
The Fat Trap: Our Bodies Are Fighting Against Us - tysone
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
======
saturdaysaint
Other people have pointed out that the author's stated theory of calory intake
isn't universally accepted, but I'd add that the author's conception of
exercise is also problematic. The value of the cardio she holds up as evidence
of her subjects devotion to weight loss is suspect.

She mentions changes to her subjects musculature on restricted calorie/high
cardio diets as an impediment to future weight loss. So why not do what's
practically canon among modern athletes and bodybuilders - make healthy muscle
development (or at least preservation) a primary goal of the diet/exercise
regime. In other words, do the opposite of what all these beleaguered people
are doing?

Bodybuilders disdain cardio because it results in hormone changes that
actively inhibit muscle development. Conversely, weight lifting boosts
testosterone and lean body mass.

The whole outlook here is so out of keeping with the wisdom of the highly fit
people I know (and my own experience shedding and keeping off 50 pounds of
excess weight for five years without the grueling effort she describes) makes
me question her conclusions.

~~~
kenjackson
_Other people have pointed out that the author's stated theory of calory
intake isn't universally accepted_

Very little in nutrition is universally accepted.

 _So why not do what's practically canon among modern athletes and
bodybuilders - make healthy muscle development (or at least preservation) a
primary goal of the diet/exercise regime. In other words, do the opposite of
what all these beleaguered people are doing?_

Because it generally doesn't work for weight loss. Each additional pound of
muscle will burn about 3 calories per day more than that pound of fat. So if
you lose 10 pounds of fat and add 10 pounds of muscle (no small feat), that
will net about 30 calories per day. Less than about 5 minutes of jogging.

Adding muscle mass is great when you're already lean, which is why it makes
sense for athletes and bodybuilders. But talk to NFL linemen who try to lose
weight after they retire and you'll see that simply lifting weights isn't
sufficient. They need to cut back on food and spend a lot of time running. And
from people I know -- they'd much rather just lift weights.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It's very true that losing 10lbs fat and gaining 10lbs muscle will only net 30
calories/day. So what? The goal isn't to get your weight below a certain
number unless you are a boxer aiming for a weight class. The goal is to get a
healthy body composition.

I'm 6'5", and I weigh 242lb, for a BMI of 29. (Overweight is 25, obese is 30.)
If you looked at me, you'd never guess I was overweight - the most you'd see
is a little excess belly fat if I took my shirt off. On the other hand, I
bench 170, squat 200 and press 120 (no deadlift due to back injury). When I
hit 253, I'll be obese, just like pretty much everyone in the NBA. Yes, I know
my squat is low.

And, like most people in the NBA, I'll be eating just as much as any fat guy.
That's what gaining muscle buys you - it lets you eat as much as ever while
being "that jacked guy" rather than "that fat guy".

This also ignores the fact that to build and maintain the muscle, you are
burning calories anaerobically, the same as you would if you were sprinting
(slower running burns fewer calories, since it's primarily aerobic).

~~~
kenjackson
_I'm 6'5", and I weigh 242lb_

Remind me stop disagreeing with you. :-)

~~~
dredmorbius
At 6'2", 265#, bouncers at bars call me "sir".

------
kenjackson
This article seems to be to be strong justification for policies to keep
people from getting overweight to begin with. I know for example, there have
been battles in school districts to get rid of flavored milk and such.

I really would love to see better foods in schools. It's largely a captive
audience. If we could reduce the number of people who leave high school
overweight, even if by just a small number, it would probably have pretty
decent long-term benefits.

And likewise better college programs. For example, at my college, if there was
a "good health" program I could have easily signed up for, which included
aerobic/weight training and meals there's a good chance I would have done it.

~~~
algoshift
> strong justification for policies to keep people from getting overweight to
> begin with

Thinking that legislation is the solution to everything is part of so many
problem in the US. You can't stop fat gain with laws any more than stopping
people from driving over the posted speed limits on highways (which are
government legislated and policed).

Education and free market effects are the only real and long-term solutions to
these and other problems.

Educate people and they will vote with their actions. Food quality will
improve overnight if Walmart shoppers stop buying everything with corn syrup
and a myriad of unrecognizable chemical cocktails added for flavor, looks,
preservation, whatever.

Finally, one needs to recognize that a certain percentage of the population
will be fat no-matter what. I don't know what that number might be, but the
key point is to face the reality that one can't fix every life. It's an
individual choice.

