[Gem]

It doesn't seem much 'spiritual', but this is because losing weight comes down to maths: calories in minus calories out. However, as purely technical as it might be, human beings are not robots. We are not exactly rational creatures, thank God.

The physical proportions of fat and lean tissue percentages we discuss here are not isolated from, but are connected with, the psycho-emotional dimensions and motivations of individuals who are integral to interwoven social lives. Thus, the simplicity of weight-loss maths has complex human implications.

We are not dealing with maths in any in any simple fashion, but with human beings' adverse life experiences, traumas, past abuses etc. that underlie behaviours which indicate unhealthy relationships with food. Past trauma is most often caused by adverse social interactions, so obesity also reflects unhealthy social relations. This continues in an individual's life with 'fat shaming', discrimination and socially ostracising and stigmatising people with large statures, while a deeper vulnerability is being protected inside.

The process of shedding fat, therefore, is a more deeply seated recovery which concerns a person as a whole, across their lifespan, including the social/cultural organism of which they are a small but integral part.

Hence, when we say it comes down to 'calories in minus calories out', we should not overlook the enormity of that equation.