[HN Gopher] Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesi...
___________________________________________________________________
Adipose tissue retains an epigenetic memory of obesity after weight
loss
Author : paulpauper
Score : 200 points
Date : 2025-04-14 04:47 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| spoiler wrote:
| As someone who's struggled with weight loss, and have known
| others to struggle with it well, I think we colloquially called
| this "slow metabolism".
|
| It always did feel like it was easier to gain weight than lose
| it, especially fat weight and not muscle weight for me.
|
| I was recently sent a video about fat adaptation (basically
| teaching your body to be better at burning fat) by a very fit
| friend, but I wonder how much of that is bro science and how much
| of it is grounded in reality. Maybe worth looking into more
| deeply if it can counteract or balance out this.
| skirmish wrote:
| It is well known that if you gain muscle then lose it, it is
| easier to regain it than the first time (IIRC, the cells store
| extra nucleii?). This could be a similar effect but with fat
| cells.
| joncrocks wrote:
| I believe that is the latest theory regarding the mechanism,
| yes.
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3892465/
| beejiu wrote:
| As well as the "cell memory", the total number of fat cells
| you have in your body is set during adolescence, then it
| remains constant for the rest of your adult life.
| (https://www.nature.com/articles/ncpgasthep1189).
|
| During adolescence, if you gain weight, you create new fat
| cells. During adulthood, the fat cells themselves just get
| larger. Arguably the best thing you can do is avoid obesity
| during childhood and adolescence at all costs.
| BlackFly wrote:
| Interested parties may want to read the original article
| https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06902 in place of the
| highlight https://doi.org/10.1038/ncpgasthep1189.
| fao_ wrote:
| > During adulthood, the fat cells themselves just get
| larger.
|
| While true, it's also important to note that the lifetime
| of a fat cell is around ten years. Maintaining a decent
| diet for around ten years (no mean feat!) should be
| sufficient to leave you bereft of the actual adipose cells.
|
| I also wonder how this intersects with transgender stuff --
| there's a reason why HRT is referred to as "second
| puberty", as it resets and changes a lot of underlying
| biological mechanisms and produces a lot of interesting
| epigenetic effects (While it does boil down to "replacing
| the sex hormone", both estrogen and testosterone have major
| effects on the body's immune system, etc. -- actually this
| is one of the reasons I suspect that there's such a high
| comorbidity of autoimmune diseases within transgender
| people pre-HRT -- their immune system is all out of wack!
| Mine calmed down a lot after starting and a year in I no
| longer get seasonal allergies). There's a huge lack of data
| in this regard though because transgender bodies are
| generally not felt to be worth studying outside of "health
| risks" _, even though there 's a huge amount of information
| we could glean about how _everyone's* body functions from
| it. Personally, I wonder whether second-puberty "resets"
| what the body decides is the baseline for fat storage.
|
| * -- and for anyone in doubt, we have around 90 years of
| HRT now that shows it's essentially completely safe
| (outside of the mid-80s when the estrogen being given was
| synthetic and non-bio-identical, and outside of the health
| risks of various things for trans women changing to be
| roughly equivalent of cis women's health risks).
| paulpauper wrote:
| metabolism is orthogonal . It's possible to have a fast
| metabolism and still be obese if you're eating at a surplus.
| But it's also possible people with faster metabolisms may be
| more successful at weight loss if already obese. So a 300-lbs
| person who eats 10,000 calories/day to be weight stable will
| find it easier to lose weight compared to to a 300 lbs person
| who is stable at 4,000 cal/day. This can also explain how some
| people lose tons of weight on GLP-1 drugs, whereas others lose
| less. The guy eating 10,000 calories/day will lose much more
| weight more rapidly owning to having a much bigger metabolic
| furnace, as soon as he restricts eating and his body is no
| longer getting 10,000 calories/day. Unfortunately, there are no
| studies that investigate the link, if any, with metabolism and
| dieting success.
| sethammons wrote:
| 10k calories a day is what a black bear eats preparing for
| hibernation. And it is what Michael Phelps would eat daily
| when training in the pool for hours on end.
|
| Obese people can remain obese eating 1000 calories a day. I
| recall one episode of My 600lb Life and the show's featured
| person that day was at 900 or 1200 calories a day and still
| didn't lose weight. Might have still been gaining.
|
| It is a dynamic system. People tend to only consider the CI
| in CI/CO.
| ykonstant wrote:
| >Obese people can remain obese eating 1000 calories a day.
| I recall one episode of My 600lb Life and the show's
| featured person that day was at 900 or 1200 calories a day
| and still didn't lose weight. Might have still been
| gaining.
|
| How is that possible? There is a lower bound on calories
| needed (on average across say six months) to maintain life.
| Adding to that the calories needed to maintain the weight,
| I don't see how an obese person could stay alive with "CO"
| significantly lower than 1200 kcal.
| eftpotrm wrote:
| And yet it happens. A doctor in my family told the story
| of a patient they were treating in hospital who medically
| needed to lose weight, and who they found unable to get
| any reduction until they dropped below _200_ calories a
| day.
|
| Metabolism is _significantly_ more complex than CI/CO,
| from experience.
| ykonstant wrote:
| For how long? Irregularities can persist for a small
| amount of time, no doubt; but for how long does one
| maintain weight and life on 300 calories a day?
| phyalow wrote:
| Come on, this is ridiculous.
|
| CI/CO is a thing.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics
| d4704 wrote:
| Agreeing and I found it interesting to learn more about
| caloric availability to the body.
|
| I.e. calories on the label vs what the body can actually
| access.
|
| Like drinking smoothies (high availability) vs raw fruit
| (lower availability)
|
| Dr. Greger (Nutrition focused) discusses some of this on
| calorie density and some referenced studies here if
| interested:
|
| https://nutritionfacts.org/blog/how-to-lose-weight-
| eating-mo...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I don't believe that people can gain weight while eating
| almost nothing, but I believe that their internal
| distribution of energy may be out of whack.
|
| Proponents of naive thermodynamics model tend to assume
| that only "excessive" energy is stored into bodily fat,
| once all the other tissues have had their fair share.
|
| That is not really true in insulin resistant people,
| whose storage may be excessive and leave the rest of the
| body unsatisfied and hungry, which drives them to eat
| more than a healthy person would.
|
| To us, this looks like deliberate overeating, to them, it
| is a result of constant hunger caused by the fact that
| some part of the energy consumed is being immediately
| locked away in fat tissues by dysregulated metabolic
| processes.
|
| Notably, it isn't easy to "correct" this situation by
| just eating less, because that will leave those people
| feeling really starved. Insulin sensitivity must be
| restored first, then the fat stores will give up their
| excess willingly and that person won't suffer.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| You cant cheat thermodynamics, so something does not add
| up. Most likely the calorie estimates if they were self
| reported.
|
| To illustrate a single 37.5g snickers is slightly below
| 200kcal. I probably get that number of calories just from
| the milk in my coffee in an average day.
| nom wrote:
| What is more likely:
|
| - a physics-breaking thermodynamic anomaly
|
| - a food addicted person is lying about their consumption
|
| 200 kcal a day.. yeah sure. A human body needs more than
| that just to breathe and pump blood. Even comatose a
| skinny person needs 5 times as much.
|
| Overweight people have a significantly higher metabolic
| base rate. Just breathing can easily be 1000kcal a day if
| your lungs have to move 30 kilos of upper body fat 10
| times a minute. They also have more muscle mass compared
| to the average person their size, even when not
| physically active, which increases MBR as well.
|
| Weight loss and gain is a solved problem, but self
| control and human behavior is not.
|
| Perpetuating myths of impossible weight loss is not
| beneficial for our society and moves us further away from
| solving the underlying issues.
| guerrilla wrote:
| It's insane how arrogant people can be about this. You
| have not accounted for all of the variables and that is
| blatantly obvious. The phenomenon is well known and there
| are multi-variable equations for it, many different
| models. One popular model is that NEET can decrease below
| the caloric deficit, meaning you still gain weight by
| becoming subconsciously lazier despite everything feeling
| equally difficult subjectively. There are several other
| more advanced models adding other variables, some
| depending on insulin sensitivity, for example. Anyway, no
| physics is broken, laymen are just naive to the
| complexity abd adaptability of biology.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| 200kcal/day is less than 10W. Since all energy the body
| uses is released as heat this puts the maximum
| sustainable heat radiation with such a diet at 10W.
|
| That's about the level of a typical household LED, which
| at most feels slightly warm to the touch.
|
| At that energy level you could not sustain weight while
| maintaining body temperature let alone having a healthy
| metabolism. That's just a plain fact.
|
| You _will_ lose weight long before you reach 200kcal
| /day.
| krageon wrote:
| But it _is_ basic physics, which is in fact being
| violated. It 's really very normal to require exceptional
| proof for this. Like literally any scientific study, not
| just an anecdote claiming magic.
| stonemetal12 wrote:
| Basic physics says CI/CO applies to a closed system. Show
| me a closed system human and then it will be applicable.
|
| E=MC^2 is basic physics too. So eat a pea and have enough
| calories for the rest of your life and then some?
| karn97 wrote:
| Nutritional science is pseudo science at best. I had
| rather continue to believe in thermodynamics lmao
| bluecheese452 wrote:
| It is the amazing the hoops people will jump through and
| the lies they will tell themselves and others rather than
| facing the obvious truth that they are consuming too many
| calories.
| raincom wrote:
| If you treat humans as biological machines, signaling
| system (hormones, endocrine system) is very important.
| When signaling system is messed up, your CI/CO model with
| self-control doesn't work at all. Signals need to be
| fixed.
| tekla wrote:
| So? That doesn't disprove the premise of CI/CO. CI/CO is
| the notion that humans exist in the physical world and
| thus obey the laws of thermodynamics.
| yakz wrote:
| > Weight loss and gain is a solved problem, but self
| control and human behavior is not.
|
| Semaglutide and tirzepatide address the self control and
| human behavior problems. They stop you from wanting to
| eat more.
| iteria wrote:
| I can believe this as a human who fasts. I just don't eat
| every other day. I've fasted for multiple days. You would
| amazed at how much the scale doesn't move. I can lose
| zero weight after 36 hours of nothing but water entering
| me. The body is less CICO and more a system trying to
| maintain homeostasis as much as possible and pulling ever
| lever it can.
|
| Yes, eventually eating every other day I did lose weight,
| but we're talking a steady glide of 1-2lbs a week nothing
| as severe as people would expect a severely overweight
| person who only ate half the week to lose.
| djmips wrote:
| https://www.diabetes.co.uk/blog/2018/02/story-angus-
| barbieri...
| bowsamic wrote:
| 1000 calories is already an unbelievable claim,
| absolutely no one is going to believe 200. That's just
| absurd
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _How is that possible?_ "
|
| Eat 1200 Calories per day, drink 5Kg of water, water
| retention, body mass and scale weight goes up with
| increasing water weight?
| ben7799 wrote:
| It happens because we act like calories are calories when
| it's clearly not true.
|
| Calorie counts in nutrition data are generated by
| something like burning the food in a bomb calorimeter.
| Which is most definitely not what our bodies do. We have
| all kinds of different biochemical ways of metabolizing
| different types of foods.
|
| So someone eating 1000 calories of day could be eating
| very healthy or they could be ingesting a whole bunch of
| garbage full of sweeteners. It doesn't seem like anyone
| really understands how it works but all those sweeteners
| are more likely to make you gain weight.
| tekla wrote:
| Why is it that people claim the laws of thermodynamics do
| not apply to humans?
| bslanej wrote:
| Because our metabolisation mechanisms are extremely
| complex and many things, like genetics, decide how we
| metabolise food; we are not petrol engines.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Obviously the laws of thermodynamics apply, but the most
| naive application of the laws of thermodynamics doesn't.
