47
votes
You can't outrun a bad diet
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- You can't outrun a bad diet. Food not lack of exercise fuels obesity, study finds
- Authors
- Maria Godoy
- Published
- Jul 24 2025
- Word count
- 859 words
A new study offers evidence that "diet — not a lack of physical activity — is the major driver of weight gain and obesity in our modern world."
As they point out, this doesn't mean that exercise isn't important for our health, but it does point a finger at our modern diet as the biggest issue in the fight against obesity.
On a personal level, my doctor has been telling me to cut back on red meat, which is becoming easier to do when I look at beef prices. If I ever find a substitute for ground beef that I can stand, I may not buy red meat at all.
I don't eat beef anymore and haven't for quite a few years. I've been using Beyond Meat as a substitute for ground beef in recipes, and while it's definitely not the same taste, the texture is close enough to not be totally off-putting. Ground turkey, chicken, or pork, which I also sometimes use, also work reasonably well too. And when the meat is well seasoned (like for use in tacos) the fact that it's not beef is barely noticeable, IMO.
Since the article does make mention of processed foods and such, as far as my understanding of these products go they would fall under the ultra processed food classification according NOVA classification. There is a lot of misunderstanding about the classification, because it doesn't automatically mean that processed foods are bad. But, they are often associated with obesity and other health issues. See also this previous discussion on the subject.
I often have wondered how various meat substitutes score as far as health goes. Compared to meat, but also as the processed foods they clearly are.
To be clear, I eat very little meat and often use meat substitutes like Beyond Meat so I am not approaching this from someone trying to find reasons not to use them. I really am curious about the matter.
To get back on topic I recently came across this channel which is a dude making all sorts of meat substitutes from various things. I tried a few things from his channel and they are so far pretty good. I haven't tried the ground beef substitute recipe yet, but it looks promising. The reason I didn't make that recipe yet is because we have quite a wide selection of ground beef replacements available in our supermarkets and those also taste fine to me and are slightly less involved.
@Kerry56, might be worth looking into.
I think way too many people get hung up on the idea of processed foods being bad but without really understand why they're generally more unhealthy for us. It's not necessarily the processing itself that makes them unhealthy, it's all about their generally increased caloric density, their generally increased palatability, generally lower satiety, and their generally worse nutritional profiles. But generalities only get you so far, and there are plenty of processed foodstuffs (even of the "ultra" variety) which are actually as good or even better for you than their "natural", unprocessed counterparts (e.g. Whey/Casein powders). And you don't have to just wonder blindly if a certain processed food will be worse for you than the alternative... you can easily just look at their macro/micro nutrient profiles and compare them directly. E.g.
Beyond Burger
Source:
https://www.beyondmeat.com/en-US/products/the-beyond-burger
Serving Size: 1 Patty - 113g - Calories: 220
Total Fat 14g
Saturated Fat 2g
Trans Fat 0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 2.5g
Monounsaturated Fat 8g
Cholesterol 0mg
Sodium 310mg
Total Carbohydrate 8g
Dietary Fiber 2g
Total Sugars 0
Added Sugars 0g
Protein 21g
Vitamin D 0mcg
Calcium 120mg
Iron 4mg
Potassium 370mg
80/20 Ground Beef
Source, USDA via Nutritionix:
https://www.nutritionix.com/i/usda/beef-ground-80-lean-meat-20-fat-raw-4-oz/513fceb775b8dbbc210032b8
113g - Calories: 287
Total Fat 23g
Saturated Fat 8.6g
Trans Fat 1.3g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.6g
Monounsaturated Fat 10g
Cholesterol 80mg
Sodium 75mg
Total Carbohydrates 0g
Dietary Fiber 0g
Sugars 0g
Protein 19g
Potassium 305.1mg
I chose 80/20 because that's what most burgers are made with, but you can always look up 90/10 or whatever fat percentage you normally use in your burgers to compare them.
p.s. I personally use cronometer to track my diet, and it's worked wonder for me over the last 4+ months. But there are plenty of other similar apps that are equally good as well. And I highly recommend people give one a try, even if just for a few months to get a better feel for your caloric and nutritional intake, and to better understand how many calories are in the foods you regularly eat. It's completely changed the way I eat, for the better.
