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Yep. Anyone who has ever trained for a marathon or other endurance event understands that eating 4000+ calories a day is a chore. On top of the fact that you wa

Yep. Anyone who has ever trained for a marathon or other endurance event understands that eating 4000+ calories a day is a chore. On top of the fact that you want these to be "good" calories... Let's just say I ate a lot of rice with veggies. Which leads to the blunt advice I give most people seeking to lose weight. Sure, you might be genetically predisposed to have a slow metabolism, but at the end of the day "calories in / calories out" is as absolute a fact as it gets (of course, all things in moderation). So I say "You have two options: Eat less, work out more, pick the one you like."

kough 10y ago
Yeah. I was eating ~1500 calories every day for lunch from McDonald's, plus two big protein shakes (another ~1400 calories), plus a 4-egg scramble with vegetables every morning and a rice/beans/veggies/chicken dinner. That's only a little over 4000 calories and I felt fucking disgusting. It turns out one of the tricks is timing, without a regular schedule I simply could not eat enough because I wouldn't be hungry.
Nav_Panel 10y ago
I still think "eat less" is bad advice, because just "eating less" chips/soda/garbage is pretty difficult. I've tried. It requires an extreme and inhuman amount of willpower. Our natural drive is to vacuum up all the easy energy in front of us. "Eat better" is probably better/more useful vague advice. You can eat a whole lot of salad/veggies and it wont end up being that many calories (so, in this case, you're eating MORE, but consuming less energy/fewer calories). Same with meat. It's hard not to lose weight if you're eating a lot of (leaner) meat, because you feel extremely full after a couple hundred calories worth. If you start modifying your diet, your cravings will change too. It's all about these weird feedback loops.
- solidr53 10y ago
  He never stated "eat less volume of food", so I take it he ment the general term "calories of food". How you do it doesn't matter. (eat more volumetric food or stop drinking soda, doesn't matter)
  - TheCoelacanth 10y ago
    Except that it does matter how you do it. There is pretty much no human alive who has the willpower to eat exactly their daily caloric requirement in chips and soda and then stop every day.
- naasking 10y ago
  > I still think "eat less" is bad advice, because just "eating less" chips/soda/garbage is pretty difficult. I've tried. It requires an extreme and inhuman amount of willpower. Our natural drive is to vacuum up all the easy energy in front of us. Exactly, so don't have any of that stuff around you. Easy calories makes for easy pounds. If you had to actually go out and get that bag of chips you're craving, you're far less likely to do it. Within a week of abstinence, you're not even craving them anymore.
cheald 10y ago
Eating 4k in a day is a chore if you are used to controlling your intake and eating clean. It's not hard if you eat poorly. There was once a time that I could put down a Costco box of Goldfish crackers (7400 calories) in an evening of hacking, with a few cans of Coke (another 600) to wash it down with. A package of Oreo cookies is north of 2500 calories. A "single serving" pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream is well over 1k calories. Eating 4k calories well is hard - caloric density in good foods isn't nearly what it is in bad foods, and you're just going to physically fill up your stomach. Eating it poorly is, sadly, way too easy.
- ben_jones 10y ago
  I'll take the walk of shame with you. The wrong mixed drinks can easily be ~300 calories. Down eight of those during a bachelor party and then get tacos from the 2am drunk taco stand - easily ~1600 there. Boom 4k. Then let's say you had a normal 3 meals that day @ 2k calories. You just consumed 6k by friend.
edejong 10y ago
I'm sorry, but the argument 'calories in' == 'calories out' is getting old and is based on incorrect facts and wilful thinking. Be careful with this advice! First of all, due to a variety of reasons the caloric energy mentioned on the package or menu is a very rough estimate of the amount of ATP which can be generated from it. [1] Second of all, the psychological effects of dieting, due to the strong habitual, cultural and social effects should certainly not be underestimated. Your statement 'to pick the one you like' already indicates the emotional undertones. Just keeping a tally with calories in vs. calories out ignores this fact, instead of tackling it head on. It is much better advice to talk about making a list of: "if this, then that". For example: "I will always do exercise two times a week, three if possible. On holidays, I will find alternative means." or: "Although with care, I will not obsess about caloric intake during dinner parties.". This kind of advice works long term and creates some easy rules to keep during difficult times. Thirdly, and most importantly: certain molecules, such as fructose and alcohol, do not participate in the feedback loop to the brain to stop consuming. Although we can practice willpower, it is much easier and tenable to consume these products together with products that contain molecules that do, such as fibers. [2] Lastly, when exercising, it is not unlikely to increase weight due to increased muscle mass and added fat due to cold water or wind. [1] Scientific American, fwiw. With a bit more search you should be able to find better references: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-reveals-why-calorie-counts-are-all-wrong/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-reveals-w... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15181085 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15181085
