2 ms·

The weight is largely not behavioral, it is diet. Hence why every single weight loss advice says 10% of it is physical exercise, 90% of it is diet (but highly

The weight is largely not behavioral, it is diet. Hence why every single weight loss advice says 10% of it is physical exercise, 90% of it is diet (but highly recommends the physical exertion anyway for many side bennies) https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/weight-loss-drugs-obesity-e4bb2173 https://www.wsj.com/health/pharma/weight-loss-drugs-obesity-... Unless you believe we're not animals too, numerous animal studies have shown this. The GLP agonists were discovered, I believe, during an experiment on diabetes meds with rats, where the rats ate so little that they nearly starved themselves. Hunger is a drive controlled by hormones, and something in the Western diet has hijacked it.

autoexec 3y ago
Seems like there's an environmental competent to weight gain as well. Wild animals have also been putting on weight. So have lab animals which have had the same controlled diets and activity levels for decades.
- streptomycin 3y ago
  https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-probably-not-lithium https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba... A Chemical Hunger opens up with a list of mysteries related to the obesity epidemic. I don’t endorse the list – for one, “wild animals are becoming obese” seems to have been pretty much made up (see the fourth point in this comment), and all evidence we have that “lab animals are becoming obese” is exactly one (1) unreplicated paper co-authored by a guy that has been involved in numerous controversies regarding his conflict of interest with the processed food and restaurant industries.[8]
monocasa 3y ago
Diet is behavioral. The people who successfully change their diet have to radically change their relationship with food on a deeper level than a lot of people think. For instance many processed, high carb foods are so nutrient poor that simply reducing to a healthy intake number of carbs means that now you're so nutrient poor that your body screams for more. It can even send people to the hospital if you stay in that state long enough. You really have to put your frame of reference for nutrition down and start fresh.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  > The people who successfully change their diet And tell me, what percent of people successfully pull this off conventionally, in the long term, again? If you took that success percentage and applied it to literally anything else, would it still make sense to blame the person who's trying but failing to be part of that percentage?
quadrifoliate 3y ago
You're implying a couple of things: a) That movement is unrelated to diet, which is not true. Every moment that you're walking to the bus stop, that you're spending on the bus, that you're hanging out at the fat men's club is a moment that you're not eating. b) That diet isn't related to behavior, which is also false. Being happy with other people likely reduces depression-driven eating triggers. > Hunger is a drive controlled by hormones, and something in the Western diet has hijacked it. Why does it have to be only diet and not environment? You could similarly claim that uncontrolled social media in the Western world is driving large numbers of people to depression and overeating.
- pmarreck 3y ago
  Fair points. But I think it's a pretty strong data point that the best known way to lose weight and keep it off in the long term is literally to cut/suck the fat cells out of your body (i.e., bariatric surgery). One would have to wonder what hormonal signals these fat cells are secreting in order to justify their continued existence and get fed... The current second-best way are the GLP agonist drugs, which tweak hormones. A very, very distant third is behavior modification/"changing diet and exercise regimen". Now, to avoid gaining in the first place, you do have some points. Someday soon, we're going to finally figure out the hideously complex orchestration of hunger, satiety and fat storage in the human body, and the obesity epidemic will finally end, and for the rest of human history this will be known as the "obesity era" /sigh Lastly, speaking as a Mounjaro taker, you don't quite understand how this works. I do not have to exert willpower from the daily finite reserve I get in order to will it downwards. I do not have to change what I eat. I do not have to force myself to fast. I do not have to exercise (in fact, I exercise for other reasons, such as mood and mental clarity!). I do not have to calorie-track. I do not have to limit myself to specific foods. Here's what happens: I'm simply less hungry and reach satiety much quicker and that makes all the difference. I have far fewer "naggy" feelings of wanting to snack, I often don't finish meals, and I can use that spare willpower on other things in my life that need it, which is fantastic.

autoexec 3y ago

Seems like there's an environmental competent to weight gain as well. Wild animals have also been putting on weight. So have lab animals which have had the same controlled diets and activity levels for decades.

streptomycin 3y ago
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-probably-not-lithium https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba... A Chemical Hunger opens up with a list of mysteries related to the obesity epidemic. I don’t endorse the list – for one, “wild animals are becoming obese” seems to have been pretty much made up (see the fourth point in this comment), and all evidence we have that “lab animals are becoming obese” is exactly one (1) unreplicated paper co-authored by a guy that has been involved in numerous controversies regarding his conflict of interest with the processed food and restaurant industries.[8]

monocasa 3y ago

Diet is behavioral. The people who successfully change their diet have to radically change their relationship with food on a deeper level than a lot of people think. For instance many processed, high carb foods are so nutrient poor that simply reducing to a healthy intake number of carbs means that now you're so nutrient poor that your body screams for more. It can even send people to the hospital if you stay in that state long enough. You really have to put your frame of reference for nutrition down and start fresh.

pmarreck 3y ago
> The people who successfully change their diet And tell me, what percent of people successfully pull this off conventionally, in the long term, again? If you took that success percentage and applied it to literally anything else, would it still make sense to blame the person who's trying but failing to be part of that percentage?

quadrifoliate 3y ago

You're implying a couple of things: a) That movement is unrelated to diet, which is not true. Every moment that you're walking to the bus stop, that you're spending on the bus, that you're hanging out at the fat men's club is a moment that you're not eating. b) That diet isn't related to behavior, which is also false. Being happy with other people likely reduces depression-driven eating triggers. > Hunger is a drive controlled by hormones, and something in the Western diet has hijacked it. Why does it have to be only diet and not environment? You could similarly claim that uncontrolled social media in the Western world is driving large numbers of people to depression and overeating.

pmarreck 3y ago
Fair points. But I think it's a pretty strong data point that the best known way to lose weight and keep it off in the long term is literally to cut/suck the fat cells out of your body (i.e., bariatric surgery). One would have to wonder what hormonal signals these fat cells are secreting in order to justify their continued existence and get fed... The current second-best way are the GLP agonist drugs, which tweak hormones. A very, very distant third is behavior modification/"changing diet and exercise regimen". Now, to avoid gaining in the first place, you do have some points. Someday soon, we're going to finally figure out the hideously complex orchestration of hunger, satiety and fat storage in the human body, and the obesity epidemic will finally end, and for the rest of human history this will be known as the "obesity era" /sigh Lastly, speaking as a Mounjaro taker, you don't quite understand how this works. I do not have to exert willpower from the daily finite reserve I get in order to will it downwards. I do not have to change what I eat. I do not have to force myself to fast. I do not have to exercise (in fact, I exercise for other reasons, such as mood and mental clarity!). I do not have to calorie-track. I do not have to limit myself to specific foods. Here's what happens: I'm simply less hungry and reach satiety much quicker and that makes all the difference. I have far fewer "naggy" feelings of wanting to snack, I often don't finish meals, and I can use that spare willpower on other things in my life that need it, which is fantastic.