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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

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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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…

Nit: MSG is naturally occuring in a lot of foods.

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

#192

For most people, a 1 hour moderate run is only about 1-2 cookies worth (and only half a Crumbl cookie). Even a marathon run might only burn 2000 calories . a chipotle burrito is 1600 . In other words, for 95% of people doing activity, they shouldn't eat any surplus if their goal is to maintain or lose weight. It's actually best to do most of your activity undernourished, as it helps develop true intuitive nutrition f…

Strava said I burned near 4k calories on my last marathon.

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

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can't accept that this doesn't matter. It's not that it doesn't matter, it's the asymmetry. You can eat a small chocolate bar that costs $1 (or whatever) in about 15 seconds, and it will take you 2 hours of walking to wear off the calories.

It's more complicated than this, because muscle raises your basal metabolic rate. If you look at bodybuilders, they're buring 400 calories a day, regardless of exercise. Having an extra 100 pounds of muscle means your body just burns A LOT of calories doing absolutely nothing. This is part of the reason why men burn more calories than woman just right out of the gate.

A pound of fat burns ~3 calories, while muscle is ~8 per day. Sure, it is different, but unless you are the Rock, most people do not have enough muscle mass to make a difference.

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

#194
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

Sure but for the purposes of mass communication or creating helpful and memorable aphorisms "you can't out run a bad diet" is an appropriate summarization of the research.

If it's all ppl get out of it, the worst that might happen is that a handful of up & coming elite athletes might need their coaches to help them unlearn it, as opposed to the status quo where literal millions of ppl are trying & failing to outrun their diets.

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

#195

It ought to be obvious. A chocolate donut, large Frappuccino or pick your unhealthy food of choice are about equivalent to half an hour of running. Given how many people throw in a snack like that several times per day good luck burning that off with exercise. One of the most straight forward things to lose weight is just limiting yourself to two or three actual meals, black coffee, tea, etc.

Starbucks did an impressive job of convincing people they love coffee when a lot of them actually just like morning/mid-day dessert with some trace coffee flavoring.

Nobody who is ordering a frapachino is convinced they are ordering because they like coffee, especially considering that the half of the frapachino menu is non-coffee flavors.

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

#196
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is such a myth and I have no idea where it's coming from. For people that are merely trying to lose weight, it's effectively true. When you're out of shape, you won't have the strength or endurance to exercise long and hard enough to actually burn significant calories. For athletes that are running marathons or doing powerlifting, yes, it's certainly false. Massive bodybuilders that are already deadlifting hun…

Powerlifting does not take as many calories as you'd think. In fact, lifting in general is surprisingly easy on the calorie requirement, so most powerlifters and bodybuilders incorporate cardio as part of their routine. You will burn a lot more calories by walking 10,000 steps a day for 1 month than you would doing an intense lifting session each day. The reason you're probably thinking as to why lifters eat a huge a…

A vigorous weightlifting workout for an hour will burn about 400kcal[1], which is roughly equivalent to walking 10k steps depending on your body weight. Another way to think of this is 100 minutes of brisk walking will round out to about 400kcal.

You don't really burn more calories walking, it's just easy to do and fit in around other things.

[1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323922#calculating...

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

#197

I have been, rather lazily I suppose, trying to tweak my diet in such as way as to lose weight; and with little to show for it. I'm not sure that there is much if any processed food still in my diet (maybe just the English muffin in the morning?). I stopped buying/drinking soda pop decades ago (a low-hanging fruit indeed — I lost almost 10 pounds within a month of making that dietary change alone). And since I have t…

As much as it sucks. Tracking calories is very helpful. Commit to 1-2 months of tracking and you can train yourself to better eyeball what you're eating. It's very hard to just 'eat healthy' to lose weight if you don't have a baseline of calorie content of food. Like I straight up just don't eat nut butters anymore because they are a massive calorie bomb, and I find the loose nuts more satiating. When you track for a…

> As much as it sucks. Tracking calories is very helpful. Commit to 1-2 months of tracking and you can train yourself to better eyeball what you're eating. It's very hard to just 'eat healthy' to lose weight if you don't have a baseline of calorie content of food.

Just to add to this - periodically track again as well and keep track of your weight progress and bodyfat % if you are able.

If you aren't also building muscle, as you lose weight your total energy expenditure will decrease as well so after a while what was enough of a calorie deficit for you may no longer be in a deficit as you lose weight. So if you notice you start stalling after a while, start tracking again to see if your TDEE has changed and adjust as needed.

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is such a myth and I have no idea where it's coming from. For people that are merely trying to lose weight, it's effectively true. When you're out of shape, you won't have the strength or endurance to exercise long and hard enough to actually burn significant calories. For athletes that are running marathons or doing powerlifting, yes, it's certainly false. Massive bodybuilders that are already deadlifting hun…

My anecdata: - a year of busting my ass on the bike almost daily: -15kg - a year of restricting calories to ~1200/day and not doing much else: -40kg - 2 years of sitting in my apartment being afraid of COVID and drinking too much: +50kg Conclusion: booze is a really great way to put on a lot of weight quickly

If you're drinking beer or wine it is certainly very calorie dense. You're looking at 208 kcal per pint of beer or 123 kcal for a 5oz pour of wine. A pound of fat takes about 3,500 excess calories, or 16 pints of beer. So if you drink 2 a day all else equal you could gain nearly 1 lb a week.

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

#199
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is such a myth and I have no idea where it's coming from. For people that are merely trying to lose weight, it's effectively true. When you're out of shape, you won't have the strength or endurance to exercise long and hard enough to actually burn significant calories. For athletes that are running marathons or doing powerlifting, yes, it's certainly false. Massive bodybuilders that are already deadlifting hun…

Powerlifting does not take as many calories as you'd think. In fact, lifting in general is surprisingly easy on the calorie requirement, so most powerlifters and bodybuilders incorporate cardio as part of their routine. You will burn a lot more calories by walking 10,000 steps a day for 1 month than you would doing an intense lifting session each day. The reason you're probably thinking as to why lifters eat a huge a…

You’re wrong about that, look up videos of strongmen and bodybuilder meals/eating routines. The 2 hour workouts at the top of these fields are very calorie intensive.

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

#200
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…

Anecdotal counterpoint:

I have been quite sedentary for several years, since going fully remote.

I had seasons where I would gain wait and lose weight, and my level of activity remained unchanged.

A few years ago, I started paying more attention to my weight, and got to where I was consistently in my ideal weight range. Again, level of activity remained unchanged.

About a year ago, I started indoor cycling (Zwift) quite regularly — about 2.5 hours per week, averaging right in the middle of my target heart rate zone. Diet remained the same. Weight remained mostly unchanged (still in my ideal weight range — I’ve maybe lost 5 or so pounds, but I lost way more weight when only changing my diet).

So — for me — diet has definitely had more impact on my weight than my level of activity.

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