8 ms·

But it's the fundamental, most basic truth. If there is anything that people who want to lose weight should do, it's eat less. Skip the snack. Smaller portions

But it's the fundamental, most basic truth. If there is anything that people who want to lose weight should do, it's eat less. Skip the snack. Smaller portions. That's incredibly hard to do, of course, and easier said than done, but ultimately it is behind virtually all successful weight loss. What is behind an enormous number of failed weight loss attempts are waving that away and believing some specific macronutrient is really the cause, if you just subscribe to whatever the current trend is. People get really upset about the calories reality. And indeed if you compare caloric intake between say 1970 and 2010, there was a significant jump in the average diet. Grain products rose, but not nearly as much as fats and oils rose. People ate more and they got fatter. When excess accumulates over time, the increase doesn't have to be large. More calories in, BMI increased.

pydry 5y ago
It no more fundamental or surprising than the "truth" that giving up smoking is done by not smoking cigarettes.
- defaultname 5y ago
  The point is that it's entirely unsurpising. It's the most basic, trivial thing possible. But there are massive industries[1] that exist to tell people that no, it's really that you aren't eating enough food that is red. Or that fell to the ground. Or whatever. Whatever magical, simple fix means that they can still eat an excess of calories. These diets have a failure rate approaching 100%. The US is the most diet focused country in planetary history, yet also one of the fattest. Maybe pretending that the basic thermodynamics are just some unachievable mirage is a really profoundly stupid approach? And yes, people who have actually lost weight (or, more often than not, not gain it in the first place) simply ate less (it's magnitudes harder to burn more calories to any meaningful amount). Virtually universally. But this makes obese people angry. It always makes them angry. [1] - And authors. This paper cites Stephen Guyenet casually dismissing "CICO". The guy makes his living pitching easy "AHA" moments to fat people. It is, ironically, his bread and butter.
  - throwawaycities 5y ago
    Your fundamental truth is based on a false premises that the goal is weight loss as opposed to health, more specifically metabolic health. But lets assume it all boils down to calories in/calories out, your solution is singularly focused on calories in (eating less), that in a vacuum has no effect of calories out except generally a negative effect (your body will adapt and try to burn less calories). Thus, you are ignoring that the form of calories in directly effects the calories out, and that there are better ways to balance the equation by increasing calories out without necessarily reducing calories in, or in some cases increasing calories out might even require a caloric surplus (such as muscle building).
    - defaultname 5y ago
      Obesity has an extremely high correlation with poor health. But that's irrelevant as this thread is specifically on weight. "that in a vacuum has no effect of calories out except generally a negative effect (your body will adapt and try to burn less calories)" This is comically overstated. No, your body doesn't magically become super efficient. This is, again, feel good pablum to make people feel better about their situation, sure it is an unwinnable battle without Magic Product or System ("buy my new book and subscribe to my It's Everyone Else's Fault newsletter!"). But the feel good stuff clearly is astonishingly ineffective. This tact hasn't worked. Find any person who is overweight but claims they starve themselves and log and count calories. In 100% of cases you will find a calorie excess, likely significant. Find someone who is a healthy weight but claims they "eat anything they want". In 100% of cases -- okay 99.9% maybe they have a big tapeworm -- they will have a lower caloric intake. The latter is someone who likely skips meals. They don't snack. They don't drink giant sugary drinks. And then when it's pizza day they have four slices and all of the high BMI sorts lament how they wish they had such a "high metabolism" and that they can "eat anything". It's all bullshit. There is a significant, very difficult psychological component to eating in excess. It is a very hard problem. But I'll take every angry downvote by people who seriously want to refute the core, fundamental truth about calories, likely while parroting nonsensical myth.
      - 5y ago
matthewdgreen 5y ago
TFA, and particularly the second part (link near the bottom) does quite a bit to refute this. It’s worth reading it all the way through.
- defaultname 5y ago
  I read the article to the point where it awaits the next, sure-fire cure-all outing. It is filled with the same delusions and misrepresentations that virtually every snake-oil, magical diet fix is. Haven't people gotten a little less gullible about this stuff yet? Look, some tribe had fruit on the ground and they weren't obese. Stuff that pizza is your mouth while we get to the bottom of this. The reality is that calories have never been as available and cheap. And there is an absolutely lock-step correlation between dietary calories and obesity rates. No, it isn't the great mystery that it is held as. Indeed, this article spends most of its time debunking "it isn't the calories" dietary trends -- low fat, low carb, low sugar, low fat.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    > The reality is that calories have never been as available and cheap. Don't forget addictive. We've become incredibly good at making food that makes you want to keep eating more of it. Once you pop, you can't stop.
- Raidion 5y ago
  I mean, I think you can make a case that calories in calories out might not make as much sense for some thinner people in that, almost regardless what they eat, they can find ways to either burn or not process the calories. I don't think he does such a good job making the case it doesn't apply the other way. A body needs a set amount of energy to function, you reduce intake enough and weight drops. No lack of figeting or slightly lower core temp is going to be able to outweigh the lack of calories going in. That being said... I think the real question raised by this article is why eating at the level required to maintain a specific body weight is second nature to some and torture to others. 'Calories in calories out' starts to sound a lot like 'if you don't want to be addicted don't do drugs'. It's much easier said than done by someone who doesn't understand addiction. In fact it's almost worse than addiction, as someone hooked on heroin or booze can do rehab or some other form where you just can't get ahold of those. But if you're addicted to food, you have to deal with the subject of your addiction 3 meal times a day (plus advertising!). That's a hard place to be.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
