You obviously have a high metabolism and abundant energy and willpower. Otherwise you wouldn't say "dieting was not difficult" or it only takes "a bit of time each day." Not overeating requires willpower every waking moment... forever.
This is sort of like someone who makes $500,000 a year claiming that getting out of debt is easy because they were able to do it after they finally stopped buying mansions and sports cars left and right.
Not particularly. If I had a high metabolism I would not have put on the weight easily in the first place.
> and abundant energy and willpower. Not overeating requires willpower every waking moment... forever.
In my opinion, successful dieting isn't a willpower issue, it's a systems issue. I have designed a straight forward system which works for me: Every morning I wake up and plan my meals in accordance with my diet plan. I then only eat those meals. I schedule in time to go the gym and follow my schedule. When I arrive I do my prescribed exercise routine and I leave. There are no decisions to be made on food choices or exercise throughout the day because I have already made the decisions without any internal conflict before I start my day. The emotional component is completely abstracted away and very little willpower is necessary to maintain adherence.
I think this is one of the biggest problems with people's mentality on dieting and getting in shape. They think they need to force themselves to be adherent against their will. In reality you only need to discover and set up systems which facilitate good behavior. There is very little willpower involved on a day to day basis if this is done, and in fact, the more success you have the more you will want to adhere.
I'm very happy for you, but I'm not sure you even know what willpower means.
>In my opinion, successful dieting isn't a willpower issue.... I wake up and plan my meals in accordance with my diet plan. I then only eat those meals.
Imagine a recipe for overcoming drug addiction. In the morning, you decide not to take drugs. Then you don't take drugs that day. This is nonsense.
When you're hungry and low on energy, it's a constant battle. You have a burning awareness that any moment you could go get something to eat. I'm glad it doesn't work that way for you, seriously.
>Not particularly. If I had a high metabolism I would not have put on the weight easily in the first place.
Sure you would. Eating a surplus is easy. You already said you ate until you were stuffed, didn't exercise, and consumed too much beer. This is why I used the money example. You can make a huge amount of money and still burn it.
That's a huge range that demonstrates the point you are trying to contradict. Someone on the low end of that range will gain between a quarter of a pound and almost a full pound a day on the same diet as soneone on the top end, with a similar activity pattern and assuming similar absorption (which is an additional source of variation besides metabolism; these are probably combined in what most people think of as "metabolism" since people seem to tend to think of it in end-to-end terms, though technically metabolism is more limited.)
The top and bottom of that range is an entire meal difference. Or put another way, if two people on opposite ends of that range eat 2320kcal daily, we expect the person with the lower metabolism to gain 50lb a year. Awesome.
This is where you come in and say, "Oh well, the person with the lower metabolism should eat less." So now the person with the lower metabolism has to eat a meal's worth of food less than the other person just to maintain their weight to say nothing of losing it. And I'd wager the person providing their body with 1600kcal is probably feeling sluggish and depressed all day. Which is why I include willpower.
This is sort of like someone who makes $500,000 a year claiming that getting out of debt is easy because they were able to do it after they finally stopped buying mansions and sports cars left and right.