Daily energy expenditure through the human life course • Hacker News Board

Re: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

#131

Post by mathgeek » Sat, Oct 14, 2023, 6:27 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #126

valec wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

activity levels almost certainly. uni it's not impossible you were walking over 12k steps a day. that's 3-400 calories over the average american's daily steps of 4000.

That's also completely canceled out by enjoying a single 32oz soda. Walking a lot and having a bad diet rarely even each other out. And it's so easy to cancel it out I don't think most people realize. A brisk 2km walk burns less calories than are consumed when eating two regular Oreos.

While this is certainly an argument for “how do I lose weight” the relevant part here is that the asker wondered why they started gaining weight, which makes a reduction in daily calorie burn relevant if caloric intake remained roughly consistent. That is a lot of ifs, naturally.

Re: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

#132

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD » Sat, Oct 14, 2023, 6:28 PM UTC

What's the age at which anti-aging interventions are most impactful?

I assume they don't help much when you're young, because you're already healthy as a youth.

Presumably waiting until you're on your deathbed to start high-intensity intervals is not the best idea either.

Supposing a person had a limited budget of "anti-aging firepower" in the form of pills, exercise, etc. -- what age would be most impactful to apply it?

Re: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

#133

Post by MattRix » Sat, Oct 14, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #126

valec wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

activity levels almost certainly. uni it's not impossible you were walking over 12k steps a day. that's 3-400 calories over the average american's daily steps of 4000.

That's also completely canceled out by enjoying a single 32oz soda. Walking a lot and having a bad diet rarely even each other out. And it's so easy to cancel it out I don't think most people realize. A brisk 2km walk burns less calories than are consumed when eating two regular Oreos.

I wouldn’t be surprised if most thin people who claim to eat lots of junk food actually just eat a lot less regular food. In other words, they don’t eat many calories, but the calories they do eat are junk.

Re: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

#134

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 14, 2023, 6:31 PM UTC

strangesmells02 wrote: post #27

Anecdotally: I havent changed diet one bit, actually I eat way healthier than when I was younger. And still weigh much more than when younger.

[deleted]

Re: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

#135

Post by Fricken » Sat, Oct 14, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #126

valec wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

activity levels almost certainly. uni it's not impossible you were walking over 12k steps a day. that's 3-400 calories over the average american's daily steps of 4000.

That's also completely canceled out by enjoying a single 32oz soda. Walking a lot and having a bad diet rarely even each other out. And it's so easy to cancel it out I don't think most people realize. A brisk 2km walk burns less calories than are consumed when eating two regular Oreos.

Strava tells me I burned 3,3000 calories this morning on my (4 hour)100km bike ride. About the equivalent of drinking 2 cups of melted butter, or eating 50 pounds of lettuce. When I'm doing exercise like that regularly it's hard to eat enough.

Re: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

#136

Post by ses1984 » Sat, Oct 14, 2023, 7:04 PM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #135

missedthecue wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also completely canceled out by enjoying a single 32oz soda. Walking a lot and having a bad diet rarely even each other out. And it's so easy to cancel it out I don't think most people realize. A brisk 2km walk burns less calories than are consumed when eating two regular Oreos.

Strava tells me I burned 3,3000 calories this morning on my (4 hour)100km bike ride. About the equivalent of drinking 2 cups of melted butter, or eating 50 pounds of lettuce. When I'm doing exercise like that regularly it's hard to eat enough.

That’s more than an order of magnitude more calories burned than walking 12k steps.

Re: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

#137

Post by paulpauper » Sat, Oct 14, 2023, 7:05 PM UTC

civilitty wrote: post #106

m3kw9 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of skinny people have high metabolism, how do you explain that?

Those skinny people most likely have a very inefficient metabolism or at the very least a very adaptable one. Their mitochondria use UCP1 [1][2] to generate more heat when producing ATP, thus wasting energy that would otherwise be converted to fat. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncoupling_protein [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermogenin

so built-in DNP

Re: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

#138

Post by paulpauper » Sat, Oct 14, 2023, 7:10 PM UTC

medler wrote: post #85

m3kw9 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of skinny people have high metabolism, how do you explain that?

Over my life I’ve been close to a small handful of perpetually skinny people who thought they had high metabolisms. In every case, when I watched them closely, I realized they barely ate anything. My ex-gf was one of these people and would routinely tell people about how she could eat anything and not gain weight. But when I would go on a severely calorie-restricted diet I was still eating more than she did on a norm…

One individual, Michael Rea, weighed (at the time of publication) 115 lbs at 6-feet and subsisted on a diet of 1900 calories a day [0], which he tracked meticulously. It's hard to convey with words how incredible this is. To put this in perspective, Ansel Key's subjects had to diet down to 1,500/day to get almost as thin. Super-fast metabolisms that cannot be explained by undereating or pathology do exist.

[0] https://nymag.com/news/features/23169/

Michael’s regimen of 1,913 calories a day is exactly that: 1,913 calories every single day, 30 percent of them derived from fat, 30 percent from protein, and 40 percent from carbohydrates. Cooking for him is the same elaborate exercise in dietary Sudoku it is for all CR die-hards, only more so.

This is more impressive than even Terrance Tao in terms of outliers...nuts. Unless you tried to lose weight of study this stuff, this is no small feat. Pro bodybuilders have to eat less than 1200/day to get super-lean and this is with tons of muscle helping. This guy does it at 1900. If there were a Tiger Woods of metabolism, this guy would be it if Tiger Woods could play better golf.

Re: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

#139

Post by paulpauper » Sat, Oct 14, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #96

medler wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over my life I’ve been close to a small handful of perpetually skinny people who thought they had high metabolisms. In every case, when I watched them closely, I realized they barely ate anything. My ex-gf was one of these people and would routinely tell people about how she could eat anything and not gain weight. But when I would go on a severely calorie-restricted diet I was still eating more than she did on a norm…

> In every case, when I watched them closely, I realized they barely ate anything I know people (mainly Asian guys that are trying to build muscle) that seriously struggle to eat at a calorie surplus. So maybe it's not "metabolism" (which there are significant differences between humans) but also differing levels of hunger.

maybe it mostly goes to the mid section. Having a large stomach but thin limbs can create the illusion of being skinny

Re: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course

#140

Post by paulpauper » Sat, Oct 14, 2023, 7:20 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #77

trefoiled wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's good evidence that metabolic rate does vary, but not significantly. https://examine.com/articles/does-metabolism-vary-between-tw...

The article states the difference is small, but also notes “ The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other”. All things being even 200kcal difference per day is about 20lbs per year attributed purely to metabolic difference. Now you can say to just eat 200kcal less per day, but those little differences on a daily basis add up.

It def. adds up. To get an idea, consider cancer cachexia , which is involuntary weight loss due to cancer. Weight loss in the setting of cancer is not just due to appetite loss from side effects of treatment and sickness, but also from metabolic changes. It's such weight loss that brings the cancer to the attention of the doctor, and can be quite dramatic despite the patient not changing his or her appetite or other routine or feeling sick at all. How much of an energy deficit is this? it's believed that cachexia only causes a deficit of only 200 calories/day, but this enough to produce dramatic weight loss.