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EBM is just begging the question. You gain weight when you have a positive energy balance, and you have a positive energy if you eat more than burn. It's trivia

by kortex 5y ago

EBM is just begging the question. You gain weight when you have a positive energy balance, and you have a positive energy if you eat more than burn. It's trivially true, otherwise you are violating laws of conservation of energy. Therefore, it has no real explanatory power. Biology is all about homeostasis, cybernetics, and feedback loops. People aren't universally overweight in industrialized countries, therefore it suggests something is messing with those feedback loops. These feedback loops are myriad and complex, ranging from the simple control loop that tries to keep blood sugar in range, to the choices you make based on concepts such as self image.

ItsMonkk 5y ago
One of the shocking things I figured out when researching this that no one ever talks about is just how efficient fat is. If you burn 2000 calories a day and eat 2000 calories a day, you are in a steady state. Won't gain or lose any weight. But if you burn 2000 calories a day and eat 2100 calories a day, you have a 100 calorie gain. This should all be obvious. So you do that a month and a few days, and after a month or so you are up 3500 calories, which is one pound. Now that you are one pound of fat heavier, you now burn an additional couple calories per day. If you continue to eat 2100 calories, you will gain 10 pounds before you reach your equilibrium weight from consuming 2100 calories. Every 10 daily calories is worth 1 pound. Every daily apple is worth 10 pounds long-term. The 720 calorie average above is worth 72 pounds of fat. And that's even before we consider if now that you burn more calories, you will start eating more calories to keep the same offset?
edanm 5y ago
> EBM is just begging the question. You gain weight when you have a positive energy balance, and you have a positive energy if you eat more than burn. It's trivially true, otherwise you are violating laws of conservation of energy. Therefore, it has no real explanatory power. That's not true. You can see it's not true by the fact that so many people do in fact dispute consequences of this claim, despite it both being trivially true and proven multiple times in studies with actual humans. If you eat at a calaoric defict, no matter what you are eating, you will lose weight. That is both undeniable and widely denied, and has lots of explanatory power, because at the end of the day, a correct question to ask about the world is "why are people eating more calories?". There are certainly other factors which matter, depending on why you are asking the question: if it's for personal weight loss reasons, a good question to ask is "what kind of diet will allow me to eat less calories in the easiest way". If it's to explain the obesity epidemic, the answers are "why are people in general consuming more calories now than they were in the past". But if you discard the base mechanism by which people are gaining weight, you don't even know what questions to ask.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- davidjytang 5y ago
  EBM makes it seem that the only thing affecting the weight of human is calorie balance and there will not be any scenario where calorie deficit might not always lead to weight loss. If water is free of calorie, has weight, affects body in some way, shouldn't that be taken into account? Weeks of 1000kCal deficit without weight loss might not necessarily mean EBM is wrong. But EBM doesn't explain the phenomenon.
  - edanm 5y ago
    Usually what's looked at is average weight, since you're absolutely right - weight can fluctuate for many other reasons, including amount of water in your body. You can drink a liter of water before weighing yourself and weigh 1 liter more, though obviously that isn't anything we care about. But if you're running a 1000kCal deficit for weeks, you are going to lose weight. Just think of the limit case - if you normally eat 3000kCal to be at maintenance, then running a 3000kCal deficit will cause you to lose weight quickly, then eventually die for lack of food. Eating at 3000kCal will cause your weight to stay the same. Deficits in between will cause you to lose weight more slowly.
- frankus 5y ago
  > "what kind of diet will allow me to eat less calories in the easiest way" I think this is still kind of missing the point about why people think that the EBM is unhelpful. Intentionally eating fewer calories to lose weight is a little bit like lowering the mains voltage going to your house because the thermostat is stuck at too high of a setting and your house is too hot. In the extreme case it will work (how could it not?) but it's going to cause all sorts of other problems in the meantime. In the case of diet those other problems take the form of constant intrusive thoughts of eating, irritability, inability to think clearly, feeling cold all the time, and disinterest in any kind of movement/exercise. And it also (in the mind of the CIM adherents and friends) focuses attention away from the real problem (maybe my thermostat is broken) and toward something that doesn't really have anything to do with the real problem (maybe the voltage that seems to work for everyone else is too high for my heating system).
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
There are an awful lot of people who work eight hours, come home, and plop in front of a screen until they go to bed. They do this for decades until they die. People didn't do this as much when there were only three stations on TV and you'd find other things to do. It isn't that much of a mystery.
- ericb 5y ago
  Really? Both lab rats and wild animals have been consistently gaining weight for the last 50 years. Is your hypothesis that they have just gotten lazy?
gameswithgo 5y ago
more tasty food available for less money and less effort over time. harder to resist because it tastes better and is easier to obtain and prepare in terms of time and money.

