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Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

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Re: Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

#121

Unsurprisingly, the title is sensationalist and not representative of the study. The study compares energy expenditure across different economic groups i.e. western people sitting in offices versus hunter-gatherers in Africa, and found that difference in energy expenditure does not account for differences in obesity, so points to consumption as the likely reason. The sample dataset explicitly excluded 'athletes', so…

> The sample dataset explicitly excluded 'athletes', so would exclude people that _are_ outrunning a bad diet. You can't outrun a bad diet. This is such a myth and I have no idea where it's coming from. Perhaps it's a nice lie one can tell himself to continue eating junk and not feel guilty about it. Athletes, especially body builders require a lot of calories but their diet is surprisingly healthy. They eat plenty o…

I've lost 100 lbs twice. You absolutely can outrun a bad diet lol.

It's just a LOT of exercise and counting all of your calories. A 1600 calorie bag of chips is 4 hours of cardio :)

Re: Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

#122

Unsurprisingly, the title is sensationalist and not representative of the study. The study compares energy expenditure across different economic groups i.e. western people sitting in offices versus hunter-gatherers in Africa, and found that difference in energy expenditure does not account for differences in obesity, so points to consumption as the likely reason. The sample dataset explicitly excluded 'athletes', so…

> The sample dataset explicitly excluded 'athletes', so would exclude people that _are_ outrunning a bad diet. You can't outrun a bad diet. This is such a myth and I have no idea where it's coming from. Perhaps it's a nice lie one can tell himself to continue eating junk and not feel guilty about it. Athletes, especially body builders require a lot of calories but their diet is surprisingly healthy. They eat plenty o…

I would say that in practice 99% of people can't outrun a bad diet, but not because of any sort of physiological reason. You simply need to train so much that most people won't ever approach the level of running/cycling/lifting they would need to do so.

If you're training like an elite athlete (for me and my at the time roommate that was running 85, or in his case, 100+ miles a week with a few lift sessions) you can, and will, eat just about whatever you damn please and not gain weight. Most people can't fit that much training into their lives without making it their life's primary focus at the expense of everything else, and couldn't sustain that level of training if they did, so it becomes a practical impossibility.

I do miss that aspect of running so much mileage, though I appreciate the freedom that stepping back from competition has afforded me in other areas. To maintain weight now, I eat 1-2 meals a day, but back then? I ate whatever got put in front of me, sometimes 4 meals a day.

Re: Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

#124
In twin studies the only things that have been associated with obesity are past calorie restrictive diets and soda consumption. All these other studies are usually picking up on either socio-economic or environmental factors, rather than actual behaviors we can control.

The reason to exercise isn't to avoid obesity: it is because the health benefits of exercise have nothing to do with weight. Careful, moderate exercising is good for our bodies, all on its own.

Whereas there is shockingly little evidence that obesity itself causes most correlated health conditions, rather than being a symptom (of stress, alienation, environmental contamination, inflammatory conditions, etc) correlated with the causes of those conditions. The weight with the lowest all-cause mortality is being "overweight".

But of course, "work less" is a lot harder to make money off of than "lose weight", so any science that can be twisted to prop up the weight loss industry will get spread far and wide.

Re: Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

#125

The title is disappointing: it implies a causal relationship. The study was an observational study. Indeed, you can outrun a bad diet: we all know that. The study just shows that the lack of activity isn't the main reason for obesity. Both things can be true simultaneously.

"Running is a statistically ineffective means of weight reduction" doesn't make for a catchy headline. This can suffice.

Re: Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Wise Cheez Doodles Honey Bbq Cheese Flavored Corn Snacks, Honey; Bbq; Cheese >CORN MEAL, VEGETABLE OIL (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: CORN, COTTONSEED, SUNFLOWER, OR CANOLA OIL), SUGAR, SALT, HONEY, CORN STARCH, FRUCTOSE, WHEY, DEXTROSE MONOHYDRATE, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE (FLAVOR ENHANCER), TOMATO POWDER, CHEDDAR CHEESE, (CULTURED MILK, SALT ENZYMES), ONION POWDER, BUTTER (CREAM, SALT), BLUE CHEESE FLAVOR, BU…

[flagged]

I cook basically all my meals but also have no fear of "unnatural" ingredients (I have a shaker of msg right next to the stove, I have cooked mac and cheese with sodium citrate, etc) and no, this ingredient list is not like normal home cooked meals.

