6 ms·

> I don't subscribe to the calories in < calories out = weight loss philosophy. Yeah, I'm not a fan of the laws of thermodynamics either.

nightski 12y ago
The problem is measuring calories out. Often it is recommended to use an average value for your build and call it good. But this is not a very good model imho, and involves a lot of guesswork.
- icelancer 12y ago
  Measurement is a different problem altogether. Again, my problem is not with speciality diets or finding good habits / regulating eating through macronutrient partitioning. I get it; trust me. But these diets show few benefits beyond "tricking" the person into eating fewer calories, period. There are other variables, but not when it comes to pure weight loss. Thermodynamics cannot be defeated by human biology. Otherwise we could hook up people who are not subject to these laws to treadmills with generators on them, and bam. Free power for the world.
  - nightski 12y ago
    It's not that I was disagreeing with you regarding thermodynamics, just that usually when that point is made the emphasis is on calories in (such as you are making). From what I have seen it seems that many things, including diet can have a strong effect on calories out. That is worth exploring. I just simply disagree with the fact that all diets show few benefits beyond tricking the person into eating fewer calories. How a particular diet makes you feel is an important part of the equation. If I eat a poor diet and work out, that workout is going to be terrible (even if I ate a lot of calories for example).
- lrm242 12y ago
  Estimation of one's TDEE is pretty simple. Once you have a starting point, adjustment is common sense. If you're not losing weight at the rate you expect, lower your TDEE and thus lower your caloric budget. Now, adding cardio into the mix is where things can go off the rails. One reason cardio can be BAD for a diet is precisely because it is hard to measure how many calories you burn while exercising. Estimate too low and you end up in much too deep of a deficit to maintain the diet. Estimate too high and you're not losing as much weight as you want. These problems are easily solved over a long run if you can accurately do approximately the same amount cardio each time you do it, but this is also quite hard. Cardio is great for heart health and overall wellness. It's crap for losing weight effectively, IMO. The absolute easiest way to lose weight is to simply estimate your TDEE requirements using a sedentary activity level, eat at a 3,500 calorie deficit each week, preferably at 500 calories per day or cycled if you are lifting weights, and adjust accordingly.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    Here is another stable algorithm for losing weight, which is fully compatible with cardio. Choose a desired rate of weight loss and a measurement period. Each period, measure your inputs and do the following: IF (weight_loss_rate < desired_rate) input -= 200 cals ELSE input += 50 cals END After following this algorithm, your caloric intake will converge to the region [optimal rate - 150, optimal rate + 50]. This is true even accounting for noise in the measurements - that just smears out the -150 and +50 a bit. The nice thing about bodyweight is that it's a stable monotonic dynamical system. Noise and uncertainty don't hurt you much provided you build robust controls.
kens 12y ago
A puzzle: how many ways can you come up with to gain weight while consuming less calories than you use. How can you lose weight while consuming more calories than you use?
- icelancer 12y ago
  Synthol is one way, but that's cheating. Injecting foreign substances into your body while maintaining weight. Water weight manipulation is the usual way to do this, especially in weight class sports (MMA, Boxing, Wrestling, etc).
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  IIRC, the energy content of muscle is lower than that of fat, so it seems like it could be possible to gain weight with a calorie deficit by an activity/diet pattern that burns fat and builds muscle at the right rates. It'd probably be pretty tricky to hit and maintain the right pattern, though.
  - icelancer 12y ago
    Never thought about it this way. Pretty likely requires a very strict diet and the use of anabolic-androgenic steroids.
    - blister 12y ago
      Yes. It's generally extremely difficult to gain muscle on a calorie-restricted diet and you have to turn to diet/exercise regimes that do things like caloric cycling and carb-refeed days. It's still a challenge, even with strict adherence.
- Someone 12y ago
  Losing weight while consuming more calories than you use is simple: surgically remove something. Arms and legs will do, but removing fat is more popular. A diet that manages to get half your fat cells to die off would be magical (and probably dangerous).
crazygringo 12y ago
