11 ms·

A gut-derived hormone suppresses sugar appetite/regulates food choice Drosophila

116 points by bilsbie 4y ago

socialismisok 4y ago
I'd love to have some help with this. I was able to drop meat, most dairy, and salty junk food without problem. I eat plenty of green leafy vegetables. But sugar. Fuuuck I cannot walk past sweets. Sugar has claws in me I cannot shake. I hope we someday understand that mechanism better, maybe enough to give me a little help.
- csours 4y ago
  I hear you. Controlling your food environment is so important. It's candy on desks season again. I can usually walk past the candy, but not always.
  - drowsspa 4y ago
    Willpower is a finite resource indeed, you can't rely on that.
    - freddie_mercury 4y ago
      Current research suggests that willpower is not a finite research and "ego depletion" was a spurious finding. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/202011/how-willpower-wasnt-the-truth-about-ego-depletion https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/2020...
      - csours 4y ago
        I think willpower is a description of the human experience. I don't know if it's a good mechanistic description or not. It does not seem to be taken seriously as a cause by many psychologists. Whatever you think of willpower, I think controlling the food environment (don't bring it home from the store, don't eat at restaurants with mainly junk food, etc) is the most effective intervention. After that, things like substitution, delay, smallest possible portion, and putting the tempting food in an inconvenient location may help.
      - drowsspa 4y ago
        Psychology research is all over the place. If they mean willpower as this general concept, then probably it's not a thing. But if you have junk food in your home some people (like myself) will eat it compulsively at some point.
    - pstuart 4y ago
      True, but it can be trained to a degree. If one can make it through the sugar detox phase then it's pretty easy because the cravings do go away. The other part is stress management; when something bad happens it's so tempting to say "fuck it, I deserve this <insert bad thing>". That's the harder part.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  Sugar is unreasonably instantly addictive and harmful in relation to its abundant availability. More so than alcohol or tobacco.
- leidenfrost 4y ago
  Curiously I tried something similar yet opposite: I stopped eating junk food and I started eating more leafy vegetables, but also I stopped eating seed oils (except for olive oil and chia oil which is rich in omega3), and gave myself green light to eat whatever amount I want of foods rich in proteins and fats, as long as it's not ultra processed. To my surprise, my weight hasn't skyrocketed, I feel full way faster without having to exert loads of willpower to stop eating and my sugar cravings have reduced by a lot. Only from time to time I want to taste something sweet and even then I'm happy with just a green apple. Sugar is a drug and it messes with our satety hormones. No matter how much you eat, you end up always wanting more
  - tsol 4y ago
    Having had a drug problem at one point and having learned well out to titrate off of drugs, I feel it's helped me a lot with sugar. They function basically the same. You don't need it, but if you take it you feel nice. You also will then crave more, and feel sick if you don't take it in. The key isn't to stop all at once but to slowly lower the amount you take in over time and let your body slowly adjust.
- verisimi 4y ago
  Don't drop salt, imo. It is essential for strong stomach acid (a whole system benefit), your body always ensures the salt level in the blood (and will even extract it from bones). Ask yourself - 'what is the most common medical intervention' and you will see it is a saline drip. And farmers ensure that salt is available to the their cattle for their health. And Japanese have a highly salty diet and live long, with fewer bone breaks. And, and.... Salt is essential, and a low salt diet is terrible. Then ask, why is a low salt diet recommended to people, if it is so good? The answer, sadly, is that the 'health' industry actually requires ill people - they make money treating disease, not from keeping people healthy. It is in the big pharma's interests to encourage poor behaviour, and, yes, they will even lobby governments to mandate behaviour that creates disease.
  - InCityDreams 4y ago
    Don't drop sugar imo For all the similar reasons you gave, except - no sugar, no energy. You may wonder why a skinny af cyclist will happily consume 6k+ calories a day, as well as shovelling glucose gels down. Endurance athletes get it best: long distance cycling is just an all-day eating competition.
    - bluescrn 4y ago
      Most people on here are probably spending 10hrs/day in front of a screen, though. And in that case, more calories is unlikely to be the answer to a lack of energy/focus.
    - Telemakhos 4y ago
      Endurance athletes are getting frequent and strenuous exercise. Most people don't. There's a lot of concern and advice in this thread about diet, but exercising more is the step that's missing. We live in the hydrocarbon era of easy transport, which means cheap food and little exercise. Both of those have to be addressed for good health, not just the food.