I quite enjoy a wide variety of processed plant-based meat substitutes. I have this caesar salad I make 2-4 times a week using 'chikn' strips. LOVE it.
The problem? Sodium. Even in that comparison, the beyond meat product has four times the sodium that the beef does. It's really striking when you look at just how much sodium is loaded into big brand food. I think it's going to be the next emergency after we're done freaking out about the amount of sugar in things.
Yeah, the high sodium is definitely an issue with almost all processed foods, including the meat substitutes, especially if you have a problem with water retention or high blood pressure. I thankfully don't have any issues with either though, and sweat so damn much while working out that I genuinely need a fair amount of sodium to replenish what I lose daily. But even still, I try to keep an eye on it, and cronometer tracks my sodium intake too.
Yeah, totally fair, it is something I am aware of and it is something that’s come up on Tildes before. Which is why I linked that earlier discussion and also took care to mention that I am very much aware that processed doesn't automatically means bad.
Honestly do appreciate the nutritional details, possibly could have pulled those up myself for this specific example. Though I was more wondering about it in general, because Beyond Meat isn't the only brand and we have an entire isle here in supermarkets with meat substitutes. It basically occurred to me that for some of them I haven't always looked into the ingredients in details.
So again, which I had hoped to already have made clear, I am not approaching this from a "processed foods bad" perspective. I do think it is good to switch away from meat to begin with, not even necessarily for health reasons but also for environmental and ethical reasons. But, considering we are talking about processed foods here I figured it is good to be aware of that as there is such a wide variety of products out there with wildly different ingredients and ways they are processed. So, basically not just comparing Beyond Meat to the meat counterpart, but also to other substitutes, including those that are not trying to emulate meat.
Because, sure Beyond Meat ground "beef" might be better than just actual ground beef. But how does it compare to a diet where someone substitutes meat with mostly other things like tofu, chickpeas, etc. To be a little bit frank, I was not expecting a lecture, I was hoping for conversation.
Which is also why I happily tried to introduce that channel.
That's totally fair criticism too, and sorry about that! I've gotten into a few somewhat heated arguments on here with people taking that hard-line "all processed food = bad!" stance, and I think I got a bit triggered, TBH. But you were clearly not being so hard-line, and I should have recognized that. So, genuinely, sorry if my comment made you feel lectured at or attacked.
As for alternatives like tofu, legumes, quinoa, and the like, as someone that's been tracking their macros very closely for the last 4+ months while losing weight (so having to be calorie conscious) and also lifting weights 3x week (so trying to consume 100+g protein/day), I wish there were more affordable plant protein alternatives to meat and dairy products too... but unfortunately the vast majority of plant protein sources that I know of are just not protein dense / low calorie enough, and the few processed ones that are (e.g. vegan protein powder, beyond burgers, etc) are significantly more expensive than meats/dairy. :(
p.s. If you do find any other good alternatives, I would love to hear about them since I also struggle with the ethics or consuming meat and dairy products. Before this most recent fitness/weight-loss effort, I was pretty close to being pescatarian for that exact reason... but I've basically been forced to reintroduce other less ethical, more environmentally damaging meats and significantly more dairy products back into my diet because I simply couldn't afford to keep getting most of my protein from seafood and meat alternatives. :/
Understandable, certainly with food there is a lot of misinformation and just overall "pop culture sentiment". Even before I understood what processed food entails it always annoyed me how readily a lot of people throw it around exactly like that.
I am not dealing with the exact constraints as you, so the calorie vs protein equation isn't something I have had to deal with in that sense.
