5 ms·

If energy out > energy in, and the amount of water inside you is constant, I fail to see how you can put on weight.

silvestrov 17y ago
What you don't see is that the amount of "energy in" is not regulated by typing a number into a computer, but how hungry you feel. And clean food makes you a lot less hungry for the same amount of "energy in", which makes you less likely to overeat the prescribed amount of "energy in".
- swombat 17y ago
  You're falsifying the argument. We're not talking about "what you can eat that will make you feel less hungry and so will help you stick to your diet", we're talking about the simple equation of energy out - energy in. In my experience, you can eat crap, drink beer, etc, and still lose a large amount of weight. You just have to know how much crap you're eating and keep the quantity down.
  - silvestrov 17y ago
    No. You are not understanding the difference between humans and computers. The equation simply makes no sense for humans, it is an ideological statement that only makes sense for machines (and humans living like they're a computer). What matters for most human beings are how hungry they feel, because that is what controls how much energy that they take in. Oh, and you forget that the "miles per gallon" for a human body is not constant. When the body gets less energy, it can improve the milage.
    - RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
      > What matters for most human beings are how hungry > they feel, because that is what controls how much > energy that they take in. No, what matters most is how much energy they take in, and how much they burn. You're simply claiming that if people are hungry they will eat more. That's just saying they'll take in more. You're also saying that the body will "get better mileage". That's just burning less. The long and the short is that if you absorb less energy than you burn, you'll lose weight. There are a shed-load of "strategies" to try to stop you from feeling hungry while you do this, but the truth is that if you want to lose weight you have to starve yourself. If you accept that, then you can make whatever trade-offs you like. Of course the body is a complex thing, but the physics is easy, and understanding the physics makes the mental side easier too.
      - tjogin 17y ago
        > Of course the body is a complex thing, but the physics is easy, and understanding the physics makes the mental side easier too. I think this is actually quite profound. So many people don't understand the (relatively simple) physics of it, they try out things left and right — for a week — because they read it in a magazine.
    - jlees 17y ago
      There's also the case of short term versus long term energy spikes causing hunger and plenty of other psychological factors. On paper, yes, if you eat 100 calories of sugar a day versus ten apples, you'll lose more weight. But humans are not a transparent in vs out system. Plus there's also the fact that if you eat too little, your body reacts differently, making it nothing like the straight-line effect (eat 100 cal less, lose X; eat 1000 cal less, lose 10X) that a simplistic view would expect.

What you don't see is that the amount of "energy in" is not regulated by typing a number into a computer, but how hungry you feel. And clean food makes you a lot less hungry for the same amount of "energy in", which makes you less likely to overeat the prescribed amount of "energy in".

swombat 17y ago
You're falsifying the argument. We're not talking about "what you can eat that will make you feel less hungry and so will help you stick to your diet", we're talking about the simple equation of energy out - energy in. In my experience, you can eat crap, drink beer, etc, and still lose a large amount of weight. You just have to know how much crap you're eating and keep the quantity down.
- silvestrov 17y ago
  No. You are not understanding the difference between humans and computers. The equation simply makes no sense for humans, it is an ideological statement that only makes sense for machines (and humans living like they're a computer). What matters for most human beings are how hungry they feel, because that is what controls how much energy that they take in. Oh, and you forget that the "miles per gallon" for a human body is not constant. When the body gets less energy, it can improve the milage.
  - RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
    > What matters for most human beings are how hungry > they feel, because that is what controls how much > energy that they take in. No, what matters most is how much energy they take in, and how much they burn. You're simply claiming that if people are hungry they will eat more. That's just saying they'll take in more. You're also saying that the body will "get better mileage". That's just burning less. The long and the short is that if you absorb less energy than you burn, you'll lose weight. There are a shed-load of "strategies" to try to stop you from feeling hungry while you do this, but the truth is that if you want to lose weight you have to starve yourself. If you accept that, then you can make whatever trade-offs you like. Of course the body is a complex thing, but the physics is easy, and understanding the physics makes the mental side easier too.
    - tjogin 17y ago
      > Of course the body is a complex thing, but the physics is easy, and understanding the physics makes the mental side easier too. I think this is actually quite profound. So many people don't understand the (relatively simple) physics of it, they try out things left and right — for a week — because they read it in a magazine.
  - jlees 17y ago
    There's also the case of short term versus long term energy spikes causing hunger and plenty of other psychological factors. On paper, yes, if you eat 100 calories of sugar a day versus ten apples, you'll lose more weight. But humans are not a transparent in vs out system. Plus there's also the fact that if you eat too little, your body reacts differently, making it nothing like the straight-line effect (eat 100 cal less, lose X; eat 1000 cal less, lose 10X) that a simplistic view would expect.