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Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by thebigspacefuck on Sunday June 16, 2019 @11:08AM (#20195828)
There's no secret to weight loss. You need a calorie deficit. It is much easier to get excited about eating only potatoes or going carnivore or eating one hour a day, but you can also just track your calories and figure out which foods add to your budget without filling you up. Maybe you didn't realize peanut butter had so many calories or exactly how much cereal you were eating. It's definitely easier to go to extremes, but sometimes they can be hard on you, so it might be worth trying the plain boring thing first, being consistent about it, and seeing how it works for you. I tried so many different diets that didn't work before getting a calorie tracking app, following it, and watching my weight drop exactly as predicted. If you're at a point where you need to lose a pound a day and have enough fat that your body can probably live off it for a while, maybe something like this is for you, but I'd expect most people are better counting calories for a month or two.
Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by lath on Sunday June 16, 2019 @11:34AM (#20195960)
This isn’t true. Not all calories are the same. Some spike insulin, the hormone that is responsible for storing fat, much more than others. Also if I eat 1800 carb heavy calories every day, I’m extremely hungry all the time. If I eat 1800 fat heavy calories every day, I feel satiated. It’s thanks to ketosis and being fat adapted.

Side note, I lost 80 pounds on a low fat diet, gained it back, then lost 80 pounds on a low carb diet so I know from personal experience.

Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by Latty on Sunday June 16, 2019 @12:53PM (#20196457)
I’m not sure how what you say makes the parent’s post untrue.

I don't know the details of insulin and fat storage, but at the end of the day if you are at a calorie deficit, you will lose weight—that’s physics. Your body can’t magic fat out of nowhere.

Your point appears to be that some things are easier to cut out of your diet than others… which was very much part of what the parent said—they point out that calorie tracking is the best way to work out what foods are the ones that work best for you.

The point is not that all calories are equal from the perspective of sating hunger, but that they are equal in terms of energy input. Knowing that raw number for everything is the best way to understand what is providing you good “bang for your buck”.

None of this contradicts what you say, to be clear—it supports it, which is why I find it odd your post starts with “this isn’t true”.

Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by lath on Thursday June 20, 2019 @10:23AM (#20233192)
What I’m saying is untrue is the notion that weight loss is as simple as a calorie deficit and tracking calories. It’s not that simple because some calories make staying in a deficit much harder.

The point is that saying that fat loss is as simple as calories in, calories out is unhelpful and not really true.

Also the whole point of losing weight is to be healthy. If you lost weight eating twinkies you might be skinnier but you are going to have a whole host of other health problems like high blood pressure, cancer, and heart disease.

Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by Latty on Sunday June 23, 2019 @07:35PM (#20259439)
Rather than conflating it all in a way that leads to misunderstanding, why not say "sure, calories in - calories out defines weight loss, but you need more than that to be healthy".

The point stands that tracking calories gives you a defined goal. It's not the only goal for health, but that doesn't make it useless. The parent post you objected to was not claiming that what you ate didn't matter at all.

You are 100% right that healthy, sustainable weight loss isn't all calories, but weight loss itself absolutely is - and breaking the problem down into parts so people understand how to achieve that weight loss rather than having this arbitrary "healthy eating" idea that is much harder to track is a good thing. No one is advocating for it in isolation.

Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by thebigspacefuck on Sunday June 16, 2019 @01:19PM (#20196650)
Penn's diet started out eating only potatoes for two weeks. There was a nutrition professor that ate only Twinkies and lost 27 lbs. There might be a difference in how you feel, but you can lose weight eating anything.
Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by jdm2212 on Sunday June 16, 2019 @01:30PM (#20196729)
You can lose weight eating any given thing (if energy in is less than energy out, something's gotta give), but it's not psychologically sustainable to keep weight off by eating just Twinkies.

For most people, the eventual goal of losing weight is to keep it off, so the trivial truth that starving yourself inevitably leads to weight loss is unhelpful.

Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by thebigspacefuck on Sunday June 16, 2019 @01:45PM (#20196810)
Find out what works for you. Calorie counting is a great tool for figuring that out. Jumping on a trend diet and having it fail is a waste of your time, other than learning it didn't work.
Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Sunday June 16, 2019 @10:24PM (#20199301)
I know from losing about twice that and keeping it off for a about 5 years now that calorie counting does, in fact, work.
Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by tonyedgecombe on Sunday June 16, 2019 @01:02PM (#20196509)
People have been told they just need to eat less for the last forty years yet obesity is at record levels. There is clearly more going on.
Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by thebigspacefuck on Sunday June 16, 2019 @01:41PM (#20196785)
Cheap, calorically dense food is widely available and people are less physically active than they used to be. Still, people have lost weight counting calories at McDonald's. It's no fun to be responsible, so don't expect people are eager to follow your advice to eat less, drink less, stop smoking, or wear a condom. Tell them to eat a Tide pod, though, and they'll do it.
Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by tonyedgecombe on Sunday June 16, 2019 @02:41PM (#20197147)
Physical activity has been falling since the start of the last century but obesity didn’t start climbing until the seventies. There is more to it than your simplistic explanation and solution.
Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by pandaman on Sunday June 16, 2019 @04:54PM (#20197830)
Green Revolution[1] happened and food availability greatly increased. There is no need for more explanation than this.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by tonyedgecombe on Monday June 17, 2019 @04:23AM (#20200943)
It's interesting that that article doesn't mention obesity.
Re:Penn Jillette fasts 23 hours a day to maintain his 100lb ... by pandaman on Monday June 17, 2019 @10:29AM (#20203306)
Saying that people are fat because they eat too much had became non-PC around 1990s from my recollection so I would not expect such a statement from any Wiki article in 2019.