If health insurance costs were paid directly by the policy holder and the
market was free and open across state lines you might just see insurance
policies that say things like "if your body fat content is over 20% your
deductible increases by 100%, if it's over 33% your coverage is cut in half."
or some such thing.

People react immediately to things that affect them directly. This sort of a
free market approach is proven to motivate people to change behaviors. Your
automobile insurance gets more expensive if you accumulate speeding tickets,
therefore you slow down.

Keep government out of it. Almost everything they touch turns into an ugly
mess.

~~~
barrkel
Sometimes I wish people like you would move to Somalia. If lack of government
is what you really want, you can have it.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Sometimes I wish people who support women's rights would move to Pakistan. If
women's rights is what they really want, they can have it. <\- This statement
makes just as much sense as yours.

Somalia has a government which practices quasi-Sharia [1]. Fun fact: most
people who want to reduce the size of western governments don't actually favor
increasing the scope of the government to pre-marital sex (a stoning offense
in Somalia), wearing socks (failure to do so for women is punishable by
flogging) or chewing khat (a floggable offense).

[1] Mahmud, who posts here and is Somalian, claims it's not quite Sharia.
Knowing very little about Islamic law, I'll take his word for it.

~~~
barrkel
Southern Somalia is ruled by warlords, as I understand it. That's what I'd
expect in a country without a government; a country ruled by men rather than
laws.

Government simply doesn't ruin everything it touches. I could make a similarly
facile argument about how the market ruins everything it touches, turning all
of life into a uniform sea of brands, destroying geographic and cultural
distinctiveness, as well as laying ruin to the environment and every other
cost externality that isn't accounted for in the absence of a regulator to
internalize those costs. Factories belching out fumes in foreign lands, child
labour etc., all intermediated by the market so that you can buy your consumer
goods in your well-lit mall without needing to care about the blood and bones
ground up in the machine, because it's all hidden from you: all you see is a
price.

I'm in favour of mostly-free markets, and very-free civil liberties. I want as
little government as possible, within the scope for the society I personally
would like to see. Government that starts a lot fewer wars would be a
fantastic start.

But when people go on about how the customer just needs to be educated and the
free market will do its work, well, I just sigh. I don't want to have to do
that work, because I know (a) I don't have time for that, and (b) in any case
companies will be motivated to spend a lot more resources fooling me and
people like me than I even have. Information asymmetries are real, and they
strongly favour the wealthy. I don't think that's fair, and it's not a society
I'd vote for.

The grandparent - algoshift - is simply mistaken about health insurance, for
example. The vast majority of health spending is in the final years and months
of life. But elderly people have no motivation to reduce this spending; even
if educated, why would they reduce it, when the alternative is death? The fact
of the matter is, we spend too much money and resources keeping old people
alive but on the brink of death. I don't think that's fair either.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_Government simply doesn't ruin everything it touches._

Nor did I claim it did. I just pointed out that it's silly to point out a
nation with a government that is more intrusive than the US government and
then suggest people who want less government should go live there.

------
spodek
I didn't see the biggest data point to me, which is that Americans have become
more obese in the past several decades, far too short a time for our genetics
to have changed.

This data point suggests a major non-genetic component to getting obese.

Processed foods, labor-saving devices, and cars have come into existence and
dominated our lives. It's hard not to conclude they play a major role.

~~~
radu_floricica
The article is not about getting obese, but about the fundamental flaw of all
dieting methods - being "famished" changes the body and makes it much easier
to gain weight.

If anything, this knowledge could put dieting itself among the risk factors
for obesity.

~~~
berntb
The interesting thing to me in the article is that these metabolical changes
show up at 10% weight loss. What happens if someone lose 5%, stay at that
weight a year and then lose another 5%? Will the changes still occur?

An important point implied in the article, is that weight lifting works. (As
the GP discussed.)

(Personally, I was outsourced a year ago and took the chance to remove sugar
from my diet. Works well, but it might be something else in mybnew environment
that makes me lose weight.)

------
ebbv
What a crock of shit. There's always some new study that lazy people want to
use to excuse being fat and lazy.

I was fat for most of my adult life but when I was 30 I finally got sick of it
and spent the next 18 months losing over 100 lbs to get healthy.