|
| A human body isn't a bomb calorimeter and it doesn't
| perfectly combust everything you eat.
| asoneth wrote:
| No one is claiming that the laws of thermodynamics do not
| apply to humans.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| I'm sure an obese person _claiming_ to eat 1000kcal per day
| can still gain weight but that is largely due to
| selfreported calorie estimates being a bad measure. Put
| that person in a chamber where calorie intake is controlled
| and I 'd bet the effect disappears.
| nikanj wrote:
| Ate only 1000kcal in food. Added in 1400kcal in sugary
| drinks and 2000kcal in small bites of this and that (that
| don't need to be counted, because it's just one spoonful
| of peanut butter!)
| op00to wrote:
| The small bites have doomed me in the past until I
| charted and realized the impact.
| Izkata wrote:
| Yeah, I don't know if it was that episode or from
| somewhere else, but there was a similar thing where they
| followed the person around for a day and it turned out
| they didn't count anything ate as a snack between meals.
| They were accurately counting their meals, but including
| the snacks went somewhere above 3000 a day.
| bluecheese452 wrote:
| Secret eaters, a British show.
| vkazanov wrote:
| As somebody who went through successful weight cuts at
| least 3 times I must notice that not losing weight on 200
| calories a day is... a very unrealistic situation. Even a
| 1000 calories is starving.
|
| (I do weightlifting, and controlling one's weight is basics
| of everything in the gym)
| bluecheese452 wrote:
| This is completely and obviously untrue.
| dsmurrell wrote:
| Please share your bro science video. I need it :)
| nradov wrote:
| A lot of people blame failure to lose fat on a "slow
| metabolism" but this is usually incorrect. Have you had an
| actual resting metabolic rate (RMR) test to quantity your
| baseline total daily energy expenditure?
|
| Fat adaptation is a real thing. Endurance athletes focused on
| longer events will target some of their training around that
| energy system. This is more complex than can really be
| explained in an online comment but basically you want to do
| long training sessions below your lactate threshold in a
| glycogen depleted state.
| guerrilla wrote:
| They didn't mean it was literally a slow metabolism. They
| meant that what the article is about is often refered to as a
| "slow metabolism". It's a misnomer since that is not the
| mechanism but there is definitely a phenomenon at play, which
| is what the article is about, the actual phenomenon rather
| than the bro science.
| ngd wrote:
| There is also a conflation of a slowing metabolism and low
| energy availability, which can reduce the amount of energy
| expended during the day (because you feel tired and do less).
| It can be quite subtle but when I've done some extended
| periods in a calorie deficit I start to notice subtle things,
| like a propensity to sit a bit longer, or to reduce my
| overall body movements. My resting metabolism is the same
| (I've had it measured a few times) but my body looks for ways
| to expend less energy.
| gregoryl wrote:
| Anecdotally (but an experience shared at by at least some
| other long distance runners), when I get quite far into a
| calorie deficit via exercise, my brain will start
| suggesting shortcuts - urges to cut the corner on a trail,
| take a shorter path back etc. Its quite interesting!
| xeromal wrote:
| I think you missed the point that he said "slow metabolism"
| is just a colloquial term for something else.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| them and the rest of society
| sfjailbird wrote:
| Insulin sensitivity is a real thing. The less sensitive to
| insulin you are, the more of it is produced to process a given
| amount of glucose. And the more insulin (anabolic) is produced,
| the less glucagon (catabolic) is.
|
| In other words, low insulin sensitivity means your body remains
| in the feeding (fat building) state more, as opposed to fasting
| (fat burning).
|
| Insulin sensitivity decreases with age, and with excessive
| intake of particularly simple carbs. It can be improved through
| fasting, certain dietary supplements, and low carb diet.
|
| All of this is, to the best of my knowledge, not disputed or
| 'bro science'.
| nikanj wrote:
| If there really was a gene that allowed you to survive on
| substantially less food than your peers, pretty much all humans
| would have said gene. The history of humanity is rife with
| famine, and that gene would be a game-changer for survival
| falcor84 wrote:
| It's all about tradeoffs. In this case, I wonder if there's
| an "efficient metabolism" gene that makes your body put a
| higher percentage of incoming nutrients into long-term
| storage (mostly in fat tissue). Carriers of this gene would
| be more likely to survive a famine, but less likely to outrun
| a predator or defend against an attack by another leaner
| human, who's genes allocate incoming nutrients to be utilized
| more effectively in the short-term.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Look into Polynesian peoples. They survived long sea
| voyages, and are known to be generally large people in
| modern day. Like the guy at my high school whose nickname
| was "Big Tonga"
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| ...don't we? According to [0], the amount of food (by energy
| intake) people get is very diverse worldwide. People can
| survive famine situations for a long time, and people'
| problems with obesity is linked to exactly those survival
| genes.
|
| Granted, some animals are much better at it, crocodiles and
| bears and stuff can go without food for months.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_food_e
| ner...
| devmor wrote:
| I think it's quite the opposite because it would not be a
| gene that allows you to survive on less food - it would be a
| gene that favors replacing glycogen stores over lipid stores.
| That kind of mechanism would be pretty negative to survival
| until the modern era of sedentary civilization.
| PetitPrince wrote:
| Samoan have a high degree of a particular variant of gene
| CREBRF that's highly associated with high BMI (see
| https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.3620). Pop-Sci says it's an
| adaptation to the life in an island (might also be a founder
| effect?)
| throwup238 wrote:
| The physical mechanism is mitochondrial uncoupling proteins
| (UCP). They regulate how much energy is wasted as heat when
| converting ADP to ATP, determining how efficient one's
| metabolism is. When you lose weight, your UCP proteins start
| wasting less and less energy when producing ATP, which is one
| of the things that makes dieting so hard.
|
| Actually affecting that pathway is largely beyond us at the
| moment (that's the bro science) but the mechanism is relatively
| well understood.
| krapht wrote:
| Is this similar to what 2, 4 dinitrophenol affects?
| throwup238 wrote:
| Yes, sort of. DNP doesn't affect uncoupling proteins
| directly but it moves protons across the mitochondrial
| membrane, causing more of the energy to be lost as heat as
| the uncoupling proteins waste more energy to restore the
| proton gradient.
|
| There are a bunch of such "protonophores" that move protons
| across membranes and they are universally toxic if they
| make it to the mitochondria. I don't known of any compound
| that actually mediates the UCPs themselves.
| hnthrow90348765 wrote:
| >but I wonder how much of that is bro science and how much of
| it is grounded in reality
|
| It's probably bro science or contributing a small amount to any
| effort. The biggest problem is the food industry serving shit
| in large portions, which can be hard for populations to
| psychologically resist (see: America). Most things in the
| grocery store are shit too.
|
| I don't think you can effectively teach people to resist it
| though, you'd have to get rid of the shit being there so it's
| not even an option.
| djmips wrote:
| That's how my brother lost weight finally. He just never
| bought any of the stuff - so it wasn't even in his house. But
| he lives alone right now so if you live in a group setting
| you might be, in weak moments, snacking on bad things that
| other people brought in. It's kind of also why I don't think
| companies should provide candy machines etc.
| e40 wrote:
| For me, sugar was the reason I couldn't lose weight. I got a
| CGM (continuous glucose monitor) and got my blood sugar under
| control, and with very little effort I lost a lot of weight.
|
| I use 90% cacao Lindt to control my sweet tooth. 1/2 the bar
| has 4g of sugar, and I consume it over hours. It also has the
| side effect of reducing my hunger. If you eat much of 90%
| chocolate, it makes you feel nausea. The trick is to put a
| small chip in your mouth and let it melt. It's quite delicious
| and I've not had any sweets in 80+ days.
| amonon wrote:
| This also speaks to another point, when trying to lose
| weight: you must find new things to enjoy.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| This is actually great advice for any bad habit you're
| trying to break. In general, just thinking "Stop doing this
| thing" (or "do less of this thing"), doesn't really work.
| It's usually more effective to find something else that you
| do enjoy (and is better for you), and try to do more of
| that thing and have it "crowd out" your bad habit.
|
| When it comes to eating, there is a nutritionist with a
| pretty sizable online following (Kylie Sakaida), and I love
| one of her mantras of "add, don't subtract". That is, don't
| think of abstaining from foods you like that might be
| unhealthy, but instead try to add more healthy things to
| that food to make it a balanced meal. For example, she
| gives the example of wanting a frozen waffle for breakfast.
| Instead of thinking "No, I can't have this frozen waffle",
| she instead makes a spread using Greek yogurt to add
| protein, then adds fresh fruit and nuts for more nutrients,
| fiber and healthy fats, so what started as an 'empty carbs'
| meal is turned into a pretty balanced, filling breakfast.
| e40 wrote:
| So true. I've done this very often:
|
| - See some goodies my wife bought (for herself or me).
|
| - Thinks about having my 90% Lindt later/next day.
|
| - Walks away.
| djmips wrote:
| I was realizing that spicy food can be that.
| nfg wrote:
| I'd be interested to hear more here - what CGM did you buy?
| What was your process for monitoring?
| e40 wrote:
| The Stelo. 2 for $99. Oddly, it shipped from Amazon but
| Amazon doesn't sell them.
|
| The app is subpar on iOS, but if you give Apple's Health
| app permission, you can get more data in there. Graphs that
| have absolute numbers. I think they reason their app
| doesn't give absolute values (for historical values, they
| give the current value only), is because it's not a
| calibrated device. It can't be used to control an insulin
| pump, for that reason.
| djmips wrote:
| Does that imply you are paying $99 / month?
| e40 wrote:
| No, this was a one-time thing for me, to work out how
| food impacts my blood sugar. I've used 1 of the 2 I
| bought, and I plan to use the other in 3-4 months, to see
| how I react then, after 6+ months with low sugar intake.
| tchock23 wrote:
| I just completed two weeks with Lingo by Abbott. It was
| decent. I wish it had better integration of the data with
| Apple Health, but I liked the Lingo score as a way of
| "gamifying" it and the UX overall was decently done.
| jonplackett wrote:
| This worked for me for a while but I learned to love dark
| chocolate toooooo much.
|
| I can now eat a 100g bar of 100% chocolate in a single
| sitting if I feel like it... And that's 55g of fat, so more
| or less the fat I should be eating in a whole day.
| e40 wrote:
| Wow!! I feel queasy if I eat more than 1/2 a bar of the
| 90%. It also completely takes the edge off my hunger, which
| is great for me.
| bilsbie wrote:
| I thought a CGM would help me lose weight but it turned out
| my body is a hero at managing sugar spikes. A pint of ice
| cream? Back to baseline in under an hour. Big meal, no big
| spike, etc.
|
| So it turns out you can still gain weight even if you don't
| spike your blood sugar. At least for me.
| e40 wrote:
| If you don't spike your blood sugar and you eat fewer
| calories that you need, I don't know how you wouldn't lose
| weight.
|
| For me, a small piece of pie after dinner impacted my BS
| for 6-12 hours, according to the sensor. That was shocking.
| bilsbie wrote:
| I was high calorie, low spike.
|
| I had just assumed before the cgm that my blood sugar
| regulation would be terrible with how easily I put in
| fat. But it was extremely well run.
| djmips wrote:
| Isn't 90% Lindt the worst (of their chocolates) for Cadmium
| and other heavy metals though?
| e40 wrote:
| All I could find is this:
| https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/12/31/lindt-chocolate-
| heavy...
|
| I am worried about it. Ugh.
| johnisgood wrote:
| > It always did feel like it was easier to gain weight than
| lose it, especially fat weight and not muscle weight for me.
