Moderate drama in /r/TIL post about losing weight on a diet designed to change gut bacteria when someone says "Calories in, calories out. Fat people all around who want some kind of magical scapegoat that can break the laws of physics won't find it here. edit: keep downvoting me, fatties." (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
188 ups - 80 downs = 108 votes
80 comments submitted at 17:26:05 on Apr 21, 2014 by potato1
I get my chuckles from discussions like these. It's too sides who think they're mutually incompatible theories of weight loss and body mass, not realizing that their core arguments aren't in conflict.
Yep, "calories in, calories out" is the basics of weight loss. But stuff like changing what you eat, your macros, and monitoring your hormones and gut flora and fauna are supposed to be designed to, you know, change the "calories out" part of the equation.
Unless anyone is legitimately arguing that everyone burns calories exactly the same, regardless of what foods they come from, what time of the day you eat, what shape you're in, and what sort of hormonal and digestive wackiness you have going on. Because that's a bit silly.
>Unless anyone is legitimately arguing that everyone burns calories exactly the same, regardless of what foods they come from, what time of the day you eat, what shape you're in, and what sort of hormonal and digestive wackiness you have going on.
I think this is actually a not-that-uncommon view, given how strong the reactions are of people like the guy linked when you try to claim anything different. They act like there's no complexity whatsoever and anyone who tries to say reality isn't consistent with the simplest model possible is lying or delusional.
that's completely not what i was saying.
it still IS a simple formula- calories in, calories out.
the "calories out" is simply a different number for different people, but it's not hard for each person to figure out what that number is for themselves.
gaining weight? your "calories in" number is bigger than your "calories out" number.
Seriously, you don't need a complicated chart of all the effects of genetics and stress hormone levels and gut flora to figure this shit out. People keep acting as if you do.
"oh shit, i'm gaining weight still!"
eat less and exercise more
"but gut flora!"
eat less and exercise more
"but i'm genetically predisposed to..."
eat less and exercise more
any way you fucking slice it, the end results are the same. Unless you've got a severe genetic disorder where your body refuses to burn fat even if you're completely starving, the answer's always going to be the same.
Uh, as someone who lost nearly 80 pounds, that's simply not true. I had to keep fairly rigorous food journals and keep track of lots of macro nutrients. Sometimes it was actually a case of not being able to process the amount of fat I was eating, for example, and I had to decrease that level while keeping my caloric intake identical. I had to do this sort of trial-and-error elimination and adjustment of a lot of food and nutrients to get over quite a few plateaus.
Things like inflammatory responses, allergies, intolerances, blood sugar, and nutrient deficiencies greatly affect how you burn calories on a daily basis. If you just continue to cut more and more calories when it's not the calories themselves that are the problem, you're just going to put yourself in starvation mode, increase your body's fat storage, and make your dieting untenable and miserable.
Hell, sometimes something as simple as time of day can be the cause. I was counting calories and working out like a mad woman. I wasn't loosing any weight! At all! I spoke to a RN and she told me to not eat after 8pm. Without changing anything else I lost about ~5 pounds sticking to that advice. (To be clear, this was don't eat after 8pm in addition to the calorie counting and exercise I had already been doing for a couple months at that point.)
Unfortunately my work hours are such that I can no longer eat dinner before 9pm so things are pretty much back to where they were. But if that experience taught me anything, its that people trying to loose weight really sometimes need the benefit of the doubt because it is a complicated matter!
I still don't understand how it is a complicated matter. If you are gaining weight, you're intaking more calories than you are expending. Apart from some serious medical condition that forces someone into taking in a fixed calorie diet and not being able to excercise their bodies, I can't seriously see why it is a common problem that can't be solved by changing one's lifestyle. I can understand that certain nutrients come with calories, but it seems unavoidable to only a medically challenged person. Seems like it is a socially complicated phenomenon rather than biological, which is rather simple to come over, provided, you are determined to sacrifice some social comforts.
obviously you don't cut calories to the point of being nutrient deficient. it's not like you can live on nothing but 1000 calories of pepsi. i would hope some common sense would remain here.
however, not being capable of processing certain fats and chronic inflammation sounds more like a medical disorder than a standard weight loss issue. Obviously any medical issues need to be accounted for with your doctor. I'm not going to ask a person with heart issues to run 10 miles. I'm not going to ask a diabetic to skip their timed meals. That's a medical concern, not just a dietary one.
perhaps i'll just change the phrasing to "proper diet and exercise more," but the general gist remains the same. You had to be more careful and specific about what foods you ate, but you couldn't have lost weight if you were still eating too much or not exercising enough.
