Eat 1/3 of calories from protein (improves immune system, improves healing rate & mood, your blood has amino acid levels like sugar, respect them). Substitute simple sugars (2-10% thermogenic calorie loss in digestion which also correlates to low prebiotic value) for complex carbs (~30%). Eat more fiber. Just buy some dextrin it's a lot cheaper than produce.
Eat potassium (spinach, cabbage, potatoes, milk, oranges, NOT bananas you'd need 12 daily) and iodine and a multivitamin (lacks both in USA) so you stop feeling a weird craving for food that never can be satisfied.
former fatty here with a little addition: Also just eat less outside of your meals. Go diet in the supermarket by buying less, instead of dieting by not eating what have at home. You spend 20 minutes in the supermarket and multiple hours at home. It's MUCH easier to be strong for 20 minutes than for 12 hours.
That's basically all there is to it if you're not trying to get a six pack. It takes some time to get used to, but then your body will start figuring out things by itself (like '"I need more vitamins" and "I hate feeling bloated because of empty calories").
There's so much we could be attacking here. Poverty, inflation, lack of access to healthy food, lack of socialized healthcare, overworking and underpaid workers, lack of time to cook, availability of cheap fast food, lack of maternity/paternity leave and proper time to recover from pregnancies, chronic stress, chronic medical issues that are comorbid with weight gain (hypothyroidism, depression, PCOS, insomnia, menopause, sleep apnea, metabolic disorders, etc), lack of walkable neighborhoods, lack of regulation on the sugar industry, the sugar industry's shift of blame to fat through advertising, culturally massive portion sizes.
But sure. People are just fat because they're lazy right?
I understand what you're saying but not sure of you understand capitalism.
All the things you listed is exactly how capitalism works and the ultimate power is with you. For example let's take lack for regulation on sugar industry.
Sugar industry must have lobbied hard to get that privilege but its up to the consumers to stop buying sugar when they know its bad for health.
When the demand stops, supply stops.
I think the easiest, most important thing of these tips is to cut out soda. That shit is just liquid sugar, and that excess sugar will make you fat and maybe even diabetic.
And if 'fermented vegetables' doesn't sound very appealing, just try baby carrots, they're nice and crunchy like chips
The problem is you can cut back and only slow down the weight gain or just break even. Need to be in an actual deficit to lose weight which in my experience involves feeling hungry and dealing with it.
To add to this, it gets easier over time too. Your body starts to get used to not eating so much, so you don't feel as hungry, and if you manage to cut down on the fast food intake if you're lucky it'll start making fast food taste kinda hollow.
I don't really have a better word for it. I started to cook and go the decently sized portion route. You can eat an entire stuffed oven roasted chicken breast with a big plate of roasted veggies (with various seasonings to taste - I like garlic powder and red chilies) and feel comfortably full after, for the same amount of calories a big Mac meal would have been. And you actually feel full, and like you're not loading your body with crap calories that slow you down.
And you can't just say no, it's a systemic problem that could be solved with walkable cities, better public transportation, stretching breaks at work, eliminating or greatly reducing subsidies for corn and processed foods, and other stuff. We have to consider every step food takes from its source to the shelves, and all the reasons citizens aren't able to be more active or afford foods that could better support an active life.
All things that are certainly achievable if we all take responsibility for community health instead of wailing on individuals.
We need a new prohibition on food. It's the gateway drug to fatness. Think about it, the amount of money we could save on mobility scooters and disabled parking, it would pay for new yachts that are sorely needed by our ruling class. Items such as doughnuts are the crack cocaine of lard asses. If you get caught with a box of them, mandatory life term.
It isn't only eating disorders either, there are so many conditions (and medications!) that can cause or have the side effect of weight gain, and then a ton more that don't directly cause it but do directly make it hard or even impossible to "work" off.
And? "Side effect of weight gain" makes it sound like it's inevitable. I take one of those meds, it has the side effect of making me hungry all the time, not "weight gain"