Comment by TheSpiceIsLife | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheSpiceIsLife | Hacker News Reader

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I'm going to continue to posit that weight is a factor of genetics / epigenetics and / or body function first and foremost.

Why is it that some people, regardless of how much they eat and how little they exercise, never put on weight? That, to me, is the elephant in the room.

What is going on in these peoples bodies that is kept out of popular science with regard to weight loss? We know that thyroid hormone function affects weight and metabolism. In women reproductive hormones also affect weight, oestrogen is a hormone present in both males and females, so there's some crossover there. We know that adrenal function can affect weight. We know that insulin resistance can affect weight.

There has to be more to it that calories in - calories out = weigh gain or loss.

If you have an unaddressed thyroid, reproductive hormone, insulin, or adrenal issue you're going to be working hard to address your weight.

It is my suspicion that fixing the diet first improves weight control better than exercise because food is medicine. Anything you put in your body on a daily basis can be medicinal in that it can act to help your body restore homoeostasis or move further away from it.

> regardless of how much they eat and how little they exercise, never put on weight?

If I had to choose between thermodynamics and medicine being wrong, and people not being able to accurately estimate how "much" they eat and how "little" they exercise, I'd bet all my money on the latter.

The simple reality is, people have vastly different appetites. I eat fast and am always hungry. I have two coworkers, one eats quite a bit less than me (often struggles to finish a standard portion), the other eats mich more but quite slowly.

3 different people, 3 vastly different eating habits. The reason people gain different amounts of weight most likely isn't in the differences between our bodies, but the differences between our minds.

Your body is not a bomb calorimeter. If you're looking to thermodynamics to explain weight loss or gain you'll be disappointed.

It's not that far off. If you're not looking at calories in and calories out first, you'll be disappointed. Thermodynamics doesn't cease to operate inside the human body.

Sure, if you're tracking your food intake closely, maintaining a significant deficit, and not losing weight, talk to a doctor about your thyroid. If you're putting in hours in the gym and eating a lot and not gaining any muscle, talk to your doctor about your testosterone level. But if you're looking to hormones and whatnot first, you're probably just deluding yourself.

Are you suggesting that lowering daily caloric intake to 0 would not result in weight loss? Why bother eating then?

I never understand the thermodynamics argument in terms of weight gain. Surely you acknowledge that some solar cells and mechanical engines are more efficient than others?

Additionally, do you acknowledge that some drives are more irresistible than others? Can you hold your breath until you pass out?

Is it so hard to imagine these drives might differ from person to person? I fully acknowledge that, irrespective of your body's efficiency, if you could ignore your drive magically, you would lose weight with no problem, but that is far from a useful endpoint because the drive matters.

Some people's bodies just burn more calories in resting than others. Or their resting isn't as resting as they think - look at people who sit but their leg twitches up and down.

Ultimately it's still calories in vs out. But the out isn't just burning 500 calories running. It's what you burn doing your day to day too.

My point is exactly that it's drive that differs, not metabolism. For the latter, see e.g.:

https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-peo...

Metabolic rate does vary, and technically there could be large variance. However, statistically speaking it is unlikely the variance would apply to you. The majority of the population exists in a range of 200-300kcal from each other and do not possess hugely different metabolic rates.

>There has to be more to it that calories in - calories out = weigh gain or loss.

There is. Read the "physiology" chapter at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adipose_tissue

TLDR: Blood sugar spikes above certain level are toxic, so the body responds with an emergency action of stashing the sugar wherever possible, including muscle, liver, and fat tissue. The former two are rather limited in their capacity, while the latter is unlimited. At the "hardware" level, that's all there is to obesity.

At the higher levels there are other emerging phenomena:

- This process is prone to overshooting the sugar egress, creating a "sugar crash", which has to lead to another sugar binge. This becomes an unhealthy see-saw. Note that the fat cells are consuming sugar but they can't release it back, they can only release fatty acids, hence sugar deficit must be replenished through food.

- The see-saw may end up messing the appetite and the balance of hormones that partake in regulating the metabolism. This yields the so-called "metabolic syndrome" with all its co-morbid factors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome

- The hormonal imbalance changes the person's appetite, creating a vicious cycle.

Simple sugars are addictive. Just try going without to see how bad it can get - keep eating the fats, the meats, the complex carbs, just cut out the sugars, starches, and flours.

> Why is it that some people, regardless of how much they eat and how little they exercise, never put on weight? That, to me, is the elephant in the room.

This is another problem that people can and have solved. You simply aren't eating as much as you think, so you take meticulous track of your caloric intake, and once you realize you eat a lot less than you thought, force yourself to eat X 100s of calories over normal intake per day. This is likely a quantity of food that causes physical discomfort initially, but it works.

Ignoring issues like Crohn's, "I can't gain weight" is just as much an excuse as "I can't lose weight", although perhaps more socially accepted due to body type voodoo.

> Why is it that some people, regardless of how much they eat and how little they exercise, never put on weight? That, to me, is the elephant in the room.

I disagree that qualifies as an elephant. Some of those people could have some sort of known genetic defect that makes them unable to properly digest food. Some of them do not eat as much as you think that they eat. For instance, I had plenty of snacks yesterday at a neighbor's house. They were 1 peanut and two pieces of a jerky-like thing the size of my fingernail. Without that additional information, you would have thought that I ate far more.

not saying that these people don't exist, I've just never seen a controlled study to investigate whether they really can eat more and not gain weight. anecdotally I know these people as well, I just don't trust anecdotal evidence.

Indeed, I've known a few people in my life who say "I can eat as much as I want and I never seem to gain any weight". But then when I actually accompany them, it's mostly that they don't overeat. "As much as they want" is a portion that is aligned with their body.

This is purely anecdotal...

I'm now almost 40 years old and have never been overweight a day in my life. Over the past 20 years my weight has always stayed within about a 15 pound range no matter how much/little I ate and/or exercised.

I participated in a caloric intake study at one point in time and I had a higher caloric intake than anyone in the study group. I was not trying to eat more; it was just that until I hit my mid 20s I had to consume excessive quantities of food just to keep from losing weight.

Try reproducing the "supersize me" documentary results. If you cannot reproduce the results, then there is something strange in your genetics.

At this point (didn't know then) we already know there are some strange genetics. Over the past 10 both myself and all of my siblings have been diagnosed with various immune diseases.

Supersize me fails replication: https://www.sott.net/article/126285-Supersize-me-revisited-u...

Yes, healthy people gain weight on 5,000 calorie per day diets. No, they don't develop all the metabolic and psychological maladies described in the documentary.

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