[HN Gopher] Death of the Calorie (2019)
___________________________________________________________________
Death of the Calorie (2019)
Author : Tomte
Score : 38 points
Date : 2021-09-20 12:41 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| brandonmenc wrote:
| Genetic variation of resting metabolism rate is only something
| like 600cal/day between the 5th and 95th percentiles.
|
| So yes, a calorie is not just a calorie, but the maximum
| variation between individuals is such that the refrain, "they eat
| twice as much as me and don't gain weight while I do" is just not
| possible.
| lucasmullens wrote:
| Where are you getting that number from? "something like" makes
| it sound like you're just guessing.
|
| Just the differences between men and women alone account for
| 500cal/day, so it would likely be substantially more at the 5th
| and 95th percentiles.
|
| "they eat twice as much as me and don't gain weight while I do"
| seems 100% possible if you compare a 100 pound woman with a 300
| pound man.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| > Where are you getting that number from?
|
| https://examine.com/nutrition/does-metabolism-vary-
| between-t...
|
| > Just the differences between men and women alone
|
| > if you compare a 100 pound woman with a 300 pound man
|
| I assumed it was understood that I meant while holding all
| other conditions constant.
| rkk3 wrote:
| > I assumed it was understood that I meant while holding
| all other conditions constant.
|
| Except you and the article are drawing the complete
| opposite conclusion of the paper they cite. They literally
| say resting metabolic rate doesn't really matter.
|
| "Total daily energy expenditure varies several-fold in
| humans, not due to variation in resting metabolic rate,
| diet-induced thermogenesis, or exercise thermogenesis, but
| rather, due to variations in nonexercise activity. A
| variety of factors impact nonexercise activity, including
| occupation, environment, education, genetics, age, gender,
| and body composition"
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15534426/
| brandonmenc wrote:
| My point is that for any two people with the same body
| weight, the variation in "what a calorie is" is not
| significant enough to claim that counting calories is
| useless, as the article seems to suggest.
| dang wrote:
| Discussed at the time:
|
| _Death of the Calorie_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19403762 - March 2019 (74
| comments)
| js290 wrote:
| https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/13/how-a-fatally-tragically...
| bArray wrote:
| Misconceptions:
|
| 1. BMI is a good measurement of health. Some of the fittest
| people I know are classed as 'morbidly obese'.
|
| 2. Fat and salt are bad.
|
| 3. You need lots of carbohydrates in your diet.
|
| 4. All calories are the same. Even that all carbohydrates are the
| same. Checkout how your body processes glucose vs fructose and
| how much gets converted to fat.
|
| 5. Assuming alcohol has no effect on the processing of food.
|
| 6. 'Low-carb' or 'low-sugar' food is definitely good for you.
| They tend to use Maltitol - you may as well consume sugar [1].
|
| The list goes on. No wonder there is an obesity crisis when
| 'experts' giving dietary advice don't understand this stuff
| themselves.
|
| [1] https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/is-
| maltitol...
| mjw_byrne wrote:
| People often say that you can't burn enough calories to
| contribute significantly to weight loss, but I don't think this
| is true.
|
| I went from fat to lean by counting calories and exercising. An
| hour of hard cycling burns 1,200 calories for me. So assuming my
| body needs 2,400 cals per day to maintain itself, I can have a
| 1,200-calorie defecit by eating 2,400 and burning 1,200, or by
| being sedentary and only eating 1,200. The former is fairly easy
| to do, is compatible with family meals and a social life and
| makes me fit. The latter is just miserable.
| rkk3 wrote:
| > An hour of hard cycling burns 1,200 calories for me
|
| This sounds like a huge over-estimate by your fitness tracker.
| If cardio used that many calories our species would be extinct.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| I commiserate with the struggles in this story.
|
| If you want a true dive-in-the-deep-end strategy that will work,
| try fasting. No, not intermittent fasting where you still eat
| every day, but alternate day fasting. Or eating every 3rd/4th/5th
| day. It _will_ suck, but it will dissolve your addiction to food
| and give you control you never thought you had. Check out Snake
| Diet (https://www.youtube.com/c/SnakeDiet). Cole is extreme, but
| he gets results (I think he does consulting via a Facebook group
| and he frequently talks about successes with clients).
| Managor wrote:
| Just go carnivore. Easiest way to lose weight.
| marcodave wrote:
| Dukan is that you?
| CosmicShadow wrote:
| I'm really curious about more of those hacks on how to make food
| digest more poorly (like the dried toast), so your body doesn't
| absorb as much energy from it.
