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The phrase that being overweight is "simply calories in vs calories out" is both trivially true and completely unhelpful. It's similar to thinking we have solv

The phrase that being overweight is "simply calories in vs calories out" is both trivially true and completely unhelpful. It's similar to thinking we have solved poverty. People living in poverty should spend less and make more. Problem solved. The much more interesting questions are 1. Why does it take some people more food to reach the same level of satiety as others? 2. Why do some people's bodies burn off excess calories through things like non-exercise activity thermogenesis and other store it as fat? 3. Do different types of food effect long term satiety? By changing what we eat can we effect our weight in the long term? 4. How does the body increase hunger and turn off self-control when there is reduced food intake? The only known "solutions" we currently have to obesity are dieting and exercise. The problem is the long term efficacy rate of dieting is around 5%. If dieting were a drug it would never pass FDA approval for effectiveness. Exercise has only modest effects and is probably more effective as preventing weight gain than causing weight loss. We still have so much more to learn. We are just at the beginning of figuring out the causes and solutions to this issue.

Almaviva 11y ago
> The phrase that being overweight is "simply calories in vs calories out" is both trivially true and completely unhelpful. Why is it completely unhelpful? The corollary is that if you adjust your intake to X (where X might have to be determined empirically for the individual), and use planning and your conscious brain to know when and what to eat, you _will_ lose weight. This is a revelation to some people, who, once they realize the simplicity of it and plan around it, are able to completely change their bodies. Many of these same people try various intuitive plans that don't work for them (because they don't have the intuition) or try to manipulate exercise first (which makes some people increase appetite). If you don't believe me that it works, is useful, and is a revelation, go lurk on the myfitnesspal forums for a while or /progresspics on reddit and read how people succeed.
- linkydinkandyou 11y ago
  Agreed! How hard is it _not_ to do something? If you eat less than your BMR, you will lose weight. Period. The fact that _maybe_ there are some people who can overeat and poop it out instead of storing it as fat is interesting, but so what. Obesity is the worst problem facing America right now, and we're all enablers.
- JPKab 11y ago
  The reason that it isn't helpful, despite you're peer reviewed, laboratory evidence cited on MyFitnessPal postings, is that the causal mechanism that common sense derives from this is completely incorrect. People aren't fat because they eat too much. People (and mammals) eat too much because their fat cells are being metabolically triggered by environmental and/or genetic factors to store fat at a higher than normal rate, diverting calories from operational needs, thus stimulating hunger. Bears don't go into hibernation because they've gotten fat. They get fat because their endocrine system begins gearing up for hibernation, and telling their fat cells to kick into overdrive growing. They will literally burn muscle while simultaneously gaining fat in this stage, like all hibernating mammals. The other side effect of growing fat cells is massive hunger, obviously. In humans, simple things like not eating sugar can help correct the endocrine factors which, for a lot of people, cause the fat cells to do this. However, genetic factors are going to be a different story. I say this as somebody who is fit and active, but have had running buddies who are fat. Pitting will-power against metabotically driven hunger ends, in the long-term, with biology winning every time. Without endocrine/genetic factors taken into account, reduction in calories in simply causes a mammalian body's system to reduce calories out by making the subject less energetic.
  - asdfgtyuiohj 11y ago
    It's not even as simple as that. Calories in/calories out works if all you're calculating is how many calories are retained. It does not even tell you whether you will be putting on fat or not. Depending on your nutritional balance, timing of nutrient intake, hormonal balance, etc., you may be at a caloric deficit _and still put on fat_. Having a caloric deficit doesn't mean you're losing fat. You may be losing lean tissue while increasing fat, which can still lead to weight loss, but isn't what people usually are trying to achieve. Two people with the same caloric deficit/surplus may develop very differently over time while having the same levels of physical activity and caloric intake and 'output'.
  - Almaviva 11y ago
    If we reduce to core principles, if you know your stuff, there's probably not much to disagree on. There are many factors affecting variables like appetite, subjective energy level, energy used through spontaneous movement, many hormones and so on. But, if you're an individual trying to decide what works and what doesn't in a field where the popular media is full of misinformation, I have a really hard time seeing the position that counting calories is _completely_ unhelpful. > "Pitting will-power against metabotically driven hunger ends, in the long-term, with biology winning every time." Yet, awareness of calories in vs calories out can be a way to plan your strategies, to know from the start whether a given strategy can even work or not, from the point of view of physics. Many people try things that this simple knowledge would rule out. A lifestyle change that does not result in a negative energy balance will not cause someone to lose weight, period. It's also a framework where you can discover what works for yourself. Does lowering carbs vs lowering fat affect your appetite at the same calorie level? How does burning an extra 500 calories through exercise make you feel vs lowering food intake by that amount? These are valuable things to know, again for an individual on a personal quest, not talking about making public policy or population science. Some people find an intuitive lifestyle change that successfully allows them to lower their body fat and keep it down. Bravo. Some people also succeed more mechanically with conscious calorie control. I have a hard time seeing the argument that both of these can't be useful and successful.
