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Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. Nothing about the body is simple. - There is a virus that studies suggest (show correlation) increase weig

by berdon 7y ago

Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. Nothing about the body is simple. - There is a virus that studies suggest (show correlation) increase weight gain [1] - There is a study that shows water in != water out (unfortunately my googlefu is failing me though). - Empirical: I've lost weight eating 900 calories/day and I've lost weight eating 3500 calories/day with the same level of exercise. The difference was the 900 were carbs, the 3500 was >90% protein. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenovirus_serotype_36 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenovirus_serotype_36

berdon 7y ago
I want to expand a little bit more: The body can be simplified down into an input/output black-box - almost like a thevenin equivalent. But most people unaccount for lost energy in the output. No two bodies are alike and no two bodies share the same efficiency in breaking down food, absorption, conversion, and excretion. Yes, you can collect the excrement and analyze the output. But that analysis doesn't tell you much. You don't know how efficient the black body is so you don't know how much of the waste could have been utilized or not. Not only that, you don't know if the body's efficiency is static or dynamic based on inputs and outputs.
- partialrecall 7y ago
  You're describing difficulties with precise measurement of inputs and outputs, but I don't think the difficulty of making those measurements refutes the core idea of CICO at all. The difficulty of actually implementing CICO suggests we should have sympathy for those who fail. This doesn't refute CICO.
  - berdon 7y ago
    Your strawman is implying I was trying to refute CICO. I never said that - I said people don't count all the outputs.
    - partialrecall 7y ago
      It was not my intention to strawman you. I apologize for misreading your intent.
      - bena 7y ago
        Don't apologize. Regardless of his intent, he claimed "I've lost weight eating 900 calories/day and I've lost weight eating 3500 calories/day with the same level of exercise. The difference was the 900 were carbs, the 3500 was >90% protein" And if you're not trying to refute CICO, you better make damn clear that even though you're ingesting 3500 calories, you're essentially just crapping out most of it because our bodies can't process that much protein at once.
        berdon 7y ago
        Wording is hard. I've tracked calories for >10 years and macros for >5 years. And, at the time I spoke about, I was taking in protein continuously and meticulously tracking ingestion rate and time and estimating digested and excreted protein levels. But, even still, obviously I was shitting out most of it. I actually do believe and advocate for CICO for most people. But I reject notions that anything related to the body is black, white, or simple and hold strongly to them as convictions. I tried to provide examples to those points with the last as an example that the C in CICO is a sneaky misnomer and better served as being an E. It's just that in the general case for most people E averages into C. I do agree with you on the apology - it's the internet, no one expects an apology and if you do you're insane. Furthermore, I wasn't offended and was only pointing out the rhetorical tactic being employed.
        AstralStorm 7y ago
        It's super rare though that anyone in the world not on a special diet consumes this much protein. That's really hard, volumetrically, as protein is calorie sparse. Which is why it's useful for dieting, to keep volume and water in while keeping caloric content low. (With potential side benefits for satiety.)
  - glogla 7y ago
    CICO is mostly nonsense, because you can't control neither CI no CO. CI is based what people eat, but how much and how often people eat (if you don't expect perfect and infinite willpower) is based on how hungry they are, and that is hormonally controlled, based on complex feedback loop that includes insulin levels (so what you eat and how often) and activity levels. CO includes many things you have no conscious control over, like heating (ever stopped being cold after a meal?), muscle repair and buildup, brain, etc. Only small fraction of that is exercise. People saying "it's just CICO" are as disgusting as millionaires saying "just stop being poor, it's easy, you have to make more than you use" while knowing nothing (and not caring) about student loans, healthcare costs for non-insured people, housing crisis or anti-labor practices that suppress wages.
    - partialrecall 7y ago
      Wow, that's extremely judgemental. When I was on the swim team in highschool, I was fit as a fiddle. When I went to university I chose to stop swimming but also chose to continue eating the same (because I like food.) Predictably, I started to get fat. I'm certainly capable of eating less, and I am also capable of increasing my activity. Your rant denies that I have any agency in this matter, which is somewhat offensive. And even if it were the case that I had no agency, it would still be the case that my weight loss was due to a CICO imbalance. CICO is a matter of physics, not ethics or morality.
    - dpark 7y ago
