Site is a link aggregation of a series of blog posts that cite various studies about the mystery of why the obesity rate is increasing, and why the rate of increase is itself accelerating. Authors make a compelling argument that normal homeostatic processes (the theorized lipostat specifically) tend to keep people within a certain BMI range. Authors argue that environmental contamination is breaking the lipostat, driving obesity rates upwards, and faster where there's more contamination.
Interesting read and a great reason to switch to :vegan-v: with a focus on not buying anything wrapped in plastic.
CICO is very hard to keep up with, but a super useful tool.
I do think its weird that its considered so easy to "just go vegan", but something like tracking the food you eat is considered reddit stormfront bullshit.
It's because veganism isn't supposed to require you to deny yourself food when you're hungry. The idea of a whole food plant based diet is to eat foods that lead to a healthier appetite rather than starve yourself to lose weight. There are quite a few studies now that show WFPB diets to be beneficial to weight loss even when people are allowed to eat as much as they want.
Out of the gate, referring to not eating until you're stuffed as "starving" yourself is just a weird attitude to have overall. eating what you need vs eating everything you think you deserve is a product of excess and modern dietary trends.
I'm not saying "immediately cut to 1200 calories and only eat watermelon". I'm saying count what you're eating because its probably a lot more than you think.
Going vegan isn't a simple matter, you have to be interested in it in the first place to do all the research for animal-free alternatives to every day foods and products. You have to figure out how to adjust your diet for nutritional deficits from cutting animal products and how to get those back via plant based products. You have to go into every social situation asking what foods are made with what. GL with going to BBQs because you might be the only vegan there so you're going to be bringing your own food or eating off the burger topping plate.
I see no difference between withholding food from yourself once you identify how much you're overeating for your lifestyle vs withholding animal products for a moral/ethical/environmental cause.
Both are non-trivial and I hate this attitude that an individual deserves overeat all they want, but also oh you're not a proper leftist if you don't live near a whole foods with 8 types of milk alternatives.
All this to say, I'm always promoting eating less meat to people. Its awesome making a vegetarian dish and being able to stuff yourself because a serving is 120 calories and by volume mostly plant fibers. Of course you lose weight when you're able to eat as much as you want. But you can't eat 2 pounds of impossible meat a day and expect the same outcome because its plant based.
Literally no one has said this
I apologize for the exaggeration.
I was trying to say there's a big disconnect these circles which I find very frustrating.
You're right that it's not necessarily easy to change diet. There's a lot of learning how to make food again since meat is such a big part of (many) carnists diet. It's also very limiting when eating out and sometimes frustrating socially too. I think most of us want to say it's easy because we look at the alternative (suffering and death on an unimaginable scale) and feel it's the least we can do. Sharing resources for easy vegan recipes should always be a priority when talking about it if we're gonna say "it's easy"
Poor choice of words on my part. My point is that restricting calories requires subjecting yourself to a level of physical discomfort that veganism does not. The inconveniences that come with being vegan suck, but feeling hungry all the time can be truly intolerable.
Lack of availability of affordable healthy foods is a valid, but separate, issue.