4 ms·

Paying attention to what you eat really goes a long way. I remember watching a video of two women, one skinny, one overweight, who were good friends. They said

Paying attention to what you eat really goes a long way. I remember watching a video of two women, one skinny, one overweight, who were good friends. They said that the skinny one always eats way more food, but doesn't gain any weight. They had a camera crew follow them both around and it was true that the skinny woman ate larger meals. The difference was all the time in between. The skinny woman didn't eat anything, while the overweight woman was snacking regularly. The total calorie counts for the day were much larger for the overweight woman.

iamkroot 7y ago
My pet theory-without-evidence is that diets like keto or vegan succeed largely because they force people to radically reconsider every single thing they're eating. When you impose harsh restrictions like "no animal products" you have to pay very close attention to everything you consume, which likely leads to more mindful eating and less passive consumption/overeating.
- mumblemumble 7y ago
  It's plenty easy to find vegan junk food. Pretty much any potato chip that doesn't have the name of a dairy product featured prominently on the label is going to be vegan. Go to most natural food stores, including Whole Foods, and you'll find far more shelf space being devoted to processed and junk foods than food that's actually healthy. Most of it with labels that work very hard to imply that sugar only has calories if it's made from something other than sugar cane. That said, you're not likely to find the vegan equivalent of Twinkies at your local bodega, and that is worth something. But I'm guessing that a bigger factor is that choosing to go vegan or low-carb or whatever is tantamount to deciding to join a food culture that places a much higher value on making better food choices, and there's nothing quite like peer pressure for changing one's behavior.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - 80386 7y ago
    > Most of it with labels that work very hard to imply that sugar only has calories if it's made from something other than sugar cane. I like the ingredient listings that say "cane juice".
    - 0xcde4c3db 7y ago
      There's a whole bunch of ingredients that are effectively just sugar, including such wholesome-sounding gems as "fruit juice concentrate".
      - collyw 7y ago
        Is that really just sugar? As I understand it most orange juice is concentrated before transport then rehydrated.
        mumblemumble 7y ago
        It's not just sugar. There's the occasional vitamin in there, probably hunkered down in a bunker to hide from all the roving hordes of monosaccharides, like a sort of kindergarten health class film strip version of I Am Legend. But, as far as its culinary purpose goes, I suspect it ends to end up in processed foods because it's an additive you can use to sweeten the food while still being able to prominently claim "no sugar added" on the front of the box. I think legally you do have to cross your fingers behind your back while you do it, but it's not enforced. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a trick that even works well on people who like to hang out on the internet talking about how fructose is the devil.
        80386 7y ago
        Pear juice doesn't taste like much but sugar water, so it's often used as a sweetener in things that already contain fruit.
  - collyw 7y ago
    True I have noticed a lot of girls who are vegetarian / vegan and still quite fat. I found it quite strange as I am a bit skinny and when I tried going vegetarian I lost weight. Turns out they eat a lot of chocolate and other crap food.
pmichaud 7y ago
I have found this is basically always the case. In weight lifting you have this concept of "hard gainers," who are generally men who want to gain muscle mass / weight, but can't seem to, "no matter how much they eat." A common refrain from them is something like "I ate a whole pizza on my own, and still nothing!" Well, the moment they start actually counting their calories, it's the same story you just told. Sure, they ate a whole pizza on Saturday, but also nothing much else that day, and they ended up short of their caloric needs, and then every other day that week was even less, minus the occasional splurge that also didn't bring their average up high enough. This goes for people who "can't" lose weight too -- when they start counting calories they are surprised to find that they eat a shitload of calories they didn't know about, most of which are empty of nutrition. One way to reframe the question of calories is to start considering calories per week, instead of per day. You start to get the picture either way--whether you're trying to gain or lose--when you're thousands off your goal by day 3 and realize what a big adjustment you'll have to make during the next 4 days to make your count right.
- opportune 7y ago
  I have seen this so many times anecotally too. It’s not even “metabolism” so much as it is how hungry people naturally get. It varies so much from person to person. I could easily eat 4000kcal a day and feel hungry if I have anything less than 2200 or so whereas I know “hard gainers” who struggle to eat more than 1000kcal in a single sitting. However I don’t think it’s purely genetic/intrinsic. At least personally I have seen that after a period of dieting my natural hunger reduced to about as much as I had been eating. Anyway, I agree that these restrictive diets work in general by making it easier/necessary to count calories and eliminate some junk food. Really, eliminating dense addictive foods and counting calories is probably all the vast majority of people need to do to lose weight
  - perf1 7y ago
    I am pretty sure it has mostly to do with your blood glucose level. Keto and Fasting are all about getting your blood glucose levels low enough and when you reach it your hunger usually goes away. I suspect people who eat a lot of processed foods also snack a lot. Every meal raises your blood sugar and makes you more hungry.
AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
That's right. Simply writing down your calories consumption - with no limitations whatsoever - helps to lose weight.
dkarl 7y ago
This is the frustrating thing about diet research. Almost every diet works to help you lose weight, even the really stupid and unhealthy fad diets, but when a study is released about some diet, the media often reports that it doesn't seem to work very well, even if the differences are driven entirely by compliance. I get that the research is often done from a medical or public health perspective, not a biological one, so compliance is an important factor to consider, but when I talk to people, I find the conclusion they draw from reading these results in the media is not that most people in these studies fail to follow the diet. The conclusion they draw is that a lot of people will not lose weight if they follow the diet successfully. This happens over and over again every time a new study comes out, and the belief a lot of people internalize from it is that we really have no fucking clue what the connection is between what people eat and whether they're overweight, and we don't know what if any change in how they eat will result in them losing weight. That leaves them vulnerable to unscrupulous and/or unwitting opportunists hawking diet systems backed by complicated theories about toxins or hormones or genetic types.

