Why We Get Fat • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We Get Fat

#51

Post by anthonyb » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 11:39 PM UTC

funkwyrm wrote: post #41

The big mistake begins here: "Simple physics requires that to lose weight, we must burn more calories than we ingest" THAT fallacy is how the author leads the reader in to HIS strawman argument, that somehow Taubes is unaware of, or disregards, the laws of thermodynamics. 1) Ingesting calories is not relevant, digesting is. 2) We don't "burn" any calories whatsoever. We use various components of food as raw materials…

He's also completely overlooking the overfeeding studies that Taubes references in his books. Eating 10000 calories of cheese or pork chops is a lot harder than with ice cream.

Re: Why We Get Fat

#52

Post by hazov » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 11:41 PM UTC

hunvreus wrote: post #27

tgrowaway wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thing is , we don't know if that is due to paleo or due to being mindful of our eating and thus not overeating. So in a way, the diet can mask what really makes you lose weights, I.e. eating less and working out (if you do) I think the more popular diets stick around because they are balanced enough to not make you sick and complex enough to make you watch how much you eat. The rest is due to personal preferences.

I was a vegetarian for 3 years before that and have been very careful with my diet for all of my adult life. I've cooked most of my meals in the past 15 years and have felt a striking contrast in health since I cut carb out of my diet, including weight loss.

Do you spend almost all of your day in front of a computer?

One more question, do you practice any sport regularly?

Re: Why We Get Fat

#53

Post by sxp » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 11:42 PM UTC

funkwyrm wrote: post #41

The big mistake begins here: "Simple physics requires that to lose weight, we must burn more calories than we ingest" THAT fallacy is how the author leads the reader in to HIS strawman argument, that somehow Taubes is unaware of, or disregards, the laws of thermodynamics. 1) Ingesting calories is not relevant, digesting is. 2) We don't "burn" any calories whatsoever. We use various components of food as raw materials…

The calories in/calories out model does work as long as you properly count the calories going in. The number shouldn't be what's on the nutrition label since that assumes an ideal digestive system that can fully extract all the energy from the food that a person eats.

This number doesn't include factors such as the health of the person. If the person has digestive problems such an a malfunctioning intestine and can't digest and absorb the energy from the food, then amount of calories extracted from the food will be lower than what's on the label.

If the person has metabolic problems such diabetes or certain other hormonal imbalances, then the energy will be extracted from the food, but it will be stored as fat rather than being used as useful energy. The person will feel tired even though they are consuming enough calories.

Reducing food intake or increasing energy consumption will help a person lose weight if all other factors stay the same. However, as a person consumes less food, they might end up feeling tired and crappy due to the body trying to compensate. Alternatively, changing a person's hormonal balance (e.g. by consuming low glycemic load foods to reduce insulin spikes and allow better utilization of energy in the food) will also cause a person to lose weight. This is the basis of the good calories/bad calories model of dieting, the Atkin's diet, and Tim Ferriss's Slow Carb Diet.

Re: Why We Get Fat

#54

Post by Someone » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 11:48 PM UTC

derleth wrote: post #36

jdminhbg wrote: post #2

"So, why does it get warmer in the summer?" "Because our hemisphere takes in more calories than it gives off, causing it to get warmer." "Well, I mean I suppose that's true in the strictest sense, but is there a reason we can come up with tha--" "What, you don't believe in thermodynamics? What a crackpot!"

> "What, you don't believe in thermodynamics? What a crackpot!" Come back to me when you've heard a few people say that it is physically impossible for them to lose weight regardless of what they do. They think they could be eating nothing but celery and water and still maintain an upwards trend. Thermodynamics works. That means it is always possible to lose weight, not that it is always easy. A weight-loss plan that…

I agree with your remark, but would like to make an addition: apart from diet and exercise, there is a third variable that controls the calorie balance: culture/customs. For example, the amount of clothing one wears and the temperature at which one keeps ones living quarters in winter affects calories 'out', as does what one does while waiting for a cab/train/appointment (standing still vs walking around). Those are areas where I think easy gains can be made, even when forgetting about the elephant in the room 'get out of your car', which, apparently, is very hard to do for many people.

And, as with all dieting related stuff, for most people, there is no need for drastic action. Gaining 3 grams of body weight per day brings you 20 kg extra body weight going from 20 years to 40 years of age; that is what happens to most people. Your diet/exercise plan, similarly, is good enough if it leads to 3 grams of weight loss a day.

Re: Why We Get Fat

#55

Post by anthonyb » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 11:51 PM UTC

super_mario wrote: post #14

I challenge the author to load himself on steak and saturated fats and no carbs and come race me 100 miles on a road bike. I burn in excess of 4000 Calories on a 80 mile bike ride. That's a kilogram of rice on a single ride. And honestly I find it incredibly hard to eat enough just to satisfy the energy requirements of racing. Not eating carbs and attempting an endurance race event is just suicidal and guaranteed way…

If you're used to burning carbs sure, since you'll have high insulin levels. It takes time to build up to the point where you're able to burn fat easily.

http://www.endurancecorner.com/Fat_Burning_Essentials2

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2012/06/nutrition/inside-tri...

Re: Why We Get Fat

#56

Post by anthonyb » Sat, Dec 08, 2012, 11:56 PM UTC

Someone wrote: post #54

derleth wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What, you don't believe in thermodynamics? What a crackpot!" Come back to me when you've heard a few people say that it is physically impossible for them to lose weight regardless of what they do. They think they could be eating nothing but celery and water and still maintain an upwards trend. Thermodynamics works. That means it is always possible to lose weight, not that it is always easy. A weight-loss plan that…

I agree with your remark, but would like to make an addition: apart from diet and exercise, there is a third variable that controls the calorie balance: culture/customs. For example, the amount of clothing one wears and the temperature at which one keeps ones living quarters in winter affects calories 'out', as does what one does while waiting for a cab/train/appointment (standing still vs walking around). Those are…

Except that it's not that easy. Your body will conserve energy if you're hungry, making you feel colder and more lethargic. If you go without a sweater, you'll burn more calories and end up eating more.

