What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

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BRUTE
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by BRUTE »

Smashter wrote:
Fri Apr 20, 2018 8:13 am
You really think all the disease of civilization would be drastically reduced if stopped believing in CICO?
humans might start investigating/experimenting with actual solutions to the problems they face. CICO is simply not an answer to the question.

CICO is the equivalent of answering the question of "how can humans stop being alcoholics" with "alcoholism is defined as having too much alcohol in the blood". it's not even wrong. that itself wouldn't be problematic, but it's being used to shut down any attempts to find real answers. "stop drinking!" - "no, alcoholism is defined as having too much blood in the bloodstream". "limit to 1 drink per meal?" - "no, alcoholism is defined as having too much blood in the bloodstream."

CICO is also extremely vague and meaningless, and pretty much all humans that say "CICO" mix up those concepts.

brute believes CICO is either a tautology ("fatty acids entering/leaving fat cells"), or clearly, demonstrably false ("manipulating the amount of food eaten or exercise performed is a useful way to change body composition").

ideas like low-carb, keto, fasting, IF, even weight watchers, are at least attempts to answer the question ("how do humans lose fat and stop the accompanying diseases of civilization"), but they're being shut down by humans that claim physics exists and therefore all other ideas are invalid.

suomalainen
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by suomalainen »

It seems to me that what you anti-CICOs (ha) are saying is that although it's relatively easy to calculate CI, it is very difficult to accurately measure CO due to variability 1) between people (genetics, gut microbiome) and 2) in a given person due to varying physiological conditions (hormone levels, gut microbiome changes to diet changes, lifestyle impacts, other environmental factors?) so that the CICO approach is really just too vague to be informative, other than perhaps the obvious truth that given the same diet (other than portion size), 2000kcal/day will cause relatively higher weight than 1800kcal/day. Is that fair to say?

BRUTE
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by BRUTE »

suomalainen wrote:
Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:50 pm
It seems to me that what you anti-CICOs (ha) are saying is that although it's relatively easy to calculate CI, it is very difficult to accurately measure CO due to variability 1) between people (genetics, gut microbiome) and 2) in a given person due to varying physiological conditions (hormone levels, gut microbiome changes to diet changes, lifestyle impacts, other environmental factors?) so that the CICO approach is really just too vague to be informative
not just difficult to measure, but in and out of what? the human body? digestive system? stomach? blood stream? liver? fat cells? there are inefficiencies and complexities at each step.
suomalainen wrote:
Mon Apr 23, 2018 12:50 pm
other than perhaps the obvious truth that given the same diet (other than portion size), 2000kcal/day will cause relatively higher weight than 1800kcal/day. Is that fair to say?
brute wouldn't even say that, as this has consistently not been his experience.

brute wants to talk about nutrient partitioning. nutrient partitioning is the idea that there are various pathways to go for nutrients entering a system like the human body.

it seems quite obvious that at least some of the nutrients ingested by a human can go to directly feed that human's activity: muscles require glycogen, the brain uses glycogen and medium chained triglycerides, cell repair requires amino acids (proteins).

it is also obvious that at least some of the nutrients ingested by a human can end up being stored as fat, in the various fat deposits of the human body.

if brute understands CICO correctly, it basically means that all nutrients that are ingested, but not immediately used for cell repair of powering of cells, end up being stored as body fat. it thusly follows that, in order to reduce body fat, CI should be decreased, or CO increased. CICO seems to posit that nutrient partitioning, i.e. the decision of "where will the nutrients go", is a simple overflow mechanism.

there are many systems in the body involved in this scenario that are left out of the simple CICO mechanism. here are a few:

1)the human body tries to stay in nutrient homeostasis, regulating food intake through appetite and energy expenditure through "energy levels" (a subjective measure of how active a human feels, and how well the human can concentrate).
2)the types of food, ways of food, genetic variation, and other factors like stress, sleep, and hormones, can influence nutrient partitioning, appetite, and energy levels.
3)certain types of nutrients cannot be stored as body fat, cannot be used by certain organs, can be converted to and from others.

brute will call the incoming nutrient partitioning factor between activity/body fat X.

this is of course still simplified, as there is neither "one activity" nor "one body fat deposit" - for example, most fatty acids and proteins cannot directly supply the brain with energy, whereas glycogen and ketone bodies (produced from medium chained triglycerides, a certain type of fat, by the liver) can. protein can actually not be used for energy at all, but it can be converted to glycogen by the liver, allowing it to be used for energy. how and when this happens is still subject to debate (on-demand vs. overflow, for example).

so if X is 0.5, half of the nutrients will be stored as body fat, and half will be used to supply the body's activities. if it's 1, no body fat will be stored at all. if it was 0, there would be no activity, and the human would probably die.

