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Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

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Re: Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

#131

Post by exfatloss »

vkazanov wrote: post #130
exfatloss wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, I suspect it has a pretty low effect in terms of calories, but it helps immediately bring your blood sugar back under control within That's maybe the magic of "walkable neighborhoods." You just walk over to the store/the cafe/the restaurant real quick, and then you walk back. It was only maybe a few hundreds steps, but that's enough to put away a ton of the glucose you just dumped into your bloodstream. It is sh…

I started walking on my way to work and back (London, UK). It's about 5k + 5k steps. Plus a 4k step walk after lunch. Together with a limited calorie intake (2k cal a day) it made wonders. It was crazy to watch the first 5kg just vaporize in 2 weeks. I went down to 1800 calories and the remaining 10kg were gone in 6 weeks.

You mind sharing your before/after weight and roughly how lean you were? If your metabolism is already dialed in (i.e. you were not obese) this might totally work and be very effective for fat loss.

Re: Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

#132

Post by exfatloss »

kaba0 wrote: post #125
exfatloss wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Counting calories isn't that hard and it works by the very definition of energy. It doesn't "work" unless your definition of "work" is "lost a few pounds of water weight over a few weeks." Certainly does not work when going from obese to normal weight.

As per your blog, your test is n=1. Besides, if people can really accurately count their calorie intakes and won’t overeat what they use up, then it is thermodynamically impossible not to lose weight. It is really hard to do in practice, especially for longer periods of time, but the theory behind is sound and straightforward.

This is the experience of practically everyone who's ever tried to lose weight, not just me. You think we had an obesity epidemic that's growing if counting calories really worked?

> Besides, if people can really accurately count their calorie intakes and won’t overeat what they use up, then it is thermodynamically impossible not to lose weight.

This is false. The body is a self-regulating system. You eat less, the body can just burn less. You eat more, the body can burn more. What you eat and what you do also plays a huge role.

Re: Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

#133

Post by exfatloss »

vkazanov wrote: post #127
exfatloss wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Counting calories isn't that hard and it works by the very definition of energy. It doesn't "work" unless your definition of "work" is "lost a few pounds of water weight over a few weeks." Certainly does not work when going from obese to normal weight.

I don't understand how counting calories can not work. It's the law of evergy conservation: energy in, energy out. This is not about water at all. Fat is just your main energy storage mechanism. And what's good about fat is that you can burn through it relatively quickly unlike building muscle which takes years. You can even count how many steps you need to do to burn through a kg of fat. I've lost "post-covid" 15 kg…

> I don't understand how counting calories can not work. It's the law of evergy conservation: energy in, energy out.

It's very easy. Your calories in depends on your calories out, and your calories out on your calories in.

The body regulates both intake and expenditure dynamically, so if you mess with one of them and don't change anything else, it's most likely just going to adjust the other one.

This has been mainstream science for a generation or longer, read The Hungry Brain by Guyenet for a good introduction.

> Certainly, i was never obese just slightly overweight.

Then it works, of course. Your metabolism was not "broken." This is like buffing out a bump in your car door. Won't work to fix a full-on collision. It's just not the same problem.

Re: Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

#134

Post by exfatloss »

hirvi74 wrote: post #121
exfatloss wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> some people need a bit of a push to kick bad habits like overeating I think this is the real culprit - the idea that overeating is the root cause and not a symptom, and that a little bit of a push makes a difference.

Overeating is the "cause" of obesity because that is the mechanism of action that facilitates obesity. How else could one reasonably become obese? Overeating is the "how" not the "why" -- at least, that's how I see it. It would be like saying alcohol is the root cause of alcoholism, when in reality, the root cause of alcoholism is often much more nuanced. Hence why many people with addictions tend to be polysubstance…

Overeating is the cause of obesity like saving money is the cause of being rich.

Yes, but that's not what we're talking about. It's an accounting tautology, not the root cause.

Re: Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

#135

Post by kaba0 »

exfatloss wrote: post #132
kaba0 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As per your blog, your test is n=1. Besides, if people can really accurately count their calorie intakes and won’t overeat what they use up, then it is thermodynamically impossible not to lose weight. It is really hard to do in practice, especially for longer periods of time, but the theory behind is sound and straightforward.

This is the experience of practically everyone who's ever tried to lose weight, not just me. You think we had an obesity epidemic that's growing if counting calories really worked? > Besides, if people can really accurately count their calorie intakes and won’t overeat what they use up, then it is thermodynamically impossible not to lose weight. This is false. The body is a self-regulating system. You eat less, the b…

It ain’t going to burn less than like 2000 calories. We are just surprisingly efficient at turning food into energy, and too efficient to burn enough energy with even hard-core movements.

And it doesn’t hurt your last point in anyway, both statements can be true.

