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> 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

> 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
  Almost all diets succeed, if you actually follow them instead of just complaining. But it requires making a permanent lifestyle change. I know several people who have done that over the long run.
  - kiba 5y ago
    Almost all diets succeed, if you actually follow them instead of just complaining. But it requires making a permanent lifestyle change. I know several people who have done that over the long run. Several people as in how many out of those that failed. If the statistics tell us that 90% of people failed, then these diets or programs are still an utter failure. By saying it is some kind of moral failing or willpower means we decided to be lazy about investigating the cause of obesity. Remember, the obesity epidemic is a modern phenomenon. There are countries around the world that are still relatively lean.
tsimionescu 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. The word 'psychological' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. We have no reason to believe it is more or less likely for overeating to be caused by psychological rather than metabolic or other systemic reasons. The fact of the matter remains that some people struggle with their weight while others don't. CICO doesn't address this at all. Of course, CICO also doesn't work very well when comparing between people, despite your claim. For example, people with endocrin disorders are well known to lose or gain weight disproportionately in relation to their diets. Base metabolic rates vary significantly between people, even healthy ones. There are other discrepancies as well, which mean that, knowing person A and person B eat the same amount of calories and exercise the same amount will not help you to predict the weight gain/loss difference between them.
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  Yes of course. But its a fact: a given person can restrict calories from where they are at, and lose more. That's physics. Anything getting away with that simple algorithm is fairly classed under "psychological".
  - kiba 5y ago
    Your body adjusting itself to burn less energy is also physics. It's like having a thermostat that adjust the temperature to 70 degrees, and you want it to be 75. So your solution is to bring in more heat while ignoring the thermostat. The thermostat adjust by engaging the air conditioner. Which certainly will work, but also very inefficient. Your body isn't that stupid and it's not certainly a dumb engine.
    - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
      Adjust within limits. And the limits are fairly narrow. It's also true that hard exercise will blow away those limits, and require more food. Every single time. But hard exercise is hard! Folks don't want to do it. They want to stretch and walk around a track and pretend. But they don't want to do 20 miles on a bike. They convince themselves that they can't. Or they try and get aches and pains and decide that's bad. Pretty much throwing up roadblocks right and left, anything to avoid the work. We all know this. It's why there are 1000 books about tricks and diets and how to fool yourself. Because we want to do that instead. But we can stop enabling that; stop making excuses for small issues about body adjustments and so on.

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
Almost all diets succeed, if you actually follow them instead of just complaining. But it requires making a permanent lifestyle change. I know several people who have done that over the long run.
- kiba 5y ago
  Almost all diets succeed, if you actually follow them instead of just complaining. But it requires making a permanent lifestyle change. I know several people who have done that over the long run. Several people as in how many out of those that failed. If the statistics tell us that 90% of people failed, then these diets or programs are still an utter failure. By saying it is some kind of moral failing or willpower means we decided to be lazy about investigating the cause of obesity. Remember, the obesity epidemic is a modern phenomenon. There are countries around the world that are still relatively lean.

tsimionescu 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. The word 'psychological' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. We have no reason to believe it is more or less likely for overeating to be caused by psychological rather than metabolic or other systemic reasons. The fact of the matter remains that some people struggle with their weight while others don't. CICO doesn't address this at all. Of course, CICO also doesn't work very well when comparing between people, despite your claim. For example, people with endocrin disorders are well known to lose or gain weight disproportionately in relation to their diets. Base metabolic rates vary significantly between people, even healthy ones. There are other discrepancies as well, which mean that, knowing person A and person B eat the same amount of calories and exercise the same amount will not help you to predict the weight gain/loss difference between them.

JoeAltmaier 5y ago
Yes of course. But its a fact: a given person can restrict calories from where they are at, and lose more. That's physics. Anything getting away with that simple algorithm is fairly classed under "psychological".
- kiba 5y ago
  Your body adjusting itself to burn less energy is also physics. It's like having a thermostat that adjust the temperature to 70 degrees, and you want it to be 75. So your solution is to bring in more heat while ignoring the thermostat. The thermostat adjust by engaging the air conditioner. Which certainly will work, but also very inefficient. Your body isn't that stupid and it's not certainly a dumb engine.
  - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
    Adjust within limits. And the limits are fairly narrow. It's also true that hard exercise will blow away those limits, and require more food. Every single time. But hard exercise is hard! Folks don't want to do it. They want to stretch and walk around a track and pretend. But they don't want to do 20 miles on a bike. They convince themselves that they can't. Or they try and get aches and pains and decide that's bad. Pretty much throwing up roadblocks right and left, anything to avoid the work. We all know this. It's why there are 1000 books about tricks and diets and how to fool yourself. Because we want to do that instead. But we can stop enabling that; stop making excuses for small issues about body adjustments and so on.