A recent study (I can't find it unfortunately) on eating breakfast discovered that people who ate breakfast would fidget throughout the morning, as their body did its best to burn extra calories. Whereas people who didn't eat breakfast wouldn't fidget, since there was no need for their body to burn extra calories. This is entirely subconscious. The fallacy of calories in/out has nothing to do with "thermodynamics" (seriously, will this misunderstanding please die!), and everything to do with the fact that metabolism and behavior are not constants, but can change based on calorie intake. Just like the body's ability to gain or lose fat is not a function just of available calories, but of hormonal regulation that makes fat cells absorb or release calories.
- physPop 12y ago
  There is no > fallacy of calories in/out and it has everything to do with thermodynamics. This is exemplified in your very own example: fidgeting more means a higher expenditure of energy. Chemical energy doesn't magically disappear. While metabolic regulation is certainly a complex subject it is simply wrong to categorically state that thermodynamics is somehow obviated.
  - sjwright 12y ago
    It's wrong in the sense that the human body isn't a closed system.
- icelancer 12y ago
  This is not a "misunderstanding" on my end. I know quite a bit about nutrition science and exercise physiology. There are a large number of people who honestly believe that the laws of thermodynamics can be trumped by human biology, excluding any and all externalities. The OP made a statement that may place him in that category. If you want to talk about satiety, diet patterns, behavior remapping, nutrient partitioning, fat/muscle ratios, glycogen stores, or other advanced topics, feel free. But the idea that thermodynamics do not govern 85% (being very generous here) of the effectiveness of a weight loss program is willful self-delusion.
  - 12y ago
TrainedMonkey 12y ago
I think the point was that you feed a foodstuff to few different people and each one will derive different caloric and macro nutrient value out of it. Let's say there are two different diets, both provide strictly less calories than you use. One of the diets works well with your metabolism and biochemical processes to give you energy and keep you sated. Second diet makes you feel constantly hungry and apathetic. So, yes, you will not lose weight if you consume more calories than you spend, but bare calorie count is not sufficient to quantify the diet.
vacri 12y ago
But that slogan, which is almost always said as briefly as zt posed it, is as useful as saying "to continue living, keep your lungs ventilated and your heart pumping". There's no useful, actionable advice there. "Eat less" is largely useless - someone can eat less than they are and still be eating too much, for example.
hellgas00 12y ago
The way you're using thermodynamics to support your point is wrong, you are asserting that the human body is a closed system, which of course it is not. A human will absorb and excrete carbohydrates,fats and proteins at differing rates depending on a bunch of factors. To simplify the human metabolic process down to a simple (in)-(energy burned)= zero equation is completely false, as again, the body is not a closed system.
- icelancer 12y ago
  Yes, everything you said about absorption rates is true. It also does not fundamentally change the laws of thermodynamics. Net calories, no matter how you want to spin it, matters most.
sergiosgc 12y ago
I subscribe the "calories in < calories out = weight loss" philosophy, but I understand when people do not. It's not easy to measure calories in and calories out. Food calories in labels are the actual chemical calories in the food. As in, if you burn them, how much energy do they release. The problem is obvious. You don't burn food for energy, and it is perfectly natural that different people have different efficiencies in converting food energy. 1mg of fat is 9kcal in the label, but perhaps I use it at 50% efficiency and you use it at 40% efficiency. It makes for wildly different dietary outcomes. Calories out suffer from the same problem. You can estimate how much is my basal energy quota or how much energy I use in running a mile. However, I've never seen the variance of this measurement anywhere. There is a variance, and it is acceptable to assume it may be relevant. If you add to that the glycemic properties of food -- as in the evolution of blood sugar over time upon food intake -- and again, its variance across individuals, and there's a whole lot of unacknowledged error in the simple philosophy. How to tackle modelling error? As ever in engineering. Measure input, output, and do a regression analysis.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

nightski 12y ago

The problem is measuring calories out. Often it is recommended to use an average value for your build and call it good. But this is not a very good model imho, and involves a lot of guesswork.

