Most "skinny" drug users are on drugs that have side effects including weight loss.

What's insulting is to take away the accomplishment of the fat folks who got healthy by claiming it was just their genetics that let them stop being fat, but also somehow their genetics that caused them to get fat in the first place?

I'm a former "fat folk" and I tend to agree this is more about willpower than many people are willing to admit.

I'm not insulted by anyone who discounts the effort I put into getting fit though. Weight and genetics and willpower are all confusing concepts and it's understandable to not be willing to attribute it all to willpower.

I will say that it is almost discouragingly hard to maintain this level of discipline for many years though. My body does seem to fight me in ways other healthy weight people don't seem to deal with. So while it does come down to my willpower to stay the course, I also admit that if I were to have an unexpected life event that caused me to fall out of my routine it might lead to weight gain again.

most of my life it was effortless for me to stay skinny - it actually took effort not to be underweight. then I started a medication. initially my BMI was 22 but it shot up to 28. I developed a terrible sweet tooth and binged on carbs, insatiably.

I quit the medication and promptly went back to 22. no willpower involved.

I'm sorry you have to struggle against your body. your body makes it a fight requiring massive willpower, mine doesn't - it's just down to genes or something.

> I developed a terrible sweet tooth and binged on carbs, insatiably.

This sentence is the problem; you didn’t “develop a sweet tooth” like you grow a tumor, you out sweet things in your mouth by choice. You had agency, you made that decision.

Stop avoiding your role in your weight, stop pretending someone else was in control of your decisions. It was you, you did this to yourself.

I'm not sure if you read my post, but I lost the weight I gained and got back to a BMI of 22 just by going off of the med I was on. The med caused cravings and lack of satiety. Going off the med reversed the cravings. This demonstrates that cravings are biological and not caused by a lack of self-control, because I didn't need self-control before or after, and I didn't have the self-control to avoid gaining weight while taking the medicine.

Craving sweets is a well-documented side effect of mirtazapine, I'm not sure why you're having trouble accepting that.

Craving != acting on craving, is my point. That's what willpower can be used for.

Just out of curiosity, what was the medication?

Mirtazapine.