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> Do you agree that eating less than 2000 calories a day when your body only needs 2000 calories a day will result in weight loss? The human body's caloric nee

by blix 5y ago

> Do you agree that eating less than 2000 calories a day when your body only needs 2000 calories a day will result in weight loss? The human body's caloric needs are not fixed at some number of calories per day; the human body's caloric needs adapt to inputs. You can lose weight by starving in the short term, but over the long term it is an ~extremely~ ineffective method of weight loss. There's been a lot of research looking at this over the past 10 years, and it is basically unanimous that the calorie defecit model of weight loss doesn't a really work. The number of very overweight people who have returned to and maintained a healthy weight through counting calories is vanishingly small. A good introductory source on this effect is Why Diet's Make us Fat by Susan Aamodt, but a google search will lead you to many studies. My personal recommendation for improving overall health for very overweight people would be, first off, to focus on a goal of physical capability rather than weight loss. Excessive fat is a hinderance to most physical acitivty, so you will lose weight naturally as you progress. This has the benefit of being a positive goal rather than a negative/mixed one. Many people lose large amounts of weight after getting cancer; few become better boxers. As for diet, here are some simple rules than I find improve physical capability and promote healthy weight: 1) drink water 2) quit sugar/sweeteners 3) eat when hungry, not for emotional reasons 4) more cooked green vegetables and fish. In my personal experience, rebalancing psychological relationships with sugar/sweetness and chewing/swallowing is much more effective than counting calories.

seanwilson 5y ago
> As for diet, here are some simple rules than I find improve physical capability and promote healthy weight: 1) drink water 2) quit sugar/sweeteners 3) eat when hungry, not for emotional reasons 4) more cooked green vegetables and fish. In my personal experience, rebalancing psychological relationships with sugar/sweetness and chewing/swallowing is much more effective than counting calories. I agree with you. All I'm saying is if you're going to follow simple rules like e.g. eat more cooked vegetables, I think skipping or really limiting oils is a good rule too as it's about the most calorific food stuff you can eat and easy to overdo. You could easily eat 200 calories of oil in a salad without really thinking, but not 200 calories of carrot. I do think most people would benefit from counting calories for at least some part of their life though. I've known friends and family that have been trying to lose weight for years where they couldn't even guess how many calories they eat or roughly what has more calories than what e.g. they'll say a big sandwich is 200 calories, a whole pizza is 400 calories and a bar of chocolate is 100 calories. You don't need to count everything but I don't see how you can ignore calorie counts completely or at least be aware where the big wins are. Your simple rules have some of this knowledge encoded inside them even if you're not technically counting calories e.g. water has less calories than soft drinks and fruit juice. Same with "eat whole foods". I assume your "green vegetables" rule is encoding something about avoiding potatoes too, not that non-green is somehow bad by itself? More anecdotes but I've never seen the problem with sweeteners. I wish they weren't demonised by some people who then use sugar with x10 the calories instead.
- blix 5y ago
  Calories are only a single axis within the extremely complicated question that is food quality. It is quite difficult to keep all the variables in one's conscious mind when deciding what to eat. Humans luckily have a very useful set of biofeedback mechanisms that effortless tell you if food is healthy or not, but most people ignore these systems by eating mindlessly and have damaged these systems through poor diet. The goals of my simple rules have nothing to do with calories; that calorie reduction might pop out if you are overeating is simply a happy side effect of mindful eating (rule 3) and avoiding foods that disrupt the body's feedback systens (rules 1 and 2). Artifical sweeteners are especially dangerous because by weakening the connection between 'sweetness' and 'energy density' they tend to induce people to eat more calories than they otherwise would [1]. If you are trying to count calories while feeding your sweet tooth with splenda you are probably doing yourself a disservice by fighting against human biology. It is better to simply not feed the sweet tooth at all and allow biology to work for you. I'm really not sure what a 'big win' in calorie counting even is. One of my friends used to eat glorified carboard mixed with artifical sweeteners so she could 'enjoy' the experience of eating while not conusming calories. I think this was a 'big win' for her, but she didn't lose weight. It was an unhealthy behavior. The green vegetables rule is about eating more green vegetables. They're good for you. High quality vegetables contain important micronutrients. You should cook them because fire is what allowed early apes to stop spending their entire day chewing and develop civilization. One of the problems with the oil prohibition is that it discourages people from eating sauteed vegetables, which are probably one of the best things you can eat. If you are ditching sauteed vegetables for 100 calorie bags of Doritos because you are afraid of olive oil you are probably not living the healthiest possible lifestyle. -- [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198517/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198517/
  - seanwilson 5y ago
    > Humans luckily have a very useful set of biofeedback mechanisms that effortless tell you if food is healthy or not, but most people ignore these systems by eating mindlessly and have damaged these systems through poor diet. Why do unhealthy things taste great then? Why would our natural biofeedback be well tuned to modern lifestyles where an abundance of food is the new norm? > I'm really not sure what a 'big win' in calorie counting even is. I mean getting people to realise what surprise foods they're eating that are wiping out their calorie target for the day so they can replace these foods with something more healthy e.g. people drinking 1000 calories of coffee drinks or 2000 calorie pizzas and not realising how many calories they're consuming are never going to lose weight. > The green vegetables rule is about eating more green vegetables. Why? So no sweet or white potato, eggplant, carrot, red peppers, cauliflower, tomato, beetroot, red cabbage? > One of the problems with the oil prohibition is that it discourages people from eating sauteed vegetables, which are probably one of the best things you can eat. I'm not saying never use oil but you can fry without oil, bake, boil, steam, slow cook, pressure cook and microwave. You don't need oil to cook lots of things. Why not deep fry if you shouldn't be concerned with oil and rely on biofeedback?