I'm not surprised to see your comment in the grey even though everything you're saying is absolutely true. I've lost >150lbs and kept it off[0] and I can assure everyone that the one thing that absolutely 100% works for losing weight is eating less. It's also the most difficult thing, which is why everyone wants to believe bullshit marketing that says otherwise. [0] put about 30lb on during the pandemic period that I'm working off again.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  That is well known and undisputed. The question is: when can you stop eating less than your body is telling you that you should? Did you ever get rid of the hunger? I lost about 30kg (105 -> 75) by eating less, excersing more, all in about the span of a year. I never stopped feeling hungry overall for this period, constantly had to fight the urge to eat more. In periods where high stress reduced my willpower, I started putting back weight. I've put on about 10kg back in the following 5 years, so on balance I'm still in pretty good shape, but the trend is clear. The mystery is why I have this relationship with food, and why other people don't. Most thin people are not going to bed dreaming of tomorrow's meal.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    "That is well known and undisputed." Unfortunately, loads of people in this very thread are disputing it. This submission is based upon the bizarre hope that there's a mysterious external influence that's actually causing people to gain weight, and not the merely coincidental simultaneous rise in caloric intake. The psychological element is complex and profoundly difficult. That is without question.
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      I am not sure whether we can reduce this to psychological elements. After all, laboratory rats and wild animals that eat our food leftovers grow fatter too, not just us humans. Arguably, rat or raccoon psychology is rather different from ours. I believe that the problem is not that different from the problem of alcoholism. Everyone lives in a society soaked with alcohol, some people do not feel an urge to drink at all, some people manage to keep their consumption in healthy limits for 50 years, some end up as hopeless wretches in 10 years.
kiba 5y ago
I don't try to measure how much calories I eat. I just skip meals. Turn out it's a lot easier than eating less per meals. Fasting is much easier for me to do. However, when your parents constantly ask you if you want to eat, it's a bitch to resists the temptation. I had lost 20 lbs without needing to keep track of how much food I eat, as opposed to how many meals I eat. Anyway, I doubt reduction of calories is how you're going to keep your desired weight. CICO in the long term is a failure. Partly, because our model is actually wrong. Exercise is basically useless for reducing calories, because it's both very hard to do a lot of it, and your basal metabolism adjusts in the long run by adjusting itself to be lower. You should still do exercise, and if you can around 750 minutes per week, which is when you start hitting diminishing return.
- defaultname 5y ago
  > Anyway, I doubt reduction of calories is how you're going to keep your desired weight People at a healthy weight consume less calories. Caloric intake has a perfect correlation with obesity. The psychological element is hugely difficult, but the science of "if you eat more you're going to be heavier" is very firm. The Japanese eat, on average, 25% less calories than Americans. They have an obesity rate of 4% versus 36% in the US. This despite eating loads of "bad" calories like simple carbs (white processed rice).
  - kiba 5y ago
    People at a healthy weight consume less calories. Caloric intake has a perfect correlation with obesity. The psychological element is hugely difficult, but the science of "if you eat more you're going to be heavier" is very firm. It is uncontroversial that by reducing calories in one's diet that it will cause weight loss. The controversy is centered around weight control, whether an individual can keep the weight at a stable level over the long run. In that sense, all diet fails. I would contend that how many calories a person eat is only a proximal cause of obesity, especially since CICO is actually an incorrect model of how our body work.
    - nradov 5y ago
tzs 5y ago
People in the 2000's weighed about 10% more than people in the '80s who ate the same amount of calories, with the same micronutrient distribution, and did the same amount of exercise [1]. And what about non-humans? Animals are getting fatter, too [2]. Some of this can be explained by humans eating more, hence making more food available to those animals that eat human leftovers or steal human food. But this weight gain has also been noted in laboratory animals which are on controlled diets. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/why-it-was-easier-to-be-skinny-in-the-1980s/407974/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/why-it-wa... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.628 https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.628
- defaultname 5y ago
  The nonsensical "lab animal" argument has been debunked a dozen times. It is bullshit. For animal rights reasons, labs switched to rats and mice being given a perpetual, self-serve diet of food. Unsurprisingly they ended up fatter than mice and rats given portioned foods. When they are given portioned foods...what do you know, they're not fat any more. "People in the 2000's weighed about 10% more than people in the '80s who ate the same amount of calories, with the same micronutrient distribution, and did the same amount of exercise [1]" To say that the cited study is laughable gives it far too much credit. For instance it specifically and only considers leisure activities. As to self-described dietary results, the only takeaway is that people are far more full of shit now than then. It is Ginny in the Sopranos boasting about their diet while eating chocolate bars in the laundry room. It's interesting how gullible people who are otherwise so discerning are when it comes to diet, particularly for dietary excuses. There is no field that has been so rife with study that upsets study, and gross scientific malpractice, as nutrition. But hey, here's one study where they mangled numbers from sets decades apart and drew some viral result. Serious groan.
MaysonL 5y ago
> That's incredibly hard to do, of course Only for fat people. People like me find it fairly easy. Over my adult life[currently 75yo], my weight has fluctuated modestly year to year (as measured by the tightness of my belt). When my abdominal circumference has grown by a couple belt notches, I tend to eat less for a while, until the belt is less tight. THIS REQUIRES ALMOST NO WILLPOWER OR CONSCIOUS ATTENTION ON MY PART. Why????

