Lose Weight: Tips & Strategies for 5'10" 92.5kg People

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Aye in the UK as the fattest in Europe we know this, making excuses is pointless, it's really much a part of our respective cultures, not a biological issue.

Our food is stupendously cheap and our restaurants and supermarkets supersize portions, not quite as badly as the US so I hear. How do you keep though a sense of freedom of choice of lifestyle, and legislate against such a lifestyle? I mean we're here going the same way as the US, in all honesty how do you stop it in a liberal system, without infringing on peoples rights? Fat taxes

 

[Moonbear]

I'm surprised chroot even needs to post that stuff since it's basically common sense. Only eat when you're hungry? Eat until you feel comfortable? Drink diet coke instead of regular coke? Walking? Does this mean there are idiots out there who eat when they're not hungry, eat until they're uncomfortable, drink regular coke and think it's good for them, then go straight to bed without burning any of it off? Come on now, really. People aren't that stupid.

siddharth nailed it in 5 words:
"eat less and exercise more"

Chroot already addressed most of your comment. I'm wondering what would make you think Diet Coke is good for you though? Neither is good for you, but given the choice, I'd opt for the corn syrup vs artificial sweetener. It's not like Diet Coke is "unsweetened."

As I think I mentioned earlier, though, a lot of us were raised by parents and grandparents who insisted we clean our plates, and taught to feel guilty if we "wasted" food. Keep in mind, my parents were born just about the start of WWII and my grandparents had just lived through the Great Depression before having to face rationing. Food was very precious then, and it was considered a very bad thing to waste any of it, because you couldn't be sure what your next meal would be or when. When you take the same people who have had it ingrained into their mind that they should never waste any food and pile mounds of food on their plate, they would rather make themselves sick than leave it behind. I used to hate visiting my one set of grandparents for that very reason...my grandmother would serve huge portions that I couldn't finish and then yell at us if we wasted food and didn't clean our plates. I would feel so sick, I didn't want to eat there at all.

 

[out of whack]

How do you keep though a sense of freedom of choice of lifestyle, and legislate against such a lifestyle? I mean we're here going the same way as the US, in all honesty how do you stop it in a liberal system, without infringing on peoples rights? Fat taxes

Here's one suggestion. Right now, goods are either simply legal or illegal, with minor legal refinements for controlled substances (your country's mileage may vary). A similar refinement for "detrimental" products and substances could be passed into law. Products in this category would not be to outlawed since voters would shout "freedom!" from rooftops. They would however be discouraged by forbiding their advertising and restricting their sale to minors, for example. Whatever is widely considered detrimental to society would be thus clasified and discouraged in suitable ways. Alcohol and tobacco would surely fit in this category, urban tanks might be included as well, and possibly unhealthy snacks. Such products would remain legal for the benefit of the addicted but at least they would no longer be on TV and billboards all the time shouting "eat me, eat me".

 

[chroot]

out of whack,

Our society already operates that way. We have huge taxes on cigarettes because they're bad for you. We have huge taxes on gasoline because cars are bad for the environment. We limit the sale of tobacco and alcohol to adults. We prohibit the advertising of those products except in certain time slots on certain TV channels. It goes on and on -- we already do this for many products.

Now, if we can find a way to make the public willfully accept a "pasta tax" and an "oreo tax," we'd be doing quite well as a society. But trust me, no one's ever going to vote for the politician who says he'll put a $12 tax on all meals at McDonald's.

- Warren

 

[out of whack]

Our society already operates that way. We have huge taxes...

True, but these are ad hoc efforts on very specific items. My suggestion is for a legal category (such as restricted products) that, compared to ad hoc regulations, would normalize the approach and make it more palatable to the public. I agree that a huge tax on donuts is political suicide. But simply ending their advertising by putting them on the list of undesirable products is acceptable. Taxing the most undesirables is a separate issue which, in specific cases, can be added on to the more acceptable restrictions that apply to the new category.

 

[chroot]

It doesn't have much to do with advertising, either. Even if you levy huge taxes on donuts, it won't stop people from eating too much of other foods. Everyone knows restaurants serve huge piles of good food already. Where do you draw the line? Could restaurants no longer advertise? Could they no longer show pictures of their food? Would they have to pay addiitonal fees to a regulatory agency if they wanted to tell people they'd be satisfied by their meals?

How on Earth could any of that kind of regulation really be done? The critical difference between cigarettes and food is that no one needs cigarettes, yet everyone needs food. And unless we hire an army of inspectors to go to restaurants and measure calorie values and assess fees accordingly, there's no way to stop it. Such a system, of course, will never be built, so it's not worth discussing.

Currently, the market demands gargantuan portions at restaurants, and the market always gets what it wants.

- Warren

 

[out of whack]

Warren, you're adopting a defeatist approach. I disagree with you that neither advertising nor taxes have much effect. I think one is indeed positive and the other is indeed negative, and that combining them is effective.

Your take on restaurants is unrelated to what I was saying. I made no suggestion that food in general would be classified as detrimental to society. You're extrapolating. There is indeed no need for your army of inspectors that "will never be build, so it's not worth discussing".

Categorizing products is relatively simple, albeit open to debate as per the nature of a democratic society. Those considered to account for health problems are added to the list and are no longer advertised. You make it sound complex but it isn't.

 

[chroot]

Categorizing products is relatively simple, albeit open to debate as per the nature of a democratic society. Those considered to account for health problems are added to the list and are no longer advertised. You make it sound complex but it isn't.

Good grief -- it took our societies decades just to get cigarettes categorized this way, and even a single cigarette is unanimously agreed to be unhealthy. Are you suggesting we go on a decades-long campaign to get oreos categorized as unhealthy by the surgeon general? Food, particularly restaurant food, is almost impossible to reliably quantify as "healthy" or "unhealthy," particularly because it depends heavily on how much the customer actually eats!

You might be able to get a label stamped on oreo boxes that says they're unhealthy, but restaurants are a far bigger problem than food people eat at home. You're trying to make it sound like this a simple problem, but it really, truly isn't.

- Warren

 

[mathwonk]

eat less, exercise more. i myself find this impossible however.

 

[mathwonk]

another suggestion, garnered from watching television: eat all you want, do no exercise, and send me hundreds of dollars a week.

(apparently the theory is at some point you will not have enough money left to buy food.)