by blix 5y ago

seanwilson 5y ago

> As for diet, here are some simple rules than I find improve physical capability and promote healthy weight: 1) drink water 2) quit sugar/sweeteners 3) eat when hungry, not for emotional reasons 4) more cooked green vegetables and fish. In my personal experience, rebalancing psychological relationships with sugar/sweetness and chewing/swallowing is much more effective than counting calories. I agree with you. All I'm saying is if you're going to follow simple rules like e.g. eat more cooked vegetables, I think skipping or really limiting oils is a good rule too as it's about the most calorific food stuff you can eat and easy to overdo. You could easily eat 200 calories of oil in a salad without really thinking, but not 200 calories of carrot. I do think most people would benefit from counting calories for at least some part of their life though. I've known friends and family that have been trying to lose weight for years where they couldn't even guess how many calories they eat or roughly what has more calories than what e.g. they'll say a big sandwich is 200 calories, a whole pizza is 400 calories and a bar of chocolate is 100 calories. You don't need to count everything but I don't see how you can ignore calorie counts completely or at least be aware where the big wins are. Your simple rules have some of this knowledge encoded inside them even if you're not technically counting calories e.g. water has less calories than soft drinks and fruit juice. Same with "eat whole foods". I assume your "green vegetables" rule is encoding something about avoiding potatoes too, not that non-green is somehow bad by itself? More anecdotes but I've never seen the problem with sweeteners. I wish they weren't demonised by some people who then use sugar with x10 the calories instead.

blix 5y ago
Calories are only a single axis within the extremely complicated question that is food quality. It is quite difficult to keep all the variables in one's conscious mind when deciding what to eat. Humans luckily have a very useful set of biofeedback mechanisms that effortless tell you if food is healthy or not, but most people ignore these systems by eating mindlessly and have damaged these systems through poor diet. The goals of my simple rules have nothing to do with calories; that calorie reduction might pop out if you are overeating is simply a happy side effect of mindful eating (rule 3) and avoiding foods that disrupt the body's feedback systens (rules 1 and 2). Artifical sweeteners are especially dangerous because by weakening the connection between 'sweetness' and 'energy density' they tend to induce people to eat more calories than they otherwise would [1]. If you are trying to count calories while feeding your sweet tooth with splenda you are probably doing yourself a disservice by fighting against human biology. It is better to simply not feed the sweet tooth at all and allow biology to work for you. I'm really not sure what a 'big win' in calorie counting even is. One of my friends used to eat glorified carboard mixed with artifical sweeteners so she could 'enjoy' the experience of eating while not conusming calories. I think this was a 'big win' for her, but she didn't lose weight. It was an unhealthy behavior. The green vegetables rule is about eating more green vegetables. They're good for you. High quality vegetables contain important micronutrients. You should cook them because fire is what allowed early apes to stop spending their entire day chewing and develop civilization. One of the problems with the oil prohibition is that it discourages people from eating sauteed vegetables, which are probably one of the best things you can eat. If you are ditching sauteed vegetables for 100 calorie bags of Doritos because you are afraid of olive oil you are probably not living the healthiest possible lifestyle. -- [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198517/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3198517/
- seanwilson 5y ago
  > Humans luckily have a very useful set of biofeedback mechanisms that effortless tell you if food is healthy or not, but most people ignore these systems by eating mindlessly and have damaged these systems through poor diet. Why do unhealthy things taste great then? Why would our natural biofeedback be well tuned to modern lifestyles where an abundance of food is the new norm? > I'm really not sure what a 'big win' in calorie counting even is. I mean getting people to realise what surprise foods they're eating that are wiping out their calorie target for the day so they can replace these foods with something more healthy e.g. people drinking 1000 calories of coffee drinks or 2000 calorie pizzas and not realising how many calories they're consuming are never going to lose weight. > The green vegetables rule is about eating more green vegetables. Why? So no sweet or white potato, eggplant, carrot, red peppers, cauliflower, tomato, beetroot, red cabbage? > One of the problems with the oil prohibition is that it discourages people from eating sauteed vegetables, which are probably one of the best things you can eat. I'm not saying never use oil but you can fry without oil, bake, boil, steam, slow cook, pressure cook and microwave. You don't need oil to cook lots of things. Why not deep fry if you shouldn't be concerned with oil and rely on biofeedback?