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I first wrote this as a reply in this thread and now I'm looking at it, I think it's relevant to the article as a whole -- sugar, insulin, calorie reduction, st

I first wrote this as a reply in this thread and now I'm looking at it, I think it's relevant to the article as a whole -- sugar, insulin, calorie reduction, stress, fitness in general. I believe that the "diet" mentioned in the article is in effect a calorie-restriction one. > Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. > you are losing weight because you are consuming less calories. This is only true in the first up to 6 months of a calorie-restriction diet. Then, body adjusts its metabolism (lower body temperature, making you feel more lethargic to keep you from exercising, etc) and your weight begins to slowly climb back up, sans any further calorie restriction. At this point, it's easy for a dieter to blame himself of lacking willpower: "it worked, and it stopped working now, I must've been not strict enough!". The same thing happens if you force someone to overeat even if they're not hungry. They will gain weight -- for up to 6 months. Then, the body increases its base metabolic rate and adjusts to the new food intake level. As Dr. Jason Fung meticulously explains in his book Obesity Code, there seems to be a weight set point. He then argues that the root cause of obesity, and the body's set weight point, is insulin resistance. The books hails your grandma's advice: "Cut back sugars and starchy foods. No snacking." This is from the last part (The Solution): 1. Reduce your consumption of added sugars. 2. Reduce your consumption of refined grains. 3. Moderate your protein intake. 4. Increase your consumption of natural fats. 5. Increase your consumption of fiber and vinegar. The author also stresses the importance of fasting. Everything the book asserts seems to be pretty well backed by science, go check for yourself. Source: Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung. Read it, it's not only a brilliant weight loss book, but also a wonderful book about how the wrong incentives for companies have led to the obesity epidemic in the US.