pydry 5y ago

It no more fundamental or surprising than the "truth" that giving up smoking is done by not smoking cigarettes.

defaultname 5y ago
The point is that it's entirely unsurpising. It's the most basic, trivial thing possible. But there are massive industries[1] that exist to tell people that no, it's really that you aren't eating enough food that is red. Or that fell to the ground. Or whatever. Whatever magical, simple fix means that they can still eat an excess of calories. These diets have a failure rate approaching 100%. The US is the most diet focused country in planetary history, yet also one of the fattest. Maybe pretending that the basic thermodynamics are just some unachievable mirage is a really profoundly stupid approach? And yes, people who have actually lost weight (or, more often than not, not gain it in the first place) simply ate less (it's magnitudes harder to burn more calories to any meaningful amount). Virtually universally. But this makes obese people angry. It always makes them angry. [1] - And authors. This paper cites Stephen Guyenet casually dismissing "CICO". The guy makes his living pitching easy "AHA" moments to fat people. It is, ironically, his bread and butter.
- throwawaycities 5y ago
  Your fundamental truth is based on a false premises that the goal is weight loss as opposed to health, more specifically metabolic health. But lets assume it all boils down to calories in/calories out, your solution is singularly focused on calories in (eating less), that in a vacuum has no effect of calories out except generally a negative effect (your body will adapt and try to burn less calories). Thus, you are ignoring that the form of calories in directly effects the calories out, and that there are better ways to balance the equation by increasing calories out without necessarily reducing calories in, or in some cases increasing calories out might even require a caloric surplus (such as muscle building).
  - defaultname 5y ago
    Obesity has an extremely high correlation with poor health. But that's irrelevant as this thread is specifically on weight. "that in a vacuum has no effect of calories out except generally a negative effect (your body will adapt and try to burn less calories)" This is comically overstated. No, your body doesn't magically become super efficient. This is, again, feel good pablum to make people feel better about their situation, sure it is an unwinnable battle without Magic Product or System ("buy my new book and subscribe to my It's Everyone Else's Fault newsletter!"). But the feel good stuff clearly is astonishingly ineffective. This tact hasn't worked. Find any person who is overweight but claims they starve themselves and log and count calories. In 100% of cases you will find a calorie excess, likely significant. Find someone who is a healthy weight but claims they "eat anything they want". In 100% of cases -- okay 99.9% maybe they have a big tapeworm -- they will have a lower caloric intake. The latter is someone who likely skips meals. They don't snack. They don't drink giant sugary drinks. And then when it's pizza day they have four slices and all of the high BMI sorts lament how they wish they had such a "high metabolism" and that they can "eat anything". It's all bullshit. There is a significant, very difficult psychological component to eating in excess. It is a very hard problem. But I'll take every angry downvote by people who seriously want to refute the core, fundamental truth about calories, likely while parroting nonsensical myth.
    - 5y ago