    - adrian_b 4y ago
      The analogy between salt and sugar does not really work. Sugar is not an essential nutrient. You can eat absolutely no sugar without any ill effect. If you eat some starchy vegetables, that provides all the carbohydrates you need. Even if you want to eat 6000 kcal as carbohydrates, you can eat that easily from rice/maize/bread/potatoes etc., with no sugar. In fact it is much easier to eat a huge amount of food when it does not contain sugar, because even if sugar is addictive and makes you crave for it, when you eat too much sugar during a short time, it becomes disgusting when you try to eat more. On the other hand, if you stop eating salt, or even if you just eat too little salt, you will die soon, and not in a pleasant way (e.g. one of the symptoms of hyponatremia caused by eating too little salt is severe constipation, because various muscles, including the muscles that are used for the peristalsis of the intestines, lose their strength). Like for any essential nutrient, both eating too little salt and eating to much salt is bad. The recommended daily intake of salt is between 4 and 5 grams of salt. In order to be able to control precisely the daily intake of salt, I prefer to not add any salt to food during cooking (and I do not buy industrially made food). Instead of that, I add the salt only immediately prior to eating, so I can know exactly the amount added during a day.
- asciimov 4y ago
  Advice from a T2 Diabetic and regular Keto dieter. If you have never given up sugar before, it will take at least 6-8 weeks of non-use before the cravings go away. These will be some of the hardest weeks too. 1) everything has sugar in it, and you have to absolutely avoid it, not just sweets, fruits, juices, I'd even tell you diet drinks and artificial sweeteners too. That means no ketchup, sauces, breads, and most processed and store bought foods. 2) your body will do everything to remind you about those easy access sugars. During your detox, you will have cravings, dreams about sweets, even the overwhelming urge to eat stuff you might not even thing about "oh god, i could really go for some prunes right now" sort of thing. After your body gets it figured out that your no longer getting access to easy glucose it calms the hell down. You'll notice one day that sweets just don't seem that appealing. You'll get better at detecting sweetness in things you would have never considered sweet, like lettuce. I warn you sugar is insidious and everywhere. One day, you will sit down to some mundane meal, nothing special about it. After a few bites, you will say, wow this is wonderful, its the best thing I have ever tasted, I absolutely must have more of this very mundane thing, I'll need seconds, thirds, more if available. That meal you were eating was loaded down with sugar, it probably didn't taste sweet but it will taste like the best thing ever. That's how sugar gets you.
  - oifjsidjf 4y ago
    I had the same experience when I tried keto. The first ~12 days were hell, as if the devil possesed me, that is how strong sugar addiction is. But then all of the sudden it was as if cravings reduced by 95% in just 24 hours around day ~12.
  - omgwtf1000 4y ago
    I so want to do this, but I have such a sweet tooth I don’t think I can succeed. I can go a few days without sweets but then the urge is just overwhelming. I want to try weaning, by just eating fruit instead of processed treats. Will that have any effect at all, make it harder overall, or is the only way to just cut sugar completely?
    - maxk42 4y ago
      Merely tasting sweetness causes an anticipatory rise in insulin which shuts down fat metabolism. Best to go cold turkey, unfortunately. You can control cravings, however, by raising your fat intake to the point where you're too full to find eating more appetizing. You will still lose weight like this on a ketogenic diet.
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- huntertwo 4y ago
  Maybe eat dairy and meat instead? These foods are less harmful to you and less likely to leave you hungry than sugar and processed foods.
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    Meat is tricky. I won't support industrial meat production, that's a hard line for me. Finding local farmers to supply meat takes time. But yes, that's an approach I could take.
- beebeepka 4y ago
  Fruits and nuts. I used to consume about 1.5 litres of ice cream every day. I still get the cravings but less and less. Good thing my wife is making fruit salads for me.
- hanniabu 4y ago
  > But sugar. Fuuuck I cannot walk past sweets. Sugar has claws in me I cannot shake. Do you know how many calories you're getting from the healthy food? It's actually tough to maintain 2k calories while eating very healthy so your body will get cravings for candy which it knows is calorie dense.
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    So, when I switched to keto and tracked everything I ate, you are absolutely correct. It's hard to eat enough calories some days. But when I'm not totally focused on eating clean, I will eat as much sugar as I can reach. Keto helps, but it's anything but automatic. (Especially around the holidays.)