icelancer 12y ago
Measurement is a different problem altogether. Again, my problem is not with speciality diets or finding good habits / regulating eating through macronutrient partitioning. I get it; trust me. But these diets show few benefits beyond "tricking" the person into eating fewer calories, period. There are other variables, but not when it comes to pure weight loss. Thermodynamics cannot be defeated by human biology. Otherwise we could hook up people who are not subject to these laws to treadmills with generators on them, and bam. Free power for the world.
- nightski 12y ago
  It's not that I was disagreeing with you regarding thermodynamics, just that usually when that point is made the emphasis is on calories in (such as you are making). From what I have seen it seems that many things, including diet can have a strong effect on calories out. That is worth exploring. I just simply disagree with the fact that all diets show few benefits beyond tricking the person into eating fewer calories. How a particular diet makes you feel is an important part of the equation. If I eat a poor diet and work out, that workout is going to be terrible (even if I ate a lot of calories for example).
lrm242 12y ago
Estimation of one's TDEE is pretty simple. Once you have a starting point, adjustment is common sense. If you're not losing weight at the rate you expect, lower your TDEE and thus lower your caloric budget. Now, adding cardio into the mix is where things can go off the rails. One reason cardio can be BAD for a diet is precisely because it is hard to measure how many calories you burn while exercising. Estimate too low and you end up in much too deep of a deficit to maintain the diet. Estimate too high and you're not losing as much weight as you want. These problems are easily solved over a long run if you can accurately do approximately the same amount cardio each time you do it, but this is also quite hard. Cardio is great for heart health and overall wellness. It's crap for losing weight effectively, IMO. The absolute easiest way to lose weight is to simply estimate your TDEE requirements using a sedentary activity level, eat at a 3,500 calorie deficit each week, preferably at 500 calories per day or cycled if you are lifting weights, and adjust accordingly.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Here is another stable algorithm for losing weight, which is fully compatible with cardio. Choose a desired rate of weight loss and a measurement period. Each period, measure your inputs and do the following: IF (weight_loss_rate < desired_rate) input -= 200 cals ELSE input += 50 cals END After following this algorithm, your caloric intake will converge to the region [optimal rate - 150, optimal rate + 50]. This is true even accounting for noise in the measurements - that just smears out the -150 and +50 a bit. The nice thing about bodyweight is that it's a stable monotonic dynamical system. Noise and uncertainty don't hurt you much provided you build robust controls.

kens 12y ago

A puzzle: how many ways can you come up with to gain weight while consuming less calories than you use. How can you lose weight while consuming more calories than you use?

icelancer 12y ago
Synthol is one way, but that's cheating. Injecting foreign substances into your body while maintaining weight. Water weight manipulation is the usual way to do this, especially in weight class sports (MMA, Boxing, Wrestling, etc).
dragonwriter 12y ago
IIRC, the energy content of muscle is lower than that of fat, so it seems like it could be possible to gain weight with a calorie deficit by an activity/diet pattern that burns fat and builds muscle at the right rates. It'd probably be pretty tricky to hit and maintain the right pattern, though.
- icelancer 12y ago
  Never thought about it this way. Pretty likely requires a very strict diet and the use of anabolic-androgenic steroids.
  - blister 12y ago
    Yes. It's generally extremely difficult to gain muscle on a calorie-restricted diet and you have to turn to diet/exercise regimes that do things like caloric cycling and carb-refeed days. It's still a challenge, even with strict adherence.
Someone 12y ago
Losing weight while consuming more calories than you use is simple: surgically remove something. Arms and legs will do, but removing fat is more popular. A diet that manages to get half your fat cells to die off would be magical (and probably dangerous).

