Is the body "much more complex" than calories in/calories out though? If you are overweight, shouldn't calories in/calories out come first, followed quickly by eating healthy to achieve that deficit?

A lot of people, economically, cannot afford the latter while still being able to perform the former. Seems like we should be encouraging people how to lose weight and then educate them on healthier ways to do it...but at the end of the day it's all thermodynamics.

I can recommend the book Burn by Herman Pontzer on this:

The human body can adjust the Basal Metabolic Resting Rate quite a lot in the face of exercise. Spending an extra 500 kcals on exercise can easily only lead to 200 kcals higher total energy expenditure. The body apparently will for instance reduce sex drive and immune functions when under regular exercise. So to achieve weight loss exercise alone is a very hard path unless diet is also modified.

On the other hand it has been shown that dieting alone without exercise also makes it very hard to maintain a lower weight because for instance exercise seems to curb feelings of hunger.

So yes: human bodies definitely are complex adaptable machines. CICO alone doesn't cut it.

Correct, and has to because the evolutionary time that we had at least 3 meals a day has been really short. The body is made for extreme conditions, conditions that it's no longer exposed to.

So it had to be smart with when to store energy and when to spend it.

Great question, because the latest science is pointing to that hormones determine the states of body. Example Insulin triggers storage in cells, and t3 from the thyroid has influence over the metabolism. Testerone has many influences and there many more For feeling full and feeling tired there are different hormones. And they are finding out how little we actually know. Turns out for example the out understanding of cholesterol was incorrect[0] and like calories the wrong focus. So research into the marvel that is human body is very basic at the moment.

thermodynamics is made for steam engines. Just like calories. Its science from 1800, a moment time where everything was powered by steam engines. So understanding how much we need of something to increase the heat of water by 1 Celsius is very important.

But cells are not like steam engines, they don't burn energy. They use atp, mitchondria create atp with the kreb cycle.

Our gut biome plays very important role in digesting food. Turns out that its different for every person even twins.

The gut biome is one the readons everone reacts a bit different to food.

Calories are still used as a proxy. Eat less Calories within a given dieet also means eat less food.

Then the question what should we do to lose weight. Many people have been helped by low carb dieet or intermittent fasting and even prolonged fasting. So in the end you could say that's still Calories. And to that I would have to agree. But it's how we get to same point.

There was actually a study that forced the participants to adhere to low calorie dieet. Hint it turned out really bad for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experimen...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6082688/#:~:tex....

the physics of weightloss is straightforward (CICO), the chemistry isn't as much, the biology is mind-numbingly complex, and that's before we get to the psychology.

> Lets try some new ideas instead of calories which is based of steam engines in 1800. The human body is much more complex.

Sorry but in terms of obesity and weight loss, it's really not more complex. The most surefire way to lose weight is to make sure calories in < calories out, and vice versa for gaining weight.

>Sorry but in terms of obesity and weight loss, it's really not more complex.

No, it is extremely complex. "Calories in < Calories out" isn't even stating the principle you think it is. You want to make a statement about fat balance depending on calorie deficit, independent of what type of food you eat, and even that is completely wrong. Different foods take completely different paths through the human digestive system (e.g., fructose vs. glucose) and thus have completely different effects independent of their "calorie" count. Most people on a calorie deficit are not also exercising, and their weight loss is 25% muscle loss, which is a disaster for their future health.

Peter Attia makes a careful statement about "calories in/calories out" in the first few minutes of this lecture: https://youtu.be/31g94p5J2gE

Doug McGuff covers med school biochemistry and metabolism in the last part of this presentation, and mentions "internal starvation" where obese people crave food at regular intervals, but the food goes directly into fat tissue. https://youtu.be/2PdJFbjWHEU

Hey, if it is just calories in < calories out, why is Bill Gates so much richer than me? All he did was spend less than he earned, right?

