#cw diet talk

[toyourstations]

How to lose 50 pounds in 16 months without really trying

note: this isn't a weight loss guide it's a poem about my experience with a weird phenomenon affecting my body.

Eat whatever you find in the cupboard at your parents house.

A handful of crackers, a peanut butter sandwich, an egg toastie, muesli for breakfast. switch from soy milk to oat milk about eight months in when your mum realises how much better the carbon footprint on it is. A whole pack of toffee pops in one night, a block of chocolate over two days, the occasional ben and jerries dairy free ice cream because despite the last two entries you are actually lactose intolerant. No fruit, you're allergic. Vegetables when your parents provide them (not that often). Mostly beige food.

Do between one and 2 thousand steps a day, on average. Probably. Only bother checking your steps 10 months in when your new meds give you heart palpitations and you start wearing a smart watch to make sure your heart hasn't always been that fast.

Sometimes walk between 5-8 thousand steps. Regret it for 1-3 days, lying in bed wracked with physical exhaustion that makes it hard for you to move.

Get a dog. Walk her 3 days a week. She could use more, but see the previous stanza if you want an excuse for my laziness.

Have a semi regular conversation with your parents that goes "have you lost weight?" "You say that any time I look happy" "Well you look better, anyway"

Ask your dad if you can borrow his belt, the jeans you ordered to your custom measurements are falling down.

Dig the pair of jeans from before those ones out of your drawer. Finally you're justified in keeping the jeans you grew out of.

Buy a new pair of jeans another size down (those are slightly baggy now too)

Finally weigh yourself, and think at first the scales are broken. There's no way you've lost 15 kilograms since moving home. You normally only weigh yourself at the doctors, on their orders.

Out of curiosity, weigh yourself again a few months later. Another 5 down. What the fuck. Calculate what percentage of your body weight that was (17%).

Think about the rheumatologist who told you losing even 5% of your body weight would help with your pain. Laugh through the pain (it's worse than ever).

Do research. Listen to a podcast about the science of weight loss, disproving scams and exposing diets as breeding grounds for unhealthy, disordered eating. Listen as they explain that your metabolism will fight very hard to stop you losing weight, adjusting even if you're doing it on purpose, so that you maintain your fat reserves. Read about how sustained weight loss is basically impossible (it's been a year at this point, and you're still steadily dropping).

Mention how much weight you've lost to your parents (wow!), your nurse (congratulations!) your doctor (wow you must have been big before! - hang on let me confirm this. Hm. I'll send you for some blood tests).

Your blood tests are fine, you must just be lucky.

Track your calorie intake for a couple of weeks. Maybe you're undereating (no). Google unexplained weight loss (cancer).

Go back six weeks later, you've lost at least another kilo. "Wow!" she says again. She's surprised and confused. You mention if it keeps up you might apply for a top surgery referral, because you know there's a BMI Limit. You never thought you'd qualify. She looks at her notes again and goes "... yeah" in a way that makes you think she's still wondering how this is happening.

You get more blood tests.

And wait for them to come back normal.

You're done being anxious about your health, you think while you walk the dogs. Fuck it.

then you think up this poem while you munch on a couple of gingernuts in the kitchen where the dog can't beg them off you.

Congratulations on the weight loss! You look great!

[scarrletmoon]

.

remind me to never comment on youtube bc someone just tried to tell me that weight loss doesn’t involve some form of malnurishment and it’s promptly ruined my day and i’m going to spend today trying not to spiral :) it’s so cool to tell someone with a history of eating disorders that they were actually healthier when they exercising to the point of exhaustion every day and not eating enough bc at least they lost weight, that’s so cool :) i did it the “healthy” way so it’s fine :) it’s actually very cool and good to tell some people that they just shouldn’t eat even though your body literally needs fuel to just function :) so fun :)

diet culture is so fucking insidious bc instead of looking at other markers of health, we’ve decided that that fatness is the worst thing first

like my comment was about someone who was dismissed by a doctor bc she was rapidly losing weight, and he said she could stand to lose a few pounds. she was losing weight bc she had fucking cancer

i hate HATE that people look at me now and think there’s something wrong with me, that i’m disgusting and lazy and whatever else, that they’d tolerate me more when i was actively fucking miserable and torturing my body, i hate it here, it makes me want to never leave my house again, because it’s literally happened. i love running and i haven’t done it in years bc someone decided to yell “encouragement” at me, the only fat person in a street full of other runners

and i have it EASY. i have it SO GOOD. its this bad and im still considered a small fat. i hate diet culture so fucking much. we were so close to something better.

[weirdlet]

Just as my (tested negative) cold finally sinks slowly in the west, I’m gearing up for ChiCon.  Gotta shill for a couple author friends of mine, want to see the outside world and nerddom again, but without having to actively Work my own booth. I am making ~Fancy make-ahead lunches for this long weekend.  Something I always intended to do but never quite got the chance to was to make lowER carb, healthy-ISH food that would let us get through convention weekends without having to spend as much on restaurants and not blow our collective blood sugar all to hell. Today’s work is link sausage and almond flour pancakes.  The pancakes won’t quite wrap around the links as intended for pigs in a blanket, so I may just pack them in as dunkers for whipped butter and very-low-sugar macerated strawberries whichIforgottoputthebalsamicvinegarinarrrrgh

[seasonallyappropriategoth]

ARE eggs as bad for you as smoking???? For every egg you eat i will smoke one cigarette. Someone fund our study now..

