Because Calories are Delicious
...that's why
One of the quests that society sends us on in the heroic pursuit of successful and sustainable weight loss is to figure out why we are obese and why we compulsively eat (if we do) and why we eat enough calories that we routinely blow past our Basal Metabolic Rate in calories.
Why, continuing that thought, do we knowingly and willingly eat the foods that the whole world knows will jeopardize our goals? Why don’t we get up off of our widening ass and go for a walk when we know we should? Why don’t we drink those bottles of water? Why do we not love ourselves enough to just do the right things? Why do we not love our bodies enough to just do the right things?
It’s interesting that a key component to successful weight loss is figuring out all of these things when apparently, and quite literally, science can’t figure out these things.
We aren’t talking about just a handful of us now. According to a consensus of the latest studies released in 2025, - you’d better sit down on your widening ass for this - a whopping 73.6% of American adults are classified as obese or overweight with Gallup Polls identifying that this figure reflects a 2% reduction over previous years. Of those, approximately 37% qualify as “obese” and diabetes reached a new peak of 13.8% this year.
This is despite the miracle GLP-1 drugs, despite all of the information telling us that sugar is even more of a health hazard than we ever dreamt it was, and, oh, by the by, artificial sweeteners are also a health hazard.
Part of the problem is that many of us stopped taking information seriously, especially if it comes from the USDA or other government assessments. We lived through the Food Pyramid lies that kept the grain industry afloat but wrecked metabolisms across the nation. We lived through the bullshit that “eggs are bad.” We lived through experts dragging Dr. Atkins’ reputation through the mud before new experts admitted decades later that while it wasn’t perfect, it was less wrong than the bullshit the government told us.
We have seen the fads come and go while we get fatter and fatter. We heard Bob Harper scream at the Biggest Loser contestants telling them that all they had to do was work out for eight hours a day to lose weight and then years later admit he was wrong about that and that exercise actually plays only a small part in weight loss.
“I used to think a long time ago that you can beat everything you eat out of you and it’s just absolutely not the case.” Bob Harper
It’s not just Bob, who before Biggest Loser, trained the Hollywood elite, most of whom did not have food addiction, who has changed their perspective.
Kevin Hall, PhD (Scientist at the National Institutes of Health) initially pushed the idea that weight loss was simple and nothing more a “calories-in vs. calories-burned” equation. His exhaustive research on The Biggest Loser contestants, however, revealed that the body’s metabolic and hormonal changes resist weight loss and facilitate rapid regain. Now he acknowledges that complex biological factors go beyond simple willpower.
Dr. Yoni Freedhoff (Obesity Medicine Clinician) now advocates moving away from an “all-or-nothing” approach to dieting, which he says “almost always brings you back to nothing.” (As an aside, I am brutally disappointed that my mother did not love me enough to name me Yoni.)
Dr. Mir Ali (Medical Director, MemorialCare Surgical Weight Loss Center) determined that when a patient reaches a certain weight, their body becomes resistant to losing more weight due to metabolic and hormonal changes, not a lack of self-control.
Dr. Ellen Schur (Obesity Medicine Doctor and Researcher) says that hormonal changes after weight loss increase appetite and slow metabolism, making long-term weight maintenance difficult if not impossible She says that a weight-loss-only focus will likely fail in the long term.
After decades of doctors and obesity experts telling us that we must be cheating if we are not losing weight, this is quite a turnaround and yet, it is not a universal hive-mind paradigm shift. Dr. Nowzaradan from “My 600 Lb. Life” still insists, “The scale doesn’t lie” and many health care professionals continue to maintain that all you need is a specific eating plan and the necessary level of will power to succeed.
Even when the experts have reasonable explanations for why weight loss is not as cut and dried as most people believe, it can be hard to take them seriously when today’s miracle is always tomorrow’s curse.
We ate those original Stackers and Phenfens and Dietac and Dexatrim trying anything to find solutions. We went through the Grapefruit Diet and the Boiled Egg Diet and the Cabbage Soup Diet and the Cookie Diet, then The Zone Diet, the Blood Type Diet, the South Beach Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the Carbohydrate Lovers Diet, the Carnivore Diet, the Reach For Your Mate Instead of Your Plate Diet, Herbalife, Jenny Craig, Slim Fast, Nutrisystem…
People without a weight issue had all the answers: just eat less and go for a walk, fatty. For many who are uneducated about the new science related to obesity, this remains the prevailing theme.