- Terr_ 10y ago
  I think it's quite defensible to say: "The average person will have have better outcomes if they simplify their strategy to counting calories and making decisions on that basis, rather than a more complicated approach, which are unlikely to actually maintain." It's basically like "ignore air resistance" for most day-to-day physics problems.
  - mixedCase 10y ago
    > The average person The average person doesn't escape insulin responses. Counting carbs and preferring fatty foods is easier than counting calories and helps the person far more.
glangdale 10y ago
This is valid advice, as long as they pick "Eat less". Generically, you can't outrun a donut. Well, some people can - I remember a period in my life when I was training about 10 times a week (4 BJJ sessions, 3 endurance sessions, 3 weights sessions) and having trouble maintaining my bodyweight. I was also living rent-free on a grad student stipend and nominally working on my thesis with very few other obligations and about zero social life. I was also in my 20s. As a 'normal person' the only way I have ever lost weight is by eating less. The idea that you can exercise your way out of Fatfuckistan is absurd once you hit maturity or middle age. If I tried to train 10 times a week (the way I did) now my joints would disintegrate. Conversely, even running a small but consistent calorie deficit allowed me to lose 70 grams a day for a 15kg weight loss (mostly fat), with the same moderate training schedule that I had previously been getting fat on.
nickik 10y ago
I think your advice is naive and does not solve anything. Its like saying "Money in / money out" is as absolute a fact as it gets. so I say "You have two options: Earn more, spend less, pick the one you like". That advice might be true, bit its also totally useless in solving poverty. The hole argument for different diets is based on alternative theories of how different foods affect your body and/or mind. To take absurd example, maybe carrots move energy from building fat cells into a process that converts your blood to carrot juice. You could eat the same amount (in calories) of carrots and something else, spend all the energy and still end up with a different body. That's what the debate is about. Just telling people to run more or eat less will simply not work. Running (Sports) by it self, is essentially proven to not be effective for weight lost. You can actually train fat people to run marathons.
- solidr53 10y ago
  So what? Fat people running a marathon does not change the fact that calories in/calories out is, not the most effective, but the only way how this works. Any diets, workout routines, lifestyle changes, etc. will change in input/output ratio that will give different results.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Fat people running a marathon does not change the fact that calories in/calories out is, not the most effective, but the only way how this works. No, it's actually not. From TFA: "Still, further research has shown that calories eaten are only part of what determines weight. Our metabolism reflects an interplay of things like genes, hormones, and the bacteria that populate the gut, so how much energy we absorb from what we eat varies from person to person."/
derekp7 10y ago
The thing is, you eat less, your body conserves energy when not working out. And the workouts are more challenging because you don't feel like doing them. Or, you work out more, but then you get a lot more hungry. So you end up eating more. If you try to fight both these conditions, then you end up miserable (i.e., constantly hungry, or miserable when trying to do more exercise). What is really needed is lifestyle tweaks. For example, if it is a habit to grab a donut or two from the box that someone brings into the office, you need to figure out how to not do that (i.e., relate that donut to doing an additional workout) -- eventually you may be able to convince yourself that the donut is poison, and therefore avoid it. For the exercise part -- first get in shape (takes about a month or two of daily 1-hour aerobic exercise such brisk walking or using an elliptical). Then, if you are close enough to work, at the start of spring start riding a bicycle to work at least once a week. Then 2 - 3 times a week. A 15-mile ride takes about an hour, and burns enough calories that you don't really have to worry about what you eat. You can also make a habit out of going for a walk at night for an hour or so -- that should burn around 500 calories. And increase your metabolism. Also, if you typically eat fast food for lunch, change to a sandwich shop, or pack a lunch.
dlwdlw 10y ago
You're just stating laws of physics though which isn't helpful. The idea behind diets is that your body processes different sources of energy differently. For example, it doesn't process antimatter at all despite its numerous calories. Maybe sugar kicks it into hibernation mode, desiring to engorge everything in site. Maybe ingesting mostly fat causes the body to efficiently start to be able to access excess fat reserves. Maybe it's different for everyone depending on genetics. Stating the laws of thermodynamics to people who are struggling to lose weight or trying to understand how our biology works isnt helpful and just comes across as smug. It's like being a mathematician and looking down on all other fields as just being derived from math.

