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Body mass is simple: calories in - calories out = calories gained. It's silly to imagine that Coke is doing something nefarious (like Phillip Morris denying th

Body mass is simple: calories in - calories out = calories gained. It's silly to imagine that Coke is doing something nefarious (like Phillip Morris denying that smoking causes lung cancer, or Exxon Mobil FUD-ing solid climate science) by encouraging people to get more exercise so that they can consume what they want.

DannyBee 11y ago
So let me get this right: We have billions of complex chemical processes involved in all of this, and know things like "absorption rates of medicine, vitamins, and nutrients" are affected by everything from random vitamins to environmental factors to whatever else. But body mass, that we have down 100% for-sure, and it's just that simple formula, no variables, no possibility for any other affecting factors. Sure.
- sliverstorm 11y ago
  It can get complicated for sure, but to the best of my knowledge it is an axiom that if you eat less than you burn, you will lose weight. Vitamins and absorption rates have nothing on the laws of thermodynamics. Now, if your BMR is 2000 and you eat 2100, poor absorption can still cause you to lose weight. But if your BMR is 2000 and you eat 1000, there is no possible way you can gain weight. If you know how to gain weight on a calorie deficit, there's a lot of starving people in this world that would love to learn how.
  - DannyBee 11y ago
    "that if you eat less than you burn," Sure, but both the absorption and the burn rates are affected by other factors. So calculating calories out is not as simple as looking at a nutrition label. In fact, it's infinitely more complex: "Instead, the total caloric value is calculated by adding up the calories provided by the energy-containing nutrients: protein, carbohydrate, fat and alcohol. Because carbohydrates contain some fiber that is not digested and utilized by the body, the fiber component is usually subtracted from the total carbohydrate before calculating the calories." IE note: these are all things that are going to be digested or not digested (and thus, really count or not really count as calories) at different rates in different people. (Certainly, there is a max value, but this method won't give you that either :P)
    - sliverstorm 11y ago
      There is no variability in fiber absorption. You cannot digest fiber. Your burn rate doesn't drop below your BMR. Basically there's lots of variability when you are eating more than your BMR- you could gain weight, or you could not. But when you eat less than your BMR, you have a calorie deficit. Period. It doesn't matter if your digestion is working well or poorly, or if you exercised or if you didn't. You have a deficit. As for nutrition labels, I'm not aware of any hidden calories that aren't counted in the label but will be digested. Like I said, humans cannot digest fiber, at all.
      - tracker1 11y ago
        The amount and ratio of water soluble to water insoluble fiber to other substances in food, in addition to how much breakdown there is during intake (such as a smoothie, vs raw berries) definitely has an effect on absorption. For that matter, taking in additional fiber will help inhibit absorption. There's also a given persons reaction to different macros over time... sugar vs fat vs protein have different chemical reactions in the body, where too much sugar in some will have different affects over time. Some will gain weight, and show signs of metabolic syndrome, others may have the issues, but not outwardly show via weight gain. Others still won't develop diabetes.. and this can be on roughly the same diet. BMR isn't in and of itself the only measure... while it's true that you will gain/lose weight depending on how many calories you take in/out... but beyond that is what types of mass are gained/lost. Most fat people don't have enough lean muscle once they're over 35-40, which means losing too much muscle (or any) is a detriment. If you start losing more than a sustainable muscle mass, you can actually be worse off. You need to take in a minimal amount of protein to maintain/gain muscle (combined with exercise to promote gaining/maintaining muscle)... with a calorie deficit enough for weight loss, but doesn't cause starvation response and metabolic slowdown. All of these are definitely variable by person.
        sliverstorm 11y ago
        Can fiber impact absorption? Yes. Can fiber be absorbed (and digested)? No. Which was my point one comment ago. Are your macros important to health and good body composition? Yes. I usually skip that part because someone inevitably jumps in and explains how sugar is metabolized differently than fat, and then try to use that to "prove" that sugar will make you gain weight no matter what your caloric intake.
- Crito 11y ago
  It's thermodynamics dude. Your body only gets so much of its mass from the atmosphere with your lungs, the rest of it comes through food. It can't make mass. Fat tissue is no exception. Your body is only able to make it if you give your body sufficient raw materials to make it. Similarly, if your body is doing work, it is burning energy. Human bodies are not perpetual motion machines, they exploit energy stored in chemical bonds. You don't get that for free, you get that from the food you eat. You do not need to fully understand every nook and cranny of a system to examine it from first principles.
