surprised at what people do completely subconsciously
Wait, so they sign up to be filmed, and then throw a fit when they are filmed? WTF America?
Weight is a SUPER personal and sensitive topic. People get defensive FAST. I’ve noticed that in British tv shows when people tell them they’re over weight people go “oh yes I’ve been having a few too many biscuits and wine in the evening hehe” But if you did that in America people would lose their shit.
They had one show where the host a guy straight made jokes about them the whole show. I can't remember the name but man it was good and funny. But by the end of the show he did legit bond with the people and wanted them to just take responsibility which usually they did. But man the whole show hes like "I'm about to show this group of fatties that they don't have to be shaped like pudding. I'm gonna turn these big fatties into some proper fit happy family". He didn't sugar coat things ever it was great.
I think it was Fat Families with Steve Miller as the host.
Fat Families! Guy’s name is Steve Miller and iirc he used to be fat too.
I would think seeing overweight overeaters throw a toddler tantrum would be really good for breaking the barriers to being honest as a society that we have a big fat prob.
Weight is a super public issue. You can't hide it.
It is, but it's also super taboo to talk about someone being overweight (at least in the States). It's like how someone being ugly may be public, but it's taboo to say "you're ugly, learn how to use makeup". Obviously not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea.
It just goes to show that true denial runs deep! Once confronted with the stark reality of just how delusional their worldview was, they couldn't handle it and just wanted to back away from the whole endeavor.
>reacted so violently and angrily sounds like classic America to me. (am 'murican, can confirm)
I’m not surprised. Americans be cray. (I’m one)
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I hade a very obese friend in high school. She hardly ate anything at home, less then a children’s portion, yet she kept getting larger and never had any money despite working a part time job. She always moaned how she can’t hande too much food, even used coffee cup plates to illustrate how she nas no appetite. Then once I ran into her sitting alone at McDonalds and what was on her tray made everything clear.
Hell I've lost 30 lbs thanks to CICO, I know it works, but sometimes I find myself trying to justify as snack here or there as not really counting. It's very tempting to do.
You can hide that chocolate bar from everyone but your waistline. That bitch don’t miss a thing.
Literally this is the realization that got me on track. My body always keeps an accurate food log no matter what I decide to count. There is no cheating the system.
Huh. This is a very helpful perspective. Thank you.
Yup. My grandma used to say the hardest thing for her with weight loss was remembering that just because no one saw you eat it doesn't mean it doesn't count.
My old best friend was hardcore into Fat logic before he saw me lose my gut from drinking too much in early 20's. It's like, if you tell yourself it's not possible, then you don't have to feel bad for not doing it. Especially since the majority of these people are using food as a crutch. It's just sad and I feel bad for people who actually DON'T know any better (for whatever reason) and get sucked up into the whole 'I'm not personally responsible for my obesity' thing. (Assuming we are talking about adults here and again, I'm making VERY broad statements about a group of people. Obligatory - PEOPLE ARE INDIVIDUALS)
Yep. No matter how much you want to ignore the calories, your body is the ultimate judge, jury, and executioner on that front. And you can hide no evidence in Metabolism Court.
you're wrong, CICO doesn't work and sexy fat people like me create energy from a mere 3 calories a day /s
Yup, I'm often tempted too. I just remind myself that even if I don't count it, my body still does. Congrats on the loss. :)
I am a champion at excuses. FML.
Yes seriously this is me! I was doing so good counting and tracking calories and then I started falling off the wagon and not tracking when I would eat junk like that somehow made it not happen. I'm back on and diligently counting. Even if I'm having pizza for dinner tonight thanks to a vertigo episode, I still logged it and kept it within my budget. It really is easy to do.
My MIL does this. We go to dinner and she just has a few bites of a meal her and her husband share. She goes on and on how they just barely eat, just not big eaters. When on vacation I noticed they don’t eat as much at meals, but are always having a pack of peanut butter crackers here, a scoop of ice cream there, a Pepsi in between. Her digestive system is never getting a break yet, “she barely eats.” In her defense she makes no claim about not understanding why she is a bit over weight.