- ddorian43 4y ago
  > I was able to drop meat, most dairy, and salty junk food without problem. You are doing this completely in reverse. You need to drop sugar & carbs. And eat fatty-meat/low-carb.
  - socialismisok 4y ago
    No. I will not eat industrially produced meat. I dropped that a long time ago. Meat from local farmers with ethical practices is a sometimes food. Dairy is sugar... I'll have some cottage cheese or other cheeses. And salty junk food (chips, cheese crackers, etc) is almost always high carb.
    - ddorian43 4y ago
      Like Eminem said: Be smart, don't be a retard. See keto diet. (I do it and carnivore).
pojzon 4y ago
Just a related topic. FMT seems to cure a lot of things. I had a really really bad body odor. Doctors did not help much. It seems that during one episode in life my gut biome became really bad (heavy deinking). Years passed and nothing helped me recover from that. Various health issues also depression due to that. Latest doctor asked me to try FMT.. I was sceptic but at that point thought to myself - hell why not. And after few months stuff started to fix by itself. We dont understand yet how much our health depends on a healthy gut biome..
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Had to google FMT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant
  - manmal 4y ago
    Related discussion on HN yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33574568#33575598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33574568#33575598
drowsspa 4y ago
I've been hitting the gym for a few months now, and one thing that completely blew my mind was the existence of hypercalorics. Imagine that, not being able to eat a lot (specially carbs) and having to resort to these solutions. Point being, people like to spew out CICO as if fat people just don't understand thermodynamics. What I've found is that matters is appetite: some people just get full way faster than others. Beyond metabolism differences, NEAT, emotional responses, etc, I think that's actually the major factor. So a hormone like that can be game-changing
- bugfix-66 4y ago
  We have an old, safe, cheap drug for humans already: Metformin. Most people can get an off-label metformin prescription for anti-aging or appetite suppression. Your interest in food will be reduced to the point you have trouble keeping weight on. Sugar will be repulsive to you. Sweet food tastes "sickly sweet", nauseating. Metformin also interferes with the absorption of carbohydrates in your gut.
  - drowsspa 4y ago
    I once heard about one drug that basically works by making you nauseous to food. Is it the one? > Metformin is generally safe, but common side effects do include vomiting, nausea, and diarrhea. Those experiencing these unpleasant side effects might consume less food, resulting in modest weight reductions.
    - bugfix-66 4y ago
      Many foods you used to like (e.g., sweets) will be nauseating. Other foods remain delicious. For example, eggs and cheese and meat. But basically, your interest in food will be drastically reduced, and you will eat just enough. This is an important part of metformin's beneficial effect on lifespan and health.
      - TylerE 4y ago
        Admittedly, I’m on a fairly low dose (500mg x 2), but I can still kill a bag of Haribo when the mood hits. It doesn’t , quite as often, but I’ve noticed no changes in flavor.
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_8j50 4y ago
I have gained and lost a ton of weight several times in my life. While I did also notice and make use of the hormone imbalances that affect me (depending on where your fat is you can estimate what hormone is acting up), in my experience it has been that food appetite or enjoyment is maybe 10% of the struggle with another 10% being environmental factors but 80% comes down to the answer to a simple question: Is the advantage or profit of weight loss worth the discomfort and hard work? We all know objectively speaking it is, but as an individual, do I care enough? What do I get out if it in the end that is worth it, for me?
WhitneyLand 4y ago
It seems like there’s some interest here in what progress has been made in appetite suppressants recently. The drug mentioned in these links was just FDA approved this year and some are calling it a legit breakthrough. At first it looks like only a diabetes drug, but it’s dual use, prescribed for weight loss as well. It’s expensive, but for those with high blood sugar it is sometimes, covered by insurance. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/health/obesity-drugs-insurance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/health/obesity-drugs-insu... https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-novel-dual-targeted-treatment-type-2-diabetes https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr...
sedeki 4y ago
I read a lot of good things about intermittent fasting. Is there a good canonical resource if I want to try it? Note that I am lifting weighs 3 times per week. Is IF still a good idea...? I don't feel confident that this is something that I can lift with my GP, as it is not part of their standard set of guidelines (?)
