Exactly. I also think the other poster underestimates 1. How hungry you are 2. How often you're hungry (constantly) 3. What that's like to live with 4. What it's like for others to live with you when your hungry 5. How much willpower is required constantly.

"Just eat less food" might as well be "just maybe don't have as much (insert addictive drug in here)"

I never realised how much of a problem my hunger was until it went away. Now I don't know how I managed to do it.

The whole point of all of this is that it's important to put yourself in others shoes, understand their perspectives. So, with that said... If it was easy to just not eat food, don't you think they would?

"Don't eat as much" sounds exactly like "Don't breathe as much". It is a miserable existence.

Breath control is a pretty cool trick but you have to have a lot of free time to learn it. If you’re an adult with responsibilities, good luck.

Post COVID I’m subconsciously holding my breath every time I walk past someone in a store. If I had to think about it I’d never get anything else done.

For food it’s right there near the top of your task list every time you hit an interruption. Am I thirsty? Do I need to pee? Am I hungry? Did I promise anyone anything today? Is it time to feed the pets, pick up the kids? It’s not “just” impulse control. It’s interfering with all of your other impulses.

I don’t think neuro-boring people realize how many people around them spend their day trying to look normal instead of just being normal. It’s an elaborate ruse and things like being hangry or in a loud venue make the facade crack and fail.

Can we agree it's a spectrum?

There are some fat people for whom hunger is instant and incessant and a constant distraction, and perhaps losing 5 years of life at old age is worth it.

For other people, maybe someone who's 20 lbs overweight and would like to be able to play with their kids without running out of breath, maybe the annoyance of being hungry isn't actually that bad for them.

Pain is subjective. One person's excruciating pain - the same stimulus could be a mild annoyance to someone else. I've been tattooed for 6 hours and was able to easily distract myself and laugh while listening to a comedy podcast, other people can't handle holding their finger over a flame for more than a millisecond or can't eat a hot slice of pizza out of the oven.

Pain and annoyance and discomfort can also be acclimated to. What might be really difficult and distracting might become something you get used to and learn to tune out. But then again, to be fair - maybe not. Maybe for some people that hunger is not something they can learn to live with.

I love that this whole thread has been about people who don't seem to understand the experience of others, and you just compared having a 6 hour tattoo to living a lifetime of hunger.

The comparison was that for some it may be excruciating and that others it may not. Maybe a tattoo isn't the best analogy, but their main point is apropos to the idea that understanding the experience of others may be difficult when there is a wider range of experience than many want to admit.

I don't believe that was the intent of your parent. The 6 hours of tattooing was instead a scenario they have personally experienced where they have also observed others having wildly divergent experiences from themselves, despite the same inputs, and are using that to bootstrap a framework for understanding how wildly different others' experiences with hunger might be from their own.

It definitely belies a level of privilege that some people must intentionally seek out discomfort or pain in order to begin to even approximate the agony others are inherently forced to live through. I don't believe privilege is itself a moral failing, or we're stuck with whole categories of 'original sin'. It's what objectives its used to enable that potentially indict those that possess it.

I used to drink soda as a fidget. I needed something to stim while poring over shitty code trying to extract cleverness. The preponderance of free soda situations in the 90’s tells me there were a lot more of us hiding in plain sight. Several times I switched to water or tea and lost 10 lbs pretty quickly. Usually after bad news from the dentist.

That’s not a weight-loss plan though, that’s a fit-back-into-your-current-wardrobe plan. People with “weight problems” are generally on an upward slope and a point source puts a notch in the graph, it doesn’t zero the slope or take it negative. What it does say, if anything, is that there are factors we can control that moves the needle, but they are the journey not the destination.

Okay but, again, this is a waaay higher standard to place on a fat person than a thin person just because they're fat. As a thin person I never have to "learn to live with" somewhat hungry forever and I think expecting fat people to is stupid. I never have to decide whether or not a lifetime of hunger is worth 5 extra years of life, or if my hunger isn't so bad I can tune it out. That's a standard I don't hold myself to as a thin person, why would I hold a fat person to that standard?

