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Is this article implying calorie deficits are not what cause weight loss? Or am I misunderstanding? He links to the idea that "we don't know what causes weight

by 1shox 4y ago

Is this article implying calorie deficits are not what cause weight loss? Or am I misunderstanding? He links to the idea that "we don't know what causes weight loss", but studies show calorie deficits do.

orangepurple 4y ago
Calorie restriction is a red herring. Real weight loss is caused by long term reduction of insulin levels. The foods, quantities, times, and times between meals you eat affect this.
- 1shox 4y ago
  Try Calculating your TDEE (at sedentary) and eating 500 calories (accurately) below it for 12 weeks and come back, you'll weigh 12lbs less. I don't think that's a red herring.
  - orangepurple 4y ago
    Given two identical individuals eating an isocaloric diet the diet which stimulates insulin less will result in greater weight loss or lower weight gain.
    - 1shox 4y ago
      is the difference more than 5% - 10%? because there are differences between the efficiency of energy consumed during digestion of the different macros (Fat, Protein, Carbs). That could be the obvious difference here. Otherwise, it's not a red herring. For example, I've heard that if 100 calories is eaten of protein, you may only digest 80 calories, arbitrary number, but it may differ than carbohydrate's 90 calories per 100 eaten.
      - orangepurple 4y ago
        I would like to give you a succinct answer, but I am not as well spoken as Robert Lustig, MD, a Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at University of California, San Francisco, and the author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease. Is a Calorie a Calorie? Processed Food, Experiment Gone Wrong Presented by Stanford Health Care https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxyxcTZccsE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxyxcTZccsE
        1shox 4y ago
        That video you linked is focusing more on "health" than "weight loss", which should be considered different. If there's somewhere in that 1:40:00 long video that he says calorie counting doesn't work, please time-stamp it.
        exfatloss 4y ago
        Counting calories itself is an exercise in accounting. How would it help with weight loss?
        1shox 4y ago
        try out my earlier comment "Try Calculating your TDEE (at sedentary) and eating 500 calories (accurately) below it for 12 weeks and come back, you'll weigh 12lbs less. I don't think that's a red herring." Get back to me in 12 weeks.
        exfatloss 4y ago
        The thing is it's not possible if the metabolism is broken. It's a bit like saying "If I double my velocity every hour, will I reach 1000000mph?" Yes and no. The human metabolism is a dynamic system with feedback. You can't sustainably eat 500kcal below TDEE for long periods of time because the body will turn down your TDEE to the minimum. For me that's around 800-1,000kcal/day. I've stayed weight stable for 2 months straight eating around 1,000kcal/day. I've also LOST weight eating over 4,000kcal/day (very different phase of my life, obviously). CI and CO are not unrelated and you can't change one and expect the other to stay fixed.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - nutrithrow2412 4y ago
    Assuming your TDEE stays constant (and assuming it's calculated accurately) -- and assuming your body doesn't play fucky with electrolyte + water balances causing you to lose Xlbs amount of fat, but gaining ~Xlbs of water retention due to hoarding of hydrophilic nutrients due to caloric restriction. Biggest issue though is TDEE will decrease to compensate for less calories (and increase for more calories). Even for small things like fidgeting or deciding to go for a walk, or just be more chipper in general -- it matters and adds up. 500cals is a rounding error. You can eat an extra 500 calories per day due to discrepancies in dietary labeling, because the