berdon 7y ago
Yeah, I lost 100lb from calorie restriction over the course a year. Eating the exact same things just less of it. There is no panacea for weight loss - everyone is different. A book is not a source. Providing a book and then cavalierly saying people should read it because it's backed by science is pretty rude.
- dpark 7y ago
  > There is no panacea for weight loss - everyone is different. You described the panacea: Eat less. If you eat less than you burn, you will lose weight. This effect is so predictable and reliable that taken to its logical conclusion it results in death. We call this starvation. And everyone really isn’t different. The only thing different for most people is what sort of diet they find more tolerable. The fundamentals don’t change though.
  - berdon 7y ago
    Everyone really is different. Vastly different gut flora, vastly different neural connections in the brain, vastly different neural connections in the gut. In fact, the only things that are similar across bodies are their macroscopic qualities and those are arguably the least important.
    - jacques_chester 7y ago
      Starvation can kill anyone, no matter how different they are.
      - dpark 7y ago
        No one debates any of this stuff when it comes to animals. No one thinks their dog has a slow metabolism or different gut flora or different neural connections. They think their dog is fat because he’s eating too much and the cure is to feed him less. Amazingly it always works, assuming the dog’s owners actually follow through with feed him less.
    - dpark 7y ago
      None of that changes physics. It might change dietary compliance but that’s all.
      - glogla 7y ago
        This might be true in thermodynamic sense but it is a useless and trite statement. It's like saying "people are in debt because they borrowed money" - true, but banal and trivial, and pretending it's the whole story and saying nothing of medical debt, student loans or living from paycheck to paycheck and payday loans dayloans is only good for feeling better than someone, most likely while pretending that all people in debt are stupid because they buy too many cars and TVs or whatever. The whole area (both nutrition and debt/poverty) is very complex, especially when looking at whole society. Thinking in simple caricatures, and dismissing people as stupid is helping nobody.
dpark 7y ago
> This is only true in the first up to 6 months of a calorie-restriction diet. Then, body adjusts its metabolism (lower body temperature, making you feel more lethargic to keep you from exercising, etc) and your weight begins to slowly climb back up, sans any further calorie restriction. At this point, it's easy for a dieter to blame himself of lacking willpower: "it worked, and it stopped working now, I must've been not strict enough!". > The same thing happens if you force someone to overeat even if they're not hungry. They will gain weight -- for up to 6 months. Then, the body increases its base metabolic rate and adjusts to the new food intake level. This is pseudoscientific garbage. There is some amount of adaptation that the body experiences in response to a caloric deficit or surplus. It varies by person but is generally not a major effect. A few hundred calories is typical and is largely attributable to changes in NEAT. This is also not an unbounded effect. It won’t prevent continued weight loss if the starting deficit is greater than the adaptation nor will it prevent continued weight gain if the surplus exceeds the adaptation. The many obese people in the world are proof that the “natural set point” does not place a cap on weight gain. There is also definitely nothing magic that happens at the 6 month mark and the absurdity of this should be enough to make it clear that this is garbage.
- magna7 7y ago
  While I agree with you that this is not a major effect, it is an effect nonetheless and it's due to changes in hormones. Dr Fung has a blog where he discusses it using an analogy https://idmprogram.com/how-to-control-the-body-weight-thermometer/ https://idmprogram.com/how-to-control-the-body-weight-thermo.... I'm not the OP, but I'm also not convinced that the set point exists. Regardless, fasting is a better way of losing weight than caloric restriction IMO since it lowers insulin, but to each their own. Either way, the laws of thermodynamics haven't changed, it's just how your body responds, and we're all unique in that sense. Whatever works for people, so long as they're losing weight if they're obese or overweight.
- vinceguidry 7y ago
  > This is pseudoscientific garbage. This seems unnecessary. The rest of your comment does not support this assertion. And it's inflammatory, which is contrary to the HN guidelines. To this point: > There is also definitely nothing magic that happens at the 6 month mark and the absurdity of this should be enough to make it clear that this is garbage. There doesn't have to be anything magical. I would have to read the book to be sure, but pretty sure 6 months describes the general point at which the continuous process fades into noise. Nothing about the body has an on/off switch, but that doesn't mean we can't describe biological processes in general terms.
throw0101a 7y ago
> Then, body adjusts its metabolism (lower body temperature, making you feel more lethargic to keep you from exercising, etc) and your weight begins to slowly climb back up, sans any further calorie restriction. We're also learning more about genetics: > Schmidt’s latest study found an enormous difference in weight gain between two test groups: conventional mice and mice whose RAGE ["receptor for advanced glycation end"] pathway had been deleted. The latter group gained 70 percent less weight than conventional mice, had lower glucose levels, and expended more energy while eating the same high-fat diet and doing the same amount of physical activity. * https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/07/weight-loss-rage-proteins/594073/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/07/weight-lo...
aantix 7y ago
Why doesn't something like Metformin help with significant weight loss?
teflodollar 7y ago
Excuse me, but this does not make any sense. If somebody stopped losing weight after making progress for six months on the exact same diet, it would only mean that their body is now burning as much as it is consuming, so their intake would need to be reduced again. This is basic thermodynamic stuff. I promise I could lose weight eating nothing but ice cream sprinkled with powdered starch, as long as I could control my portions.
- skygazer 7y ago
  Yes, what you said is correct. If you could control your appetite, or response to it, you could lose weight on a calorie restricted diet of "fattening" foods. While I'm not a proponent of Jason Fung or his book, I have read it. From what I recall, where your as-long-as-I-could-control-my-portions diverges from Fung's book is that he believes its nearly impossible for people generally to ignore their appetite in the long run, without correcting the issues that are continually increasing their "set point" and appetite. He defines your "set point" as your level of secretion and resistance to insulin, which is continually, but slowly, increased by frequent meals, snacking, sweeteners, poor sleep, stress and consumption of mostly processed foods. He believes insulin levels strongly influence appetite and metabolism. Inject a thin person with insulin, and they will invariably gain weight. Suppress insulin, and people lose weight. He lists studies to that effect. He rejects calories-in-calories-out, not because it's false, but because it ignores people's inability to ignore their appetite in the long run. His solution is both correcting the frequent meals, snacking, sweeteners, poor sleep, stress and processed foods. He also advocates fasting, which he claims is safe and reduces chronically high insulin levels better than any other (non-drug) intervention. He provides more studies supporting those assertions. As to the 6 months, I vaguely remember him mentioning "6 months, or a year" in the contexts of most diet's plateauing effectiveness, but his general thrust was, most diet's don't work in the long run, because they ignore insulin.
  - magna7 7y ago
    Why aren't you a proponent of Fung? I'm just curious.
cheald 7y ago
> Then, the body increases its base metabolic rate and adjusts to the new food intake level. This is a fairly pernicious half-truth, even among fitness types, which is used to explain away much more than it should. It has some truth to it, but people use it way too easily to handwave away differences in intake. It's true that the metabolism adjusts, but that adjustment is slow and limited. The gap between "slow metabolism" and "fast metabolism" people is only a few hundred calories/day at the extremes. Your body isn't going to suddenly start burning an extra 1k calories/day. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4535334/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4535334/ In this study, they found that the RMR for women varied between 0.721-0.926 kcal/kg/hr (1730-2222 kcal/day @ 100kg), men varied between 0.791-0.969 kcal/kg/hr (1898-2325 kcal/day @100kg). That is, if you're the slowest of "slow metabolism" people, you pretty much just need to deny yourself a single box of M&Ms to match the net energy expenditure of the fastest of the "fast metabolism" people. Hitting average is even easier.