As a thin person, you might have to learn to live with sexual urges that you cannot act on, on violent urges you cannot act on, on urges to scream at your boss for being a moron or better yet just walk out and never go back to work that you cannot act on.

Some of those urges may be stronger for some people than for others.

The same way that urges of hunger can be experienced differently by differently people (at both a signaling hormone / chemical level as well as a psychological/willpower equipment level).

Are you suggesting that the feeling of hunger experienced by overweight and obese people is universally a higher standard than any other discomfort or natural drive humans experience?

Frankly if I am horny all the time, I need that addressed. If I'm homicidal all the time, I need that addressed. Same thing I think if a fat person is hungry all the time that should be addressed. People are generally not wandering around wanting to fuck all the time or wanting to kill all the time, and we generally consider it a disorder if they are. I think obese people are disordered in some way, either they need psychological help to navigate their relationship with food or medical intervention to handle their hunger [semaglutide affects hormones and reduces hunger, so I think something is wrong with an obese person's hormones?]. But I refuse to believe it is totally normal and healthy for fat people to just feel hungry all the time.

That's a pretty fair point.

You can change your microbiome and metabolism and all, but it's MUCH more complex than "just eat less" and isn't the same as starting with a natural genetic advantage anyway.

It's not the expectation.

It's not well understood by people on average (and those dieting) how to mitigate hunger when restricting calories or how to successfully diet, but they are correct that a deficit is required to lose weight. That's physics and biology. The problem is the knowledge gap leading to strong-willed efforts that can actually backfire.

For instance, there's body fat set point theory and metabolic adaptation. The more severe a caloric deficit, and more frequently a person diets, the worse your metabolic outcome. Your body will try to slingshot you back to your "original" weight (the one it's used to), with leptin as a regulator. But if you lose weight slowly, and leverage resistance training, it leads to a better outcome.

A prime issue is sustainability. Most people on a diet do succeed in losing weight; it's just that they gain it all back, and they can end up with a worse metabolic rate than they started with, making it that much harder to lose weight again. Metabolic rate can actually recover, but the length for this seems to depend on the severity. Assuming a slow rate of weight loss, it can take almost just as much time as the diet period to recover metabolic rate. For the "Biggest Loser" contestants, it took several years.

Leveraging the satiating and thermogenic effects of protein, fiber and resistant starch in diet also helps, for satiety.

All of which to say, it's possible to lose weight in a sustainable way without drugs - notwithstanding the failure rate. The people who succeed in doing so are not necessarily "more disciplined", or "less prone to hunger", but they tend to have certain behaviors in common. One of them is exercise (particularly resistance training).

I am totally down for fat people losing weight in a sustainable way that leads to better health outcomes. I think fat people in general should strive to lose weight through diet, exercise, and non-harmful medical intervention where applicable. I'm merely arguing against the very specific point that fat people should just learn to be hungry all the time, like that's an acceptable standard to expect out of anybody.

Sure, and I'm saying that's pretty much a strawman.

It's not a strawman when it's literally the man I'm responding to.

Ah, well they're an idiot. I don't think it's a common sentiment.

While your point is well taken, I think this latest comment displays some dichotomous and uncharitable thinking. I doubt they meant you have to choose between being "fat and happy" or "thin, angry, and depressed." Surely, they were more likely to hope you could become "healthy and happy" but lacked some of the cognitive empathy to understand your situation.

The parent poster literally said "better to feel somewhat hungry all the time". I disagree! I don't want fat people to feel "somewhat hungry all the time"! That sounds like a shitty existence and I a thin person would be appalled if we think that's just what it takes to be thin for some people! I acknowledge being thin for me is great: I eat when I'm hungry, I lay off a little bit if I know I've eaten a big thanksgiving dinner or something. I am never "somewhat hungry all the time"!

The parent poster (me), isn't arguing that in all cases its better to feel hungry all the time than to be fat.

The parent poster is arguing that for some individuals, the experience of being hungry would be preferable to the experience of being obese. Would you disagree with that?