| marcodave wrote:
| Do I understand correctly, that the only thing Camacho was
| measuring were calories, without checking the amount of carbs vs
| fats vs proteins contained in what he ate?
| hvs wrote:
| It seemed like it, but wasn't clear. It said,
| He ditched his heavily processed low-calorie products and
| focused on the quality of his food rather than quantity.
|
| It also mentioned that he at a lot of "low-fat" foods. So, my
| guess is that his carb intake was pretty high. This is exactly
| why "calories in, calories out" isn't accurate. Your balance of
| macronutrients is much more important, but total caloric intake
| still needs to be monitored.
| marcodave wrote:
| it seems weird to me that with all the time and energy spent
| to measure everything to the point of obsession , one would
| not even take in account the rest of the nutrients. It feels
| like a made up story to prove a point.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Initially, and that didn't work for him.
| rcar wrote:
| https://outline.com/LnhwGn
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Has anyone figured out who or what is behind Outline?
| Rompect wrote:
| I don't know but I know that I LOVE that person deeply
| hsn915 wrote:
| The problem with calorie counting is you're sort of modelling the
| human body on simple machines, like say, cars.
|
| But the body is actually a complex system, and the core quality
| of a complex system is adaptation.
|
| This means you can cut calroies below your current burn rate and
| still gain weight, because your burn rate will change.
|
| To illustrate: suppose you consume 4000 calories a day, with your
| body burning 3000 of them and storing 1000. Does cutting to 2500
| guarantee you will be burning 500 extra calories from your fat
| storage? Not at all. Your body can easily adapt by burning 2000
| calories and storing 500.
|
| Obviously the numbers are just for illustration purposes and I'm
| not claiming they are realistic by any means.
|
| What you really want is to inroduce changes that make your body
| adapt into accessing your fat storage for energy.
|
| So if we go back to the above (obviously flawed) example: what
| you want is to make your body burn all the input you are giving
| it (even if it remains at 4000) AND on top of that burn, say, 500
| calories from its fat storage.
|
| How do you do that?
|
| I can't claim to have the answer, but two things come to mind:
|
| 1. Walking.
|
| I've personally lost weight by just walking a lot - with no
| changes to deit. By a lot I mean several hours a day.
|
| Needless to say, I was single then. It's not really easy to do
| when you have family and children.
|
| But the point is: exercise. Exercise that requires energy.
|
| The good thing about walking is it's generally relaxing. You can
| actually walk for 2~3 hours and genuinely be enjoying yourself.
|
| For exercising: I'm find exercise-band based workouts at home to
| have a similar effect: they use energy but I'm generally enjoying
| myself when I'm doing them. It's a bit different from weight
| lifting in that you can easily adjsut the resistance to be just
| right for your skill/experience/strength level, so that you do
| get a real workout, but don't feel like your muscles and bones
| are dying.
|
| 2. Hormones.
|
| Cortisol and Insulin.
|
| By eating during a short window (intermittent fasting) you can
| limit the amount and duration in which your body uses the energy
| from the food (regulated by insulin).
|
| Working out while fasted (say, after you wake up and before you
| eat) will teach your body to access its fat storage for energy.
| And apparently it also increases your metabolic rate for several
| hours after.
|
| By sleeping well, removing stress, and avoiding coffee, you can
| reduce the amount and duration in which cortisol is circulating
| in your body.
|
| The thing about low-calories diets is they feel like stress and
| increase cortisol, thus sabotaging the whole thing.
|
| Being stressed and not having enough sleep is the surest way to
| absolutely oblitirate your "will power" and make you want to eat
| for comform.
|
| Incrase the amount of protein in your food is another thing that
| apparently helps regulat your hormones in a desireable way. And
| anyway it's needed if you workout (which you should, if you want
| to lose fat).
| relueeuler wrote:
| Your description above is not how the body works. To support a
| mass M must require a quantity of energy E obtained from food.
| The attempt to alter this model with "loose" ideas about "burn
| rates" therefore does not make sense.
|
| The mathematics of weight loss is laid out clearly in 20
| minutes here:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIlsN32WaE
| hsn915 wrote:
| Let's suppose (it's probably true) that there's an absolute
| minimum amount of calories your body must use per day to stay
| alive today.
|
| Is that amount even sufficient to stay alive _every_ day?
| Maybe your body can reduce some organ function for some
| amount of time, but it can 't keep it shutdown forever.
|
| ok, let's assume we're talking about the minimal burn rate
| that can sustain your body without shutting down any organ
| function what so ever.
