4 ms·

> "what if the obesity epidemic has nothing to do with calories in vs calories out, and actually there is some toxin which the body has to sequester in subcutan

> "what if the obesity epidemic has nothing to do with calories in vs calories out, and actually there is some toxin which the body has to sequester in subcutaneous fat and that's why everyone's getting obese" Everyone loses weight on a caloric deficit. And "doubly labeled water" experiments show that people vastly underestimate how many calories they actually eat each day. See this often cited paper: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701 In a test of people who believed themselves to be diet resistant, every single subject lied about how much they ate when asked to self report. > The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an abnormality in thermogenesis.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
resolutebat 3y ago
The actual Slime Mold Time Mold analysis is more nuanced than the previous characterization. Yes, you'll lose weight if you run a caloric deficit; the SMTM argument is that something is messing with what they call the "lipostat", which regulates how much your body thinks you should be eating. So when your body is yelling at you that you're starving (even though you aren't), it's very hard not to overeat, because hunger is right there at the bottom of the Maslow pyramid and it takes inordinate willpower to consistently ignore it. http://achemicalhunger.com/ http://achemicalhunger.com/
nradov 3y ago
For some real life examples see the "Secret Eaters" TV series. When people claim that they gain weight despite not eating much they are lying or delusional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Eaters?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Eaters?wprov=sfla1 I do understand that it can be challenging for many people to reduce their energy intake.
- fortran77 3y ago
  I've seen the show. There's so much denial. Even here at Hacker News, suggesting that fat people eat too much food gets you downvoted and flagged.
- exhilaration 3y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation, I'm watching the first episode on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bYJrC3RTtgQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bYJrC3RTtgQ
SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
I think this means that obese people have something wrong where they are prevented from accurately gauging portion sizes. I’m not talking like they’re stupid. I’m talking like something is wrong with their bodies and the inner satiety mechanism is broken. Counting calories sounds insane to me as a thin person. I’m not counting the calories of a fucking croissant I had for breakfast today, I just know I really preferred a lighter lunch! And I don’t gain noticeable weight without giving a crap about it, just eating what my body says fulfills me keeps me at healthy weight. In my opinion the fact ozempic, which has nothing to do with calorie consumption or calorie counting but instead is a hormone working on satiety, tells me somethings wrong with the hormones of fat people. And I wouldn’t begrudge a fat person they’re overeating any more than I would begrudge a hyperthyroidic person their thinness!
- fortran77 3y ago
  When asked to objectively measure their food and keep a log, fat people will lie about it, as revealed in "doubly labeled water" studies. Read the study I linked.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
    Yes, something is sick with fat people that’s causing them to do that. Anorexic people exaggerate how fat they are and how much (how little) they eat, and that’s clearly some kind of illness that needs medical intervention and medication as needed to get them proper. Same for fat people, I think fat people have something wrong with them where the whole process of eat food -> feel sated is off. If everything I ate felt like half the portion is actually was I’d also be totally fucked up in how I understood my portion sizes too and would probably inadvertently lie on “objective” measures too! Like I don’t know how much a portion of chicken is. But damn if I ate a chicken leg, and I feel like I ate nothing, I’d be sorely tempted to argue I didn’t have a full portion of protein… because it doesn’t feel like I did, in my body. I think that’s what’s happening to fat people. Otherwise drugs like ozempic wouldn’t be working like they do— the fat person doesn’t become suddenly honest on some dumb journal and suddenly the pounds come off! They just actually feel full when they should like normal people for once so their bodies are getting to normal people sizes.
crdrost 3y ago
Just to be clear, I am trained as a physicist and I am not criticizing the thermodynamics as incorrect but rather insufficient. It is also incorrect, which is to say that there is only a vague relationship between the kilocalories reported on the side of the box and the actual marginal energy absorbed into your body. This is due to multiple factors. The most basic is measurement methodology: “count up the carbs in grams and multiply by 4 because this one ancient paper claimed that was the right fudge factor to average all carbohydrates with”; then there is the reality that the carbs described as “dietary fiber” on the label should never have been counted in the first place; add to this that the fudge factor for protein is also 4 kcal/gr even though it is known that proteins require twice the energy input from your body to be metabolized. If you're a physicist you're hoping for very clean simple measurements, “we put this into a calorimeter and burned it, or maybe we let some bacteria rot the thing in a sealed jar and monitored the oxygen in there” or something. The nutrition facts are nothing of the sort! (Related: the scale llliiieeesss, it lies, liar liar pants on fire how it lies.) However the bigger problem is that it is insufficient. For instance if you are worried about health outcomes, like diabetes risks, it turns out that calories in minus calories out doesn't predict those well. Both Omega-3 fats and trans fats are given the same fudge factor of 9 kcal/gr, but one is significantly less healthy than the other. It's not even terribly helpful to understand the full context of weight gain. Did you know that before our species grew up in Africa, our ape ancestors actually grew up in Europe? During this process they lost the ability to make an enzyme called uricase, which helps most other mammals eliminate a waste product called uric acid from the body. The loss of this enzyme is usually chalked up to, “those apes needed to put on a lot of weight really fast at harvest time before the winter came up”—google «uricase evolution» to learn more. So we actually have a hardwired tendency which most mammals do not have, to consume fructose and not consciously register those kilocalories as satiety signal, and instead we pack on those kilocalories as fat because of our artificially high uric acid levels. Wild stuff. The physics curriculum does touch on this but in a strange place: it's the courses where we teach kids to analyze circuits made with nonlinear components like op-amps and transistors. So there's the thermodynamic fact of calories in, calories out... but it also comes with a sales pitch which is trying to provide a simple answer that would work for a linear system, “just perturb this input a little bit and you will get the corresponding output.” But nonlinear systems don't work that way!
foobiekr 3y ago
"You know, if we starve people, they lose weight. Obviously it's just self control." "Yeah. Weird. Well, guess I'll go have a donut or whatever and think it over. It's a mystery why they aren't just thin like us, must be a personal failing."
- fortran77 3y ago
  "Starving?" Hardly.
  - foobiekr 3y ago
    Point went right by you. Most people do not count calories and calorie counts aren’t accurate anyway. The people sitting around counting calories because they have to are afflicted with the same thing that obese people are, they’re just putting in. A bunch of effort to manage it (or more likely actually aren’t). The issue you are missing is that the real question is not “can we create a totally artificial situation where one of the outcomes is managed” but instead “why isn’t the system that manages this in healthy people working?” In the counting calories example, it’s like saying the answer to diabetes is an insulin pump. People who d think this way are missing the point and basically are engaging in the shallowest of thought.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

