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The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

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Re: The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

#181

Post by karmarepellent »

tlow wrote: post #159

I'm a participant in runner groups. I was surprised to meet several exceptional runners with stories of moving from very unhealthy/overweight to their current level of marathoner+. Several of them had success not just with intermittent fasting, but prolonged fasting. Humans can run when they feel like you have no energy. It's hard to believe that this isn't a psychological and behavioral issue: >A 30 percent reductio…

It is truly remarkable what some humans can do when they commit. There was a person in my former runner group who weighed approx. 130 kg when he started running. He only started when he was in his mid-forties. Never really exercised previously in his life (as far as I know). It is also worth mentioning that he is a farmer, so his day job is not exactly energy conserving.

Ten years after starting to run in this group he was set to run a marathon under 2:50. Unfortunately a cramp around the 30 km mark made it impossible to continue and actually achieve it. But his grit certainly motivated everyone around him, marathoners and short-distance runners alike.

I would love to share his eating habits but I do not remember them in detail and I do not know enough about nutrition to confidently share any presumptions on this part. Your first paragraph simply reminded me of this great individual.

Re: The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

#182

Post by karmarepellent »

at_compile_time wrote: post #172

I can't remember the source, but I remember hearing that the two demographics in society who average at a healthy BMI were endurance athletes and vegans. I struggled through my 20s to keep my weight under 200 lbs at 6ft tall. Then I went vegan 4 years ago, and started running during the pandemic. Nothing crazy, just 5-8 km once or twice per week when it's nice out, and lots of beans and tofu in place of meat and dair…

I think BMI is a little confusing when it is applied to some categories of healthy individuals like endurance athletes and others. When I ran (a lot) in my early to mid-twenties my BMI was always "underweight". Yet I have never felt better.

The same probably goes for climbers. Some of the climbers I know are inredibly lean and their BMI is certainly not in the "normal weight" range. Yet they are able to push their bodies to incredible feats.

All that is to say, I suppose BMI stops to be useful at some point while, at the same time, it may be a good instrument to measure your progress during weight loss. It can be both useful and not, depending on who you apply it to.

Re: The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

#183

Post by louwrentius »

goostavos wrote: post #40
louwrentius wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, blame the people. Fat shame all you want. Problem solved. Done. It's so easy, just stop eating so much. As if fat people haven't heard that one a bilion times over. As if fat people havent tried time and time again. Personal responsibility! you put that stuff in your mouth, rah! rah! Personally I'm actually sick of people having no eye for the bigger picture, for many systemic reasons and larger society, and ju…

But... Not eating works, though? How are statements about reality fat shaming?

Why don’t poor people just work hard and become rich?

Re: The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

#184

Post by louwrentius »

rustcleaner wrote: post #109
louwrentius wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, blame the people. Fat shame all you want. Problem solved. Done. It's so easy, just stop eating so much. As if fat people haven't heard that one a bilion times over. As if fat people havent tried time and time again. Personal responsibility! you put that stuff in your mouth, rah! rah! Personally I'm actually sick of people having no eye for the bigger picture, for many systemic reasons and larger society, and ju…

Too bad bootstrappers can't be barred from welfare. They can never dogfood their own philosophy when on the wrong side of it!

Thank you

Re: The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

#185

Post by blowfish721 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #13

In the last few months I read two books on this topic, and both (if I recalled correctly) mentioned The Biggest Loser (or similar). Exercised - Daniel E Lieberman https://www.npr.org/2021/01/05/953249677/exercised-explains-... Burn - Herman Pontzer (who I believe was a student of Lieberman's) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-human-metabol... Both a fairly dry and academic, but do get into the weeds if t…

He (Michael Easter) was actually on ”The Drive” with Peter Attia recently. https://podcasts.apple.com/se/podcast/the-peter-attia-drive/...

Re: The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

#186

Post by GeoAtreides »

ninkendo wrote: post #88
throwup238 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This approach is generally referred to the calorie-in/calorie-out (CICO) model. While true to an extent, this perspective is too simplistic, given one key fact: leptin is primarily produced in adipose tissue [1]. This fact means body fat is actually an endocrine system organ. This part I think needs more explanation. The reason calories-in/calories-out model is too simplistic (I would call it almost useless if not…

CICO doesn’t work across individuals for reason you outline (just because I lose weight with a certain level of calories, doesn’t mean you will, etc.) But for a single individual, working to establish your base metabolic rate by counting every calorie and weighing yourself regularly, you can always find a way to be successful with the CICO model. If you establish a baseline that your metabolic rate is (say) 2000 calo…

CICO simplifies dieting so much that 2000 calories from drinking cola are equal to 2000 calories from eating a stew of chickpeas, beans and nuts. The human body is not a furnace literally burning fuel, it's a complex chemical reactor in a tight feedback loop with what it actually processes.