kough 10y ago

Yeah. I was eating ~1500 calories every day for lunch from McDonald's, plus two big protein shakes (another ~1400 calories), plus a 4-egg scramble with vegetables every morning and a rice/beans/veggies/chicken dinner. That's only a little over 4000 calories and I felt fucking disgusting. It turns out one of the tricks is timing, without a regular schedule I simply could not eat enough because I wouldn't be hungry.

Nav_Panel 10y ago

I still think "eat less" is bad advice, because just "eating less" chips/soda/garbage is pretty difficult. I've tried. It requires an extreme and inhuman amount of willpower. Our natural drive is to vacuum up all the easy energy in front of us. "Eat better" is probably better/more useful vague advice. You can eat a whole lot of salad/veggies and it wont end up being that many calories (so, in this case, you're eating MORE, but consuming less energy/fewer calories). Same with meat. It's hard not to lose weight if you're eating a lot of (leaner) meat, because you feel extremely full after a couple hundred calories worth. If you start modifying your diet, your cravings will change too. It's all about these weird feedback loops.

solidr53 10y ago
He never stated "eat less volume of food", so I take it he ment the general term "calories of food". How you do it doesn't matter. (eat more volumetric food or stop drinking soda, doesn't matter)
- TheCoelacanth 10y ago
  Except that it does matter how you do it. There is pretty much no human alive who has the willpower to eat exactly their daily caloric requirement in chips and soda and then stop every day.
naasking 10y ago
> I still think "eat less" is bad advice, because just "eating less" chips/soda/garbage is pretty difficult. I've tried. It requires an extreme and inhuman amount of willpower. Our natural drive is to vacuum up all the easy energy in front of us. Exactly, so don't have any of that stuff around you. Easy calories makes for easy pounds. If you had to actually go out and get that bag of chips you're craving, you're far less likely to do it. Within a week of abstinence, you're not even craving them anymore.

cheald 10y ago

Eating 4k in a day is a chore if you are used to controlling your intake and eating clean. It's not hard if you eat poorly. There was once a time that I could put down a Costco box of Goldfish crackers (7400 calories) in an evening of hacking, with a few cans of Coke (another 600) to wash it down with. A package of Oreo cookies is north of 2500 calories. A "single serving" pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream is well over 1k calories. Eating 4k calories well is hard - caloric density in good foods isn't nearly what it is in bad foods, and you're just going to physically fill up your stomach. Eating it poorly is, sadly, way too easy.

ben_jones 10y ago
I'll take the walk of shame with you. The wrong mixed drinks can easily be ~300 calories. Down eight of those during a bachelor party and then get tacos from the 2am drunk taco stand - easily ~1600 there. Boom 4k. Then let's say you had a normal 3 meals that day @ 2k calories. You just consumed 6k by friend.

edejong 10y ago

I'm sorry, but the argument 'calories in' == 'calories out' is getting old and is based on incorrect facts and wilful thinking. Be careful with this advice! First of all, due to a variety of reasons the caloric energy mentioned on the package or menu is a very rough estimate of the amount of ATP which can be generated from it. [1] Second of all, the psychological effects of dieting, due to the strong habitual, cultural and social effects should certainly not be underestimated. Your statement 'to pick the one you like' already indicates the emotional undertones. Just keeping a tally with calories in vs. calories out ignores this fact, instead of tackling it head on. It is much better advice to talk about making a list of: "if this, then that". For example: "I will always do exercise two times a week, three if possible. On holidays, I will find alternative means." or: "Although with care, I will not obsess about caloric intake during dinner parties.". This kind of advice works long term and creates some easy rules to keep during difficult times. Thirdly, and most importantly: certain molecules, such as fructose and alcohol, do not participate in the feedback loop to the brain to stop consuming. Although we can practice willpower, it is much easier and tenable to consume these products together with products that contain molecules that do, such as fibers. [2] Lastly, when exercising, it is not unlikely to increase weight due to increased muscle mass and added fat due to cold water or wind. [1] Scientific American, fwiw. With a bit more search you should be able to find better references: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-reveals-why-calorie-counts-are-all-wrong/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-reveals-w... [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15181085 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15181085