I don't have good alternatives there, unfortunately. As I hinted at, I still do eat some meat and dairy products. What I do try to be consistent in is sourcing where they come from. Generally speaking this means going for organic products. Not even necessarily because I think they are better for the environment (that is a whole other can of worms), but because it almost always means a better standard of living for the animals.
We have something here that roughly translates to "better life checkmark" on meat and dairy products, and most (if not all) organic produce will have the highest rating.
For me this is the bare minimum these days to look at. There is still a big difference between supermarket meat with the highest rating, organic butcher's meat and the meat my parents get from the organic farmer nearby.
And to be clear, that is if we do eat meat, for the most part we don't.
I wish I could say I was as principled as yourself, but organic and free-range meats are similarly just a bit too expensive, especially these days, so we generally just buy whatever looks good but is still modestly priced at the grocery store. :/
Do you use the paid version or is the free version enough? I subscribed to LoseIt years ago but fell out of shape. Looking for a new app that hits the reward loop hard and reinforces healthy behavior.
I hate SAAS, so just use the free version. And the main reason I chose cronometer over any of the others is because the barcode scanner comes with the free version. Whereas almost all the other similar apps (including Lose It!) lock that behind their paid subscriptions now.
p.s. The other main reason I use cronometer is because it has a decent web interface too, and some other highly ranked apps (e.g. Macrofactor) still don't have one.
I used Cronometer free for a while too to get a better idea of my nutrition when I started lifting. Free was perfectly good. The paid has some nice sounding features and quality-of-life improvements, but definitely not necessary.
My main reason for choosing Cronometer was that I could restrict it to trustworthy and comprehensive data sources. MyFitnessPal and many other popular community-sourced apps have absolute garbage, conflicting, and limited user-submitted data.
Re. Homemade meat substitutes, Sauce Stache is a pretty prolific poster on the subject — I actually thought they were who you were linking to! Might be of interest as well.
Not really news. A half hour on an elliptical machine can burn about 300 calories. A package of peanuts or chips from a vending machine will easily replace that lost energy.
I would also add that a 600 calorie/hour burn is high intensity no matter the exercise and not something you can just keep doing more of to buy yourself more calories unless you have a very high level of fitness already. And for most people, it won't be an enjoyable half hour.
It's worth noting, though, that the benefits of cardiovascular exercise go much beyond the calories burned.
Anecdata: My appetite went out of control when I stopped exercising. It was as if exercise gave me an appetite off-switch, and sedentary living removed it. I never felt full, junk food cravings spiraled out of control, and my daily calorie intake probably increased by 25% or more. I wasn't eating out of boredom or anxiety - it just felt like food and hunger lost their relationship altogether.
I've felt the same thing.
Digesting food takes real effort from your body, especially larger amounts or more complex carbs, fats, and proteins. If you measure your bodies stress levels you can see a similar response to eating a large meal as from drinking a moderate amount of alcohol in its impact on your heart rate variability.
And exercising also takes energy, as does the recovery from it. So it makes sense from the perspective that your body will avoid sending signals for another stress event (eating) while still recovering from one.
From a cursory search, there have been studies that document this effect, though I haven't looked for any that attempt to identify a casual factor.
Indeed!
From what I can see this study is saying something a lot more controversial than that - but the article seems to have framed it in a way that pulls focus towards the more well known part.
FWIW, when I still used to do a lot of "proper" cooking, my go-to replacement for "minced meat" if I was going to be adding it into a cooked dish where it doesn't need to hold its shape (e.g. pierogi filling, moussaka, stuffed vegetables with rice...) was oyster mushrooms (pleurotus ostreatus) + sautéed onions.
Basically what I did was cook thinly diced/sliced oyster mushrooms without any oil (they release a lot of water) for a few minutes, then sauté thinly cut or diced onions in a tiny bit of olive oil (sorry folks, that's the only oil I use anywhere - FIGHT ME), and then add them all in a food processor to turn them into a mince-like texture and throw the result back on a frying pan to evaporate any extra water.