[lornrocks]

I saw a reel on insta for some weight loss thingy that’s a balloon inflated in your stomach so you can’t eat as much. So basically what I’m seeing is, much like every other medical procedure that purports to help with weight loss, their solution is “make them only be able to take in a dangerous level of calories” so they’re basically admitting diet and exercise don’t work and that starvation is the only way to lose weight, but it’s unsustainable because we need to eat and losing weight this way can be more harmful for your metabolism and your organs.

Not great, Bob!

But hey, at least they dropped that stupid ass idea of wiring someone’s jaw shut with magnets. Probably.

[dykemaclachlan]

Freespirit, J., & Aldebaran. (1979). fat liberation manifesto. Off Our Backs, 9(4), 18–18. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25773035

[ms-demeanor]

Actually I do think that it's super important to talk about the fact that cutting 500 calories a day for a 1lb a week weight loss is considered "slow" or "moderate" weight loss.

*IF* you can sustain that for a year that is a 52 pound loss in a year, which is pretty fucking fast, actually, but people act like you're a hopeless defeatist if you start talking about weight loss in terms of 1 pound a month because people want *results* but if you're talking about being able to sustain weight loss (which some people just straight up cannot for a variety of reasons and is not reasonable to *expect* everybody to be able to do) then it's kind of fucking bonkers that doctors and the American heart association and diabetes infographics and whatever talk about doing the kinds of diets that typically only last 3-6 months (12-26 pounds at a pound a week) and expect people to maintain those losses.

When you talk to doctors it is extremely reasonable to say "okay, and how, specifically, should I do that?" when they say to lose twenty pounds, but what is ALSO a very reasonable question that I never see brought up is "okay, by when?" and if they say "within the next year" it's also perfectly reasonable to say "why does it have to be in that time period?" Because if we're talking about the benefits of a 5% weight loss for reducing the weight-associated risks of heart disease or diabetes, then losing that weight over five years instead of over six months should be as effective, and is much more likely to be a lasting change instead of something that kicks off a bunch of weight cycling (which has its own terrible side effects that are bad for you).

There are some people for whom, for a number of reasons, it is impossible or near impossible to lose weight in the long term. It is possible for most people to lose weight in the short term, with a significant amount of effort. Maintaining long-term weight loss is exceptionally difficult and it seems like it's not feasible for large numbers of people, and I can't help but wonder if that's because what we're considering 'long term' really isn't long term at all.

If you've spent time around people trying to put on muscle you'll see something that I think is actually a more reasonable approach to long-term body changes, and that is recognition of the fact that you can only put on a (relatively) tiny amount of muscle in a year. For most people who have been training for any length of time, it's between 5-7 pounds and it gets harder to put on more the longer you've trained. Lifters and bodybuilders who recognize this and still want to put on muscle understand that they are in for an extremely long-term project that they have to intentionally maintain and put a lot of effort toward.

I want you to think about anyone you know who is a serious gym rat. I want you to think about how many hours a week they spend in the gym, and what they're giving up in exchange for that time. I want you to think about how much they spend on equipment and gym memberships and protein powder and first aid and very specific foods. If you know someone who's a very serious gym rat, you probably think they're a little unreasonable, that that's too much effort to put into looking good in a tank top.

But that's pretty analogous to the kind of effort, planning, and expense that needs to be put into maintaining a long term weight loss. And that effort needs to be put in forever - no matter if you're having kids or your partner is hospitalized or if your financial situation changes or if you are permanently injured, just like a bodybuilder can't expect to keep their gains if they're suddenly spending ten hours a week at the hospital instead of the gym.

I mean, people talk about weight loss and they get angry when you bring up the statistical failure of things like Weight Watchers or if you discuss how destructive dieting can be and they go "so, what, are you saying it's impossible to lose weight?" And the answer is, no, not for everyone.

It is possible for most people to lose weight. Just like it's possible for most people to become competitive bodybuilders. But we frame "mid-30s mother with two kids and a long commute and a full time job needs to lose 10 pounds and keep if off" as a task with a difficulty curve similar to learning how to cook a few crockpot meals, not similar to becoming a competitive bodybuilder.

[aurorashard]

So my allergy results came back and I'm not allergic to peanuts/walnuts/pecans. That's good.

However! I won the fucking genetic lottery again and have a rare allergy to egg yolks! The poor nurse who called to tell me hah. I was just sitting there on the phone trying to process this and bless her, I just said "well fuck me running... Shoot sorry. This is a lot." She was nice about it but god. I don't. Don't even know where to start. I'll have a good cry, call the dietitian they recommended and then I guess get a box and start going through the cupboards.

[baejax-the-great]

.