|
| Does that mean your body is burning exactly that amount of
| calories every day like a clock?
|
| Certainly not. It's probably burning a lot more to help you
| move and think and deal with the daily stressors.
|
| When you cut calories what generally happens is you feel
| lethargic. As if you can't muster the energy to do what you
| want to do and which you could previously do without
| problems.
|
| I'm not into "studies" but I'm pretty sure there are some
| studies that show people who cut calories after a while their
| body adapts and lowers their base metabolic rate.
| naasking wrote:
| Yes, when calories are cut below a certain level, your body
| downregulates "NEAT" (non-exercise activity thermogenesis),
| which includes activities like fidgeting, walking around a
| lot or walking instead of driving, taking stairs instead of
| elevators, etc. This actually accounts for a considerable
| number of calories.
|
| Furthermore, a mass M needing energy E is too simplistic
| because it neglects environmental factors. A mass M in sub-
| Saharan Africa or a tropical jungle will require
| considerably more than E for maintenance than the same mass
| M in a relatively mild climate. This is because your body
| expends energy to regulate homeostasis (sweating and
| increased heart rate to cool the body in hot and humid
| conditions), so more difficult environments require more
| energy.
|
| That said, "calories in vs. calories out" is still true,
| you just have to consider that your "calories out" responds
| to the number of calories in. Drop them too low too
| quickly, and your NEAT drops to maintain energy balance.
| But, you can force your body to expend more of that energy
| by requiring yourself to walk (increasing NEAT), or putting
| yourself in uncomfortable environments (like saunas), or my
| forcing yourself into strenuous exercise regimes (weight
| lifting, HITT, etc).
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| For the studies type:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803033/
|
| Total energy expenditure is constrained not additive.
| hvs wrote:
| Anyone who has spent any time trying to get into shape (losing
| weight, lifting weights, doing cardio) knows that you will be
| bombarded by conflicting and downright dangerous information. Few
| industries are as loaded with misguided information and scammers
| than the fitness industry.
|
| That said, I feel bad for anyone that struggles to lose weight
| and has to deal with all of the information and is trying to
| figure it all out. My recommendation is, calorie counting IS
| important (most people underestimate by 30% how many calories
| they eat in a day), but don't kill yourself over it. Focus on
| eating healthy foods, getting enough protein, and lift weights.
| Cardio is important for overall health, but you aren't going to
| burn enough calories for it to be a major source of weight loss.
| Lifting will make you feel better (fewer achy joints, easier to
| get up) and it's a lot more fun than cardio. If you are still
| gaining weight, cut your calories more. Weight gain is very
| personal and you'll need to spend time figuring out where your
| calorie intake needs to be. Age, genetics, etc. all play a role
| so there is no one-size-fits-all number to aim for. I used to be
| able to eat 3500 calories a day and not gain weight. Now in my
| 40's if I eat more than 2500 I put on weight.
|
| Also, don't beat yourself up if you "have a bad day" and eat too
| much. Fitness is a lifelong goal, and eating a bag of chips one
| day isn't going to erase all of your work. Just try to have more
| good days than bad.
| gspr wrote:
| I agree with everything you write, but this is very subjective:
|
| > and it's a lot more fun than cardio.
|
| I, too, try to lift weights regularly, and acknowledge that
| it's important for health. But I _detest_ doing it. Running, on
| the other hand, is incredibly rewarding for me and gives my
| brain a wonderful "reset" that I sorely miss without it.
| carlmr wrote:
| I feel the same, running is like meditation. Lifting weights
| feels downright stressful.
| hvs wrote:
| I suppose that is a very personal thing as well. As someone
| that was in cross country and hated it, I'm not a fan of
| cardio (but I still find ways to incorporate it). Conversely,
| I love lifting and look forward to it.
| badrabbit wrote:
| I sit all day in front of a pc or computer. If I don't work
| out, 400c calories is my weight gain threshold. You can even
| get away with guestimating calorie intake but what most people
| miss is when they think everyone burns 2500 cal/day just being
| idle. I wish I could eat even a 1000 ! Also, for weight
| gain/loss, idle burn means nothing, what you do with the
| surplus or deficient calories is what matters.
| thefz wrote:
| Intermittent fasting and the leangains regime show that what
| you eat, and when, is as important as how many calories you
| ingest.
|
| To lose weight exercise is a 20-30%, and not even necessary
| under caloric restriction.
|
| At the end it's all thermodynamics.
| [deleted]
| leephillips wrote:
| Sensible advice all around. I would just replace "gaining
| weight" by "gaining fat". If you are lifting a lot then you may
| get heavier on the scale while losing fat. Attend to your
| waistline rather than the scale.