|
| It is the exact, polar opposite for me. I cannot gain even if I
| eat junk all day.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| drink milkshakes
| johnisgood wrote:
| I drink a protein shake 2 times at least, and eat lunch
| (chicken & rice & broccoli casserole, so forth) 2-3 times a
| day. I do not eat small portions either.
| gamblor956 wrote:
| That only looks like about 2000 calories a day, which is
| the recommended caloric intake for the average sedentary
| adult man.
|
| If you're trying to bulk, you need to be looking at 2500
| or more calories a day, plus additional for any calories
| burned by exercise. (With a surplus of 1000/calories a
| day you'll be gaining more fat than muscle unless you're
| still in puberty. Sometimes that may be what you want.)
| ceedan wrote:
| I used to think the same. I would guess that you do not have
| a big breakfast. Without getting a real meal in for
| breakfast, hitting a huge calorie surplus is difficult. If
| you counted your calories and tried to get a 1000 calorie
| meal for breakfast, hit 3000 calories a day, you'd probably
| gain 10% in a few weeks. Weight training is good too... you
| don't want to just gain fat.
|
| 1000 calorie breakfast = bagel with cream cheese, 3 eggs,
| banana, some berries, protein shake. It's a whole lot more
| than a bowl of cereal.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Or go get some fast food. Plenty of them in the US can
| easily top out at around your daily requirement.
|
| In college, I used to treat myself with a Hardee's
| sourdough Frisco burger because, for some reason, it was
| really damn good to me. Then I saw the calorie count:
| https://www.hardees.com/menu/charbroiled-burgers/hardees-
| fri...
|
| Add on some fries, regular soda if that's your thing, and
| you are pretty much at the daily recommendation.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I tried eating all that, not just for breakfast, but 3-4
| times a day, give or take, sans berries and banana.
| googlryas wrote:
| I had a friend who was trying to bulk up make that claim (he
| was 6', 140 lbs), and then when I finally convinced him to
| write down everything he ate in a day, it was like 1800
| calories.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I should do that, too, TBH.
| sharadov wrote:
| It's hard for me to gain weight. But in my 30s, for a few
| months I was eating 3000 calories plus. My breakfast smoothie
| was about 800 calories - 2-3 scoops protein, a banana, almond
| butter. I gained about 5 pounds after 3 months. It was just
| too hard to eat that much while also eating healthy.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Jason Fung is probably the world's leading research expert on
| obesity. If you want videos to watch on it, it starts and ends
| with this guy. He has done a ton of lectures and blogposts
| going back over a decade, and also has the stereotypical
| clickbaity YouTube videos.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpllomiDMX0
| __float wrote:
| He has surely dedicated a significant portion of his life to
| his own pet theories on obesity, but to consider him a well-
| regarded expert is very misleading.
|
| He has quite a few claims that are just...ridiculous, and his
| pop science books have some serious flaws (as reported by
| _actual_ experts).
| jdhendrickson wrote:
| While I don't doubt you, it would be helpful if you cited
| these experts, so people can learn.
| sph wrote:
| Fat adaptation is not bro science, it is what happens when you
| do not consume enough carbohydrates to meet your TDEE so your
| mitochondria "learn" to become really efficient at burning
| fatty acids. It's the whole premise behind keto/low carb. When
| used to our modern high-carb diets, the adaptation takes some
| time for genes to activate, since we eat a lot and never have
| long enough fasting periods to be able to quickly switch
| between glucose and fatty acid metabolism.
| HorizonXP wrote:
| I have had a slow metabolism since I was a teenager. I don't
| think I've ever experienced a day in my life where I haven't
| thought about my weight, body composition, or felt guilty about
| eating food. And I'm not even _that_ big. I 've just never had
| the physique I wanted, and I always attributed it to having a
| slow metabolism.
|
| I'm turning 40 in May, so since the start of February, I've
| finally pulled up my bootstraps and started taking my health
| seriously. I was likely 225 lbs at 5'10". Easily 32+% body fat.
|
| The first thing I did was a deep extended fast, drinking only
| water, electrolytes, supplements, bone broth, and black coffee.
| I was able to shed a good amount of weight, fast. However, the
| longest I could fast for was 6 days; No matter what I tried, I
| could not figure out how to get good sleep. I tried once more
| for 4 days, and saw no improvement, so I stopped trying to
| fast. Mentally I could handle it, but without quality sleep,
| there was no way I could continue. This was mid-March, and I
| was at 204.5 lbs.
|
| Also in mid-March, I did a VO2 max test, while fasted for 72
| hours. It was very apparent that my metabolism was fat adapted.
| My VO2 max was very low at 33.8 ml/kg, which was to be
| expected. My RMR was found to be 1998 kcal/day, and my fat max
| HR was 161 bpm. Crossover to 100% carbs was at 179 bpm.
|
| Since then, I've done a 180, and started eating about 1800-2000
| kcal per day. My first goal is to ensure I eat 170-200g of
| protein per day, through as much whole food as possible, using
| whey or protein when needed. The rest of my diet is very clean,
| with no real restrictions on fats, and keeping carbs as low as
| possible. It's a fairly ketogenic diet, but I don't get worked
| up if my net carbs go to 50+g. Foods are usually Greek yogurt,
| flax, pumpkin seeds, nuts, eggs, berries, fish, poultry, and
| green vegetables/salads. If I ever add fat to anything, it's
| extra virgin olive oil first, then maybe butter/cream (i.e. in
| coffee). I take a number of supplements like Omega-3 fish oils,
| multivitamins, magnesium, and make my own electrolyte drink.
| Creatine as well.
|
| I find that by the time I've done all of this, I have a very
| difficult time eating, and even trying to fit anything else in.
| I am never hungry, nor do I feel cravings for other foods. We
| just came back from Miami, and I had some ice cream with the
| kids, and some baked goods. I enjoyed them, but I was very
| excited to be back to my normal foods.
|
| Since then, I've been running 3-4 times a week, focusing on
| Zone 2 training. I do 4 days a week of weightlifting, focusing
| on the big compound lifts. I have a 10K race on May 11, and a
| sprint distance triathlon on July 27 that I'm training for.
|
| For this entire month, I have stayed at a constant 207.5 lbs
| +/- 0.5 lbs. I have been tracking other measurements like
| circumferences and body fat (using calibers and BIA scale), and
| it's apparent that I have gained strength, regained muscle
| mass, and improved my overall fitness. Running is still at a
| slow pace, but actually enjoyable now. My wearables estimate
| that my VO2 max is 37 ml/kg; they did show 33 ml/kg last month
| when I had the test, so they seem to be correlated.
|
| I think the hardest part of the last month has been the sheer
| amount of work I've put in, only to watch the scale stay
| steady. I track my intake rigorously, weighing everything I can
| and using MyFitnessPal to track it all. How are people able to
| eat anything else? I couldn't add rice or grains to my diet
| even if I wanted to, I would easily hit 2500+ kcal per day.
|
| People eat that much? Or rather, burn that much? I burn 2000
| kcal per rest day, and maybe 2800-3200 kcal on workout days.
|
| I will stick with this, since it is working to improve my
| health and fitness. It would just be nice to see the scale move
| without having to fast for multiple days. Cursed slow
| metabolism.
| agensaequivocum wrote:
| How's your light environment/sunlight exposure? What's your
| waking body temperature (under arm for 10 minutes)? Have you
| had a thyroid panel done? (TSH, Free T3, Free T4, Reverse T3)
| john_minsk wrote:
| Just went trough Yo-Yo. Any good strategies on how to overcome it
| for good?
| blitzar wrote:
| Its a lifestyle change not a diet. Don't stop the diet /
| exercise when you get to the "target" weight.
|
| This idea sucks when you are looking at a plate of lettuce
| leaves - but you should also avoid extreme diets and extreme
| exercise as it is unsustainable.
| hxorr wrote:
| in addition to this, start by making small, but permanent
| changes to your lifestyle over time, if you change everything
| at once then of course you'll revert pretty quickly
| ManBeardPc wrote:
| Don't try to lose weight fast. Don't do a diet for a limited
| amount of time. Change your eating habits to something you can
| live with permanently. Avoid sugar in drinks, it's so easy to
| get a lot of calories without feeling full. Sugar in general
| will give you hunger attacks. For me personally I feel best if
| I have a big part of calories coming from protein, followed by
| less carbs and some fat. But removing sugar from drinks alone
| lost me 30kg, without changing any other habits. Better for the
| general health as well.
|
| Going to the gym helped me immensely. Not so much in losing
| weight directly but in feeling better and fresher.
| krzat wrote:
| Exactly, this is a lifestyle change first.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > Going to the gym helped me immensely. Not so much in losing
| weight directly but in feeling better and fresher.
|
| This. I've found working out has changed the kinds of foods I
| crave, making it easier to adhere to a diet. I'd usually feel
| more like a steak with eggs and brocoli rather than a deep-
| fried burger.
| delichon wrote:
| Yes, unfortunately. I was a world class yo-yo dieter, bouncing
| over 100 pounds four times, with many many lesser yos. This is,
| officially, a type of bulimia. I binge and diet instead of
| vomit. After more than five decades of that I found stability
| via sufficient protein, but I've lost my previous knack for
| losing weight. So now I'm stuck right in the middle of one of
| my previous yo-yos. It's better here than at the top though.
| gh0stcat wrote:
| I've gone through stuff like this too. Not sure if it helps,
| but I believe in you and hope you find strength and peace in
| your journey. :)
| paulpauper wrote:
| If all else fails, look into GLP-1 meds. At this point ,it's
| not even controversial anymore and some of the social stigma is
| gone. it's hard enough losing weight even with medical
| intervention.
| massivegiant wrote:
| eat less permanently
|
| food is no longer a reward for anything
|
| fin.
| agos wrote:
| this is not helpful nor insightful
| fatdog2 wrote:
| its literally the answer unless parent has solved famine
| agos wrote:
| it is, at best, a tautology, at worst, taunting the asker
| on the very thing they are struggling with. I think we
| can do better to help each other with something difficult
| blueflow wrote:
| It is what i did. Learn to live with hunger for a while
| instead of going to "fix it" instantly.
|
| No idea why you are so dismissive.
| agos wrote:
| the fact that you were able to live with your level of
| hunger does not mean that for somebody else the level of
| hunger is the same or is as easy to manage as it was for
| you. this is not helpful
| blueflow wrote:
| It is not easy, it took me time and effort. Sorry if
| thats too difficult for some of ya'll. There is no easier
| way without meds.
| tekla wrote:
| It's very easy to fast for a few days once you get used
| to it. Your hunger is food addiction, not your body
| actually needing those calories.
| linguistbreaker wrote:
| Fasting is a natural state. Food addiction is real, as is
| lack of discipline.
|
| Just stop overeating. That's the magic bullet. Always has
| been.
|
| What's not helpful is looking for weird workarounds all
| the time. Just stop eating so much.
| cookiengineer wrote:
| It's not about the weight, it's about the exercise.
|
| Start with something easy and establish a rule that won't ever
| be broken. If you break a rule once, you'll lose the fight.
|
| My rule, for example, when I started to train more:
|
| - start with 10 crunches every morning and evening
|
| - increase by 2 crunches every day
|
| - no exceptions
|
| When you are at ~2 months in, you can add weight training to it
| to get stronger.
|
| Additionally, find a sport that you can do once or twice a week
| that is FUN to do. By FUN I really mean it. There's no point in
| doing sports if you don't enjoy it.
|
| If you enjoy playing batminton, go for it! If you enjoy table
| tennis, go for it! If you enjoy Kung Fu, Krav Maga, or whatever
| ... go for it!
|
| Sports isn't about reaching goals, it's about having fun while
| doing it. Otherwise, you will not overcome the struggles. Your
| brain needs a reward, and enjoying sports helps you keep
| wanting more of it.
| dxuh wrote:
| Have you actually lost weight like that? I think exercise is
| a huge trap for weight loss. Cardio exercise makes you
| healthy, but it will also make you hungry. Especially if you
| are not used to it. Overweight people are usually already
| overeating. They can't deal with hunger and cravings well. If
| you make them do cardio, they will likely eat back whatever
| they burned and most likely much more. And even if they
| don't, they were already overeating, so chances are high you
| are not in a caloric deficit still. I have lost a lot of
| weight (30kg) three times now (gained some of it back every
| time unfortunately) and I think there is much truth to "You
| don't lose weight at the gym, you lose weight in the
| kitchen.".