  - DannyBee 11y ago
    This is all completely and totally irrelevant. Read my other reply. Since the digestion/other rates vary from person to person, you can't simply calculate your calories out very easily, and positing this formula as if it is useful or helpful to anyone, is silly. What is your proposed mechanism for counting calories in and out for a given person (Note: nutrition labels will 100% fail you here, because of how they are calculating)?
    - Kodix 11y ago
      Here is a proposed mechanism: count calories as they are on the label, see if you lose weight. If you do not, lower them further, still counting by the label. It doesn't matter if they are exact for a given person so long as the labels are consistent. They are sufficiently consistent. I'm curious - have you tried losing weight, and is this from personal experience? Because I found it trivial by just counting calories and keeping a watch on my weight. I don't doubt that sometimes the calories I absorbed were less or more than what I wrote down, but that doesn't really matter in the long run - they're sufficiently accurate.
      - sliverstorm 11y ago
        I have to imagine many of the people who argue that sustained caloric deficits do not lead to weight loss are engaging in magical thinking to justify their weight. Guys, metabolism is just too complicated for humans to understand, so there's nothing at all I can do about being overweight, it's literally beyond my control There's got to be some kind of cognitive dissonance or something at play; how else could a rational mind convince itself that the laws of thermodynamics do not apply to the human digestive system? Or the justifications that say, nutrition labels are not PERFECTLY accurate so it's hopeless from the start. I personally guarantee if you drink one can of Coke a day and eat nothing else, you will lose weight; I don't care whether the nutrition label is perfectly accurate.
sliverstorm 11y ago
It's like the equivalent of alcohol companies and their "please drink responsibly", except this is "please exercise".
cscurmudgeon 11y ago
Stop the FUD. Not all calories are equal.
coldtea 11y ago
>It's silly to imagine that Coke is doing something nefarious (like Phillip Morris denying that smoking causes lung cancer, or Exxon Mobil FUD-ing solid climate science) by encouraging people to get more exercise so that they can consume what they want. It's silly to assume it's OK for Coke to pay scientists to promote any theory or results in scientific journals. Coke can pay scientists to work on their products and labs. Getting from there to paying to influence what goes to the diet/medical journals and the general public is downright fraud. As for "encouraging people to get more exercise so that they can consume what they want" that's not Coke's business to do. And it's BS anyway, since the message "diet doesn't matter much" (which is the inverse of what you started your comment with), will also stick to people not able or willing to exercize.
Ensorceled 11y ago
That is a bit disingenuous. I literally just finished a 15.2KM run and burnt off 1190 calories so I guess now I can eat what ever I want. Except a Big Mac Combo with a Large Coke is 1580 calories so even that is a bit much of dinner. And it took an hour and forty minutes to actually run that distance, almost two hours in total with getting my running gear on, warm up and cool down.
mikeash 11y ago
The fact that weight loss/gain is due to calorie deficit/surplus is true but useless. The most difficult thing about weight management is willpower management. People (especially techies) love to ignore willpower. They'll say, if you want to lose weight, just eat less. Completely ignoring the fact that "just eat less" is an enormous challenge for many people. By calling into question the importance of calories, Coke is basically undermining people's willpower, which is a precious resource even under optimal conditions. Promoting exercise as a substitute is useless. On its own, exercise will do nothing to help you lose weight, because the extra calorie burn will just make you hungrier!
crusso 11y ago
I like this analogy when getting into the calories in/out discussion: We don’t get fat because we over eat. Meaning that overeating isn’t the cause of obesity, it’s an effect. If a room has a maximum occupancy of 20 people and the fire marshal gets upset and wants to know why it happened – you’re not going to say “well, it’s because more people came into the room than left.” Well duh, that’s what happened but that’s not the cause, the reason for the overcrowding. Rooms get overcrowded when more come in than leave and I get fat when I eat more than I burn; but that isn’t the cause. https://www.thebairs.net/series/ketogenic-soylent/ https://www.thebairs.net/series/ketogenic-soylent/ We get the thermodynamic argument, really we do... but if you're ignoring the metabolic effects of the insulin cycle upon weight gain in the modern diet, you're not really grasping the important details.
Thimothy 11y ago
Unless you are somehow burning your shit to measure the calories that your body didn't absorb in a certain digestion, I'm going to call bullshit on your formula.