CICO, as brute understands it, posits that X will be 1 if CI = CO, and lower if CI > CO, an overflow dynamic.

what if this is not true? what if certain behaviors, stressors, foods, modes of eating, genes, or combinations thereof cause X to vary independent of calories ingested?

for example, if a CI is 2000kcal and CO is 2000kcal, but X is 0.9. the human body will not have enough energy available to fuel all activity. the human will either experience increased appetite or decreased subjective feelings of energy/lack of concentration. sure, at only a 100kcal deficit per day, the human could probably power through with discipline for a while. but what about the long term, or if X is 0.7, or 0.5?

there was a study, a while ago, of contestants from The Biggest Loser. they were tested for their CO, and after months/years of willing through calorie deficits, it turned out many of them had reduced COs of around 1,000kcal/day or even less. the effect of their discipline was that their body had decreased energy usage dramatically.

brute himself has fasted completely for 7-10 days several times. after multiple days of 0kcal/day CI, and non-zero CO, he would start feeling very sluggish. his workout performance, and especially recovery, would dramatically suffer. he wouldn't be able to concentrate on even movies. this was likely brute's body decreasing energy demand and available activity, as a consequence of decreased energy input.

point being, this can happen not just when fasting, but also for other reasons.

there are various factors known that dramatically change X - carbohydrate in certain humans, stress, lack of sleep. typically these seem to work through insulin and cortisol, but there are probably other factors.

brute remembers another study, which probably couldn't be repeated today. it was a study done in the 50s or so, of humans that volunteered to be starved on a 1,000kcal diet or so for a few days or weeks at a time. one group was fed 1,000kcal per day of carbohydrates, the other group used olive oil if brute recalls correctly.

interestingly, the humans on a 1,000kcal diet of carbohydrates went insane, and the experiment had to be cancelled. some tried to gnaw off their own fingers from hunger.

the humans on the olive oil diet were fine. brute can personally report that being in ketosis simply deletes the feeling of hunger. brute has not been hungry in years. (this does not mean infinite fasting down to six pack abs is possible, unfortunately. there are other complications like adrenaline/sleep, sluggishness, and the immune system).

hunger is the body complaining that it lacks sufficient energy to operate, especially the brain.

the mechanism by which the brain receives energy is not simply "calories from food + calories from body fat". there are various complicated mechanisms involved. for example, eating even a relatively tiny amount of carbohydrate completely blocks access to body fat. this is how the ketogenic diet works - staying under the limit, so that the body adapts to using body fat as energy.

it is thus possible to literally starve while being obese. this is probably what obese humans experience when they get crazy cravings - due to circumstance, they are starving their brains of energy while carrying hundreds of thousands of calories worth of body fat with them.

a good analogy brute has heard is that of a tanker truck running out of gas in its own internal fuel tank, because the big tank isn't connected to the engine.

the conclusion? while CICO might be accurate for some subsystem (body fat cells, for example), is is neither a useful diagnostic nor does it imply any path of action towards body recomposition. if the nutrient partitioning variable X is being pushed down by insulin or cortisol, through stress, lack of sleep, high amounts of fructose or other carbohydrates, a diet incompatible with the genetic adaptation of the specific human, or whatever else, then CI and CO are simply not useful levers. if the human is of the sort that has tried dieting before and it didn't work, it's likely that the humans has a nutrient partitioning problem and can't simply fix it with CICOing - otherwise the problem wouldn't persist, as eating less or working out more is pretty much what most humans try first.

here's an analogy. the human body consists of about 80% water. water is heavy. would any human recommend to humans looking to lose weight that they simply drink less water than they pee and sweat out? after all, WIWO (Water In, Water OUT) dictates that the human body must lose water when more is lost than is regained, and that any water that is drunk but not peed + sweat out must be stored by the body (by definition, duh!).

edit: brute had confused MCTs and ketones - MCTs can not fuel the brain, but get converted to ketone bodies by the liver. ketones can fuel the brain.

classical_Liberal
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by classical_Liberal »

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Last edited by classical_Liberal on Fri Feb 05, 2021 12:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