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > Cardio exercise makes you healthy, but it will also make
| you hungry.
|
| That's what I've noticed, too.
|
| But I've also noticed that it makes me crave different
| foods than when I sit on my ass all day. So, on average, I
| tend to actually eat less, because I don't have random
| cravings in between meals.
|
| I doubt that people who are overweight and sedentary only
| eat "healthy" meals, only too much.
| tekla wrote:
| Funnily enough, once you get decent enough I have a hard
| time eating after doing cardio. I need to force myself to
| eat something that isn't just a gatorade because my body is
| too busy recovering to spare any blood for my gut.
| senko wrote:
| > It's not about the weight, it's about the exercise.
|
| You cannot outrun a fork.
| david-gpu wrote:
| Tell that to all the skinny endurance weekend warriors who
| fuel their exercise with huge amounts of sugary drinks and
| gummy bears. If you are curious, read about the function of
| GLUT4 in the membrane of skeletal muscles.
|
| Reality is more complex than memetic one-liners.
| senko wrote:
| I will as soon as I see any of them gobble up a smothered
| burrito or Chicago pizza on their run.
|
| Do we really want to compare ultramarathon runners with
| couch potatoes?
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Obviously professional athletes or people who otherwise
| have an extremely active lifestile can afford to eat
| more.
|
| The obese people and sedentary office workers don't and
| would need to train for months to be able to out-run a
| single piece of cake on a regular basis without injury.
|
| The phrase is good advice for that group of people.
| janpmz wrote:
| For me weightloss worked over a long period of time with a
| couple of strategies.
|
| 1. One was not eating breakfast, this works well when I'm in
| the office. Then you have fasting built into your daily
| routine. This has many metabolic benefits.
|
| 2. Switching to a low carb diet (keto). I never thought I'd
| quit eating bread, but reducing carbonhydrates (esp. sugar) and
| eating more eggs & meat had the biggest effect on my weight.
| More so than doing sports. This is just a rough guideline, I
| don't follow this very strictly.
|
| 3. Sports + Fasting: Sometimes on the weekends I go on a hike
| or do some sports and only eat when I get home in the afternoon
| (e.g. steak). This forces my body to take the energy from the
| fat reserves.
| janpmz wrote:
| I don't understand why I get downvotes for that. Those are
| the things I did in the past two years to get to my dream
| weight and hold it without yoyo effect.
| agos wrote:
| because "this worked for me" is a poor premise, especially
| if you're talking about an extreme diet (keto)
| janpmz wrote:
| I'm not an expert on this topic, so take it with a grain
| of salt. The reason a low carb diet works for many people
| (not necessarily extreme keto) is that it reduces the
| volatility of blood sugar levels, and this results in
| fewer cravings and being less tired over the day. So
| taking in fewer calories becomes easier. And then I
| learned about gluconeogenesis. The body can create
| glucose on its own and perfectly regulates glucose levels
| in the brain, etc., once it switches to that mode.
|
| In the end, these tips help to get into a different
| lifestyle and then reinforce the habits to stay there
| because it feels better.
| vkazanov wrote:
| This is pretty extreme. :-)
|
| The magic is that just counting calories basically leads to
| the same outcome: less carbs and sugary stuff, less fatty
| meats, more lean meat, more veggies, etc.
| anon373839 wrote:
| I might consider working with a cognitive behavioral therapist.
| Since you've already lost weight, you do know (in big picture
| terms) how to lose/not gain weight: eat a healthy diet
| consistently and get regular exercise. For most people who
| struggle with their weight, there are emotional eating patterns
| or even just bad habits that are just hard to break on their
| own.
|
| Of course knowledge about diet and exercise is immensely
| valuable, but if there are psychological factors getting in the
| way, it's going to be harder to adopt a consistently healthy
| lifestyle.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I totally see this is myself. If I'm feeling blue, nothing
| makes me feel better like a cinnamon roll.
| modo_mario wrote:
| I think you need to make it sustainable. I never had to do it
| consistently but even I know... Nobody is going to live hungry
| all the time. Nobody is going to grow old counting calories
| every damn day.
|
| So rather than just eating less make sure to work out some.
| Consistently. Id suggest strength training. I did a full body
| strength training workout 2-3 times a week. Some may suggest
| doing leg days, arm days, etc but going there takes time on
| itself and i have other places to be than the gym.
|
| To match that strength training eat more protein. Things like
| chicken are your friend. This tends to be higher on the satiety
| index so you'll feel full faster and you'll eat less without it
| being so painfull. Eat a bit of protein with every meal Really
| there's a whole lot of other stuff that you can fill yourself
| up with that won't be too bad for ya. And when you go for a
| carb? Get the complex one if it's a choice. It'll dampen that
| peak in insulin.
|
| Avoid the sugary stuff. It's addictive for sure but taper off.
| Eat before going to the store. Make the hard decisions there
| not with the easy snack within reach in the evening.
|
| Do a bit of everything that works until it becomes second
| nature. Overfocusing on one silver bullet doesn't tend to work.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This is advice people often give, but unfortunately it's
| wrong. Exercise and working out are useful and healthy, but
| it's not a sufficient tool for losing weight in most
| situations. The core problem is that the amount of calories
| you eat is in the ballpark of thousands, while a workout will
| burn in the order of hundreds (excluding athletes and such).
| This along with metabolic adaptation means that it's always
| easier to out eat what you burn extra. In other words, you
| can't outrun your fork. Exercise is healthy for a wide array
| of reasons, but it's only a small part of losing weight.
| Nearly all of it has to come from your eating habits.
| modo_mario wrote:
| Oh for sure. But it helps to spread the effort and to have
| to fight hunger and cravings less. If one fails there it
| makes sense to put at least minimum effort to alleviate
| that strain.
|
| Also i mentioned strength training specifically since other
| than what you burn at a workout resting metabolic rate also
| increases and helps. I assume the average person on this
| website is notably rather sedentary and would see above
| average results depending on age and such.[1] (Even more so
| if he's a guy which I believed he was based on his name.)
| You'll always need a base and you're reducing your intake
| anything so something like a 15% difference is gigantic
| when you're struggling and super helpfull (even just 5% is
| worthwile).
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8030593/
|
| edit: and I'll acknowledge it would take a while before
| that increased resting metabolic rate starts to play more
| but again....it needs to be sustainable so whatever you're
| doing you need to be able to keep up anyway.
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| Yes. One summer my friends asked me to join in a running
| program with them. We went from basically sedentary to
| running 5k a day within several weeks. They hoped to lose
| weight. I didn't expect to, because we weren't eating any
| differently, but I did it because I wanted to get stronger
| and less out-of-breath.
|
| I was right; we didn't lose any weight, but we did get much
| better at running without gasping to a stop within a couple
| minutes.
| bluecheese452 wrote:
| You can't outrun a bad diet but you can outrun a mediocre
| one.
| xnx wrote:
| Ozempic is an effective, safe, and proven tool.
| LordHeini wrote:
| Its all about long term habits, basic knowledge about nutrition
| and the 80/20 rule.
|
| Hardcore diets and then falling back to the old habits are
| absolutely not the way to do it. There are things like diet
| fatigue, the mentioned Yo-Yo effect you don't want to deal
| with.
|
| Your "diet" should be generally healthy and long term
| sustainable. It just does not work to replace one way of
| malnutrition with another one.
|
| So here are the things i (BMI 22, bodyfat < 19% for now 20+
| years, at age over 40) would recommend:
|
| One is strength based exercise. Find 1-3 days in your week
| where you can dependably (!) spend an hour or two to go to the
| gym. It is better to go once every week reliably, than to go 3
| times one week and then skipping the next.
|
| Get a full body training plan consisting of multi joint
| exercises. For example don't waste your time on biceps if you
| can do rows which trains your biceps and back at the same time.
|
| You must do strength training order to gain muscle mass.
| Muscles have a large influence on your hormones, which helps to
| suppress hunger and keeps you fit in general. The hunger
| suppression is important if you lose weight. It works this way:
| if you lose weight, you will usually lose muscle mass alongside
| fat. Losing muscles creates a huge hunger signal compared to
| fat. Doing strength training keeps you from losing muscle (or
| even building it) so your hunger is lower while you lose
| weight.
|
| And you don't want to end up skinny fat with issues like back
| pain (which i ended up with at age 20 without ever being
| overweight).
|
| Don't overdo it. But be consistent, do the smallest amount
| necessary but every single week no exception.
|
| Don't do cardio (at least not cardio only). Cardio is fine if
| you do it for sporting reasons but since you seem to be
| overweight, i assume this is not the case ;) So cardio would
| just waste your time because it burns surprisingly small
| amounts of calories while increasing hunger by a lot. It also
| does not build muscles as much so why bother?
|
| The most important part is to get your nutrition in check.
|
| Basically do the following:
|
| Close to every meal should, by volume, roughly consist of 1/4
| protein, like chicken or other lean meat, or plant based
| alternatives 1/4 carbs, like rice, potatoes whatever (pasta has
| tons of calories so be careful here) 2/4 vegetables like
| carrots, broccoli... whatever just mix it up.
|
| It is a ton of vegetables, which is good because it keeps your
| stomach full and is healthy in every conceivable way.
|
| Do not skip fats, but skip pure sugars especially in liquid
| form like soda.
|
| Don't do cheat days where you mindlessly eat thousands of
| calories, this messes with your psyche for no reason. But
| eating out, or some junk food is fine from time to time you are
| not a robot.
|
| Inform yourself about the calorie content of your meals and try
| to control the amount.
|
| There are many ways to exert control, which are highly
| individual. Some have no problem skipping breakfast, some make
| their meals smaller, some do keto or track calories. Whatever
| floats your boat you have to find out. Remember it has to be
| sustainable. Personally i try to get a good amount of protein
| into my meals and i keep an eye out for calories without
| counting.
|
| Every single morning: Use the toilet, step on a scale, check
| your weight. It varies a bit from day to day but the average
| helps you track. You might want to use an app but its not
| really necessary. This is your main way to keep track. Gain
| weight? Try to eat a bit less next week.
|
| Keep in mind that you are in it for the long run. There is no
| need to lose tons of weight in the short term. It is fine to be
| slow which is way more sustainable anyway.
|
| You want to be fit for the rest of your life so you have to
| keep at it for the rest of your life.
| olalonde wrote:
| Here's what the "The Renaissance Diet 2.0" book recommends:
|
| 1) Don't lose more than 10% of your bodyweight in the same
| weight loss period.
|
| 2) Don't lose more than 1% of body weight per week.
|
| 3) At the end of a weight loss period, transition to eating at
| maintenance calories for a while before starting a new weight
| loss period.
|
| A common mistake is to completely stop dieting when you reach
| your goal weight. This is a bad idea because your body has
| adapted to the diet (e.g. decreased energy expenditure) and
| it's therefore easy to regain weight rapidly. What you should
| do is keep tracking what you eat while increasing calories to
| maintenance level, to give a chance to your body to slowly
| decrease hunger and increase energy expenditure.
| bluecheese452 wrote:
| That book was written by a bodybuilder who has consistently
| showed up on stage way too fat. Then he claims it is all
| water weight.
| olalonde wrote:
| So 8% body fat? :) Regardless, he his first and foremost a
| PhD in sports physiology.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Well, if the above paper is correct there is something you need
| to know. Epigenetic changes are caused my the methylation of
| DNA. So if there are epigentic chnages that are causing you to
| gain weight, what needs to be done is to Demethylate the DNA.
| This is done through Demethylase enzymes:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demethylase
|
| some of which have vitamin cofactors like zinc[1] and
| riboflavin[2].
|
| So nutrition is important. I will let you investigate the link
| between zinc, riboflavin and diabetes...
