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I wonder how much of that is education. Most people also don't seem to know that weight loss is simply Calories in - calories out, what their BMR is, how to tr

I wonder how much of that is education. Most people also don't seem to know that weight loss is simply Calories in - calories out, what their BMR is, how to track calories. Most people, even educated people, still seem to believe things like they have slow metabolism, that herbal teas can help, doing situps will reduce belly fat, and number of dumb shit the market tries to sell. As a nation were just far too focused on $$$, and instead of focusing on fixing the root of the issue, were only incentivized to bandage the problem with producing more things that will make $$$. Sell shit food, people get fat, sell crap products for weigh loss, drugs, surgery, etc

dekhn 1y ago
Weight loss is not simply calories in - calories out. Fat is not burned and its metabolism does not change your weight. Oxygen/CO2 exchange in the lungs is also a major component of weight change. Further, your body homeostatically manages your metabolism so in the long term you often return to the same weight regardless of your current calorie consumption. And that's just addressing first order weight parameters.
- dgfitz 1y ago
  It is calories in/out. Other mechanisms factor in, but I’ll bet anyone my bottom dollar they’ll lose weight if they eat 700 kcal/day. Yes, breathing is literally how weight is lost, I’m not sure what your point was there.
- jtmarl1n 1y ago
  Weight loss is absolutely a result of CICO, please site a source that states otherwise. I have never heard another source citing Oxygen/CO2 exchange as a factor for weight change, again, please site a source. O2 levels are certainly a factor of cardio health which can be correlated to overall health and weight. Yes, macros also matter. But, nothing matters as much as the simple math of calories in/calories out. Its disingenuous, borderline irresponsible, to suggest otherwise.
  - SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
    https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257 https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257 is one analysis of oxygen/CO2 exchange being a major component of weight loss. As the authors say, it's really a question of chemistry; the CO2 you metabolize from your fat has to go somewhere. To be clear, I think your instinctive reaction is correct. It would be extremely silly for someone to read this analysis and conclude that they'll lose weight if they learn some special breathing technique to maximize CO2 output. The point is that "calories in - calories out" as a diet strategy is the same kind of error.
    - dekhn 1y ago
      By the way, if you ever want to start a scientific argument, bring up this paper among doctors and scientists. It never fails to start a big argument that is usually concluded with "human metabolism does not violate the conservation of mass/energy" (many doctors and scientists believe that "burning fat" with oxygen causes you to lose weight directly).
  - dekhn 1y ago
    "Burning" fat doesn't violate conservation of mass/energy. Instead, weight loss occurs primarily through co2/oxygen exchange that is connected to metabolism. https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257 https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257 (note I don't totally agree with this paper, and agree that if you eat almost no food, you will lose weight, and that exercise definitely seems to increase the metabolic rate and increased mass exchange in the lungs. Like I said, it's complicated). I'm not being disingenous or irresponsible- I'm describing mainstream science based on biophysical data.
    - andoando 1y ago
      I don't think its accurate to say "weight loss occurs primarily through co2/oxygen exchange". CO2 being breathed out is the just the end product of weight loss.
    - jtmarl1n 1y ago
      Thanks, I appreciate that link. I had a chance to read this today and found it very interesting. Apologies for the tone in my original comment. I misdirected work stress this morning.
- meindnoch 1y ago
  >your body homeostatically manages your metabolism so in the long term you often return to the same weight regardless of your current calorie consumption Then exercise more. That's how you increase the "calories out" part of the equation. Yeah, it takes willpower.
  - dekhn 1y ago