7Wannabe5
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@BRUTE:

I don't disagree with anything you wrote, and I think there are many possible flaws with rigid reliance on CICO, yet I am an individual for whom CICO has always worked almost exactly like it should. I just multiply my current weight by 12, give myself extra calories for any exertion above sedentary, and an approximate 18,000 kcal deficit on the spreadsheet will almost always equal 5 lb. weight loss. The main reason why I am sometimes chubbier than I prefer is because sometimes I like to eat a good deal of yummy food more than I like to be slender. I can't or won't stick to any high-fat/high-protein plan because I like being an omnivore who eats all sorts of interesting things more than I care about never being chubby (especially at my current age/stage*) or sometimes feeling hunger. Therefore, for ME adopting your arguments would be a sort of cop-out or denial of the reality of my own piggly-wiggly preferences and their likely consequences. However, I do know of others who suffer all sorts of odd symptoms, such as loss of hair, when they attempt low-calories diets at high BMI. IOW, MMV.

*For instance, my BF recently referred to me as "scooter butt", because I was hiking too slow on the trail in front of him, and I didn't feel pain, anger, or even calculate financial surcharge to ongoing relationship contract (I can't say for sure, but I would guesstimate that most women would tack on at least $250. )

Kriegsspiel
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Kriegsspiel »

brute, it seems like you're talking about the p-ratio? The general concept that CICO determines weight gain/loss, and the p-ratio determines how much gain/loss is fat vs. lean mass. So what you're calling X, the factors that influences where surplus calories go, would be exercise, genetics, how much of the calories is protein, stuff like that.
if a CI is 2000kcal and CO is 2000kcal, but X is 0.9. the human body will not have enough energy available to fuel all activity. the human will either experience increased appetite or decreased subjective feelings of energy/lack of concentration. sure, at only a 100kcal deficit per day, the human could probably power through with discipline for a while. but what about the long term, or if X is 0.7, or 0.5?
If you don't have enough energy to fuel all activities then your CO is higher than CI, and your p-ratio will determine where those extra calories come from. You'd see some combination of utilizing body tissue for energy & probably decreased metabolic rate if it goes on for a while.
the conclusion? while CICO might be accurate for some subsystem (body fat cells, for example), is is neither a useful diagnostic nor does it imply any path of action towards body recomposition. if the nutrient partitioning variable X is being pushed down by insulin or cortisol, through stress, lack of sleep, high amounts of fructose or other carbohydrates, a diet incompatible with the genetic adaptation of the specific human, or whatever else, then CI and CO are simply not useful levers.
clearly not right. Tracking and manipulating calories in and out has been the basis of body recomposition since forever, different diet and exercise regimens are just ways of getting people to do it.
if the human is of the sort that has tried dieting before and it didn't work, it's likely that the humans has a nutrient partitioning problem and can't simply fix it with CICOing - otherwise the problem wouldn't persist, as eating less or working out more is pretty much what most humans try first.
I can get on board with this. If their maintenance calories (X=1 in your nomenclature) is 3000, and they're eating 2000 calories of table sugar, they're going to go insane in addition to losing muscle. I'm betting most problems with "counting calories" come from people eating really unsatiating foods (your referenced study case in point) and then cracking and eating a sleeve of Oreos and saying counting calories doesn't work for them.

BRUTE
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by BRUTE »

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:27 pm
brute, it seems like you're talking about the p-ratio?
no, the p-ratio seems like the opposite - where do metabolized calories (in access of food intake) come from: body fat or lean mass? that's probably also an important variable, but brute was talking about the other ratio, regarding "where do the incoming nutrients go to".

Kriegsspiel
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Kriegsspiel »

Ok. So you're talking about how incoming calories are utilized. If you are saying the things you are calling X (exercise, macronutrient breakdown, sleep, stress) can affect fat storage independent of calories, I don't think that's true. IE, there is no X=.5 in a vacuum. If you are eating 500 calories a day and breaking rocks all day, you aren't storing any body fat. So where you said that eating even a tiny amount of carbohydrates blocks access to fat cells; if you accept that that's true, in the course of a day it wouldn't matter anyways. Eat 100 calories of carbohydrates and your body uses those 100 for its next few minutes of rock breaking, then it's going to need to get the following calories from body tissue again. If you ate 100 calories of fat, your body would utilize those 100 calories of dietary fat, then continue utilizing body tissue.