Re: Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

#136

Post by vkazanov »

exfatloss wrote: post #131
vkazanov wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started walking on my way to work and back (London, UK). It's about 5k + 5k steps. Plus a 4k step walk after lunch. Together with a limited calorie intake (2k cal a day) it made wonders. It was crazy to watch the first 5kg just vaporize in 2 weeks. I went down to 1800 calories and the remaining 10kg were gone in 6 weeks.

You mind sharing your before/after weight and roughly how lean you were? If your metabolism is already dialed in (i.e. you were not obese) this might totally work and be very effective for fat loss.

93kg to 78kg, 180 cm. Did not look fat, but my face got round and belly was forming. Haven't seen my abs for years and years by then. Surprisingly, 80 kg was like no abs at all and 77.8kg was a 4-pack already.

I wrote earlier that reforming my diet to protein-centric, 1800-2000cal a day + 15k steps walking + some lightweight kettlebell work was enough to get things going. I used myfitnespal, really useful.

It wasn't too hard, to be honest, as I am relatively used to training. For some ppl even walking 10k a day is a challenge.

Re: Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

#137

Post by crazygringo »

tjohns wrote: post #95
crazygringo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cutting out the daily donut for two weeks is about a pound of fat. For many people, no it's not. Becuse their metabolism just decreases by the exact same amount they cut calories. They cut out the daily donut, and they find themselves fidgeting less and wearing a sweater because they're suddenly a little chilly a lot of the day. And the scale doesn't budge. For many people, losing weight is a whole lot more complex…

Metabolism does slow down, but there is a lower limit. The exact numbers and rate will change, but the fact is that sufficient caloric restriction will cause weight loss. That said, as someone who struggles with weight loss, it's still hard. There are both physioloical and psychological issues that make it challenging. As an aside, keto is the only thing thats worked reliably for me so far - largely because of the ca…

> but the fact is that sufficient caloric restriction will cause weight loss.

Yes, but at the cost of your immune system severely degrading so you suddenly get colds all the time. At the cost of extreme fatigue and brain fog. At least that's what's made weight loss difficult for me at times.

Because for some people (like me), your body drops its metabolism to well below what's healthy before it even thinks about burning fat. It's not any question at all of willpower or psychology, it's purely physiological.

Re: Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

#138

Post by crazygringo »

vkazanov wrote: post #128
tjohns wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Metabolism does slow down, but there is a lower limit. The exact numbers and rate will change, but the fact is that sufficient caloric restriction will cause weight loss. That said, as someone who struggles with weight loss, it's still hard. There are both physioloical and psychological issues that make it challenging. As an aside, keto is the only thing thats worked reliably for me so far - largely because of the ca…

Metabolism changes is something like going down from 2100 maintenance calories to 1900 calories. A donut is /at least/ 300+ calories. Age-related metabolism changes are also not that serious. I've seen people losing 40kg (120kg to 80kg) by just walking and counting calories. It's the last 5-6 kg that are harder than the first 20kg is almost trivial to lose - one all the right habits are in place. And habits are the h…

No, it's more like going from ~2500 maintenance to ~1400 cal/day before your body finally decides to start burning fat instead of lowering its metabolism further. At least for me.

Obviously different people are different.

And it has utterly nothing to do with habits, you can see my other comment. It's about the whether you can even manage the other health consequences you suffer from your metabolism being so low.

Re: Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

#139

Post by crazygringo »

michaelborromeo wrote: post #118
crazygringo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cutting out the daily donut for two weeks is about a pound of fat. For many people, no it's not. Becuse their metabolism just decreases by the exact same amount they cut calories. They cut out the daily donut, and they find themselves fidgeting less and wearing a sweater because they're suddenly a little chilly a lot of the day. And the scale doesn't budge. For many people, losing weight is a whole lot more complex…

I think “for many people” is more like “for a minority of people.” For a few people losing weight is complex. For most people, it’s simple. Eat less. Move more. Saying otherwise is a cop out.

> For most people, it’s simple.

If it were that simple, most people would be able to do it. The actual evidence shows it's far more complex than you think.

There's no cop out here. Many people's bodies simply refuse to burn fat until their metabolism has gone so low it has other dangerous health consequences.

Also, as for "move more", the evidence shows that people generally eat even more after exercise to compensate. Exercise is great for general health, but it's a terrible strategy for most people for losing weight. It simply backfires.

Re: Excess weight, obesity more deadly than previously believed

#140

Post by plaguuuuuu »

exfatloss wrote: post #49
ManuelKiessling wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come that you think this?

Cause I just lost 48lbs without using any willpower: https://exfatloss.substack.com/p/losing-43lbs-in-144-days-on...

The amount of willpower I'd need to stick to a diet consisting primarily of whipped cream and butter is pretty immense my dude.

It's far easier for me to just do caloric restriction. Granted I wouldn't lose weight as quickly.

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