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lm28469yesterday at 2:31 PM6 repliesview on HN

I have access to the same food as everyone else, I also have craving as everyone else, but as hairless monkeys we evolved a brain able to bypass instant rewards for future goals.

My step dad was obese and blamed everything and everyone but himself. We installed an app to count calories on his ipad, he lost 1/3rd of his bodyweight in less than a year and he's now cruising at an healthy weight, it really isn't rocket science

People who look for excuse will always find something, it's genetics, today is a cheat day, today was a bad day, I'm not feeling good, I crave chocolate, #healthyatallsizes, &c. people who stop making excuses get out of the hole surprisingly fast


Replies

array_key_firstyesterday at 6:59 PM

> also have craving as everyone else

How could you possibly know that? You don't even know how your brain works, let alone how other people's brains work.

I can drink alcohol and be perfectly fine, but a lot of people can't, because they're alcoholics. Similarly, Ive met people who have tried to smoke but couldn't pick it up, meanwhile for me it will be a lifelong, every day, struggle.

The mind is complex, have some humility. You are not necessarily a beacon of purity by your own doing.

542354234235yesterday at 5:01 PM

>I also have craving as everyone else

This is a pretty massive assumption that your "craving level" is the same as everyone else. This takes a complex process (the feedback from the body to the brain on feelings of hunger, satiety, etc.) and pretends that it is a simple A-B thing. Just for type 1 diabetics, their insulin levels have a huge effect on feelings of hunger, with hyperphagia (feelings of insatiable hunger) being common. Diabetes is just an extreme example of the spectrum of how individual bodies regulate insulin, and insulin is just one hormone effecting and effected by food.

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staticassertionyesterday at 4:29 PM

> I also have craving as everyone else,

I laughed at loud at this. What an insane thing to claim. "I can experience the qualia of others, quantify it, and claim that mine is identical" lol

Also it's empirically false that all people experience the same level of craving. We have studies demonstrating different dopamine responses etc.

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infectoyesterday at 2:49 PM

You are blinded by your experiences. I don’t think it’s as clear as “stop making excuses”. Obviously there is a healthy portion that is probably this but I do believe there is a borderline if not full blown addiction that happens where people are not able to put it out of their thoughts.

I don’t think we fully understand why but it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s a real problem. After all there is a reason that glp1 show efficacy with other addictions.

Accountability is important and I even think there is a healthy level of social shaming to be made, we should not be normalizing obesity. But I also realize that there is something at play that’s more than simply excuses.

nathanyzyesterday at 3:04 PM

What if some people's hunger is louder than others? What if your expended willpower to not overeat is a lot less than what is required by others?

I ask these as that is what the GLP-1's are showing. They change the hunger feeling and it might just be that you and others got lucky with a lower hunger feeling than others. There is no objective measure of food noise, but I think we all need to be open to the possibility that the food noise is different for different people and its not all willpower or laziness.

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HDThoreaunyesterday at 9:14 PM

> I also have craving as everyone else

No you dont. Have some epistemic humility. People experience reality in unique ways, you can not push your experience onto anyone else with any level of confidence. https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Nagel_Bat.pdf