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It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

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Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#71

Post by rasz_pl »

ZoFreX wrote: post #64
rasz_pl wrote: post #2

same story yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10309249 study relies on SELF REPORTING, need I say more?

What would we prefer, a study that relies on self-reporting but is a study nonetheless, or a bunch of theories based on entirely on anecdotes with a sample size of 1? I get this study isn't perfect but it seems silly that so many commenters here are disregarding it entirely yet are perfectly happy to listen to completely untested theories from people with no expertise whatsoever in the field.

We do know that self reporting is flawed, just ask your chubby "dieting" friend about donuts.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#72

Post by WalterSear »

odiroot wrote: post #37
thomasahle wrote: post #26

TL/DR: It's gotten harder to lose weight, because people eat more crap: artificial sweeteners, steroids, pollutants, plastic packaging, pesticides, meat, antidepressants. A positive read would be: if you want to be healthy, don't focus solely on energy intake, but also what chemicals you are subjecting your body to.

Artificial sweeteners are not a problem but a solution to natural sweeteners. The latter are a cause of diabetes.

Artificial sweeteners also strain the insulin system and cause fat storage to occur.Your body thinks they are sugars and treats the rest of your calorie intake accordingly

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#73

Post by dspillett »

imgabe wrote: post #42
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. Anecdote here, but I've found that for me the key to weight loss has been exercise-first. I decided that I'd never be very good at reducing my dietary input (I really enjoy food) so I focused instead on increasing my energy output by incorporating progressively more physical activity into my lifestyle. Over the past few years I have steadily and gradually r…

My own Saturday morning run is about 4 miles and burns ~500 calories according to Runkeeper, so I estimate you're running about 16 miles every Saturday? Do you really expect an overweight, out-of-shape person to jump into a 16-mile run to burn 2000 calories a week? If they drink 2 sodas a day, they could switch them to water or even diet soda and remove even more calories for less effort.

They should still do some exercise though: while changing your calorie output/intake difference is key and diet changes are the easiest way to do that, there is more to exercise than just burning calories. It is possible to be the perfect weight but still unhealthily unfit.

One thing to remember to account for with massive people: the bigger you are the more you burn moving the same distance. It takes effort to move that mass from place to place. I burn a lot less doing a 5K or 10K run now I weight approximately 10 stone than I did back when I was around 16.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#74

Post by dwc »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #65
dwc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like so many things, there is no single correct answer. For myself, if I focus on diet and not worry about exercise I find that I have to eat very little if I want to lose more than a few pounds. So little that I'm miserable all the time. Forever. On the flip side, if I exercise[1] I not only burn calories but increase muscle mass which burns more calories. Other people seem to do well with a focus on diet and not so…

I'm not suggesting diet doesn't matter; of course it does. But for me, every attempt to eat less failed. When I decided to focus on exercise instead, a subsequent effect was that the pattern of my approach to food started to change in positive ways.

Agreed. Me, too. I just wanted to point out that customization is pretty much required for success.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#75

Post by jrs235 »

aabajian wrote: post #4

"Weight management is actually much more complex than just ‘energy in’ versus ‘energy out." No, it's not. Maybe it's more difficult to measure calories (that salad ranch dressing has more calories than that hamburger), but people should be encouraged to balance their calorie intake everyday. For what it's worth, here's why Americans are obese: 50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs…

> "50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs / year"

"One late night, I had had enough of the infomercials and turned on PBS to find, sure enough, a fitness guy talking about diets. ... The fitness expert explained to the studio audience that the quick fixes lauded by late-night infomercials didn't work and that they weren't sustainable. He said that what we really need are simple lifestyle fixes that do not require us to change our natural tendencies, changes that make an impact before we have a chance to screw it up with our unhealthy food choices. And his first suggestion? Smaller plates.

Now riveted, I watched as the man explained that our natural human behavior is to fill our plates with food and, because Mom said so, clean that plate right up by eating everything on it. I still don't get Mom's logic--there are children starving in Africa, so I need to get fat? But the "clean-your-plate club" was instilled in me and probably in you, too. The message is ingrained. Changing that habit for a day is a no-brainer. But changing it permanently? That's hard. Some would say it's nearly impossible. This is why so many people who diet gain the weight back, why people rarely follow through on New Year's resolutions past the end of January, and why it's so difficult to be disciplined with your spending.

As I continued to watch the program, the expert went on to say that rather than work to change our "eat everything on the plate" behavior we simply need to change the size of our plates. When we use smaller plates, we dish out smaller portions, thus eating fewer calories while continuing our natural human behavior of serving a full plate and eating all of what is served.