IMO, CICO is just a descriptor, not a theory that posits things. So sure, everything that comprises X matters, but I think most people would just say you are increasing the CO side of the equation, nothing to see here. So your example "CI 2000/ CO 2000/ X .9" would just be CI 2000/ CO 2200.

When you talk about obese people getting cravings, and people eating 1000cal of sugar vs oil going crazy with hunger, and not feeling hungry while eating ketogenic, you're talking about satiety. But then you say CICO isn't useful WRT body recomposition efforts. CI<CO is necessary, satiety is not; you can lose fat being hungry all the time, but you can also lose it while not being hungry. CICO are not the levers, they're what the levers are working on. The keto diet is a great lever in reducing CI. Eating lots of vegetables/fiber/protein is another one. Rules like "only eat foods cavemen could eat." Drinking gallons of water a day. All ways to reduce CI.

IlliniDave
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by IlliniDave »

I think it'd be more accurate to say calories absorbed must be < calories expended. Some calories can be passed through when not needed. Ask a dog.

And there is timing that is important, and it does have a link to feelings of being satiated. For example, factory carbohydrates (processed grains, starches, and sugars) get into blood in the form of sugar very quickly and efficiently, typically in excess, and must be removed quickly, so the body stores them in fat (unless maybe you are eating your Krispy Kremes during a long Crossfit workout). In the aftermath, flooded with fat storage hormones, the body is temporarily inhibited from metabolizing fat, and there is a deficit in what is available to the body, resulting in fatigue and hunger. Foods that take longer to digest like protein and some vegetables, provide a lower ongoing supply of glucose, better matched with a body's needs. Plus your body does not have to (or sometimes can't) extract all of the available energy potential the way it does with "bad carbs" and is less likely to be forced into fat storage mode to keep you from getting poisoned by excessive blood sugar.

Physics do have to be maintained, but it dietary choices can make it range between nearly impossible and relatively easy to navigate the chemistry involved. When approaching it myself, the problem is much easier to solve as a chemistry problem than as physics problem. YMMV.

Kriegsspiel
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Kriegsspiel »

IlliniDave wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 11:31 am
And there is timing that is important, and it does have a link to feelings of being satiated.
Yup.
For example, factory carbohydrates (processed grains, starches, and sugars) get into blood in the form of sugar very quickly and efficiently, typically in excess, and must be removed quickly, so the body stores them in fat (unless maybe you are eating your Krispy Kremes during a long Crossfit workout). In the aftermath, flooded with fat storage hormones, the body is temporarily inhibited from metabolizing fat, and there is a deficit in what is available to the body, resulting in fatigue and hunger. Foods that take longer to digest like protein and some vegetables, provide a lower ongoing supply of glucose, better matched with a body's needs. Plus your body does not have to (or sometimes can't) extract all of the available energy potential the way it does with "bad carbs" and is less likely to be forced into fat storage mode to keep you from getting poisoned by excessive blood sugar.
Krispy Kreme donuts (refined) have a lower glycemic load than oatmeal/brown rice/pearled barley/stereotypical unrefined carbs, because they have a lot of fat in them. Of course, if you ate your oats/rice/barley with some butter/eggs/beef or whatever, like a normal person, their glycemic impact would be lowered as well and you'd feel sated longer. But to your point, yea the body is going to either use the Krispy Kreme as fuel for regular metabolic processes or exercise or whatever. Then once those calories are utilized, it will grab stored calories (not that it would happen all neat and orderly-like, but over a day or whatever that's what happens). Unless you're eating >maintenance, then it will store that Krispy Kreme as body tissue, as it would other food you're eating, according on your p-ratio.
Physics do have to be maintained, but it dietary choices can make it range between nearly impossible and relatively easy to navigate the chemistry involved. When approaching it myself, the problem is much easier to solve as a chemistry problem than as physics problem. YMMV.
I agree. Even if it's possible, I'd rather not make a significant portion of my food Krispy Kremes because I'd be hungry as fuck all the time.