Re: The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

#187

Post by capitol_ »

karmarepellent wrote: post #182
at_compile_time wrote: post #172

I can't remember the source, but I remember hearing that the two demographics in society who average at a healthy BMI were endurance athletes and vegans. I struggled through my 20s to keep my weight under 200 lbs at 6ft tall. Then I went vegan 4 years ago, and started running during the pandemic. Nothing crazy, just 5-8 km once or twice per week when it's nice out, and lots of beans and tofu in place of meat and dair…

I think BMI is a little confusing when it is applied to some categories of healthy individuals like endurance athletes and others. When I ran (a lot) in my early to mid-twenties my BMI was always "underweight". Yet I have never felt better. The same probably goes for climbers. Some of the climbers I know are inredibly lean and their BMI is certainly not in the "normal weight" range. Yet they are able to push their bo…

BMI measurements do have some signal for endurance athletes.

People who win running competitions are quite tightly grouped BMI-wise.

And for running I guess that makes sense, a kg of muscle weights as much as a kg of fat. Even if that kg of muscle is a lot healthier than the kg of fat.

Re: The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

#188

Post by _dark_matter_ »

com2kid wrote: post #100
throwup238 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the dogma that I'm talking about. > If you establish a baseline that your metabolic rate is (say) 2000 calories a day, then eating 1600 calories a day will cause you to lose roughly a half-pound to a pound per week. At this point it's pretty safe to say that's likely untrue at the population level. This is a cutting edge area of research but the UCP1 adaptations seems to happen really fast, for some people on…

Renaissance Periodization just did a video on calorie cycling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZfryrVddY (the video is titled carb cycling, which he dismissed in the first few minutes and he moves on to calorie cycling) and in it he discusses some of the benefits and disadvantages of calorie cycling vs just eating at a deficit. The tl;dr is follow your body (e.g. not sleeping well, exhausted all the time, eat more f…

I highly recommend this article from the MacroFactor team on this: https://macrofactorapp.com/refeeds-diet-breaks/

Basically their view is that refeeding (aka cycling) probably doesn't do much physiologically speaking, but there may be advantages to adherence when people use diet breaks (typically longer than a cycle or refeed).

Re: The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

#189

Post by karmarepellent »

capitol_ wrote: post #187
karmarepellent wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think BMI is a little confusing when it is applied to some categories of healthy individuals like endurance athletes and others. When I ran (a lot) in my early to mid-twenties my BMI was always "underweight". Yet I have never felt better. The same probably goes for climbers. Some of the climbers I know are inredibly lean and their BMI is certainly not in the "normal weight" range. Yet they are able to push their bo…

BMI measurements do have some signal for endurance athletes. People who win running competitions are quite tightly grouped BMI-wise. And for running I guess that makes sense, a kg of muscle weights as much as a kg of fat. Even if that kg of muscle is a lot healthier than the kg of fat.

Yes I should have clarified: I think the BMI levels (underweight, normal etc.), that is the "wording" cannot necessarily be applied to athletes (edit: and could be misleading for people and their self-concept when their weight is perfectly fine). You are right of course that the top runners in a competition likely stand out BMI-wise from the rest.

Re: The biggest losers: Metabolic damage or constrained energy?

#190

Post by sudosysgen »

paulpauper wrote: post #158
sudosysgen wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it would take less than 1900 to get there. But it would take around 1900 to stay there, according to our models of basal metabolic rates. And it turns out that this person stays there at 1900, so our conclusion is that the BMR model we're using fits this data point. It's possible that for some people at such extremes commonly available models would break down, but clearly for this person, they haven't. And…

no, Rae is truly exceptional. Other calorie-restrictors eat far less and weigh more ,even controlling for height https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/restrict-calories-revive... "I eat the same thing twice a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year," says Pomerleau, of his diet of 1,200 calories a day. "It's a lot of veggies with olive oil-based salad dressing, a lot of mixed fruits, almonds and hazelnuts, and flaxseed…

Bob Cavanaugh's case is not relevant, as he has relatively recently made these changes, and therefore isn't at equilibirium. Same goes for your third guy, the BMI is from 2004/2009, while his caloric intake is from 2019 and was after a 5 year taper (and was therefore higher in 2009).

Your first example. Pomerlau, weighed only 121 pounds - that's a BMI of 18 - and lost 5kg/year, which means that if he did eat 1200 calories, he almost certainly wasn't at equilibrium yet, either - it would take a few more years.

None of those examples really are outliers.

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