Comment by bbeonx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bbeonx | Hacker News Reader

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Different strokes for different folks, man. I get off on quantification. I hyper focus and I cannot do anything passive.

Dieting? That's passive: it involves not doing something. All I can think about is the fact that I shouldn't be eating, which makes me think about eating, which makes me eat.

Obsessively counting calories? It makes me do something active: strive for a minimal caloric intake for the day (I say minimal but minimal for me is healthy for anyone else).

I need to do the same thing with reading papers. Reading a paper is a passive activity while writing a paper review is active. I try to find at least one major flaw with each paper I read so that I have something active to keep my attention, a goal.

Saying "behavior xyz is silly" is unfair and not super constructive. Each of us has a single data point of human experience. Generalizing from that is kind of silly if you think about it.

If I could curtail my bathroom activity healthily, and if that would lead to a better and happier life, then dammit I'd track that shit in a heartbeat. Ditto for breathing. And unless you are having an unhealthy amount of sex there is nothing to gain from tracking it (except for ego/lack thereof).

The examples you list above all have something in common: there is no benefit to tracking them. For calories, there is an actual benefit.

I meant silly from a species perspective -- like you never see a bear counting calories ;)

There are two kinds of animals that suffer from obesity, modern humans, and animals that modern humans feed. The culprit is clear, it's our interventionist mindset. It's the USDA telling you exactly to eat the opposite of what you're supposed to eat.

The answer is less intervention, not more. Try eating an all or mostly meat diet and I assure you'll feel a lot better and food will go back to being an automatic function for you: http://justmeat.co/

> I meant silly from a species perspective -- like you never see a bear counting calories ;)

You also never see a bear walking on the Moon, or playing Candy Crush Saga.

> The culprit is clear, it's our interventionist mindset.

Or maybe that we no longer live on savanna, and the foods we have available are quite different from what our great-{n}-ancestors had.

> You also never see a bear walking on the Moon, or playing Candy Crush Saga.

If we do something right, like science and engineering, it doesn't mean we're doing everything right. In fact, most people are miserable and suffering from health issues that bears don't suffer from.

> Or maybe that we no longer live on savanna, and the foods we have available are quite different from what our great-{n}-ancestors had.

Although the megafauna are extinct (shame), meat is largely the same and that's what most of what our ancestors ate.

> In fact, most people are miserable and suffering from health issues that bears don't suffer from.

They also don't suffer from health issues that bears suffer from (and that preindustrial humans suffered from, too). As for misery, I can agree about the part caused by stress and ennui, but along most imaginable metrics, humans today are better off than in any other period of history.

> meat is largely the same and that's what most of what our ancestors ate

Technically, meat and fruits are "the same". In practice, meats are heavily processed products of factory farming exercises, and besides that, who buys just meats and fruits? Most food we buy has at least one more level of processing involved.

> who buys just meats and fruits?

An increasing number of healthy people inclusing world record holder atheletes. http://justmeat.co

> There are two kinds of animals that suffer from obesity, modern humans, and animals that modern humans feed. The culprit is clear, it's our interventionist mindset. It's the USDA telling you exactly to eat the opposite of what you're supposed to eat.

There could be a different reason. Getting more food is lot easier for these two animals. Other animals (at least meat eating) need a lot more effort to get their food. It's a natural limiting factor. Non-meat eating animals need to digest a lot of fiber which makes eating a lot quite hard.

I doubt it. Alas, it's not studied yet but a lot of people are going on the carnivore diet and finding that there system reset and find it hard to over or under eat -- they just fall into a natural way of eating. Certainly my experience.

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