Comment by defaultname | Hacker News Reader

Comment by defaultname | Hacker News Reader

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The point is that it's entirely unsurpising. It's the most basic, trivial thing possible.

But there are massive industries[1] that exist to tell people that no, it's really that you aren't eating enough food that is red. Or that fell to the ground. Or whatever. Whatever magical, simple fix means that they can still eat an excess of calories. These diets have a failure rate approaching 100%. The US is the most diet focused country in planetary history, yet also one of the fattest.

Maybe pretending that the basic thermodynamics are just some unachievable mirage is a really profoundly stupid approach?

And yes, people who have actually lost weight (or, more often than not, not gain it in the first place) simply ate less (it's magnitudes harder to burn more calories to any meaningful amount). Virtually universally.

But this makes obese people angry. It always makes them angry.

[1] - And authors. This paper cites Stephen Guyenet casually dismissing "CICO". The guy makes his living pitching easy "AHA" moments to fat people. It is, ironically, his bread and butter.

Your fundamental truth is based on a false premises that the goal is weight loss as opposed to health, more specifically metabolic health.

But lets assume it all boils down to calories in/calories out, your solution is singularly focused on calories in (eating less), that in a vacuum has no effect of calories out except generally a negative effect (your body will adapt and try to burn less calories). Thus, you are ignoring that the form of calories in directly effects the calories out, and that there are better ways to balance the equation by increasing calories out without necessarily reducing calories in, or in some cases increasing calories out might even require a caloric surplus (such as muscle building).

Obesity has an extremely high correlation with poor health. But that's irrelevant as this thread is specifically on weight.

"that in a vacuum has no effect of calories out except generally a negative effect (your body will adapt and try to burn less calories)"

This is comically overstated. No, your body doesn't magically become super efficient. This is, again, feel good pablum to make people feel better about their situation, sure it is an unwinnable battle without Magic Product or System ("buy my new book and subscribe to my It's Everyone Else's Fault newsletter!"). But the feel good stuff clearly is astonishingly ineffective. This tact hasn't worked.

Find any person who is overweight but claims they starve themselves and log and count calories. In 100% of cases you will find a calorie excess, likely significant. Find someone who is a healthy weight but claims they "eat anything they want". In 100% of cases -- okay 99.9% maybe they have a big tapeworm -- they will have a lower caloric intake.

The latter is someone who likely skips meals. They don't snack. They don't drink giant sugary drinks. And then when it's pizza day they have four slices and all of the high BMI sorts lament how they wish they had such a "high metabolism" and that they can "eat anything". It's all bullshit.

There is a significant, very difficult psychological component to eating in excess. It is a very hard problem. But I'll take every angry downvote by people who seriously want to refute the core, fundamental truth about calories, likely while parroting nonsensical myth.

> Find any person who is overweight but claims they starve themselves and log and count calories. In 100% of cases you will find a calorie excess, likely significant. Find someone who is a healthy weight but claims they "eat anything they want". In 100% of cases -- okay 99.9% maybe they have a big tapeworm -- they will have a lower caloric intake.

I take great issue with you saying 'they claim to starve themselves'. The entire point is that people who are obese can feel that they are starving while eating twice the calories that they should. Some other people feel full after eating half the calories that they should. This is the almost the entire problem, the unexplained difference.

And, despite your claim, there are also demonstrable differences in the base metabolic rate between people. One of the most basic is the difference between men and women, which is usually estimated to be about 25% — men are generally accepted to have to eat about 2500 Cal per day to keep their weight, while women should only eat about 2000 Cal (for example, by the NHS [0]). There is no reason to think that, if there can be a 25% difference in the BMR between men and women, there can't be similar differences between individuals as well. Of course, you won't find anyone who eats 10k Cal and is not gaining weight (outside professional athletes, perhaps), or anyone who is eating 100 Cal and not losing weight. But it's quite plausible for someone to eat two extra pizza slices and still lose weight compared to someone else.

[0] https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/wha...

>I take great issue with you saying 'they claim to starve themselves'.

I'm being pretty overt that when people make that claim they are often being dishonest. They know they are eating too much. There are psychological issues underlying this, but if someone tells you how little they eat yet they're gaining weight, they're likely lying.

> And, despite your claim, there are also demonstrable differences in the base metabolic rate between people.

Nowhere did I contest this. Men have more muscle mass than women and are generally larger. But between people otherwise equal, claims about varying metabolisms are largely bullshit. It is magnitudes less of an influence than it is held as.

