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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?

#261

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

agos wrote: post #209
thefz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to weight loss discussion on HN, where any rational point like "eat less" or "calories in, calories out" gets downvoted and discussed to death. Apparently for this crowd taking medicines is better than stopping stuffing yourself, because you know, if you take a medicine you can keep stuffing yourself. Oh, and also "it's more complicated than that" is always a nice escape from the harsh reality of thermodynami…

it gets downvoted because there are tons of research telling it's more complicated than that. it's also a very poor point because it's presented as a solution without addressing the fact that it's really, really, really hard for people to eat less.

Lots of things are really hard.

We all know it’s easier to eat garbage than to exercise and eat healthy. We all know it’s more expensive. We all know it takes some degree of knowledge of what and when to eat.

That isn’t the point. It’s that HARD and UNKNOWN is not faultless.

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

#262

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

petesergeant wrote: post #151
thefz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to weight loss discussion on HN, where any rational point like "eat less" or "calories in, calories out" gets downvoted and discussed to death. Apparently for this crowd taking medicines is better than stopping stuffing yourself, because you know, if you take a medicine you can keep stuffing yourself. Oh, and also "it's more complicated than that" is always a nice escape from the harsh reality of thermodynami…

> if you take a medicine you can keep stuffing yourself That’s not at all how these new medicines work. You can’t (well, don’t) keep stuffing yourself on Wegovy (Ozempic) and Zepbound (Mounjaro), because you no longer spend all your time wanting to. These drugs work by switching off your desire to stuff yourself, not by allowing you to stuff yourself without weight gain. When you eat a big meal on these medicines, yo…

> I take an immensely helpful SSRI

You and almost the rest of HN. I’m uninterested in users of a drug that alters your thinking telling me about other new drugs.

No offense of of course. My point is you are already conditioned that “pills solve problems”.

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

#263

Post by at_compile_time »

carlmr wrote: post #218
Snow_Falls wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The correlation between vegans and health is muddied by the fact that vegans put far more thought into their diet than the average person. Its entirely possible not eating meat is orthoganal to health and its just that they actually care about what they eat. No evidence of this, but I also suspect that vegans care more about their health in other weights too (e.g. exercising, not smoking, etc). If they can keep up wi…

Not just care about health, but they're on a very restrictive diet. Many of my vegan friends can barely find something to eat when we're going out. As an omnivore you can eat anywhere, as a vegetarian, you can eat almost anywhere. As a vegan, at least in Germany, it's still somewhat restrictive. If you're consistently refraining from eating, then you're likely to just consume a lot less calories. Another factor here…

It's only restrictive in a society that can't go a single meal without animal products. I don't eat animal flesh, secretions, or eggs. That leaves legumes, fungi, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and grains. A veritable cornucopia spanning three biological kingdoms if we're counting fermentation.

The restaurant scene seems to be a lot better in Canada. Most restaurants have vegan options. My work's Christmas lunch was at a steakhouse of all places, and I still had several options to choose from.

Most of what I refrain from eating is the junk food that seems to suffuse work and social life: donuts, cookies, and cake leftover from one meeting or another, and buttery/cheesy/eggy snacks at social gathering.

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

#264

Post by htss2013 »

aantix wrote: post #77

Thoughts on Adenoviruses as being a root cause of obesity? https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/weight-loss-genetics-obesit... "Interestingly, animal studies show that the gain in fat mass is not due to eating more or moving less… Animals ate the same amount of chow, but those infected with adenovirus 36 increased fat tissue by 60-80%." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17135605/ "A 2004 twin study showed that the Ad-36 an…

If this these extremely common viruses were the root cause of obesity, then why does obesity affect different countries so differently?

Viruses all passed around globally so you have to assume all developed countries are getting pretty much the same level of population infection.

Maybe it's because if certain viruses do play a role in obesity, it sounds like an evolved adaptation in humans. Ie, if you're sick, you respond by burning less energy and storing more of it as fat.

Like all evolved adaptations, they don't affect all populations equally. I'm guessing if ad36 contributes to obesity, you must first be genetically predisposed to it happening.

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

#265

Post by goostavos »

louwrentius wrote: post #183
goostavos wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

Alas, the laws of thermodynamics remain despite irrelevant comments.

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

#266

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

vkazanov wrote: post #167
thefz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even that, if you change what you eat, you can have a dramatic effect as well. Try cutting out carbs and sugar as much as possible, results in two weeks. Changing when you eat is a factor too.

I would suggest to be careful with cutting out things, this leads to bouncing back, like all dramatic changes. I noticed that carbs such as bread or pasta really help with food satisfaction, unlike fat-intence or protein foods. Remove sugar in secondary things: tea, coffee, soda. Understand the calorie count in carbs such as chips. East to the mild calorie deficit. Compensate with moderate excercise. And so on, setup…

> It doesn't have to be painful!