      > CICO is mostly nonsense, because you can't control neither CI no CO. This is a wholesale abdication of responsibility and an embrace of victimhood. Yes, there are elements of calories out that aren’t fully in your control. However these place a lower bound on calories out. You can absolutely increase your exercise and activity level. On the other side, you are very much in control of your calories in. You can choose to eat a better diet (e.g. whole foods) that makes it easier to maintain a caloric deficit. You can choose to stop eating before full satiety. You can even go so far as to fast, cutting your calories in to 0. Obviously hunger matters but this idea that you can’t control your eating at all because you’re hungry is ridiculous. You are very much in control of these factors. Yes, there are broad issues contributing to obesity but individuals are not relieved of their responsibility just because society also has problems.
  - magna7 7y ago
    I don't think anyone disputes the laws of thermodynamics, just how the body processes different macronutrients in the presence of certain levels of hormones. By changing those hormones, you change the balance of the total energy equation. For example, I know someone with crohns disease, and her body just doesn't metabolize nutrients the same way mine does. I burn a donut more efficiently than she does. In this case it isn't about hormones, but about inflammation, but it's generally the same concept just on a more apparent scale.
scarface74 7y ago
I hate to use the old correlation is not causation.... But even if the virus does “cause” obesity, is it causing obesity by slowing down the host’s metabolism (decreasing the calories out) or increasing appetite (increasing calories in)?
- berdon 7y ago
  I'm not sure how I could have made that any clearer. I included (show correlation) specifically for that very reason.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    But not causation and still didn’t explain whether that could be explained by the standard CICO equation.
    - berdon 7y ago
      You might try clicking the link I provided. The Wikipedia page details the virus and provides links to other sources one of which was conducted on chickens where they measure input/output and still saw positive weight gain.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        So exactly how do you explain mass just coming out of nowhere?
        bscphil 7y ago
        I think all berdon is trying to say by "not simple physics" is that even though CICO is true, it's not helpful to people trying to lose weight because there are many other conditions (e.g. a virus) that can affect the body's metabolism - to a limited extent. This particular virus seems to make you fatter even on a precise calorie controlled diet, which implies it must reduce your metabolism. For the record I disagree with this - I think CICO is a helpful way to think about weight loss, because it implies that if you aren't losing weight on a calorie controlled diet, you simply haven't cut enough. (Though serious problems might be indicative of some medical condition, in which case you should consult a doctor to see if it can be alleviated to make CICO easier.)
dpark 7y ago
> Empirical I think the word you’re looking for is “anecdotal”. No one here knows anything about your TDEE so it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that you could lose weight on 3500 calories/day. If your TDEE is >3500, then yeah, weight loss. Especially since the thermic effect of food is quite high for protein, and that people suck at accurately recording or even measuring their actual intake.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- berdon 7y ago
  I addressed your concerns over my TDEE by stating both instances occurred under the same level of activity and general conditions. In both instances, I lost about the same amount of weight weekly as well. I've also been counting calories for longer than 10 years and at that time I had a spreadsheet with such granular detail I could track the average duration and quantity of protein still within my gut based on average timing, etc. ... Actually...empirical works as well. I think anecdotal is just the latest trend. Empirical based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic. "they provided considerable empirical evidence to support their argument"
  - dpark 7y ago
    You didn’t originally say that you lost weight at the same rate, making your statement almost meaningless. Now that you’ve added that statement, I honestly just don’t believe your assessment. This isn’t a judgement call and I’m not questioning your truthfulness. I simply think your observation was either biased, incomplete, or insufficient. My gut says you did this for too short of a period of time for the results to be meaningful, or else that you’ve left out something meaningful, or that you simply didn’t accurately measure your caloric intake. If you were losing weight on 3500 calories/day, then your TDEE was north of 3500. If you dropped to 900 calories, you’d be in a 2600 calorie/day deficit without even accounting for whatever deficit you were in initially. I don’t care if that was all HFCS, you’d be losing over 5 pounds a week. That’s major weight loss and I don’t believe you saw the same weight loss at 3500 calories and 900 calories for an extended period of time. It simply doesn’t work from a physical standpoint. “Empirical” to me implies a level of data that you don’t get from a singular anecdote.