I'm trying out this diet for my migraines, and the food options are so limiting that now at every meal time I throw a little tantrum in my head because I would rather just not have to eat than eat what is available to me

Even worse i have to cook every shitty meal from scratch, which means i have to make effort to make the blandest meals known to man

[charliechoccychip]

CW: e d discussion of a sexual nature, no images, just an unhinged thought I had while having sex

Literally morning sex w my bf- and I let him hit it raw- he nuts in me and I go "oh that just compromised my morning weigh in :// "

H U H ?

Pass it on, girlies, e d brain says cum weighs enough to affect the scale

[dragonomatopoeia]

wild that 'paleo' diets are so popular when 11000 years ago humans worked EXTREMELY hard to pull agriculture together for the express purpose of Not having to spend all their time and energy scrambling to survive

[mercuryholixx]

Controversial opinion: "anorexia and other restrictive EDs are the most lethal mental disorders!" is a fatphobic dogwhistle because it is literally not true. Depending on source the most lethal mental disorders are schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, bpd, I'm sure there are others because it's wildly variable but no source says that it's anorexia.

I'm not trying to discount that starving can make you absolutely miserable but to say that more people are committing suicide because of anorexia than anything else is a fucking lie.

Before anyone comes at me to claim that "hurrdurr anorexia is the most lethal not because of suicide but because their body shuts down from starvation!!!!" No you fucking moron. That's the side effect of dieting as a whole. Any kind of restriction comes with that side effect. Guess what people's motivation is for painting the LETHAL side effects of diet culture as just an aberrant and tragic end result of one specific mental disorder? They're trying to obfuscate the real dangers of diet culture and restriction.

[cartoonscientist]

people are always saying “eat less, move more” but tbh I think “eat more, move more” would be better advice for most people in 2023

I see so many people online thinking 1200 calories per day is enough for an active adult, and then complaining about how tired and depressed they are and how hard it is to eat healthy; they also talk about how exercise is pointless according to some article they read on yahoo

[raysletters]

hello hello! question for you: if you could only eat 5 foods for the rest of your life, what would they be 🩷 also, what's your go to coffee or tea order?

HIIII, this is such a good question but also im an indecisive mf so i might not choose only five sjfbdkabdnsjsdbsk

some of the foods here are colombian dishes and yall might not know them, so im gonna attach images about it

im gonna act like diabetes and my health in general are unaffected by the food i eat bc if not then my endocrinologist might haunt me at some point for this, but

1. bandeja paisa (colombian dish, it would absolutely NOT help me on my health whatsoever, but gosh its so fucking good)

2. ajiaco (colombian dish, see above for same disclaimer 💀)

3. popcorn (this is like my to go comfort food ao i wouldnt be able to leave it behind, even though i can hear somewhere at the back of my mind the voice of my endo going "why are you like this?")

4. pasta in whatever form and with most of its sidings (except anything with mushrooms, goodbye) (spinach is on thin ice idk) (HAVE YALL TRIED TUNA SOAGHETTI?? its not as fancy as it sounds but its the easiest thing to cook and im absolutely a fan) (re: the photo. if you ever put anything green on my salad besides, idk, pesto, i'll feel like you're offending me and my entire bloodline, and might end up crying or never talking to you again, but that is just a personal opinion)

5. idk how to explain that theres this typical lunch that my mom cooks gloriously and its rice, lentejas (idk how its called in english im sorry), slices of platano maduro (salad or an avocado are optional but not required),,,,,, and sometimes, when the stars align and some deity takes mercy upon myself, mango juice. idk how to explain yall that this is the most glorious lunch ever and i will literally go to your house and cook it for you if you ask me so bc everyone deserves to try it at least once in their life (the photo isnt how my mom prepares it but it was as close as i could find)

little tiny bonus bc i told yall i couldnt decide for shit: any kind of arepa, but either arepa de choclo or arepa boyacense???? i would sell my soul for those at any given chance

arepa de choclo:

arepa boyacense:

(no, they're not the same but both can be/are filled with cheese and its the best thing ever)

little tiny bonus dessert bc i couldnt help myself: theres a milhoja without sugar that an specific cafeteria in my city sells and i would commit crimes for, just to have it all my life, even though it is fucking expensive

fun fact: i just found out its also known in other parts of the world as "mille-feuille", "napoleon", "vanilla slice", and "custard slice" and it was originally from france sjsksjsksjsksjsksjsksjs

also also, about my to go order, it depends on the store, bc theres this kinda famous tea shop in my city and even though its incredibly expensive, i found a milk berry tea with the bubbles thingy that i love and im absolutely a fan. in my favorite cafeterias (im in colombia, so theres a lot) an iced coffee (like where they put the ice in the blender, and not coffee with ice) will always be my first choice, except if its like too early and im freezing, or in coffee vending machines, i will absolutely go for a cappuccino.

this went on for too long, but i have so many thoughts about food i could scream about it for ages, thank you so much for this lola ily 💕💕

[strixhaven]

i want to rip every weight loss, diet, exercise and gym advert and people who constantly talk about everyone needing to do these things apart with my teeth and i want them to feel agonizing pain as i do so

[metamatar]

one thing i like to do is insist im skinny to people who think im not.