methodology (and the leniency allowed in how accurate calories reported can be) are shoddy. Frankly, I'm not interested in weighing less. I'm interested in losing fat, so I look and feel better. I can lose 10lbs by just carb-loading, and then not eating for a few days (shedding water weight due to lack of insulin). Fastest and most guaranteed way to lose fat is to fast, and do low-intensity cardio. Second best is PSMF and low-intensity cardio. Next best is keto and low-intensity cardio. After that? I don't know, you can count calories and do the recommended -500cals per day, but you'll probably be doing that forever without significantly changing your body composition.
    - exfatloss 4y ago
      100% on the water weight vs. fat loss. This diet I mention in the blog post is very ketogenic and very low insulin. In fact I originally designed it to be as low-insulin as safely possible (practically no carbs and only 30g of protein per day originally). Fasting didn't work well for me. I've done up to 7 day water and 10 day coffee (with some cream, so low calorie fat) fasts. Thing is I only lose water/glycogen weight and it immediately comes back 2-3 days after I start eating again.
      - operatingthetan 4y ago
        Is there a danger from the diet from a heart disease standpoint given the high fat content?
        exfatloss 4y ago
        Some people will say yes. I've eaten high fat paleo/keto for a decade before this and I don't have those concerns. It'll definitely give you a very high total cholesterol and LDL but I got tested and my HDL/triglycerides are both pretty decent. That's what I care about.
- 5636553454654 4y ago
  > Real weight loss is caused by long term reduction of insulin levels It's not 2009 anymore. We have these drugs now, GLP-1 agonists, which directly increase insulin secretion, yet they're known to also cause weight loss comparable to bariatric surgery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucagon-like_peptide-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucagon-like_peptide-1 >Alongside glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP), GLP-1 is an incretin; thus, it has the ability to decrease blood sugar levels in a glucose-dependent manner by enhancing the secretion of insulin. Beside the insulinotropic effects, GLP-1 has been associated with numerous regulatory and protective effects. Unlike GIP, the action of GLP-1 is preserved in patients with type 2 diabetes and substantial pharmaceutical research has therefore been directed towards the development of GLP-1-based treatment Your low-carb lunacy is long outdated. Go eat an apple.
exfatloss 4y ago
Caloric deficits don't CAUSE weight loss, they merely report them. The deficit/surplus is an accounting identity. Of course somebody who lost fat had calories leave his body - that's literally what that means. It's tautological. What it is not: instructive in how to persistently cause more calories to leave the body than to come in.
- 1shox 4y ago
  The very nature of counting calories is an accounting of persistently causing more calories to be expended than intaken. Your post appears delusional. Calorie deficits cause weight loss and "report them".
  - exfatloss 4y ago
    It's a tautology. It's like saying "people get richer because more money enters their bank account than leaves it." That's not the cause - that's the very definition of getting richer. You're just rephrasing it.
    - 1shox 4y ago
      This has bad logic written all over it, the "cause" is in the very sentence you typed. "Rich people are rich" is a tautology.
      - exfatloss 4y ago
        Please explain how counting calories causes fat loss, then. I eat around 2,300kcal and I seem to burn around 3,300. Had my resting metabolic rate tested at 2,950 or so.
        1shox 4y ago
        you're either underrepresenting your food in your calorie counting or overestimating your sedentary TDEE, anyways I wish you luck, cya! free link to calculate sedentary TDEE: https://tdeecalculator.net/ https://tdeecalculator.net/

