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Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

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Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#91

Post by mistermann »

vonmoltke wrote: post #31
mistermann wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm still pretty sure that calories-in/calories-out theory is more-or-less correct. From where do you derive this certainty? There's plenty of anecdotal evidence indicating significant variance among individuals. Simply less efficient absorption of ingested calories would obviously make a huge difference, and I don't think there's any reason to think everyone absorbs calories with identical efficiency is there?

That issue does not affect the correctness of CICO, which is more or less thermodynamics. This issue just means that the CI for two people given the exact same portion of food is not necessarily the same.

If one is discussing effectiveness of different weight loss approaches, ignoring CI variance based on the exact input foods, and the underlying reasons for that, seems.....unwise.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#92

Post by nommm-nommm »

undersuit wrote: post #86
nommm-nommm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar - I saw an episode of Superfat vs Superskinny where the superskinny guy ate almost nothing but chocolate. His calorie intake was probably 4000 calories a day or more yet he was unhealthy skinny. Do you think he was lying?

I did not watch this show so I have are some questions. 1. Was the skinny individual monitored the entire time? He could have regurgitated his food. 2. Was the skinny person's poop analyzed for complete digestion of the 4000 calories?

No, its not some sort of science experiment, its mindless entertainment. 4000 calories was a wild gestimation of something I saw probably 5 years ago.

The premise of the show is they bring in two people - one superfat and one superskinny. They weight them and each person tells what a typical day's food intake is for them. Then they switch diets for a couple weeks and are weighed again at the end.

Yes, its possible he lied about eating all that chocolate. Yes, he could be throwing up every day. This isn't a controlled experiment, its a TV show. It seems odd someone would do that though.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#93

Post by npsimons »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #74
cgh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To elaborate upon this point, let's say I gave you 10,000 calories of sawdust to eat every day for a week. Would you gain weight or lose weight, ignoring the other health consequences?

Similar - I saw an episode of Superfat vs Superskinny where the superskinny guy ate almost nothing but chocolate. His calorie intake was probably 4000 calories a day or more yet he was unhealthy skinny. Do you think he was lying?

> Do you think he was lying?

Yes. If there's anything reading diet studies has taught me, it's that people lie, to themselves even, and people are very bad at estimating calories. Things like MyFitnessPal have been a boon to countless people trying to lose weight because they can actually get a handle on what their intake really is. Bonus, they can compare across food choices to see what will fit in their caloric budget but still be filling or satisfying.

I'll issue you a counter-challenge: watch "Secret Eaters".

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#94

Post by npsimons »

cgh wrote: post #64
tptacek wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Thermodynamics"? There are 120 calories in a tablespoon of olive oil. If I pay you $50 to drink a whole bottle of olive oil, do you think you'll gain several pounds of fat?

To elaborate upon this point, let's say I gave you 10,000 calories of sawdust to eat every day for a week. Would you gain weight or lose weight, ignoring the other health consequences?

The question is moot; sawdust is basically pure undigestible fiber (poor mans Metamucil), so since the caloric content of it is virtually nil, it would be impossible to consume 10,000 calories of it.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#95

Post by npsimons »

aantix wrote: post #89
randlet wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on all this discussion I regret using the phrase "it's your fault" which sounds too aggressive. Instead I wish I just emphasized that regardless of biological and societal pressures everyone of us does possess the ability to control your weight. Specifically by accurately counting calories (with a food scale) and tracking your weight you can adjust your caloric intake to lose, gain or maintain weight.

It's just not the simple. The body fights back with a caloric reduction either through drowsiness, reduced thyroid, and hunger pains. The body wants to maintain. It's easy to posit so that some people's responses may be more intense than others.

It is that simple; it's just not easy. Having been there, yes, it was hard. But it was also worth it, and I didn't have to change my gut biome or epigenetics to do it.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#96

Post by merpnderp »

jrcii wrote: post #73
BeowulfCluster wrote: post #69

This is interesting, but people shouldn't be misled. Counting calories _always_ works for weight loss. If you simply eat fewer calories than your body needs each day, you will lose weight. There was a very highly cited paper in the NEJM where they studied a group of people who believed they were "diet resistant" using a new technique--doubly labeled water--to determine how much they were really eating and exercising.…

>Counting calories _always_ works for weight loss. If you simply eat fewer calories than your body needs each day, you will lose weight. Funny you should say that when this was just published today: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-the-calorie-is-br...