berdon 7y ago

Yeah, I lost 100lb from calorie restriction over the course a year. Eating the exact same things just less of it. There is no panacea for weight loss - everyone is different. A book is not a source. Providing a book and then cavalierly saying people should read it because it's backed by science is pretty rude.

dpark 7y ago
> There is no panacea for weight loss - everyone is different. You described the panacea: Eat less. If you eat less than you burn, you will lose weight. This effect is so predictable and reliable that taken to its logical conclusion it results in death. We call this starvation. And everyone really isn’t different. The only thing different for most people is what sort of diet they find more tolerable. The fundamentals don’t change though.
- berdon 7y ago
  Everyone really is different. Vastly different gut flora, vastly different neural connections in the brain, vastly different neural connections in the gut. In fact, the only things that are similar across bodies are their macroscopic qualities and those are arguably the least important.
  - jacques_chester 7y ago
    Starvation can kill anyone, no matter how different they are.
    - dpark 7y ago
      No one debates any of this stuff when it comes to animals. No one thinks their dog has a slow metabolism or different gut flora or different neural connections. They think their dog is fat because he’s eating too much and the cure is to feed him less. Amazingly it always works, assuming the dog’s owners actually follow through with feed him less.
  - dpark 7y ago
    None of that changes physics. It might change dietary compliance but that’s all.
    - glogla 7y ago
      This might be true in thermodynamic sense but it is a useless and trite statement. It's like saying "people are in debt because they borrowed money" - true, but banal and trivial, and pretending it's the whole story and saying nothing of medical debt, student loans or living from paycheck to paycheck and payday loans dayloans is only good for feeling better than someone, most likely while pretending that all people in debt are stupid because they buy too many cars and TVs or whatever. The whole area (both nutrition and debt/poverty) is very complex, especially when looking at whole society. Thinking in simple caricatures, and dismissing people as stupid is helping nobody.

dpark 7y ago

> This is only true in the first up to 6 months of a calorie-restriction diet. Then, body adjusts its metabolism (lower body temperature, making you feel more lethargic to keep you from exercising, etc) and your weight begins to slowly climb back up, sans any further calorie restriction. At this point, it's easy for a dieter to blame himself of lacking willpower: "it worked, and it stopped working now, I must've been not strict enough!". > The same thing happens if you force someone to overeat even if they're not hungry. They will gain weight -- for up to 6 months. Then, the body increases its base metabolic rate and adjusts to the new food intake level. This is pseudoscientific garbage. There is some amount of adaptation that the body experiences in response to a caloric deficit or surplus. It varies by person but is generally not a major effect. A few hundred calories is typical and is largely attributable to changes in NEAT. This is also not an unbounded effect. It won’t prevent continued weight loss if the starting deficit is greater than the adaptation nor will it prevent continued weight gain if the surplus exceeds the adaptation. The many obese people in the world are proof that the “natural set point” does not place a cap on weight gain. There is also definitely nothing magic that happens at the 6 month mark and the absurdity of this should be enough to make it clear that this is garbage.