resolutebat 3y ago

The actual Slime Mold Time Mold analysis is more nuanced than the previous characterization. Yes, you'll lose weight if you run a caloric deficit; the SMTM argument is that something is messing with what they call the "lipostat", which regulates how much your body thinks you should be eating. So when your body is yelling at you that you're starving (even though you aren't), it's very hard not to overeat, because hunger is right there at the bottom of the Maslow pyramid and it takes inordinate willpower to consistently ignore it. http://achemicalhunger.com/ http://achemicalhunger.com/

nradov 3y ago

For some real life examples see the "Secret Eaters" TV series. When people claim that they gain weight despite not eating much they are lying or delusional. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Eaters?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Eaters?wprov=sfla1 I do understand that it can be challenging for many people to reduce their energy intake.

fortran77 3y ago
I've seen the show. There's so much denial. Even here at Hacker News, suggesting that fat people eat too much food gets you downvoted and flagged.
exhilaration 3y ago
Thanks for the recommendation, I'm watching the first episode on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bYJrC3RTtgQ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bYJrC3RTtgQ

SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago

I think this means that obese people have something wrong where they are prevented from accurately gauging portion sizes. I’m not talking like they’re stupid. I’m talking like something is wrong with their bodies and the inner satiety mechanism is broken. Counting calories sounds insane to me as a thin person. I’m not counting the calories of a fucking croissant I had for breakfast today, I just know I really preferred a lighter lunch! And I don’t gain noticeable weight without giving a crap about it, just eating what my body says fulfills me keeps me at healthy weight. In my opinion the fact ozempic, which has nothing to do with calorie consumption or calorie counting but instead is a hormone working on satiety, tells me somethings wrong with the hormones of fat people. And I wouldn’t begrudge a fat person they’re overeating any more than I would begrudge a hyperthyroidic person their thinness!

