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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

#421

Post by inglor_cz »

urthor wrote: post #114

The thing is, exercise still reduces appetite. It raises the blood sugar levels as the body supplies the muscles with carbohydrates, and triggers a complementary response in appetite hormones. Finally, and most importantly: Exercise releases dopamine. Dieting is universally a mood killer, because kilo-joule deficit equals starvation. So whilst it does not directly impact weight loss. It still makes it (a bit) easier.…

"Dieting is universally a mood killer, because kilo-joule deficit equals starvation."

I practice intermittent fasting a lot and I cannot say that it affects my mood negatively. But I was very grumpy when I ate "five small meals a day".

It seems that the digestive system is more OK with being totally empty than being just half full all the time.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#422

Post by math_denial »

nsxwolf wrote: post #36

This is very depressing. I find it incredibly difficult to lose weight dieting. And now it's telling me I just wasted all this money on a treadmill (and the effort it took to get it down into the basement).

I've lost 40 kg (88 lbs) just by exercising: never counted calories, lots of pizzas and whatever. When people say "you can't exercise out of a bad diet" my first question is "What do you mean by "exercise?". And then you discover that exercise in their mind is 30 minutes of brisk walking, 3 days a week and nothing more. That's not exercising, that a sedentary lifestyle.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#423

Post by csee »

ajuc wrote: post #410
csee wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article mentions a study that tracked energy expenditure of runners over many weeks, and found that the energy expenditure was much lower at the tail end of the experiment, suggesting the body gets accustomed to the activity somehow and burns less energy.

Well one obvious adaptation is losing fat = less energy needed to move the body.

We saw a very large reduction in caloric expenditure in people who were already very fit runners. So body weight changes over the course of the experiment are unlikely to explain it.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#424

Post by ajuc »

rob74 wrote: post #407
artdigital wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My advise: (as someone who does a lot of working out and calorie control) Write down what you eat for a while and its calories. Weigh yourself daily as well and write that down too. If after a week your weight went up: Your calories are above your TDEE. If it went down: Your calories are under your TDEE. And that's basically it, once you know what your TDEE is, eat under it to create a caloric deficit and you will lo…

Of course, eating less is the ideal solution if you can muster the willpower to actually do it - but that's a big "if" for many people...

Counting calories is still very useful, because you learn what's "worth it".

For example there are protein bars that are supposedly healthy, but they have 150-250 kcal per 50g bar.

On the other hand there are these watery ice creams that have about 65 kcal per piece and feel just as indulgent if not more.

Other things that are very much "not worth it" on the enjoyement/kcal scale is bread and other pastries.

2 buns with ham is 500 kcal and feels like nothing. A whole pan of hot vegetables with some meat is +- the same and feels like a proper dinner.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#425

Post by antman »

oblio wrote: post #384
michalu wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever there's insignificant science making "controversial" claims like "you can't lose weight with sport" journalist will provide storytelling instead of science. The whole premise of that "You can’t exercise your way out of obesity" is that you burn more calories when you start running than later on as you continue. What's so controversial about it? It's normal that body optimizes for energy expenditure that's wh…

> If I start lifting 20lbs and 3 years later I still lift that of course I won't lose weight. This example is kind of bad :-) You don't lose weight by lifting weights, in general. And amusingly, if you did want to lose weight by lifting weights, your example is precisely how you > lose weight. You lift 10kgs over and over and over again, or even better, incorporate the extra weight into some sort of cardio routine. I…

One does not only lose weight because of the exercise itself, but by retaining muscles since they are a major calorific expenditure factor. Large mass muscles burn calories e.g. glutes

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#426

Post by andyjohnson0 »

artdigital wrote: post #378
rob74 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations! I would be happy to lose "only" 10 kg (hell, 5 kg would be good for a start), but since Covid and home office my weight has been (slowly, but steadily) going in the wrong direction. Yeah, you can and do burn calories by exercising, but it's depressing how little it is. And it's also depressing if I look at the graph that some 40 to 50 year olds seem to still have the metabolism of a toddler - I'm def…