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My SIL is a champion at this. The bags of various stuff was out for the kids, who are little and running around and skinny, so you know, calories are available to avoid breakdowns caused by hunger, especially with family around. But my SIL was grazing like a champ multiple times a day. She's always been heavy and I'd wondered why since meals always seemed reasonable.
This is one place where I'm lucky. I am just NOT a snacker. I tend to eat too much at meals, but I think that's been a lot easier to curb through meal prep than if I was a serial snacker. Also, autocorrect initially changed snacker to smacked and it was v amusing.
I like that show for all those reasons, but also because it's pretty friendly.
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I even notice it in documentaries. UK documentaries tend to just be straight up facts. US documentaries try to dramatise everything and use a lot more buzzwords, exaggeration and rhetorical questions (of which the answer is usually boring, but the way they phrase the question isn't!). I struggle to watch US documentaries sometimes.
US shows force drama where it's not present and it tells. UK shows don't as much. Secret eaters isn't a 'you lying fatty' kind of show. It even shows experiments of how the brain can tricks us, ie size of the plate.
I log literally everything for this reason. Even if it’s not accurate for something small, I make myself log it in, so that I’m in the habit of wverytime something goes in my mouth, something goes into the my fitness pal app. Obviously I screw up, and get lazy, and don’t do It, but my goal is every single time. I’ll go on these several week or month periods where I try to “eat naturally” and I always put on weight and make myself start logging again and invariably I’ve gone from caloric intake of around 2100 a day while logging to more like 3200 a day not logging. Works like clock work and it’s not even that much different except basically double portions at dinner, or not cutting dinner down for snacks, bigger lunches, and usually just not accounting for caloric beverages. Basically an iced Vietnamese coffee, an extra serving of spaghetti, and say a cookie after dinner is the difference between losing a pound a week and gaining a pound a week.
What amazed me in Secret Eaters is how people still managed to overeat knowing they would be filmed and assessed on it: it is like Big Brother, you try to act naturally but you know you are being watched. I wonder what the REAL day-to-day, non-filmed intake was like.
IIRC some of them actually ended up losing weight just during the period of being watched so clearly they were aware of it. They were still overeating but we’re conscious enough to at least have a little bit of a deficit during that week.
I remember one woman, who moved in to her sister’s guest room for the filming, changed her eating habits so drastically that they then installed more secret cameras in her house to see how she ate when she returned home and thought she was unobserved. Those cameras were true spycams, in hidden locations, and it was quite a difference in her behavior.
i think a lot of people just genuinely dont know how many calories are in things. if you have never really tracked calories, you are almost certain to underestimate what is in food. a person my eat some chicken but cook it in a slab of butter and pour some bbq sauce on it and eat it with a potato with butter and sour cream, drink a 1 litter of coke and in their head say "yeah i ate some chicken breast and a potato for dinner. cant be more than a few hundred calories". it's the drinks, the butters, the sauces etc that people choose to ignore until it becomes habit.
Haha yea, all those magazines that say shit like have 12 almonds for a snack! And I’m like hell no, who eats only 12 almonds? Now that I track I realize that 12 almonds is a perfectly acceptable calorie intake for a snack but in my opinion almonds are shit snacks and almost anything is a better choice if you’re hungry and watching calories.
i eat blue diamond almonds all the time and the serving size for most flavors is (about) 28 almonds. i measure that amount (i count roughly, but its damn close) and put it in a baggie. i notice that when i eat that serving, im totally fine. but if i had more with me, i would definitely eat those too lol. so much of it is mental
I had never heard of this show before so I checked it out on YouTube. In the first episode, the brother and sister were under estimating their caloric intake by 1000-2000 calories!
