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Comment by gooseus | Hacker News Reader

Indeed, even comments here present the (calories in) < (calories out) == (weight loss) simplification.

Currently reading Antifragile by Taleb and it goes in to these fallacies at length (machine vs body and data vs theory).

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Could you explain what's wrong with (calories in) < (calories out) == (weight loss)? This article doesn't refute this idea and specifically talks about it. This is just showing that some genetic mutations affect metabolism in ways that reduce (calories out) independent of activity level. This shouldn't be shocking. Metabolism varies across different people and across the same person over time.

Your body contains a feedback mechanism that is extraordinarily good at fine-tuning how much you WANT to eat and WANT to move in order to maintain its desired weight. You can fool this system in the short term, but most people can't fool it in the long run - it will correct - and likely overcorrect - any imbalance you try to impose. So the problem with the equation is that it strongly suggests that (calories in) and (calories out) are variables that are independent of one another and freely changeable by you, which they are not.

But if you still question this, let's consider an EVEN SIMPLER equation that governs your weight: we'll ignore calories and instead focus on MASS! Here's the equation:

(mass in) < (mass out) == (mass loss)

So if you want to lose mass, all you have to do is breathe out more than you breathe in and poop/pee more than you eat/drink. This is clearly literally true - if you lose mass you must have done that! (Okay, I'm simplifying a little - there's also dandruff, perspiration, hair and nail trimming and absorbing water through the skin - but those factors are probably small enough to safely ignore.) So go out and use my simple equation to lose mass!

But wait, you say that you can't MAKE your body exhale more mass than it inhales or excrete more mass than you consume on a consistent basis? Well, maybe you're just not trying hard enough. Exercise more willpower! :-)

Both equations are true, yet both are useless.

I wasn't really commenting on this article, so much as on the comment I was replying to. But, what's wrong is that it's an oversimplification of how the human body regulates fat levels.

This oversimplification leads many to employ strategies of weight loss that revolve around simply measuring the calories they expend vs the calories they consume while ignoring the source of calories or other habits which affect hormone levels.

I'm not an expert on nutrition, fitness, biology, genetics or medicine... so you are free to dismiss my assertions if you require such a qualification.

Though, I do recommend reading some Nassim Nicolas Taleb, as he makes a much better case for what I'm discussing while also dismissing the idea that one needs to be an expert to recognize bullshit.

Also, I personally think articles drawing conclusions from scientific studies shouldn't be published before the study is replicated...

but of course, that would reduce the supply of articles for the ravenous pseudo-scientific commenter and we'd have to have more rigorous arguments on a smaller set of more rigorous information and people would run the risk of coming to all sorts of agreements and reducing click-through.

There are all kinds of cases where calories in < calories out which could result in weight gain. For example, if you already have an excess of body fat and you are building muscle quickly, remember muscle has 4kcal/g while fat has 9. If you are building muscle 1-2x breaking down fat, you will gain weight while losing fat, and expending more calories than what you are taking in.

Again, it's an abstraction which mostly works but it is also clearly not entirely true.

Obviously there are issues that can mask the weight loss from losing fat in the short term (water retention is a prime culprit here). However, in the long term (at least 8-12 weeks) the trend should be fairly obvious. The situation you described where someone is packing on 1-2 lbs of muscle for every lb of fat lost is very hard to achieve and generally only seen in beginners. Once the beginner gains are out of the way they'll see the same pattern as everyone else.

I am saying delta weight does not necessarily relate to delta fat. Delta fat contributes to delta weight but to say that other factors mask weight gain or loss makes me wonder if there is a fundamental confusion here...

I didn't say other factors mask weight loss. I said other factors mask weight loss from fat. Most of the time when someone says they want to lose weight they really mean they want to lose fat.

Taleb is a smart man, but considering he thinks carbs are "bad" for you, it's a classical case of someone who thinks being a master in one domain makes him a master in another completely-unrelated domain.

His nutritional theories are asinine.

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