4 ms·

Cue the “calories in, calories out” chorus in 3, 2,

jabradoodle 3y ago
Unless your body breaks the first law of thermodynamics then yes, you loose weight when eating less calories than you burn.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
somenameforme 3y ago
The article [1] (which is not paywalled) does not challenge that. It specifically excluded the very small percent of people with genetic disorders, like leptin deficiency, which can genuinely directly drive obesity. If you look at e.g. compulsive gamblers, you're going to find substantial genetic differences in these individuals relative to those who do not find themselves addicted to gambling. This obviously doesn't mean that genetics are making them bet their house on black. But if there's any genetic component to factors like self discipline, impulsiveness, and other factors then these would show up when you look at differences between people where those sort of characteristics can work as a driving (or mediating) factor. [1] - https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1007603 https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/jo...
SkyPuncher 3y ago
It doesn’t really seem relevant to this conversation. CICO can be true while also having genetic play a role.
- monkeycantype 3y ago
  The relevance is that the most important contribution genetics seems to make to obesity is the effect on the drive to eat. I learned a lot from this summary of obesity genetics: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-021-00414-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-021-00414-z
aerio 3y ago
"Calories in, calories out" still holds true. Some people just need less calories than others.
- Rediscover 3y ago
  >... cal in...out I often question this. It is something I really don't understand. Gads, up until a few years ago, I was doing 4000-6000 cals most days. Other days, I was doing four shots of vodka and nothing else. I'm real thin, generally muscular, great health. Great health (to repeat) and quite capable of 20 mile hikes with a 40-70 pound backpack (absolutely no f' joke), at a very fast pace. I still don't grasp this.
  - gizmo 3y ago
    You probably just excrete excess calories, where other people with your caloric intake would store the excess calories as fat. Also you might become restless when you eat too much and you’ll instinctively start shaking your legs even when sedentary to burn those excess calories. Or maybe you’ll start pacing or you’ll get hot and burn calories that way. This is just favorable genetics. Also, muscles take energy to maintain. As you lose muscle as you get older your burn rate will also go down because of that. Finally, most people eat at set times even when they’re not hungry and snack outside of set times when they are. Needless to say this automatically results in overeating. Skipping meals when you’re not that hungry is great but harder to do when you live with other people.
  - Kirby64 3y ago
    Do you have justification for that 4000-6000 cal statement? Were you actually tracking this with weights/nutrition info carefully? Almost every has an extremely bad intuition on calories consumed, which leads to over/under estimation. Also, if you were actually doing 4000cal one day and ~300cal the next (4 shots of vodka), your average cal count would still be 2150 across two days, which is perfectly fine. Alternatively, if you actually are doing 20 mile hikes very regularly with that sort of weight, you truly could just be burning that much extra in calories. Long distance running/hiking burns an immense amount of calories.
- 3y ago
neilwilson 3y ago
Genetics influences the desire to eat. "Eat what you like and never get fat" is most always "doesn't feel as though they need to eat that much and, therefore, never gets fat".

Unless your body breaks the first law of thermodynamics then yes, you loose weight when eating less calories than you burn.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

somenameforme 3y ago

The article [1] (which is not paywalled) does not challenge that. It specifically excluded the very small percent of people with genetic disorders, like leptin deficiency, which can genuinely directly drive obesity. If you look at e.g. compulsive gamblers, you're going to find substantial genetic differences in these individuals relative to those who do not find themselves addicted to gambling. This obviously doesn't mean that genetics are making them bet their house on black. But if there's any genetic component to factors like self discipline, impulsiveness, and other factors then these would show up when you look at differences between people where those sort of characteristics can work as a driving (or mediating) factor. [1] - https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1007603 https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/jo...

SkyPuncher 3y ago

It doesn’t really seem relevant to this conversation. CICO can be true while also having genetic play a role.

monkeycantype 3y ago
The relevance is that the most important contribution genetics seems to make to obesity is the effect on the drive to eat. I learned a lot from this summary of obesity genetics: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-021-00414-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41576-021-00414-z

aerio 3y ago

"Calories in, calories out" still holds true. Some people just need less calories than others.

Rediscover 3y ago
>... cal in...out I often question this. It is something I really don't understand. Gads, up until a few years ago, I was doing 4000-6000 cals most days. Other days, I was doing four shots of vodka and nothing else. I'm real thin, generally muscular, great health. Great health (to repeat) and quite capable of 20 mile hikes with a 40-70 pound backpack (absolutely no f' joke), at a very fast pace. I still don't grasp this.
- gizmo 3y ago
  You probably just excrete excess calories, where other people with your caloric intake would store the excess calories as fat. Also you might become restless when you eat too much and you’ll instinctively start shaking your legs even when sedentary to burn those excess calories. Or maybe you’ll start pacing or you’ll get hot and burn calories that way. This is just favorable genetics. Also, muscles take energy to maintain. As you lose muscle as you get older your burn rate will also go down because of that. Finally, most people eat at set times even when they’re not hungry and snack outside of set times when they are. Needless to say this automatically results in overeating. Skipping meals when you’re not that hungry is great but harder to do when you live with other people.
- Kirby64 3y ago
  Do you have justification for that 4000-6000 cal statement? Were you actually tracking this with weights/nutrition info carefully? Almost every has an extremely bad intuition on calories consumed, which leads to over/under estimation. Also, if you were actually doing 4000cal one day and ~300cal the next (4 shots of vodka), your average cal count would still be 2150 across two days, which is perfectly fine. Alternatively, if you actually are doing 20 mile hikes very regularly with that sort of weight, you truly could just be burning that much extra in calories. Long distance running/hiking burns an immense amount of calories.
3y ago

neilwilson 3y ago

Genetics influences the desire to eat. "Eat what you like and never get fat" is most always "doesn't feel as though they need to eat that much and, therefore, never gets fat".