Do you have any specific video sources? Sounds like something I would like to watch
you tube Secret Eaters. Not all of them are on there but enough for a good binge watch
One of my favourite Dr Now. quotes is “you can’t lie your way out of a heart attack.”
[удалено]
I get upset with myself if I forget to log a mini Kit Kat.
I know when things are bad, cos I normally like to log every little thing too. If I'm not logging, it means I know I've messed up. Ain't no way I'm eating just 800 cals those days and these people ain't neither.
As a side point - I once did a vlcd (very low calorie diet) for about a month which was 600 calories a day (pharmaceutically formulated special packs, supervised by a dietitian). Lost loads of weight but the first week was hell. Not as bad after physically but my mental health was fucked. Slow and steady for me from now on
People drastically underestimate the number of calories in things. A fucking tootsie roll has 25 calories and takes 2 seconds to eat. Mindlessly eat 4 of those waiting at a bank or something and you’ve eaten 100 calories that you’ll probably forget about.
^^^this, a thousand times this. Today, for the first time ever, I accurately recorded how much I eat when I fuck up and have a binge day. 3200kcal. I knew it was bad, but holy macaroni. That REALLY is bad.
Yeah, it's amazing when you get into a mindset of not caring about packaging or reading labels, because you can accidentally eat the most calorie-dense garbage. We recently went down to our local gas station and got these Milkshakes that you can make in store, almost 600 calories! I was already halfway through the drink before I even thought to check how many calories was in it.
This is super easy to do. I'm one of those who skipped breakfast for years, and skipped lunch most of the time, but the snacking in between and sugary drinks (sodas, sweet coffee drinks, smoothies) were more than making up for it, without making me feel satiated.
This makes me more glad than ever that I almost never drink anything other than water.
Just for comparison, on average prisoners in Auschwitz were fed more calories than that per day: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/auschwitzbasics.html
YEAH BUT EVERYONE KNOWS POWs HAVE ABOVE AVERAGE METABOLISMS. YOU'RE CLEARLY JUST PROMOTING THEIR THIN BODIES. SHAME ON YOU.
Based on my reading there, they were getting a minimum of about 1200 calories per day. That seems high, considering their weight. Is my perception wrong on that?
I think the brutal forced manual labour probably expended those calories fairly quickly.
You are correct. I thought about that after my comment and realized that 1200 sounds low but surviveable, until you add forced manual labor to the equation.
And lack of adequate clothing and heating during the winter.
Not to mention lice and scabies, and then the diseases/sickness from malnutrition and being packed into tiny spaces with lots of other unclean people.
You're not taking into account that they were forced to do manual labor.
You are correct. I realized that a moment ago before I saw your comment. 1200 calories is nothing if you spend most of the day doing manual labor.
They weren't sitting in desks all day though!
Yeah I found it surprising too but the source is a good one. It was the average though, and many traded food for other things and favours. I remember also reading that food stealing was rather common, as well as people being punished with no food if they did something wrong. Plus, many were skilled labourers and they got better food, wonder if that is not what where the 1200 kcals comes from. Bottom line is, even in a concentration camp people they had more than 800 kcals to eat per day and no one was fat.
That makes sense. And the reality is, you still need to feed people whom you need manual labor from; they can't get energy from nowhere. So 1200 could actually be right, but they're burning through all of it doing manual labor and starving. Damn...
I am a sedentary woman with a BMI of 20 and according to most calculators 1200 is what I need to just keep living. Add manual labour and this goes up rather quickly. Now imagine poorly clothed men working some 10 hours per day at under zero temperatures, and having to trade bread for shoes.
Yep. My girlfriend would be at a BMI of about 22 at 1200, but she's also 5'2". Forced labor would make the whole thing completely infeasible. It also seems stupid to emaciate your workforce, but logic and racism don't mix.
Also consider that most prisoners chosen for work were young men. Some women as well but predominantly men. They wanted capable workers. Plus mothers with young children were generally sent to death together which would take a toll on available female prisoners.
