3 ms·

No offence but your post is overly simplistic and not in anyway convincing that your actual thesis is a complete picture of what is going on. It is undeniably

by eof 14y ago

No offence but your post is overly simplistic and not in anyway convincing that your actual thesis is a complete picture of what is going on. It is undeniably true that calories in vs calories out is a driving factor, it is not however the only factor. Your article shows how you think about diet/weight, and is not really reflective of any strong scientific understanding, and, in my opinion, needlessly disregards "… insulin! Starvation mode! Carbs! Zones! That study I saw written up in the New York Times!", when there is actually something here, or atleast potentially here that is also a driving force in weight. edited for politeness/accuracy

jacques_chester 14y ago
Care to elaborate? I can only suspect that, as usual, this will turn out to be a dispute over the boundaries of the system we're discussing (single-human-body-mass-system vs economy-society-and-single-human-body-system). If you genuinely believe that net calorie balance isn't the sole determinant of long term average mass, then I'd like to know what else it could be. Saying "oh it must be more complex than that!" isn't such an explanation.
- eof 14y ago
  For example, it is possible I am eating 2000 calories a day, burning 1900 and shitting out 100. EDIT--because I am too lazy to wait to post to daughter comment-- It is possible, for example, that if I eat a FOO, which has 100 calories, it will change effeciencies of systems in my body in tangental ways so as to cause it to burn 5% more calories than it would have if I didn't eat a FOO. I could also eat a candyBAR which has 100 calories, that causes it to burn 5% less calories than if I didn't eat a candyBAR. Thus, conclusively proving that "calories in" and ignoring the actual foods eaten is absurd.
  - TeMPOraL 14y ago
    You should then not gain weight. Those 100kcal also count as calories out for the simplified model[0] used for feedback weight control. [0] - http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/rubberbag.html http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/rubberbag.html
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    Hence net calorie balance. All the words are meaningful in that description. For the same reason, I say "long term average mass". Weight is sufficiently noisy that I can be pinned to the mat on a silly debate-club technicality while the larger issue remains unaddressed. When I say "net calorie balance" I'm not talking about subtracting the calories on the elliptical machine from the calories on the chocolate bar. That's an approximation, at best, because of the stunning complexities of the underlying system. Actual net calorie balance is unobservable. What you can observe is the outcome of net calorie balance, which is long term average body mass: aka whether you're getting fat or not. You don't need to actually observe all the complexity of the underlying system. You need only observe the inputs and outputs. Are you getting fatter? Eat less, or change what you eat. Want to get bigger? Eat more, or change what you eat. There's no need to build a blinkenlights dashboard of every variable of every bodily system. You just look at the scale or the mirror and change your behaviour. [edited for larger reply to your edit]
    - learc83 14y ago
      >You just look at the scale or the mirror and change your behaviour. The question is what do you change. If I wake up one morning and decide I'm going to make a change and reduce my caloric intake. Instead of having my normal 1000 Cal eggs and and bacon, I decide to have a 500 Cal glass of sugar water. By lunchtime I'm starving and I feel week so without thinking about it I consume an extra 600 Cal over what I normally would for lunch. Furthermore, keto fans aren't arguing that ketosis violates the laws of physics. Of course in the end it's energy in vs energy out. But the core belief is that the body doesn't process all food equally. They are arguing in essence that the calorie is an imperfect measure of energy available for extraction by the body. Eating what is labeled as 1000 Cal of food A may cause more weight gain that eating 1000 Cal of food B. They aren't saying that the body magically shunts energy into the ether as long as you don't eat carbs. Consider a completely imaginary hypothetical. What if 1000 Cal of food A was processed 100% efficiently so that no waste left your body. And 1000 Cal of food B was processed such that 50% of it left your body as waste. Additionally consider that different combinations may affect the percentages. So that for whatever reason eating food A with food B, may decrease the efficiency with which food A is processed. I'm not saying that the above scenario is in any way true, but if someone proposes that this is the case you can't say he is denying the laws of physics.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- fingerprinter 14y ago
  Net calories alone don't tell the whole story. A big factor in weight loss and gain are hormones and calories don't say a thing about those. For instance, to gain weight (muscle), bodybuilders will consume large amounts of carbohydrates (for a variety of reasons), but the most important is spiking insulin in the presence of protein to shuttle the protein to the muscles to begin building them after breaking them down. Similarly, obese people should be cutting all carbs out b/c of the same insulin spike. But there are other foods which are highly insuligenic. Whey protein, for instance, can spike insulin. MCT oil at high doses can. Heck, egg whites with no fat (no yolk) to balance it can spike insulin. The point is that calories are, at best, an incomplete picture. At worst they are misleading and a distraction. I'm of the believe that net calories still matter, but only to the point that you actually know what you are doing and are eating the right macronutrients in the right ratios.
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    > Net calories alone don't tell the whole story. It's all you need to know to lose or gain weight. > A big factor in weight loss and gain are hormones and calories don't say a thing about those. It depends how we're drawing the boundary of the system being modelled. But if the boundary is a single human body, then net calorie balance is a forcing function. No hormonal configuration can alter the laws of physics. If you maintain a net deficit, you will shrink and, if you don't stop, you will eventually die from starvation. It needn't be linear. Heck, I've lost so much fat in the past year that my base metabolism has actually dropped by a meaningful amount. But so long as I adjust my inputs, I can affect the outputs. I am my own controller.

