4 ms·

This is confusing...if you only eat X calories per day and exercise, you will lose weight, and permanently (assuming you don't give up), is this more of a menta

by nemasu 12y ago

This is confusing...if you only eat X calories per day and exercise, you will lose weight, and permanently (assuming you don't give up), is this more of a mental thing they're talking about?

aidenn0 12y ago
And if you stop smoking crack, you're cured of addiction! It is saying that we don't have any reliable way for an obese individual to restrict their diet to X calories per day other than bariatric surgery.
- nemasu 12y ago
  Okay, so, in the same vein then: "Crack research confirms long-term crack smoking prevention almost impossible". Sounds kinda off, no? It's a mental thing, and by mental, I don't mean "It's all in your head", I mean "It's (literally) all in your head".
  - CJefferson 12y ago
    Lots of research has demonstrated that most crack addicts (and alcohol addicts, and nicotine addicts) who try to quit relapse. I thought that was an accepted part of science. Why do you think it sounds kinda off?
    - nemasu 12y ago
      It's off because something that is impossible denotes some sort of 'law of nature' that cannot be avoided, where as in reality it's more brain/willpower related.
      - aidenn0 12y ago
        yes "impossible" denotes some sort of 'law of nature' that cannot be avoided, and "almost impossible" doesn't.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  No, the study is saying that there is no reliable way (within the norms of modern western society) a third party can convince an obese individual to put down the fork. It says nothing about whether an obese individual will lose weight if they do choose to eat less. Clearly they can - gravity is not causing food to fly into their mouth whether they want it or not.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
weavie 12y ago
It isn't clear. It says : 'Traci Mann says the emphasis should be on measuring health, not weight. "You should still eat right, you should still exercise, doing healthy stuff is still healthy," she said. "It just doesn't make you thin."' So even if you do eat well and exercise, you still won't lose weight because we have evolved to put weight on, not to lose it. What I take from this is that there is more of a biological component to this. If you take two people one who used to be obese and one who has never been obese, feed them exactly the same food, put them on exactly the same exercise - the ex-obese person will put more weight on than the always skinny person. The article gives no indication that there is evidence for this.
lugg 12y ago
Not really sure I was expecting something about fat cells never dieing/shrinking half way through it sounded like a metabolism adjusting thing but then it left with no actual conclusion just that "there is these numbers, see, and they're bad"
001sky 12y ago
The issue is that humans have extra-ordinary endurance. That just doesn't jibe with modern society. The sub-set of people well-bred to only work out 1-2 hours a day, or to have equilibrium metabolism in a cubicle farms is arbirtary to what would have been bred for genetically. Even the past 10,000 years to about 100 years ago, humans were out and about working physical jobs. And likely going caloric restrictin due to lack of wealth, weather, and other variations of practicality (spoilage, lack of portability, etc). The ability to gorge and store calories is evolutionarily quite useful. But in a sedentary society, lack of balance is not a function of the food, the mined, or even the body. Its rather the lifestyle...cars, cubicles, and costco.
malka 12y ago
Food abuse may not be the only culprit in the obesity epidemy. antibiotics might have some responsability as well [0] by destroying parts of the gut flora [0]: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/the-fat-dru.. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/the-fat-dru.... reply
Htsthbjig 12y ago
"This is confusing...if you only eat X calories per day and exercise, you will lose weight, and permanently" Not really. "Calories" is just a physical quantity. It measures the energy that the combustion of something produces after putting it on a calorimeter. This needs a lot of energy. So for example, you put sugar on a calorimeter, you give it (lots of) energy(making temp go up hundreds of Celsius degrees or pressure of several atmospheres) that you measure with precision to initialize the combustion and then you measure the energy the reaction produces. So, according to the formula: "calories" of sugar = energy out - energy in [of burning]. Note that in a calorimeter you don't care about the residue. This is completely different to what metabolism does, in fact the living organism do not raise metabolites hundred of Celsius degrees, they use enzimes, and the byproducts and waste are completely different because living organisms have to get rid of them, so the byproducts have to be something the blood could carry. So calories are just the UPPER LIMIT of what a metabolic reaction could give the body if the byproduct were to be the same, that are not. Living organism break molecules link one by one in a series of chained reactions, which is itself called "methabolic reaction". Every methabolic reaction is DIFFERENT. The human beings do not process pentose sugar the same as glucose sugar or methanol or an oil. Some process require double or triple the steps of others, some are poisonous to your body(very acidic, or neuro transmitters, like alcohol or whatever) so the body tries to get rid of them as fast as he can. Industrial processes completely disrupted the food we eat. Omega 6 oil replaced natural Omega 3 intake(as the animals we eat eat fodder), palm and hidrogenated oils anywhere and corn syrup sugar with no fiber(difficult to preserve in the fridge).
DanBC 12y ago
You say exercise. Exercise has small affect on weight loss for some people. It is recommended because of other positive benefits. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003817.pub3/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003817...
flipchart 12y ago
This is not always true. Certain diseases, e.g. PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome) and (general) insulin resistance mean that eating X calories (assuming X is lower than the calories expended on exercise, and basal metabolic rate) will just make you extremely tired and unproductive. In these diseases, the body is unable to utilize the energy that you are consuming and unable to burn the energy you have stored already. I'm not suggesting that all causes of obesity are related to a disease, but things are definitely not so cut and dry as expend more energy than you consume and you will lose weight. The body is an exceedingly complex system of chemical reactions which are fairly tightly regulated (see topics around MCA - Metabolic Control Analysis, to understand how systems of reactions don't behave intuitively). Changing one input variable does not always yield the result you are looking for when you simplify the entire human metabalome down to an equation of calories in, fat storage and calories out

by nemasu 12y ago

This is confusing...if you only eat X calories per day and exercise, you will lose weight, and permanently (assuming you don't give up), is this more of a mental thing they're talking about?