| rojeee wrote:
| It's important to note that all running (or similar exercise)
| is not created equal. If you are over weight and you start
| running to lose weight it probably won't work because your
| heart rate will likely hit the roof when you start jogging and
| thus you will be using the anaerobic system - burning sugar.
| This is the opposite of what you want to be doing. Instead,
| unhealthy people who need to lose weight should firstly get a
| HR monitor and only exercise below their aerobic threshold.
| This burns fat which is what they need to do! If they continue
| doing this, they'll be able to move faster at the same HR and
| also improve their fat burning capabilities. This is how they
| will lose weight. It will take a lot of time and patience
| because initially they won't be able to run because the HR goes
| too high.
|
| Those who start running with high heart rates likely won't see
| any weight loss and furthermore, the sugar burning of the
| anaerobic system will guide you towards eating more carbs and
| sugars.
|
| I'm not an expert by any means but weight lifting is the
| opposite of what you need to do to lose weight as it always
| uses the anaerobic system.
| hsn915 wrote:
| > I used to be able to eat 3500 calories a day and not gain
| weight. Now in my 40's if I eat more than 2500 I put on weight.
|
| Could it be that chronic calorie reduction has made your body
| adapt?
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Without special efforts metabolism decreases naturally with
| age (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8361073/)
|
| Even with special efforts, it's only slowing/delaying the
| process, so progressively eating less is natural anyway.
| hvs wrote:
| I have no idea, but I doubt it. I ate the same way for years,
| but as I got older I started gaining weight, when I didn't
| before. The weight gain preceded the calorie reduction.
| wrycoder wrote:
| We get more "motion efficient" as we get older LOL.
| howlin wrote:
| > Cardio is important for overall health, but you aren't going
| to burn enough calories for it to be a major source of weight
| loss.
|
| You need to build the stamina to keep it up. But assuming you
| can maintain a moderate to strenuous pace for 30 minutes you
| can burn off a small meal's worth of calories. An hour of
| moderate running can be around 600 calories for an adult male.
| hvs wrote:
| Agreed, but ability to adapt to exercise is also very
| personal. I have a natural endurance for things like running,
| but other people don't (just like some people can gain muscle
| mass just by looking at a barbell, while others -- like me --
| need to put in consistent, hard work in the gym to slowly
| build strength.)
| jaypeg25 wrote:
| The same way people underestimate their caloric intake, I
| think unfortunately a lot of fitness apps and equipment
| overestimate calories burned. A recent 1 hr peloton class I
| did said said I burned a little over 1,200 calories. It was
| nearly 300 more than my Whoop band said I lost. I think both
| numbers were higher than what I actually did.
| jeltz wrote:
| In my anecdotal experience my fitness apps generally
| underestimates calories burned while exercise equipment
| generally overestimates it. Like how my Garmin watch told
| me yesterday that I burned 300 kcal from running 10 km
| which is nonsense. It should be around 600 kcal if you do a
| rough estimation.
| neuralRiot wrote:
| The problem with calorie counting and fitness trackers is
| that they assume all bodies are equally efficient, a
| calorie is a calorie but a person is not a person. It's
| like driving for 2 hours and trying to estimate how much
| gas to fill for the next 2 hours without overflowing the
| tank, all this based on the mpg of a standard car.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I'd agree with that. A 3 hour bike ride in a moderately hilly
| area burns about 2000 calories, and that's a considerable
| number to bank. My lowest weight --and counting calories
| ruthlessly-- was when I was running regularly, even at just 2
| or so miles, until my knee started giving me trouble.
| adrianN wrote:
| Very few people who try to lose weight have the time or the
| stamina for an hour of strenuous cardio each day. For most
| people it's easier to not eat the calories than to burn them
| off.
| snarf21 wrote:
| I think the missing pole in the tent of weight loss is that we
| don't acknowledge the psychology of it. _Everyone_ who is
| overweight knows that they should eat less and move more. What
| always gets lost is the how. How do I consistently do this in
| the face a stressful life and constant time pressure? Everyone
| can walk past a tray of cookies once at the beginning of the
| day. After a stressful meeting where you were yelled at by your
| boss? No so easy and you may even eat two.
|
| Like you said, exercise is important for overall health but is
| a horrible way to lose weight. We are going to eat cake at
| lunch because we claim we will workout later (but then don't).
| Exercising takes time to do, to change, to shower, to travel.