- polishdude20 4y ago
  IF seems to be one of many techniques to restrict your overall calorie consumption. Each technique is suited to a different person's schedule, personality, vices etc. It's less about the chemistry happening in the body and more about the matching of diet to personality choices. As for IF while lifting? Depends on your goals.
  - sedeki 4y ago
    OK! I was under the impression that it had tangible health benefits like better cardio-vascular health regardless of diet, better well-being/mood. In other words, I assumed that IF is not just good for weight-loss or weight maintenance.
    - xctr94 4y ago
      The evangelists will sell IF/TRE has having every benefit under the sun. I do 16:8 for weight maintenance, but I also appreciate the morning work that I do on ketones. It's a simple regiment that has made me more aware of what I eat; but I don't think it's a panacea. When you look at sources of compiled research such as Examine [1] or meta-analysis [2], the science on IF/TRE isn't yet solid enough to back more than the weight-loss aspect. [1]: https://examine.com/diets/16-8-intermittent-fasting/ https://examine.com/diets/16-8-intermittent-fasting/ [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516560/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516560/
- edanm 4y ago
  I'm not an expert at all. But I do try to keep up with some nutritional/exercise science as a complete layman. I highly highly recommend watching some videos on YouTube by Dr Mike Israetel (search Renaissance Periodization, and search for specific topics like "weight less", "healthy eating", etc.) So here's my current summary of the evidence: 1. Obviously, everything depends on what your goals are. 2. Since you're lifting weights, I assume your goal is better body composition, which in most cases means losing fat and gaining muscle. 3. The main thing you need to do to lose fat is be on a caloric deficit. In order to lose mostly fat and not much muscle, you should be on the smallest caloric deficit you can reasonably manage, -300 calories per day is perfect. (Less than that and you can't really measure it accurately enough to see that you're actually losing fat.) 4. The other thing you need to do to not lose muscle is eat enough protein. Around 0.8 grams for each pound of body weight is probably good enough, though going up to 1 gram per pound is totally safe and makes sure you aren't getting too little protein. 5. How to achieve a caloric deficit mostly depends on what's easiest/funnest/best for you. Intermittent Fasting is very popular, because it makes it easy for many people to get a caloric deficit. 6. I personally don't love IF because it doesn't fit in with my life schedule, and personally prefer counting calories explicitly cause it's the most accurate and gives me the feeling of the most control, which I like. That said, it's a lot of work and isn't for everyone. 7. IF is not a panacea by any means. If you are doing IF but not actually getting a caloric deficit, it won't help you lose weight. 8. As far as I can tell, there are no known benefits to IF, health-wise. There's a lot of claimed benefits, but nothing actually proven. (And people claim health benefits for a lot of other things as well.) The only thing it's known to be good for is that a lot of people really like it as a way of managing calories/hunger. And there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that it actually helps for that - a lot of people really do find it easier to be on IF when they're dieting. If you're curious, totally worth just giving it a shot. 9. In terms of IF and weightlifting - technically speaking, a lot of studies have shown that it's best to get 4-5 protein feedings in a day, relatively spread out. So it's better to have 4 meals a day of protein than 2. As far as I can tell, this is a real effect, but it's not an enormous one. You're "leaving some gains on the table" if you do IF, but if it helps you reach a desired bodyweight, that's probably worth it. Especially since, after dieting down, you can start a bulking round of having a caloric surplus in order to actually gain weight and muscle.
Beaver117 4y ago
People weren't fat 100 years ago so what happened? We didn't just evolve to have lower self control. Something was introduced in the food/water supply that causes obesity, particularly high appetite. What can it be? HFCS? Antibiotics? PFAS? Canola oil? Some mystery chemical? The CICO cult are a hindrance to society, obviously everyone would count calories if it didn't make them feel like they're dying. The fact is we don't know CO. And we don't know each how each persons appetite is influenced. So talking about CICO is meaningless.
- oblak 4y ago
  You haven't heard of fat Romans? The environment, pesticides, plastics, skinny robot aliens from the future. We just don't know! Anything but indulgence.
- Telemakhos 4y ago
  Hydrocarbons made transportation cheap. This lowered food prices and increased availability far beyond anything our ancestors could have dreamed. The automobile and office lifestyle also obviated much of the exercise necessary in the past. We live in an age of unprecedented abundance and ease, so we grow fat.