I've added this into plenty of foods and my dad always liked it. I don't remember what spices/herbs I used, but if I had to guess, it'd be sweet red pepper (optionally smoked), pepper, oregano, garlic powder, and a tiny quantity of mix of 2 of the following depending on the mood or dish: cumin/nutmeg/cinnamon. Maybe also thyme.
Honestly I really disliked beyond meat's mince substitute. It tastes... weird? I'd rather eat my own version.
It's great that there is another study that confirms this, but this has been studied before and has had the same conclusions: Crap diets are worse than anything, and it's exacerbated by lower levels of daily activity.
FWIW I eat plenty of red meat and my cholesterol level are much better compared to when I was morbidly obese. Chicken breast and steaks are basically the two proteins I alternate on a weekly basis.
I think some of the studies behind red meat being so bad for you has to do with people who eat a lot of red meat having a lot of other unhealthy habits such as smoking or high alcohol intake.
Its just one of those things that causes a lot of damage that we should avoid, just like sweets and oils in general, but if life just isn’t worth it we can do better in other ways to make up for it. Eating a salad instead of a baked potato with your red meat would probably help most people.
iirc along with cholesterol, something in red meat causes cancer in a lot of people.
You can eat some red meat and be healthy. But the problem is that “some” depends on your personal epigenetic conditions.
The problem is that many cultures eat way too much for anyone. Here in the US there are Brazilian style steakhouses where the concept is eat so much steak you explode.
But processed red meat is much worse for you - things like deli meat, bacon, spam, etc. have a higher risk of cancer.
I eat a lot more ground pork/sausage now because it's significantly cheaper, though it's probably not even close to healthier haha
I'm very much a fan of ground/minced turkey, well seasoned. In addition to traditional spices, I will sometimes use beef bouillon with it. I made picadillo with it last night and it turned out quite well. But I realize it's not to everyone's liking.
Ctrl-f sleep
nothing
okay
Remember to sleep 7-10 hours every night if you're seeking weight reduction and/or muscle growth. It's extremely important for the process.
It's the one step I neglect the most. I intentionally put on 50 lbs over three years and hit my max target weight. The gain was some muscle and some fat, and while I needed both I want to slim down a bit. Lack of sleep has been the hardest part for me to fix up, but my wife has been "nagging" me to come to bed earlier so that helps.
When I was putting serious research time into losing weight, a short and simple truism stuck with me:
"Gain muscle in gym, lose weight in kitchen."
That and "fork putdowns are the best ab exercise you can do"
I prefer “abs are made in the kitchen”. More succinct.
"Made in the gym, but revealed in the kitchen" might be a bit more accurate. Some of us don't really have ab muscles without working for it ;)
On one level, this is very good news for me. I need to lose over 100 lbs. and in the shape I'm in right now combined with my schedule make adding in a significant amount of physical activity a real non-starter. On the other hand, I'm only this size because I have significant difficulty controlling my food intake (both quantity and quality) for longer than a few days, tops, and I suppose I'm going to have to tackle that head-on if I expect to see any success. I kind of wish I could lock myself out of reach of all the bad foods, but it's just so easy to get them. It's very disheartening.
Have you considered talking to your doctor about taking a semaglutide/GLP-1 agonist like Ozempic or the like? My aunt and my mother have both lost over 80lbs on them without them having to add any more physical activity into their lives... although the weight loss itself has actually helped them both become more physically active in general anyways. So it was definitely a win-win for them.
I've thought about talking to a doctor about it, but first I'd have to get one. I haven't been to one besides a couple of walk-in clinic visits in a little over 20 years... I've not exactly been proactive about looking after my well-being. Or particularly reactive, if I'm being honest.