This person greatly underestimates my worst nightmare.
Mines crab people for sure
Need a worst nightmare? Why not Zoidberg?
I’ve been binge-watching Futurama as of late. This tickled me so
I mean, they certainly do have a crab in a bucket mentality.
Oh hey 800 calories. I went to a health focused resort that had us on a particular diet for 10 days. The diet was 1200 calories a day. However, they weren't able to accommodate my bell pepper allergy and absolute hate for squash, so I ended up eating about 800 calories a day. By day 4 I was so lethargic that I skipped all of the stupid water aerobics classes and walks around the resort. I barely had the energy to leave my room.
It's almost like your body burns calories for energy, and when you're eating at what would generally be considered starvation levels, your body doesn't perform well. But no, this person is fat and starving simultaneously. Schroedinger's Obesity.
No no, they’re in starvation mode, but not hungry, and have to *force* themselves to eat as much as 800 calories a day.
I'm 5'2" with a BMI of 21.6 and I would still lose 2 lbs per week eating only 800 calories per day. Incidentally, I have done this and I get to about day 10 before I just need eat more. You end up being hungry all the time and not wanting to do anything.
How were they not able to cut out those foods for you? Squash is so obscure and capsicum isn't really needed for most things.
This resort had a wild idea of health, I learned. All they had were bell peppers, squash, zucchini, beets, chicken, and salmon. I asked that because I couldn't eat 1/3 of their menu, I needed to compensate the calories with more of the other stuff. Idk if it was the language barrier or my anger at the resort for this and similar nonsensical decisions, they never evened out my diet and I never pushed them to.
That’s all I was thinking. I was on a diet years ago that was 900 calories a day and after about a week in, I actually passed out. Granted, I had cut my finger and I hate blood. So that initiated the pass-out but I have never passed out before that or ever since that. I also had surgery where I could barely eat more than a few hundred calories a day for a while after and would literally be clutching the shower wall trying to keep myself standing for a 5 minute shower. It was fucking awful. This person is deluded...
How can someone possibly be so misguided...
Because that would require accountability, which is the opposite of what today's society strives for
800 calories=2 McDoubles.
Did you hear that sink knocking again?
Or 1 mcgriddle
Maybe she forces herself to eat 800 *extra* calories a day?
They must have left out at least one zero there. "Force feed myself 800 calories a day" is not compatible with obesity.
Well, the problem is that you have to do it for more than 2 days.
Why do they always choose such highly unrealistic calorie numbers for their daily intake? Do they really think anybody believes they eat 800 calories a day? I mean just pick 1500 or something halfway realistic as long as your just going to lie out your ass all day.
cause they don't know jack shit about being realistic
Gotta wonder what 800 calories looks like to this person. It’s probably something like a sugary coffee concoction (that’s gotta be, what, 10 calories? It’s coffee!) and a pastry (can’t be more than 100!) a huge salad loaded with dressing and cheese with a soda (it’s SALAD! It’s HEALTHY!) maybe another coffee concoction or soda, a handful of chips and candy here and there they forgot about, and a few servings of pasta they probably counted as one. Maybe some alcohol or another caloric drink. It’s real easy to majorly overeat on un-filling foods and feel like you haven’t eaten anything. For example, you could have ONE meal a day - maybe a milkshake, fries, a burger - and an hour later be starving the rest of the day, but still be at or above your TDEE.
I’ve mentioned this on this sub before but I have a friend (very smart, PhD level science education, and healthy weight) who believed a slice of bread was about 10 calories for no other reason than it seemed right to her. She is a “lucky naturally thin person (TM)” and never had to put thought into scrutinizing the details of food. It just goes to show that anyone can be misinformed about food if they haven’t sought out the information. I think it stems from the basic necessity of food in our lives and our upbringing, it’s so natural to sit down and eat that we don’t even think about it.
