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After 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

After 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 ago
Depends 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 ago
  That is disgusting.
freehunter 8y ago
This 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 ago
  It'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.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    I wouldn't say it's trivial at all. I'd consider it the most important piece of knowledge there is on the subject. You can be on a keto diet and gain weight. You can be on a low carb diet and gain weight. And if you don't understand the basic principles of why that is, you'll think that losing weight is impossible. If you believe that keto is the only way to lose weight and you gained weight while following it, you're going to quit. You need to understand why various diet plans work. Ultimately, they all work because they help you eat fewer calories than you're burning. If you follow the diet exactly but still consume more calories than you're burning, you will gain weight. If you don't understand that fact, you've already lost. I can't think of a single more important fact to understand than that.
    - po9her 8y ago
      > You can be on a keto diet and gain weight. You can be on a low carb diet and gain weight. No you can't I'm in a Ketogenic diet 6 months now (lost 83 pounds so far) and although i'm eating the same amount of calories (and even more) as i did before i started i'm losing weight non stop, no exercise , no intermittent fasting, NO-THING! You clearly have no idea what you're talking about
      - freehunter 8y ago
        So you're saying that you can consume 5000 calories per day, only burn 2000, and still lose weight. Have you considered submitting this to a scientific journal? This changes our entire understanding of the laws of physics. Faster-than-light travel actually sounds possible now. Or you're lying, and also making anyone who did gain weight on the keto diet feel worse about themselves and give up on losing weight altogether.
dalbasal 8y ago
Everything (most things) that accomplishes weight loss will involve caloric deficits. This is true in the same way that "eat your dinner or you won't grow" is a true statement. It's true in some uninteresting abstract sense. Growing up involves caloric surpluses. Death involves an end to caloric intake. Did that corpse rot because it stopped ingesting calories?
- mlrtime 8y ago
  I don't understand how your comment is relevant.
cimmanom 8y ago
Sure. So theoretically you can accomplish calories in < calories out by eating nothing but sugar. In practice, this doesn't work very well because sugar a) isn't filling; and b) trains your body to crave more sugar; and c) eating nothing but will leave you with deficits in pretty much every nutrient your body needs to thrive, which will in turn cause cravings. Nobody I've ever met has enough willpower to sustain a diet under those conditions. The difficulty of weight loss isn't the math. It's how to hack your mind and body to minimize the willpower needed to maintain a caloric deficit that millions of years of evolution have optimized your system to avoid.
- mlrtime 8y ago
  You will still loose weight if you are in a caloric deficit but you will have other problems. No need for hacks. 1) Don't eat things in a box or bag, real food only, 2) Caloric deficit. It's actually very easy, people are just lazy or addicted to poor habits.
  - cimmanom 8y ago
    Ok, so if you eat as much as you want of home-cooked bacon, eggs, and fresh-sliced potatoes fried in lard you'll lose weight? Or is that not "real food"? No, it's not as simple as avoiding packaged food. And even if it were, avoiding consuming all that crap may be simple but it's not easy. It takes a lot of willpower. If that's easy for you, you're in a tiny and fortunate minority. The human body is a complex system with all sorts of feedback loops on inputs and outputs that can make it extremely difficult to change its equilibrium. Calling people lazy when in fact they're losing a fight against every instinct of their biology (plus all sorts of societal ills like long work hours and food deserts and advertising) is unproductive.
    - radix07 8y ago
      If you ask the Keto people, they will say you can. But the point being made is to eat healthy real food. Sure you can be dumb about it, but it's a good starting place. Yes, the human body is very complex and metabolisms and people are all different, but you can't really do too much about that. So just eat healthy, eat less, burn more calories. What else can you do?
scrollaway 8y ago
You keep saying that as if human bodies are batteries and we perfectly break down all calories and nutrients in all food. Eating two oranges vs. drinking a glass of those two oranges' juice will yield very different results on the body, both in terms of how hungry you are, and how the nutrients are broken down. Edit: I recommend giving "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" a watch. It's an excellent talk and should be available freely on youtube. Edit 2: Furthermore, we don't burn calories at equal pace every day, even given the same amount of effort/exercise. Metabolism change means even passively you burn calories at different intensities on different days. These mechanisms result in significant differences between people.