aidenn0 12y ago

And if you stop smoking crack, you're cured of addiction! It is saying that we don't have any reliable way for an obese individual to restrict their diet to X calories per day other than bariatric surgery.

nemasu 12y ago
Okay, so, in the same vein then: "Crack research confirms long-term crack smoking prevention almost impossible". Sounds kinda off, no? It's a mental thing, and by mental, I don't mean "It's all in your head", I mean "It's (literally) all in your head".
- CJefferson 12y ago
  Lots of research has demonstrated that most crack addicts (and alcohol addicts, and nicotine addicts) who try to quit relapse. I thought that was an accepted part of science. Why do you think it sounds kinda off?
  - nemasu 12y ago
    It's off because something that is impossible denotes some sort of 'law of nature' that cannot be avoided, where as in reality it's more brain/willpower related.
    - aidenn0 12y ago
      yes "impossible" denotes some sort of 'law of nature' that cannot be avoided, and "almost impossible" doesn't.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
yummyfajitas 12y ago
No, the study is saying that there is no reliable way (within the norms of modern western society) a third party can convince an obese individual to put down the fork. It says nothing about whether an obese individual will lose weight if they do choose to eat less. Clearly they can - gravity is not causing food to fly into their mouth whether they want it or not.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

weavie 12y ago

It isn't clear. It says : 'Traci Mann says the emphasis should be on measuring health, not weight. "You should still eat right, you should still exercise, doing healthy stuff is still healthy," she said. "It just doesn't make you thin."' So even if you do eat well and exercise, you still won't lose weight because we have evolved to put weight on, not to lose it. What I take from this is that there is more of a biological component to this. If you take two people one who used to be obese and one who has never been obese, feed them exactly the same food, put them on exactly the same exercise - the ex-obese person will put more weight on than the always skinny person. The article gives no indication that there is evidence for this.

lugg 12y ago

Not really sure I was expecting something about fat cells never dieing/shrinking half way through it sounded like a metabolism adjusting thing but then it left with no actual conclusion just that "there is these numbers, see, and they're bad"

001sky 12y ago

The issue is that humans have extra-ordinary endurance. That just doesn't jibe with modern society. The sub-set of people well-bred to only work out 1-2 hours a day, or to have equilibrium metabolism in a cubicle farms is arbirtary to what would have been bred for genetically. Even the past 10,000 years to about 100 years ago, humans were out and about working physical jobs. And likely going caloric restrictin due to lack of wealth, weather, and other variations of practicality (spoilage, lack of portability, etc). The ability to gorge and store calories is evolutionarily quite useful. But in a sedentary society, lack of balance is not a function of the food, the mined, or even the body. Its rather the lifestyle...cars, cubicles, and costco.

malka 12y ago

Food abuse may not be the only culprit in the obesity epidemy. antibiotics might have some responsability as well [0] by destroying parts of the gut flora [0]: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/the-fat-dru.. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/opinion/sunday/the-fat-dru.... reply

Htsthbjig 12y ago

"This is confusing...if you only eat X calories per day and exercise, you will lose weight, and permanently" Not really. "Calories" is just a physical quantity. It measures the energy that the combustion of something produces after putting it on a calorimeter. This needs a lot of energy. So for example, you put sugar on a calorimeter, you give it (lots of) energy(making temp go up hundreds of Celsius degrees or pressure of several atmospheres) that you measure with precision to initialize the combustion and then you measure the energy the reaction produces. So, according to the formula: "calories" of sugar = energy out - energy in [of burning]. Note that in a calorimeter you don't care about the residue. This is completely different to what metabolism does, in fact the living organism do not raise metabolites hundred of Celsius degrees, they use enzimes, and the byproducts and waste are completely different because living organisms have to get rid of them, so the byproducts have to be something the blood could carry. So calories are just the UPPER LIMIT of what a metabolic reaction could give the body if the byproduct were to be the same, that are not. Living organism break molecules link one by one in a series of chained reactions, which is itself called "methabolic reaction". Every methabolic reaction is DIFFERENT. The human beings do not process pentose sugar the same as glucose sugar or methanol or an oil. Some process require double or triple the steps of others, some are poisonous to your body(very acidic, or neuro transmitters, like alcohol or whatever) so the body tries to get rid of them as fast as he can. Industrial processes completely disrupted the food we eat. Omega 6 oil replaced natural Omega 3 intake(as the animals we eat eat fodder), palm and hidrogenated oils anywhere and corn syrup sugar with no fiber(difficult to preserve in the fridge).

DanBC 12y ago

You say exercise. Exercise has small affect on weight loss for some people. It is recommended because of other positive benefits. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003817.pub3/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD003817...

flipchart 12y ago

This is not always true. Certain diseases, e.g. PCOS (Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome) and (general) insulin resistance mean that eating X calories (assuming X is lower than the calories expended on exercise, and basal metabolic rate) will just make you extremely tired and unproductive. In these diseases, the body is unable to utilize the energy that you are consuming and unable to burn the energy you have stored already. I'm not suggesting that all causes of obesity are related to a disease, but things are definitely not so cut and dry as expend more energy than you consume and you will lose weight. The body is an exceedingly complex system of chemical reactions which are fairly tightly regulated (see topics around MCA - Metabolic Control Analysis, to understand how systems of reactions don't behave intuitively). Changing one input variable does not always yield the result you are looking for when you simplify the entire human metabalome down to an equation of calories in, fat storage and calories out