You people told me I was worthless, and I knew you were right. My story and a theory. Sorry if this is too self-celebratory to post, I just wanted to share what this community did indirectly in my life. I honestly don't care one way or the other how you all take this. Here goes- I can still remember the day I decided to change. I was 220lb at 5'9" my sophomore year of high school. I was sitting in my room playing mass effect (great game). For those of you who haven't played it, imagine the most archetypal male hero imaginable saving entire space faring races from extinction and having sexual relationships with the endearing members of his crew. One of my crew members said something obviously flirtatious to me, and I felt an odd sensation. Flirting and relationships are a painful topic, even now. I still feel severe pain when complimented by girls, because of bad memories. Instead of pain this time though, I felt like I was drifting away.I put down the controller, laid on the ground, and tried to understand what I was feeling. I decided that I was objectively a pathetic human being. Here I am, approaching my physical prime, unable to run anywhere, lift anything, or attract anyone. That's when I found you guys on reddit back in the day. I lurked daily as a way to remind myself I was a piece of shit for letting any of this happen. A good friend mentored me on fitness and explained the basics of nutrition. My first step was to load the mass effect soundtrack on an ipod and get on a treadmill for a mile a day just walking slowly. As long as I walked, I allowed myself to play the game. Eventually I could run a mile in 10 minutes at top speed and I would come out of my parents room which housed the treadmill covered in sweat dying from cramps.You know, like an 18 year old should feel after a modest jog. My mother would scream at me to stop and that I was going to kill myself. Step two was to reject all food prepared by my family. I taught myself how to cook, and lived off of eggs and small sandwiches for a year. I would get yelled at every dinner time as I refused to come down stairs to eat our olive garden style dinners. My weight plummeted, and it tore my family apart down a line of weight. My and one of my siblings saw our obesity as an issue, and my other sibling and parents thought obesity was more or less normal.I endured this struggle, and weighed 180lb once I left for college. Since then, I have shed another 20lb and put on some muscle, and I keep getting invited to more and more social events and girls treat me radically different. My mother in particular takes every chance to insult me for my weight, and I might not ever forgive her for the things she has said. Auschwitz jokes were very common, even when I weighed 190lb. My sister said that I was too skinny at 180lb that no girl would ever want to do anything with me. The worst argument I had with my mother ended in her crying. She murmured 'did it ever occur to you that Im just jealous' under her moaning. I stood there, in pure disbelief. I never even considered my own mother would want me to have a crippling disease just to keep her fucking fee-fees stable. But FPH was always there. You were always honest how you felt. You didn't sugarcoat anything, lest I eat that as well. When my family would get ice cream I would refuse, because FPH was there to remind me I had already had enough treats over the past decade for my lifetime.  This brings me to my theory. I call it the 'emotional tax'. I have a passion for economics, so i built it more or less around a simple model of total utility. You have two options, eat the cookie, or have the good body. Any reasonably healthy minded person would point out both are achievable through moderation, but we are dealing with the obese, who are often saddled with the belief they can never be normal. Skinny people only eat tofu, dont you know?  (Emotional joy of body-guilt damage control) vs. (emotional joy of cookie+joy of guilt damage control) The emotional pain from poor nutritional choices can be offset by the purchase of weight loss related objects. Had a pint of ice cream in one go? Feel like a fatass? Well ice cream is going to be more pleasurable than doing one workout as an obese person and not immediately seeing progress. But we can feel even better if we eat the ice cream, and then massage our guilt by purchasing a wii fit or a yoga mat. This also provides us with some of the benefit from having a good body, as we convince ourselves we are on the way to achieving it anyway. There is no way to convince someone they are enjoying the taste of a cookie they decide not to eat, but the fat can be deluded into thinking they are 'earning points' in their mind that go towards a healthy and attractive body. In the emotional tax model, guilt damage control affects both sides of the equation, and thus can easily swing the balance of power. The emotional joy of having a good body has an uphill fight against not only the immediate joy of a cookie, but also the minds attempts to rationalize how it can achieve both goals anyway. Only an insanely high level of guilt, or a naturally low emotional enjoyment of food will lead to healthy weight maintenance in this model. If both of these are lacking, then the other way to achieve maximum utility is to enjoy food as much as possible, using the best guilt control methods available to you to convince yourself you will also gain the benefits from body at the same time. The main assumptions of the model are a lack of proper nutritional education, and a relatively bi-modal distribution of levels of emotional pleasure from food. I think both of these assumptions are reasonable. Lets use the model to predict some things about our world. If this model holds true, the public will be largely uneducated, overweight, and impotent weight loss products will be a booming industry. Gym memberships that are never used will massage away guilt combined with doughnuts to keep the populace at the maximum level of enjoyment. Only those with high enough guilt or low enough enjoyment of food will be a healthy weight. Guilt can come from shame. Fat shaming can be the cure. Edit: evidently I didn't make it clear that I have continued to lose weight. If you must know, I am at 162lb and 5'10". I think thats a bmi of just over 23 IIRC. x2 edit: It said very clearly 'shed another 20lb and put on some muscle' directly after 'weighed 180 when I left for college' Most of you guys followed me but some of you need to not read so damn fast haha. final edit: alright i stuck around as long as I could, I'm off to Wal-Mart for my bi-monthly safari and shopping trip. Stay safe out there shitlords.