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Always Hungry? Here’s Why

nytimes.com

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Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#31

Post by dlp211 »

tpeng wrote: post #30

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 cognitiv…

"The metabolic slowdown discussed in the article has marginal effects if any -- perhaps a couple hundred calories worth per day."

I'm sorry, but that is not a marginal effect. That is the difference between weight gain and weight loss. Also, if you read the article you would have noticed that a calorie deficit is not the only thing that necessitates weight loss, in fact, it might not help at all. There are good calories and bad calories, and how your body handles each depends on the source of the calorie.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#32

Post by igravious »

morgante wrote: post #17
igravious wrote: post #13

Would it be going too far to say the type of person who would most benefit from the nutritional advice of this column is also unlikely to be the type of person who reads the New York Times. And to the person who says that what people put into their mouths is, "generally out of their control" - imagine a legal setting and some crime committed, the only way to claim diminished responsibility is to be a minor or plead v…

> Would it be going too far to say the type of person who would most benefit from the nutritional advice of this column is also unlikely to be the type of person who reads the New York Times. Um, yes. I don't at all understand your point. That's the most ridiculous point I've heard in a long time. Are you somehow insinuating that overweight people are not well-read or intelligent? The many, many overweight NYT reader…

> That's the most ridiculous point I've heard in a long time.

How is it ridiculous? It's not a personal slur on you. Do you deny that people from lower socio-economic backgrounds generally suffer more from overweight issues and obesity? Wouldn't you say that people from this type of background are less likely to consume their mass media in the form of the New York Times?

> Being overweight is in no way equivalent to a crime.

That's not what I said. Read again what I wrote. Another example. I smoke cigarettes. Should I not take responsibility for this? If I can't stop smoking is it "out of my control"? I'm not making a binary choice out of anything, I'm just contesting the following comment elsewhere here (I should have made a separate comment): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7762934

> The food and quality of food that is available to many people is a factor, which is could be said is generally out of their control. I don't think it's helpful to blame the individual as we are all part of systems.

There is nowhere in the developed world where you can't buy decent fresh food. At some point along the way some of the responsibility must lie with the person who is choosing to buy one type of food over another because perhaps its pre-made, pre-packaged, hits their pleasure centres, whatever. I guess it relates back to my first point in that I imagine that people like this may not be as informed about nutrition as you or I. And if they are informed then what?

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#33

Post by tpeng »

dlp211 wrote: post #31
tpeng wrote: post #30

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 cognitiv…

"The metabolic slowdown discussed in the article has marginal effects if any -- perhaps a couple hundred calories worth per day." I'm sorry, but that is not a marginal effect. That is the difference between weight gain and weight loss. Also, if you read the article you would have noticed that a calorie deficit is not the only thing that necessitates weight loss, in fact, it might not help at all. There are good calor…

I recently went from bulking to cutting and went from 3500 calories per day to 2000 per day. You are massively underestimating caloric intake shifts that are possible or necessary.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#34

Post by toyg »

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.

Italian here. To start, there is immense peer pressure over physical appearance - god forbid a neighbour might see you in a tracksuit when you're buying some milk on Saturday morning, let alone seeing you as fat. Then you have cities built for walking, not driving, which makes a HUGE difference in the quantity of everyday low-intensity physical exercise. Then you have strict quality controls on traditional food manufacturing. Then you have a general obsession with cooking every day.

This said, as US-style food becomes more mainstream (thank you, Hollywood), obesity rates are going up in Italy as well.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#35

Post by nowlnowl »

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, Sweden is up there too so...

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#36

Post by HarrietJones »

Saying that fat contains twice the calories as carbs ignores the plain fact that carbs contain a hell of a lot of calories.

This is the problem with modern eating. We don't realise how many calories there are in a slice of bread or a bowl of pasta.

Low carb works because people can't seem to understand that flour is 95% the energy density of sugar, and it's easier for them to trick themselves into calorie restriction by pretending that carbs are metabolised in a weird fat making way than it is for them to understand that wheat contains a lot of calories.

Also - people don't realise that after you've done all the calculations - eating an extra pound of fat will make you weigh roughly an extra pound.

Here's my diet advice: If the thing you're eating is used in nature as an energy store, then it's probably packed with calories.

The article sets off alarm bells with me, because it places so much emphasis on slowing metabolisms at the beginning. As far as I'm aware, your metabolism doesn't slow down until you're close to starvation (all reserves used), and the reduction in energy output caused by the slowing metabolism is minor. Speed of metabolism seems to be something only people on the dodgy end of the weight loss spectrum believe in.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#37

Post by ajcarpy2005 »

SatoshiPacioli wrote: post #10
Udo wrote: post #3

There seems to be a pervasive unwillingness to understand the nature of positive feedback cycles, and instead we're just continually hearing "fat because of intake" and "intake because of fat" arguments that try to fall on an extreme interpretation of simplified causality. This article belongs to the very few that actually do a job of describing a feedback cycle, but then it falls short and does the popular simplific…

There's a wealth of information on ketogenic (low to no carb) diets: http://www.reddit.com/r/keto Everyone serious about this understands that carbs are the problem.

Or for underweight people, part of the solution.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#38

Post by wfjackson »

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.

Portion sizes and things like not downing a couple of glasses of sugary soda with a meal and then finishing with a 1000 calorie dessert make a big difference.

http://djstrouse.com/italy-small-portions-smaller-people/

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#39

Post by VLM »

rav wrote: post #6

I was moderately shocked and confused at the pasta/cake illustration midway in the article.

WRT "confused", google for the term "glycemic index" or "glycemic load per serving"

Its an artistic illustration of Betty Crocker vanilla cake and vanilla frosting having a GI of 42 and a total glps around 24 (for 111 grams) vs kraft mac n cheese having a GI of 64 and total glps around 32 (for 180 grams). (Yes I actually looked this up not just make up example)

Some of this is political BS in that the serving size for the mac n cheese is about 60% larger than the serving size for the cake. None the less it is a medical experimental fact that your blood sugar level will spike about 50% harder after the pasta than after the cake. Probably all the oil in the cake, and grease (if purchased) or butter (if homemade) in the frosting, and egg in the cake (intended as an emulsifier rather than a protein source).

But yeah, like it or not, WRT blood sugar levels, at the end of dinner, you're WAY better off eating a serving of cake than going back for seconds of pasta. Crazy but true.

Now notice that the total glycemic load is what annoys / kills your pancreas, so cake is slightly worse (per gram of serving). However wild crazy fluctuations in blood sugar both drive your brain crazy and screw up the rest of your body, so pasta is worse for that. Your pancreas is not in charge of the quantity of food you eat, so the net effect is eating "more cake and less pasta" will in the long run loose weight or at least result in less weight gain.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#40

Post by JoeAltmaier »

rayiner wrote: post #26

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. Avoidin…

The advice is sound. You get fat from the stuff that goes in your piehole. Stop putting so much stuff in there. The flaw is not in the argument. The flaw is in the people.

THAT's thinking like an Engineer.

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