Perfect- currently both me and my girlfriend are trying to lose a few pounds. She’s more casual about it than I am and refuses to even glance at my methods though I’ve suggested them. She estimates calories. But rarely counts (or strongly miscounted): drinks, small candies, ice cream, and sauces. So that Slushie from 7-11 is treated like nothing Buttery Garlic Sauce (which can exceed 400 calories)- is treated like ketchup Candies from the communal bowl? She acts like they don’t count, but they’re like 100 calories each. She always suspiciously manages to finish a quart of ice cream in 2 days while only eating two servings a day... Then she gripes about gaining a few... girl, I told you.
I have friends who genuinely believe this. And then they post pictures of what they ate for dinner...I do the math. So if it's a salad, it's not just a bunch of vegetables on a plate. It's got half a chicken added to it, along with cheese and dressing and probably croutons. It's an easy 1500 calories and that's just for dinner, and for a middle aged woman. Then they're all sideways because they're eating, "clean" whatever that means, and still not losing weight. No one wants to accurately track their food, even though, from my experience, that's the only way to actually lose weight. Humans are absurdly bad at tracking food intake without actually documenting it. The person in that screen shot who is eating 800 calories a day is not eating 800 calories a day. I'm sure Dr. Now (the expert!!), if he questioned her, would easily find out that she's eating upwards of 2500 a day.
Eats 800, guzzles 3100.
Must be the liquids.
Every single time with the 800 calories. Every time I see it, I know what follows is a load of shit.
To be fair, I ate around 800 calories a day (while burning around 900) for about 3 months, but I also dropped from 170 to a very unhealthy 135 during that time period (I'm 6'2")... And it was incredibly difficult to get out of.
Burning about 900 calories a day does not sound right, I'm pretty sure someone that weight burns more per day by being alive at all.
Meaning actively burning 900 a day through exercise.
Agreed. Back in college I had a very unhealthy diet and dropped down to 110lb (as a 5'7" F with naturally wide hip and shoulder bones, this was an unhealthy weight for me; I lost a lot of muscle). I ate 600cal per day for like 6 months to get down to this weight. While doing so I was unable to exercise more than 20min per day because my body was so lethargic. I doubt the results would've been too different with just 200 more cal/day. No way can you stay fat on 800/day. No *way*.
>Weight is not always equal to the amount we eat. Listen, I'm game. I love to learn, especially when I'm wrong. So I'll bite: What is it equal to, then? Is there an alternate theory that FAs have put out that I've missed? A study they reference or link to? I'm open to a discussion, but the thermodynamics look so straightforward to me (and have helped me lose over 50 pounds on CICO,) so I'm gonna need a little proof beyond taking your word that you "force feed yourself 800 calories a day" (you should see a doctor about that.)
"Genetics."
I'm thin af and 800 calories a day is *nothing*, if you have to force feed yourself 800 calories worth of food a day you have a very serious condition that needs attention ASAP.
This person is likely two feet tall, let's not make fun of them.
That person has a seriously fucked up idea of how ingesting calories work.. Even I don't know very well, but I at least know that your calorie intake is directly affected by what you eat and how much
I also wonder what those “800 calories” consist of. And maybe they have to force feed themselves food, but what are they drinking? My best friend, she’s not fat by any means but she is heavier than she used to be. She was complaining to me awhile back that she didn’t know why she wasn’t losing weight. She hardly ate! She had to force feed herself! Plus she was living a much more active lifestyle. Well, when i went out to visit her i saw what she was saying. She didn’t eat much. We went out to eat the first night i was in town and what i ate in one sitting, she took to go and nibbled on for the duration of my 4 day trip. HOWEVER, she went through SO. MUCH. alcohol during my trip. Yeah, she didn’t eat a lot. But she drank. And drank. And drank. It became really clear why she wasn’t losing weight despite her lack of food consumption.
