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Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

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Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#241

Post by beebmam »

elvis10ten wrote: post #224
dahart wrote: post #4

> “You can’t exercise your way out of obesity,” […] “you can’t outrun a bad diet.” While this article is being a bit dramatic and possibly understating the impact of exercise slightly, I feel a little dumb that I didn’t know this earlier. It took me several decades too long to understand the obvious, that exercise is for building strength, and losing weight happens by eating less. I tried for way too many years to ex…

I think we have fitness wrong in this side of the world. I grew up seeing 60 year olds that were as fit as youths in the west. They didn’t have a treadmill or did keto diets. My take away was fitness should be a lifestyle and to avoid lots of western food (sugar, processed, empty calories, I drink only water, etc). I don’t count calories and can eat twice in the morning. If I counted, both morning meals are less than…

How is sugar and processed/empty calories a "western" thing? What do you mean by "west"?

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#242

Post by stjohnswarts »

dugite-code wrote: post #40
learc83 wrote: post #7

How do his results line up real world data like soldiers needing about 5k calories a day when active. Or athletes like Michael Phelps consuming 8k-10k calories a day while training?

From my read of the article the data is heavily biased towards running as the exercise of choice, probably because measuring CO2 is easy and non-intrusive to do on a treadmill. They do mention utilizing doubly labeled water but don't say if they only used that for sedentary participants or measured a wider range of exercises. Given I have always heard/read how efficient humans are at running if they didn't account fo…

That's a good point. Humans are natural runners and hikers and it stands to reason that it is very efficient compared to saw something like working in a warehouse all day moving around heaving inventory or back in the old days when people would burn thousands of extra calories a day with say being a lumberjack or coal miner.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#243

Post by bagacrap »

learc83 wrote: post #7

How do his results line up real world data like soldiers needing about 5k calories a day when active. Or athletes like Michael Phelps consuming 8k-10k calories a day while training?

The article mentions that but dismisses it with some hokey assertion that professional cyclists used to mainline their calories... does not touch on how elite athletes in other sports or decades get by.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#244

Post by sdoering »

LouisSayers wrote: post #214
onethought wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now, to lose weight simple subtract 500 calories per day from what you eat I appreciate you are trying to be helpful. But most of what you said assumes a certain level or privilege (resources time/money/ableness) that the vast majority of people don't have. People working long hour jobs, or double jobs, or balancing kids/parent responsibilities. Often fast food is the only obvious option, and people aren't buying i…

> assumes a certain level or privilege (resources time/money/ableness) that the vast majority of people don't have Unless you're talking about extremes (e.g. non first-world country, homeless, or disabled people etc) I'm going to call BS on this. Everyone eats, and everyone has 24 hours in a day. I don't know about the rest of the world, but in Australia you can buy a 800g can of tomatoes for $1.50, a 185g can of tun…

We once, out of pure interest calculated based on nutritional value, the cost of eating on different diets. We took the average discount market shopping cart, a conscious version, the same for a regular (so more pricy) supermarket and did a comparison with ecological as well as regional food sourcing.

Based on nutritional value (taking into account to fulfill the base needs as well as potentially overshooting on salt, fat, sugar and other things like Vitamin A just to name an example) we found that industrial food is always the more expensive solution.

Yes you can feed people on a very cheap industrial diet but they will miss essential nutrients as well as overshoot on salt, sugar, and others to detrimental health effects.

If you want a balanced diet mostly locally and seasonally produce (with added stuff like olive oil and such) cooked by yourself was way more cost efficient per nutritional value.

The problem is, that it takes time to learn this, especially to learn this from experience. Also time to relearn how food really tastes without added aroma and stuff. Time to learn how to cook efficiently and with variation. And so on. We don't learn this anymore. Not from our parents, nor otherwise. But the advertising tells us how easy it is to just open a fully ready meal, pop it in the microwave and be done in 3 minutes.

Instead of enjoying the quality of preparing food together as a family/couple. Spending time, experiencing the smell of fresh cut food, herbs and so on. We nowadays equivalent cooking to a chore.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#245

Post by stjohnswarts »

markmark wrote: post #140
learc83 wrote: post #7

How do his results line up real world data like soldiers needing about 5k calories a day when active. Or athletes like Michael Phelps consuming 8k-10k calories a day while training?