Am I miraculously cured and could never get fat again? No. I could get fat
again easily and during the holidays I put on like a few pounds due to bad
habits. But I'm taking it back off. It's a constant battle, not "with my body"
-- which implies that it's out of your control, like cancer -- but with the
bad habits I developed during childhood and perfected during my 20's. I have
to fight against them and I have to NOT be lazy, I have to exercise, in order
to avoid getting fat again.

There's no "magic" going on, we've understood for many decades that weight
loss and gain are ALL about calories in vs. calories out, and that's true for
everybody except a tiny, tiny percent who have various medical conditions.

When someone loses the weight during some "trick diet" like special shakes,
and then they go off the shakes and gain the weight back, that's no more
surprising than if someone who is skinny suddenly starts eating 5 large pizzas
a day and gains weight.

Lasting weight loss requires that you change your habits and learn to eat for
fuel and fight against your tendency to eat to relieve boredom, for comfort,
for pleasure, etc.

Articles like this which encourage people to put their hands in the air and
say "It's not my fault! I can't help it!" make me sick because I think of
people like my aunt who suffered for years from diabetes, going blind and
eventually dying, which was NEEDLESS. If she had only been able to get help
and actually lose weight and get healthy, she could have been happy, healthy
and might still be with us today.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
You're probably getting downvoted for the first phrase - there does seem to be
some genetic component, albeit it's not clear how important it really is.

I agree with everything else you said.

~~~
rubashov
The genetic component has to do with susceptibility to overeating, though.
It's not some magic "metabolism" setting as is most commonly claimed.

~~~
dredmorbius
There are probably several dimensions to this.

Appetite regulation would be one, but that wouldn't explain studies in which
food intake is strictly controlled. Metabolism regulation, insulin/glucagon
regulation, intestinal flora, digestive efficiency, and other factors would
certainly affect overall body mass.

And issues such as thyroid function _do_ directly affect metabolism.

------
Travis
Having just finished reading "Willpower", I wanted to comment here. The
primary hypothesis of the book is that humans have a store of "willpower",
which is depleted every time we exercise it (including making tough decisions)
[see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion>]. When we avoid our favorite
foods, we deplete our willpower. When that reserve is gone, it is much more
difficult for us to make the "right" choice.

The really interesting twist was when they presented the brain glucose study
results. The authors suggest that it's glucose levels in the brain that
partially determine the size of the willpower reserve. Thus, when you diet,
you not only deplete your reserve by making a decision to avoid fatty foots,
but you also starve your brain of the glucose it needs to replenish the
ability to make tough decisions.

They support it with some interesting and fairly compelling evidence. I highly
recommend reading it.

~~~
daenz
> The primary hypothesis of the book is that humans have a store of
> "willpower", which is depleted every time we exercise it (including making
> tough decisions)

That's pretty interesting. I wonder if this says something about the
inevitability of a level of corruption in government (government, by
definition, makes tough decisions, depleting willpower, but willpower is
necessary for resisting corruption).

~~~
Travis
The book does address the incongruity between the level of self-control
required to rise to a high level of power and the shocking lack of self-
control and forethought of a Spitzer type person.

It doesn't tackle corruption per se, but does address politicians and power.
(although IMO, it wasn't the strongest section in the book)

------
jlarocco
I think part of the problem is dieting. 500 calories a day sounds miserable.
I'd be interested to see if they get the same results for exercise.