by berdon 7y ago

berdon 7y ago

I want to expand a little bit more: The body can be simplified down into an input/output black-box - almost like a thevenin equivalent. But most people unaccount for lost energy in the output. No two bodies are alike and no two bodies share the same efficiency in breaking down food, absorption, conversion, and excretion. Yes, you can collect the excrement and analyze the output. But that analysis doesn't tell you much. You don't know how efficient the black body is so you don't know how much of the waste could have been utilized or not. Not only that, you don't know if the body's efficiency is static or dynamic based on inputs and outputs.

partialrecall 7y ago
You're describing difficulties with precise measurement of inputs and outputs, but I don't think the difficulty of making those measurements refutes the core idea of CICO at all. The difficulty of actually implementing CICO suggests we should have sympathy for those who fail. This doesn't refute CICO.
- berdon 7y ago
  Your strawman is implying I was trying to refute CICO. I never said that - I said people don't count all the outputs.
  - partialrecall 7y ago
    It was not my intention to strawman you. I apologize for misreading your intent.
    - bena 7y ago
      Don't apologize. Regardless of his intent, he claimed "I've lost weight eating 900 calories/day and I've lost weight eating 3500 calories/day with the same level of exercise. The difference was the 900 were carbs, the 3500 was >90% protein" And if you're not trying to refute CICO, you better make damn clear that even though you're ingesting 3500 calories, you're essentially just crapping out most of it because our bodies can't process that much protein at once.
      - berdon 7y ago
        Wording is hard. I've tracked calories for >10 years and macros for >5 years. And, at the time I spoke about, I was taking in protein continuously and meticulously tracking ingestion rate and time and estimating digested and excreted protein levels. But, even still, obviously I was shitting out most of it. I actually do believe and advocate for CICO for most people. But I reject notions that anything related to the body is black, white, or simple and hold strongly to them as convictions. I tried to provide examples to those points with the last as an example that the C in CICO is a sneaky misnomer and better served as being an E. It's just that in the general case for most people E averages into C. I do agree with you on the apology - it's the internet, no one expects an apology and if you do you're insane. Furthermore, I wasn't offended and was only pointing out the rhetorical tactic being employed.
      - AstralStorm 7y ago
        It's super rare though that anyone in the world not on a special diet consumes this much protein. That's really hard, volumetrically, as protein is calorie sparse. Which is why it's useful for dieting, to keep volume and water in while keeping caloric content low. (With potential side benefits for satiety.)
- glogla 7y ago
  CICO is mostly nonsense, because you can't control neither CI no CO. CI is based what people eat, but how much and how often people eat (if you don't expect perfect and infinite willpower) is based on how hungry they are, and that is hormonally controlled, based on complex feedback loop that includes insulin levels (so what you eat and how often) and activity levels. CO includes many things you have no conscious control over, like heating (ever stopped being cold after a meal?), muscle repair and buildup, brain, etc. Only small fraction of that is exercise. People saying "it's just CICO" are as disgusting as millionaires saying "just stop being poor, it's easy, you have to make more than you use" while knowing nothing (and not caring) about student loans, healthcare costs for non-insured people, housing crisis or anti-labor practices that suppress wages.
  - partialrecall 7y ago
    Wow, that's extremely judgemental. When I was on the swim team in highschool, I was fit as a fiddle. When I went to university I chose to stop swimming but also chose to continue eating the same (because I like food.) Predictably, I started to get fat. I'm certainly capable of eating less, and I am also capable of increasing my activity. Your rant denies that I have any agency in this matter, which is somewhat offensive. And even if it were the case that I had no agency, it would still be the case that my weight loss was due to a CICO imbalance. CICO is a matter of physics, not ethics or morality.
  - dpark 7y ago
    > CICO is mostly nonsense, because you can't control neither CI no CO. This is a wholesale abdication of responsibility and an embrace of victimhood. Yes, there are elements of calories out that aren’t fully in your control. However these place a lower bound on calories out. You can absolutely increase your exercise and activity level. On the other side, you are very much in control of your calories in. You can choose to eat a better diet (e.g. whole foods) that makes it easier to maintain a caloric deficit. You can choose to stop eating before full satiety. You can even go so far as to fast, cutting your calories in to 0. Obviously hunger matters but this idea that you can’t control your eating at all because you’re hungry is ridiculous. You are very much in control of these factors. Yes, there are broad issues contributing to obesity but individuals are not relieved of their responsibility just because society also has problems.
- magna7 7y ago
  I don't think anyone disputes the laws of thermodynamics, just how the body processes different macronutrients in the presence of certain levels of hormones. By changing those hormones, you change the balance of the total energy equation. For example, I know someone with crohns disease, and her body just doesn't metabolize nutrients the same way mine does. I burn a donut more efficiently than she does. In this case it isn't about hormones, but about inflammation, but it's generally the same concept just on a more apparent scale.