- nkuttler 11y ago
  Calories in vs calories out is simple thermodynamics, human nutrition is complex biochemistry. The real question is, why should anybody have to count calories? Is there a way of eating that leads to the same level of satiety with fewer calories?
  - Almaviva 11y ago
    It's not "the" question, but it's "a" question. What I don't understand is why people balk at counting calories as part of a successful plan to change body composition, but plan everything else. Should you only go to the gym intuitively, or is it useful to count sets, weights, plan a certain time of day, maybe measure heart rates, plan rest periods and so on? Why is food different? We know the human body is adaptable to an incredible variance of conditions, including the fact that we know that if anything, prolonged caloric restriction seems to cause adaptations that _increase_ lifespan. So what's the objection to counting and measuring?
    - nkuttler 11y ago
      I think that counting calories, while certainly helpful, is not a long term solution. I prefer to eat in a way that triggers certain hormonal responses that lead to me eating fewer calories naturally. (Yeah, that means no carbs)
- randallsquared 11y ago
  > Why is it completely unhelpful? The corollary is that if you adjust your intake to X (where X might have to be determined empirically for the individual), and use planning and your conscious brain to know when and what to eat, you _will_ lose weight. People talk about how hard it is to lose this way, but although I've tried diet after diet, I only recently understood intuitively the reverse: why some people can't understand how difficult it is for some. When I moved to a new area this year and went to a new GP, he wanted to talk about my weight, of course (I'm 42, but everything else about my health was quite good). I explained that I had managed to lose about 50 pounds since my peak in 2012, through various diets like intermittent fasting, keto, and sometimes just counting calories for a bit. He suggested I try an appetite suppressant. I scoffed a bit, saying that my problem wasn't that I was too hungry, since I rarely ate so infrequently as to experience hunger. Instead, I said, my problem was that I ate when I was bored, or when friends were, or ate to improve other experiences like TV or movies, or just because it had been a while and I felt increasingly that I "ought" to eat. He didn't argue with me, but just mildly pointed out that it might well not work, but why not give it a shot for a few weeks and see? So I agreed. That was three months ago, and on the appetite suppressant I've lost another 50 pounds. But that's not my point, exactly. My worldview around food has changed. Before, I assumed that people who were thin were either heroically couting every calorie they ate, or had some weird biology that meant that they couldn't gain even when they tried. I think both of those sets do exist (since I know people in each), but now I realize that there is a large group of people out there who simply don't care about food that much. I didn't even understand that I had this constant drive to eat until it vanished; I'd never not experienced it, as far back as I can remember. I didn't know what people were talking about when they talked about appetite, because the only thing that ever changed was hunger, until I started taking the suppressant.
  - sudoherethere 11y ago
    "but now I realize that there is a large group of people out there who simply don't care about food that much." This. I used to be a member of this group. In college and early twenties, I had friends who didn't care about food. Now most of my friends only focus seems to be food, how to eat it properly, how much to eat, where to eat, what is healthy. It is frustrating sometimes but it is hard to find friends in mid 30s who are into playing sports, bars, pool, and video games as much as me.
s3nnyy 11y ago
"Calories in vs calories out" is really just Occam's razor in action an hence helpful. At least it was helpful to me to re-engineer my lifestyle from 10h TV per day and fastfood as a teenager to regular workouts and healthy food.
benihana 11y ago
>The phrase that being overweight is "simply calories in vs calories out" is both trivially true and completely unhelpful. For the issues most obese Americans face, which is a poor diet high in sugar, it is absolutely helpful. As I understand it, the bulk of the problem of our obesity epidemic is that people eat calorically dense foods with little nutrition, not that 40% of the population suddenly stopped being able to be sated by their food. Of course people don't respond the same way to food and exercise. But your post is about fixing edge cases before the actual problem is solved. The low hanging fruit is in fact, calories in vs calories out. Once people's diets get back in line, then we can worry about why some people have a harder time losing weight than others.
- JPKab 11y ago
  See my previous comment regarding sugar. It's not the calorie density, but the metabolic effects of sugar that are the issue.
  - Almaviva 11y ago
    It's not binary. Both of those things can be issues with it.
  - DougMerritt 11y ago
    Absolutely. However, it is important to note that there are a very large number of obese people who don't eat sugar. So sugar, while deservedly notorious, is far from the only highly significant factor, yet it sometimes receives 100% of the blame. One of the several problems with that is that, due to popular perception, many will swear off sugar and yet still be unable to drop to a healthy weight.
    - tim333 11y ago
      Although a good percentage of those eat white carbs like bread and potatoes that easily convert to sugar in the body. Those on the salads without bread/chips tend to do quite well weight wise.
nosideeffects 11y ago
Changing my habits is hard, can you please prescribe me some medication instead?
biomcgary 11y ago