A few years ago I dropped about 100 pounds, and I've yet to put the weight
back on. What did it for me was lots of biking, hiking, trail running, and
skiing. At this point, I have so much fun "exercising", I don't know if I
could put the weight back on if I wanted too.

~~~
dredmorbius
500 cal/day isn't miserable, it's insane.

It's counter to well over 50 years (if not more) of medical evidence and
experience with sustainable weight loss. Look up the Minnesota Starvation
Experiment -- used to study the effects of long-term starvation among WWII
POWs and concentration camp survivors. This involved six months of semi-
starvation -- at 1500 cal/day.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment>

Fewer than ~1200-800 cal/day is generally considered "VLCD": very low calorie
dieting. If macronutrients and micronutrients aren't very carefully
controlled, the body is essentially eating itself in slow motion. And odds are
very good you wouldn't be able to exercise much if at all at 500 cal/day.

------
scelerat
Exercising seems to be discussed in this article in mostly abstract terms and
that's a real shame. People need to talk more about the _quality_ of the
exercise being performed as well as the time spent doing it. "Vigorous
gardening"?

People don't like to talk about it or do it because changing what you normally
do from day to day is hard.

I know because in the past I have gone from being a maintenance runner to
being a semi-competitive distance runner and understand that carving out the
time and putting in the effort to make those changes was difficult mentally
and socially. I saw the results not only in race times, but in the fit of my
jeans, pounds on the scale and skin on my face.

When I reduced my effort, weight and inches returned. Adding more
prepared/restaurant food and alcohol increased the effect.

Now I'm approaching middle age, have slacked off the running and am watching
my belly slowly grow. I know if I want it to stop or reverse, I'm going to
have to change my ways: less late night partying, more discipline and even
some pain. Aggressive yard work isn't going to do it, nor is biking to work (4
miles each way, mostly flat).

Merely changing your routine is hard enough. Changing it to introduce more
discomfort (at least for a time, until you get used to it and your more
energetic routine seems normal) is very difficult. It's difficult enough for
me, a former football and track athlete who knows what to expect and has a
decent tolerance for pain. It's got to be much worse for people who haven't
gone through the cycles and don't know what their bodies are capable of doing
and what their minds are capable of overcoming.

Talking about the exercise component can often drift off into lazy-shaming or
sound like macho story-telling, but every time I hear from overweight family
members or read an article like this one I always wonder, are you going for a
short-term dip, or are you going to change your life? Because if it's the
latter, you must prepare yourself for considerable inertia, metaphorically and
physically. And then push through it.

~~~
peterwwillis
Group exercise programs can help motivate you to work through discomfort and
stick to a regular schedule. I highly recommend looking at local gyms and
independent trainers (ever see 5 people doing exercises in the park?) to find
a group program that fits your schedule. The camaraderie sure helped me stick
to a really grueling program and the benefits made it addictive.

------
dredmorbius
Where this article (and a great many like it) annoy the bejesus out of me is
in their sole focus on diet for fat loss.

Yes, diet matters.

In fact, diet matters a lot.

It matters in both quantity (the old "calories in/calories out"), quality
(especially macronutrient breakdown and degree of processed foods), and timing
(particularly of carbs in morning/post-workout feedings).

But diet is not the whole story.

Your body is comprised of several types of tissue. For the most part, the
variable elements are adipose mass (a/k/a "fat"), skeletal muscle (those
things Arnold Schwarzenneger made famous), and retained fluid (a/k/a "water
weight") which is _highly_ variable, responsive to carb loading, inflammation,
and other factors, and is most of what rapid weight loss programs target --
which by analog means it's not long-lasting weight loss. You _won't_ see
appreciable changes, generally, in bone mass or organ size, absent excess skin
on the morbidly obese.

The body has a complex set of autoregulatory systems, which seem to go out of
whack under conditions prevalent in modern industrialized societies: abundent
processed high-carbohydrate diets, little activity, social stresses,
environmental toxins (particularly androgenic compounds). And yes, genetic and
other factors play a role.

The question is, what can you do about it.

The article suggests "eat less".

Eating less can influence your body fat. And skeletal muscle, though not in a
good way by itself (dieters lose 20-25% or more of their weight as muscle,
absent countermeasures). But it's also going to kick off a bunch of
adaptations which largely work against the goals of a deliberate low-calorie
dieter.

So, what _else_ can you do about it?

 _Pick up heavy shit._ Lifting weights is what stimulates skeletal muscle to
grow. Add 2-3 days of 30-60 minutes of resistance training to your program,
and you'll retain, or add, muscle, while losing body fat. This is what
programs such as "Body for Life" and others promote. It's basic stuff that
strength trainers and strongmen have known about for over 100 years. Compound,
freeweight, whole-body exercise: squats, deadlifts, press, bench press, chins
(if you can do them), rows, pull-downs. Some core/ab stability work.

Especially if you're past 30 or 40. Your body is now well into losing the
muscle it had originally had, at the rate of about 1/2 pound per year. You can
literally turn back years of loss in a few months of training, to great
effect.

 _Move._ Intensely if possible. For someone grossly out of shape, simply
walking for 20, or 15, or 10, or even 5 minutes a day is a good start. But if
you can walk or jog for a good 20-40 minutes, what you want to do is up the
ante with intensity, not duration, with high-intensity interval training
(HIIT). Google "Tabata intervals" for a particularly engaging pasttime. No,
doing the 20 minute treadmill waddle is NOT sufficient. Though if you're doing
HIIT 2-3x weekly, another few sessions of longer moderate-intensity cardio
will help.