Terr_ 10y ago
I think it's quite defensible to say: "The average person will have have better outcomes if they simplify their strategy to counting calories and making decisions on that basis, rather than a more complicated approach, which are unlikely to actually maintain." It's basically like "ignore air resistance" for most day-to-day physics problems.
- mixedCase 10y ago
  > The average person The average person doesn't escape insulin responses. Counting carbs and preferring fatty foods is easier than counting calories and helps the person far more.

glangdale 10y ago

This is valid advice, as long as they pick "Eat less". Generically, you can't outrun a donut. Well, some people can - I remember a period in my life when I was training about 10 times a week (4 BJJ sessions, 3 endurance sessions, 3 weights sessions) and having trouble maintaining my bodyweight. I was also living rent-free on a grad student stipend and nominally working on my thesis with very few other obligations and about zero social life. I was also in my 20s. As a 'normal person' the only way I have ever lost weight is by eating less. The idea that you can exercise your way out of Fatfuckistan is absurd once you hit maturity or middle age. If I tried to train 10 times a week (the way I did) now my joints would disintegrate. Conversely, even running a small but consistent calorie deficit allowed me to lose 70 grams a day for a 15kg weight loss (mostly fat), with the same moderate training schedule that I had previously been getting fat on.

nickik 10y ago

I think your advice is naive and does not solve anything. Its like saying "Money in / money out" is as absolute a fact as it gets. so I say "You have two options: Earn more, spend less, pick the one you like". That advice might be true, bit its also totally useless in solving poverty. The hole argument for different diets is based on alternative theories of how different foods affect your body and/or mind. To take absurd example, maybe carrots move energy from building fat cells into a process that converts your blood to carrot juice. You could eat the same amount (in calories) of carrots and something else, spend all the energy and still end up with a different body. That's what the debate is about. Just telling people to run more or eat less will simply not work. Running (Sports) by it self, is essentially proven to not be effective for weight lost. You can actually train fat people to run marathons.

solidr53 10y ago
So what? Fat people running a marathon does not change the fact that calories in/calories out is, not the most effective, but the only way how this works. Any diets, workout routines, lifestyle changes, etc. will change in input/output ratio that will give different results.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Fat people running a marathon does not change the fact that calories in/calories out is, not the most effective, but the only way how this works. No, it's actually not. From TFA: "Still, further research has shown that calories eaten are only part of what determines weight. Our metabolism reflects an interplay of things like genes, hormones, and the bacteria that populate the gut, so how much energy we absorb from what we eat varies from person to person."/

derekp7 10y ago

The thing is, you eat less, your body conserves energy when not working out. And the workouts are more challenging because you don't feel like doing them. Or, you work out more, but then you get a lot more hungry. So you end up eating more. If you try to fight both these conditions, then you end up miserable (i.e., constantly hungry, or miserable when trying to do more exercise). What is really needed is lifestyle tweaks. For example, if it is a habit to grab a donut or two from the box that someone brings into the office, you need to figure out how to not do that (i.e., relate that donut to doing an additional workout) -- eventually you may be able to convince yourself that the donut is poison, and therefore avoid it. For the exercise part -- first get in shape (takes about a month or two of daily 1-hour aerobic exercise such brisk walking or using an elliptical). Then, if you are close enough to work, at the start of spring start riding a bicycle to work at least once a week. Then 2 - 3 times a week. A 15-mile ride takes about an hour, and burns enough calories that you don't really have to worry about what you eat. You can also make a habit out of going for a walk at night for an hour or so -- that should burn around 500 calories. And increase your metabolism. Also, if you typically eat fast food for lunch, change to a sandwich shop, or pack a lunch.

dlwdlw 10y ago

You're just stating laws of physics though which isn't helpful. The idea behind diets is that your body processes different sources of energy differently. For example, it doesn't process antimatter at all despite its numerous calories. Maybe sugar kicks it into hibernation mode, desiring to engorge everything in site. Maybe ingesting mostly fat causes the body to efficiently start to be able to access excess fat reserves. Maybe it's different for everyone depending on genetics. Stating the laws of thermodynamics to people who are struggling to lose weight or trying to understand how our biology works isnt helpful and just comes across as smug. It's like being a mathematician and looking down on all other fields as just being derived from math.