> obviously you don't cut calories to the point of being nutrient deficient. it's not like you can live on nothing but 1000 calories of pepsi. i would hope some common sense would remain here.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/
lol. he did have a protein shake and multivitamin, though. the twinkies were just there to top up the calorie count into something not-coma-inducing.
goes to show how far properly done calorie counting can go, regardless of food.
Yes, and if new developments make it easier for different human beings to get calorie consumption under control or change their diet, it's a major advantage. If you change gut flora #94058 or whatever and it makes it so an obese person doesn't get the same opiatelike high cracking into a root beer, it's a lot easier to stop drinking them. Whereas a totally different fatty never had any problem with that.
There's a reason there's a zillion diets, and different things work for people, some fix their life by going gluten free, some cut back by sticking to Atkins diet, whatever. Changing the marginal things that different people respond to in different emotional subjective ways means a ton, and your reduction to laws of physics argument is naturally true, but ignoring the human aspects of these things makes your argument hollow.
There's a reason the whole field of nursing exists! Human health and personal care doesn't just have the biological aspect to it. The whole nature of your posting on the topic is abusive and counter to helping anyone get healthier.
Get back behind the glass, this thread is to make fun of you.
I'd argue (admittedly from anecdotal evidence) that some people are more predisposed than others for becoming fat (or skinny, as it may be). Some of it may be related to general "build" of body, though.
I myself have a rather easy time gaining weight. Eating well (which includes a /r/keto'ish diet, since carbs does bad things to me) and going to the gym 3+ times a week seems to work well against that, though :P
Then there's my buddy who's skinny as hell. Whenever we eat together, he eats at least as much as I do. He even claims that he's tried eating cake and straight-up drinking cream every day to gain weight for a while.
which is what i said. the "calories out" number is different for each person.
it's not "effort" or "determination" or "desire" or anything like that. Just calories.
>it's not "effort" or "determination" or "desire" or anything like that. Just calories.
I gotta ask...You ever been overweight? Ever used food as comfort food, ever been depressed? I'd say motivation/determination/desire/effort has a lot to do with it.
It's easy to rationalize not going to the gym, or eating something that's bad for you. It's harder to not rationalize against going to the gym, or to eat right.
you're ignoring the exact thing you decided to quote.
I am specifically saying that it is not "effort in, effort out" or "desire in, desire out."
it's calories. calories are a measure of energy. Not emotional energy, or desire, determination, motivation, or whatever you want. physical energy. That's it.
god damn, i feel like i could say "people who can bench 200 pounds are capable of benching 200 pounds," and someone's going to come out of the woodwork and argue that 200 pounds is a lot for one person and easy for another, blah blah blah, effort, desire, muscle tone, blah blah. I'm talking physical measurements, get that in your head already!
But what you're doing is like responding to someone asking how to bench 200 pounds with "you put 200 pounds on the bar and then you lift it up." Sure its true, but its not going to help anyone get stronger. The point of all the details about dieting isn't that it somehow gets rid of energy for free its that it makes it easier for people to not eat as much.
I'm not ignoring it... I'm kind of arguing against it.
You also dodged my question: you ever been overweight and/or depressed?
Yes, you do need to account for hormones, just ask any fucking woman. For example, no matter what I do, including extensive starvation like I did when I was younger, I gain +5 to 8 pounds on my period. Additionally, every gal IRL I know has gained weight on birth control or in the case of my one friend with PCOS, lose a little bit of weight. I don't think the science is hard and fast on this yet and the awesome thing about science is that we can continually test and research.
Were you counting calories?
That's water retention not body fat.