Some of it is typical flavoring stuff, onion powder, etc, that could easily show up on a list of spices in a home dish.

But a big part of the list is the stuff you see in highly engineered food product only: maltodextrin, dextrose monohydrate, yellow 5, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate, sodium phosphate, etc.

No "home cooked meal of home grown fruits and vegetables" has a similar ingredient list to this.

Re: Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

#127
Whenever the topic of weight loss comes up, I always make the same recommendation: Lift weights. Lifting weights increases your muscle mass. Muscle burns calories, even at rest, which raises your TDEE. (A bodybuilder will burn more calories sitting on the couch than someone who doesn't lift weights). For most folks (myself included) cardio sucks. You _could_ jog for an hour every day and burn x-hundred calories due to the increased energy expended... Or you could go lift weights a few times a week, and after a couple months, naturally burn more at rest due to increased muscle mass.

I say this as not a nutritionist nor a doctor, but I don't believe I'm off base here. Feel free to correct me on this if I am.

Re: Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

#128

Unsurprisingly, the title is sensationalist and not representative of the study. The study compares energy expenditure across different economic groups i.e. western people sitting in offices versus hunter-gatherers in Africa, and found that difference in energy expenditure does not account for differences in obesity, so points to consumption as the likely reason. The sample dataset explicitly excluded 'athletes', so…

> The sample dataset explicitly excluded 'athletes', so would exclude people that _are_ outrunning a bad diet. You can't outrun a bad diet. This is such a myth and I have no idea where it's coming from. Perhaps it's a nice lie one can tell himself to continue eating junk and not feel guilty about it. Athletes, especially body builders require a lot of calories but their diet is surprisingly healthy. They eat plenty o…

And then there's Michael Phelps, living proof you can outrun (or at least outswim) just about any diet you can imagine. He's obviously an extreme, but he's not the only example.

Re: Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

#129
I do not have time for lots of exercise beyond the occasional walk but I hated that I was 40lb over my healthy/ideal weight I used to be. So I simply ignored all the tactics of others in my life chronically struggling to lose weight or keep it of and did the research on the Standard American Diet.

All data pointed to Americans simply consume way way too many processed foods, carbs, and artificial sugars. No one should be surprised, but no one wants to change this because shit food tastes so good. I simply dropped all high processed foods, dropped to about 100g of carbs a day, and cut out soda completely. All the extra weight fell right off over 6 months. I did nothing else. Also my dopamine response has changed and healthy food and canned sparkling water now feels as good to consume as fast food and soda used to.

Meanwhile friends with the same problem try lots of exercise and never lose any weight, and others use ozempic with no diet changes and also lose no weight. No one wants to hear they have to do something as hard as a permanent major diet change, but blame biology and terrible nutrition education. I am just the messenger.

YMMV, but my own experience certainly agrees with this study.

Commit to stop eating like an overweight American long term and you are likely to stop looking like one.

Re: Diet, not lack of exercise, drives obesity, a new study finds

#130
post #7

This is true to an extent and I'm very fond of the saying, but beyond a certain point you can indeed outrun a bad diet. I used to spend ~4 hours a day training martial arts (kickboxing, BJJ, etc) during which time I could eat almost anything I wanted without gaining weight. I'm sure if I had downed a cheesecake a day it would've been bad for me, but I was able to get away with a level of excess back then that I am un…

Yeah, this is a scale problem. You can hop on a plane and go from a driving-city to a walking city, look around and see the difference. I can't accept that this doesn't matter. But if you take the common American diet where the bread of your sandwich is shelf-stable because it's packed with sugar and oil, and that's before we even talk about portion size, "more running than most people want to do" quickly becomes "re…

Well yeah, the sugar is also there to produce the soft squishy texture people expect from sandwich bread as well as the aiding the Maillard reaction when it's grilled. Miss me with a grilled cheese made with any other kind of loaf.

But we are talking about bread here, even in the absence of sugar and oil it's still got plenty of calories for you. Grain St Methode's white bread, a no added sugar brand is 180 cals for two slices and Wonder Bread, famously packed with sugar, is 140 cals for two slices. It's the bread which is making you fat, the sugar isn't moving the needle in any direction as far as the obesity crisis is concerned.

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