And they rob themselves of so much by refusing to admit it. Like there was a....I think 220lb person posted here a few days ago. The usual bragging about going from really really obese to just reaaaaallly obese. And her reddit profile had tons of pictures of her "just this one exception" meals. And one of the things that struck me was that if she just admitted it was wrong she could do something to make it right.  Like, she had shitty chow mein takeout. It's not that hard to make even something like a dry noodle pack healthy'ish. Just cook some veggies, possibly add in some additional stuff like seaweed and boom. It's now got much more nutrition for very little extra calories. But more importantly the added bulk means one can reduce the serving size, and thus the amount of empty calories per serving. 600 empty calories suddenly turns into 300 with tons of protein, vitamins, fiber etc. And most of the other exceptions she made were similar.  But you don't get that improvement without first admitting that you're doing something wrong with your meals. Even if she and people in her situation do try it, they just add healthy things without decreasing the unhealthy things to improve the ratio. They usually have this stupid idea that you can just toss broccoli or something at candy and suddenly it's healthy.