matthewdgreen 5y ago

TFA, and particularly the second part (link near the bottom) does quite a bit to refute this. It’s worth reading it all the way through.

defaultname 5y ago
I read the article to the point where it awaits the next, sure-fire cure-all outing. It is filled with the same delusions and misrepresentations that virtually every snake-oil, magical diet fix is. Haven't people gotten a little less gullible about this stuff yet? Look, some tribe had fruit on the ground and they weren't obese. Stuff that pizza is your mouth while we get to the bottom of this. The reality is that calories have never been as available and cheap. And there is an absolutely lock-step correlation between dietary calories and obesity rates. No, it isn't the great mystery that it is held as. Indeed, this article spends most of its time debunking "it isn't the calories" dietary trends -- low fat, low carb, low sugar, low fat.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  > The reality is that calories have never been as available and cheap. Don't forget addictive. We've become incredibly good at making food that makes you want to keep eating more of it. Once you pop, you can't stop.
Raidion 5y ago
I mean, I think you can make a case that calories in calories out might not make as much sense for some thinner people in that, almost regardless what they eat, they can find ways to either burn or not process the calories. I don't think he does such a good job making the case it doesn't apply the other way. A body needs a set amount of energy to function, you reduce intake enough and weight drops. No lack of figeting or slightly lower core temp is going to be able to outweigh the lack of calories going in. That being said... I think the real question raised by this article is why eating at the level required to maintain a specific body weight is second nature to some and torture to others. 'Calories in calories out' starts to sound a lot like 'if you don't want to be addicted don't do drugs'. It's much easier said than done by someone who doesn't understand addiction. In fact it's almost worse than addiction, as someone hooked on heroin or booze can do rehab or some other form where you just can't get ahold of those. But if you're addicted to food, you have to deal with the subject of your addiction 3 meal times a day (plus advertising!). That's a hard place to be.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago

I'm not surprised to see your comment in the grey even though everything you're saying is absolutely true. I've lost >150lbs and kept it off[0] and I can assure everyone that the one thing that absolutely 100% works for losing weight is eating less. It's also the most difficult thing, which is why everyone wants to believe bullshit marketing that says otherwise. [0] put about 30lb on during the pandemic period that I'm working off again.

tsimionescu 5y ago
That is well known and undisputed. The question is: when can you stop eating less than your body is telling you that you should? Did you ever get rid of the hunger? I lost about 30kg (105 -> 75) by eating less, excersing more, all in about the span of a year. I never stopped feeling hungry overall for this period, constantly had to fight the urge to eat more. In periods where high stress reduced my willpower, I started putting back weight. I've put on about 10kg back in the following 5 years, so on balance I'm still in pretty good shape, but the trend is clear. The mystery is why I have this relationship with food, and why other people don't. Most thin people are not going to bed dreaming of tomorrow's meal.
- defaultname 5y ago
  "That is well known and undisputed." Unfortunately, loads of people in this very thread are disputing it. This submission is based upon the bizarre hope that there's a mysterious external influence that's actually causing people to gain weight, and not the merely coincidental simultaneous rise in caloric intake. The psychological element is complex and profoundly difficult. That is without question.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    I am not sure whether we can reduce this to psychological elements. After all, laboratory rats and wild animals that eat our food leftovers grow fatter too, not just us humans. Arguably, rat or raccoon psychology is rather different from ours. I believe that the problem is not that different from the problem of alcoholism. Everyone lives in a society soaked with alcohol, some people do not feel an urge to drink at all, some people manage to keep their consumption in healthy limits for 50 years, some end up as hopeless wretches in 10 years.