> being overweight is "simply calories in vs calories out" is both trivially true and completely unhelpful I appreciate your overall point, but would argue that the phrase in not necessarily "trivially true" in some cases. Unlike thermodynamics, biology is not simple. A person could potentially die of hunger while also being grossly overweight if they have a problem with certain metabolic genes. If your catabolic enzymes for lipids do not function, you cannot utilize fat or break it down regardless of your overall energy budget. That being said, I doubt that very many people have mutations in the genes for those enzymes, since those variants will tend to be selected out of the population.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- seiji 11y ago
  die of hunger while also being grossly overweight Another fun diets-aren't-thermodynamics argument: rabbit starvation.
  - biomcgary 11y ago
    Seiji, thanks for the reference. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation) has details. In summary, rabbit starvation occurs on a high protein, no/very low fat diet.
kazinator 11y ago
> Why do some people's bodies burn off excess calories through things like non-exercise activity thermogenesis and other store it as fat? There is a very limited degree to which this can happen. The way some people eat, if it all burned by thermogenesis, they would die of overheating (hyperthermia). Fat storage is saving them from cooking in their own juices.
- gduffy 11y ago
  [Citation needed] You could sweat off the heat from 1000 kcal/day of thermogenesis (or any other bodily exothermic reactions) in just 75 mL/hr of extra sweat. You're sweating about 25 mL/hr even when you don't notice you're sweating at all, and people in tropical climates can sweat as much as 3.5 L/hr. [1] I think that's plenty of budget, not to mention the additional budget available via regular convective and radiative heat transfer. If a person's metabolism is prone to converting energy to fat, just 120 kcal a day could add 10lbs of fat in a year. [2] [1] http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/sweat.html http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/sweat.html [2] http://www.google.com/search?q=(80%+*+120+kcal/1+day)+*+1+year+/+(3500+kcal+/+1+lb)+to+lbs http://www.google.com/search?q=(80%+*+120+kcal/1+day)+*+1+ye... Edited: 1000 kcal -> 1000 kcal/day
cb18 11y ago
I think modern "foods," of the extracted and refined sugars sort, and artificial colors and flavors sort, definitely play a large role in this. I find all this searching for bio-chemical processes to blame obesity on pretty silly. A non-trivial portion of society has shown it is possible to not be obese. People have also shown it is possible to go from being obese to not being obese. There are several inter-playing factors that shoulder most the blame I would say. One major factor that seems to be missing from most conversations is that there is a huge mental factor in obesity I would surmise. And I think you're overlooking that when you ask why do some people feel satiety when others don't. I think obesity can rightly be considered a mental illness. Why do some people continue to eat when it does their body no good? Everyone probably does this on occasion, but why do obese people do it routinely? Most obese people I'm guessing would tell you that a lot of their eating has an emotional component, beyond a feeling of hunger. When you think about it, present day "food" companies, are just as bad as tobacco companies, arguably worse when you calculate the costs. How many people are suffering from diabetes, or potentially will in coming years, how many from other 'diseases of civilization,' what amount of health and monetary resources are expended on these preventable conditions each year? These are diseases of a civilization that is structured poorly. Just think about it, a civilization of overworked, overstressed, underslept, mindless-media over-exposed people who emotionally stuff their faces with garbage 'foods.' The "food" industry and regulation there of no doubt shoulders a lot of blame, just consider for some people, the majority of their food energy intake comes basically from candy. It appears that 'food' companies are exploitative of the low iq, low income segments of our society, but in the US I think that has a lot to do with agricultural policies that subsidize sugar and corn production and the like. And the people running these "food" companies navigate current market dynamics and govt incentives/subsidies to maximize shareholder returns, and that is producing negative health results for many people. So with these factors considered, I would say that there are better ways of addressing this issue than the search for obesity immunity conferring pills and the like.
RIMR 11y ago
>The problem is the long term efficacy rate of dieting is around 5%. If dieting were a drug it would never pass FDA approval for effectiveness. If your diet has an "end" you have already failed. There's a huge difference between a fad diet and a lifestyle change. If we are going to compare it to medicine, let's use this as an example: You suffer terrible headaches. Your doctor prescribes you a once-daily pill to treat it. After 30 days, you suffer no more headaches. After 60 days, you stop taking the pill. After 70 days, your headaches are back. The pill didn't fail to fix your headaches, you failed to keep up with your medication. If you diet for 6 months and lose 40Lbs, congrats! If you "stop dieting" and gain all 40Lbs back in a year, the diet didn't fail, you failed to maintain a healthy diet/lifestyle.
x0x0 11y ago
The long term efficacy of dieting is low, and that should be totally unsurprising: the very name implies temporariness. If the overweight wish to lose fat, a diet will work. If they wish to keep it off, they must make permanent diet and behavioral modifications, which is not what a diet is. Fewer calories and less sugar/carbs/highly processed foods does work, but it must be permanent. People want a pill that you just pop once a day without any changes in behavior. And the vast majority of people complaining they can't lose weight don't prioritize losing weight over their current behaviors: diet composition, sedentary lifestyles, etc.