| People are likely to overeat after exercising because they feel
| famished even though they burned a fraction of the calories
| they think they did. I think people are probably better served
| with intermittent fasting and trying hard to control their
| grocery shopping to keep binge-able foods out of the house. The
| challenge here is if you are the only person in the house
| trying to lose weight.
|
| We need a better life hack to lose weight in the 21st century.
| We are going to lie to ourselves about what we will do or why
| we didn't. This is actually the brilliance of the Planet
| Fitness pricing model. The majority of their customers barely
| go but for $10/month you can lie to yourself that you are
| "trying" and it is cheap enough to prevent cancellation. I
| think this is why people have initial success on WW or
| NutriSystem because it takes a lot of the mental load away.
| Don't think, just follow instructions.
| cjblomqvist wrote:
| Sorry for not having references, but to add to your very good
| comment: Working out triggers hunger in us, and I believe
| I've read somewhere (research?) that hunger overcompensates
| compared to how much was burnt, so working out (regardless if
| cardio or weights) is actually bad for losing weight.
|
| Then of course it can be good for your overall health (in
| particularly your mental one) so that in turn might help you
| (and be good for you), but if your only goal is losing
| weight, I'm not sure this talk about exercising is so good.
| chucksta wrote:
| No absolutely not. You may overcompensate initially, but
| your body re acclimates. The prevailing advice simply
| wouldn't be to start moving more for the obese/morbidly
| obese if this were the case
| favorited wrote:
| I don't disagree with you about the overall health
| benefits of regular exercise, but the entire point of the
| article was that the "prevailing advice" WRT weight
| management is often over-simplified to the point of
| worthlessness.
| Zababa wrote:
| > The prevailing advice simply wouldn't be to start
| moving more for the obese/morbidly obese if this were the
| case
|
| Considering the state of the obesity epidemic, maybe that
| prevailing advice is not working well?
| csours wrote:
| Food is one of my sources of enjoyment and comfort. I've made
| it a point to notice that enjoyment. The enjoyment comes in the
| first few bites of food, so really that's all you need. Comfort
| is harder, I'm still working on that.
|
| Also, YOU WILL BE HUNGRY at some points. That is normal. You
| will be hungrier if you eat a lot of sugar. (This is my
| experience and not medical advice)
|
| I wonder if there have been 'good' studies into the human
| experience of hunger. It's extremely subjective, so I can't
| imagine it would be easy to do in the first place and near
| impossible to replicate.
| carry_bit wrote:
| I've longed considered doing a diet based on mass rather than
| calories, as mass in vs mass out is a tautology. Maybe I should
| actually try it soon. It would be pretty simple:
|
| 1. Come up with a post-meal target weight goal, like say 5 pounds
| over your current weight, decreasing by 0.1 pounds per day. 2.
| Before each (significant) meal, weigh yourself. 3. Limit the
| weight of what you consume to the difference between the target
| weight at the moment to your current weight.
|
| If the target is sufficiently above your current weight initially
| and the rate of decrease is realistic, it should glide you into
| the correct portion sizes for your weight loss goal. Your
| measurements of the food could even include some of the
| packaging; as long as that's typical, it'll calibrate
| accordingly.
|
| Cooking for yourself? Rather than trying to estimate calories
| from ingredients, just break out your kitchen scale! Eating at a
| restaurant that doesn't list the calories on menu items? Just
| pack a scale!
| adamc wrote:
| Anecdotal reports here: I got diagnosed with Type II diabetes in
| the spring, after many years of being overweight. I've had a lot
| of success in losing weight (about 10 lbs a month), and while it
| is too early to make any claims, here's what I've found:
|
| - The continuous glucometer has been very helpful. I've made a
| big effort to keep glucose down around 100 most of the time. For
| me, anyhow, this will almost automatically cause weight loss -- I
| just don't find it possible to eat enough of non-sugary foods not
| to lose weight.
|
| - Fiber makes a huge difference. Fruit results in much slower
| glucose rises than, say, bread.
|
| - Walking about an hour a day, on average, also helps. I don't
| think it's primarily because of the calories used (modest) so
| much as it keeps blood glucose in control, and that reduces the
| insulin spikes that create hunger.
|
| All of this makes me think it might be controlling insulin spikes
| that really matters. It's not a "keto" diet, per se, but
| controlling blood glucose has somewhat of that effect.
| drdec wrote:
| This sounds every much like my experience. After being
| diagnosed with diabetes and greatly reducing the carbs in my
| diet, I lost around 25% of my body weight over about eighteen
| months. (Overall I'm down a third from my peak weight ten or so
| years ago.)
