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Counting calories in/out is a way to lose weight that works for a lot of people. It also works well in clinical & research settings, where control mechanisms ar
by dalbasal 8y ago
Counting calories in/out is a way to lose weight that works for a lot of people. It also works well in clinical & research settings, where control mechanisms are strong. That said:
"The only thing you really need to know is that you should be eating fewer calories than your body burns everyday. If you do this, you will lose weight – it’s science. Nothing else matters for weight loss"
This may be one of the most harmful statements about diet. It's mostly true, but in a fairly banal sense. A baby will have a caloric surpluss as it grow. So will a potato. Without the calories, growth will stunt. This is the trivial fact.
The growth trajectory of a potato or baby is not trivially determined by caloric surplusses. One big factor is genetics, which tell babies and potatoes to grow. There are environmental factors, many of which are calorie related.
"This is a scientific fact" is in the context it's used, an empty tautology. Caloric surplusses can be used in exactly the same way to "explain" why an elephant is bigger than a mouse, why there are 6 billion people on the planet, how a bodybuilder got his biceps or why you got fat. This makes it a nonexplanation.
A less abstract hint that we're dealing with a nonexplanation is apples. Add one apple a day to your diet, and calorie counting will tell you that amounts to 5kg fat per year.
We know from experience that people do not gain/lose 10 lbs per year by adding an apple a day to their diet. Your apetite or metabolism (these are related) will compensate for the apple.
That doesn't mean that intentional caloric restriction isn't a good method. It works well for some. Other things work well for others. We don't have perfect knowledge about what works "in the wild" or even in the lab.
- janlaureys 8y agoAll calories are equal, but some are more equal than others.
- mlrtime 8y agoAfter all that you typed out it still doesn't matter, the only way to loose weight is to consume less calories than you "burn". Everything else you talk about is either different ways to accomplish this or excuses. There is no beating conservation of energy.
- deno 8y agoDepends on how you define consume[1]. [1] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2093802-stomach-tap-to-let-obese-people-empty-their-gut-after-eating/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2093802-stomach-tap-to-...
- mlrtime 8y agoThat is disgusting.
- freehunter 8y agoThis is one of those inconvenient truths that no one likes talking about. Keto works, ultimately, because you're consuming fewer calories than you're burning. Low carb works, ultimately, because you're consuming fewer calories than you're burning. Exercising more works, ultimately, because you're consuming fewer calories than you're burning. Counting calories works, ultimately, because you're consuming fewer calories than you're burning. Yes people will jump in and say "but but but but macros" and "but but but ketosis" but ultimately it's calories in < calories out. Much like programming, everything eventually gets translated to machine code. Putting Assembly on that, and C on that, and then using Python just makes programming easier. But it doesn't change the fact that ultimately, it's all machine code. The Atkins diet is just syntactic sugar on top of the machine code of your body. That's not to say it's a useless abstraction... there are plenty of programmers who wouldn't be doing the job, and plenty of jobs that wouldn't get done, if everyone had to program in machine code. Making it more accessible is a good thing, as long as you understand that Python ultimately becomes machine code, and your diet plan ultimately becomes calories in < calories out.
- dalbasal 8y agoIt's not an inconvenient truth, it's a trivial truth. "You can make this program in any Turing complete language" is true. That truth is interesting to a computer science class. It's completeky useless and meaningless to a person writing a program. Say you want a program that does something with a relational database. The right advice is "you can do this with SQL." The fact that human bodies follow the laws of physics ads no information. It is a logical red herring.
- thomasfedb 8y agoPeople often promote energy restriction without mentioning the key fact - you will be hungry. The human body has an amazing set of machinery that's dedicated to making you eat when your metabolism needs certain kinds of materials and would rather not break down tissue to get them.
- dpark 8y ago> People often promote energy restriction without mentioning the key fact - you will be hungry. People won’t simply omit that fact. They’ll often actively argue that it’s untrue, that “you shouldn’t be hungry” when losing weight. This is only true if you simply don’t ever experience hunger normally (in which case you probably don’t need to lose weight). Losing weight is hard. It doesn’t become easy because we pretend it is.
- thomasfedb 8y agoHow dare you be hungry!
- ska 8y agoThere is nothing specific about energy restriction there. To a first approximation, if you are losing weight you will be hungry, full stop.
- thomasfedb 8y agoHappy this is not quite true. There is one therapy which reduces intake without making people physiologically hungry (addiction to food is a different matter) - gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy.
- ska 8y agoTrue, I wasn't thinking of surgical techniques. Sometimes that works without physiological hunger (or at least much). However, it also typically comes with a host of other problems and should only ever be considered in extreme circumstances, in my opinion.