    I don't disagree that increased exercise is associated with weight loss. I don't think I denied that. We're mainly disagreeing about mechanisms. Ultimately, fat metabolism does not violate the conservation of mass/energy.
  - wcfields 1y ago
    > willpower I mean, sure, but if it was just willpower for everyone then we'd all speak 10 languages, play piano, be buff as hell, be emotionally stable, and no one would be an alcoholic. But we're squishy apes that are regulated by hormones and live busy messy lives with cars that are probably needing a tire rotation 3000 miles ago and putting it off a few more miles won't really hurt.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    Or it doesn’t take any willpower at all. I certainly don’t have to do this, and I’m thin. I eat whatever I want, whenever I want. So why can I do that, but others can’t? It would be comforting to just say that I’m better. It would also be a lie.
    - reissbaker 1y ago
      There are generally a few answers to this. But they all boil down to: * You never used to be fat. Once you become fat, your body's homeostatic set point is permanently altered. Your body never destroys adipocytes — it only shrinks them. If you stay within some range of your current homeostatic set point, your body will either increase the size of your adipocytes, or decrease their size, depending on whether you're over- or under-consuming. But, after a certain amount of overconsumption, your body will actually create new adipocytes... And once you have them, you can never get rid of them, minus expensive and dangerous surgery. The best you can do is shrink them. But, keeping the adipocytes shrunken takes significant willpower. So basically, once you get fat, you're going to have a hard time. Pretty much the only alternative is somehow tricking your brain/gut into not getting hungry when it "should." Ozempic, etc seem to somehow allow you to not feel as hungry even when your adipocytes shrink, or at least alter your perceived set point to be more-shrunken. Bariatric surgery is similar although much more dangerous. (Liposuction actually removes adipocytes, but it's quite dangerous — and it doesn't remove visceral fat cells, which are the worst kind of fat from a health perspective.) Now, there's a separate question of "why do some people get fat initially?" And that can result from poor childhood nutrition, or genes (e.g. Samoans), or exposure to certain chemical compounds (e.g. certain psychiatric medications), or natural aging (recent research indicates middle-aged mice, and probably thus middle-aged humans, have their stem cells trigger more adipocyte production), or just lifestyle. But it's the initial weight gain that ends up trapping people into the higher homeostatic set point, which is very difficult to recover from, even with dieting and exercise, since you will need to keep yourself basically constantly hungry either by eating less or by exercising much more even after you "lost" the weight — because while you lost weight on the scale, you didn't lose adipocytes, and adipocytes do not want to be kept empty.
SketchySeaBeast 1y ago
I lost weight by measuring calories, shedding ~25% of my body weight. It's still a battle and will always be. I keep exercising the whole time - I'm training for my first marathon right now (I've run the distance before, just not in an official race), but my weight slides up, I adjust, it slides back down. I think some people are just built to like food, it's not a matter of education.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
cjbgkagh 1y ago
Rehashing my regular humans are not calorimeters post. Metabolism is driven by hormones, it’s very possible for signaling peptides to prevent weight gain no matter how much a person eats. While a person who eats nothing will clearly lose weight knowing that isn’t helpful as it’ll lead to a substantial loss in quality of life and most probably it is not long term stable. In my case I have ME/CFS at the same time that I have uncontrollable weight gain, I also did extended fasts to keep the weight off as best I could. It wasn’t a willpower thing, having to manage both while making enough money to survive is incredibly difficult and it was impossible to keep all the plates spinning at the same time. Post Exertional Malaise is very real for some people and triggers can cause me to be bed-bound for months on end. Thankfully not so much anymore since I’ve found a good combo of very strong medications.
- andoando 1y ago