BRUTE
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by BRUTE »

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:10 am
Eat 100 calories of carbohydrates and your body uses those 100 for its next few minutes of rock breaking, then it's going to need to get the following calories from body tissue again. If you ate 100 calories of fat, your body would utilize those 100 calories of dietary fat, then continue utilizing body tissue.
this is not how the human body actually works. carbohydrates block lipolysis. so even though the body "needs" to get the following calories from body tissue, it cannot use any body fat. if the same amount of calories are ingested from fat, lipolysis is not blocked, and accessing body fat is easy. this is easily observable when going for a long hike with a mixed group of low-carbers vs. carb eaters. the carb eaters will eat carbs every 30-60 minutes and still complain of starving, whereas the low-carbers won't get hungry all day despite the same workload.

getting energy from body tissues, both lean mass and fat, works via chemical processes that are rate limited. it's not possible to get infinite calories per unit of time. getting energy from lean body mass is especially inefficient, because the protein has to be converted to carbohydrate first. thus humans who are unable to use lipolysis (like the carb-loaders) are constantly hungry. brute is unsure what the rate limit is, but it seems to be substantially below the fat limit. which makes sense, because fat contains 2-3x more energy, and it is already stored in a usable form.

but lipolysis is also rate limited. studies show approximately 30kcal/lbs of body fat/day can be used. meaning that the hypothetical human who needs to cover a 1000kcal deficit, even if he is in ketosis, must have around 33lbs of body fat or more. otherwise, the body won't be able to free enough energy from body fat per unit of time.
Kriegsspiel wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:10 am
IMO, CICO is just a descriptor, not a theory that posits things. So sure, everything that comprises X matters, but I think most people would just say you are increasing the CO side of the equation, nothing to see here. So your example "CI 2000/ CO 2000/ X .9" would just be CI 2000/ CO 2200.
that's why CICO is "not even wrong". it doesn't answer the question.
Kriegsspiel wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:10 am
All ways to reduce CI.
that's a nice narrative. but brute finds it to be not true. a well-tuned human body seems to not store any body fat even if CI is increased, it will simply increase energy available for movement or thinking (there are limits of course, but the 1800kcal/day to 2000kcal/day difference mentioned is easily possible). similarly, the body can easily tune down to a 800-1000kcal energy savings mode. so reducing CI without taking care of the X factor will just reduce CO accordingly, and not result in substantial body recomposition, whereas maintaining energy intake but tuning X would've worked.

now there are certainly humans that are tuned well and are on the margin, for whom CI/CO are good levers. 7Wannabe5 seems to be such a specimen. but brute would believe that these humans are the exception, not the rule, which is why most humans don't report that they can easily regulate their body composition through manipulating what they eat or through exercise.
Last edited by BRUTE on Fri Apr 27, 2018 2:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

herp
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by herp »

Well done, Augustus!

I'm down just over 5 lbs in a month and a half. Not quite as fast as I was hoping for, but then I haven't kept as high of a calorie deficit as I had hoped.

I try to get cardio in almost every day, but I don't stress if I miss a day a week.

I aim for a 500 kcal deficit, eating three major meals throughout the day and some snacks.

Major challenges seem to be poor sleep, which increases insulin resistance and makes me crave sugar. Additionally, I've noticed that evenings in particular can be challenging. I often end up snacking a bit too much, but I do manage to at least not go above maintenance.

Also, cake is the devil ;)

Kriegsspiel
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Kriegsspiel »

BRUTE wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 1:46 pm
this is not how the human body actually works. carbohydrates block lipolysis. so even though the body "needs" to get the following calories from body tissue, it cannot use any body fat. if the same amount of calories are ingested from fat, lipolysis is not blocked, and accessing body fat is easy.
That was just a gross simplification of the Randle glucose-FFA cycle. If you ate enough carbs to sustain your CO over a period of time, lipolysis will be inhibited. But quantities matter, because the insulin response is related to the amount of blood glucose and generally acts to keep it within 80-120mg/dl.

If the same calories are ingested from fat, at the end of the day you'd essentially have as much fat stored as in the carbs scenario, because while fat usage goes up, you ate a bunch of dietary fat to supply those calories.
this is easily observable when going for a long hike with a mixed group of low-carbers vs. carb eaters. the carb eaters will eat carbs every 30-60 minutes and still complain of starving, whereas the low-carbers won't get hungry all day despite the same workload.
Meh, you're not really observing anything useful. People eating carbs for breakfast can go hiking all day without eating or getting hungry too.
getting energy from body tissues, both lean mass and fat, works via chemical processes that are rate limited. it's not possible to get infinite calories per unit of time. getting energy from lean body mass is especially inefficient, because the protein has to be converted to carbohydrate first. thus humans who are unable to use lipolysis (like the carb-loaders) are constantly hungry. brute is unsure what the rate limit is, but it seems to be substantially below the fat limit. which makes sense, because fat contains 2-3x more energy, and it is already stored in a usable form.
Well, if you're eating carbs, gluconeogenesis is inhibited in addition to lipolysis. Even if you stop, the carbs stored in the liver and muscles are available.

