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Actually diet and exercise are pretty much completely ineffective at long term weight loss. "Why can’t an average person make those kinds of gains as well? Or

Actually diet and exercise are pretty much completely ineffective at long term weight loss. "Why can’t an average person make those kinds of gains as well? Or even more gains, considering they don’t have the additional challenge of an autism spectrum disorder?" This betrays a complete lack of understanding of the body of knowledge around intellectual improvement. No one would say "we took this broken Honda and were able to get a 100% improvement in it's speed, and gas efficiency by just fixing the leaky gas hose, if we can make these kinds of gains with a broken car imagine what we do with a new Honda". This would of course be as silly.

softawre 10y ago
Of course diet and exercise are effective for long term weight loss. People stop dieting. That's the problem.
- oldmanjay 10y ago
  Calling a diet that people can't follow "effective" seems like a fine exaggeration to help maintain a nutritionist practice but impractical for any other purpose
  - an_account 10y ago
    That's like saying that quitting smoking is ineffective because many people can't follow through with it. Limiting caloric intake (diet) below caloric output (exercise, etc) is the only effective way to lose weight, excluding literally cutting it off. Just because people struggle at doing so doesn't mean that it's not effective.
    - projektir 10y ago
      Depends on how you are measuring effectiveness. From the perspective of either sociology or public policy, calling a treatment that doesn't work effective makes no sense. It's like saying that the only reason we have problems is because people are not always completely rational and benevolent in every interaction. That may very well be true, but what use is that? I don't understand what purpose that kind of comment may serve outside of making the commenters feel better that they do not share the problem. The issue with the human body is that psychological effects are actually physical effects and therefore entirely relevant. The human body is not a mere automobile into which you pour gas, you push a gas pedal, and it just goes. That's the entire problem. You can't even treat a cat like that, let alone a human. The psychological consequences are part of the equation and disregarding them and trying to pretend they don't exist is essentially taking out all the complex variables out and solving a simple equation nobody cares about. Kind of like programming GPS using Newtonian physics and then being surprised it's off constantly. There are more complex laws at stake here and we don't understand them very well. Moralization is effectively a cop out. "They're too lazy, stupid, or otherwise inferior to me to do this theoretically simple thing" is the same as: "I have no idea what's going on." Limiting caloric intake leads to weight loss. So why are people not limiting their calorie intake? Then consider what kind of people are more or less likely to limit their calorie intake. So on and so forth. The equation becomes a lot more complex and also a lot more interesting.
      - alexandre_m 10y ago
        It all comes down to effective in theory vs effective in practice.
        pharrington 10y ago
        >effective in shitty theory This is meta, but there really needs to be a better phrase for ideas/models that only seem good when ignoring important details. A good theory is also good in practice because it actually factors in the relevant details.
    - JamesBarney 10y ago
      The problem is quitting smoking is not an intervention. You cannot push a button and cause someone to quit smoking. You can "Talk to someone about quitting smoking", or "Send them to quit smoking meetings" or "Give them nicorette". These things are interventions. Quitting smoking in an intermediate result that is linked to positive outcomes.
    - oldmanjay 10y ago
      I have no particular problem with you clinging to a falsehood, but repeating it can't make it true. There is ample evidence that carbohydrate restriction is also effective at causing weight reduction, no matter how much people try to deny or ignore it.
      - tomp 10y ago
        Can you point to any evidence? AFAIK, low-carb diets mainly work by increasing satiety (i.e. indirectly limiting calories consumed).
        tP5n 10y ago
        Restricting carbohydrate intake let's you control blood sugar levels and insulin response to meals, which generally leads to weight loss in most people. I get that the wiki article on low carb is rambling, but why HN :?
        tomp 10y ago
        Lower insulin spike after a meal results in lower hunger pangs later on, i.e. less hunger and less calories consumed, leading to weight loss.
- JamesBarney 10y ago
  For simplicity's sake lets focus on bugs created when users fail to consider edge cases. We could say 100% of these bugs are caused by people failing to consider edge cases, and if developers accurately considered all edge cases then we would have 0 bugs. To then think that this problem is solved because we can tell a developer "consider all edge cases" even though it has 0 effect on the actual bug count caused by edge cases is absurd.
lonewolf_ninja 10y ago
The only effective way for weight loss is making sure that one's caloric intake is less than the amount of calories they burn. And the only way of achieving that is diet and exercise. Also comparing the human body/brain to a car/mechanical device would be incorrect and is probably an apple to oranges comparison.
- SilasX 10y ago
  >And the only way of achieving that is diet and exercise Or increasing the metabolic rate. Or decreasing the calorie storage rate.
  - analog31 10y ago
    Doesn't increasing your metabolic rate require increasing your body temperature? This is something that has always puzzled me when I hear that some people have faster or slower metabolism than others.
    - aswanson 10y ago
      Your metabolic rates at birth, adolescence, or your teen years are probably drastically different than your rate now if you're past 30. Is your average body temperature way less than 98.7 now?
      - analog31 10y ago
        Perhaps I just don't understand what "metabolic rate" means. My body is a metabolic zero-sum game, unless I'm gaining or losing weight. What comes in as food goes out as heat or mechanical work. I suppose a higher heat output could be achieved at constant temperature by sweating more. A larger person (more skin) could of course generate more heat, but the energy has to come from eating more food or being less active. Do you simply mean that I was gaining weight at birth, adolescence, and teen years? I could agree with that.
        10y ago
JamesBarney 10y ago
For people who disagree I would really love to see a study showing successful long term(3 years plus) weight loss( as an intervention 5% of people retain the weight loss but 95% fail). To my knowledge no studies exist, but I would love to revise my opinion

softawre 10y ago

Of course diet and exercise are effective for long term weight loss. People stop dieting. That's the problem.