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7191051/ [2]
| https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/O60341/entry
| humanrebar wrote:
| Weigh yourself every day. Journal it. This sets up an objective
| metric to calibrate against.
|
| Set medium term goals. Don't try to lose 20 kilos in six
| months. Lose the next kilo by this time in two weeks.
| Similarly, don't try to lose 0.1 kilos by tomorrow. Weight
| naturally fluctuates day to day based on water intake, sodium
| intake, muscle fatigue, and other things. But in the range of
| 2-3 weeks, you should be able to lose enough weight to see
| signal in the noise of day to day fluctuations.
|
| If you aren't hitting your medium term goals, find a way to cut
| calories more. Starting the first month doing a comprehensive
| calorie log is valuable to help calibrate what foods and
| portion sizes are relatively problematic.
|
| The rest is just finding eating patterns that work for you that
| help keep calorie levels low enough. There's a lot of advice
| about ways to do that, and most need to be taken with a grain
| of salt, but it's probably true that you can min/max at the
| margins by increasing fiber intake, increasing protein intake,
| drinking more water, eating more raw plants, intermittent
| fasting, and that sort of thing. But you'll mostly see
| fractional improvements on top of the bottom line math:
| calories burned need to exceed calories consumed.
|
| As noted elsewhere here, it's a lot of exercise to burn off a
| few pieces of bacon. Exercise is good for weight loss, but
| again, it's mostly at the margins for the average person,
| especially if that person is not an athlete.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I agree with your point in general, but I think the paragraph
| below is the most important:
|
| > _The rest is just finding eating patterns that work for you
| that help keep calorie levels low enough. There 's a lot of
| advice about ways to do that, and most need to be taken with
| a grain of salt, but it's probably true that you can min/max
| at the margins by increasing fiber intake, increasing protein
| intake, drinking more water, eating more raw plants,
| intermittent fasting, and that sort of thing. But you'll
| mostly see fractional improvements on top of the bottom line
| math: calories burned need to exceed calories consumed._
|
| It's "easy" to lose a ton of weight if you don't eat anything
| at all. But that's obviously not sustainable. However, what
| I've found works, is that those things "at the margins" as
| you say actually have a huge effect on adherence to the
| "diet". Some foods require a tremendous amount of willpower
| to only consume in "reasonable" quantities. Think candy bars,
| chips, the like.
|
| The point is to take note about how you feel after a given
| meal. Some foods, even though the meal would bring enough
| calories, leave you with a feeling of wanting more. Avoid
| these. Others leave you feeling full for hours. Go for those.
| What I've noticed is that sometimes, the effect may come from
| "secondary" ingredients, like the dressing on a salad,
| whereas the salad itself will leave you feeling full for the
| whole afternoon.
|
| There are things you may enjoy quite a lot, so if they're of
| the "can't stop eating them sort", you'll have to forego them
| entirely. It's actually much easier to not eat them at all
| (and, ideally, not even have them in the house) than hoping
| you'll be reasonable. With time, these foods will lose their
| appeal, and you won't randomly crave them every day. Getting
| over this first step is what I find hardest.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Find a sport or physical activity (something physical, golf is
| probably not going to do it) you love. Keep doing it.
| gruntbuggly wrote:
| Probably my only good advice is to not take internet advice too
| seriously, which I'm sure you are aware of. The most
| epistemologically sound advice i can give is try everything and
| find what works for you. Lots of internet people advocate for
| low carb approaches for many apparently valid reasons.
| Recently, i tried eating whole food plant based and it's been
| an amazing 2 weeks (yes incredibly short time to report). I'm
| not trying that hard, i'm eating well, and feel amazing. If i
| keep going I'll probably supplement protein, vitamin b, omegas,
| fish, etc, but my weight is just falling off so far, unlike any
| other eating plan i've tried. Not super strict either. Eating
| whatever i want when i eat out, but i like how it makes me feel
| so i tend to stick with it when possible. Your mileage will
| vary. It's literally 2 weeks so far lol
| alabastervlog wrote:
| There aren't any, statistically speaking. All strategies are
| about equally ineffective, long-term. Only really expensive,
| high-touch, long-term personal engagements by professionals
| achieve really significant results, and even there, less so
| than you might think.
|
| The answers that actually work are "move to an environment
| where you will likely get and stay skinnier" (maybe a
| different, skinnier country) or (this one's new! There's
| finally a semi-reasonable answer to this question!) "take GLP-1
| agonists". There's no _strategy_ that 'll do it (for outliers,
| yes, but over a population, no)
| delichon wrote:
| > ...it is plausible that epigenetic memory could also play a
| role in many other contexts, including addictive diseases. Recent
| advancements in targeted epigenetic editing global remodelling of
| the epigenome provide promising new approaches.
|
| "Darn, I think I've contracted some alcoholism. Could you order
| me another bottle of the reset pills?"
| elric wrote:
| More like "just take these GLP-1 agonists for the rest of your
| life". Those seem to have an effect on addictions etc. But at
| least when it comes to weight, people seem to put it back on
| once they quit. Perhaps the GLP-1 agonist is lacking an
| epigenetic reset button ...
| bsder wrote:
| Fat cells only turn over about 20% per year. You basically
| need to maintain a reduced weight for 5 years before the fat
| cells "forget" the higher weight.
|
| If you come off it before that 5 years are up, yeah, you are
| probably expected to bounce back somewhat.
|
| You might not need to be on GLP-1 forever, but you might need
| to be on it longer than people currently think.
| elric wrote:
| Oh thanks, that 20% is a super useful statistic to keep in
| mind.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Do you happen to have a reference for that or a specific
| link to learn more? That sounds oddly specific.
| senko wrote:
| Was also interested and a quick search for "human fat
| cells turnover time years" returned a few research papers
| that quote 10% a year.
| bsder wrote:
| Not offhand, but it was an article talking about how they
| use background radiation to estimate cellular lifetimes.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Weight / obesity management is basically managing a chronic
| condition, that's why time-limited interventions (workout
| camps, fasting, dieting, drug injections for a few months)
| don't work - you have to continuously manage the issue. The
| idea that you have an issue (obesity) and then make an
| intervention (loose weight) and therefore the issue is
| resolved (you are no longer obese) is just wrong. It needs
| to be managed from either the demand side (regular GLP-1
| agonist injections to suppress hunger) or the supply side
| (eating less / better food). Hence: Dieting = never works.
| Building sustainable habits or continuous administering of
| GLP-1 = always works.
|
| (Or you're one of the 5% or so of people with a rare gene
| variation that basically prevents major fat build-up in the
| body and there's just nothing to manage for you about that
| -- this would've been a pretty disadvantageous adaption in
| the past, but it's fair to say that the other 95% are
| maladpated to the last couple thousand years of human
| life).
| djmips wrote:
| It's semantics but 'changing your diet' is more apt.
| testing22321 wrote:
| > _If you come off it before that 5 years are up, yeah, you
| are probably expected to bounce back somewhat._
|
| It would only be possible to bounce back if you eat excess
| calories once off the GLP-1.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| Obviously, but the 'obesogenic memory' that this article
| is about is a real problem. Calories don't manifest out
| of thin air but for a plethora of reasons they're much
| much easier to overconsume as a formerly fat person.
| loeg wrote:
| That's a much rosier picture than requiring GLP-1s for your
| entire lifetime.
| paulpauper wrote:
| The more you research/learn about obesity, the worse it is, much
| like smoking. One of the most depressing stats is that dieting
| does not get easier with time. The probability of eventually
| regaining all the weight eventually converges to 100%. Even if
| you're successful for 2 years, people still regain by year 4, 5,
| etc. The body never resists trying to regain the weight. GLP-1
| drugs are the best hope yet.
| agos wrote:
| absolutely. and yet people will still say "just eat less"!
| Imagine telling a person who smokes "just smoke less"
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| That's... A completely reasonable thing to say..
| agos wrote:
| the "just" is doing a lot of work, too much. Most people
| with an addiction or weight problem are very well aware of
| what they should be doing (or not doing), but they'll be
| fighting with their body telling them constantly that they
| really, really need to eat or smoke. This is the hard part
| and telling someone "just do it" is not helpful in the
| least
| mattlondon wrote:
| Yeah I often think that I am addicted to food. They say men
| think about sex every 7 seconds - I think about eating every
| 7 seconds!
|
| If I start eating badly, it is very very very hard to stop. I
| will crash off the rails into a spiral of binge-eating for
| the rest of the day until I feel physically sick (which takes
| a while).
|
| You just can't start.
|
| With alcoholism or smoking it is plausible (although hard) to
| go cold-turkey and just eliminate the things that lead you to
| the binges. You can make lifestyle changes to avoid them. But
| you still have to eat, so for me I am always one meal away
| from losing it and pigging out. I _never_ feel full (the food
| challenges of "if you can finish this meal it's free" are a
| walk in the park for me - anyone for dessert?). It takes
| continuous and immense will power to stop - I am hovering
| around 95kgs at 1.85m which I know is "bad" but tell me
| something I don't know. It's hard.
| anon373839 wrote:
| This is self-defeating and untrue. Many people, myself
| included, have kept weight off for decades. But you don't get
| there by thinking of your new lifestyle as "dieting". You need
| to learn to _love_ eating healthy foods in a healthy amount,
| and getting exercise. Eventually you can get to a place where
| the old foods and habits are simply unappealing.
| pif wrote:
| > in a healthy amount
|
| That's the crux! Constant hunger starts nagging me as soon as
| I try. I've tried several times for several months, with nice
| results from the weight's points of view, but I never got to
| the point where my quality of life globally increased, and
| that was always due to the constant hunger.
|
| I'll only retry when I'll have found a way to stop the hunger
| _now_.
| anon373839 wrote:
| That's pretty useful info! If you were feeling
| uncomfortably hungry beyond a short adjustment period, that
| makes me question if your caloric deficit was too
| aggressive. And/or if your diet didn't include enough fiber
| and protein for satiety. (It's also possible to be
| confusing other signals for hunger, like thirst, boredom,
| or anxiety.)
|
| Losing weight does not have to be so hard. You can lose a
| lot of weight gradually over time with a small, consistent
| deficit. Measurement accuracy is critical, though - you
| will absolutely fail if you aren't logging your food like a
| lab scientist.
|
| But it is definitely possible to succeed without that
| constant sense of privation. In fact, if you want to
| succeed long-term, you HAVE to find that balance because
| nobody can force themselves to feel deprived indefinitely.
| mattlondon wrote:
| I found that sugar free hard sweets/candies helped to try
| and satiate some of the pangs. It's still hard, and you
| might end up "chain eating" like 5 or 6 of the things in a
| row, but I figure better that than bingeing chocolate or
| whatever.
| karn97 wrote:
| Just live with the hunger? Been starving for last 3 hours
| but idc really. Thats how i never went above 75kg all my
| life
| outime wrote:
| Yeah, what you said is key - and I can also vouch that it's
| absolutely possible to keep it away for good, aside from
| small setbacks that almost everyone experiences, since we're
| not robots.