  When almost half the country is obese/overweight, these kind of medical conditions are not the cause. For 99% of people it is not a metabolic disorder. What I am talking about is people saying things like "Wow you have fast metabolism", without even understanding what metabolism is. Having twice as fast metabolism would mean my body requires twice the amount of calories for the same cellular activity. That'd be terrible! The truth is I am skinny because i barely eat and if I eat 500 calories above my calculated BMR, I gain 1 pound a week just like the science suggests. I think this is the fact for most people. >While a person who eats nothing will clearly lose weight That's a strawman. What I am saying is take your BMR+caloric expenditure from exercise - 500 calories, not starve yourself.
  - cjbgkagh 1y ago
    When giving a generalization it's important to constantly note that exceptions exist. On the percentage of exceptions I think it's higher than commonly thought for a few reasons, most autoimmune disorders are still undiagnosed and will remain undiagnosed for the duration of the persons life. Consider hEDS for example, a walking bag of symptoms yet still 20 years to get diagnosed from onset of symptoms for those who are eventually diagnosed - again most are never diagnosed. The other reason is that autoimmune conditions can be induced - it's not a genetic switch where you have it or you don't though there is a substantial genetic component especially with regards to susceptibility. People with my genetic background hEDS from multiple TNXB SNPs are extremely susceptible. The US population is also in new circumstances - we're several generations into the generally accepted medical advice that intermittent fasting will impair your metabolism. Prior generations would fast much more frequently than todays, they would just call it skipping meals. While what you are saying is technically correct the framing of it leads to poor conclusions and suboptimal strategy, it will meet the stated aim of weight loss but not meet the implied aim of a maintainable lifestyle. The source of the calories is incredibly important given the effect that has on the hormones, and the cadence of calories is also very important. Instead of counting calories a person would be better of eating one meal a day of heavy caloric foods with the occasional multi-day fast would be far more productive. Augmenting this with a GLP-1A would be even more productive.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Most people also don't seem to know that weight loss is simply Calories in - calories out It is a problem of education. For example, in reading the common research that shows basal metabolism, which you can’t control, will rapidly undo most of your conscious gains from caloric balance manipulation. And that in those with severe metabolic syndrome, the body will reduce BM to starvation levels before giving up a single fat cell.
alabastervlog 1y ago
Are citizens of skinnier countries better-educated, then become less-so if they move to the US and (typically) pack on weight? If it's not education keeping other countries skinny, why would adding more education be the way we get out of it? (This works for other explanations, too, like "oh they have more willpower"—so do they lose willpower if they move to the US? No, more likely, a complex combination of factors mostly outside individual control are why they're skinnier in their home country and fatten up after moving to the US; more likely, it's harder to be skinny here)
- andoando 1y ago
  >Are citizens of skinnier countries better-educated, then become less-so if they move to the US and (typically) pack on weight? "skinnier" countries have way different lifestyles, less driving, more walking, less fast food culture, etc. They don't need to be educated on weight loss because they naturally are not prone to it due to these socioeconomic conditions.
  - alabastervlog 1y ago
    Yes! One thing that would be pretty likely to work is radically changing our city layouts, patterns of settlement, methods of commute, density of living, food quality, food prices & price structuring, worker protection & time-off laws, and a bunch of other stuff. In the meantime (so... indefinitely, because moving the needle on one of those things would be the work of a lifetime) we now have drugs that can do it.
- ahahahahah 1y ago
  > keeping other countries skinny Those countries basically don't exist, or rather they just haven't caught up yet. From 1985 to 2016, there are 117 countries where obesity has increased by more that 10.0% (in absolute terms). In no country was the increase less than 1.9% (which was vietnam, where 1.9% in absolute terms is a 10x increase in the percent of people who are obese).