If you are not eating carbs, then you'll start using fat for energy. But eating dietary fat instead doesn't mean you're using tons of bodyfat for fuel, because you're eating all that dietary fat.
a well-tuned human body seems to not store any body fat even if CI is increased, it will simply increase energy available for movement or thinking (there are limits of course, but the 1800kcal/day to 2000kcal/day difference mentioned is easily possible). similarly, the body can easily tune down to a 800-1000kcal energy savings mode. so reducing CI without taking care of the X factor will just reduce CO accordingly, and not result in substantial body recomposition, whereas maintaining energy intake but tuning X would've worked.
Essentially agree.

BRUTE
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by BRUTE »

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 4:46 pm
If you are not eating carbs, then you'll start using fat for energy. But eating dietary fat instead doesn't mean you're using tons of bodyfat for fuel, because you're eating all that dietary fat.
point being that while it is possible to measure CI (calories of the nutrients ingested) and CO (calories used up by activity), there are big differences in what happens depending on meal composition, meal timing, the level of hormones in the body, and so on. simplifying to CI/CO misses all these important mechanisms, and potentially leads to a failure in diet adherence or effectiveness that then tends to be explained away by insufficient willpower or accusations of lying.

brute views CICO as similar to the claim "without sex, there is no pregnancy". it's not false, but isn't the most important factor in the problem space (teenage pregnancy), is an intuition trap that falsely leads many humans to abstinence as a strategy or the only strategy, which is not very effective because it oversimplifies the situation, and certain humans tend to wield it as a bash-all-alternatives idea killer with disastrous consequences.

IlliniDave
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by IlliniDave »

Kriegsspiel wrote:
Fri Apr 27, 2018 12:58 pm

Krispy Kreme donuts (refined) have a lower glycemic load than oatmeal/brown rice/pearled barley/stereotypical unrefined carbs, because they have a lot of fat in them.
The glycemic index of a doughnut is higher than, for example on your list, brown rice, by ~30-40% (I didn't look up the others, but it's 108 for a doughnut versus 79 for brown rice). The load depends on respective serving sizes but it is at least comparable I suspect. Fat is insulin-neutral so irrespective of coincidental fat ingestion the usual processes force the body to respond to a doughnut-driven blood sugar surge (which would be higher than a brown rice-driven blood sugar surge if carb calories were normalized) with insulin to shuttle the excess blood glucose into fat. More importantly, the glycemic index of a Krispy Kreme is an order of magnitude higher than the glycemic index of non-grain/starchy carbohydrate sources (e.g., brocolli, peppers, tomatoes, greens, green beans, grapefruit, etc. - my choice for "stereotypical" unrefined carbs). Those grains you list are all things I avoid or moderate severely in the interest of weight maintenance or reduction (though barley is pretty low, just not something I think about buying), especially as I make my way though my sixth decade--different story when I was under 30. No doubt they are superior to KKs, but as a group they still wreak havoc on me.

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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by jacob »

Somehow this entire thread strikes me a long debate (1.5+ years by now?) as to whether it's possible to conveniently change the p-factor (or X-factor) by changing one's diet and eating oneself into a better/healthier/hotter(*) body...

... all while ignoring changing the quantity and quality of one's activity level which just might impact the p-factor significantly more!?

(*) Synonyms in my book, but I digress/troll while ignoring nuances that I am aware off :twisted:

http://earlyretirementextreme.com/the-p ... n-bod.html (click first link in post)

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Bankai
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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Bankai »

@ Jacob

In my experience (not personal as I never had weight issues, but looking at friends/family/people at work etc.) it's way easier to "eat" oneself into healthier weight/body than it is to obtain similar results by exercising. I know people who went from overweight to "ideal" weight (lower end of healthy BMI range) within 1 year or less by diet alone (and still maintain it years later). I don't know anyone who achieved anything close to this by exercise alone. Obviously, combining both diet and exercise is optimal. However, if someone is eating too much and wrong things, no (reasonable) amount of exercise/activity is going to help. The fatter, more sedentary and less healthy the person is, the less likely he is to start (and keep) exercising because it's simply too difficult. And trying and failing all the time because one is too fat/weak isn't the best way to build confidence. Changing diet is so much simpler and effects are seen so much faster. This, in turn, builds self-confidence and increases chances of success.