...

A 2012 report by Koert Van Ittersum and Brian Wansink in the Journal of Consumer Research identifies the average plate size in America as having grown 23% between the years 1900 and 2012, from 9.6 inches to 11.8 inches. Running the math, the article explains that, should this increase in plate size encourage an individual to consume just fifty more calories per day, that person would put on an extra five pounds of weight... each year. Year after year, that adds up" [1]

Start will smaller plates and work on disciplining yourself to only one plate.

[1] Profit First: A simple System to Transform Any Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine by Mike Michalowicz ( http://amzn.to/1RkuTIO affiliate link )

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#76

Post by jrs235 »

Mimu wrote: post #46
Kurtz79 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite explanation I found on the issue is on "The Hacker's Diet" (free ebook). https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/ The author's theory is that the issue is not on of metabolism, but that people overeating do not have a good "I'm full" mechanism. Most people like you that "can eat all they want and not gain weight" in reality... don't. They balance out their intake naturally, if not in the scope of a meal, ove…

I am one of the "eat whatever shit in a big quantity and never gain weight" people, and I think you may have a point. After discussing it turns out if you add anything I don't eat that much. First, I never eat in the morning. And I mean never, I can't eat after waking up, I always need a few hours before being able to eat without being disgusted, I know it's bad but I don't think it has an effect really (I don't do i…

> I am one of the "eat whatever shit in a big quantity and never gain weight" people

I'm the same way.

> First, I never eat in the morning. And I mean never, I can't eat after waking up, I always need a few hours before being able to eat without being disgusted,

I'm the same way.

> I know it's bad

Why do you think it is bad? Because everyone has told you that you need a good breakfast? That it's the most important meal of the day? That's all recent and new ideology. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20243692

> I often only eat good food, or what I think is good food at least. I never use the microwaves, always buy "fresh" meat, eat vegetables aswell (only recently, not when I was a teenagers).

Here we are different. I eat good and "bad" food.

If I had to guess why I can eat anything and everything (including lots of sugary drinks) with little to no exercise and not gain weight it would be this: food passes through me. My digestive tract doesn't absorb food that well, a lot of calories just go through me. (TMI: Honestly, some foods can go through me in 2 hours.) That's what I think. (No, I don't care to go to the doctor to figure out if its true or to "fix" it because frankly, it doesn't negatively affect me as far as I'm concerned.)

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#77

Post by linkydinkandyou »

The New England Journal of medicine did a study with "doubly labeled water" which made it possible to determine _exactly_ how many calories a person ate.

In a study of people who claimed to be "diet resistant" (some of whom were taking medication based on what they reported to their doctors) it had been determined that each and every one of them were underreporting their calorie intake and overreporting their exercise to the doctors.

Here's the study (PDF)

http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701

It's been duplicated again and again.

The last paragraph says:

"In conclusion, all the obese subjects we studied who had a history of self-reported diet resistance had appropriate energy expenditure, but they misreported their actual food intake and physical activity."

It's sounds shocking to me, but people would rather lie to their doctors, and get medication they don't need, than count calories accurately.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#79

Post by leemuro »

ZoFreX wrote: post #62
leemuro wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Chemicals" are a scapegoat. Everything you put in your face is a "chemical". Folks just need to eat food that isn't just a bunch of empty dense calories. Stuff that actually satisfies you.

No one said "chemicals" are bad. The person you're replying to said we should be conscious of which chemicals we put into our body - which is absolutely true.

Agree, but if someone is putting all their effort and focus onto it they are missing the point. If you go out of your way to eat all "organic" and "natural" foods but you're 50 lbs overweight you need to get your priorities straight.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#80

Post by lotsofcows »

jrs235 wrote: post #75
aabajian wrote: post #4

"Weight management is actually much more complex than just ‘energy in’ versus ‘energy out." No, it's not. Maybe it's more difficult to measure calories (that salad ranch dressing has more calories than that hamburger), but people should be encouraged to balance their calorie intake everyday. For what it's worth, here's why Americans are obese: 50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs…

> "50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs / year" "One late night, I had had enough of the infomercials and turned on PBS to find, sure enough, a fitness guy talking about diets. ... The fitness expert explained to the studio audience that the quick fixes lauded by late-night infomercials didn't work and that they weren't sustainable. He said that what we really need are simple life…

While this is a good point along with hiding cereals, leaving fruit in view, using red plates and other proven tricks it does smack a little of the "quick hack".

They're all good things do to but if you want to lose weight you need to move more and eat better.

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