crazygringo 12y ago

A recent study (I can't find it unfortunately) on eating breakfast discovered that people who ate breakfast would fidget throughout the morning, as their body did its best to burn extra calories. Whereas people who didn't eat breakfast wouldn't fidget, since there was no need for their body to burn extra calories. This is entirely subconscious. The fallacy of calories in/out has nothing to do with "thermodynamics" (seriously, will this misunderstanding please die!), and everything to do with the fact that metabolism and behavior are not constants, but can change based on calorie intake. Just like the body's ability to gain or lose fat is not a function just of available calories, but of hormonal regulation that makes fat cells absorb or release calories.

physPop 12y ago
There is no > fallacy of calories in/out and it has everything to do with thermodynamics. This is exemplified in your very own example: fidgeting more means a higher expenditure of energy. Chemical energy doesn't magically disappear. While metabolic regulation is certainly a complex subject it is simply wrong to categorically state that thermodynamics is somehow obviated.
- sjwright 12y ago
  It's wrong in the sense that the human body isn't a closed system.
icelancer 12y ago
This is not a "misunderstanding" on my end. I know quite a bit about nutrition science and exercise physiology. There are a large number of people who honestly believe that the laws of thermodynamics can be trumped by human biology, excluding any and all externalities. The OP made a statement that may place him in that category. If you want to talk about satiety, diet patterns, behavior remapping, nutrient partitioning, fat/muscle ratios, glycogen stores, or other advanced topics, feel free. But the idea that thermodynamics do not govern 85% (being very generous here) of the effectiveness of a weight loss program is willful self-delusion.
- 12y ago

TrainedMonkey 12y ago

I think the point was that you feed a foodstuff to few different people and each one will derive different caloric and macro nutrient value out of it. Let's say there are two different diets, both provide strictly less calories than you use. One of the diets works well with your metabolism and biochemical processes to give you energy and keep you sated. Second diet makes you feel constantly hungry and apathetic. So, yes, you will not lose weight if you consume more calories than you spend, but bare calorie count is not sufficient to quantify the diet.

vacri 12y ago

But that slogan, which is almost always said as briefly as zt posed it, is as useful as saying "to continue living, keep your lungs ventilated and your heart pumping". There's no useful, actionable advice there. "Eat less" is largely useless - someone can eat less than they are and still be eating too much, for example.

hellgas00 12y ago

The way you're using thermodynamics to support your point is wrong, you are asserting that the human body is a closed system, which of course it is not. A human will absorb and excrete carbohydrates,fats and proteins at differing rates depending on a bunch of factors. To simplify the human metabolic process down to a simple (in)-(energy burned)= zero equation is completely false, as again, the body is not a closed system.

icelancer 12y ago
Yes, everything you said about absorption rates is true. It also does not fundamentally change the laws of thermodynamics. Net calories, no matter how you want to spin it, matters most.

sergiosgc 12y ago

I subscribe the "calories in < calories out = weight loss" philosophy, but I understand when people do not. It's not easy to measure calories in and calories out. Food calories in labels are the actual chemical calories in the food. As in, if you burn them, how much energy do they release. The problem is obvious. You don't burn food for energy, and it is perfectly natural that different people have different efficiencies in converting food energy. 1mg of fat is 9kcal in the label, but perhaps I use it at 50% efficiency and you use it at 40% efficiency. It makes for wildly different dietary outcomes. Calories out suffer from the same problem. You can estimate how much is my basal energy quota or how much energy I use in running a mile. However, I've never seen the variance of this measurement anywhere. There is a variance, and it is acceptable to assume it may be relevant. If you add to that the glycemic properties of food -- as in the evolution of blood sugar over time upon food intake -- and again, its variance across individuals, and there's a whole lot of unacknowledged error in the simple philosophy. How to tackle modelling error? As ever in engineering. Measure input, output, and do a regression analysis.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]