Re: Why We Get Fat

#57

Post by hazov » Sun, Dec 09, 2012, 12:08 AM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #22

lambda wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fell like there's an awful lot of confirmation bias in people's reports of how well low-carb diets work, just like there was back when low-fat diets were the big fad. In general, any deliberate change in your diet is likely to lead to results, at least in the short term, as you're paying that much more attention to what you're eating. This is similar to the strength of the placebo effect in medical studies; one rea…

"with fats and proteins; a lot of people eat more meat as a result. Eating a lot of meat can increase your chances of getting certain kinds of cancer. I've seen studies that showed that in the long run, low-carb and low-calorie diets had about the same effects for weight loss, but the low-carb dieters were at a slightly higher risk for cancer due to the extra meat they ate." I have yet to see a true scientific study…

"following tens of thousands of people over 30 years"

That's called a cohort, it's a well studied method in statistics and depending on the size of the sample and the number of studies you can build correlations out of these.

As your sample gets larger the population for the proportion of heavy meat eaters and the rest of your sample tend to normalize in almost every variable[1], that means the median of every other observable variable will be close to the general population's value for both groups, and you can assume that the quantity of meat is the sole variable worthy of analysis.

Mind you that the use of statistics in health and social sciences is because these fields are not physics, we can't find general solutions based on the present state of affairs putting some number on a equation. How many people will get cancer or whatever.

I doubt this was the type of study that are used in this case because a cohort study is really expensive to conduct, generally this type of study is conducted more using the Case-control method which makes than more affordable.

The fact that if you conduct such a study and find that heavy meat eaters get more cancer or heavy coffee drinkers live more doesn't mean that every coffee drinker will live more or that there will be much more heavy meat eaters with cancer than the rest of the population, it will only means that some epidemiological indices are higher in a group than in the other.

If you really wish to test both hypothesis you must do the same study as many times as you can and try to use the median of these indices obtained in the same study for both populations, the median is a robust measure and see if they are too distant numerically one from the other.

Of course, this can still proves nothing and only find that correlations are in fact established. It can simply be that rich people live longer and get more cancer than the rest and both drinking coffee and eating too much meat be associated with income.

[1]: That's not exactly true you can have confounding variables in your data, which sadly sometimes are not included in the data, when they are you could read the methods of controlling this developed by Mantel and Haenszel.

Re: Why We Get Fat

#58

Post by jrs235 » Sun, Dec 09, 2012, 12:26 AM UTC

funkwyrm wrote: post #41

The big mistake begins here: "Simple physics requires that to lose weight, we must burn more calories than we ingest" THAT fallacy is how the author leads the reader in to HIS strawman argument, that somehow Taubes is unaware of, or disregards, the laws of thermodynamics. 1) Ingesting calories is not relevant, digesting is. 2) We don't "burn" any calories whatsoever. We use various components of food as raw materials…

Was waiting to see someone to make the distinction between ingestion and digestion.

Most people would consider me skinny... and I always eating and often things that most would consider fattening or unhealthy. People will remark, "How do you stay so skinny?! You're so lucky!"... Except, I would be willing to bet that I have a digestive disorder. Which one? I don't know and I don't care to find out. For the most part it hasn't/doesn't adversely affect me.

It seems that much of what I eat doesn't get digested and/or absorbed by my body.

tl;dr; There's a difference between ingestion and digestion. I ingest a lot but probably don't digest much of it.

Update: I have strong reasons to believe I have a digestive disorder since they run in my family. Also, I wonder how many calories I burn from being a "leg shaker".

Re: Why We Get Fat

#59

Post by Mz » Sun, Dec 09, 2012, 12:34 AM UTC

jrs235 wrote: post #58

funkwyrm wrote: post #41

The big mistake begins here: "Simple physics requires that to lose weight, we must burn more calories than we ingest" THAT fallacy is how the author leads the reader in to HIS strawman argument, that somehow Taubes is unaware of, or disregards, the laws of thermodynamics. 1) Ingesting calories is not relevant, digesting is. 2) We don't "burn" any calories whatsoever. We use various components of food as raw materials…

Was waiting to see someone to make the distinction between ingestion and digestion. Most people would consider me skinny... and I always eating and often things that most would consider fattening or unhealthy. People will remark, "How do you stay so skinny?! You're so lucky!"... Except, I would be willing to bet that I have a digestive disorder. Which one? I don't know and I don't care to find out. For the most part…

I am someone who was diagnosed late in life with a condition which includes but is not limited to a digestive disorder. I have trouble with the idea that you can have a digestive disorder and see no real problems from it. From what I gather, they typically have serious problems associated with them. So it makes me wonder if you have some seemingly unrelated health issues?

You can email me if you would rather not say publically.

Re: Why We Get Fat

#60

Post by hunvreus » Sun, Dec 09, 2012, 12:34 AM UTC

hazov wrote: post #52

hunvreus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a vegetarian for 3 years before that and have been very careful with my diet for all of my adult life. I've cooked most of my meals in the past 15 years and have felt a striking contrast in health since I cut carb out of my diet, including weight loss.

Do you spend almost all of your day in front of a computer? One more question, do you practice any sport regularly?

I spend most of my days in an office indeed, as I work in tech. That being said, I've always worked out regularly (especially cardio) and biked to work for the past 7 years. I would say switching to "lifting heavy things" instead of focusing on running probably helped too (though it precedes my paleo diet).