I think something is being lost in the reporting. The article itself mentions 2400 kcal for a 75kg woman, and then a paragraph later talks about Race across the USA runners burning 5000+ kcal. I think the key is in this sentence: " According to Herman, humans who are more active don’t have that much higher TEE as you’d predict". ie, you have a higher Total Energy Expenditure, but it's by less than you would calculate…

The thing is the human body is amazing at knowing how much food it needs and will persuade you over the long haul to eat enough food to balance out the extra caloric usage whether you like it or not. His point is that eating healthy is important and watching it is more important than exercise (by far)

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#246

Post by bradgessler »

theonething wrote: post #226
elvis10ten wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we have fitness wrong in this side of the world. I grew up seeing 60 year olds that were as fit as youths in the west. They didn’t have a treadmill or did keto diets. My take away was fitness should be a lifestyle and to avoid lots of western food (sugar, processed, empty calories, I drink only water, etc). I don’t count calories and can eat twice in the morning. If I counted, both morning meals are less than…

What kinds of things do you do to make your entire day active? As a developer my self, I find this part the hardest.

I find that I need time to think and time do code.

When I’m coding I’m obviously sitting at my desk. At some point I get tired of that or hit a wall, then stop, and have to think about that to do next.

Instead of sitting at my desk thinking I’ll go for a walk, go outside and work on a project around the house, go for a swim, hike somewhere. During that time I’m mulling in the problem in my head coming up with solutions.

Once I finish with that activity, I’ll set back down and try a few if the ideas I came up with while doing those activities.

According to my Apple Watch, I get between 25-55 min of activity on a given day.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#247

Post by ChicagoDave »

This is all very depressing. I'm one of those people with a limited menu (possibly an eating disorder) of things I will eat. I don't like complex dishes (anything eastern), seafood, vegetables, and fruits only in smoothies. I definitely ingest too much sugar and drink diet Coke.

For myself, I think exercising somehow makes me eat better. It's just a naturally occurring thing that if I start Couch to 5k, after a couple of weeks I stop eating greasy food, chips, pizza, and I eat salads and all around healthier and smaller portions.

So I guess when I lost weight in the past, it was because of the effects of exercising. Not the exercise itself.

Wish I could solve the eating problems, but I'm 58. I get severe anxiety if anyone tries to get me to eat things I don't like. I've skipped dinner parties and other events if I think the food won't be what I like.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#248

Post by emodendroket »

DangitBobby wrote: post #217
emodendroket wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this isn't rigorous but it definitely matches up with my personal experience -- I'll be hungrier, often ravenously so, after strenuous activity.

After a long bike ride, apart from being much hungrier than usual, food tastes better. Mediocre food becomes good, good food becomes the best thing you've ever eaten.

Yeah, that's the way I've felt when I've gone for a hike. The food tastes better and I will happily eat an amount of food that I later regret.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#249

Post by mendigou »

esyir wrote: post #51
pverghese wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what was your starting weight. But 5 kg is within the realm of normal weight fluctuations over a week for an average American.

Are you sure, I get a one or two kg swing, but 5kg of weight seems a bit extreme. I'm not American, but in my part of the world people tend to have gradual trends to weight, not sudden swings.

It's doable depending on your body size. I'm 180cm and 95 to 99 Kg depending on the day.

When I do weight loss, I can plot it daily and it's going down on average but there are large swings on most days.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#250

Post by jordanbeiber »

theonething wrote: post #226
elvis10ten wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we have fitness wrong in this side of the world. I grew up seeing 60 year olds that were as fit as youths in the west. They didn’t have a treadmill or did keto diets. My take away was fitness should be a lifestyle and to avoid lots of western food (sugar, processed, empty calories, I drink only water, etc). I don’t count calories and can eat twice in the morning. If I counted, both morning meals are less than…

What kinds of things do you do to make your entire day active? As a developer my self, I find this part the hardest.

I think a good way is to take any chance to move around.

Ido Portal, for all his eccentric weirdness, knows things:

> The body will become better at whatever you do, or don’t do. If you don’t move, your body will make you better at not moving. If you move, your body will allow more movement.

I’m personally thinking in terms of micro-habits that eventually form a lifestyle, and it’s all about total lifetime reps, if you will.

For example, I have a height adjustable desk, and have replaced the chair with a pilates ball. I still stand, or sit on my knees, more than sitting down on it.

I believe there’s a problem with some of the ergonomic setups we use - if you keep moving, and shift around you shouldn’t need it. If you do, you’re already “losing it” and should probably be changing things up more frequently during the days. Now this is easy to say, and for some people, probably not true.

I’m basically continuously fighting the path of least resistance. I’m in war with the comfy a* brain!

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