fortran77 3y ago
When asked to objectively measure their food and keep a log, fat people will lie about it, as revealed in "doubly labeled water" studies. Read the study I linked.
- SamoyedFurFluff 3y ago
  Yes, something is sick with fat people that’s causing them to do that. Anorexic people exaggerate how fat they are and how much (how little) they eat, and that’s clearly some kind of illness that needs medical intervention and medication as needed to get them proper. Same for fat people, I think fat people have something wrong with them where the whole process of eat food -> feel sated is off. If everything I ate felt like half the portion is actually was I’d also be totally fucked up in how I understood my portion sizes too and would probably inadvertently lie on “objective” measures too! Like I don’t know how much a portion of chicken is. But damn if I ate a chicken leg, and I feel like I ate nothing, I’d be sorely tempted to argue I didn’t have a full portion of protein… because it doesn’t feel like I did, in my body. I think that’s what’s happening to fat people. Otherwise drugs like ozempic wouldn’t be working like they do— the fat person doesn’t become suddenly honest on some dumb journal and suddenly the pounds come off! They just actually feel full when they should like normal people for once so their bodies are getting to normal people sizes.

crdrost 3y ago

Just to be clear, I am trained as a physicist and I am not criticizing the thermodynamics as incorrect but rather insufficient. It is also incorrect, which is to say that there is only a vague relationship between the kilocalories reported on the side of the box and the actual marginal energy absorbed into your body. This is due to multiple factors. The most basic is measurement methodology: “count up the carbs in grams and multiply by 4 because this one ancient paper claimed that was the right fudge factor to average all carbohydrates with”; then there is the reality that the carbs described as “dietary fiber” on the label should never have been counted in the first place; add to this that the fudge factor for protein is also 4 kcal/gr even though it is known that proteins require twice the energy input from your body to be metabolized. If you're a physicist you're hoping for very clean simple measurements, “we put this into a calorimeter and burned it, or maybe we let some bacteria rot the thing in a sealed jar and monitored the oxygen in there” or something. The nutrition facts are nothing of the sort! (Related: the scale llliiieeesss, it lies, liar liar pants on fire how it lies.) However the bigger problem is that it is insufficient. For instance if you are worried about health outcomes, like diabetes risks, it turns out that calories in minus calories out doesn't predict those well. Both Omega-3 fats and trans fats are given the same fudge factor of 9 kcal/gr, but one is significantly less healthy than the other. It's not even terribly helpful to understand the full context of weight gain. Did you know that before our species grew up in Africa, our ape ancestors actually grew up in Europe? During this process they lost the ability to make an enzyme called uricase, which helps most other mammals eliminate a waste product called uric acid from the body. The loss of this enzyme is usually chalked up to, “those apes needed to put on a lot of weight really fast at harvest time before the winter came up”—google «uricase evolution» to learn more. So we actually have a hardwired tendency which most mammals do not have, to consume fructose and not consciously register those kilocalories as satiety signal, and instead we pack on those kilocalories as fat because of our artificially high uric acid levels. Wild stuff. The physics curriculum does touch on this but in a strange place: it's the courses where we teach kids to analyze circuits made with nonlinear components like op-amps and transistors. So there's the thermodynamic fact of calories in, calories out... but it also comes with a sales pitch which is trying to provide a simple answer that would work for a linear system, “just perturb this input a little bit and you will get the corresponding output.” But nonlinear systems don't work that way!

foobiekr 3y ago

"You know, if we starve people, they lose weight. Obviously it's just self control." "Yeah. Weird. Well, guess I'll go have a donut or whatever and think it over. It's a mystery why they aren't just thin like us, must be a personal failing."

fortran77 3y ago
"Starving?" Hardly.
- foobiekr 3y ago
  Point went right by you. Most people do not count calories and calorie counts aren’t accurate anyway. The people sitting around counting calories because they have to are afflicted with the same thing that obese people are, they’re just putting in. A bunch of effort to manage it (or more likely actually aren’t). The issue you are missing is that the real question is not “can we create a totally artificial situation where one of the outcomes is managed” but instead “why isn’t the system that manages this in healthy people working?” In the counting calories example, it’s like saying the answer to diabetes is an insulin pump. People who d think this way are missing the point and basically are engaging in the shallowest of thought.