|
| The word diet is problematic because most people see it as
| something temporary. But you can't just eat healthy to lose
| weight and then go back to old habits, expecting the weight
| to stay off. That just doesn't make sense.
|
| Also for many people, food isn't just about pleasure - it's
| also a way to deal with boredom, stress, depression, and so
| on. So even if someone sticks to a diet, if the psychological
| root causes are still there, it's going to be hard to stay
| away from junk food.
| aantix wrote:
| This is not untrue.
|
| Look at the long term numbers for successfully keeping weight
| off, 5, 10 years out.
|
| They're abysmal.
| tekla wrote:
| Its because people treat it as a DIET and not THE NEW
| NORMAL.
|
| When you stop a diet, you go back to eating shit. The new
| normal just keeps you at the same place because you get
| used to the fact that you don't need to eat breakfast, and
| a 500 calorie lunch is perfectly satiating, hell maybe a
| bit too much.
| hooverd wrote:
| I wonder how much of that is due to a sedentary lifestyle?
| If you're running and biking and strength training it makes
| a big difference vs trying to maintain a healthy weight
| with a low TDEE.
| pif wrote:
| > One of the most depressing stats is that dieting does not get
| easier with time.
|
| Yeah, I've tried several times under medical control.
|
| I kept asking my supervising doctor: "When is the constant
| hunger going to get better?" And the answer was always in the
| range of a few weeks to several months. But that moment never
| came... never!
|
| And, in the end, all the kilograms I had lost along the route
| always found their way back home, and always with some new
| friends they had met while we had lost sight of each other.
| hooverd wrote:
| Embrace the suck.
| jonathan_h wrote:
| In line with the book "Intuitive Eating", I'm trying to make
| peace with both food and my weight lately for this reason.
|
| Given what effects stress, depression, anxiety, guilt, shame,
| etc. have on the psyche and body, I'm running an experiment,
| and betting that making peace and taking care of my body as it
| is right now will benefit me in the long run.
| bluecheese452 wrote:
| That just isn't true.
| olalonde wrote:
| I'm surprised the paper doesn't mention "settling point theory"
| which was suggested decades ago. This seems to be evidence in
| favor of the theory.
| bluecheese452 wrote:
| There is not good evidence in favor of that theory.
| andbberger wrote:
| there is quite a lot of evidence supporting the existence of
| homeostatic mechanisms involved in weight regulation
|
| eg https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1105816
| squeedles wrote:
| As this article shows, there are incredibly complex feedback
| mechanisms around weight and metabolism, but thermodynamics are
| still fundamentally a thing.
|
| After he died last year, I ran across this engineering and
| accounting approach to weight maintenance and loss written up by
| John Walker (one of the Autodesk founders). It worked very well
| for him and changed the way I thought about weight and eating. It
| is interesting reading because he is "one of us"
| https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/
|
| Basically, he uses a first level approximation of the body as a
| control system with a feedback loop, and tries to pin down some
| techniques to bring the system to a known good state (target
| weight) and manage that loop for long term stability.
| dorfsmay wrote:
| The problem with diets based only on calories is that they
| don't take satiety into account, nor health.
|
| Calories is what makes you gain/lose weight, it's basic
| physics. Satiety is what makes you want to eat more/less.
| Nutrients are what is making you healthy.
|
| Fiber and protein tends to make you feel full. Lack of them
| allow you to eat large amount of calories without feeling full.
| You need to keep track of micro and macro nutrient to stay
| healthy.
| squeedles wrote:
| Quite so, and I think he does address that, but those are all
| second level factors, along with activity level, exercise,
| and their effect on your caloric requirements. He puts
| together a bunch of excel spreadsheets for tracking many
| factors, but I have found the simple discipline of accounting
| for what I eat in a little txt file on my phone sufficient to
| align my choices with my desired outcome.
| dorfsmay wrote:
| Exercise and activity are contributing to calories
| (calories out). These days there are apps that make it easy
| to track calories, macro and nutrients.
| taeric wrote:
| One of life's great annoyances to me, is how incredibly
| effective "just doing something" tends to be. To that
| level, the act of tracking things is a strong something
| that almost always shows results. Be it lists on how often
| something has been cleaned, or procedural checklists on
| things that need to happen.
|
| I'm convinced, at this point, that there is something
| mental on it, too. Getting you to think of something gets
| your body and mind to act differently towards it.
|
| Part of this was obvious to me when I had kids. If they
| fell, they would immediately look to the reaction of others
| around them. If people looked scared, they would feel more
| hurt than if people didn't react at all. If people were
| encouraging what they were doing, they would sometimes not
| realize something might hurt.
|
| But, back to my annoyance. As someone that hates tracking
| lists... why do they have to be so effective? :D
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Sure; it's a layered system, each one taking more effort or
| thinking than the other.
|
| Easy diets: drink this shake 3x a day. Don't eat
| $food_category. Limit calory intake to $amount / day.
|
| More complex: The above, plus macronutrients.
|
| More complex: The above, plus micronutrients.
|
| Add dimensions like lifestyle choices (vegetarianism,
| veganism etc) or food sensitivities (celiac, lactose
| intolerance).
|
| I'm no diet expert and need to lose some weight myself but
| the main advice I'd give is to get stable first. Plan your
| meals, eat regular meals at regular intervals, keep excess /
| luxuries / "rewards" to a minimum. Only when you have reached
| a stable and sustainable pattern should you start to make
| adjustments. The problem with diets or major lifestyle
| changes is that they're hard to keep up, simply because they
| are so different from your usual. The shake diets generally
| don't work long term because people suffer and go back to
| their old habits, if not overcompensate because their body
| signals a deprivation of some kind.
| dorfsmay wrote:
| Shakes don't provide satiety, most people will hate this
| and start eating something else within a few days.
| taeric wrote:
| I would slightly tweak your last. Different nutrients
| (vitamins/whatever) also impact your body in specific ways.
| Not just "makes you healthy" but "causes you to do certain
| things." Caffeine is the easy example here.
|
| This gets back to the "feedback loops" above. There are
| certainly feedback loops. But you are unlikely to be able to
| prime any of them by just increasing an input. And increasing
| output is something you have to train the body to do.
|
| On that last, I think it is easy to model weight gain as
| something you train the body to do, as well? Certainly fits
| the model of the article.
|
| There are also flywheel levels of energy use for some folks.
| Consider the amount of calories a professional athlete goes
| through. We can say exercise doesn't help weight loss at the
| population level with relative certainty. It is also
| relatively safe to say exercise burns an obscene amount of
| calories in athletes.
| bluecheese452 wrote:
| We cannot make that claim with relative certainty. We
| cannot make the opposite claim either, but it is more
| likely.
| taeric wrote:
| Apologies, I see I used the wrong word. I meant to use
| confidence, not certainty. :(
| prmph wrote:
| The context is even more broad than this.
|
| Beyond satiety, you also have to consider the role food is
| playing in the person's life. Is the person hooked on
| Dopamine, with food a (the?) main source of it? Can they
| introduce other enjoyable and meaningful activities that take
| their mind off food? Even if a person is not addicted per-se
| to the dopamine food provides, if their life is boring and
| seems to lack meaning, they will still turn to food as a
| major part of their daily routine.
|
| You also have to consider that some people find daily
| planning and organization more difficult than others. Keeping
| to a good diet can require a great deal of planning on a
| daily basis.
|
| So obesity is often only a symptom of more underlying issues
| like depression loneliness, a struggle for meaning and
| connection, ADHD, and more.
| testing22321 wrote:
| You just need to keep it simple. Every time you are hungry
| have an enormous glass of water, and eat all the vegetables
| you want, always. Snacks are carrots, cauliflower, snap peas,
| cucumber.
|
| Avoid sugar and fat as much as possible.
|
| Remain in calorie deficit and you will lose weight and get
| plenty of nutrients.
| yuroFlash wrote:
| https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/
| jamesmunns wrote:
| Thank you for sharing, I'd never seen this before. It's an
| incredibly good read (and relevant for me) so far.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I always used to think negatively about people that were severely
| overweight (still do unconsciously if I'm being honest) as I
| always attributed their obesity to lack of will power. I'm a huge
| proponent of better living through chemistry (steroids - with
| frequent blood work, nootropics, whatever) and recently I decided
| to get my abs back. I hopped on some compounded semiglutide and
| was blown away by the change in my attitude towards food. I had
| always snacked at night after the kids went to bed and had built
| up about 25 pounds over the past decade. I was able to drop it
| all in 3 months without any sort of dieting, I just ate when I
| was hungry. Decided to not eat after 6:30pm and just did it, no
| issues while on the semiglutide.
|
| Really changed my attitude about food, and my body and minds
| interaction with it. A lot of this is subconscious and really
| hard to get control of. The fact a chemical compound was able to
| change my mental relationship with food also put an interesting
| spin on my ideas about consciousness and self control as a whole.
| We are just slaves to our biological processes.
| monkeycantype wrote:
| I had this same experience, but I have not continued to take
| the medication after a short experiment. I found I could get a
| similar outcome (subjective experience) through my food
| selection Today I've eaten around 2kg of vegetables today
| (zucchini, capsicum, eggplant, cauliflower, spinach) all of
| which was under 500 calories, and I've eaten fish. If I eat a
| massive amount of vegetables and get ~200g protein, I don't
| feel I'm depriving myself and am satiated on under 2000
| calories, previously I would typically eat over 3000 on a
| normal day.
|
| As for people lacking willpower, the genetics of hunger mean
| all of us experience vastly different levels of hunger. You
| might be interested to read about the family in Pakistan who
| could not produce a relevant hormone leptin, and the toddlers
| driven to fighting by insatiable hunger to steal food from each
| other, and the dramatic change in their lives after medical
| intervention with leptin injections
| wonderwonder wrote:
| My brother's family has done something similar although in a
| different direction. They have been strictly carnivore for
| several years now. Able to eat large amounts of food while
| keeping calories low and feeling satiated. It's worked well
| for them.
|
| I'll look at that study you mentioned, thank you.
| layer8 wrote:
| I think you mean semaglutide.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| right
| bowsamic wrote:
| Calorie counting is the only truly reliable way to lose weight
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| That's clearly not true. Calorie counting can work if you stick
| to it and aren't shit at estimating the calories in food.
| Almost any diet can work if you are able to stick with it.
| Appetite suppressants like amphetamines seen to work too. We've
| also seen that the new diabetes drugs actually work.
| laichzeit0 wrote:
| "Any diet" is still putting you at a net caloric deficit.
| There is no other principle that can explain weight loss that
| I know of. Whether you're counting calories to achieve that
| deficit or following a "diet" it comes down to the exact same
| thing. Counting calories just demystifies the process of
| weight loss.
| escobar_west wrote:
| The only reliable way to lose weight is through a caloric
| deficit. And the only reliable way to be on a caloric deficit
| is through counting your calories. If you're dieting without
| actually counting your calories, then at best you are only
| hoping and guessing that your diet is sufficient enough to
| put you in a caloric deficit.
| loeg wrote:
| You don't have to count calories to eat in a caloric
| deficit. Counting is not the only reliable way to hit a
| deficit. Tons and tons of people on GLP-1 drugs are not
| counting calories but are in a deficit.
| locallost wrote:
| The only true reliable way is to burn more than you eat.
| Counting calories is a way to keep track of that, but it's only
| going to be so-so accurate unless you only eat labeled food. I
| will certainly not measure the weight of a banana I eat, and
| anything else is just a very rough estimate as a banana can be
| twice the size of another banana.
|
| In general, when I was losing weight I did not really need to
| count calories, I just ate less than I did. And this worked
| because I was always hungry especially initially, until the
| body adapts. If you're always going to check "can I eat this
| one more thing dear calculator" I'd say you're not really ready
| to lose weight because tormenting yourself like this every day
| you will burn out before you can make a dent.
