Scientists Claim Overeating Is Not the Primary Cause of Obesity

> Instead, the carbohydrate-insulin model lays much of the blame for the current obesity epidemic on modern dietary patterns characterized by excessive consumption of foods with a high glycemic load: in particular, processed, rapidly digestible carbohydrates. These foods cause hormonal responses that fundamentally change our metabolism, driving fat storage, weight gain, and obesity.

This conforms exactly with my experience over the last four decades. A low carb diet with a focus on low-glycemic carbs, while avoiding high-glycemic carbs (typically refined flours and sugars), is the way to keep from gaining weight.

With that diet, if you cut back on eating so that you are slightly hungry, you'll lose weight. And that's not too hard, because the fat intake sustains you between meals.

About the worst thing you can eat is corn chips and Coke, which is what a lot of people in the West consume all afternoon and evening.

Edit: Normally I eat a high protein, high fat diet and I can maintain my weight that way.

This evening, we went over to a friend's place to watch a film. The meal was a choice of pea soup with ham, "cheeseburger soup", and/or turkey chowder, plus rolls, pumpkin bread, and a delicious apple pie with ice cream. That's about the far opposite of my normal diet. We are just sitting here kind of bloated at this moment.

I’ve been reading a lot of Dr. Jason Fung’s work, which is based on this theory. Anecdotally, I very much concur that weight gain is ultimately a function of something hormonal, and likely related to insulin. Running on a calorie deficit has led to little or no weight loss for me, but a diet free of processed foods and intermittent fasting has been so far successful.

That said, this theory also often attempts to challenge the calorie consumption vs energy expenditure model entirely. I think it’s a bit reductionist to rely solely on calories burned vs calories eaten (or perhaps differently stated, I think the BMR model is over broadly applied and misses how complex your body’s metabolism is), but at the same time, one aspect of a less processed diet is how, after being weaned from the processed foods, it leads one to have fewer cravings, higher energy levels, and less hunger naturally.

So the model of calorie reduction (and conversely, overeating) still seems to have some applicability, it’s just that it’s probably wrong to tackle it with “eat fewer calories” as your first and primary goal. IMO, it’s more effective to flip that around.

Eat as much whole, unprocessed food as you like without counting calories, and your hormones will adjust your appetite and energy levels such that you will inherently eat fewer calories, crave less junk food, and have more energy. The end effect of a calorie deficit is probably similar, but one is sustainable hormonally, and the other is (imo) not.

One other way of stating it - instead of viewing obesity as an effect of overeating, perhaps we could view overeating as an effect of obesity.

It's good to see that in recent years we have been talking more openly about more nuanced aspects of obesity than just calories in vs. calories out. I think that this reductive way of thinking (while practical to an extent) has stigmatised scientists who are looking beyond it. And it is a little bit sad to see that we have already had carbohydrate-insulin models for over a century but they are just now entering the public consciousness.

I hope we will see biotech or personalised medicine put the last hundred of years of research into practice soon and something a bit less rudimentary than calories in-calories out becomes practical for treating our obesity epidemic.

Anecdata: I stuck with CICO + IIFYM and strictly kept track of everything manually using a scale, excel, and nutrition labels. I lost 30 lbs in 3.5 months almost exactly in line with my calculations.

A big factor was "standard days/meals" so that I could just measure food & re-use previously entered numbers to save time and hassle. Admittedly, my diet was boring. But I didn't care because my results were so clear.

From my interactions with lots of people whom CICO+IIFYM fails, they seem to not be actually tracking their intake precisely and honestly.

I think the stuff we eat has a lot more to do with obesity epidemic than "calories in calories out". CICO imbalance is just a symptom of the issue, not the root cause if you think past first order effects. It has been clear for decades.

How is it even possible for the average person to calculate calories expended every day?

It's a shame that metabolic ward studies are so expensive and relatively rare. I think there would be a much more informed conversation on these topics if people looked to them more enthusiastically.

When i switched to paleo i was more hungry in first month. While i ate more i also lost 3kg ( or like that ) that month