Almaviva 11y ago

> The phrase that being overweight is "simply calories in vs calories out" is both trivially true and completely unhelpful. Why is it completely unhelpful? The corollary is that if you adjust your intake to X (where X might have to be determined empirically for the individual), and use planning and your conscious brain to know when and what to eat, you _will_ lose weight. This is a revelation to some people, who, once they realize the simplicity of it and plan around it, are able to completely change their bodies. Many of these same people try various intuitive plans that don't work for them (because they don't have the intuition) or try to manipulate exercise first (which makes some people increase appetite). If you don't believe me that it works, is useful, and is a revelation, go lurk on the myfitnesspal forums for a while or /progresspics on reddit and read how people succeed.

linkydinkandyou 11y ago
Agreed! How hard is it _not_ to do something? If you eat less than your BMR, you will lose weight. Period. The fact that _maybe_ there are some people who can overeat and poop it out instead of storing it as fat is interesting, but so what. Obesity is the worst problem facing America right now, and we're all enablers.
JPKab 11y ago
The reason that it isn't helpful, despite you're peer reviewed, laboratory evidence cited on MyFitnessPal postings, is that the causal mechanism that common sense derives from this is completely incorrect. People aren't fat because they eat too much. People (and mammals) eat too much because their fat cells are being metabolically triggered by environmental and/or genetic factors to store fat at a higher than normal rate, diverting calories from operational needs, thus stimulating hunger. Bears don't go into hibernation because they've gotten fat. They get fat because their endocrine system begins gearing up for hibernation, and telling their fat cells to kick into overdrive growing. They will literally burn muscle while simultaneously gaining fat in this stage, like all hibernating mammals. The other side effect of growing fat cells is massive hunger, obviously. In humans, simple things like not eating sugar can help correct the endocrine factors which, for a lot of people, cause the fat cells to do this. However, genetic factors are going to be a different story. I say this as somebody who is fit and active, but have had running buddies who are fat. Pitting will-power against metabotically driven hunger ends, in the long-term, with biology winning every time. Without endocrine/genetic factors taken into account, reduction in calories in simply causes a mammalian body's system to reduce calories out by making the subject less energetic.
- asdfgtyuiohj 11y ago
  It's not even as simple as that. Calories in/calories out works if all you're calculating is how many calories are retained. It does not even tell you whether you will be putting on fat or not. Depending on your nutritional balance, timing of nutrient intake, hormonal balance, etc., you may be at a caloric deficit _and still put on fat_. Having a caloric deficit doesn't mean you're losing fat. You may be losing lean tissue while increasing fat, which can still lead to weight loss, but isn't what people usually are trying to achieve. Two people with the same caloric deficit/surplus may develop very differently over time while having the same levels of physical activity and caloric intake and 'output'.
- Almaviva 11y ago
  If we reduce to core principles, if you know your stuff, there's probably not much to disagree on. There are many factors affecting variables like appetite, subjective energy level, energy used through spontaneous movement, many hormones and so on. But, if you're an individual trying to decide what works and what doesn't in a field where the popular media is full of misinformation, I have a really hard time seeing the position that counting calories is _completely_ unhelpful. > "Pitting will-power against metabotically driven hunger ends, in the long-term, with biology winning every time." Yet, awareness of calories in vs calories out can be a way to plan your strategies, to know from the start whether a given strategy can even work or not, from the point of view of physics. Many people try things that this simple knowledge would rule out. A lifestyle change that does not result in a negative energy balance will not cause someone to lose weight, period. It's also a framework where you can discover what works for yourself. Does lowering carbs vs lowering fat affect your appetite at the same calorie level? How does burning an extra 500 calories through exercise make you feel vs lowering food intake by that amount? These are valuable things to know, again for an individual on a personal quest, not talking about making public policy or population science. Some people find an intuitive lifestyle change that successfully allows them to lower their body fat and keep it down. Bravo. Some people also succeed more mechanically with conscious calorie control. I have a hard time seeing the argument that both of these can't be useful and successful.