| Izkata wrote:
| > I will certainly not measure the weight of a banana I eat,
| and anything else is just a very rough estimate as a banana
| can be twice the size of another banana.
|
| This is the wrong way to look at it. Sometimes you'll have a
| larger banana, sometimes a smaller banana, but overall it'll
| average out. What you need is consistency to compare to your
| own previous measurements, not perfect accuracy.
|
| For example: By counting my calories and keeping track of my
| weight, I've learned that I burn about 2200 calories per day.
| If I went over my foods and measured them perfectly it
| probably wouldn't be that number, but because I'm consistent
| in how I measure it I can know with certainty whether I'm
| above or below that limit. I've been able to reliably control
| my weight for a few years now because of this and I'm not
| even measuring, just eyeballing how much of things I use.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Well, yeah. Adipocytes multiply when you get fat. But when you
| lose weight, they don't apoptose, they just shrink in volume by
| giving up their lipid stores.
| mkoubaa wrote:
| I am pretty sure the only way to reduce the number of cells is
| liposuction
| rcruzeiro wrote:
| Worse than that. Subcutaneous fat (which is the one you can
| trim off with liposuction) usually expands relying more in
| cell expansion and not in hyperplasia. Visceral fat on the
| other hand, is way more likely to involve hyperplasia and you
| cannot use liposuction against this type of fat. This is also
| the fat that is very hormonally active and increases the
| risks of diabetes, heart disease, cancers, strokes.
| gosub100 wrote:
| Is it unremovable because it's inside the core muscles and
| near internal organs?
| nradov wrote:
| Right. A surgeon can't just stick a liposuction tube into
| the abdominal cavity and poke around. This would be major
| invasive surgery with a high risk of complications, far
| worse than leaving the adipose tissue in place.
| meindnoch wrote:
| See the second half of this video:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bav_IBsuXEM
|
| Visceral fat is literally enclosing the intestines, major
| blood vessels, organs, etc. of the abdomen.
|
| Nevertheless, it is possible to surgically remove this
| sheet of fat that's covering your organs, it's called an
| omentectomy. But it's a big surgery, and done only in
| case of cancer, not for weight loss. That is, in humans:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29367725/
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I've been wondering about that. Like all cosmetic surgery
| liposuction is looked down upon.
|
| But maybe it can also be a useful and healthy weight loss
| strategy?
| bognition wrote:
| Despite being looked down on, it's still very common. I
| know several people who have had liposuction. The results
| are only temporary. Everyone I know that has had this
| procedure has rebounded back to their original body weight
| within 2 years.
| chewbacha wrote:
| Yea, this actually explains the transcriptional expression and
| weight gain very well. Strong than the methylation evidence
| imo. I didn't see any causal analysis only correlated and the
| cells still being there makes sense.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> But when you lose weight, they don't apoptose
|
| Googled for "Adipocyte apoptosis" and oh boy... It does happen,
| but I don't trust the AI summary. This looks like a deep rabbit
| hole.
| sleepyguy wrote:
| It seems fasting causes Adipocyte apoptosis. It makes sense,
| there is cell death.
|
| I lost 100 lbs fasting over 1.5 years. I did gain some weight
| back after stopping, but not much. Strangely, where I saw fat
| return was not where most of it came off.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Yeah, but fasting is extremely unpleasant.
| sleepyguy wrote:
| You get to know yourself well after about 5 days of zero
| food..... :))
| raincom wrote:
| How do glp-1 drugs such as semaglutide, terzepatid and
| retatrutide impact apoptose?
|
| "Tirzepatide promotes M1-type macrophage apoptosis and reduces
| inflammatory factor secretion by inhibiting ERK
| phosphorylation" [1]
|
| [1]
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15675...
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| They tell your brain you have lots of food in your stomach,
| which triggers lots of behavioral and metabolic changes. This
| does not necessarily reverse every effect of obesity, maybe
| not gene expression changes described in this article. But
| enough to keep weight off with ongoing treatment.
| inverted_flag wrote:
| "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" continues to
| be an undefeated aphorism.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Similar adaptions occur in muscle. The extent of new muscle
| fiber development (hyperplasia) is debated, so there are
| multiples factors influencing how muscle retains some memory of
| past strength ability.
|
| Once you've reached a level of physical strength it's easier to
| return to that level in the future. This has been a topic of
| debate in the sports world because past anabolic steroid use
| could therefore carry benefits into the future long after the
| athlete has stopped using the steroid. Non-professional
| athletes shouldn't get too excited about using steroids,
| though, because the damage steroids do to the body's own
| hormone systems also has lasting effects unless you plan on
| doing TRT for the rest of your life, which has its own
| downsides.
|
| For average people this does show the importance of getting at
| least some exercise when you're young. It's much easier to get
| a little bit fit when you're young which then makes it easier
| to stay fit in the future. Never too late too start.
| ben7799 wrote:
| I can't remember exactly what I was listening to, maybe some
| kind of NPR podcast.
|
| But the doctor was mentioning that none of the influencers
| influencing young people to try T and Steroids (which is
| rampant right now) are ever mentioning that you are on a
| ticking clock to infertility as soon as you start this stuff.
| Some people can regain their fertility but it might take
| years, and some people are going to be permanently infertile
| even staying on HRT.
|
| Plenty of those "alpha male" guys on social media are
| shooting blanks.
| joncrane wrote:
| This is interesting because about 20 or so years ago when I
| was super into bodybuilding, you couldn't talk about a
| "cycle" on a bodybuilding forum without talking about a
| "post cycle protocol."
|
| I know that's different than permanent TRT but I feel like
| you couldn't get very far researching that stuff without
| understanding that you natural test production (and sperm
| production) would get "shut down" as soon as you started
| adding exogenous androgens.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Yeah, it's well known that steroids shut you down. The
| problem with the broscience is that the PCT is talked
| about like it reverses everything like an antidote, but
| long-term bodybuilders often end up on TRT because
| eventually they can't get back to baseline.
| gr3ml1n wrote:
| That isn't true. Dedicated bodybuilders, starting more
| commonly ~5 years ago, decided that PCT wasn't worth it.
| Instead of typical 16-20 week cycles followed by 4-6
| weeks of PCT, they adjust the dose between
| supraphysiological and (generally) top-of-normal, i.e.:
| blast and cruise.
|
| It's not because they _couldn 't_ recover, it's because
| they don't want to or see the point.
| Aurornis wrote:
| Testicular atrophy and HPT axis suppression is a thoroughly
| documented side effect of TRT and steroids. Even beginner
| bodybuilders know that taking steroids will crush their
| natural testosterone production. They can kind of bring it
| back by taking short courses and using certain medications
| after the cycle, but most discover that some permanent
| damage is being done with each cycle.
|
| There are two problems with framing it as an infertility
| problem:
|
| 1 - It reduces fertility but many users retain some
| fertility. The bigger problem for most is that natural
| testosterone production won't come back to the same level
| if they ever discontinue, so they're on it for life.
| Managing testosterone injections every week or multiple
| times per week for the rest of your life is doable but a
| pain, especially if you have to travel or you're not the
| best at keeping up with prescriptions. There are also ups
| and downs and side effects that come from artificial
| testosterone dosing. Many people are surprised to discover
| that after the first year or two they don't feel "great"
| any more and it's just back to where they started, but with
| a lifetime dependency now. Others get serious side effects
| like Gynecomastia (breast growth in men, possibly requiring
| surgery) or secondary hormonal alterations that negatively
| impact mood, cognition, or libido.
|
| 2 - Many young men in their 20s or even teens see
| infertility as a positive rather than a negative. It's very
| common for people of this age to think they've made up
| their mind for life, but they have yet to even have a
| serious relationship or even know any peers with kids.
| People who work in fertility fields are starting to see a
| lot of men who went into TRT or steroids when they were
| young because they thought the consequences would never be
| a problem for them.
|
| > Plenty of those "alpha male" guys on social media are
| shooting blanks.
|
| Honestly, they don't care. I skim the testosterone
| subreddits occasionally and many people brag and joke about
| how small their testicles are.
|
| It's crazy to me to see this shift happening. TRT clinics
| that advertise on the radio, TikTok, and everywhere else
| will entice people to come in for "free tests" but the
| trick is that it doesn't matter what your numbers come back
| as, they'll always find a way to prescribe you TRT because
| it's easy recurring revenue for them with lifelong
| dependence attached.
| jjani wrote:
| > Honestly, they don't care. I skim the testosterone
| subreddits occasionally and many people brag and joke
| about how small their testicles are.
|
| Wouldn't surprise me at all if most of that was coping
| behavior.
| gr3ml1n wrote:
| What is there to cope about? It's not a big deal, and
| arguably a benefit.
| kridsdale1 wrote:
| I am a data point of resuscitation of fertility.
| Confirmed to be shooting blanks after years of juice, and
| decided to see if I could reactivate by following the
| broscience (and all the pubmed papers) on the topic.
|
| An aggressive protocol of HCG and HMG (analogues for FSH
| and LH in the pituitary) reactivated the testes to get
| back to spermatogenesis and T production after about 5
| years of complete dormancy. It took about 4 months of
| daily needles and well-timed marital conception-attempts.
| The son I fathered as a result is anecdotally very strong
| and a voracious eater. My urologist said it sounded like
| I knew everything I needed to do and was satisfied to let
| me self-treat.
| cj wrote:
| > Even beginner bodybuilders know that taking steroids
| will crush their natural testosterone production.
|
| Maybe beginner bodybuilders understand this. But I'd
| argue the average new steroid user is more likely the be
| un/mis-informed. The average person gets all their
| information from Instagram/Tiktok/Youtube/Reddit.
|
| But my observation is a lot of people are jumping on gear
| for purely aesthetic reasons. They are ordering online
| from research chemical sites and they're almost always
| not working with a trainer/coach/doctor (vast majority of
| young people on gear are not doing it under any type of
| supervision, also means many skip basic necessities like
| regular bloodwork).
|
| It's much more common for people to jump on gear,
| experience a negative effect, and then do research
| afterwards. Which is fine for substances that are
| relatively benign, but risky when you're messing with
| your hormones especially at a young age.
| loeg wrote:
| The big, big problem is heart disease. Infertility might be
| bad for your family planning, but the high blood pressure
| will kill you.
| loeg wrote:
| > This has been a topic of debate in the sports world because
| past anabolic steroid use could therefore carry benefits into
| the future long after the athlete has stopped using the
| steroid.
|
| Similar advantage is conveyed to athletes who had elevated
| (~male) testosterone levels in the past, even if they
| subsequently take blockers / go on HRT to ~female hormone
| levels.
| delecti wrote:
| Though that also comes with male-pattern skeletal growth.
| So unless your body _still_ has elevated /male-level T
| levels, you're carrying around a disproportionately heavy
| skeleton which negates the advantage. If the net effect
| were actually an advantage, you'd expect the womens' sports
| which are allowing trans women to be dominated by them, but
| they really just aren't.
|
| Additionally, trans women on HRT typically have their T
| suppressed below standard cis women levels, and thus _well_
| below the levels of cis women athletes (the top levels in
| any sport by definition tending to be outliers in
| performance).
| loeg wrote:
| > Though that also comes with male-pattern skeletal
| growth. So unless your body still has elevated/male-level
| T levels, you're carrying around a disproportionately
| heavy skeleton which negates the advantage.
|
| The male-pattern skeletal growth isn't necessarily a
| disadvantage. E.g., narrower hips and stronger bones is
| likely an advantage in running.
|
| > If the net effect were actually an advantage, you'd
| expect the womens' sports which are allowing trans women
| to be dominated by them, but they really just aren't.