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Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

When we put a nuanced view of evolutionary theory back into nutrition and health, we end up with the following observations:
-If we do not exercise or make an attempt to be physically active, then we are much more vulnerable to chronic diseases, regardless of food choices; conversely, if we exercise or are sufficiently physically active, then we can avoid chronic diseases while eating liberally. This is because humans evolved in a context of constant movement and moderate physical activity; sitting for prolonged periods was extremely rare, because that would have led to starvation or the loss of opportunities to socialize and, therefore, reproduce.

- To get a balance of nutrients, we should eat traditional cuisines, the older the better (for example, from five hundred years ago), because traditional cuisines were carefully pieced together through trial and error. Focusing on nutrients is often a fool's errand. For example, eating less meat and fat can be harmful if we end up craving sugary food instead. Traditional cuisines get around this problem by offering balanced, tasty meals. For people who trace their ancestry to a specific region of the world, the traditional cuisine from that region is likely best suited for their genes.

- Eating a lot of animal foods when you are younger will make you grow taller and stronger and be more fertile and attractive but will increase your risk of dying earlier. As we discussed, this trade-off between robustness in early life and poorer longer-term health is exactly what we should expect from an evolutionary perspective, because evolution is only concerned with the passing on of genes to the next generation, at whatever cost necessary to the current generation- poorer long-term health being such a cost.

-"100 Million Years of Food: What Our Ancestors Ate and Why It Matters Today"- Stephen Le
The interesting take-home I derived from this book, and a couple other recent books on semi-related topics, I have read lately, is that in addition to not being able to alter your genetic make-up, you also can't "fix" poor nutritional choices that you made ( or often those that were made for you) in utero, prior to puberty, or early adulthood by even stupendous efforts that give the appearance of superior fitness or super-human adherence to very limited dietary regime when you are middle-aged. For instance, if you are a female, being chubby at age 9 can contribute to early onset of puberty which can knock 5 or 6 years of your life expectation, and if you are a male, your blood pressure at age 30 is much better correlated to possibility of heart attack at age 60 than your BMI at age 55. We optimists like to believe in agency, but in this realm, it seems to be the case that much of the most recent research is pointing towards less rather than more we can do past a point. Also, many practices may be more trade-off than pure good. For instance, exposure to sunlight may promote sun cancer and wrinkles, but lack of exposure, inclusive of overuse of sunblock, may contribute to depression, obesity, and variety of other Vitamin D deficiency disorders that can not be appropriately addressed by addition of supplements due to digestive issues.

The other interesting take-away I got from this book is that extreme-not-sitting is more likely to prevent obesity/maintain healthy weight than engaging in brief vigorous exercise. IOW, retire early and thereby free yourself up engage in moderate activity most of the day-8 miles of walking plus handicrafts* (inclusive of high calorie brain burning challenging mental activities ) and cook yourself a good deal of frugal peasant food, and that might be about the best prescription you can write for yourself.

*Activities that link brain with use of hands creatively diminish depression. Also you can't eat Krispy Kreme donuts and knit a complex sweater at the same time.

Kriegsspiel
Posts: 952
Joined: Fri Aug 03, 2012 9:05 pm

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by Kriegsspiel »

BRUTE, tracking calories doesn't have to mean you aren't doing other stuff like you mentioned. You don't have to miss anything.

IlliniDave, yea that was wrong. I guess I should have noticed it looked fishy, but I'd been quaffing shine. But GI aside, AFAIK eating the carbs with other stuff slows gastric emptying and insulin response. Either way eating donuts is dumb if you're trying to lose fat.

BRUTE
Posts: 3797
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:20 pm

Re: What Do You Eat for Weight Loss?

Post by BRUTE »

jacob wrote:
Sat Apr 28, 2018 5:28 pm
Somehow this entire thread strikes me a long debate [...] all while ignoring changing the quantity and quality of one's activity level which just might impact the p-factor significantly more!?
Dear Leader jacob has been struck incorrectly by this debate then. maybe it is because the debate was focused on eating from the beginning, but many activities (and levels thereof) have been experimented with by brute. but not even the most strenuous activity levels (kickboxing 2x per day, 5x per week, for a month) has had nearly the effect that even a moderately ketogenic diet or a 5 day fast has had. fun, though.

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