Funny because eating 2000 calories of a carb rich diet maintains my weight, but eating 3000 calories of a carb poor diet and I lose weight. All calories aren't the same, and your body doesn't use them the same. Why is this still controversial?

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#97

Post by wdewind »

beachstartup wrote: post #60
wdewind wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great study, for nutritional science I am very impressed with the methodology. It's very large and very thorough. It should be heavily noted that the goal of the study is not to create algorithms for healthy people, but for diabetic and pre-diabetic populations. The only well supported long term consequences of post-prandial high glycemic response in otherwise healthy people is an increased psychological ur…

> Outside of that, the importance of insulin levels in healthy people is extremely overhyped. These machine learning algorithms are cool, and may be useful for diabetic people, but for the general population monitoring your insulin levels is a waste of time. a waste of time? really? what does that mean? does this mean the difference between 10-20 pounds over the course of 10 years? because that's the vast majority of…

Sorry I think we agree! My point is it is a psychological issue. All things being equal (calories, nutrients etc.) the speed/magnitude of the insulin response is not important for overall health (in the non-diabetic population). The study mentions things like:

> postmeal blood glucose and its long-term metabolic consequences.

and the point is there aren't long term metabolic consequences.

> but if we can put a finger on exactly what causes people to put on a few pounds it would be a significant advance in science that would affect billions of people

I totally agree! We know it's not the insulin response in and of itself that is causing weight gain, it's the subsequent increased caloric intake, so my point is by being deliberate about what we are studying we can get better results. I'm not saying we don't need to study the psychology of eating, definitely the opposite! That's really what we need to focus on, and stop worrying about the "metabolic consequences" of the insulin response.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#98

Post by nommm-nommm »

npsimons wrote: post #93
nommm-nommm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar - I saw an episode of Superfat vs Superskinny where the superskinny guy ate almost nothing but chocolate. His calorie intake was probably 4000 calories a day or more yet he was unhealthy skinny. Do you think he was lying?

> Do you think he was lying? Yes. If there's anything reading diet studies has taught me, it's that people lie, to themselves even, and people are very bad at estimating calories. Things like MyFitnessPal have been a boon to countless people trying to lose weight because they can actually get a handle on what their intake really is. Bonus, they can compare across food choices to see what will fit in their caloric bud…

Yes, they typically under report their calorie intake, not over report it. Its not really socially acceptable to eat like 10 chocolate bars a day and hardly anything else so why say you do when you really don't?

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#99

Post by vonmoltke »

mistermann wrote: post #91
vonmoltke wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That issue does not affect the correctness of CICO, which is more or less thermodynamics. This issue just means that the CI for two people given the exact same portion of food is not necessarily the same.

If one is discussing effectiveness of different weight loss approaches, ignoring CI variance based on the exact input foods, and the underlying reasons for that , seems.....unwise.

Who said anything about ignoring it? It is a tangential question.

Re: Why do people put on differing amounts of weight?

#100

Post by npsimons »

logfromblammo wrote: post #58
xeromal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely can be the case. Absorption of calories depends on the person so the same people who eat 2k calories could get roughly 2k calories OR LESS depending on the gut bacteria and other variables. I do agree with you on people's reported caloric intake. Most people inaccurately record their eating habits. I use an app to get an idea of what my day was like.

Nutritional panel information is not an in vivo measurement. If you put 100g of broccoli in a bomb calorimeter and burn it in pure oxygen, you heat it up by 34 kilocalories. If you put it in a human digestive tract instead , the human can absorb anywhere from 0 to 34 kilocalories of food energy from it. We already have ample evidence that the food energy absorbed may be affected by the microbiome in the intestines, t…

Burning your poop isn't necessary, but yes, weighing your food is a good idea. Want to know how much you're really absorbing from food? Calculate your real TDEE: https://www.reddit.com/r/leangains/comments/2rv09z/this_is_h...

No matter what conditions you may have (or think you have) the above method will tell you exactly how much your total daily energy expenditure is, including what passes through you that you don't absorb, so you can know how much you need to eat to lose, maintain or gain.

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