by 1shox 4y ago

orangepurple 4y ago

Calorie restriction is a red herring. Real weight loss is caused by long term reduction of insulin levels. The foods, quantities, times, and times between meals you eat affect this.

1shox 4y ago
Try Calculating your TDEE (at sedentary) and eating 500 calories (accurately) below it for 12 weeks and come back, you'll weigh 12lbs less. I don't think that's a red herring.
- orangepurple 4y ago
  Given two identical individuals eating an isocaloric diet the diet which stimulates insulin less will result in greater weight loss or lower weight gain.
  - 1shox 4y ago
    is the difference more than 5% - 10%? because there are differences between the efficiency of energy consumed during digestion of the different macros (Fat, Protein, Carbs). That could be the obvious difference here. Otherwise, it's not a red herring. For example, I've heard that if 100 calories is eaten of protein, you may only digest 80 calories, arbitrary number, but it may differ than carbohydrate's 90 calories per 100 eaten.
    - orangepurple 4y ago
      I would like to give you a succinct answer, but I am not as well spoken as Robert Lustig, MD, a Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at University of California, San Francisco, and the author of Fat Chance: Beating the Odds against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease. Is a Calorie a Calorie? Processed Food, Experiment Gone Wrong Presented by Stanford Health Care https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxyxcTZccsE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxyxcTZccsE
      - 1shox 4y ago
        That video you linked is focusing more on "health" than "weight loss", which should be considered different. If there's somewhere in that 1:40:00 long video that he says calorie counting doesn't work, please time-stamp it.
        exfatloss 4y ago
        Counting calories itself is an exercise in accounting. How would it help with weight loss?
        1shox 4y ago
        try out my earlier comment "Try Calculating your TDEE (at sedentary) and eating 500 calories (accurately) below it for 12 weeks and come back, you'll weigh 12lbs less. I don't think that's a red herring." Get back to me in 12 weeks.
        exfatloss 4y ago
        The thing is it's not possible if the metabolism is broken. It's a bit like saying "If I double my velocity every hour, will I reach 1000000mph?" Yes and no. The human metabolism is a dynamic system with feedback. You can't sustainably eat 500kcal below TDEE for long periods of time because the body will turn down your TDEE to the minimum. For me that's around 800-1,000kcal/day. I've stayed weight stable for 2 months straight eating around 1,000kcal/day. I've also LOST weight eating over 4,000kcal/day (very different phase of my life, obviously). CI and CO are not unrelated and you can't change one and expect the other to stay fixed.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- nutrithrow2412 4y ago
  Assuming your TDEE stays constant (and assuming it's calculated accurately) -- and assuming your body doesn't play fucky with electrolyte + water balances causing you to lose Xlbs amount of fat, but gaining ~Xlbs of water retention due to hoarding of hydrophilic nutrients due to caloric restriction. Biggest issue though is TDEE will decrease to compensate for less calories (and increase for more calories). Even for small things like fidgeting or deciding to go for a walk, or just be more chipper in general -- it matters and adds up. 500cals is a rounding error. You can eat an extra 500 calories per day due to discrepancies in dietary labeling, because the methodology (and the leniency allowed in how accurate calories reported can be) are shoddy. Frankly, I'm not interested in weighing less. I'm interested in losing fat, so I look and feel better. I can lose 10lbs by just carb-loading, and then not eating for a few days (shedding water weight due to lack of insulin). Fastest and most guaranteed way to lose fat is to fast, and do low-intensity cardio. Second best is PSMF and low-intensity cardio. Next best is keto and low-intensity cardio. After that? I don't know, you can count calories and do the recommended -500cals per day, but you'll probably be doing that forever without significantly changing your body composition.
  - exfatloss 4y ago
    100% on the water weight vs. fat loss. This diet I mention in the blog post is very ketogenic and very low insulin. In fact I originally designed it to be as low-insulin as safely possible (practically no carbs and only 30g of protein per day originally). Fasting didn't work well for me. I've done up to 7 day water and 10 day coffee (with some cream, so low calorie fat) fasts. Thing is I only lose water/glycogen weight and it immediately comes back 2-3 days after I start eating again.
    - operatingthetan 4y ago
      Is there a danger from the diet from a heart disease standpoint given the high fat content?
      - exfatloss 4y ago
        Some people will say yes. I've eaten high fat paleo/keto for a decade before this and I don't have those concerns. It'll definitely give you a very high total cholesterol and LDL but I got tested and my HDL/triglycerides are both pretty decent. That's what I care about.
5636553454654 4y ago
> Real weight loss is caused by long term reduction of insulin levels It's not 2009 anymore. We have these drugs now, GLP-1 agonists, which directly increase insulin secretion, yet they're known to also cause weight loss comparable to bariatric surgery: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucagon-like_peptide-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucagon-like_peptide-1 >Alongside glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP), GLP-1 is an incretin; thus, it has the ability to decrease blood sugar levels in a glucose-dependent manner by enhancing the secretion of insulin. Beside the insulinotropic effects, GLP-1 has been associated with numerous regulatory and protective effects. Unlike GIP, the action of GLP-1 is preserved in patients with type 2 diabetes and substantial pharmaceutical research has therefore been directed towards the development of GLP-1-based treatment Your low-carb lunacy is long outdated. Go eat an apple.

exfatloss 4y ago

Caloric deficits don't CAUSE weight loss, they merely report them. The deficit/surplus is an accounting identity. Of course somebody who lost fat had calories leave his body - that's literally what that means. It's tautological. What it is not: instructive in how to persistently cause more calories to leave the body than to come in.

1shox 4y ago
The very nature of counting calories is an accounting of persistently causing more calories to be expended than intaken. Your post appears delusional. Calorie deficits cause weight loss and "report them".
- exfatloss 4y ago
  It's a tautology. It's like saying "people get richer because more money enters their bank account than leaves it." That's not the cause - that's the very definition of getting richer. You're just rephrasing it.
  - 1shox 4y ago
    This has bad logic written all over it, the "cause" is in the very sentence you typed. "Rich people are rich" is a tautology.
    - exfatloss 4y ago
      Please explain how counting calories causes fat loss, then. I eat around 2,300kcal and I seem to burn around 3,300. Had my resting metabolic rate tested at 2,950 or so.
      - 1shox 4y ago
        you're either underrepresenting your food in your calorie counting or overestimating your sedentary TDEE, anyways I wish you luck, cya! free link to calculate sedentary TDEE: https://tdeecalculator.net/ https://tdeecalculator.net/