For some overweight and obese people, there are costs like sleep quality / apnea that CPAP might not solve (leading to all sorts of health issues), there can be sexual dysfunction (erection quality, difficulty even accessing the genitals or having sex in many positions), there can be shame and embarrassment (regardless of if you think society SHOULDN'T have that shame, the reality is many overweight or obese people feel it, and avoid certain settings and activities because of it), there is just the raw feeling of physical tiredness, back pain, knee pain, etc. that can come along with the physical stresses it puts on your body, I could really go on.

For some people, those things ARE worse than feeling hungry most or all of the time. For some people, they CAN tolerate a mild or moderate feeling of hunger by distracting themselves or avoiding dwelling on the feeling, and they might find the other parts of their lives improve enough that it's worth it.

I feel hungry basically all the time (30 minutes after a meal I am hungry again, an hour and I'm at peak hunger until the next meal). I am thin because I only eat at "normal" times; I don't snack / I don't eat whenever I'm hungry (which would be all the time).

You get used to it. People who claim to get "hangry" (like in those Snickers commercials[1]) need to get a grip. If hunger is all it takes to make you a shitty person then I think hunger isn't actually the primary issue.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shOiXy5b5Ro&themeRefresh=1

TBH that sounds like a sucky life and I don't think we should expect all fat people to live it just because they're fat. That sounds like something's wrong with your hunger sensors or something.

That's okay to disagree. But the idea of not eating until one is satiated is not new. Hippocrates said "If you still have a slight sensation of hunger after a meal - you have eaten well. if you feel full - you have poisoned yourself."

I suspect the divergence in opinion comes from the how one defines well-being. Hedonic well-being tends to focus on fulfilling one's appetites, whether hunger or sex or whatever. The problem with that is humans tend toward hedonic adaptation and it can become an endless treadmill to try and feel "full". In a resource rich environment, this can obviously lead to a lot of bad outcomes.

No, I'm not arguing against eating until satiety. That's fine. I'm specifically arguing against feeling "somewhat hungry all the time". That sounds bad and definitely not what I feel as a thin person and not an expectation I would have of fat people. I wouldn't even describe my satiety as feeling a little hungry. I just feel not-hungry, not-full, and I've been thin all my life so I think I understand what it's like to be thin and eat as a thin person.

The Hippocrates quote literally says remaining a little hungry. Now you may think that's a bad time, but my point is that it may be because how you define well being. The point is there are other frameworks to think about that. And that people have been doing so for a long, long time.

Boy this gives me new perspective on what insufferable little shits recent weight loss winners can be. They’re hangry all the time, and lost one of their favorite pastimes. So it’s just gonna be lectures.

Look, I used to be in better shape than pretty much anybody here. Unless you’re an Ironman veteran I have nothing to learn from you about exercise and I can probably teach you a few things. But health problems, especially joint injuries, happen to old people, and they happen much more often to people who are rabid about exercise. I’m not you ten years ago. I’m you twenty years from now. So drop the smug bullshit and learn something.

There's another tangent in here to be had.

I'm someone who loves running, always have, the weight gain happened in my 30's, either because I had a kid and suddenly my ability to just run when i had free time disappeared, or because my metabolism slowed down, or most likely both and more.

That said... Now I've started running again daily for the last year, one thing I've noticed. Beginning to exercise whilst overweight is SIGNIFICANTLY harder than it was when normal weight (or because i was 40, probably another "both" here too).

One of the things that made me realise how much harder it is, was some fitness YouTuber put on 20kg of weights and ran, he noticed a number of things were different. Once I saw that it gave me enough fuel to continue ignoring the hunger for another month or so.

I had a plan to walk a half marathon last year. High impact has never agreed with me, even when I was young, but definitely not now. Everything got put on hold when I got diagnosed with arthritis but I’m trying to get back in now.

If I recall correctly runners estimate about 1 second per km per extra pound carried. That might not hold for body weight (cyclists had an old 1:2:10 rule of thumb that suggests that it might be better to lose 5 lbs than spend a fortune on a pack/bike that weighs 1 lb less, but that rule has been challenged and I don’t know what the new wisdom is.

Edit: kilometers not miles.