My advise: (as someone who does a lot of working out and calorie control) Write down what you eat for a while and its calories. Weigh yourself daily as well and write that down too. If after a week your weight went up: Your calories are above your TDEE. If it went down: Your calories are under your TDEE. And that's basically it, once you know what your TDEE is, eat under it to create a caloric deficit and you will lo…

TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#427

Post by dschuetz »

The article is very interesting to read, except the part where his personal life is spotlit. Finally something more nuanced research done on this. In my lifetime I was told pretty contradictory views on how fat metabolism works and what exactly 'exercise' means. You cannot eat the same and hope to loose weight just by exercising more. You would be burning 'cheap calories' first, but the fat tissue stays untouched, as it is more expensive to burn. Changing or regulating diet correctly reduces the intake of those cheap calories, most of them are liquid or in processed food, like beer, alcohol in general, processed sugar, some dairy products, and so on.

Exercise and the right diet complement each other, and according to this guy it makes only sense: exercise forces the metabolism to burn calories for physical activity instead of stress response, and that means lower levels of stress hormones. The correct diet forces the metabolism to burn glucose stored in the muscle tissue first, and then slowly starts using the energy from the regions where the digestive tract is.

So after decades, the right balance between diet and exercise is still the better way to loose weight and be healthier, however this guy says that body burns calories differently than assumed, each activity burns calories, even if it's sitting on a couch all day.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#428

Post by ajuc »

dTal wrote: post #377
ajuc wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes counting calories is essential, I had very similar experience (walk 10 km on the weekend ~= burn 600 kcal, then buy a 1000 kcal snack on the way back and wonder why I'm not losing weight), but still the exercise makes a big difference. Last year in march I started counting calories, recording my weight and all exercises I did and walking/biking every day. I lost 30 kg, walked 2100 km, biked 1000 km, and the sum o…

What the heck kind of "snack" is 1000 kcal?

In my case 2 buns with garlic butter. But any pastries will do.

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#429

Post by [deleted] »

jbotz wrote: post #385
rdiddly wrote: post #312

Last thing I saw was "The son of two high school English teachers, Pontzer grew up on 40 hectares of woods in the Appalachian bla bla bla..." You know that sentence. So many articles have that sentence. The one where it veers off course to talk about the (usually uninteresting) person who found the thing the article is ostensibly and nominally about. Am I alone in being perfectly happy reading about science for the d…

Am I alone on HN in being perfectly happy to get a bit of insight in the human nature of scientists doing impressive work? Seriously, yeah, some of this stuff may be fluff, but it does matter. Two scientists can be doing equally good work on a similar topic, but one's work makes headlines and the other's gets buried in some obscure journal and forgotten. Why? What can I do to be more like the former rather than the l…

[deleted]

Re: Scientist busts myths about how humans burn calories

#430

Post by wcrossbow »

artdigital wrote: post #378
rob74 wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations! I would be happy to lose "only" 10 kg (hell, 5 kg would be good for a start), but since Covid and home office my weight has been (slowly, but steadily) going in the wrong direction. Yeah, you can and do burn calories by exercising, but it's depressing how little it is. And it's also depressing if I look at the graph that some 40 to 50 year olds seem to still have the metabolism of a toddler - I'm def…

My advise: (as someone who does a lot of working out and calorie control) Write down what you eat for a while and its calories. Weigh yourself daily as well and write that down too. If after a week your weight went up: Your calories are above your TDEE. If it went down: Your calories are under your TDEE. And that's basically it, once you know what your TDEE is, eat under it to create a caloric deficit and you will lo…

For me at least it's not that simple. My weight (healthy to low BMI) has been very stable over many years with vastly different amounts of exercising and quality of eating habits within that period. Fat to muscle ratio does move but total weight is stuck even with long runs of lots of junk food.
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