oldmanjay 10y ago
Calling a diet that people can't follow "effective" seems like a fine exaggeration to help maintain a nutritionist practice but impractical for any other purpose
- an_account 10y ago
  That's like saying that quitting smoking is ineffective because many people can't follow through with it. Limiting caloric intake (diet) below caloric output (exercise, etc) is the only effective way to lose weight, excluding literally cutting it off. Just because people struggle at doing so doesn't mean that it's not effective.
  - projektir 10y ago
    Depends on how you are measuring effectiveness. From the perspective of either sociology or public policy, calling a treatment that doesn't work effective makes no sense. It's like saying that the only reason we have problems is because people are not always completely rational and benevolent in every interaction. That may very well be true, but what use is that? I don't understand what purpose that kind of comment may serve outside of making the commenters feel better that they do not share the problem. The issue with the human body is that psychological effects are actually physical effects and therefore entirely relevant. The human body is not a mere automobile into which you pour gas, you push a gas pedal, and it just goes. That's the entire problem. You can't even treat a cat like that, let alone a human. The psychological consequences are part of the equation and disregarding them and trying to pretend they don't exist is essentially taking out all the complex variables out and solving a simple equation nobody cares about. Kind of like programming GPS using Newtonian physics and then being surprised it's off constantly. There are more complex laws at stake here and we don't understand them very well. Moralization is effectively a cop out. "They're too lazy, stupid, or otherwise inferior to me to do this theoretically simple thing" is the same as: "I have no idea what's going on." Limiting caloric intake leads to weight loss. So why are people not limiting their calorie intake? Then consider what kind of people are more or less likely to limit their calorie intake. So on and so forth. The equation becomes a lot more complex and also a lot more interesting.
    - alexandre_m 10y ago
      It all comes down to effective in theory vs effective in practice.
      - pharrington 10y ago
        >effective in shitty theory This is meta, but there really needs to be a better phrase for ideas/models that only seem good when ignoring important details. A good theory is also good in practice because it actually factors in the relevant details.
  - JamesBarney 10y ago
    The problem is quitting smoking is not an intervention. You cannot push a button and cause someone to quit smoking. You can "Talk to someone about quitting smoking", or "Send them to quit smoking meetings" or "Give them nicorette". These things are interventions. Quitting smoking in an intermediate result that is linked to positive outcomes.
  - oldmanjay 10y ago
    I have no particular problem with you clinging to a falsehood, but repeating it can't make it true. There is ample evidence that carbohydrate restriction is also effective at causing weight reduction, no matter how much people try to deny or ignore it.
    - tomp 10y ago
      Can you point to any evidence? AFAIK, low-carb diets mainly work by increasing satiety (i.e. indirectly limiting calories consumed).
      - tP5n 10y ago
        Restricting carbohydrate intake let's you control blood sugar levels and insulin response to meals, which generally leads to weight loss in most people. I get that the wiki article on low carb is rambling, but why HN :?
        tomp 10y ago
        Lower insulin spike after a meal results in lower hunger pangs later on, i.e. less hunger and less calories consumed, leading to weight loss.
JamesBarney 10y ago
For simplicity's sake lets focus on bugs created when users fail to consider edge cases. We could say 100% of these bugs are caused by people failing to consider edge cases, and if developers accurately considered all edge cases then we would have 0 bugs. To then think that this problem is solved because we can tell a developer "consider all edge cases" even though it has 0 effect on the actual bug count caused by edge cases is absurd.

lonewolf_ninja 10y ago

The only effective way for weight loss is making sure that one's caloric intake is less than the amount of calories they burn. And the only way of achieving that is diet and exercise. Also comparing the human body/brain to a car/mechanical device would be incorrect and is probably an apple to oranges comparison.

SilasX 10y ago
>And the only way of achieving that is diet and exercise Or increasing the metabolic rate. Or decreasing the calorie storage rate.
- analog31 10y ago
  Doesn't increasing your metabolic rate require increasing your body temperature? This is something that has always puzzled me when I hear that some people have faster or slower metabolism than others.
  - aswanson 10y ago
    Your metabolic rates at birth, adolescence, or your teen years are probably drastically different than your rate now if you're past 30. Is your average body temperature way less than 98.7 now?
    - analog31 10y ago
      Perhaps I just don't understand what "metabolic rate" means. My body is a metabolic zero-sum game, unless I'm gaining or losing weight. What comes in as food goes out as heat or mechanical work. I suppose a higher heat output could be achieved at constant temperature by sweating more. A larger person (more skin) could of course generate more heat, but the energy has to come from eating more food or being less active. Do you simply mean that I was gaining weight at birth, adolescence, and teen years? I could agree with that.
      - 10y ago

JamesBarney 10y ago

For people who disagree I would really love to see a study showing successful long term(3 years plus) weight loss( as an intervention 5% of people retain the weight loss but 95% fail). To my knowledge no studies exist, but I would love to revise my opinion