What?

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What we tell ourselves

“No carbohydrates in the evening, they make you fat”

“I can’t lose weight, I eat too LITTLE”

“I only eat 1000 kcal a day and don’t lose weight”

“My metabolism is broken!”

“60 percent overweight people can hardly all be lazy and undisciplined”

“My best friend can eat EVERYTHING and will never get fat”

“You have to follow certain rules to lose weight”

“Counting calories doesn’t work for me”

“If you want to lose weight, you should eat more”

These are some of my favorite “fat logics”; the word is stolen from Nadja Hermann, who wrote the wonderful book “Fettlogik überwinden” (in German). She has backed up all her “claims” in the book with studies, so this is just a reproduction from her statements, paired with shades of my personal opinion.

To cut a long story short: If you eat in excess, you gain weight. If you eat in deficit, you lose weight. At the end there are no “losing weight hacks” or “hacks for easy weight loss” existing which are not illegal or probably kill you quite fast.
Whether this is healthy from a nutritional point of view is another story. But it’s as simple as it can be, even if magazines, influencers and your aunt want to tell you otherwise.
Of course, there are things and tips that can help, but that doesn’t change the relatively simple math. You might use them to trick yourself or try to support yourself with healthy habits and routines to make it easier to achieve your goals.

Why do so many people eat more than is good for them? Why can’t everyone just have a healthy lifestyle, just because it’s good for them?
Besides the classic (and most common!) reasons like dealing with emotions and habits, there are more possibilities that let us break down our behavior a bit by looking back into the past.
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From the Past

  • We have more choice than ever before. European countries and the USA are so rich that most people have a huge choice of food. According to studies, people actually eat noticeably more when they have several choices as opposed to having one (1) choice, even if the total amount of food is the same.

  • Our bodies are evolutionarily programmed to take in everything we can. Because: in the past, there were serious famines for which we needed actual fat deposits as a savings stocking.
  • Portions are demonstrably getting bigger – we are used to eating large portions, unlike our parents and grandparents. If the restaurant decides that this portion is the appropriate portion for an average person, why should we question it? So we get used to it and are wondering later, why the same meals like before years now are making our clothes smaller.
  • We move much less than previous generations. We have office jobs, travel by car or train and the most physically demanding jobs have largely been replaced by machines that only need to be operated. However, many slim people, unlike many overweight people, have the habit that if they have eaten too much, they exercise more the following day or simply eat less. These people are also more likely to simply cut back a little afterwards and then do so.

  • Classical “bad weather” as a consequence of not eating. Who hasn’t heard the phrase “finish your plate, otherwise there’ll be bad weather tomorrow” as a kid, which is a proverb, actually based on a mistranslation.


This is by no means to say that we are not responsible for our own eating and exercise habits. We can still decide for ourselves what we eat and what we prioritize. However, if we are aware of these points, it may become a little easier to counteract them.

A healthy and active lifestyle makes it much easier to eat accordingly. Therefore, exercise and nutrition go hand in hand.


A belly filled with salad and lean chicken is much quicker and better on the board than one with half a kilo of creamy pasta, that’s probably relatively clear.
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