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Always Hungry? Here’s Why

nytimes.com

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Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#21

Post by joel_perl_prog »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTuJ6r1F2hA

I've been helping my family and friends with this recipe, and it's changing lives. Literally. My father, who I taught how to eat vegetarian, has stopped needing insulin! (After heading steadily down the standard American road...sad...)

If you add this smoothie to your daily life, and change nothing else, you will feel better. A lot better. You can still eat bacon and eggs for breakfast (I don't recommend that, but you can), and you can still eat a pulled pork sandwich for dinner (also, don't recommend), but if you have this smoothie around the middle of the day, you will feel better and experience benefits. More or less immediately from day one.

You are quite literally what you eat. How could it possibly be otherwise?

EDIT: easily worth any down votes I may receive here. Computer enthusiasts and professionals, for the most part, in my observation, have a huge blind spot for their health. Huge. So down vote away, my friends. As long as you are also involved in your health!

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#22

Post by moron4hire »

One of the problems is that, when you are hungry, you are least likely to succeed at deciding to not overeat. Will power is a function of energy. It's why it's so easy for me to decide on things before bed, when I feel the most awake, and find it nearly impossible to pull through on them when I first wake, when I feel the most tired.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#23

Post by coffeedrinker »

kome wrote: post #16

Obesity rates in Europe (2008): http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50326000/gif/_50326564... Why Italians, that eat pasta (carbohydrates) almost every day are so thin? Goddammit.

I do not know if this has anything to do with anything, but I do know that warmer weather affects how much I eat.

Whether summering in Italy or in hot weather in the US, I don't experience hunger the same way as when I am in cold weather. My guess is my body does not need as much energy to generate heat, and I tend to drink much more water (sweating) than have a desire for food.

Of course, this is my personal experience and genetics and does not explain obesity rates in hotter parts of the US (unless rather than water people are drinking Coke).

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#24

Post by FLUX-YOU »

exratione wrote: post #2

Everyone wants to be told that it isn't their fault that bad things have happened. Its a pernicious, harmful urge most often on display in courtrooms and discussions on weight and diet. Unfortunately reality is what it is: if you eat without consideration and control in this modern world of low-cost calories, then you will get fat. Accepting and acknowledging that you are 100% accountable as to what and how much you…

>Accepting and acknowledging that you are 100% accountable as to what and how much you eat is a necessary first step to avoiding that end state.

You are technically correct, except in the case of children who were raised with terrible eating habits and found themselves with the same habits and damage in adulthood. In my (terribly uninformed) opinion, I think this is more common than we give it credit, and the behavioral effects of several years or more of terrible eating is more powerful and controlling than we give it credit.

The statement "You are 100% accountable" is very good for empowering individuals to change, but it is commonly confused as something intended to shame.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#25

Post by delluminatus »

Mexxer wrote: post #11

Is this something new for the American population? Hasn't this been known for years or decades already? That's why there are low-carb diets. Put that in combination with calorie intake and exercise and your fat will gradually disappear. It's not exactly rocket science.

Of course this isn't new information for people who make an effort to learn and care about their health. There has been a big push in America towards low-carb diets thanks to Dr. Atkins, although it's unclear that a ketogenic diet has higher utility than some other kinds of calorie restriction.

But, there are many people in America that don't care enough to know, and more to the point, we benefit in motivation from every reminder that our eating habits are fucked up.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#26

Post by rayiner »

People who say "just eat less" aren't thinking like engineers. Engineers don't get to ignore the wrenches thrown into the works by reality. If seemingly simple advice fails for almost everyone, then the advice is flawed and someone thinking like an engineer has to figure out how to work around those flaws.

I don't know if low-carb diets are the full solution, but I think they're at least part of the solution. Avoiding carbs is a simple rule that let's you avoid eating too many calories with relatively less effort than trying to stick to a low-calorie balanced diet. Its easy to blow through 200-300 calories of bagle without even a thought, not so much for an equivalent amount of bacon (6-7 slices).

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#27

Post by wuliwong »

kome wrote: post #16

Obesity rates in Europe (2008): http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50326000/gif/_50326564... Why Italians, that eat pasta (carbohydrates) almost every day are so thin? Goddammit.

I believe your mistake comes in the assumption that Italians' diet contains a disproportionate amount of pasta. American-Italian cuisine has that leaning for sure but I doubt their obesity rates are lower than the rest of the US population.

I lived in Pisa for 2 months and was surprised to find that the cuisine (at least in the region I stayed) focused heavily on seafood. I believe the cuisine in Sicily is a little closer to the pasta/tomato sauce centric cuisine which I grew up with in the Philadelphia area. But still, I am certain their is far more seafood in Sicily than one might think. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been surprised at the amount of seafood in the cuisine in Italy, it's a skinny peninsula and Sicily is an island. :) There is also the difference in portion sizes in Italy vs the US. I certainly have no data to support that but my anecdotal experience is in line with the hypothesis.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#28

Post by VLM »

exratione wrote: post #2

Everyone wants to be told that it isn't their fault that bad things have happened. Its a pernicious, harmful urge most often on display in courtrooms and discussions on weight and diet. Unfortunately reality is what it is: if you eat without consideration and control in this modern world of low-cost calories, then you will get fat. Accepting and acknowledging that you are 100% accountable as to what and how much you…

Experience with the root cause of stomach ulcers and mental illness would seem to indicate the philosophical moral arguments about "weakness" and "accountability" eventually end up sounding obsolete, regretted, and medieval.

"if you eat without consideration and control" the battle is you vs an entire army of PR people and biochemists focused on defeating you for profit. My betting money is on the army. The moral and ethical failure is creating a civilization designed to kill in exchange for a few making high profits, its not a moral or ethical failure for some wanna-be Rambo's getting wiped out by the combined arms attack of an entire army. Or, a "hate the game not the players" argument.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#29

Post by kaybe »

coffeedrinker wrote: post #23
kome wrote: post #16

Obesity rates in Europe (2008): http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50326000/gif/_50326564... Why Italians, that eat pasta (carbohydrates) almost every day are so thin? Goddammit.

I do not know if this has anything to do with anything, but I do know that warmer weather affects how much I eat. Whether summering in Italy or in hot weather in the US, I don't experience hunger the same way as when I am in cold weather. My guess is my body does not need as much energy to generate heat, and I tend to drink much more water (sweating) than have a desire for food. Of course, this is my personal experie…

Well, ACs are rare in Italy..

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#30

Post by tpeng »

The stomach is not a good judge of whether you should be eating more or less food. For whatever reason, some individuals may be prone to overeating or undereating. If your natural eating tendencies have caused you to be over- or underweight, common sense says that you should stop listening to those natural urges.

The key to successful dieting is to transform eating from a biologically-mediated process into a cognitively-mediated process based on counting calories. Given this cognitive feedback, your stomach will actually adapt to a new calorie intake level, lessening hunger. Hunger can also be managed by eating more satiating foods and drinking water.

Caloric deficits (or surpluses) work like clockwork. The metabolic slowdown discussed in the article has marginal effects if any -- perhaps a couple hundred calories worth per day at most. A simple thought experiment shows us that the idea of a "set point" body weight is ludicrous: at starvation, of course, the body cannot possibly maintain weight.

The reasons why many people fail at dieting is that people underestimate the amount of effort/pain required:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18544_how-the-karate-kid-ruin...

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