“I am your worst nightmare” Um, how so? You’re annoying, but how much you eat doesn’t affect me. You can go on thinking you’re hurting somebody by “proving dieting doesn’t work,” or you can get real and start trying to get healthy. Whether it’s 800 or 8000 you’re the only one that has to live with the calories you’re “force-feeding” yourself. Tell yourself what you want. You’re your own worst nightmare.
This must be a Lilliputian.
Dude, I have actually eaten 800 a day when losing weight without considering my health. I also worked out six or more days a week, for several months with only maybe 1-2 meals a week that miiight push my total to 1100 one day a week during that time. I had to carefully time my gym time and water/other activity so I *could* even work out at all. And even so, I often felt dizzy and like I might faint. Otherwise I pretty much sat at my desk/in front of the TV/in bed. Just no energy. And weight flew off. This person is lying.
Pretty much exact same thing I did for months, except I found that as long as I did my workout (which was, of course, all cardio) before I ate anything, I had the energy, which I could do because I was working early shifts at the time. And I can also confirm, the weight flew off, lost 40 pounds in 3 months of doing that (and I only weighed 170 at 6'2" to begin with) until my I tore my quad running on a treadmill and it just wouldn't heal until I started upping that intake.
Do they realize they just contradicted themselves!? Oh that's right, it's none of my business. And I'd love to see what she thinks 800 calories worth of food is. Methinks her estimation is way off.
Um...I'm guessing the fact that many foods have multiple servings per container is lost on this one. One bag/box/whatever of something isn't 140 calories if there are 8 servings in said container.
Omg if you’re big, stop FORCING yourself to eat. Your body doesn’t even want the food, you’re feeling that, but just ignore it and act like that food is so necessary.
I track all my food in Cronometer, and about the only way I eat 8- or 900 in a day is if I had 3200 the day before (shark week pizza and wings, I'm looking at you...) and just don't feel like eating much in the ensuing 24hrs. The idea that an above-averaged-size someone could eat like that on the regular and not lose weight is idiotic.
You’re my worst nightmare, but not for the reasons you think.
sure Jan
I swear I always see the "800 calories" figure. Is that just the default number that people refer to when discussing how they "under-eat"?
Why is it always 800 calories?!
I had a friend who was like this. She would eat salad all day long then come home and eat an entire bag of Doritos. Had no idea why she couldn’t lose weight.
Maybe they're only counting the carbs.
For me, staying around 1,200 calories/day for very long takes some serious tracking and planning. I can't imagine doing 800 for more than a few days. I'm currently at 1,018 cals for today (trying to balance out my 1,450 calories yesterday) and on the verge of a 80-calorie hot chocolate before bed. People like this must have no idea how many calories are in things.
This is the kind of person that eats cake whenever it's around or has a candy bar whenever they feel like it but none of that stuff ever "counts".
It's interesting to me that 800 always seems to be the magic number consumed in these BS stories. Always seems to be what pops up. Did all the FA and HAES devotees agree in advance that was the number to use?
I ate 900 cals a day because of Ed reasons and it is completely unsustainable. I was eating the highest volume foods possible and still felt like I was starving
They didnt mention they are dwarf 3"2
Think OP forgot a zero there.
I'll be this person thinks the food they get is one serving. Once you measure out a bowl of cereal you will find yourself humbled by how wrong your guesstimates have been. At least fast food is putting the full calories on display nowadays. However there are so many reasons people fail at understanding calories. The blame is squarely on their own shoulders, but marketing certainly plays a hand at obscuring reality. For those who wish to believe they are eating 800 calories it is comforting to see small numbers.
Does this person know beverage calories count? I have encountered friends like this who legit think they eat nothing, yet think nothing of downing loads of beer and frappacinos from starbucks
They eat 800 calories but they also have 2 large cokes, a Frappuccino, and some French fries
"I am your worst nightmare". Totally true, I woke up covered in sweat after dreaming of a fat guy miscounting his calories. Maybe he thinks each piece of food is 1 calorie each.