DannyBee 11y ago

So let me get this right: We have billions of complex chemical processes involved in all of this, and know things like "absorption rates of medicine, vitamins, and nutrients" are affected by everything from random vitamins to environmental factors to whatever else. But body mass, that we have down 100% for-sure, and it's just that simple formula, no variables, no possibility for any other affecting factors. Sure.

sliverstorm 11y ago
It can get complicated for sure, but to the best of my knowledge it is an axiom that if you eat less than you burn, you will lose weight. Vitamins and absorption rates have nothing on the laws of thermodynamics. Now, if your BMR is 2000 and you eat 2100, poor absorption can still cause you to lose weight. But if your BMR is 2000 and you eat 1000, there is no possible way you can gain weight. If you know how to gain weight on a calorie deficit, there's a lot of starving people in this world that would love to learn how.
- DannyBee 11y ago
  "that if you eat less than you burn," Sure, but both the absorption and the burn rates are affected by other factors. So calculating calories out is not as simple as looking at a nutrition label. In fact, it's infinitely more complex: "Instead, the total caloric value is calculated by adding up the calories provided by the energy-containing nutrients: protein, carbohydrate, fat and alcohol. Because carbohydrates contain some fiber that is not digested and utilized by the body, the fiber component is usually subtracted from the total carbohydrate before calculating the calories." IE note: these are all things that are going to be digested or not digested (and thus, really count or not really count as calories) at different rates in different people. (Certainly, there is a max value, but this method won't give you that either :P)
  - sliverstorm 11y ago
    There is no variability in fiber absorption. You cannot digest fiber. Your burn rate doesn't drop below your BMR. Basically there's lots of variability when you are eating more than your BMR- you could gain weight, or you could not. But when you eat less than your BMR, you have a calorie deficit. Period. It doesn't matter if your digestion is working well or poorly, or if you exercised or if you didn't. You have a deficit. As for nutrition labels, I'm not aware of any hidden calories that aren't counted in the label but will be digested. Like I said, humans cannot digest fiber, at all.
    - tracker1 11y ago
      The amount and ratio of water soluble to water insoluble fiber to other substances in food, in addition to how much breakdown there is during intake (such as a smoothie, vs raw berries) definitely has an effect on absorption. For that matter, taking in additional fiber will help inhibit absorption. There's also a given persons reaction to different macros over time... sugar vs fat vs protein have different chemical reactions in the body, where too much sugar in some will have different affects over time. Some will gain weight, and show signs of metabolic syndrome, others may have the issues, but not outwardly show via weight gain. Others still won't develop diabetes.. and this can be on roughly the same diet. BMR isn't in and of itself the only measure... while it's true that you will gain/lose weight depending on how many calories you take in/out... but beyond that is what types of mass are gained/lost. Most fat people don't have enough lean muscle once they're over 35-40, which means losing too much muscle (or any) is a detriment. If you start losing more than a sustainable muscle mass, you can actually be worse off. You need to take in a minimal amount of protein to maintain/gain muscle (combined with exercise to promote gaining/maintaining muscle)... with a calorie deficit enough for weight loss, but doesn't cause starvation response and metabolic slowdown. All of these are definitely variable by person.
      - sliverstorm 11y ago
        Can fiber impact absorption? Yes. Can fiber be absorbed (and digested)? No. Which was my point one comment ago. Are your macros important to health and good body composition? Yes. I usually skip that part because someone inevitably jumps in and explains how sugar is metabolized differently than fat, and then try to use that to "prove" that sugar will make you gain weight no matter what your caloric intake.
Crito 11y ago
It's thermodynamics dude. Your body only gets so much of its mass from the atmosphere with your lungs, the rest of it comes through food. It can't make mass. Fat tissue is no exception. Your body is only able to make it if you give your body sufficient raw materials to make it. Similarly, if your body is doing work, it is burning energy. Human bodies are not perpetual motion machines, they exploit energy stored in chemical bonds. You don't get that for free, you get that from the food you eat. You do not need to fully understand every nook and cranny of a system to examine it from first principles.
- DannyBee 11y ago
  This is all completely and totally irrelevant. Read my other reply. Since the digestion/other rates vary from person to person, you can't simply calculate your calories out very easily, and positing this formula as if it is useful or helpful to anyone, is silly. What is your proposed mechanism for counting calories in and out for a given person (Note: nutrition labels will 100% fail you here, because of how they are calculating)?
  - Kodix 11y ago
    Here is a proposed mechanism: count calories as they are on the label, see if you lose weight. If you do not, lower them further, still counting by the label. It doesn't matter if they are exact for a given person so long as the labels are consistent. They are sufficiently consistent. I'm curious - have you tried losing weight, and is this from personal experience? Because I found it trivial by just counting calories and keeping a watch on my weight. I don't doubt that sometimes the calories I absorbed were less or more than what I wrote down, but that doesn't really matter in the long run - they're sufficiently accurate.
    - sliverstorm 11y ago
      I have to imagine many of the people who argue that sustained caloric deficits do not lead to weight loss are engaging in magical thinking to justify their weight. Guys, metabolism is just too complicated for humans to understand, so there's nothing at all I can do about being overweight, it's literally beyond my control There's got to be some kind of cognitive dissonance or something at play; how else could a rational mind convince itself that the laws of thermodynamics do not apply to the human digestive system? Or the justifications that say, nutrition labels are not PERFECTLY accurate so it's hopeless from the start. I personally guarantee if you drink one can of Coke a day and eat nothing else, you will lose weight; I don't care whether the nutrition label is perfectly accurate.

