You won’t understand until you’ve been in someone’s shoes who tried everything but will never look like the magazines say they should. I especially feel for the women who are constantly fed the message that looks and genitals are their only value. It gives the women that look that way a sense of entitlement and promotes mental illness in the ones that never will.
Everyone is different and your base metabolic rate is pretty much set at birth. Just like your face or hair color. IMO, the rate varies greatly from person to person. Far more than doctors realize. I recently dated a rail-thin girl that would eat chocolate and greasy food, non-stop, all day. She had a desk job, never worked out and would feel dizzy from hunger if she ever stopped eating or ate something low in calories.
When I was younger, I ate less and did the same activities that my friends did. However, I never had anything close to a magazine body while they were very lean and muscular. Eating 2-3 racks of ribs and a half-gallon of ice cream each in one sitting was common for them.
Later on, my metabolism slowed even more and I kept gaining weight while eating a fraction of what they did. I went up to almost 300 lbs and decided to completely change my diet. I changed to 100% organic, quit drinking completely and figured out I could only eat 1000-1200 calories if I wanted to lose weight. The problem with such a low rate is that your body still needs the same quantity of essential nutrients or you feel very hungry. You can’t eat junk food because you will gain weight while feeling hungry.
I was lucky to be self-employed and focused 4-6 hours per day on working out, measuring myself and perfectly measuring/cooking everything I ate. Most people are much busier and would be extremely obese if they had my metabolism. After about 1 year, I dropped to 180lb but still never had the body that my friends had without even trying.
Today, I am much busier but spend as much time as I can to not be obese. My friends are still very fit while working out less, eating foods I haven’t touched in years and drinking every week. In prehistoric times, the efficiency of my body would give me a huge advantage over my starving friends. Today it makes me an outcast because eating is such a huge part of our culture.
I’m a 200lb+ guy with a big build and get to work out 1 hour per day but still can’t eat anything resembling a ‘normal’ diet. Most of my friends would starve if they ate this little calories for a month. I’m so efficient that I only average 3-4 squares of toilet paper per day. Here is what I ate yesterday and have been eating similar for years. I’m pretty much never hungry but there is so much food that I miss out on.
Breakfast:
50 grams granola – 150 calories
1 boiled egg – 70 calories
1 cup fresh berry smoothie – 175 calories
Lunch:
1 cup crabmeat salad – 120 calories
4 oz pork loin – 160 calories
1/2 cup mashed potatoes – 110 calories
1 Orange - 60 Calories
Dinner:
1 cup beef and potato soup – 220 calories
1/4 Bagel with smoked salmon – 150 calories
1/3 lb boiled shrimp – 160 calories
1/2 lb strawberries – 75 calories
TOTAL – 1450 CALORIES
According to my age, weight and fat percentage, my minimum should be 3300. And that doesn’t include calories burned while working out.
We all have our strengths, weaknesses and appearances that were given to us through DNA. For me, a person’s character and what they do with what they were given is the most important thing. Few things make me more angry than people who won the looks lottery and feel entitled to everything while doing nothing.
No lottery winner here. I have been on a whole food, plant-based diet for years to maintain my weight and health. (I highly recommend it, BTW). I also work out several days a week.
My compliments.
"Few things make me more angry than people who won the looks lottery"
Sadly, I missed the boat on that lotto.
I have nothing against fat people, even more so if they are trying to shed weight. What ticks me off, and I'm suprised to see some of it on this thread, is people defending obesity like its some type of special-needs group.