|
| I don't make a special effort to "diet" in the sense of eating
| less food, I just watch my carb intake. It's like I'm back in
| high school, in the sense that I don't put on weight even if I
| overeat (as long as I keep the carbs reasonable).
|
| I don't necessarily think it's the diet for everyone, but it is
| certainly the right diet for my body.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Just one year ago I lost 12 excess kgs I gained over the previous
| year by doing nothing but counting calories. Took me 2 months.
|
| Was really easy except having to say no to your desires to eat
| some more of that tasssssty food or sweeten your daily cup of tea
| with a chocolate bar. But I overcame myself because I have
| willpower.
|
| As I understand the the calorie issue, unless the laws of
| Thermodynamics are proven wrong, titles like 'death of the
| calorie' are nothing but attention grabbing attempts. If the
| amount of your inbound energy (in the form of food) is smaller
| than your energy expenditure, the deficit energy is taken from
| storage, and there is NO way around it AT ALL.
| twoslide wrote:
| A calorie is a measure of energy used, for example there is a
| direct conversion to kWh. If your body uses more energy than you
| eat, it must burn fat (weight loss). Our bodies aim to be
| efficient and won't expel energy, so if you eat more than you
| burn, you will gain weight. This is true regardless of
| macronutrient composition.
|
| Calories are therefore at least a necessary consideration in diet
| and a healthy weight, but calorie consumption alone is by no
| means a sufficient measure of a healthy diet.
| ilammy wrote:
| > _if you eat more than you burn, you will gain weight_
|
| The converse isn't necessarily true: if you eat less than you
| burn, you might not lose weight but instead your body adjusts
| how much you burn.
|
| Calories are amount of energy... released as heat when the food
| is burned. Or rather, the numbers you see on food products is
| some value derived from food composition. Anyhow, this is no
| way directly related to how much of resources your particular
| body will extract from food.
|
| Counting calories has a benefit of making you aware of your
| habits, but dietology is not as simple as arithmetic.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > The converse isn't necessarily true: if you eat less than
| you burn, you might not lose weight but instead your body
| adjusts how much you burn.
|
| Depends how you read "eat less than you burn" One way you can
| interpret the quoted section is that you haven't even eaten
| less than you burn, you're still eating more or equal to,
| since the amount you burn has gone down.
| elil17 wrote:
| The whole point of the article is that measurement inaccuracies
| and variation in energy extraction efficiency make that
| information practically useless.
| topaz0 wrote:
| If you read the article, you'll notice that this fact is
| acknowledged there. The issue is that energy in and energy out
| are not so simple as the Nutrition Facts make them seem. For
| example, different amounts of energy are consumed in the
| process of digesting various foods, and some energy is excreted
| undigested, in a way that depends on the food and the person.
| Similar complexities apply on the "calories out" side, where a
| large fraction of your energy expenditure is not directly
| controlled by your choice of activities like exercise.
| Ultimately there is some arithmetic of calories in minus
| calories out, but it is not captured by the simplistic
| calculations that are normally done.
| fredophile wrote:
| I think this problem gets overstated by the anti CICO crowd.
| Most people will habitually make and eat the same, relatively
| small, collection of meals. If you're eating the same foods
| and nothing outside has changed (travel, stress, sleep,
| exercise, etc) then the difference between what the nutrition
| facts show and what your body gets out of the food should be
| pretty consistent.
| naasking wrote:
| > The issue is that energy in and energy out are not so
| simple as the Nutrition Facts make them seem.
|
| "Calories in calories out" is a rule of thumb that is as true
| as "what goes up must come down". Which is to say that it's
| not true on the extreme margins, but it's true for virtually
| all of the cases anyone is likely to encounter in their
| lives.
| jaqalopes wrote:
| > If your body uses more energy than you eat, it must burn fat
|
| This is totally wrong. The body can also slow down your
| metabolism, twitch less, think slower (if you had read the
| article you'd see this is addressed), decrease the
| effectiveness of your organs, not to mention "eat" some of your
| nonfat muscle mass.
|
| The people advancing the CICO idea have obviously never
| struggled with their weight. It is super clear to me as a
| person who has bounced back and forth between fit to overweight
| for my entire adult life that there is nothing I could ever do
| to be as "skinny" as the skinny people I know, all of whom eat
| and drink way more than me, and usually don't exercise at all.