nkuttler 11y ago
Calories in vs calories out is simple thermodynamics, human nutrition is complex biochemistry. The real question is, why should anybody have to count calories? Is there a way of eating that leads to the same level of satiety with fewer calories?
- Almaviva 11y ago
  It's not "the" question, but it's "a" question. What I don't understand is why people balk at counting calories as part of a successful plan to change body composition, but plan everything else. Should you only go to the gym intuitively, or is it useful to count sets, weights, plan a certain time of day, maybe measure heart rates, plan rest periods and so on? Why is food different? We know the human body is adaptable to an incredible variance of conditions, including the fact that we know that if anything, prolonged caloric restriction seems to cause adaptations that _increase_ lifespan. So what's the objection to counting and measuring?
  - nkuttler 11y ago
    I think that counting calories, while certainly helpful, is not a long term solution. I prefer to eat in a way that triggers certain hormonal responses that lead to me eating fewer calories naturally. (Yeah, that means no carbs)
randallsquared 11y ago
> Why is it completely unhelpful? The corollary is that if you adjust your intake to X (where X might have to be determined empirically for the individual), and use planning and your conscious brain to know when and what to eat, you _will_ lose weight. People talk about how hard it is to lose this way, but although I've tried diet after diet, I only recently understood intuitively the reverse: why some people can't understand how difficult it is for some. When I moved to a new area this year and went to a new GP, he wanted to talk about my weight, of course (I'm 42, but everything else about my health was quite good). I explained that I had managed to lose about 50 pounds since my peak in 2012, through various diets like intermittent fasting, keto, and sometimes just counting calories for a bit. He suggested I try an appetite suppressant. I scoffed a bit, saying that my problem wasn't that I was too hungry, since I rarely ate so infrequently as to experience hunger. Instead, I said, my problem was that I ate when I was bored, or when friends were, or ate to improve other experiences like TV or movies, or just because it had been a while and I felt increasingly that I "ought" to eat. He didn't argue with me, but just mildly pointed out that it might well not work, but why not give it a shot for a few weeks and see? So I agreed. That was three months ago, and on the appetite suppressant I've lost another 50 pounds. But that's not my point, exactly. My worldview around food has changed. Before, I assumed that people who were thin were either heroically couting every calorie they ate, or had some weird biology that meant that they couldn't gain even when they tried. I think both of those sets do exist (since I know people in each), but now I realize that there is a large group of people out there who simply don't care about food that much. I didn't even understand that I had this constant drive to eat until it vanished; I'd never not experienced it, as far back as I can remember. I didn't know what people were talking about when they talked about appetite, because the only thing that ever changed was hunger, until I started taking the suppressant.
- sudoherethere 11y ago
  "but now I realize that there is a large group of people out there who simply don't care about food that much." This. I used to be a member of this group. In college and early twenties, I had friends who didn't care about food. Now most of my friends only focus seems to be food, how to eat it properly, how much to eat, where to eat, what is healthy. It is frustrating sometimes but it is hard to find friends in mid 30s who are into playing sports, bars, pool, and video games as much as me.