magna7 7y ago
While I agree with you that this is not a major effect, it is an effect nonetheless and it's due to changes in hormones. Dr Fung has a blog where he discusses it using an analogy https://idmprogram.com/how-to-control-the-body-weight-thermometer/ https://idmprogram.com/how-to-control-the-body-weight-thermo.... I'm not the OP, but I'm also not convinced that the set point exists. Regardless, fasting is a better way of losing weight than caloric restriction IMO since it lowers insulin, but to each their own. Either way, the laws of thermodynamics haven't changed, it's just how your body responds, and we're all unique in that sense. Whatever works for people, so long as they're losing weight if they're obese or overweight.
vinceguidry 7y ago
> This is pseudoscientific garbage. This seems unnecessary. The rest of your comment does not support this assertion. And it's inflammatory, which is contrary to the HN guidelines. To this point: > There is also definitely nothing magic that happens at the 6 month mark and the absurdity of this should be enough to make it clear that this is garbage. There doesn't have to be anything magical. I would have to read the book to be sure, but pretty sure 6 months describes the general point at which the continuous process fades into noise. Nothing about the body has an on/off switch, but that doesn't mean we can't describe biological processes in general terms.

throw0101a 7y ago

> Then, body adjusts its metabolism (lower body temperature, making you feel more lethargic to keep you from exercising, etc) and your weight begins to slowly climb back up, sans any further calorie restriction. We're also learning more about genetics: > Schmidt’s latest study found an enormous difference in weight gain between two test groups: conventional mice and mice whose RAGE ["receptor for advanced glycation end"] pathway had been deleted. The latter group gained 70 percent less weight than conventional mice, had lower glucose levels, and expended more energy while eating the same high-fat diet and doing the same amount of physical activity. * https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/07/weight-loss-rage-proteins/594073/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/07/weight-lo...

aantix 7y ago

Why doesn't something like Metformin help with significant weight loss?

teflodollar 7y ago

Excuse me, but this does not make any sense. If somebody stopped losing weight after making progress for six months on the exact same diet, it would only mean that their body is now burning as much as it is consuming, so their intake would need to be reduced again. This is basic thermodynamic stuff. I promise I could lose weight eating nothing but ice cream sprinkled with powdered starch, as long as I could control my portions.

skygazer 7y ago
Yes, what you said is correct. If you could control your appetite, or response to it, you could lose weight on a calorie restricted diet of "fattening" foods. While I'm not a proponent of Jason Fung or his book, I have read it. From what I recall, where your as-long-as-I-could-control-my-portions diverges from Fung's book is that he believes its nearly impossible for people generally to ignore their appetite in the long run, without correcting the issues that are continually increasing their "set point" and appetite. He defines your "set point" as your level of secretion and resistance to insulin, which is continually, but slowly, increased by frequent meals, snacking, sweeteners, poor sleep, stress and consumption of mostly processed foods. He believes insulin levels strongly influence appetite and metabolism. Inject a thin person with insulin, and they will invariably gain weight. Suppress insulin, and people lose weight. He lists studies to that effect. He rejects calories-in-calories-out, not because it's false, but because it ignores people's inability to ignore their appetite in the long run. His solution is both correcting the frequent meals, snacking, sweeteners, poor sleep, stress and processed foods. He also advocates fasting, which he claims is safe and reduces chronically high insulin levels better than any other (non-drug) intervention. He provides more studies supporting those assertions. As to the 6 months, I vaguely remember him mentioning "6 months, or a year" in the contexts of most diet's plateauing effectiveness, but his general thrust was, most diet's don't work in the long run, because they ignore insulin.
- magna7 7y ago
  Why aren't you a proponent of Fung? I'm just curious.

cheald 7y ago

> Then, the body increases its base metabolic rate and adjusts to the new food intake level. This is a fairly pernicious half-truth, even among fitness types, which is used to explain away much more than it should. It has some truth to it, but people use it way too easily to handwave away differences in intake. It's true that the metabolism adjusts, but that adjustment is slow and limited. The gap between "slow metabolism" and "fast metabolism" people is only a few hundred calories/day at the extremes. Your body isn't going to suddenly start burning an extra 1k calories/day. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4535334/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4535334/ In this study, they found that the RMR for women varied between 0.721-0.926 kcal/kg/hr (1730-2222 kcal/day @ 100kg), men varied between 0.791-0.969 kcal/kg/hr (1898-2325 kcal/day @100kg). That is, if you're the slowest of "slow metabolism" people, you pretty much just need to deny yourself a single box of M&Ms to match the net energy expenditure of the fastest of the "fast metabolism" people. Hitting average is even easier.