scarface74 7y ago

I hate to use the old correlation is not causation.... But even if the virus does “cause” obesity, is it causing obesity by slowing down the host’s metabolism (decreasing the calories out) or increasing appetite (increasing calories in)?

berdon 7y ago
I'm not sure how I could have made that any clearer. I included (show correlation) specifically for that very reason.
- scarface74 7y ago
  But not causation and still didn’t explain whether that could be explained by the standard CICO equation.
  - berdon 7y ago
    You might try clicking the link I provided. The Wikipedia page details the virus and provides links to other sources one of which was conducted on chickens where they measure input/output and still saw positive weight gain.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      So exactly how do you explain mass just coming out of nowhere?
      - bscphil 7y ago
        I think all berdon is trying to say by "not simple physics" is that even though CICO is true, it's not helpful to people trying to lose weight because there are many other conditions (e.g. a virus) that can affect the body's metabolism - to a limited extent. This particular virus seems to make you fatter even on a precise calorie controlled diet, which implies it must reduce your metabolism. For the record I disagree with this - I think CICO is a helpful way to think about weight loss, because it implies that if you aren't losing weight on a calorie controlled diet, you simply haven't cut enough. (Though serious problems might be indicative of some medical condition, in which case you should consult a doctor to see if it can be alleviated to make CICO easier.)

dpark 7y ago

> Empirical I think the word you’re looking for is “anecdotal”. No one here knows anything about your TDEE so it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that you could lose weight on 3500 calories/day. If your TDEE is >3500, then yeah, weight loss. Especially since the thermic effect of food is quite high for protein, and that people suck at accurately recording or even measuring their actual intake.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
berdon 7y ago
I addressed your concerns over my TDEE by stating both instances occurred under the same level of activity and general conditions. In both instances, I lost about the same amount of weight weekly as well. I've also been counting calories for longer than 10 years and at that time I had a spreadsheet with such granular detail I could track the average duration and quantity of protein still within my gut based on average timing, etc. ... Actually...empirical works as well. I think anecdotal is just the latest trend. Empirical based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic. "they provided considerable empirical evidence to support their argument"
- dpark 7y ago
  You didn’t originally say that you lost weight at the same rate, making your statement almost meaningless. Now that you’ve added that statement, I honestly just don’t believe your assessment. This isn’t a judgement call and I’m not questioning your truthfulness. I simply think your observation was either biased, incomplete, or insufficient. My gut says you did this for too short of a period of time for the results to be meaningful, or else that you’ve left out something meaningful, or that you simply didn’t accurately measure your caloric intake. If you were losing weight on 3500 calories/day, then your TDEE was north of 3500. If you dropped to 900 calories, you’d be in a 2600 calorie/day deficit without even accounting for whatever deficit you were in initially. I don’t care if that was all HFCS, you’d be losing over 5 pounds a week. That’s major weight loss and I don’t believe you saw the same weight loss at 3500 calories and 900 calories for an extended period of time. It simply doesn’t work from a physical standpoint. “Empirical” to me implies a level of data that you don’t get from a singular anecdote.