116 points by bilsbie 4y ago

I'd love to have some help with this. I was able to drop meat, most dairy, and salty junk food without problem. I eat plenty of green leafy vegetables. But sugar. Fuuuck I cannot walk past sweets. Sugar has claws in me I cannot shake. I hope we someday understand that mechanism better, maybe enough to give me a little help.

csours 4y ago
I hear you. Controlling your food environment is so important. It's candy on desks season again. I can usually walk past the candy, but not always.
- drowsspa 4y ago
  Willpower is a finite resource indeed, you can't rely on that.
  - freddie_mercury 4y ago
    Current research suggests that willpower is not a finite research and "ego depletion" was a spurious finding. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/202011/how-willpower-wasnt-the-truth-about-ego-depletion https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-do-you-know/2020...
    - csours 4y ago
      I think willpower is a description of the human experience. I don't know if it's a good mechanistic description or not. It does not seem to be taken seriously as a cause by many psychologists. Whatever you think of willpower, I think controlling the food environment (don't bring it home from the store, don't eat at restaurants with mainly junk food, etc) is the most effective intervention. After that, things like substitution, delay, smallest possible portion, and putting the tempting food in an inconvenient location may help.
    - drowsspa 4y ago
      Psychology research is all over the place. If they mean willpower as this general concept, then probably it's not a thing. But if you have junk food in your home some people (like myself) will eat it compulsively at some point.
  - pstuart 4y ago
    True, but it can be trained to a degree. If one can make it through the sugar detox phase then it's pretty easy because the cravings do go away. The other part is stress management; when something bad happens it's so tempting to say "fuck it, I deserve this <insert bad thing>". That's the harder part.
formerly_proven 4y ago
Sugar is unreasonably instantly addictive and harmful in relation to its abundant availability. More so than alcohol or tobacco.
leidenfrost 4y ago
Curiously I tried something similar yet opposite: I stopped eating junk food and I started eating more leafy vegetables, but also I stopped eating seed oils (except for olive oil and chia oil which is rich in omega3), and gave myself green light to eat whatever amount I want of foods rich in proteins and fats, as long as it's not ultra processed. To my surprise, my weight hasn't skyrocketed, I feel full way faster without having to exert loads of willpower to stop eating and my sugar cravings have reduced by a lot. Only from time to time I want to taste something sweet and even then I'm happy with just a green apple. Sugar is a drug and it messes with our satety hormones. No matter how much you eat, you end up always wanting more
- tsol 4y ago
  Having had a drug problem at one point and having learned well out to titrate off of drugs, I feel it's helped me a lot with sugar. They function basically the same. You don't need it, but if you take it you feel nice. You also will then crave more, and feel sick if you don't take it in. The key isn't to stop all at once but to slowly lower the amount you take in over time and let your body slowly adjust.
verisimi 4y ago
Don't drop salt, imo. It is essential for strong stomach acid (a whole system benefit), your body always ensures the salt level in the blood (and will even extract it from bones). Ask yourself - 'what is the most common medical intervention' and you will see it is a saline drip. And farmers ensure that salt is available to the their cattle for their health. And Japanese have a highly salty diet and live long, with fewer bone breaks. And, and.... Salt is essential, and a low salt diet is terrible. Then ask, why is a low salt diet recommended to people, if it is so good? The answer, sadly, is that the 'health' industry actually requires ill people - they make money treating disease, not from keeping people healthy. It is in the big pharma's interests to encourage poor behaviour, and, yes, they will even lobby governments to mandate behaviour that creates disease.
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  Don't drop sugar imo For all the similar reasons you gave, except - no sugar, no energy. You may wonder why a skinny af cyclist will happily consume 6k+ calories a day, as well as shovelling glucose gels down. Endurance athletes get it best: long distance cycling is just an all-day eating competition.
  - bluescrn 4y ago
    Most people on here are probably spending 10hrs/day in front of a screen, though. And in that case, more calories is unlikely to be the answer to a lack of energy/focus.
  - Telemakhos 4y ago
    Endurance athletes are getting frequent and strenuous exercise. Most people don't. There's a lot of concern and advice in this thread about diet, but exercising more is the step that's missing. We live in the hydrocarbon era of easy transport, which means cheap food and little exercise. Both of those have to be addressed for good health, not just the food.
  - adrian_b 4y ago
