Live data from Hacker News

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

npr.org

251–260 of 396 posts

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

#251

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…

This isn't the first study to show that our bodies adjust to fairly set caloric expenditure - the constrained total energy expenditure model isn't new, and Ponztner and his team aren't the first to advocate for it, but we should be clear that he is an advocate for it, and has been for a while.

Obviously, energy has to come from somewhere, so enough exercise will overcome any adaptations your body makes, but the current evidence seems to suggest that there is a lot of wiggle room for your body to cut energy expenditure to make up for any exercising you do. The evidence suggests this takes time, but it does also suggest that the 20 minutes on the bike daily that helped you drop some pounds at the start will not do much for your weight a year in.

I don't know if it's true or not, but when I first read one of the studies, it did make some intuitive sense to me - humans have spent much of their evolutionary history having to expend significant energy to procure food. If you had to walk 30,000 steps in a day to forage or hunt, it makes sense that limiting other movements while idle, etc., to help preserve energy stores would be beneficial.

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

#252

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…

> anyone who has done extensive 'athletic' physical activity knows that if you don't up your calorie intake that you will lose weight. Anyone who has done extensive athletic physical activity knows that you will up your calorie intake unless you take explicit and intentional effort not to.

[flagged]

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

#254

Abs are made in the kitchen, as they say.

That advice is usually more for people who are already fit but don't have abs.

You can maintain a healthy level of fitness by adding some exercise into your life and being mindful of what you eat. But maintaining abs is a whole other project you practically have to center your life around. And indeed, it's mostly a matter of very strict dieting.

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

#255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone who has done extensive 'athletic' physical activity knows that if you don't up your calorie intake that you will lose weight. Anyone who has done extensive athletic physical activity knows that you will up your calorie intake unless you take explicit and intentional effort not to.

Absolutely. This is one reason bodybuilders (the closest thing to professional dieters) will only do low intensity cardio -- walking etc -- when cutting weight. High intensity cardio burns calories but increases appetite disproportionately. Albeit otherwise excellent for overall health.

I hate /fit/ and the bodybuilding forums so much. Stupid memes like this, SS, GOMAD, and related exist and continue to be parroted because of them. No, using a segway to move in between weight machines will not preserve your gains.

The amount of mental gymnastics performed by these guys to justify hilariously stupid physical decisions is simply colossal. I applaud folks like Chloe Ting (a "cardio bunny" aesthetic youtuber who specialize in Calistenics) who roast these guys by challenging them (bodybuilder roid bros) to keep up with her on her exercise routines. Watching these dudes collapse again and again because they have pathetic endurance and don't do meaningful cardio reminds is delicious to say the least.

If you get your diet advice from Zyzz, Rich Piana, or the rest of the memeloards of fitness, you deserve what's coming to you. Don't skip leg day.

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

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone who has done extensive 'athletic' physical activity knows that if you don't up your calorie intake that you will lose weight. Anyone who has done extensive athletic physical activity knows that you will up your calorie intake unless you take explicit and intentional effort not to.

Absolutely. This is one reason bodybuilders (the closest thing to professional dieters) will only do low intensity cardio -- walking etc -- when cutting weight. High intensity cardio burns calories but increases appetite disproportionately. Albeit otherwise excellent for overall health.

literally get on a tredmill, angle it, and walk for an hour or two

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

#257
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly can your body adjust that much though? There is some minimum baseline level of calorie burn to stay alive and keep your body temp etc. If you workout enough calories that exceeds the minimum baseline to keep you alive, the body can't adapt below that or adapt into the negative. For a 200 lb man, jogging for 2 hours burns like 2000 calories, so that's 12,000 a week for 6 times a week. What's the lowest a b…

> For a 200 lb man, jogging for 2 hours burns like 2000 calories ogging a mile will burn around 100kcal, a bit more if you're decently overweight, let's be generous and say 150kcal. Someone who isn't in good shape and is overweight (the kind of person we're likely talking about) isn't going to be running that fast, maybe 3mph. So that's 6 miles in 2 hours. Even if I'm incredibly generous and say they'll burn 200kcal/…

I never really found the eating more when exercising more that compelling personally. I mainly meal prep and eat the same amount whether or not I work out and how hard I work out.

I feel like saying that someone is going to eat more because they are start exercising a lot is a separate topic. But I would think that someone who has the willpower to start exercising drastically more also has the willpower to control what they physically put in their mouth. I have personally found that stopping putting things in my mouth to eat is easier than getting myself to exercise as much as I would like to, so I don't think it's a guarantee that someone choosing to exercise more will automatically eat more.

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

#258

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…

This isn't the first study to show that our bodies adjust to fairly set caloric expenditure - the constrained total energy expenditure model isn't new, and Ponztner and his team aren't the first to advocate for it, but we should be clear that he is an advocate for it, and has been for a while. Obviously, energy has to come from somewhere, so enough exercise will overcome any adaptations your body makes, but the curre…

My understanding is that the research shows that a highly active hunter gathering and an inactive office worker burn roughly the same number of calories per day. But I find that hard to believe. What is the office worker's body doing to make up the difference for all the movement and muscle contraction?

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

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a chipotle burrito is actually 1600 calories unless you do something non-standard. Probably 800-1100

Fair enough but people are eating those daily plus 2 more meals. They don’t need any additional food , even if they were running a marathon every day

You're mistaking active calories as the only calories you burn a day. There's a reason the caloric intake recommendation is ~2kcal/day, because your RMR (resting metabolic rate) is ~2kcal/day. Meaning if you were to literally sit in bed all day, you are "burning" ~2kcal/day. On top of that you have your incidental energy expenditure per day (TDEE), aka walking to the fridge, taking a shit, general locomotion, etc. You then have active calories burned on top of that. If you were to run a marathon, that means you would need to eat ~5kcal in one day to break even.

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

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does because you framed it as a matter of timing.

The timing makes me lose weight. The mechanism by which it does so is a black box.

But this black box has "you eat less calories" written in whiteout across it.
Post reply on HN