With due respect, you are not really understanding the spirit of my article. What I am trying to say is the whole thing is primarily psychological and what sucks about fitness culture is ignoring it. You too have completely ignored the psychology part here. Yet this is precisely I am trying to draw attention to so I must object here.
Basically people don’t have poor diets simply because they are misinformed. There are all kinds of psychological mechanisms here, from comfort eating to thinking you suck and you don’t deserve a good body and so on.
To change the diet, we need to put people into a proper psychological frame for that. There are various aspects of it how sports help. Better mood. Feeling more proud due to having physical successes, feeling proud and good about yourself for having the will to do it. Fat looks better with muscle under it, this is what people call toning up. More importantly, changing the self-image from “self-hatting glutton slob worthless jabba couch potato” to “proud active athlete who achieves goals aw yiss”. Taking hedons from activity, not consumption. Not wanting to feel stuffed because it interferes with active movement. Not wanting to feel food coma, because enjoying the new, more aware, more active, less of a mind-fog existence. And so on.
Of course, this could partially replaced by other sources of joy and other sources of feeling achivement. I am working from a “nothing special happens, normal office career, no challenges” assumption here.
Everything you wrote is right, it is just missing the point. You are talking about how the body works. I am talking about how the mind, the psychology works. My criticism of fitness culture is precisely too much focus on how the body works and too little on how the mind.
One more thing. Insulin sensitivity, leptin sensitivity, HGH and T. All having an effect on fat. This is how basic calories math is misleading: if you cells refuse to take energy, or your body refuses to deliver it to cells, or whatnot, you simply end up storing it as fat and as not getting enough energy, you feel tired and become inactive. Eat less calories and you are just more tired. There is an obvious problem here and this is what is fixed with exercise or sports.
I’m not disagreeing with your diagnosis of the problem. I think your diagnosis is in part highly speculative, but I’m not too concerned with that. You are correct that motivation is a major factor. I’m disagreeing with your proposed solution, which you highlighted in italics under a section labeled solutions:
If you are fat (or skinnyfat), and struggle with the motivation / discipline to exercise, I can help you. Forget fitness and exercise and start a sport you like.
Which you are proposing as a solution for:
I am working from a “nothing special happens, normal office career, no challenges” assumption here.
I’m saying this is wrong. A typical casual sports club won’t allow most people to burn nearly enough calories to bring about significant weight loss during the course of a regular season. Most of this weight will then be gained back in the off-season. This is why many people on those teams are fat. The best solution for the office worker is to switch to a stand-up desk. The second best solution is to eat more vegetables. Sports teams require a much bigger commitment than is actually required to meet basic fitness goals, which can be done with as little as 30 minutes a week of exercise.
Basically, I view weight loss like this:
50% NEAT
40% Diet
10% Exercise
Your article reads like this:
98% Exercise
2% Diet
0% NEAT
Anybody relying on your advice is going to have a very skewed perception on how to lose weight.
Sports teams require a much bigger commitment than is actually required to meet basic fitness goals, which can be done with as little as 30 minutes a week of exercise.
I don’t know how to explain it better. You need to feel good, and feel proud about yourself to make the kinds of changes you say. This is what sports do. Put you in a I-am-a-hero mood which enables you to change these things. The calories burned is a remote extra.
Example: most of my own fat comes from alcohol and the burning hunger that creates, currently I am on day 5 of zero booze, compared to my, probably strongly addicted, 2 liter beer a day habit. I know that if I was not doing boxing for months now I had no chance to make this change, I hated myself too much and felt too bad and too weak to resist. Boxing made me find this inner strength and pride and self-approval to deserve a positive change.
My example is not very typical but replace booze with sugar/choco and junk food, or overdosing on standard homecooked food until sleepiness, and now we are closer to typical cases.
BTW fitness is not simply weight loss.
Your article reads like this: 98% Exercise 2% Diet 0% NEAT
No, the point I am trying to drive home it iss 90% psychology, 90% things that happen inside your head and the other three happens after. Sport is self-esteem training, in a way, although this is not the only psychological factor created by it.
With due respect, you are not really understanding the spirit of my article. What I am trying to say is the whole thing is primarily psychological and what sucks about fitness culture is ignoring it. You too have completely ignored the psychology part here. Yet this is precisely I am trying to draw attention to so I must object here.
Basically people don’t have poor diets simply because they are misinformed. There are all kinds of psychological mechanisms here, from comfort eating to thinking you suck and you don’t deserve a good body and so on.
To change the diet, we need to put people into a proper psychological frame for that. There are various aspects of it how sports help. Better mood. Feeling more proud due to having physical successes, feeling proud and good about yourself for having the will to do it. Fat looks better with muscle under it, this is what people call toning up. More importantly, changing the self-image from “self-hatting glutton slob worthless jabba couch potato” to “proud active athlete who achieves goals aw yiss”. Taking hedons from activity, not consumption. Not wanting to feel stuffed because it interferes with active movement. Not wanting to feel food coma, because enjoying the new, more aware, more active, less of a mind-fog existence. And so on.
Of course, this could partially replaced by other sources of joy and other sources of feeling achivement. I am working from a “nothing special happens, normal office career, no challenges” assumption here.
Everything you wrote is right, it is just missing the point. You are talking about how the body works. I am talking about how the mind, the psychology works. My criticism of fitness culture is precisely too much focus on how the body works and too little on how the mind.
One more thing. Insulin sensitivity, leptin sensitivity, HGH and T. All having an effect on fat. This is how basic calories math is misleading: if you cells refuse to take energy, or your body refuses to deliver it to cells, or whatnot, you simply end up storing it as fat and as not getting enough energy, you feel tired and become inactive. Eat less calories and you are just more tired. There is an obvious problem here and this is what is fixed with exercise or sports.
I’m not disagreeing with your diagnosis of the problem. I think your diagnosis is in part highly speculative, but I’m not too concerned with that. You are correct that motivation is a major factor. I’m disagreeing with your proposed solution, which you highlighted in italics under a section labeled solutions:
Which you are proposing as a solution for:
I’m saying this is wrong. A typical casual sports club won’t allow most people to burn nearly enough calories to bring about significant weight loss during the course of a regular season. Most of this weight will then be gained back in the off-season. This is why many people on those teams are fat. The best solution for the office worker is to switch to a stand-up desk. The second best solution is to eat more vegetables. Sports teams require a much bigger commitment than is actually required to meet basic fitness goals, which can be done with as little as 30 minutes a week of exercise.
Basically, I view weight loss like this: 50% NEAT 40% Diet 10% Exercise
Your article reads like this: 98% Exercise 2% Diet 0% NEAT
Anybody relying on your advice is going to have a very skewed perception on how to lose weight.
I don’t know how to explain it better. You need to feel good, and feel proud about yourself to make the kinds of changes you say. This is what sports do. Put you in a I-am-a-hero mood which enables you to change these things. The calories burned is a remote extra.
Example: most of my own fat comes from alcohol and the burning hunger that creates, currently I am on day 5 of zero booze, compared to my, probably strongly addicted, 2 liter beer a day habit. I know that if I was not doing boxing for months now I had no chance to make this change, I hated myself too much and felt too bad and too weak to resist. Boxing made me find this inner strength and pride and self-approval to deserve a positive change.
My example is not very typical but replace booze with sugar/choco and junk food, or overdosing on standard homecooked food until sleepiness, and now we are closer to typical cases.
BTW fitness is not simply weight loss.
No, the point I am trying to drive home it iss 90% psychology, 90% things that happen inside your head and the other three happens after. Sport is self-esteem training, in a way, although this is not the only psychological factor created by it.