|
| My understanding is the opposite. In fact, if it wasn't
| the case, there is basically no reason to have separate
| mens and womens fields.
| delecti wrote:
| > The male-pattern skeletal growth isn't necessarily a
| disadvantage. E.g., narrower hips and stronger bones is
| likely an advantage in running.
|
| It might or might not help, but if it were a net benefit
| then you'd expect trans women runners to perform more
| strongly than they actually do.
|
| > My understanding is the opposite. In fact, if it wasn't
| the case, there is basically no reason to have separate
| mens and womens fields.
|
| This sentence seems to presuppose that trans women are
| men. There are some womens' divisions which allow trans
| women (typically with stipulations requiring some
| duration of HRT), and they are not dominant there. To me,
| the sensible conclusion seems to be that trans women
| perform roughly on par with cis women, not that cis women
| perform roughly on par with cis men.
| loeg wrote:
| My last sentence wasn't particularly coherent; sorry. I
| have sort of two ideas here that were merged poorly: (1)
| setting aside trans entirely, cismen enjoy significant
| sport advantages over ciswomen in most sports, and this
| (fairness) is basically why we have women's sports
| instead of combined fields. (2) I believe transwomen have
| outsized performance in women's sports (contra your claim
| of no outperformance).
|
| > There are some womens' divisions which allow trans
| women (typically with stipulations requiring some
| duration of HRT), and they are not dominant there.
|
| I think there are maybe two things I'd poke at here. (1)
| Sports where transwomen enjoy greater advantage are more
| likely to have already excluded transwomen from womens'
| fields. And (2) the number of transwomen is tiny to begin
| with and AFAIK they have lower rates of participation in
| sports than ciswomen.
|
| I think you can basically make a case for including or
| excluding transwomen in women's sports depending on
| whether you think inclusion or fairness is most
| important.
| delecti wrote:
| > I think you can basically make a case for including or
| excluding transwomen in women's sports depending on
| whether you think inclusion or fairness is most
| important.
|
| A pretty wide spread of sports have allowed trans women*,
| and they have not dominated. If trans women _did_ have an
| outsized performance in women 's sports, there'd be
| examples to point to. I don't think you can make an
| evidence-based case for fairness and inclusion being at
| odds, given there aren't any unfair examples of inclusion
| to point to.
|
| Some of the most notable examples include weightlifting
| and swimming. In weightlifting, probably the sport I'd
| expect an unfair advantage to make itself most apparent,
| Laurel Hubbard got a DNF in the Olympics, and did merely
| pretty good in several other events. Or in swimming,
| another sport I'd expect body proportions to have a
| significant impact in, Lia Thomas, who was the center of
| a ton of controversy, also did merely fine.
|
| I'm not sure there are sports where trans women would
| have a bigger advantage than weightlifting, if such an
| advantage existed. And the tiny number of trans women
| interested in sports means that erring on the side of
| inclusion (if it does turn out to be an error) would also
| have a tiny negative impact,
|
| * - Pedantic side note, combining "transwomen" and
| "ciswomen" into single words implies that we're different
| base nouns. It's similar to how "chinamen" is not
| acceptable, but generally there's nothing wrong with
| "Chinese men". "Trans" and "cis" are just adjectives
| modifying "men" or "women".
| vimus wrote:
| > _In weightlifting, probably the sport I 'd expect an
| unfair advantage to make itself most apparent, Laurel
| Hubbard got a DNF in the Olympics, and did merely pretty
| good in several other events._
|
| On the contrary, Laurel Hubbard is a good example of how
| apparent this male physical advantage is when male
| athletes compete in the female category.
|
| Here's a chart showing ranked lifts for both men's and
| women's weightlifting in the World Masters Games, where
| Hubbard won a gold medal in the women's category in 2017:
| https:/i.ibb.co/WWf7CMQD/hubbard.jpg (the source of this
| graph is a developmental biologist who, amongst other
| things, studies sex differences in sport).
|
| This shows that the set of lifts by female and male
| weightlifters are entirely distinct. Hubbard falls within
| the middle range of the male rankings and is a huge
| outlier compared to the female rankings.
|
| For the Olympics, if Hubbard had been female,
| qualification for the competition would have been
| unprecedented. Hubbard was competing in the wake of an
| earlier elbow injury, had taken a years-long career
| break, and was considerably older than any female
| weightlifter ever to qualify for Olympic weightlifting:
| female weightlifters peak at around age 26 and Hubbard
| was 43 years old at the time.
|
| Being male in the female category was sufficient to
| mitigate all the effects of older age, chronic injury,
| undertraining, and - compared to other males - lack of
| world class talent.
|
| It's also worth noting that Hubbard came last at the
| Olympics due to being disqualified for improper
| technique, not because of being unable to physically
| manage the lifts.
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| This is anecdotal evidence but I'm a trans woman who
| transitioned at 30. I ran cross country and track and was
| the fastest kid at my school in a relatively competitive
| program. I got depressed after college and gained a bunch
| of weight and only ran sporadically. I started HRT, I
| keep my T levels in the lowest range that's healthy for
| cis women. I got the urge to start exercising again. I
| now run more than twice as much as before, lost 40
| pounds, and do roller derby on top of that. I'm still not
| as fast as I was when I was mostly sedentary, drinking
| beers every night in my apartment. I don't know if I'm
| faster or slower than I would have been if I was a cis
| woman but I did take a pretty big hit.
| kypro wrote:
| > Once you've reached a level of physical strength it's
| easier to return to that level in the future.
|
| If you're reading this and you're < 30 and physically weak
| (not overweight, but lacking muscle mass) I cannot stress
| enough what a year or two hitting the gym could do for your
| permanent strength and muscle mass.
|
| I was ridiculously skinny and physically weak going into my
| 20s and I just assumed that was the way I was built. But I
| got into fitness in my early 20s and packed on quite a bit of
| muscle and it's genuinely shocking to me how much base-level
| muscle mass and strength I've retained now 15 years on.
|
| I always felt one of the most demotivating things about
| working out was that all the effort I was putting into the
| gym would eventually go to waste when I stopped, but that's
| not true. Had I known this I'd probably have started working
| out much earlier and for much longer than I did.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| Same but I was in my 30s.
|
| Two years and I was bigger than anyone I knew unless they
| also trained hard.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| I always hear this "TRT for life" thing but every bodybuilder
| I've known on gear has had no problem going on/off on a
| blast-and-cruise with post-cycle therapy.
| gr3ml1n wrote:
| Post-cycle therapy will take longer if you're taking
| exogenous testosterone for longer, but it's definitely not
| a 'for life'/'impossible' thing if you've been on TRT for a
| few years and decide to stop. It's just fearmongering.
| koolba wrote:
| > For average people this does show the importance of getting
| at least some exercise when you're young.
|
| They've known this for centuries. Quoting the great Socrates:
|
| " _No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of
| physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old
| without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is
| capable._ "
| Ifkaluva wrote:
| Is this true? When I looked into this issue it seemed the
| medical consensus is that fat cells are mostly constant
| throughout life, and weight gain happens through adipocyte
| hypertrophy.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Look up adipogenesis.
| darksaints wrote:
| I kinda went down a rabbit hole a while back with certain
| treatments that can kill adipocytes, as there's actually some
| significant research backing both heat-generating and cold-
| generating treatments. They _do_ kill fat cells, and they are
| flushed out of the body. But people who undergo such treatments
| do not lose fat. At best, these devices can reshape your fat,
| pulling it out of one area and distributing it more evenly in
| other areas.
|
| The problem is that when you kill an adipocyte, it releases all
| of its triglycerides, which are then free to move around the
| blood stream. But when blood triglyceride levels are high and
| there isn't significant oxidation, other metabolic processes
| are triggered to start to store them. So you kill an adipocyte,
| release the triglycerides, which get reabsorbed into still
| living adipocytes, which now get engorged and then multiply
| again, replacing the fat cells that have been killed.
|
| After learning quite a bit about these processes, I think these
| devices might actually be useful, not for losing fat, but by
| eliminating this sort of fat memory. In other words, they
| should be used _after_ significant weight loss, because
| adipocytes are relatively empty and externally triggered
| apoptosis can kill the cells without releasing significant
| quantities of triglycerides which can be reabsorbed and trigger
| adipocyte mitosis. I think this would effectively reset that
| person to a state as if they had never been fat in the first
| place. Thoughts?
| meindnoch wrote:
| Interesting!
|
| Why can't we just remove the triglycerids from the blood
| before they trigger adipogenesis? Basically we need a form of
| dialysis.
| eurekin wrote:
| I have no real or deep knowledge, just some casual pop news
| reading.
|
| Isn't ketosis the state, in which the body switches to fat
| as the primary fuel?
| meindnoch wrote:
| It is. But it's hard to maintain. I was in ketosis for a
| month via diet (verified with urine strips twice a day)
| and it was a struggle to figure out what to eat.
| Camembert, bacon-wrapped chicken and eggs gets boring
| after a while. Our civilization runs on carbohydrates,
| for better or worse.
| speakspokespok wrote:
| To answer your question, yes that is what ketosis is.
| Eliminate the non-fibrous carbs from your diet and after
| 48 hours or once the carbs are out of your blood stream
| your body will start to break down stored body fat.
| Through a process in the liver you get ketones. In the
| context of meal planning, meal timing, and other
| lifestyle choices it's extremely effective. For anyone
| with ADHD / ADD patterns do TRY IT for a month!
|
| The study and the discussion here however are focused on
| reducing the quantity of those adipocyte cells in the
| body, which aren't reduced through ketosis. I think
| ketosis causes more of a volumetric reduction of each
| adipocyte cell but I'm really not sure.
|
| Like a balloon filling with air, do adipocyte cells
| expand in volume while storing lipids?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Since I had to look it up:
|
| "Adipose tissue" means "fat tissue".
| cogburnd02 wrote:
| You should definitely watch the Doctor Who episode Partners in
| Crime.
| jermaustin1 wrote:
| This was how I learned this word... It's insane that was
| almost 20 years ago.
| taeric wrote:
| Doesn't similar happen for strength gain? People that have had
| larger muscles tend to have an easier time building them back up,
| as well.
| loeg wrote:
| > People that have had larger muscles tend to have an easier
| time building them back up, as well.
|
| Yes, although I don't know whether that's epigenetic.
| taeric wrote:
| Fair. I'm now curious to know what the different forms of
| memory things can have. I confess I assumed they were all
| inter-related.
| loeg wrote:
| The mechanism I've heard of (heard proposed?) for skeletal
| muscle is that muscle cells retain the additional nuclei
| (myonuclei) developed during strength training, even during
| detraining periods. Then subsequently re-developing
| strength is easier because you've still got all of those
| nuclei.
| taeric wrote:
| That sounds similar to the way the fat thing was
| described to me, in the past. Curious how all of that
| relates. If anyone has a good read to dive into this, I'd
| be grateful!
|
| It really lends itself to the way I model "training" for
| stuff. Sucks, as we want to think there are differences
| from rote practice and learning. But it increasingly
| seems that any differences there are are much softer than
| is often taught.
| monkfish328 wrote:
| I wonder if fasting of some sort is able to reset these effects
| somehow - shoot any material on that if you know of it!
| smileysteve wrote:
| The idea is that fasting does encourage aptopsis of cells.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > However, maintaining weight loss is a considerable challenge,
| especially as the body seems to retain an obesogenic memory that
| defends against body weight changes
|
| This is validating as I'm very skeptical about this when looking
| for a partner that currently has a physiology I'm interested in
| but had one I wasn't interested in at some point before, and this
| seems to be a shared experience
| suyash wrote:
| Can anyone share tips/insights to loose body fat so as to not
| gain it back?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-04-17 23:01 UTC)