4 ms·

> You’re operating under the “energy in-energy out” theory of weight loss, but human regulation of body fat is more complicated than that. I hear the "energy i

by pen2l 7y ago

> You’re operating under the “energy in-energy out” theory of weight loss, but human regulation of body fat is more complicated than that. I hear the "energy in-energy out" being dismissed like this often, and while I do agree with you that our bodies are more complex than that, I want to say that in practice this adage more or less just works, indeed to the degree that it's valuable to have in common knowledge to inspire folks to lose fat. Particularly, if you want to lose fat, you reduce your caloric intake (and what you are consuming, shoot for higher protein intake and lower carb intake). In addition to this, do some aerobic exercises. This is really it. If you do this you're nearly guaranteed to lose fat. I did this, my peers did this, it's really simple, the only hard part is finding the motivation to start and having faithful long-term committal to a routine.

awayfromhomenow 7y ago
with high insulin, doing this nearly guarantees that your body will pull the calories from muscle tissue, versus pulling them from fat. So you can end up sabotaging your efforts.
PeterisP 7y ago
The thing is that "energy in-energy out" works if you make some changes while keeping everything else constant.... and we're really, really bad at keeping everything else constant. Add extra activity, and the natural effect will be an increased appetite that'll nudge you to eat more calories - and it's not a given the effect of that extra activity will be a calorie deficit, the increase in appetite can easily be more than what you spent in those exercises. If you try to reduce caloric intake, that's a very different beast than actually reducing caloric intake - if you try to reduce caloric intake by skipping carbs at lunch, it can result in reduced activity (so less calories out) and a strong nudge to "cheat" at other meals or snacks; and again it's plausible to get to a situation where the unintended compensation is larger (and opposite) than the behavior modification that you made. That is the problem with the "energy in-energy out" model - one does not simply change the 'energy in' or 'energy out' part and expect that other things will stay constant either magically or through sheer willpower.

by pen2l 7y ago

awayfromhomenow 7y ago

with high insulin, doing this nearly guarantees that your body will pull the calories from muscle tissue, versus pulling them from fat. So you can end up sabotaging your efforts.

PeterisP 7y ago

The thing is that "energy in-energy out" works if you make some changes while keeping everything else constant.... and we're really, really bad at keeping everything else constant. Add extra activity, and the natural effect will be an increased appetite that'll nudge you to eat more calories - and it's not a given the effect of that extra activity will be a calorie deficit, the increase in appetite can easily be more than what you spent in those exercises. If you try to reduce caloric intake, that's a very different beast than actually reducing caloric intake - if you try to reduce caloric intake by skipping carbs at lunch, it can result in reduced activity (so less calories out) and a strong nudge to "cheat" at other meals or snacks; and again it's plausible to get to a situation where the unintended compensation is larger (and opposite) than the behavior modification that you made. That is the problem with the "energy in-energy out" model - one does not simply change the 'energy in' or 'energy out' part and expect that other things will stay constant either magically or through sheer willpower.