    The analogy between salt and sugar does not really work. Sugar is not an essential nutrient. You can eat absolutely no sugar without any ill effect. If you eat some starchy vegetables, that provides all the carbohydrates you need. Even if you want to eat 6000 kcal as carbohydrates, you can eat that easily from rice/maize/bread/potatoes etc., with no sugar. In fact it is much easier to eat a huge amount of food when it does not contain sugar, because even if sugar is addictive and makes you crave for it, when you eat too much sugar during a short time, it becomes disgusting when you try to eat more. On the other hand, if you stop eating salt, or even if you just eat too little salt, you will die soon, and not in a pleasant way (e.g. one of the symptoms of hyponatremia caused by eating too little salt is severe constipation, because various muscles, including the muscles that are used for the peristalsis of the intestines, lose their strength). Like for any essential nutrient, both eating too little salt and eating to much salt is bad. The recommended daily intake of salt is between 4 and 5 grams of salt. In order to be able to control precisely the daily intake of salt, I prefer to not add any salt to food during cooking (and I do not buy industrially made food). Instead of that, I add the salt only immediately prior to eating, so I can know exactly the amount added during a day.
asciimov 4y ago
Advice from a T2 Diabetic and regular Keto dieter. If you have never given up sugar before, it will take at least 6-8 weeks of non-use before the cravings go away. These will be some of the hardest weeks too. 1) everything has sugar in it, and you have to absolutely avoid it, not just sweets, fruits, juices, I'd even tell you diet drinks and artificial sweeteners too. That means no ketchup, sauces, breads, and most processed and store bought foods. 2) your body will do everything to remind you about those easy access sugars. During your detox, you will have cravings, dreams about sweets, even the overwhelming urge to eat stuff you might not even thing about "oh god, i could really go for some prunes right now" sort of thing. After your body gets it figured out that your no longer getting access to easy glucose it calms the hell down. You'll notice one day that sweets just don't seem that appealing. You'll get better at detecting sweetness in things you would have never considered sweet, like lettuce. I warn you sugar is insidious and everywhere. One day, you will sit down to some mundane meal, nothing special about it. After a few bites, you will say, wow this is wonderful, its the best thing I have ever tasted, I absolutely must have more of this very mundane thing, I'll need seconds, thirds, more if available. That meal you were eating was loaded down with sugar, it probably didn't taste sweet but it will taste like the best thing ever. That's how sugar gets you.
- oifjsidjf 4y ago
  I had the same experience when I tried keto. The first ~12 days were hell, as if the devil possesed me, that is how strong sugar addiction is. But then all of the sudden it was as if cravings reduced by 95% in just 24 hours around day ~12.
- omgwtf1000 4y ago
  I so want to do this, but I have such a sweet tooth I don’t think I can succeed. I can go a few days without sweets but then the urge is just overwhelming. I want to try weaning, by just eating fruit instead of processed treats. Will that have any effect at all, make it harder overall, or is the only way to just cut sugar completely?
  - maxk42 4y ago
    Merely tasting sweetness causes an anticipatory rise in insulin which shuts down fat metabolism. Best to go cold turkey, unfortunately. You can control cravings, however, by raising your fat intake to the point where you're too full to find eating more appetizing. You will still lose weight like this on a ketogenic diet.
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huntertwo 4y ago
Maybe eat dairy and meat instead? These foods are less harmful to you and less likely to leave you hungry than sugar and processed foods.
- socialismisok 4y ago
  Meat is tricky. I won't support industrial meat production, that's a hard line for me. Finding local farmers to supply meat takes time. But yes, that's an approach I could take.
beebeepka 4y ago
Fruits and nuts. I used to consume about 1.5 litres of ice cream every day. I still get the cravings but less and less. Good thing my wife is making fruit salads for me.
hanniabu 4y ago
> But sugar. Fuuuck I cannot walk past sweets. Sugar has claws in me I cannot shake. Do you know how many calories you're getting from the healthy food? It's actually tough to maintain 2k calories while eating very healthy so your body will get cravings for candy which it knows is calorie dense.
- socialismisok 4y ago
  So, when I switched to keto and tracked everything I ate, you are absolutely correct. It's hard to eat enough calories some days. But when I'm not totally focused on eating clean, I will eat as much sugar as I can reach. Keto helps, but it's anything but automatic. (Especially around the holidays.)
ddorian43 4y ago
> I was able to drop meat, most dairy, and salty junk food without problem. You are doing this completely in reverse. You need to drop sugar & carbs. And eat fatty-meat/low-carb.
- socialismisok 4y ago
  No. I will not eat industrially produced meat. I dropped that a long time ago. Meat from local farmers with ethical practices is a sometimes food. Dairy is sugar... I'll have some cottage cheese or other cheeses. And salty junk food (chips, cheese crackers, etc) is almost always high carb.
  - ddorian43 4y ago
    Like Eminem said: Be smart, don't be a retard. See keto diet. (I do it and carnivore).