by eof 14y ago

jacques_chester 14y ago

Care to elaborate? I can only suspect that, as usual, this will turn out to be a dispute over the boundaries of the system we're discussing (single-human-body-mass-system vs economy-society-and-single-human-body-system). If you genuinely believe that net calorie balance isn't the sole determinant of long term average mass, then I'd like to know what else it could be. Saying "oh it must be more complex than that!" isn't such an explanation.

eof 14y ago
For example, it is possible I am eating 2000 calories a day, burning 1900 and shitting out 100. EDIT--because I am too lazy to wait to post to daughter comment-- It is possible, for example, that if I eat a FOO, which has 100 calories, it will change effeciencies of systems in my body in tangental ways so as to cause it to burn 5% more calories than it would have if I didn't eat a FOO. I could also eat a candyBAR which has 100 calories, that causes it to burn 5% less calories than if I didn't eat a candyBAR. Thus, conclusively proving that "calories in" and ignoring the actual foods eaten is absurd.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago
  You should then not gain weight. Those 100kcal also count as calories out for the simplified model[0] used for feedback weight control. [0] - http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/rubberbag.html http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/rubberbag.html
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  Hence net calorie balance. All the words are meaningful in that description. For the same reason, I say "long term average mass". Weight is sufficiently noisy that I can be pinned to the mat on a silly debate-club technicality while the larger issue remains unaddressed. When I say "net calorie balance" I'm not talking about subtracting the calories on the elliptical machine from the calories on the chocolate bar. That's an approximation, at best, because of the stunning complexities of the underlying system. Actual net calorie balance is unobservable. What you can observe is the outcome of net calorie balance, which is long term average body mass: aka whether you're getting fat or not. You don't need to actually observe all the complexity of the underlying system. You need only observe the inputs and outputs. Are you getting fatter? Eat less, or change what you eat. Want to get bigger? Eat more, or change what you eat. There's no need to build a blinkenlights dashboard of every variable of every bodily system. You just look at the scale or the mirror and change your behaviour. [edited for larger reply to your edit]
  - learc83 14y ago
    >You just look at the scale or the mirror and change your behaviour. The question is what do you change. If I wake up one morning and decide I'm going to make a change and reduce my caloric intake. Instead of having my normal 1000 Cal eggs and and bacon, I decide to have a 500 Cal glass of sugar water. By lunchtime I'm starving and I feel week so without thinking about it I consume an extra 600 Cal over what I normally would for lunch. Furthermore, keto fans aren't arguing that ketosis violates the laws of physics. Of course in the end it's energy in vs energy out. But the core belief is that the body doesn't process all food equally. They are arguing in essence that the calorie is an imperfect measure of energy available for extraction by the body. Eating what is labeled as 1000 Cal of food A may cause more weight gain that eating 1000 Cal of food B. They aren't saying that the body magically shunts energy into the ether as long as you don't eat carbs. Consider a completely imaginary hypothetical. What if 1000 Cal of food A was processed 100% efficiently so that no waste left your body. And 1000 Cal of food B was processed such that 50% of it left your body as waste. Additionally consider that different combinations may affect the percentages. So that for whatever reason eating food A with food B, may decrease the efficiency with which food A is processed. I'm not saying that the above scenario is in any way true, but if someone proposes that this is the case you can't say he is denying the laws of physics.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
fingerprinter 14y ago
Net calories alone don't tell the whole story. A big factor in weight loss and gain are hormones and calories don't say a thing about those. For instance, to gain weight (muscle), bodybuilders will consume large amounts of carbohydrates (for a variety of reasons), but the most important is spiking insulin in the presence of protein to shuttle the protein to the muscles to begin building them after breaking them down. Similarly, obese people should be cutting all carbs out b/c of the same insulin spike. But there are other foods which are highly insuligenic. Whey protein, for instance, can spike insulin. MCT oil at high doses can. Heck, egg whites with no fat (no yolk) to balance it can spike insulin. The point is that calories are, at best, an incomplete picture. At worst they are misleading and a distraction. I'm of the believe that net calories still matter, but only to the point that you actually know what you are doing and are eating the right macronutrients in the right ratios.
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  > Net calories alone don't tell the whole story. It's all you need to know to lose or gain weight. > A big factor in weight loss and gain are hormones and calories don't say a thing about those. It depends how we're drawing the boundary of the system being modelled. But if the boundary is a single human body, then net calorie balance is a forcing function. No hormonal configuration can alter the laws of physics. If you maintain a net deficit, you will shrink and, if you don't stop, you will eventually die from starvation. It needn't be linear. Heck, I've lost so much fat in the past year that my base metabolism has actually dropped by a meaningful amount. But so long as I adjust my inputs, I can affect the outputs. I am my own controller.