"Obsessive eating"...it punched me right straight in my face haha. So there might be a psychological issue when you're eating too much? I felt worried for myself. I actually gained 10 lbs more this year with too much eating.
Yes, there can be a psychological issue behind eating too much, but it's not really something like "omg, I eat too much, I need to see a shrink" kinda thing. Obsessive and compulsive problems are a matter of the lack of control over your thoughts and actions, despite your better judgement.
Sometimes it's pretty benign - for instance, quite a lot of people often get this urge to go back and check if they locked the door, despite remembering that they did it. This is not a problem if you go back once or twice and after checking that everything is fine, the urge is gone and you carry on with whatever you're doing. It becomes an issue if you can't control it, i.e. if despite going back time and time again, you just can't shake this feeling/thought in your head or if you're getting that sort of urge so often that you can't really do anything, because you're constantly trying to ease your obsessive thoughts.
As for things like eating disorders... In regards to this topic, the most likely suspects are either compulsive overeating (i.e. food addiction) and binge eating disorder (BED). In the most basic terms, the first one is a problem where you generally/habitually eat too much, the latter is one where you have episodes of overeating (i.e. you mindlessly stuff yourself full whether you feel hungry or not). What connects both of these medical problems is lack of proper control over one's actions.
While this is fairly obvious and self-explanatory for BED, it might be a big confusing for compulsive overeating, so... in the most basic sense, just ask yourself a question - if you tried, could you manage to go a few weeks or months on a diet? If the answer is "yes" then your problem is likely one that comes from faulty eating habits that you should work on, if the answer is "no" then it might be a psychological issue and you might want to consider seeking help.
Regardless, it should be noted that in most cases the problem of gaining weight due to overeating is simply caused by faulty eating habits and thus if you're generally able to control yours (even if it's hard), instead of worrying too much about your mental health, you might want to just try eating healthier and you'll be fine
You can eat a shitton of junk food and still be healthy, if you're exercising to back it up. The problem, however, is that a lot of people who eat a lot of junk food also don't exercise properly.
I kinda agree with this as it's generally true that if you excercise a lot your body deals with junk food much better, though... Your body has its limits. If you put too much physical strain on your body, it will eventually have a negative effect (mainly on your joints, adrenal glands and heart, though pretty much every part of your body needs time to recover after excercise). The same goes for junk food - no matter what you do, it still has to be processed, so even if you're excercising and burning all those calories and fat, your liver and pancreas will still eventually have issues keeping up. Of course, we're talking about extremes here
What I'm really trying to say now is - everything is fine if you don't overdo it. You definetely should excercise and if you do you absolutely can afford to eat some junk food every now and then without worrying one bit about how your body will handle it, but don't go crazy - either on excercising or junk food
MasterBlaster has masterfully blasted this topic with the greatest amount of concise, informative, and even-handed truth & knowledge.
Thanks
It is a closed system, so if you want to maintain where you are, [[Energy In = Energy Out]]. In body-terms, that really means [[Calories In = Calories Out]]. The math is simple, then; if you want to lose weight, you must get Out more Calories than you take In (i.e. exercise more, eat less)
I get what you're trying to say and it's generally true that if you want to lose weight, you need to have your body use a bit more energy that you provide with food, so that it compensates by burning fat you have stored, though:
1. You still need to eat enough! Food is not just about energy, it's also about nutrients that you have to provide. Also, malnutrition will not just cause your body to burn fat, but also - for example - the proteins in your muscles.
2. The most important thing is that you eat smaller meals more often. The way the body works is that if you eat one huge meal during a day and then starve, your body will store the excess energy after that one meal as fat and then it will have issues with energy levels during the day. If you eat smaller meals, i.e. provide a steady and moderate influx of energy, your body will use it all up during the day and not store any fat.
The thing is, if you want to lose weight, don't try to do it too fast - take your time. If you put your body in a situation where your energy intake is much lower than what you need, it will freak out and while you might lose weight, it won't be in a healthy way. In other words, keep your body well fed and give it a reasonable amount of excercise and in time you will lose weight without hurting your health
The More Colors, the Better.
Uhm, I don't really know about that one, but the general rule is - your diet should be varied as that's the most simple way to provide your body with everything it needs in moderate amounts.
Pay attention to the color of your urine when you eliminate wastes next; how deep a yellow is it? The deeper the yellow (& the smellier), the more you need to drink. Think of it like diluting.
Drinking enough water is very important, I agree, though it needs to be said that your body has various ways of making sure that it has enough water.
For example, your kidneys not only remove excess water, but might also keep it in your body when you don't provide enough. A clear indication of that is urine's color changing to darker yellow. What it means is that your kidneys are literally sucking the water out of your urine - since it's less diluted, it color gets darker. On the other hand, lighter urine means it's more diluted, i.e. your kidneys let more water go. It needs to be noted, however, that while this is a nice way to tell how well your body is hydrated, singular changes of urine's color intensity are in no way, shape or form indicative of something bad happening with your body.
Actually, it's quite the opposite - if you notice your urine color changing slightly depending on how much your drink, it means your kidneys are doing their job just fine. The only take away from this is that if your urine is/gets darker, you drank less water than you needed in the time period required to accumulate your recent piss. If that happens quite often, especially in a row, it probably means you should drink more water in general.
A better indication of one's hydration, especially relating to a general threat of dehydration, is... the tongue. The mucosa in your mouth will get dry if you're dehydrated as your body will cut the production of saliva (and make it less watery) to preserve water. If your tongue is wet it means that your body is decently hydrated, if it's dry then you should drink something. There are also other ways to tell whether you're hydrated or not, for example through the skin, but an average person doesn't really need to care about them - basically, if you're urine is light yellow most of the time, you drink water whenever you feel thirsty or have a dry feeling in your mouth, you're absolutely fine
As a side note, two most common causes of dehydration are diarrhea and infection (high temperature) - if you get any of these, drink a lot. While these rarely lead to serious dehydration in adults (though they can be very dangerous to small children), providing enough water will help you get better faster.
While we're on the topic of providing water... The way I'd recommed going about it is just to carry a small bottle with you all the time and drink small amounts every now and then, especially when you feel thirsty. Don't drink too much at once. While it is pretty hard to accidentally hurt yourself by doing so - I wouldn't really consider some idiotic "challenges" as valid examples of people getting hurt by drinking water, because what these are is basically people forcing themselves to do something against their own body and I hope a normal person will be smart enough to stop drinking when he/she feels full or is about to vomit.
The thing is that if you drink too much at once you might get the bad impression that you got your body enough water to last the whole day when in reality your kidneys will just filter out the excess water pretty quickly and a bit later your body might still not be properly hydrated. However, if you drink smaller amounts more often, your kidneys will have a much easier time keeping your body well hydrated all the time.
P.S. There's this genetic disease called Prader-Willi syndrome. What happens is that you cannot feel sated by food - i.e. you are always hungry, no matter how much you eat. Whenever I talk about eating habits and stuff, I always remember that one kid we saw at college who had this and feel genuinely bad for him. It's a truly terrible disease to have.