deno 8y ago

Depends 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 ago
That is disgusting.

freehunter 8y ago

This 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 ago
It'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.
- freehunter 8y ago
  I wouldn't say it's trivial at all. I'd consider it the most important piece of knowledge there is on the subject. You can be on a keto diet and gain weight. You can be on a low carb diet and gain weight. And if you don't understand the basic principles of why that is, you'll think that losing weight is impossible. If you believe that keto is the only way to lose weight and you gained weight while following it, you're going to quit. You need to understand why various diet plans work. Ultimately, they all work because they help you eat fewer calories than you're burning. If you follow the diet exactly but still consume more calories than you're burning, you will gain weight. If you don't understand that fact, you've already lost. I can't think of a single more important fact to understand than that.
  - po9her 8y ago
    > You can be on a keto diet and gain weight. You can be on a low carb diet and gain weight. No you can't I'm in a Ketogenic diet 6 months now (lost 83 pounds so far) and although i'm eating the same amount of calories (and even more) as i did before i started i'm losing weight non stop, no exercise , no intermittent fasting, NO-THING! You clearly have no idea what you're talking about
    - freehunter 8y ago
      So you're saying that you can consume 5000 calories per day, only burn 2000, and still lose weight. Have you considered submitting this to a scientific journal? This changes our entire understanding of the laws of physics. Faster-than-light travel actually sounds possible now. Or you're lying, and also making anyone who did gain weight on the keto diet feel worse about themselves and give up on losing weight altogether.

dalbasal 8y ago

Everything (most things) that accomplishes weight loss will involve caloric deficits. This is true in the same way that "eat your dinner or you won't grow" is a true statement. It's true in some uninteresting abstract sense. Growing up involves caloric surpluses. Death involves an end to caloric intake. Did that corpse rot because it stopped ingesting calories?

mlrtime 8y ago
I don't understand how your comment is relevant.

cimmanom 8y ago

Sure. So theoretically you can accomplish calories in < calories out by eating nothing but sugar. In practice, this doesn't work very well because sugar a) isn't filling; and b) trains your body to crave more sugar; and c) eating nothing but will leave you with deficits in pretty much every nutrient your body needs to thrive, which will in turn cause cravings. Nobody I've ever met has enough willpower to sustain a diet under those conditions. The difficulty of weight loss isn't the math. It's how to hack your mind and body to minimize the willpower needed to maintain a caloric deficit that millions of years of evolution have optimized your system to avoid.

mlrtime 8y ago
You will still loose weight if you are in a caloric deficit but you will have other problems. No need for hacks. 1) Don't eat things in a box or bag, real food only, 2) Caloric deficit. It's actually very easy, people are just lazy or addicted to poor habits.
- cimmanom 8y ago
  Ok, so if you eat as much as you want of home-cooked bacon, eggs, and fresh-sliced potatoes fried in lard you'll lose weight? Or is that not "real food"? No, it's not as simple as avoiding packaged food. And even if it were, avoiding consuming all that crap may be simple but it's not easy. It takes a lot of willpower. If that's easy for you, you're in a tiny and fortunate minority. The human body is a complex system with all sorts of feedback loops on inputs and outputs that can make it extremely difficult to change its equilibrium. Calling people lazy when in fact they're losing a fight against every instinct of their biology (plus all sorts of societal ills like long work hours and food deserts and advertising) is unproductive.
  - radix07 8y ago
    If you ask the Keto people, they will say you can. But the point being made is to eat healthy real food. Sure you can be dumb about it, but it's a good starting place. Yes, the human body is very complex and metabolisms and people are all different, but you can't really do too much about that. So just eat healthy, eat less, burn more calories. What else can you do?

scrollaway 8y ago

You keep saying that as if human bodies are batteries and we perfectly break down all calories and nutrients in all food. Eating two oranges vs. drinking a glass of those two oranges' juice will yield very different results on the body, both in terms of how hungry you are, and how the nutrients are broken down. Edit: I recommend giving "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" a watch. It's an excellent talk and should be available freely on youtube. Edit 2: Furthermore, we don't burn calories at equal pace every day, even given the same amount of effort/exercise. Metabolism change means even passively you burn calories at different intensities on different days. These mechanisms result in significant differences between people.