dekhn 1y ago

Weight loss is not simply calories in - calories out. Fat is not burned and its metabolism does not change your weight. Oxygen/CO2 exchange in the lungs is also a major component of weight change. Further, your body homeostatically manages your metabolism so in the long term you often return to the same weight regardless of your current calorie consumption. And that's just addressing first order weight parameters.

dgfitz 1y ago
It is calories in/out. Other mechanisms factor in, but I’ll bet anyone my bottom dollar they’ll lose weight if they eat 700 kcal/day. Yes, breathing is literally how weight is lost, I’m not sure what your point was there.
jtmarl1n 1y ago
Weight loss is absolutely a result of CICO, please site a source that states otherwise. I have never heard another source citing Oxygen/CO2 exchange as a factor for weight change, again, please site a source. O2 levels are certainly a factor of cardio health which can be correlated to overall health and weight. Yes, macros also matter. But, nothing matters as much as the simple math of calories in/calories out. Its disingenuous, borderline irresponsible, to suggest otherwise.
- SpicyLemonZest 1y ago
  https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257 https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257 is one analysis of oxygen/CO2 exchange being a major component of weight loss. As the authors say, it's really a question of chemistry; the CO2 you metabolize from your fat has to go somewhere. To be clear, I think your instinctive reaction is correct. It would be extremely silly for someone to read this analysis and conclude that they'll lose weight if they learn some special breathing technique to maximize CO2 output. The point is that "calories in - calories out" as a diet strategy is the same kind of error.
  - dekhn 1y ago
    By the way, if you ever want to start a scientific argument, bring up this paper among doctors and scientists. It never fails to start a big argument that is usually concluded with "human metabolism does not violate the conservation of mass/energy" (many doctors and scientists believe that "burning fat" with oxygen causes you to lose weight directly).
- dekhn 1y ago
  "Burning" fat doesn't violate conservation of mass/energy. Instead, weight loss occurs primarily through co2/oxygen exchange that is connected to metabolism. https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257 https://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257 (note I don't totally agree with this paper, and agree that if you eat almost no food, you will lose weight, and that exercise definitely seems to increase the metabolic rate and increased mass exchange in the lungs. Like I said, it's complicated). I'm not being disingenous or irresponsible- I'm describing mainstream science based on biophysical data.
  - andoando 1y ago
    I don't think its accurate to say "weight loss occurs primarily through co2/oxygen exchange". CO2 being breathed out is the just the end product of weight loss.
  - jtmarl1n 1y ago
    Thanks, I appreciate that link. I had a chance to read this today and found it very interesting. Apologies for the tone in my original comment. I misdirected work stress this morning.
meindnoch 1y ago
>your body homeostatically manages your metabolism so in the long term you often return to the same weight regardless of your current calorie consumption Then exercise more. That's how you increase the "calories out" part of the equation. Yeah, it takes willpower.
- dekhn 1y ago
  I don't disagree that increased exercise is associated with weight loss. I don't think I denied that. We're mainly disagreeing about mechanisms. Ultimately, fat metabolism does not violate the conservation of mass/energy.
- wcfields 1y ago
  > willpower I mean, sure, but if it was just willpower for everyone then we'd all speak 10 languages, play piano, be buff as hell, be emotionally stable, and no one would be an alcoholic. But we're squishy apes that are regulated by hormones and live busy messy lives with cars that are probably needing a tire rotation 3000 miles ago and putting it off a few more miles won't really hurt.
- const_cast 1y ago
  Or it doesn’t take any willpower at all. I certainly don’t have to do this, and I’m thin. I eat whatever I want, whenever I want. So why can I do that, but others can’t? It would be comforting to just say that I’m better. It would also be a lie.
  - reissbaker 1y ago
    There are generally a few answers to this. But they all boil down to: * You never used to be fat. Once you become fat, your body's homeostatic set point is permanently altered. Your body never destroys adipocytes — it only shrinks them. If you stay within some range of your current homeostatic set point, your body will either increase the size of your adipocytes, or decrease their size, depending on whether you're over- or under-consuming. But, after a certain amount of overconsumption, your body will actually create new adipocytes... And once you have them, you can never get rid of them, minus expensive and dangerous surgery. The best you can do is shrink them. But, keeping the adipocytes shrunken takes significant willpower. So basically, once you get fat, you're going to have a hard time. Pretty much the only alternative is somehow tricking your brain/gut into not getting hungry when it "should." Ozempic, etc seem to somehow allow you to not feel as hungry even when your adipocytes shrink, or at least alter your perceived set point to be more-shrunken. Bariatric surgery is similar although much more dangerous. (Liposuction actually removes adipocytes, but it's quite dangerous — and it doesn't remove visceral fat cells, which are the worst kind of fat from a health perspective.) Now, there's a separate question of "why do some people get fat initially?" And that can result from poor childhood nutrition, or genes (e.g. Samoans), or exposure to certain chemical compounds (e.g. certain psychiatric medications), or natural aging (recent research indicates middle-aged mice, and probably thus middle-aged humans, have their stem cells trigger more adipocyte production), or just lifestyle. But it's the initial weight gain that ends up trapping people into the higher homeostatic set point, which is very difficult to recover from, even with dieting and exercise, since you will need to keep yourself basically constantly hungry either by eating less or by exercising much more even after you "lost" the weight — because while you lost weight on the scale, you didn't lose adipocytes, and adipocytes do not want to be kept empty.