s3nnyy 11y ago

"Calories in vs calories out" is really just Occam's razor in action an hence helpful. At least it was helpful to me to re-engineer my lifestyle from 10h TV per day and fastfood as a teenager to regular workouts and healthy food.

benihana 11y ago

>The phrase that being overweight is "simply calories in vs calories out" is both trivially true and completely unhelpful. For the issues most obese Americans face, which is a poor diet high in sugar, it is absolutely helpful. As I understand it, the bulk of the problem of our obesity epidemic is that people eat calorically dense foods with little nutrition, not that 40% of the population suddenly stopped being able to be sated by their food. Of course people don't respond the same way to food and exercise. But your post is about fixing edge cases before the actual problem is solved. The low hanging fruit is in fact, calories in vs calories out. Once people's diets get back in line, then we can worry about why some people have a harder time losing weight than others.

JPKab 11y ago
See my previous comment regarding sugar. It's not the calorie density, but the metabolic effects of sugar that are the issue.
- Almaviva 11y ago
  It's not binary. Both of those things can be issues with it.
- DougMerritt 11y ago
  Absolutely. However, it is important to note that there are a very large number of obese people who don't eat sugar. So sugar, while deservedly notorious, is far from the only highly significant factor, yet it sometimes receives 100% of the blame. One of the several problems with that is that, due to popular perception, many will swear off sugar and yet still be unable to drop to a healthy weight.
  - tim333 11y ago
    Although a good percentage of those eat white carbs like bread and potatoes that easily convert to sugar in the body. Those on the salads without bread/chips tend to do quite well weight wise.

nosideeffects 11y ago

Changing my habits is hard, can you please prescribe me some medication instead?

biomcgary 11y ago

> being overweight is "simply calories in vs calories out" is both trivially true and completely unhelpful I appreciate your overall point, but would argue that the phrase in not necessarily "trivially true" in some cases. Unlike thermodynamics, biology is not simple. A person could potentially die of hunger while also being grossly overweight if they have a problem with certain metabolic genes. If your catabolic enzymes for lipids do not function, you cannot utilize fat or break it down regardless of your overall energy budget. That being said, I doubt that very many people have mutations in the genes for those enzymes, since those variants will tend to be selected out of the population.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
seiji 11y ago
die of hunger while also being grossly overweight Another fun diets-aren't-thermodynamics argument: rabbit starvation.
- biomcgary 11y ago
  Seiji, thanks for the reference. Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation) has details. In summary, rabbit starvation occurs on a high protein, no/very low fat diet.

kazinator 11y ago

> Why do some people's bodies burn off excess calories through things like non-exercise activity thermogenesis and other store it as fat? There is a very limited degree to which this can happen. The way some people eat, if it all burned by thermogenesis, they would die of overheating (hyperthermia). Fat storage is saving them from cooking in their own juices.