Step 1 is definitely to get yourself a doctor then! :P
I'm somewhat in the same boat though, actually. We recently moved and I have yet to find a new local GP. I'm currently waiting on my new Ontario Health Card to arrive first though, since I finally renewed it last week after putting it off for several years. :/
If you can afford it, I've seen online/mail-order services like Hims and Roman offering them now. I've only used these kinds of services for other things, but it's very convenient and easy to do, especially if it's a topic that may be uncomfortable to discuss in real life.
Reporting in as a GLP-1 agonist user. I used to be able to burn 300 - 400 calories/day through exercise, and maintained a healthy weight without minding my diet too closely. Got severe rheumatoid arthritis, couldn't exercise (needed a couple of joint replacements), and rapidly gained 50 pounds. The arthritis is now well controlled, but the appetite control and exercise ability didn't bounce back.
I paid up front for a year of compounded semaglutide through Hers (same company as Hims, cost averaged less than $100/month with the one-year subscription), because insurance just laughed at me despite hypertension and obesity.
I'm down 40+ pounds in 6 months, my blood pressure is normal again, and I'm slowly regaining my ability to exercise at my former level. The appetite impact has been astonishing - I'm full with tiny portions, I'm not hungry between two meals a day, and I have to plan carefully to make myself eat enough to avoid malnutrition. I've lost any cravings for sweet and salty junk foods.
I used to have to make a serious effort of willpower to avoid alcohol consumption, because one of my meds can cause major liver damage with alcohol. We've been wine aficionados for years, so it's been hard not to have a daily glass in the evenings with my spouse. Now, I forget the stuff exists - I haven't had any alcohol for a couple of weeks, and don't miss it.
There have been side effects - extreme nausea, diarrhea, and fatigue to start with, but those diminished after the first couple of weeks. The recommended dosage increase rate could have been slower. Nonetheless, it's been incredibly beneficial overall.
Nice, and congrats! I'm genuinely glad to hear it's been helpful for you too!
My aunt and my mother had similar journeys and outcomes on their GLP-1 meds as well. It's been a genuine life-changer for both of them, and both have repeatedly called it a miracle drug. And I honestly have to agree with them too. Pretty much my entire life they have been overweight, constantly trying diet after diet (Weight Watchers, Atkin's, Southbeach, etc, etc, etc), but none of them ever lasted for long. And over the years they both gradually got heavier and heavier. Despite their weight they were always still pretty active though since both are avid golfers. But over the last few years my mother especially had started rapidly declining in health, and it got to the point where she could barely walk anymore, let alone golf. I finally convinced her to try Ozempic though, and now, 10 months later, she is down 80lbs, is no longer struggling to walk anymore, and she is even back to golfing semi-regularly again!
That's great to hear and good luck sustaining the positive changes! I went through a similar situation years (decades) ago. A combination of onset of autoimmune disease that damaged my joints plus a couple injuries put me in and out of crutches and a wheel chair for a couple years. Was able to get in under control and had corrective surgeries and was able to start exercising and losing the weight I gained, but the road back was long.
Keep up the changes!
When I was 300lbs I didn’t do any exercise because I physically couldn’t. I could barely walk without it hurting. It wasn’t until I got to 250 that began any sort of physical activity
Yeah, I'd been hovering a little below the 300 lb mark for quite a while, but only recently crossed over and I've noticed some real changes in the difficulty of things and the aches and pains that came as soon as I went over. Obviously being 280 wasn't great, but my body really protests about 300. Clearly I crossed a non-arbitrary line right around there.
Yeah I was 21 at that weight and my 50 year old mother was able to walk faster and easier than me. Even just going back down to 270/280 helped a whole lot in my ability to move, and I felt so much relief in my joints. Once I got out of the obese zone though is when I felt like me again before my initial weight gain.
I hear the term “food noise” thrown around a lot, might help to do some reading on remedies for that.
