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You're conflating calories-in/calories-out according to food labels and tabulated exercise studies with actual calories-in/calories-out, which is the simple phy

You're conflating calories-in/calories-out according to food labels and tabulated exercise studies with actual calories-in/calories-out, which is the simple physics which all the complex biological mechanisms eventually boil down to. The food labels are averages, adjusted based on other averages. The exercise tables are averages, based on small studies. Any figure you come up with is an estimate, and unsurprisingly, they won't always work for outliers. But for any given individual, on any given day, there is a net caloric balance. It will be different someone else's, given the same conditions. But there is still a net caloric balance. "Individuals have varying responses to the environment" is not the same as "aha! physics is wrong".

nitrogen 12y ago
Caloric equilibrium in the physical sense is a tautology that provides no enlightenment to the long-term obesity solution.
- jacques_chester 12y ago
  And I suppose, since you've read Taubes, you believe it's all due to carbs.
  - nitrogen 12y ago
    No, I haven't read Taubes, I just have (and have had) friends across the entire spectrum of weight, height, fitness, etc. Some people can eat anything they want (including massive amounts of soda) and maintain a visible six pack with minimal exercise. Others in the same age range may have similar or better diets and struggle just to stay below 250lbs. That alone suggests there's more to obesity than caloric willpower.
    - jacques_chester 12y ago
      Typically, when controlled studies are done on this, "naturally skinny" people systematically over-estimate their dietary calories and "naturally fat" people systematically under-estimate. Under controlled conditions there is variation, but it is actually pretty modest. And it can be swamped by a habit of buying one Starbucks sugarcreamacino per day.
      - nitrogen 12y ago
        So the question isn't how do we get people to eat less food and exercise more, it's how do we get them to want less food and want to exercise? How can we turn the overestimators into underestimators?
        jacques_chester 12y ago
        This is where I think the change in environment is important. Food is cheaper, more easily available and calorically denser. Physical activity is down. Sleep quality and quantity have diminished. Psychologists have done a lot of work on motivations, but mostly focusing on pathological cases which -- by their nature -- are the most difficult and irregular.

nitrogen 12y ago

Caloric equilibrium in the physical sense is a tautology that provides no enlightenment to the long-term obesity solution.

jacques_chester 12y ago
And I suppose, since you've read Taubes, you believe it's all due to carbs.
- nitrogen 12y ago
  No, I haven't read Taubes, I just have (and have had) friends across the entire spectrum of weight, height, fitness, etc. Some people can eat anything they want (including massive amounts of soda) and maintain a visible six pack with minimal exercise. Others in the same age range may have similar or better diets and struggle just to stay below 250lbs. That alone suggests there's more to obesity than caloric willpower.
  - jacques_chester 12y ago
    Typically, when controlled studies are done on this, "naturally skinny" people systematically over-estimate their dietary calories and "naturally fat" people systematically under-estimate. Under controlled conditions there is variation, but it is actually pretty modest. And it can be swamped by a habit of buying one Starbucks sugarcreamacino per day.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      So the question isn't how do we get people to eat less food and exercise more, it's how do we get them to want less food and want to exercise? How can we turn the overestimators into underestimators?
      - jacques_chester 12y ago
        This is where I think the change in environment is important. Food is cheaper, more easily available and calorically denser. Physical activity is down. Sleep quality and quantity have diminished. Psychologists have done a lot of work on motivations, but mostly focusing on pathological cases which -- by their nature -- are the most difficult and irregular.