So, yet another article saying "low-calorie dieting alone results in temporary
weight loss in subjects" is hardly surprising. What have those in the know
long known? That low, and especially very-low (>1000 cal/day deficit) dieting
results in a high degree of lean-tissue loss, that metabolism slows by 40%
after a few weeks, and that the post-diet recovery generally results in
gaining yet more fat on a muscle-deprived frame, for a worse overall health
outcome.

And we know this shit, well: <http://alwyncosgrove.com/2010/01/hierarchy-of-
fat-loss/> <http://liamrosen.com/fitness.html>

A great article previously posted to HN is "Everything You Know About Fitness
is a Lie". This NY Times piece falls well into that lie category:
[http://www.mensjournal.com/everything-you-know-about-
fitness...](http://www.mensjournal.com/everything-you-know-about-fitness-is-a-
lie/print/)

So:

\- Yes, diet. Cut processed foods, get sufficient protein, minimize excess
carbs, eliminate junk calories (white anything, soda, HFCS, trans-fats, sugar,
fruit juice). Figure out your BMR and estimated activity level ( _NOT_ your
BMI, another bullshit fitness concept that needs to be shot dead) as a
ballpark sanity check for calories.

\- Pick up heavy shit. Specifically, a whole-body, freeweight, compound-
movement strength program 2-4x weekly. If you can't use freeweights, machines
are OK, but you'll do better with stuff that moves freely through space for
numerous reasons.

\- Move. If you're not moving at all, then start with something, and increase
that until you're at 20-40+ minutes daily. If you're already moving, increase
intensity 2-3x weekly. If you're doing both, add some more moderate cardio,
particular morning fasted activity (your body's got no option but to burn fat
at this time).

\- Sleep, manage stress, get approriate recovery, cut out toxins in your life
(chemical and social), address injuries or illnesses. Be gentle but firm with
yourself.

If you want more, take a look at _The New Rules of Lifting_ , _Body for Life_
, or Mark Rippetoe's excellent _Starting Strength_.

In time you'll see big changes. Pretty much guaranteed.

Oh: yes, it's a _lifestyle_ thing, you see. You'll have to keep doing some of
this for most of the rest of your life. Odds are you may even find you like
both the activity and the results.

If not, _and_ you're honestly following the program, we can talk about what
else to look at.

(Edits: minor typo/style fixes)

~~~
BrainInAJar
> If not, and you're honestly following the program, we can talk about what
> else to look at.

Lifting heavy shit _sucks_. Some people like it sure, but it really, really
sucks. It doesn't work for me, and it doesn't work for others either.

I have a bit of a suspicion that muscle fibre type (fast vs. slow twitch) has
some bearing on whether or not you like it but someone like me ( a slow-
twitcher ) needs endurance sport rather than weightlifting in order to be able
to continue doing it (psychologically) for more than a couple months. So
swimming, cycling, running, rock climbing, etc. doesn't build muscle as
quickly or effectively but it increases your caloric deficit by multiples and
for some is a much better way of changing lifestyle.

Good comment, otherwise

~~~
peterwwillis
"No pain no gain." If what you're doing doesn't feel at least a little
uncomfortable then you aren't pushing your body enough. You don't want literal
pain of course; always listen to your body. But it should feel difficult.

Perhaps you should build your fast-twitch muscles in different ways. Lifting
heavy shit builds strength/power but does not build lean, functional muscle.
There is such a huge variety of movements to work different parts of the body
you could fill an hour's worth exercise with just a fraction of them. Body
weight exercises can be very challenging and easy to start doing at your home.
Personal trainers can show you exercises to do at home or the gym, as well as
a multitude of free YouTube videos (but I should recommend you get a trainer
to evaluate your form first so you don't hurt yourself). P90x is a very
successful program and BeachBody has a couple other series which are also very
challenging and provide results (I am not advertising for them; please torrent
their videos if you want)

Lately I have gotten lazy so i'm doing Thai Boxing on mondays/wednesdays,
kettlebell and other mixed exercise on tuesdays/thursdays and yoga on
saturdays/sundays. I can't believe nobody has mentioned how surprisingly
difficult yoga can be (especially the "power yoga" varieties) but I would
recommend you try it if you want a less stressful beginning to a regular
exercise program.