pojzon 4y ago

Just a related topic. FMT seems to cure a lot of things. I had a really really bad body odor. Doctors did not help much. It seems that during one episode in life my gut biome became really bad (heavy deinking). Years passed and nothing helped me recover from that. Various health issues also depression due to that. Latest doctor asked me to try FMT.. I was sceptic but at that point thought to myself - hell why not. And after few months stuff started to fix by itself. We dont understand yet how much our health depends on a healthy gut biome..

JKCalhoun 4y ago
Had to google FMT: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fecal_microbiota_transplant
- manmal 4y ago
  Related discussion on HN yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33574568#33575598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33574568#33575598

drowsspa 4y ago

I've been hitting the gym for a few months now, and one thing that completely blew my mind was the existence of hypercalorics. Imagine that, not being able to eat a lot (specially carbs) and having to resort to these solutions. Point being, people like to spew out CICO as if fat people just don't understand thermodynamics. What I've found is that matters is appetite: some people just get full way faster than others. Beyond metabolism differences, NEAT, emotional responses, etc, I think that's actually the major factor. So a hormone like that can be game-changing

bugfix-66 4y ago
We have an old, safe, cheap drug for humans already: Metformin. Most people can get an off-label metformin prescription for anti-aging or appetite suppression. Your interest in food will be reduced to the point you have trouble keeping weight on. Sugar will be repulsive to you. Sweet food tastes "sickly sweet", nauseating. Metformin also interferes with the absorption of carbohydrates in your gut.
- drowsspa 4y ago
  I once heard about one drug that basically works by making you nauseous to food. Is it the one? > Metformin is generally safe, but common side effects do include vomiting, nausea, and diarrhea. Those experiencing these unpleasant side effects might consume less food, resulting in modest weight reductions.
  - bugfix-66 4y ago
    Many foods you used to like (e.g., sweets) will be nauseating. Other foods remain delicious. For example, eggs and cheese and meat. But basically, your interest in food will be drastically reduced, and you will eat just enough. This is an important part of metformin's beneficial effect on lifespan and health.
    - TylerE 4y ago
      Admittedly, I’m on a fairly low dose (500mg x 2), but I can still kill a bag of Haribo when the mood hits. It doesn’t , quite as often, but I’ve noticed no changes in flavor.

deleted 4y ago

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_8j50 4y ago

I have gained and lost a ton of weight several times in my life. While I did also notice and make use of the hormone imbalances that affect me (depending on where your fat is you can estimate what hormone is acting up), in my experience it has been that food appetite or enjoyment is maybe 10% of the struggle with another 10% being environmental factors but 80% comes down to the answer to a simple question: Is the advantage or profit of weight loss worth the discomfort and hard work? We all know objectively speaking it is, but as an individual, do I care enough? What do I get out if it in the end that is worth it, for me?

WhitneyLand 4y ago

It seems like there’s some interest here in what progress has been made in appetite suppressants recently. The drug mentioned in these links was just FDA approved this year and some are calling it a legit breakthrough. At first it looks like only a diabetes drug, but it’s dual use, prescribed for weight loss as well. It’s expensive, but for those with high blood sugar it is sometimes, covered by insurance. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/health/obesity-drugs-insurance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/health/obesity-drugs-insu... https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-novel-dual-targeted-treatment-type-2-diabetes https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr...

sedeki 4y ago

I read a lot of good things about intermittent fasting. Is there a good canonical resource if I want to try it? Note that I am lifting weighs 3 times per week. Is IF still a good idea...? I don't feel confident that this is something that I can lift with my GP, as it is not part of their standard set of guidelines (?)