SketchySeaBeast 1y ago

I lost weight by measuring calories, shedding ~25% of my body weight. It's still a battle and will always be. I keep exercising the whole time - I'm training for my first marathon right now (I've run the distance before, just not in an official race), but my weight slides up, I adjust, it slides back down. I think some people are just built to like food, it's not a matter of education.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

cjbgkagh 1y ago

Rehashing my regular humans are not calorimeters post. Metabolism is driven by hormones, it’s very possible for signaling peptides to prevent weight gain no matter how much a person eats. While a person who eats nothing will clearly lose weight knowing that isn’t helpful as it’ll lead to a substantial loss in quality of life and most probably it is not long term stable. In my case I have ME/CFS at the same time that I have uncontrollable weight gain, I also did extended fasts to keep the weight off as best I could. It wasn’t a willpower thing, having to manage both while making enough money to survive is incredibly difficult and it was impossible to keep all the plates spinning at the same time. Post Exertional Malaise is very real for some people and triggers can cause me to be bed-bound for months on end. Thankfully not so much anymore since I’ve found a good combo of very strong medications.

andoando 1y ago
When almost half the country is obese/overweight, these kind of medical conditions are not the cause. For 99% of people it is not a metabolic disorder. What I am talking about is people saying things like "Wow you have fast metabolism", without even understanding what metabolism is. Having twice as fast metabolism would mean my body requires twice the amount of calories for the same cellular activity. That'd be terrible! The truth is I am skinny because i barely eat and if I eat 500 calories above my calculated BMR, I gain 1 pound a week just like the science suggests. I think this is the fact for most people. >While a person who eats nothing will clearly lose weight That's a strawman. What I am saying is take your BMR+caloric expenditure from exercise - 500 calories, not starve yourself.
- cjbgkagh 1y ago
  When giving a generalization it's important to constantly note that exceptions exist. On the percentage of exceptions I think it's higher than commonly thought for a few reasons, most autoimmune disorders are still undiagnosed and will remain undiagnosed for the duration of the persons life. Consider hEDS for example, a walking bag of symptoms yet still 20 years to get diagnosed from onset of symptoms for those who are eventually diagnosed - again most are never diagnosed. The other reason is that autoimmune conditions can be induced - it's not a genetic switch where you have it or you don't though there is a substantial genetic component especially with regards to susceptibility. People with my genetic background hEDS from multiple TNXB SNPs are extremely susceptible. The US population is also in new circumstances - we're several generations into the generally accepted medical advice that intermittent fasting will impair your metabolism. Prior generations would fast much more frequently than todays, they would just call it skipping meals. While what you are saying is technically correct the framing of it leads to poor conclusions and suboptimal strategy, it will meet the stated aim of weight loss but not meet the implied aim of a maintainable lifestyle. The source of the calories is incredibly important given the effect that has on the hormones, and the cadence of calories is also very important. Instead of counting calories a person would be better of eating one meal a day of heavy caloric foods with the occasional multi-day fast would be far more productive. Augmenting this with a GLP-1A would be even more productive.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

> Most people also don't seem to know that weight loss is simply Calories in - calories out It is a problem of education. For example, in reading the common research that shows basal metabolism, which you can’t control, will rapidly undo most of your conscious gains from caloric balance manipulation. And that in those with severe metabolic syndrome, the body will reduce BM to starvation levels before giving up a single fat cell.

alabastervlog 1y ago

Are citizens of skinnier countries better-educated, then become less-so if they move to the US and (typically) pack on weight? If it's not education keeping other countries skinny, why would adding more education be the way we get out of it? (This works for other explanations, too, like "oh they have more willpower"—so do they lose willpower if they move to the US? No, more likely, a complex combination of factors mostly outside individual control are why they're skinnier in their home country and fatten up after moving to the US; more likely, it's harder to be skinny here)

andoando 1y ago
>Are citizens of skinnier countries better-educated, then become less-so if they move to the US and (typically) pack on weight? "skinnier" countries have way different lifestyles, less driving, more walking, less fast food culture, etc. They don't need to be educated on weight loss because they naturally are not prone to it due to these socioeconomic conditions.
- alabastervlog 1y ago
  Yes! One thing that would be pretty likely to work is radically changing our city layouts, patterns of settlement, methods of commute, density of living, food quality, food prices & price structuring, worker protection & time-off laws, and a bunch of other stuff. In the meantime (so... indefinitely, because moving the needle on one of those things would be the work of a lifetime) we now have drugs that can do it.
ahahahahah 1y ago
> keeping other countries skinny Those countries basically don't exist, or rather they just haven't caught up yet. From 1985 to 2016, there are 117 countries where obesity has increased by more that 10.0% (in absolute terms). In no country was the increase less than 1.9% (which was vietnam, where 1.9% in absolute terms is a 10x increase in the percent of people who are obese).