by kortex 5y ago

ItsMonkk 5y ago

One of the shocking things I figured out when researching this that no one ever talks about is just how efficient fat is. If you burn 2000 calories a day and eat 2000 calories a day, you are in a steady state. Won't gain or lose any weight. But if you burn 2000 calories a day and eat 2100 calories a day, you have a 100 calorie gain. This should all be obvious. So you do that a month and a few days, and after a month or so you are up 3500 calories, which is one pound. Now that you are one pound of fat heavier, you now burn an additional couple calories per day. If you continue to eat 2100 calories, you will gain 10 pounds before you reach your equilibrium weight from consuming 2100 calories. Every 10 daily calories is worth 1 pound. Every daily apple is worth 10 pounds long-term. The 720 calorie average above is worth 72 pounds of fat. And that's even before we consider if now that you burn more calories, you will start eating more calories to keep the same offset?

edanm 5y ago

> EBM is just begging the question. You gain weight when you have a positive energy balance, and you have a positive energy if you eat more than burn. It's trivially true, otherwise you are violating laws of conservation of energy. Therefore, it has no real explanatory power. That's not true. You can see it's not true by the fact that so many people do in fact dispute consequences of this claim, despite it both being trivially true and proven multiple times in studies with actual humans. If you eat at a calaoric defict, no matter what you are eating, you will lose weight. That is both undeniable and widely denied, and has lots of explanatory power, because at the end of the day, a correct question to ask about the world is "why are people eating more calories?". There are certainly other factors which matter, depending on why you are asking the question: if it's for personal weight loss reasons, a good question to ask is "what kind of diet will allow me to eat less calories in the easiest way". If it's to explain the obesity epidemic, the answers are "why are people in general consuming more calories now than they were in the past". But if you discard the base mechanism by which people are gaining weight, you don't even know what questions to ask.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
davidjytang 5y ago
EBM makes it seem that the only thing affecting the weight of human is calorie balance and there will not be any scenario where calorie deficit might not always lead to weight loss. If water is free of calorie, has weight, affects body in some way, shouldn't that be taken into account? Weeks of 1000kCal deficit without weight loss might not necessarily mean EBM is wrong. But EBM doesn't explain the phenomenon.
- edanm 5y ago
  Usually what's looked at is average weight, since you're absolutely right - weight can fluctuate for many other reasons, including amount of water in your body. You can drink a liter of water before weighing yourself and weigh 1 liter more, though obviously that isn't anything we care about. But if you're running a 1000kCal deficit for weeks, you are going to lose weight. Just think of the limit case - if you normally eat 3000kCal to be at maintenance, then running a 3000kCal deficit will cause you to lose weight quickly, then eventually die for lack of food. Eating at 3000kCal will cause your weight to stay the same. Deficits in between will cause you to lose weight more slowly.
frankus 5y ago
> "what kind of diet will allow me to eat less calories in the easiest way" I think this is still kind of missing the point about why people think that the EBM is unhelpful. Intentionally eating fewer calories to lose weight is a little bit like lowering the mains voltage going to your house because the thermostat is stuck at too high of a setting and your house is too hot. In the extreme case it will work (how could it not?) but it's going to cause all sorts of other problems in the meantime. In the case of diet those other problems take the form of constant intrusive thoughts of eating, irritability, inability to think clearly, feeling cold all the time, and disinterest in any kind of movement/exercise. And it also (in the mind of the CIM adherents and friends) focuses attention away from the real problem (maybe my thermostat is broken) and toward something that doesn't really have anything to do with the real problem (maybe the voltage that seems to work for everyone else is too high for my heating system).

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

There are an awful lot of people who work eight hours, come home, and plop in front of a screen until they go to bed. They do this for decades until they die. People didn't do this as much when there were only three stations on TV and you'd find other things to do. It isn't that much of a mystery.

ericb 5y ago
Really? Both lab rats and wild animals have been consistently gaining weight for the last 50 years. Is your hypothesis that they have just gotten lazy?

gameswithgo 5y ago

more tasty food available for less money and less effort over time. harder to resist because it tastes better and is easier to obtain and prepare in terms of time and money.