polishdude20 4y ago
IF seems to be one of many techniques to restrict your overall calorie consumption. Each technique is suited to a different person's schedule, personality, vices etc. It's less about the chemistry happening in the body and more about the matching of diet to personality choices. As for IF while lifting? Depends on your goals.
- sedeki 4y ago
  OK! I was under the impression that it had tangible health benefits like better cardio-vascular health regardless of diet, better well-being/mood. In other words, I assumed that IF is not just good for weight-loss or weight maintenance.
  - xctr94 4y ago
    The evangelists will sell IF/TRE has having every benefit under the sun. I do 16:8 for weight maintenance, but I also appreciate the morning work that I do on ketones. It's a simple regiment that has made me more aware of what I eat; but I don't think it's a panacea. When you look at sources of compiled research such as Examine [1] or meta-analysis [2], the science on IF/TRE isn't yet solid enough to back more than the weight-loss aspect. [1]: https://examine.com/diets/16-8-intermittent-fasting/ https://examine.com/diets/16-8-intermittent-fasting/ [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516560/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516560/
edanm 4y ago
I'm not an expert at all. But I do try to keep up with some nutritional/exercise science as a complete layman. I highly highly recommend watching some videos on YouTube by Dr Mike Israetel (search Renaissance Periodization, and search for specific topics like "weight less", "healthy eating", etc.) So here's my current summary of the evidence: 1. Obviously, everything depends on what your goals are. 2. Since you're lifting weights, I assume your goal is better body composition, which in most cases means losing fat and gaining muscle. 3. The main thing you need to do to lose fat is be on a caloric deficit. In order to lose mostly fat and not much muscle, you should be on the smallest caloric deficit you can reasonably manage, -300 calories per day is perfect. (Less than that and you can't really measure it accurately enough to see that you're actually losing fat.) 4. The other thing you need to do to not lose muscle is eat enough protein. Around 0.8 grams for each pound of body weight is probably good enough, though going up to 1 gram per pound is totally safe and makes sure you aren't getting too little protein. 5. How to achieve a caloric deficit mostly depends on what's easiest/funnest/best for you. Intermittent Fasting is very popular, because it makes it easy for many people to get a caloric deficit. 6. I personally don't love IF because it doesn't fit in with my life schedule, and personally prefer counting calories explicitly cause it's the most accurate and gives me the feeling of the most control, which I like. That said, it's a lot of work and isn't for everyone. 7. IF is not a panacea by any means. If you are doing IF but not actually getting a caloric deficit, it won't help you lose weight. 8. As far as I can tell, there are no known benefits to IF, health-wise. There's a lot of claimed benefits, but nothing actually proven. (And people claim health benefits for a lot of other things as well.) The only thing it's known to be good for is that a lot of people really like it as a way of managing calories/hunger. And there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that it actually helps for that - a lot of people really do find it easier to be on IF when they're dieting. If you're curious, totally worth just giving it a shot. 9. In terms of IF and weightlifting - technically speaking, a lot of studies have shown that it's best to get 4-5 protein feedings in a day, relatively spread out. So it's better to have 4 meals a day of protein than 2. As far as I can tell, this is a real effect, but it's not an enormous one. You're "leaving some gains on the table" if you do IF, but if it helps you reach a desired bodyweight, that's probably worth it. Especially since, after dieting down, you can start a bulking round of having a caloric surplus in order to actually gain weight and muscle.

Beaver117 4y ago

People weren't fat 100 years ago so what happened? We didn't just evolve to have lower self control. Something was introduced in the food/water supply that causes obesity, particularly high appetite. What can it be? HFCS? Antibiotics? PFAS? Canola oil? Some mystery chemical? The CICO cult are a hindrance to society, obviously everyone would count calories if it didn't make them feel like they're dying. The fact is we don't know CO. And we don't know each how each persons appetite is influenced. So talking about CICO is meaningless.

oblak 4y ago
You haven't heard of fat Romans? The environment, pesticides, plastics, skinny robot aliens from the future. We just don't know! Anything but indulgence.
Telemakhos 4y ago
Hydrocarbons made transportation cheap. This lowered food prices and increased availability far beyond anything our ancestors could have dreamed. The automobile and office lifestyle also obviated much of the exercise necessary in the past. We live in an age of unprecedented abundance and ease, so we grow fat.