If you want to build more fast-twitch you should look into efficient
plyometric exercises. Isometrics for strength (which can still be done with
only bodyweight!)

~~~
dredmorbius
Or Olympic lifts.

I've been doing power cleans for the past 18 months or so, and am thinking of
incorporating snatches.

Those puppies will torch you like nothing else. Well, maybe high-rep squats or
deads, but with much less spinal load.

~~~
peterwwillis
That's one of the fun things about most crossfit boxes: they incorporate a
variety of lifts in the WOD to maximize the lean muscle and not turn you into
a body builder. (If you have the equipment at home you can do WODs by yourself
or replicate them at your local gym)

~~~
dredmorbius
More reasons to love my gym.

A lot of weights. I'd say "a ton", but that'd be undercounting just 45#s by a
factor of 4.

3 power cages, with lifting platforms and bumper plates. DBs to 200# (I'm
still at about 120#). Another squat cage. A few Smiths to keep the bros off
the real boys' toys. Recent some TRX gear (ring pull-ups FTW). 10 chinning
bars, a couple of dips stations, GHR, bar jacks, chalk, and other goodness.
Lots of machines for people who like that sort of thing.

And a really serious night crew.

~~~
gonzo
damn, I thought you worked out at my gym, but the DBs there only go to 173#.

------
jbwyme
The whole weight loss approach described in the article seems flawed to begin
with. The human body is an adaptive organism and will fight any drastic
changes trying to stay in balance. 500 calories a day will certainly cause the
body to begin changing hormone levels. Then you come out of it after a while
and start eating correctly you still have severely imbalances hormones
(relative to normal levels). So now you're eating healthy but have completely
screwed up the way your body handles food, essentially storing more calories
than before. If you slowly shift into better habits and allow your body time
to keep up you'll end up with a calorie burning machine. The main problem is
people get so motivated to change they dive in head first (such as. 500
calorie per day diet), throw everything out of whack, try to maintain their
losses which start coming back and end up worse than where they started.

~~~
kenjackson
_The human body is an adaptive organism and will fight any drastic changes
trying to stay in balance._

You do realize that's pure speculation on your part. It's nice to be able to
just say things like, "the brain is so powerful that if you imagine eating it
will be like you did". But you actually need the science and data to back it
up.

Furthermore, where is the line? Is 500 calories too much? What about a 50
calorie per day deficit? What about 1 calorie? Is it better to lose the
calories per day, or in a single sitting? Does it matter the food composition?
Does it matter if the deficit is paired with exercise? What if the deficit is
purely exercise (no reduction in caloric intake)? Etc... You use the
scientific method to try to understand this. Not just speculation from random
Joe's on the corner, because frankly everyone and their mom has an opinion.
And that's why everyone and their mom has a new diet they've just introduced.

~~~
mgcross
Pubmed has a lot of abstracts pertaining to metabolic rate:
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18198305> "Body weight is defended in non-
obese participants during modest caloric restriction, evidenced by metabolic
adaptation of RMR and reduced energy expenditure through physical activity."
There are plenty of other studies that support CR as a factor in lowered RMR.
I read one (can't remember where) that used non-obese women. IIRC, the women
on 300kcal deficits had no change in metabolic rate, while those on 500 did.

------
Tichy
In a way, isn't it a good thing if the body can get by with less calories?
Personally I find it a bit frustrating that my body is so inefficient. For
example, Chinese people are certainly as smart or smarter than I am, yet their
bodies tend to be smaller so presumably they require less calories for
maintenance. Of course the brain still craving for more is a problem, but
being able to get by on less calories seems like a good thing.

------
cliftonk
Carbohydrates produce insulin, insulin causes us to store fat. It's not
complicated. There have been scientific studies out since the 30's entirely
dismissing calorie counting as being effective.

Good Calories, Bad Calories: [http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-
Challenging-Conventi...](http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Challenging-
Conventional/dp/1400040787)

~~~
kenjackson
It's almost like you didn't read the article. Which is too bad, because it's
probably one of the best weight loss articles I've ever come across.

~~~
Shorel
In the article they reference low fat diets and calorie counting, in every
single study cited.

In fact, the word carbohydrates appears only once in the whole article.

In Taubes book calories from fat != calories from sugar.