That sounds simple, but only one of the variables in that equation is readily knowable, and the other is a function of the first. Meaning, only by counting calories- and all the calories, including cooking oil, salad “toppings”, etc do you know what the calories in is but then how do you determine what they should be, knowing that if you eat too little, your body slows down to preserve homeostasis? It turns out to be a far more complex situation that involves exercise to preserve the calories out part despite the drop in calories in. There is an ideal deficit below which it is counterproductive to go, certainly if you’re interested in body composition and not just losing “weight”. That ideal depends on activity and a variety of other minutia.

Easy, see the Hacker’s Diet: https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

Basically, control your calorie intake via calorie counting, measure your sliding weight average, and adjust your calorie intake up or down accordingly. It doesn’t matter how accurate your calorie counting is, as long as it’s consistent. That is, you can ballpark a lot of things as long as you’re repeatedly using the same estimates.

Counting calories is the only way I personally manage to lose weight, and it works very well. A simplified version of the Hacker’s Diet I use is the following: First count your calorie intake for a week or two without changing your diet, to establish a baseline of your average calorie intake, and then reduce the intake to 80-85% of that baseline. You’ll slowly be losing weight.

You can go lower (e.g. 70%) if you are able to sustain it and are in a hurry. It helps to pick food that is easy to calorie-count, of course. Reducing carbs generally helps with sustaining the lowered intake, and increasing the ratio of protein (and doing resistance training) helps with not losing muscle (or even building up some).

The mechanics aren’t difficult. You only need to muster the motivation.

It would be a very long writing trying to explain it properly, so i’ll just use my experience as a long time gym rat. It takes a very heavy calorie deficit to enter “starvation mode” all bodies are different but counting calories is the easiest approach, lower your actual intake by 20% and monitor weight for 2 weeks once your curve starts flattening increase by 10% for one week then lower to the previous. I guarantee you that you’ll lose weight without losing muscle mass.

Despite the challenges in knowing calories in, much less calories out, agreed, just lowering your intake, and adjusting based on the outcome works, and is the only way to do sustainably do it. I was just challenging the assumption that calories out is fixed. In my case, I'm currently at a calorie deficit and losing weight (at 195, starting at 220), and at one point, I was at (or slightly below) 1000 calories a day for a month and did not lose a pound. (It was physically and emotionally miserable.) I went up to ~1500/day (and 2000 on gym days), and have lost 1.5 lbs/wk or so for months now. I don't think I "ruined" my metabolism, nad don't know if that was starvation mode or not, but I am convinced there's a calories "in" range in which your body will try its best to match calories "out", if only temporarily, and that I was in that range for a while.

Of course I only know my weight and that it wasn't changing for a while despite an extreme calories deficit (from my previous norm, if not my expenditure at the time). I'm assuming that my calorie expenditure dropped, and not, for example, that I wasn't just retaining water sufficient to match the weight I would otherwise lose at the time.

You would calculate your total daily energy expenditure, TDEE, and use that to figure out how much in excess or deficit you'd need to eat. That the body slows down homeostasis is not such a huge reason as to abandon the calories in calories out approach wholesale.

How do you account for the fact that people can lose weight by increasing the number of calories that they consume while reducing their exercise if they eat only ground beef and sardines?

1) [citation needed]

2) Limiting what kind of food you eat usually leads to limiting how much you eat. Feel free to try this with eating only lentils, beans and broccoli, you can eat as much of it as you want.

> for the fact

What fact? Where is this shown?

Just try it -- eat ground beef and sardines for a week and see if you lose weight. Eat as much of it as you want.

That's not really any sort of study on its effects, it's just anecdotal. Maybe it works for you but it's not generalizable.

What if I guaranteed your results? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGDbpg1nG8Y

That video is in r/conspiracy so it already tells me it's not as "guaranteed" as you think.

me: do an experiment. you: no, that's not science!

How do people holding such reasoning find their way here ? What's the incentive to stay ?

Then why can't people lose weight by just drinking fewer calories of gasoline than the calories that they burn in a day through exercise? Is it possible that the kind of calories one consumes effects the burn rate of calories by the body's metabolic system? What if some calories are consumed but not burned because they are instead used for rebuilding bones or muscles -- how do you account for that?

This does seem like even more gaslighting, you said:

" I would like to argue that being healthy and fit is not about the gym, or investing time in tracking calories."

