Is losing weight really that difficult?
Discussion
This is meant as an innocent discussion and I fully accept it is a subject area I can learn a lot about.
Over the past few months, as people around me are constantly trying the latest diet, I've been wondering more and more how difficult it is to actually lose weight. I will start by saying I am somewhere between an ectomorph/mesomorph and historically found it relatively difficult to gain weight. So I don't understand the struggle of losing weight as I can hand on heart say I have never once wanted to lose weight in my life.
But is it really as difficult as some people seem to think? I'm a firm believer in calories in vs calories out for weight control, and whilst I appreciate there are variables to this simple formula there can't be much more to it than that, can there? Count your calories, avoid foods high in fat and sugar, exercise a couple of times a week and if you're burning more calories than you're consuming you should lose weight. So what am I missing?
I have friends and colleagues who are doing the 5/2 diet, caveman diet, herbalife, drinking teas that essentially make you s
t yourself to lose weight and so on and so forth. They buy special foods, books, workout and nutrition programmes, spend all this money and seem to be stuck in a routine of trying a new fad diet for a month, not losing much weight and moving on to the next one.
Sure, it takes a bit of time to prepare healthy meals or go to the gym and people lead busy lives with work and kids. But they also have spare time to go to the pub 4 times a week and catch up on the latest 'Kardashian gets naked in the Essex Jungle', so are the majority of cases that they just aren't committed enough? My Facebook is becoming ever increasingly filled with guys are girls alike who are determined to get their beach body for the summer holiday in 4 weeks time and have just bought £100 worth of protein shake made from the semen of the Dalai Lama which is guaranteed to help. I'll let you know in 4 weeks if it has or not...
Like I say, I'm genuinely interested in this and have started reading more and more into the science of it dieting and how the body reacts to different regimes, and if I'm completely wrong and it's more difficult than I realise than feel free to put me in my place; I'm here to learn.
Over the past few months, as people around me are constantly trying the latest diet, I've been wondering more and more how difficult it is to actually lose weight. I will start by saying I am somewhere between an ectomorph/mesomorph and historically found it relatively difficult to gain weight. So I don't understand the struggle of losing weight as I can hand on heart say I have never once wanted to lose weight in my life.
But is it really as difficult as some people seem to think? I'm a firm believer in calories in vs calories out for weight control, and whilst I appreciate there are variables to this simple formula there can't be much more to it than that, can there? Count your calories, avoid foods high in fat and sugar, exercise a couple of times a week and if you're burning more calories than you're consuming you should lose weight. So what am I missing?
I have friends and colleagues who are doing the 5/2 diet, caveman diet, herbalife, drinking teas that essentially make you s
t yourself to lose weight and so on and so forth. They buy special foods, books, workout and nutrition programmes, spend all this money and seem to be stuck in a routine of trying a new fad diet for a month, not losing much weight and moving on to the next one. Sure, it takes a bit of time to prepare healthy meals or go to the gym and people lead busy lives with work and kids. But they also have spare time to go to the pub 4 times a week and catch up on the latest 'Kardashian gets naked in the Essex Jungle', so are the majority of cases that they just aren't committed enough? My Facebook is becoming ever increasingly filled with guys are girls alike who are determined to get their beach body for the summer holiday in 4 weeks time and have just bought £100 worth of protein shake made from the semen of the Dalai Lama which is guaranteed to help. I'll let you know in 4 weeks if it has or not...
Like I say, I'm genuinely interested in this and have started reading more and more into the science of it dieting and how the body reacts to different regimes, and if I'm completely wrong and it's more difficult than I realise than feel free to put me in my place; I'm here to learn.
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