I've been cited as a "fast metabolism" examples many times in my life. I skip meals constantly, can manage to go through a movie without eating a bucket of butter-soaked popcorn and a jug of coke, etc. I eschew all of those things. Then there's a bbq and I eat two burgers and the upper BMI people all gather around to tell the tale about how easy it is for me, what with my "fast metabolism". It's horseshit. It's destructive, self-enabling nonsense.

Another guy mentioned that when his belt size starts getting tight he knows it's time to cut back. Precisely my tactic. There have been a few times where suddenly slacks are a little tight and it isn't a signal that I need to buy new clothes or go to the next rung, but instead means it's time that I skip the occasional snack.

> I'm being pretty overt that when people make that claim they are often being dishonest. They know they are eating too much. There are psychological issues underlying this, but if someone tells you how little they eat yet they're gaining weight, they're likely lying.

The fact that they are overeating doesn't mean that they aren't also feeling very hungry, truthfully. And again, neither you nor I know if it's a psychological issue or metabolic or endocrine or anything else (or a combination).

These are the two key facts that the article is discussing and you are completely ignoring in favor of feeling superior about your self control ("I can go through a movie without eating a bucket of butter-filled popcorn").

It angers me that your comments have been consistently grey. As I've mentioned elsewhere I've lost significant amounts of weight (>150lbs, about half my peak body weight) and so am excruciatingly painfully aware of the absolute truth of what you're saying.

> Your fundamental truth is based on a false premises that the goal is weight loss as opposed to health

I think you're the one with the misconception. Obesity is consistently a contributor to health problems. Losing weight is definitely healthier for anyone who is obese and the way you lose weight is to eat less. Period. Full stop.

There are strategies for eating less that may or may not be more effective for most people, but it when it gets right down to it anyone telling you that you don't have to eat less is a snakeoil salesman.

> Losing weight is definitely healthier for anyone who is obese and the way you lose weight is to eat less. Period. Full stop.

What if someone eats the same but creates the caloric deficit through increased exercise? Will they lose weight?

Just like OP you want to simplify things as calories in/calories out while entirely ignoring calories out.

Losing weight is not healthy in and of itself, even in obese people, however, losing weight can be a byproduct of making healthy dietary and lifestyle changes.

Calories is just a unit of measurement of metabolic energy, that energy comes in 3 forms fat (ketones), glucose, and alcohol and is metabolized into energy (adp), but that energy production (metabolism) is more a measurement of health than a measurement of the total number of calories in. That is what you are ignoring.

Edit: I’m sure you have lost your weight through eating less. But have you changed and improved the actual foods you consume also? Have you begun to burn more through improved dietary metabolism and/or increased exercise? I have a hard time believing one day you were eating nutritionally deficient and caloric dense foods and lost 150 by making no other changes than simply eating less of the same calorically dense and nutritionally deficient food. Even more unlikely would be you being obese eating low calories nutritionally dense foods, and lost 150lbs reducing the calories.

> What if someone eats the same but creates the caloric deficit through increased exercise? Will they lose weight?

Yes, but there's a reason for the saying "you can't outrun a bad diet". I get it though, you're technically correct and that's the best kind according to meme science.

> I’m sure you have lost your weight through eating less. But have you changed and improved the actual foods you consume also?

Yes, because that's one of the things that makes it easier. Some foods are more satiating than others. And yes, I did increase in exercise. In fact, the exercise preceded the weight loss because the activity I took up (rock climbing) was what finally provided enough motivation for me to overcome my desire to eat more.

> I have a hard time believing one day you were eating nutritionally deficient and caloric dense foods and lost 150 by making no other changes than simply eating less of the same calorically dense and nutritionally deficient food.

It's harder, but definitely possible: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/....

My point being, you can add all the exercise you want but if you're not paying attention to your caloric intake then chances are you're just going to eat more to make up for the expended calories.

How does it ignore it while specifically citing it, over and over again?

However the basic reality is that it's a lot easier/achievable to significantly change calories in. Simple keeping your body and brain operating is actually a pretty energy expensive function, such that dramatically increasing your activity is only going to mildly increase your daily energy use.

You can not eat that muffin....or exercise on the stair climber for an hour, for instance. As an aside, loads of exercise equipment and guides effectively lie about this by including basal calories with active calories, grossly overstating the calories "burned" by activities.

So again, exercise. Eat healthy. But most importantly of all, eat less.

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