That's a refreshing success story, thanks for sharing.

I suspect for some people they just gained a little weight cumulatively over time due to a slightly fattening eating habit, and for those it's probably not that big an ask to change/fix.

But for many of the overweight/obese people I know, their eating is a straight up dysfunctional drug abuse-style addiction. Predictably it's as difficult to change these behaviors as it is to get a drug addict to quit their drug of choice.

In many ways it’s more difficult. With drug addiction you have the ability to quit cold turkey and avoid the stimulus, with food addiction you still are forced to partake to live. There are posisble things like completely cutting sugar, or switching to an incredibly regimented diet that can act similarly but…in the end food is a massive part of culture in a way even alcohol is not. I’m sure food issues are some of the hardest to deal with.

I don't disagree, and find it worth appreciating how blurry the actual lines of separation are between food and "drugs". Coffee/tea, Cheese, Chocolate, Nutmeg, sweets in general, they activate similar mechanisms and reward systems to "drugs".

The whole dogmatic war-on-drugs attitude creates this imaginary boundary around "food" which for many I suspect green-lights abuse of "food" because it's not "drugs".

It makes me wonder how much our societal obesity problems would change if the prevailing attitude towards drugs became more factual and nuanced. If people understood better that cocaine isn't as problematic as psilocybin in terms of addiction, maybe they'll also start thinking more critically about candy bars vs. oranges. Perhaps my optimism is showing.

We really need to study the physiological mechanisms that cause food addiction and pass regulations to address the issues.

I developed a spare tire at 20 and it persists stubbornly despite quite strenuous exercise. Could you share your dad's diet?

I’ve been struggling for years too in my 20s. I suggest reading ‘The Hackers Diet’ by John Walker. It gives you a systems view of diets. The most useful insight for me: setting a weight loss goal based on the fact that a kg of fat is 37 MJ of energy. Want to lose a kilogram a week? You have to make up that 37 MJ deficit then. Ie. I need ~13 MJ of energy per day to subsist (calculated using an online tool). I subtract (37/7 = 5.3) from that daily energy requirement and arrive at 7.7 MJ per day that I can eat. I stick to that intake goal EVERY SINGLE DAY and I lose weight. It helps to keep punching your small energy intake amounts into a calculator (phone or watch) and keeping a running total that way. I’ve gone from 92 to 84 kg in a couple of months and it’s not that hard. Strenuous exercise doesn’t really do much when your energy intake is way too much to begin with. It all starts with the intake. Exercise actually doesn’t burn much energy at all.

Stop eating carbs: bread, crackers, pasta, cereal, fruit, juice, potatoes, sugar, starchy vegetables like beans, peas, corn, no sodas, no alcohol. Once you are at your target weight, you can go back to eating the things that are nutritious, but no junk.

If combined with a confined window of eating, like 11am to 5pm, you'll lose weight faster.