Is the new information reliable medical science fact or is it just today’s misinformation? We have heard so many theories, all of which presented with galvanized advice for sustainable weight loss, that it is hard to trust any guidance.
We went through the waves of bariatric surgical solutions and jaw wiring and fat camps and Body Flex and Callanetics. We Sweated to the Oldies and used Thigh Master and watched Jane Fonda workout videos while pounding down a package of Chips Ahoy.
We ate Snackwells and drank Tab and listened to guided meditations and slept with hypnosis cassettes playing as our nocturnal soundtrack.
We joined Weight Watchers four or seven or eight times hoping this time was the winning shot that would be different from all the other times. We worked the twelve steps, admitting we were powerless in the face of a maple bar.
Almost everything “they” told us to do made us fatter while “they” got richer off of our challenges. The more they set us up to fail, the more money they made. If Hydroxycut caused sustained weight loss, Hydroxycut would go out of business and Hydroxycut would not be happy about that. Hydroxycut would not celebrate our win.
Those without a weight problem said we were just looking for a magic bullet, a shortcut, an easy solution. Trust me. None of that was easy. People think we are fat because we have no willpower. If will power were energy, most of the fat people I know have employed enough will power throughout their lives to light up New York City.
Now, the drug companies found something that - at least in the short term - does work: the GLP-1 medications and true to form, the drug companies charge some serious robber baron prices for those drugs… because they can - proving that they are not doing it to help people. This is in the same clown car as pharmaceutical companies charging hundreds of dollars a vial of life-saving insulin that costs less than $4.00 to make.
In the U.S., most GLP-1 medications cost between $900 and $1500 a month to use. Let’s talk about that again. Between $900 and $1500 each month. I have a mid-priced medical insurance and it does not cover any GLP-1 medications. Not one. When I had federally subsidized state-funded insurance with a different company, these drugs were covered. Mind you, with a prescription pharmaceutical companies now kindly offer the medications for direct sale to individuals for around half that cost. CNBC reported that these drugs cost less than $4.00 to manufacture a month’s dosage. This isn’t about helping anyone.
Aside from the Big Pharm greed factor, I understand that ultimately, this is all in my hands. It is up to me to make the right choices about food, about drinking enough water, and about moving in the right ways.
I don’t even begin to understand my compulsions. I have theories, but nothing sound. Food soothes me, comforts me, and apparently, I have to have to eat the perfect configuration of it to stay alive. Food is that one addiction where you are forced to eat some of what you crave to survive or something almost similar to what you crave, but not enough of it to satisfy the nagging urges. It’s not even quite Near Beer. It’s more like using carrot sticks instead of cigarettes to address your hand-to-mouth fixation when you try to quit smoking.
If you have a gambling addiction, you don’t go to casinos or racetracks. If you are an alcoholic, you stay away from bars and liquor stores. Not that those addictions are easy to manage, but no one tells you that you have to shoot up a tiny bit of heroin or place one little bet to stay alive.
I don’t binge eat. I don’t use food to fill up some emptiness inside me. I don’t eat because I am bored. I don’t over-indulge in processed franken-foods or sugary treats. I just love food.
No one gets fat by overindulging in broccoli or kale. Salads can be absolutely refreshing and delicious, no doubt about it. What they don’t do is hit the dopamine triggers that give us the rush of joy and reward that comes with the addictive foods that are fried, baked, and/or high in sugar.
Restaurants add butter, sugar, bacon, and salt to the foods they serve because butter, bacon, and sugar are delicious and salt maximizes flavor. Home baked bread is delicious, especially with butter. Macaroni and cheese, lasagna, beef stew, mashed potatoes, chicken pot pie… all delicious.
Delicious is what makes you fat. Soothing the food monkey makes you fat. Genetics make you fat. Inactivity makes you fat. Insulin resistance and other hormonal imbalances make you fat. Government misinformation makes you fat. Corporate greed makes you fat.
I’m not giving up. I want to live for as long as I reasonably can and have a good quality of life during those years. When food is your vice, one of the biggest obstacles to overcome is the idea that the world is working against you and you are fighting an uphill battle. Man, it’s hard to fight uphill when you are not in prime physical condition.
What we need is a drug that makes salad and healthy food hit the dopamine jack pot in our brains. Also we should start using Yoni as an official title, instead of Ms or Mrs.