iamkroot 7y ago

My pet theory-without-evidence is that diets like keto or vegan succeed largely because they force people to radically reconsider every single thing they're eating. When you impose harsh restrictions like "no animal products" you have to pay very close attention to everything you consume, which likely leads to more mindful eating and less passive consumption/overeating.

mumblemumble 7y ago
It's plenty easy to find vegan junk food. Pretty much any potato chip that doesn't have the name of a dairy product featured prominently on the label is going to be vegan. Go to most natural food stores, including Whole Foods, and you'll find far more shelf space being devoted to processed and junk foods than food that's actually healthy. Most of it with labels that work very hard to imply that sugar only has calories if it's made from something other than sugar cane. That said, you're not likely to find the vegan equivalent of Twinkies at your local bodega, and that is worth something. But I'm guessing that a bigger factor is that choosing to go vegan or low-carb or whatever is tantamount to deciding to join a food culture that places a much higher value on making better food choices, and there's nothing quite like peer pressure for changing one's behavior.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- 80386 7y ago
  > Most of it with labels that work very hard to imply that sugar only has calories if it's made from something other than sugar cane. I like the ingredient listings that say "cane juice".
  - 0xcde4c3db 7y ago
    There's a whole bunch of ingredients that are effectively just sugar, including such wholesome-sounding gems as "fruit juice concentrate".
    - collyw 7y ago
      Is that really just sugar? As I understand it most orange juice is concentrated before transport then rehydrated.
      - mumblemumble 7y ago
        It's not just sugar. There's the occasional vitamin in there, probably hunkered down in a bunker to hide from all the roving hordes of monosaccharides, like a sort of kindergarten health class film strip version of I Am Legend. But, as far as its culinary purpose goes, I suspect it ends to end up in processed foods because it's an additive you can use to sweeten the food while still being able to prominently claim "no sugar added" on the front of the box. I think legally you do have to cross your fingers behind your back while you do it, but it's not enforced. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a trick that even works well on people who like to hang out on the internet talking about how fructose is the devil.
      - 80386 7y ago
        Pear juice doesn't taste like much but sugar water, so it's often used as a sweetener in things that already contain fruit.
- collyw 7y ago
  True I have noticed a lot of girls who are vegetarian / vegan and still quite fat. I found it quite strange as I am a bit skinny and when I tried going vegetarian I lost weight. Turns out they eat a lot of chocolate and other crap food.

pmichaud 7y ago

I have found this is basically always the case. In weight lifting you have this concept of "hard gainers," who are generally men who want to gain muscle mass / weight, but can't seem to, "no matter how much they eat." A common refrain from them is something like "I ate a whole pizza on my own, and still nothing!" Well, the moment they start actually counting their calories, it's the same story you just told. Sure, they ate a whole pizza on Saturday, but also nothing much else that day, and they ended up short of their caloric needs, and then every other day that week was even less, minus the occasional splurge that also didn't bring their average up high enough. This goes for people who "can't" lose weight too -- when they start counting calories they are surprised to find that they eat a shitload of calories they didn't know about, most of which are empty of nutrition. One way to reframe the question of calories is to start considering calories per week, instead of per day. You start to get the picture either way--whether you're trying to gain or lose--when you're thousands off your goal by day 3 and realize what a big adjustment you'll have to make during the next 4 days to make your count right.

opportune 7y ago
I have seen this so many times anecotally too. It’s not even “metabolism” so much as it is how hungry people naturally get. It varies so much from person to person. I could easily eat 4000kcal a day and feel hungry if I have anything less than 2200 or so whereas I know “hard gainers” who struggle to eat more than 1000kcal in a single sitting. However I don’t think it’s purely genetic/intrinsic. At least personally I have seen that after a period of dieting my natural hunger reduced to about as much as I had been eating. Anyway, I agree that these restrictive diets work in general by making it easier/necessary to count calories and eliminate some junk food. Really, eliminating dense addictive foods and counting calories is probably all the vast majority of people need to do to lose weight
- perf1 7y ago
  I am pretty sure it has mostly to do with your blood glucose level. Keto and Fasting are all about getting your blood glucose levels low enough and when you reach it your hunger usually goes away. I suspect people who eat a lot of processed foods also snack a lot. Every meal raises your blood sugar and makes you more hungry.

AlexTWithBeard 7y ago

That's right. Simply writing down your calories consumption - with no limitations whatsoever - helps to lose weight.

dkarl 7y ago

This is the frustrating thing about diet research. Almost every diet works to help you lose weight, even the really stupid and unhealthy fad diets, but when a study is released about some diet, the media often reports that it doesn't seem to work very well, even if the differences are driven entirely by compliance. I get that the research is often done from a medical or public health perspective, not a biological one, so compliance is an important factor to consider, but when I talk to people, I find the conclusion they draw from reading these results in the media is not that most people in these studies fail to follow the diet. The conclusion they draw is that a lot of people will not lose weight if they follow the diet successfully. This happens over and over again every time a new study comes out, and the belief a lot of people internalize from it is that we really have no fucking clue what the connection is between what people eat and whether they're overweight, and we don't know what if any change in how they eat will result in them losing weight. That leaves them vulnerable to unscrupulous and/or unwitting opportunists hawking diet systems backed by complicated theories about toxins or hormones or genetic types.