Agreed; but it is work. And for a great many people, that is an issue.

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

#267

Post by mrmlz »

HEmanZ wrote: post #242
mrmlz wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cope. What normal human reduces its CO so that you wont lose weight? Are you talking about someone in a coma?

You will lose weight, in fact if you cut to 0 for long enough you are guaranteed to lose all soft tissue weight. Can I recommend you the “0 calories till you die” diet? The issue is that: - many people can cut from a diet of 2200 calories per day to 1800 calories per day and pretty quickly and sustainably lose weight. This kind of calorie reduction is very manageable, and anyone who has lost weight this way starts sa…

I get what you are saying. And you put forward a nice argument. The problem is that the ANTI-CICO-Crowd takes the stance that "CICO WONT WORK BECAUSE MY CO IS REDUCED HAH TAKE THAT CICO-FUCKTARDS"

Which is stupid.

If you want to loose weight and maintain a reasonable BMI during the long run you need 2 things.

1) A healthy diet, if you are in America this requires a bit of planning, if you live in Europe its easier. Limit the portion size (and if you are fat you don't know what a normal portion size is, look to you skinnier friends for inspiration).

2) Get your heart rate up a couple of times a week. If you are fat this might be the _walk_ to the store. If you are just weak weight training is great. And for 99% you most likely should aim to increase the amount of condition training, brisk walks, joggins, biking, chopping wood whatever.

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

#268

Post by epups »

thaanpaa wrote: post #257
epups wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what you wrote: > Permanent weight loss of more than ten pounds is nearly impossible from a scientific standpoint. The success rate after 5 years of weight loss is somewhere around 0.1%. Your sources indicate that your initial statement was wrong by a factor of ~100 at least.

If you deliberately misinterpret what I'm saying, I suppose I'm mistaken. The majority of these studies consider a weight loss of 10 pounds over two years to be successful. If you start with 100 pounds or more, that is almost nothing. Many of them consider anyone who starts at 300, loses 100, and gains 80 back in five years to be a huge success. Is it really? In healthcare, an obese person is typically considered suc…

Mate these studies are very clearly talking about percentages here, so they are directly comparable. You said 0.1% could lose 10 pounds over five years, the studies you cited mention 25-35% are able to do at least that after five years - the average man in the US is 200 pounds, and these are obese people, so the loss was actually higher than 10 pounds. Now you are changing the goal posts to 30%!

A good diet and exercise routine can have wonderful results, even in the long-term. The percentage of success in losing significant weight with those methods is far, far above 0.1%, and I think people should be aware of that.

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

#269

Post by carlmr »

at_compile_time wrote: post #263
carlmr wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just care about health, but they're on a very restrictive diet. Many of my vegan friends can barely find something to eat when we're going out. As an omnivore you can eat anywhere, as a vegetarian, you can eat almost anywhere. As a vegan, at least in Germany, it's still somewhat restrictive. If you're consistently refraining from eating, then you're likely to just consume a lot less calories. Another factor here…

It's only restrictive in a society that can't go a single meal without animal products. I don't eat animal flesh, secretions, or eggs. That leaves legumes, fungi, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and grains. A veritable cornucopia spanning three biological kingdoms if we're counting fermentation. The restaurant scene seems to be a lot better in Canada. Most restaurants have vegan options. My work's Christmas lunch was…

>A veritable cornucopia spanning three biological kingdoms if we're counting fermentation.

I didn't claim anything counter to that. I can cook plenty of tasty vegan food. But if I go out there's not much left in my country to eat. You have to go to a handful of specialized vegan restaurants in the city to have even somewhat a choice. Otherwise it's fries or noodles with tomato sauce, which personally I wouldn't consider a meal.

That it's better in Canada? Great. I believe you, but I've travelled a lot, and I haven't seen many places that have such a variety of vegan food as USA and Canada.

Most of Europe is very meat heavy, vegetarian is still easy, vegan is picky eating. In East Asia there are vegan options, but often tasteless, because they're meant for Buddhist monks. Otherwise even vegetarian is somewhat difficult.

In India vegetarian is easier than meat, especially considering food safety. Had 0 gastric issues with vegetarian food, while one bad piece of meat almost ended the trip for a friend of mine. But a lot of dishes have butter and milk, so vegan again is difficult.

I'm really not saying it's difficult to cook great vegan food, just that it limits your ability to eat outside in most of the world, which probably influences average BMI more than the diet itself.

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

#270

Post by thefz »

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'm convinced that it's diet and exercise, in that order, that are primarily to blame

Prepare to be debated to death. Any solution to the problem of obesity involving personal effort is downvoted in favor of taking medicines.

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