Its that thing where like you feel bored, so for some reason then you get hungry, out of habit I guess. Theres a ton of tips and tricks out there to stop the food noise so you can just relax without a bag of chips or whatever.
I wouldn’t equate to food noise to eating out of boredom. I’d say it’s more like you’re constantly thinking about food. I would be eating dinner and snacking all day and thinking about what I was going to eat next.
I'm sure it's different for everyone, but in my experience both food noise and eating out of boredom seem to co-exist and perhaps one contributes to the other. I eat when I'm bored, but if I attempt to resist eating when bored, then I more frequently think about eating and being hungry. If I can somehow avoid the initial boredom that triggers the sequence, then the food noise seems to stay quiet.
Ah okay I thought it was more like how alcohol was for me, fine when I’m busy but soon as I slow down for a bit then I really want a drink.
Interesting, I haven't encountered that term before. I'll have a look and see if it doesn't help provide some suggestions that help keep me on track. Thanks!
I was going to say that I thought this was already accepted wisdom, but the article seems to have buried the lede a bit.
Diet = weight, exercise = fitness was already (to my understanding) fairly well known: you just need to look at the calorie count in a small snack against the time spent exercising to use those calories for that to make sense. This study is suggesting something that I understand to be a lot more controversial: that BMR (basal metabolic rate) self-adjusts based on activity levels, and people who are regularly active are actually using a similar number of calories to those who are sedentary because of this.
I don't know how much that actually changes in terms of health advice; my instinct says not that much, in the scheme of things, but I haven't had a chance to look at the original paper yet. What it definitely does is add fuel to the flames of the ongoing internet arguments about metabolism, and go against a lot of what I've previously seen about BMR being relatively fixed and exercise being added on top of that.
Yup, this was exactly the point I was going to make. Just for a concrete example, a single Krispy Kreme donut is 190 kcal. A more-or-less fit adult man would need to run roughly a mile and a half to burn off those calories. Assuming you're not a professional athlete or something, you can maybe exercise away a little indulgence, but definitely not a chronically over-caloric diet.
Even that is an optimistic calculation. I'm a fit adult man, and my morning run today was 5 miles averaging a 12/min mile done in one hour staying in zone 2 and 3, and I actively burned 483 calories after subtracting calories burned at rest.
So that's 93 active calories a mile at a relatively sedate pace. So it would take a little over 2 miles to equal a basic, small, glazed but unfilled or frosted donut.
In contrast, my favorite French pastry, the Paris Brest, clocks in at closer to 700 calories and I let myself get one once a week. Many chain restaurant desserts are over 1,000 calories, and a vending machine cookie could easily wipe out my 5 mile run with 500 calories per cookie.
I was never very successful at losing weight from exercise when I was younger. I also think good quality foods that may be bad for you are part of life's good things, and I don't want to give up on them entirely. Years ago, I settled into a routine that keeps me within a 5kg range of my ideal weight: When I reach the upper limit, I go on a restricted diet (the restriction is mainly carbs) until I'm back near the lower limit. This results in one or two diets per year, lasting 4 to 6 weeks (let's say an average of 8 months between diets). It's a very successful method for me, and relatively painless, since it can include all kinds of foods and you can eat a lot of certain things if it's just about not being hungry.
Now, this may sound contrary to traditional wisdom, but by reaching an ideal weight first, it becomes much easier to also exercise regularly, and that's something that should be a goal. Exercise is important for maintaining your heart, your lungs and your muscles, which ultimately can help mitigate other bone and posture related issues in the long run.
Disclaimers, there is no one size fits all solution, a lot of people have specific circumstances that may make weight control a completely different experience, talk to a nutritionist, etc.
I have never successfully lost much weight through exercise only changes, but have been very successful with diet only changes. Doing best is obviously the best choice, but if weight is your biggest goal, change your diet IMO.