kiba 5y ago

I don't try to measure how much calories I eat. I just skip meals. Turn out it's a lot easier than eating less per meals. Fasting is much easier for me to do. However, when your parents constantly ask you if you want to eat, it's a bitch to resists the temptation. I had lost 20 lbs without needing to keep track of how much food I eat, as opposed to how many meals I eat. Anyway, I doubt reduction of calories is how you're going to keep your desired weight. CICO in the long term is a failure. Partly, because our model is actually wrong. Exercise is basically useless for reducing calories, because it's both very hard to do a lot of it, and your basal metabolism adjusts in the long run by adjusting itself to be lower. You should still do exercise, and if you can around 750 minutes per week, which is when you start hitting diminishing return.

defaultname 5y ago
> Anyway, I doubt reduction of calories is how you're going to keep your desired weight People at a healthy weight consume less calories. Caloric intake has a perfect correlation with obesity. The psychological element is hugely difficult, but the science of "if you eat more you're going to be heavier" is very firm. The Japanese eat, on average, 25% less calories than Americans. They have an obesity rate of 4% versus 36% in the US. This despite eating loads of "bad" calories like simple carbs (white processed rice).
- kiba 5y ago
  People at a healthy weight consume less calories. Caloric intake has a perfect correlation with obesity. The psychological element is hugely difficult, but the science of "if you eat more you're going to be heavier" is very firm. It is uncontroversial that by reducing calories in one's diet that it will cause weight loss. The controversy is centered around weight control, whether an individual can keep the weight at a stable level over the long run. In that sense, all diet fails. I would contend that how many calories a person eat is only a proximal cause of obesity, especially since CICO is actually an incorrect model of how our body work.
  - nradov 5y ago

tzs 5y ago

People in the 2000's weighed about 10% more than people in the '80s who ate the same amount of calories, with the same micronutrient distribution, and did the same amount of exercise [1]. And what about non-humans? Animals are getting fatter, too [2]. Some of this can be explained by humans eating more, hence making more food available to those animals that eat human leftovers or steal human food. But this weight gain has also been noted in laboratory animals which are on controlled diets. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/why-it-was-easier-to-be-skinny-in-the-1980s/407974/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/09/why-it-wa... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.628 https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.628

defaultname 5y ago
The nonsensical "lab animal" argument has been debunked a dozen times. It is bullshit. For animal rights reasons, labs switched to rats and mice being given a perpetual, self-serve diet of food. Unsurprisingly they ended up fatter than mice and rats given portioned foods. When they are given portioned foods...what do you know, they're not fat any more. "People in the 2000's weighed about 10% more than people in the '80s who ate the same amount of calories, with the same micronutrient distribution, and did the same amount of exercise [1]" To say that the cited study is laughable gives it far too much credit. For instance it specifically and only considers leisure activities. As to self-described dietary results, the only takeaway is that people are far more full of shit now than then. It is Ginny in the Sopranos boasting about their diet while eating chocolate bars in the laundry room. It's interesting how gullible people who are otherwise so discerning are when it comes to diet, particularly for dietary excuses. There is no field that has been so rife with study that upsets study, and gross scientific malpractice, as nutrition. But hey, here's one study where they mangled numbers from sets decades apart and drew some viral result. Serious groan.

MaysonL 5y ago

> That's incredibly hard to do, of course Only for fat people. People like me find it fairly easy. Over my adult life[currently 75yo], my weight has fluctuated modestly year to year (as measured by the tightness of my belt). When my abdominal circumference has grown by a couple belt notches, I tend to eat less for a while, until the belt is less tight. THIS REQUIRES ALMOST NO WILLPOWER OR CONSCIOUS ATTENTION ON MY PART. Why????