|
| CICO is not real advice, it's telling people to develop eating
| disorders, i.e. starve themselves. And for what? To bolster the
| ego of you and the ~60% of people who are naturally less likely
| to accumulate body fat, who like to believe they are just
| smarter or know something about nutrition that people like me
| don't. But it's exactly the opposite. I know more about
| nutrition than any of my skinny friends. Social pressure has
| demanded that I do so. It doesn't actually help, and the
| smugness of commenters on HN doesn't either.
| twoslide wrote:
| You are right that your body can burn muscle as well as fat.
| However, decreases to energy consumption ("metabolism") are
| minimal. Our bodies are evolved to use energy efficiently, if
| it were possible to do everything we do (or even some
| semblance of it), with far lower energy consumption, we'd
| already be doing it.
|
| A good analogy might be fuel consumption in a car. Some
| savings can be made through efficient driving techniques, but
| ultimately there is a core amount of energy needed to
| transport the car across a given distance.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > The people advancing the CICO idea have obviously never
| struggled with their weight. > CICO is not real advice
|
| I used CICO effectively to reduce my weight considerably.
| Indeed it is not a real advice, however for me it was a very
| good guiding principle that I feel was essential to help me
| achieve my goals.
|
| By focusing on CICO it became clear that I had to find foods
| that I enjoyed eating and that made me feel fuller per
| calorie. I spent a fair bit of time thinking about meal
| compositions before starting due to this. I found ways to
| adapt my favorite dishes, both in portion size and
| ingredients.
|
| Using CICO I only had the goal that my meals had to fit my
| calorie budget, had to be enjoyable to eat and had to keep me
| full till the next meal.
|
| The principle also helped me stay on track, as it effectively
| means that it doesn't really matter what you do any given
| day, rather what you do each day. This made me avoid getting
| depressed and feeling hopless if I couldn't follow my plan
| for a day. My finish line got pushed ahead a day or two, no
| worries, just get back on track the next day.
|
| I think the key though is that people are different. What
| worked for me will not work for everyone. For me, CICO was
| great.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > The people advancing the CICO idea have obviously never
| struggled with their weight.
|
| ...I've lost over 150lbs and am a staunch advocate of CICO as
| really the only thing that matters for weight loss.
|
| > there is nothing I could ever do to be as "skinny" as the
| skinny people I know, all of whom eat and drink way more than
| me, and usually don't exercise at all.
|
| Let's be fair here: you _can_ be as skinny as them, it 'll
| just be extremely hard and very unpleasant. I get where
| you're coming from though, it is difficult not to harbor an
| extreme amount of resentment for these people and the
| universe that didn't favor you in the same way. I have
| literally said to some people like this that, if I thought it
| would work, I would eat them to gain their power. For people
| like us, it is incredibly difficult to pull off.
|
| > CICO is not real advice, it's telling people to develop
| eating disorders, i.e. starve themselves. And for what? To
| bolster the ego of you and the ~60% of people who are
| naturally less likely to accumulate body fat, who like to
| believe they are just smarter or know something about
| nutrition that people like me don't. But it's exactly the
| opposite. I know more about nutrition than any of my skinny
| friends. Social pressure has demanded that I do so. It
| doesn't actually help, and the smugness of commenters on HN
| doesn't either.
|
| CICO works, and yeah I'd definitely say that for people like
| us it amounts to developing an eating disorder[0]. I'm also
| continually frustrated by my skinny unable-to-gain weight
| friends and workout collogues who, mistakenly, believe they
| know something I don't. Some of them have hyperthyroidism,
| their experience of food and weight gain is a completely
| different reality from minie.
|
| [0] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false
| &qu...
| makeitdouble wrote:
| You lost 150lbs and might be in a somewhat decent health,
| but will it be true for that person over the internet that
| might have nothing in common with you ?
|
| The crux of these discussion on diet is that there is no
| universally reproductible method (CICO in isolation is just
| a principle and not a method) and starving he body will
| have different consequences for different people.
| Advocating any practice as "the only thing that matters" is
| a recipe for disaster.
|
| Imagine if the actual solution for that person is to change
| jobs, or that starvation lead them to worse health issues
| than where they are now, stuffing CICO down their throat
| would just be cruel.
| fredophile wrote:
| I'd agree with the GP that for weight loss CICO is the
| only thing that matters. However, if you can find some
| method (restricting carbs, restricting fats, only eating
| during set times, etc) that naturally results in a
| calorie deficit and you can stick with then go far it.
| Just because you don't think of it as CICO doesn't mean
| it isn't the underlying cause of your weight loss.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I find that to be unlikely, frankly. There are a lot of
| strategies to achieve a better CICO ratio, and I think
| those have incredibly varied success rates for different
| people, but when it comes right down to it if you don't
| find a way to change that ratio then you will never
| succeed. In my experience, the most expedient way to do
| it is to count calories.
|
| I also don't think this is anywhere near as "unhealthy"
| as people want to believe it is. I think that largely
| arises from our discomfort with being hungry, and our
| general intuition about which foods are "healthy" and
| which aren't. However, consider the case of nutrition
| professor Mark Haub, who ate nothing but garbage
| convenience store snacks for 10 weeks at a caloric
| deficit and not only lost 27lbs, but had _all_ of his
| health metrics improve: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11
| /08/twinkie.diet.professor/...