It's not hard to see why they reach very different conclusions.

~~~
kenjackson
Reread the article.

Some quotes to help you process it:

"There is no consistent pattern to how people in the registry lost weight —
some did it on Weight Watchers, others with Jenny Craig, some by cutting carbs
on the Atkins diet and a very small number lost weight through surgery."

"Fat, sugar and carbohydrates in processed foods may very well be culprits in
the nation’s obesity problem. But there is tremendous variation in an
individual’s response."

The article isn't about good vs bad calories. It's about your body's
fundamental changes in response to weight loss.

"For instance, a gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger
hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another
hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally
low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases
metabolism, also remained lower than expected. A cocktail of other hormones
associated with hunger and metabolism all remained significantly changed
compared to pre-dieting levels. It was almost as if weight loss had put their
bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set
them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place."

Read the article. Don't skim it. Actually read it.

------
endtime
It depresses me to see the results of people being misguided into caloric
restriction. Good Calories, Bad Calories should be required reading at weight
loss programs: [http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Challenging-
Conventi...](http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Challenging-
Conventional/dp/1400040787)

------
ellyagg
What a fatalistic article. Before taking the tone that this article does, I
would need to see hundreds of studies suggesting that reversing overweight
tendencies is not possible. It may be the minority, but legions of people have
reversed their weight problems, and not all required herculean efforts. It's
very doubtful that once you're significantly overweight, there's no hope.

While we need this research, this article spins it to make it less than
helpful for a certain segment of the population. Rather than focusing on the
people (most of them), who can't maintain their weight after dieting, we
really need more research explaining those who can, and not simple dismissals
that those rare people are machines whose lives revolve around counting
calories. People can change their metabolism. For example, there is a case
study documenting someone who lost almost 400 pounds over the course of just
over a year, using a strict fast[1]. After 5 years, he had maintained his
weight loss. Why was that? I can think of possible reasons that have not been
thoroughly studied. For instance, after several days or weeks, people on
strict fasts report not feeling hungry any longer. Is it possible one's
metabolism/sense of hunger resets on a strict fast?

Long term fasting can be dangerous, not least of which because very overweight
people often have other health problems. The study cited mentions several
people who died on long term fasts, particularly during refeeding. Due to the
danger, and probable need for doctor supervision, safe systems of long term
strict fasts haven't necessarily been fully fleshed out, although some fasting
diets exist that aren't strict fasts, and I would imagine would be quite safe,
like PSMF or Dukan diet.

What I like about a fasting diet is that there's no room for fooling yourself.
As soon as you introduce attempts to mimic yummy foods or introduce varieties
of flavor and texture, you open the door to cheating and desiring things you
can't have. If, on the other hand, you're consuming 600 calories of whey
protein and some green powder for nutrients, there's little room for error.

We know that the human metabolism isn't a simple calories in, calories out
furnace. Medical research is very clear that this isn't the case. Good
Calories, Bad Calories is heavily cited. One example that confounds a simple
arithmetical analysis is that the body uses a lot more energy to turn protein
into fat. So the body uses calories to store calories in that case. Another
example is that eating carbs actually changes most people's behavior: Unless
they are consciously counting, people will tend to eat more food if they are
eating carbs.

[1] <http://pmj.bmj.com/content/49/569/203.full.pdf>

~~~
cliptomania
Agreed. It's odd considering that people have no difficulty accepting that
alcoholics have a permanently altered relationship with booze.

Given that ex-fatties still have to eat, my idea would be to have the same
meal every day, liquidized and diluted with as much water as possible, and _to
take no pleasure from consuming it_. (Pleasure can be found elsewhere, e.g. in
meaningful work.)

>For instance, after several days or weeks, people on strict fasts report not
feeling hungry any longer.

That is true in my experience (I once fasted for 15 days).

In a fast there is opportunity for renewal of brain tissue:

[http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-
cell/abstract/S1934-5909%2811%...](http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-
cell/abstract/S1934-5909%2811%2900052-X?switch=standard)

Ofc, this approach won't work if the fast is too short (it takes other tissues
several weeks/months to renew themselves, e.g. skin = 6 weeks). So some
limited food intake is necessary. Also won't work if the subject develops,
say, a cocaine or porn habit to replace food.

~~~
gwern
> It's odd considering that people have no difficulty accepting that
> alcoholics have a permanently altered relationship with booze.

Odd, perhaps - but was that always the case? Was there no 'medicalization' of
alcholism (or tobacco addiction, or eating disorders, or...) which turned it
from a moral failing to a disease?