What I’ve found is that having a normal diet is only enjoyable if I am doing a lot of exercise, because otherwise the portions are quite small. With my exercise level, maintaining my body weight exactly uses about 3000 calories per day, which gives me a lot of flexibility in what I eat.
Ditto. Giving myself that extra caloric wiggle room is a huge part of my motivation for working out too, since it allows me to eat more or even eat something a little bit more indulgent that day.
You must have a great exercise routine. I found that the only way that I was able to lose any significant weight was drastic calorie reduction (say 1300 calories a day) and I had to go stick with it for long term.
Yeah, normally I lift and do cardio 5 days a week, and then I do BJJ and judo 7 days a week, about 10-11 classes.
I just came back from a three week vacation where I put on 7 lbs due to too much eating out and acting like I was still exercising.
They weren't talking about losing weight, rather not putting on weight. Which, I agree with them - I have to exercise to maintain weight
Like you said, the only way I've lost weight is via significantly calorie reduction. I actually find exercise to be WORSE for me when it comes to losing weight. If I work out, my body is screaming for food - whereas I can fast for an entire day just fine if I'm living the normal unmoving American life
I found the same thing. Exercising is great for building muscle tone and being overall healthier, but for losing weight it harder.
The thing that kills me is that this isn’t exactly a new discovery. We’ve had an idea about diet being the most important thing for decades. But even today gyms advertise for weight loss.
~ 20 years ago I joined two gyms with personal trainers for weight loss. I hated it so much I stopped exercising for decades.
The good news is that I’m literally posting this from a gym right now, though.
I believe the original study was previously posted to Tildes, and there was discussion about how it unnecessarily devalued the role that exercise can play in managing weight. That said, diet is the dominant factor in unwanted weight gain, and critical for any amount of weight loss so it should be the primary focus.
I will add though, that certain types of exercise really do help. In particular, fasting cardio where you stay in your heart rate zone 2 will noticably increase your rate of weight loss if you avoid eating back your calories burned. If you find yourself going "i did x workout so I can eat y" you've already lost that game. (I'm not saying you can't budget rewards for sticking to your regimen, but you have to budget those calories from your normal days budget. )
Right now I'm training for a 100k and I actively burn between 1000-2000 calories per day in addition to my resting metabolic rate. But what does that entail? This week it is 5 miles in zone 2 at 5 am, another 5 miles of zone 3-5 intervals in the evening, a 3 day on one day off core/aux strength regimen, additional miles of assorted walking, and a long run each weekend, currently up to 20 miles at marathon pace.
That 2,000 calories I burn, at most, each day is less than some appetizers at restaurants. It's almost certainly equal to a typical dinner and dessert most anywhere unless you are careful picking based on listed calories.
For reference, my diet consists of large salads, grilled tofu, the odd veggie burger or veggie tacos, apples, a 500 calorie dessert, and a 200 calorie treat.
Can this be tagged with weight loss or something similar?
Done. Feel free to @ ping me next time though, since otherwise I might have missed the request.
Thanks
Tagging remains a mystery and I blank on who to ask even though I know. It's a whole thing.
Never had a problem with my weight until I got a good paying job and could afford to eat out all the time.
Eating out is pretty obviously terrible for me. Ive managed to lose a few pounds after just one month of eating out only 3 days a week instead of the entire week. For reference, it took me three years of eating out constantly to gain 15 lbs. My healthy weight is 110-115lbs.
I think its maybe a combo of things, cheap ingredients so tons of butter and oils to hide it, super massive portions so I’m encouraged to eat more than I need, and tons of actual junk like the side selections basically being overcooked drowned in butter veggies or tater tots.
Eating at home, even if its a frozen dinner, is always at least less calories. 800 is better than 1500 in a single meal regardless of what the meal is.
I'll add that food timing is also very important. Eating more of your food at night versus the morning significantly increases weight gain [1][2].
I'm a little surprised. I thought that was already the dominant view. Perhaps people in the US think differently then we do in Brazil.