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Reducing overall stress is a pretty well known way to
| improve health, and it often leads to better diets/lower
| fat ratio one way or another. I don't think it's hard to
| find stories of people losing weight after getting out of
| shitty jobs/damaging relationships.
|
| Focusing on numbers (calorie counting etc.) can help
| people who like numbers and need to focus on something.
| But these people don't need any push to go find numbers
| to follow. The same way I fundamentally like sport, I
| needed nobody's advice to go do hours of sports when I
| felt my body was getting rusty.
| geoka9 wrote:
| > This is totally wrong. The body can also slow down your
| metabolism, twitch less, think slower (if you had read the
| article you'd see this is addressed), decrease the
| effectiveness of your organs
|
| But all of those factors are included under "body uses less
| energy", no?
|
| UPDATE: But I do understand what you're saying. Exercise can
| lower your BMR as the body tries to conserve energy. If that
| reduction is not met by a reduction in calories consumed, it
| stands to reason that you can actually gain weight after
| starting exercising. So gotta watch out for those lethargic
| days after lots of exercise.
|
| > not to mention "eat" some of your nonfat muscle mass.
|
| From my unscientific experience, for most people that should
| be accompanied by reduction in fat, too.
| mavhc wrote:
| Problem is you only know the max potential input, not the
| actual input, which depends on your gut bacteria.
|
| And also you're not directly measuring the output, which is
| different for everyone, and adjusts based on the input.
|
| It's useful for making you think about everything you eat
| though, shall I eat this thing? Well, I'd have to record it in
| my spreadsheet, won't bother.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Direct control over an upper bound is quite sufficient to
| force a number downwards. All of the error terms point in the
| direction of undereating when the problem is overeating.
|
| The real problem with calorie counting is that it is
| difficult.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| You aren't even controlling the upper bound, because as
| explained these calories have not much to do with how your
| body processes them. For instance you might think you
| reduced the calorie count by forgoing 200 calories of bread
| to eat 150 calories of tofu, but if your body processes
| tofu better than bread, you've effectively increased your
| energy consumption while the count is lower on your
| spreadsheet.
|
| Same way you might be eating the same amount of tofu
| everyday, assuming you have a steady calorie intake, while
| your actual ingestion rate will be all over the board.
| If/when you'll be decreasing quantities your ingestion rate
| might go up enough to effectively increase the energy you
| take from it, creating weird states that don't make any
| sense looking at the numbers from outside.
|
| The lowering the upper bound only start to make sense when
| the body is really starving, in that your daily life has
| become hell, and you start lacking elements other than
| calorie. Some see that as a success, I see it as dangerous
| for most people.
|
| The people dropping out of these diet don't do so because
| they don't have the guts, but because they end up worse
| that where they were at the beginning. It's not everyone
| ending up there, so we'll still hear the success stories of
| course.
| wrycoder wrote:
| This is an excellent article.
|
| Salvador Camacho, the subject of the Economist article, has
| written a significant technical article on the subject. [0]
|
| I'll comment that this point of view is completely in agreement
| with my personal experience over five decades. Low fat, "low
| calorie", and "lite" products are the exact opposite of what you
| want to eat, especially if you want to lose weight.
|
| I first learned of these theories from Michel Montignac, whose
| advice became very popular in Europe in the '80s. [1] He was
| followed by many "low-glycemic" diets, e.g. Sugar Busters,
| "keto", and Paleo.
|
| Gary Taubes has written two books on the subject, one popular and
| one directed at MDs and other professionals. [2]
|
| The idea is to eat mostly fat and protein, with a limited amount
| of low glycemic carbs. Avoid high glycemic carbs like refined
| flour, sugar, and fruit.
|
| I've found over the years that following such a diet while
| limiting food intake so you stay slightly hungry will result in
| fat loss. Eating a high fat diet to lose fat is counterintuitive,
| but it works.
|
| [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28485680/ [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Montignac [2]
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25818875
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