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0 pointsRobotbeat8y ago0 comments

I consider hunger a survival instinct. People with obesity, especially those who have actively tried to lose weight but failed, have a stronger hunger drive than normals as their body fights back against caloric restriction attempts.

If you just increased willpower to overcome this much stronger hunger drive, you'll have increased will power beyond any kind of equilibrium with the other (weaker) survival instincts, thus increasing the probability of some unintended problem.

The solution isn't to just increase willpower, as will power isn't lacking and increasing it more could cause problems. The solution is to address the real issue: the body's exaggerated response (i.e. releasing hormones which cause the sensation of hunger even when the individual is overweight) to fighting caloric restriction.

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NikolaeVarius8y ago

I could literally make the exact same argument about getting exercise.

Getting exercise sucks, it makes you exhausted, it hurts because you're literally harming your body in the short term so that it heals stronger, and it requires will power to go out and do every day and do it. Your body is doing all it can to prevent unnecessary expenditure of energy.

Is the solution to this just to make some crazy ass pill that solves all these issues? Or is it to just deal with it and exercise?

philipkglass8y ago

Since the pill that replicates all the benefits of exercise does not exist, you need to exercise to get the benefits of exercise. The benefits of exercise are worth the personal costs.

If and when someone does invent a crazy ass pill that replicates all the benefits of exercise without the effort, I'll gladly embrace it. The self-discipline-and-enduring-suffering part of exercise is just a means to an end, not a virtue in itself.

ksk8y ago

Are you advocating that people are victims of their baser drives?

RobotbeatOP8y ago

I'm saying "will power" is not a magic solution.

Even if you could magically increase willpower way beyond the usual to counter the body's exaggerated hunger drive (that science says you experience during AND especially /after/ losing weight when you're obese), it'd almost certainly cause other problems.

You've got to address the root cause, which is the body's ill-adjusted response to maintaining a negative caloric balance for weight loss. Obese people who try to lose weight have just as much will power as a normal person.

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