sliverstorm 11y ago

It's like the equivalent of alcohol companies and their "please drink responsibly", except this is "please exercise".

cscurmudgeon 11y ago

Stop the FUD. Not all calories are equal.

coldtea 11y ago

>It's silly to imagine that Coke is doing something nefarious (like Phillip Morris denying that smoking causes lung cancer, or Exxon Mobil FUD-ing solid climate science) by encouraging people to get more exercise so that they can consume what they want. It's silly to assume it's OK for Coke to pay scientists to promote any theory or results in scientific journals. Coke can pay scientists to work on their products and labs. Getting from there to paying to influence what goes to the diet/medical journals and the general public is downright fraud. As for "encouraging people to get more exercise so that they can consume what they want" that's not Coke's business to do. And it's BS anyway, since the message "diet doesn't matter much" (which is the inverse of what you started your comment with), will also stick to people not able or willing to exercize.

Ensorceled 11y ago

That is a bit disingenuous. I literally just finished a 15.2KM run and burnt off 1190 calories so I guess now I can eat what ever I want. Except a Big Mac Combo with a Large Coke is 1580 calories so even that is a bit much of dinner. And it took an hour and forty minutes to actually run that distance, almost two hours in total with getting my running gear on, warm up and cool down.

mikeash 11y ago

The fact that weight loss/gain is due to calorie deficit/surplus is true but useless. The most difficult thing about weight management is willpower management. People (especially techies) love to ignore willpower. They'll say, if you want to lose weight, just eat less. Completely ignoring the fact that "just eat less" is an enormous challenge for many people. By calling into question the importance of calories, Coke is basically undermining people's willpower, which is a precious resource even under optimal conditions. Promoting exercise as a substitute is useless. On its own, exercise will do nothing to help you lose weight, because the extra calorie burn will just make you hungrier!

crusso 11y ago

I like this analogy when getting into the calories in/out discussion: We don’t get fat because we over eat. Meaning that overeating isn’t the cause of obesity, it’s an effect. If a room has a maximum occupancy of 20 people and the fire marshal gets upset and wants to know why it happened – you’re not going to say “well, it’s because more people came into the room than left.” Well duh, that’s what happened but that’s not the cause, the reason for the overcrowding. Rooms get overcrowded when more come in than leave and I get fat when I eat more than I burn; but that isn’t the cause. https://www.thebairs.net/series/ketogenic-soylent/ https://www.thebairs.net/series/ketogenic-soylent/ We get the thermodynamic argument, really we do... but if you're ignoring the metabolic effects of the insulin cycle upon weight gain in the modern diet, you're not really grasping the important details.

Thimothy 11y ago

Unless you are somehow burning your shit to measure the calories that your body didn't absorb in a certain digestion, I'm going to call bullshit on your formula.