gduffy 11y ago
[Citation needed] You could sweat off the heat from 1000 kcal/day of thermogenesis (or any other bodily exothermic reactions) in just 75 mL/hr of extra sweat. You're sweating about 25 mL/hr even when you don't notice you're sweating at all, and people in tropical climates can sweat as much as 3.5 L/hr. [1] I think that's plenty of budget, not to mention the additional budget available via regular convective and radiative heat transfer. If a person's metabolism is prone to converting energy to fat, just 120 kcal a day could add 10lbs of fat in a year. [2] [1] http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/sweat.html http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/sweat.html [2] http://www.google.com/search?q=(80%+*+120+kcal/1+day)+*+1+year+/+(3500+kcal+/+1+lb)+to+lbs http://www.google.com/search?q=(80%+*+120+kcal/1+day)+*+1+ye... Edited: 1000 kcal -> 1000 kcal/day

cb18 11y ago

I think modern "foods," of the extracted and refined sugars sort, and artificial colors and flavors sort, definitely play a large role in this. I find all this searching for bio-chemical processes to blame obesity on pretty silly. A non-trivial portion of society has shown it is possible to not be obese. People have also shown it is possible to go from being obese to not being obese. There are several inter-playing factors that shoulder most the blame I would say. One major factor that seems to be missing from most conversations is that there is a huge mental factor in obesity I would surmise. And I think you're overlooking that when you ask why do some people feel satiety when others don't. I think obesity can rightly be considered a mental illness. Why do some people continue to eat when it does their body no good? Everyone probably does this on occasion, but why do obese people do it routinely? Most obese people I'm guessing would tell you that a lot of their eating has an emotional component, beyond a feeling of hunger. When you think about it, present day "food" companies, are just as bad as tobacco companies, arguably worse when you calculate the costs. How many people are suffering from diabetes, or potentially will in coming years, how many from other 'diseases of civilization,' what amount of health and monetary resources are expended on these preventable conditions each year? These are diseases of a civilization that is structured poorly. Just think about it, a civilization of overworked, overstressed, underslept, mindless-media over-exposed people who emotionally stuff their faces with garbage 'foods.' The "food" industry and regulation there of no doubt shoulders a lot of blame, just consider for some people, the majority of their food energy intake comes basically from candy. It appears that 'food' companies are exploitative of the low iq, low income segments of our society, but in the US I think that has a lot to do with agricultural policies that subsidize sugar and corn production and the like. And the people running these "food" companies navigate current market dynamics and govt incentives/subsidies to maximize shareholder returns, and that is producing negative health results for many people. So with these factors considered, I would say that there are better ways of addressing this issue than the search for obesity immunity conferring pills and the like.

RIMR 11y ago

>The problem is the long term efficacy rate of dieting is around 5%. If dieting were a drug it would never pass FDA approval for effectiveness. If your diet has an "end" you have already failed. There's a huge difference between a fad diet and a lifestyle change. If we are going to compare it to medicine, let's use this as an example: You suffer terrible headaches. Your doctor prescribes you a once-daily pill to treat it. After 30 days, you suffer no more headaches. After 60 days, you stop taking the pill. After 70 days, your headaches are back. The pill didn't fail to fix your headaches, you failed to keep up with your medication. If you diet for 6 months and lose 40Lbs, congrats! If you "stop dieting" and gain all 40Lbs back in a year, the diet didn't fail, you failed to maintain a healthy diet/lifestyle.

x0x0 11y ago

The long term efficacy of dieting is low, and that should be totally unsurprising: the very name implies temporariness. If the overweight wish to lose fat, a diet will work. If they wish to keep it off, they must make permanent diet and behavioral modifications, which is not what a diet is. Fewer calories and less sugar/carbs/highly processed foods does work, but it must be permanent. People want a pill that you just pop once a day without any changes in behavior. And the vast majority of people complaining they can't lose weight don't prioritize losing weight over their current behaviors: diet composition, sedentary lifestyles, etc.