Instead we should focus on on daily fun movements that we like to do."

Now those daily fun movements include the gym if you like the gym? But you still are saying they should do something daily instead of periodic gym, not that they could.

Jesus Christ, why be so petty about him slightly confusing his point. I think the point he tried to make is that people often go to the gym and don't enjoy it, because they think it's the only or best option, but that those people should instead just look for a physical activity that's fun/enjoyable to them instead. HOWEVER if someone enjoys going to the gym, then that is perfectly fine. And that was the point they tried to make. Just use a little bit of empathy, people.

My fault - I started this whole thing, and wish I hadn't. The actual point is totally reasonable, but poorly communicated.

But the issue is not about the poster confusing their point, it's about them blaming the respondent for misunderstanding what the poster was saying, saying the respondent read "should" instead of "could", but the poster actually wrote "should".

"I wasn't being confusing, you just misunderstood!" is a pretty bad-faith argument to make in general, that's what I was trying to point out. But there must be some language barrier thing going on, because the original poster just doubled-down on the bad faith argumentation :shrug:

This whole subthread is pointless.

>This does seem like even more gaslighting

For the love of god, saying something self-contradictory is not "gas lighting".

Thank you for fighting the good fight. Words (should) mean things!

Focusing on something doesn't exclude anything. It could maybe come of as self-contradictory but it wasn't.

"Daily movements" is incredibly broad and includes working out in the gym, it also includes walking, playing sport.

I think the post is arguing for a superset of the definition of exercise which includes the gym as opposed to a set definition of exercise defined by the gym exclusive of other activities. A superset definition would also include lifting my child for piggyback rides, a brisk walk with a friend, or practicing a flash mob.

We should focus, that doens't mean we should not.

There is allot research about daily exercise and the enormous health benefits. If we focus on trying to incoperate more movements throughout the the day.

It will be easier to maintain, and if we miss a day we will have the next day.

But if we would do both it will even be better:)

The bioneer in the youtube video explains it way better then this post.

Man that poster is trying gaslight us into healthy habits. Let's get him boys. /s

What is going on with these comments. Going to gym could be part healthy lifestyle but it's not needed, when the lock downs happened many found out that it was single point of failure for them. And shouldn't have been that way.

"But you still are saying they should do something daily instead of periodic gym, not that they could. " The article of the thread is saying that...

Why did you totally ignore the point that you criticized the responder for reading "should" when that is the exact word you used in your post?

Maybe the comment isnt written well enough to get the point across. We should focus on, doesnt exclude anything. If anything my point is that both is even better.

Then the second should is about the latest science. I didn't elaborate on that. The latest science is pointing towards daily exercise. Therfor we should ideally have some form of movement each day.

It's beneficial not only to overall health, and longevity. But also your brain health:)

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220815085707.h...

https://www.health.harvard.edu/topics/exercise-and-fitness

In general, saying "I would like to argue that being X is not about doing Y. Instead we should do Z" is going to make people, quite reasonably think that you are arguing against Y, and that people should do Z instead of Y.

"We should focus on Z" does indeed suggest to most readers that you are excluding things that are not Z, whether you meant that or not.

Highly recommend going with "I'm sorry, I meant ..." rather than "You read it wrong, I didn't say ABC ..." to avoid confusion, especially when you do indeed use the phrase ABC.

Although that's great point about the confusion. But you could observe it as being only a logical statement, such as. " You should focus on your tie the next time instead of your shoes. " Doenst mean you should only have tie on the next time. That would be rather awkward.

Atleast that is what I meant, thanks for the explanation.

Sure, but “next time” isn’t what you said — you said, in effect, “to look sharp, focus on your tie instead of your shoes.”

That has a pretty different meaning, implying that the tie matters more and the shoes don’t matter as much.

It’s not a super reasonable read to then infer “oh, the shoes matter a lot, but the tie matters more”, because if that’s what you were trying to communicate, you’d say something more like “to look sharp, don’t just focus on your shoes, focus on your tie too” rather than using “instead of”. Instead of really communicates substitution, “do X instead of Y,” implies “don’t do Y.”

Hope this clears things up.