To lose weight, eat fewer calories than you expend.
To gain weight, eat more calories than you expend.
It's that simple. This is basic physics, weight gain and loss is not complicated.
The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
151–160 of 359 posts
Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
#152Your body needs fuel (nutrition) to sustain its activity.
If you take in more fuel than your activity requires, your body will convert it into excess fat.
If you take in less fuel than your activity requires, your body will burn fat.
What else is there to discuss? I honestly do not understand how we have these convoluted discussions. The only other thing worth considering is how you can make it easier for yourself to cope with the feeling of hunger, so that you don't give in and eat more than you need.
Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
#153I first wrote this as a reply in this thread and now I'm looking at it, I think it's relevant to the article as a whole -- sugar, insulin, calorie reduction, stress, fitness in general. I believe that the "diet" mentioned in the article is in effect a calorie-restriction one.
> Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. > you are losing weight because you are consuming less calories.
This is only true in the first up to 6 months of a calorie-restriction diet. Then, body adjusts its metabolism (lower body temperature, making you feel more lethargic to keep you from exercising, etc) and your weight begins to slowly climb back up, sans any further calorie restriction. At this point, it's easy for a dieter to blame himself of lacking willpower: "it worked, and it stopped working now, I must've been not strict enough!".
The same thing happens if you force someone to overeat even if they're not hungry. They will gain weight -- for up to 6 months. Then, the body increases its base metabolic rate and adjusts to the new food intake level.
As Dr. Jason Fung meticulously explains in his book Obesity Code, there seems to be a weight set point. He then argues that the root cause of obesity, and the body's set weight point, is insulin resistance.
The books hails your grandma's advice: "Cut back sugars and starchy foods. No snacking."
This is from the last part (The Solution):
1. Reduce your consumption of added sugars. 2. Reduce your consumption of refined grains. 3. Moderate your protein intake. 4. Increase your consumption of natural fats. 5. Increase your consumption of fiber and vinegar.
The author also stresses the importance of fasting.
Everything the book asserts seems to be pretty well backed by science, go check for yourself.
Source: Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung. Read it, it's not only a brilliant weight loss book, but also a wonderful book about how the wrong incentives for companies have led to the obesity epidemic in the US.
Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate to be blunt. But this is as much pseudoscience as the anti vaxers. Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. There is also a big difference between losing weight based on water weight and losing real body mass. I sweat like a pig anytime I work out. I use to teach two hour fitness classes and even now after the end of a workout, I’ve “lost 5 pounds” but that’s pure water weight. I’m burning around 10…
This is a common misconception, let me explain. > Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. > you are losing weight because you are consuming less calories. This is only true in the first up to 6 months of a calorie-restriction diet. Then, body adjusts its metabolism (lower body temperature, making you feel more lethargic to keep you from exercising, etc) and your weight begins to slowly climb back up, sans…
Yeah, I lost 100lb from calorie restriction over the course a year. Eating the exact same things just less of it.
There is no panacea for weight loss - everyone is different.
A book is not a source. Providing a book and then cavalierly saying people should read it because it's backed by science is pretty rude.
Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate to be blunt. But this is as much pseudoscience as the anti vaxers. Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. There is also a big difference between losing weight based on water weight and losing real body mass. I sweat like a pig anytime I work out. I use to teach two hour fitness classes and even now after the end of a workout, I’ve “lost 5 pounds” but that’s pure water weight. I’m burning around 10…
> "The chess players are forgetting to eat. " This surprises me. I find that being hungry dulls my edge and makes me noticeably less clever. It's easy for me to forget to eat if I'm doing something mindless, but when I'm actively problem solving I find that I become more aware of my hunger (and other forms of general discomfort.)
Hunger (at least to a small intensity) is prodromal. If I'm already tilting hypomanic, skipping lunch is a huge trigger.
Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
#156I first wrote this as a reply in this thread and now I'm looking at it, I think it's relevant to the article as a whole -- sugar, insulin, calorie reduction, stress, fitness in general. I believe that the "diet" mentioned in the article is in effect a calorie-restriction one. > Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. > you are losing weight because you are consuming less calories. This is only true in the…
Yeah, I lost 100lb from calorie restriction over the course a year. Eating the exact same things just less of it.
There is no panacea for weight loss - everyone is different.
A book is not a source. Providing a book and then cavalierly saying people should read it because it's backed by science is pretty rude.
Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics I assume you're referring to the "energy in" vs "energy out" meme in weight-loss. The body is not a closed system. While you _do_ have to balance your chemical equations for glucose catabolysis (or whatever), weight loss is far from a "simple physics" problem.
Some[1] will never drop the "simple physics" line because they don't care about learning about the biology of body weight, but rather reaffirming their aesthetic judgement that people they decide are overweight are also morally weak. [1] Emphatically not judging anyone posting here; that's not my goal. I'm simply bluntly stating what has become painfully clear after having this discussion multiple times.
And some will endlessly argue against “simple physics” because magical thinking about metabolism avoids any hint of personal agency.
In a sense, the body isn’t “simple” because so many things can affect your total energy burn. But all of that really doesn’t matter much. If you continually decrease your caloric intake, eventually it will fall below your calorie burn and you will lose weight. Conversely if you continually increase your caloric intake, you will eventually gain weight (assuming you aren’t literally shitting out undigested food).
Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you’re going to be pedantic, you subtract out the baseline, and the alleged caloric burn from chess would be 1.5x the measured burn from running a marathon. But in any case it still astounds me the human body can run that far on just 2,000 calories (2.3kWh).
Something you learn when you're trying to lose a lot of weight: The human body is disgustingly energy efficient.
It's more about how light the body is than how efficient it is. Consider: the Tesla Model 3 has a range of 350 km, and a battery capacity of 50 kWh. That's a little more than seven km per kWh. So, less efficient than the human body, right?
Well don't forget that its curb weight is 1,611 kg. If we assume that the marathoning human weighs 100 kg, then the Tesla weighs 16x as much. So to compare the performance pound for pound, we need to imagine the energy use of sixteen human runners (36kWh for 42km, or just a little more than 1kWh per km). Also, it would be travelling that range at a much higher velocity. Of course, its coefficient of drag is probably lower than that of sixteen human runners, but considering the humans are running at 15 km/h or so, and the Tesla would be travelling at closer to 100kmh, the velocity factor of the drag calculation would be 40x higher for the Tesla than the humans. So, even if you factor in the unfairness of having skin and hair and clothes, the humans are actually a good deal less energy efficient than the car.
I just found this analysis interesting. Our machines are after all quite a bit more efficient than our bodies (for certain tasks, of course). But that doesn't detract from your point that the body is definitely more efficient than you want it to be when it comes to losing weight!
Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
But not causation and still didn’t explain whether that could be explained by the standard CICO equation.
You might try clicking the link I provided. The Wikipedia page details the virus and provides links to other sources one of which was conducted on chickens where they measure input/output and still saw positive weight gain.
So exactly how do you explain mass just coming out of nowhere?
Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving
#160Your body needs fuel (nutrition) to sustain its activity. If you take in more fuel than your activity requires, your body will convert it into excess fat. If you take in less fuel than your activity requires, your body will burn fat. What else is there to discuss? I honestly do not understand how we have these convoluted discussions. The only other thing worth considering is how you can make it easier for yourself to…
> how you can make it easier for yourself to cope with the feeling of hunger, so that you don't give in and eat more than you need.
It took me about 6 months to learn the portion of food that will fill me up, so that I can stop eating well before my stomach takes it's sweet-ass time telling my brain it's full. Best thing I ever did for myself.