Absolutely true about 2 cups of ice cream. I know that one from personal experience. Ha. I did say diet was the majority of the issue. My other point was that one does not need higher levels of exercise (like climbing my steep hill) to elevate your calorie burn significantly. Gentle walking and just standing more helps too.

If a person is 70 like me, then there’s a good chance they can devote a larger chunk of time to exercising, if they wish. What do you really want? What are you willing to do? It comes down to discipline, determination, and exercise, IMO.

Most people are not going to have a 500 foot hill to climb behind their house, and 100 minutes to spend climbing it, every day. They might get to do such a thing once or twice a week, and spend a bit of time going to and from it. And while 852 Calories is not “nothing”, it is very easy to overeat it. 2 cups of ice cream would do it.

In the days when most people had to do hard physical labor most of the day to eat the next day, and mostly had access to seasonal foods that they probably produced themselves, it was easy to exercise enough to offset your diet. Nowadays it is harder, though it can be done, if you are retired or if you are a Hollywood actor who needs to lose weight for a role. Bodybuilders who are very serious bodybuilders do little but exercise but even they have to carefully manage their diets, because they have to eat more than they need to gain muscle, but not so much they gain fat.

However (and unfortunately) the “exercise” part of “diet and exercise” isn’t holding up to science. Weight loss seems to be 99.99% diet. — Rufus

Well… I agree diet is the majority of the issue. However, exercise is a significant factor.

I started using All Trails walking/hiking app recently. My most recent walk from several days ago (I had lots of things going on over the 3rd through the 6th holiday period) generated these stats.

Distance: 5 mi.; Walking time: 1:38; Elevation gain: 482 ft.;
Calories burned: 852

852 isn’t nothing. Another point is that there is a significant difference between relatively static “activities.” Standing still, sitting upright, stretched out on a couch, and sleeping all consume calories, but in rather different amounts. One can watch TV for some time, while standing and maybe stretching a bit. Extra calories burned.

But our big brains led us to strive to always have enough food. Agriculture, domesticating animals, then food distribution, refrigeration, preservatives (salt, to start), all of it leads to a society where it’s almost impossible to starve, except it hasn’t been long enough for evolution to change our hardwiring from opportunistic eaters trying to avoid starvation.

We’re caught, and I don’t know how we get un-caught.

…AND ALSO, A MUST READ…
(…for all kinds of reasons, mostly but not entirely COVID-related, a critically—vitally—important article.)

“The Secret Campaign To Stop RFK Jr.”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/secret-campaign-stop-rfk-jr

Hmm. Could it be—COULD IT BE??—another true…conspiracy?

* Three small meals — protein, veggies, beans — four hours apart. One doesn’t feel hungry. It keeps one’s blood sugar steady.
* One cheat day per week. Takes the psychological pressure off. Prevents the body from dialing down one’s metabolism to compensate for dieting.

https://tim.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/tim_ferriss_the-4-hour-chef_one_pager_slow_carb_diet.pdf

I still enjoy my food but I don’t have as much appetite these days. I can’t eat much before filling stuffed.

But yes, the spectrum is broad, and it’s possible that intermittent fasting may be overhyped.
Certainly, since some people have faster metabolisms than others (and/or smaller stomachs due to medical procedures or other reasons**) it’s possible that the longer fasting periods touted by some (e.g., 14-16, or even longer) are not at all advisable or recommended.

In addition, intermittent fasting takes quite a bit of discipline (related, as it is, to eliminating snacking between meals or cutting back significantly); but I think a fasting window of, say, nine or 10-12 hours—most of that time while asleep—is something that should, at least, be attempted, with doctor’s guidance/supervision and for some, NOT “cold turkey”.
Yes, one may well feel hungry at first; but if the goal is to eat less, one has to start somewhere; and it makes sense to exploit that period of sleep, which is when one’s metabolism slows down automatically.

Oft-given advice is that to lessen hunger pangs—and for general health reasons—no matter which path one might choose, is to “hydrate” (i.e., drink water) regularly, and not only when one feels thirsty.

**There is a group of people that are advised—for whatever reason—to eat more frequently, even four to five times a day, but people in this category generally understand that those meals should be smaller, though as nutritious as possible.

Stop assuming you need “3 square meals a day” if you are not a roofer or a landscaper. Scale one meal back to soup or salad (no bread!)

— Bill

Again, easy to say, hard for people whose genes are saying ‘more!’ to do. For some people, exhaustingly hard.

The craving doesn’t stop just because you know mentally that you’ve had enough.

There are other considerations, too. One that is often overlooked is the constant advice to eat more fresh food and cut out the processed quick stuff.

The only problem is that a lot of people are already so pressed for time that it’s just not practical advice, most days. When you get home past six or seven and you’ve got to get the kids homework done and them ready for bed and deal with the taxes and the bills and make sure the furnace gets repaired before the cold weather arrives and you might want to spend 5 minutes with your spouse, that leaves you about 15 minutes to make dinner.

Health advocates like to point out that healthy food doesn’t have to be more expensive, or not much, and that’s true.

But just as they’ve failed to find a way to make healthy diets fully satisfying and enjoyable for most people, they’ve yet to find a way around what I call the ’15 minute limit’.

Stop assuming you need “3 square meals a day” if you are not a roofer or a landscaper. Scale one meal back to soup or salad (no bread!) — Bill

Again, easy to say, hard for people whose genes are saying ‘more!’ to do. For some people, exhaustingly hard.

The craving doesn’t stop just because you know mentally that you’ve had enough.