In 1967, a medical researcher, Ethan Sims, carried out an experiment at Vermont state prison in the US. He recruited inmates to eat as much as they could to gain 25% of their body weight, in return for early release from prison.
Some of the volunteers could not reach the target however hard they tried, even though they were eating 10,000 calories a day. Sims's conclusion was that for some, obesity is nearly impossible.
Here the calories are tracked, and enough time passes for some people to become obese. There's some less-than-anecdotal data for you.
Their bodies freaked out and went full luxus consumption because they went from prison gruel to 10,000 calories. That's more than an Olympic athlete. It's the opposite of starvation mode, where the body retains more calories when there's a shortage of intake. Those are two ridiculous extremes that aren't naturally occurring if you don't do stupid shit to your body. Without going into extremes on either side, natural "metabolism" will never make a difference of more than like 100kcal unless you have some sort of serious medical condition.
On June 21 2013 08:13 Arghmyliver wrote:
On June 21 2013 08:00 RockIronrod wrote: [quote] Did you ever actually count your calories or did you just kind of assume they were a lot because you felt queasy? Do you think the energy just disappears or something? Either it goes to you and it's not enough maintenance level so it all gets stored and none gets stored as fat or it's going to a parasite. I'm in the exact same spot as you for some of the same reasons, but I actually did count my average calorie intake and it wasn't nearly as much as I thought it was, and what I do need to put on weight at a healthy pace sickens me because I'm not used to eating that much in a day.
Sorry I misread your post. You didn't specify a caloric intake, instead using the term "maintenance level" which is a bit loaded if you consider that obviously I wasn't consuming above my "maintenance level" assuming this is your threshold for weight gain. No one who isn't gaining weight would be right? But lets assume everyone's body consumes energy at different rate. What I'm saying is - the quantity and composition of the food I was eating would have made some people overweight. I knew people that couldn't drink milkshakes without working extra on the treadmill to burn it off. Consider that now, I eat considrably less in terms of quantity but I didn't lose any weight. Even without extra empty carbs. Does that mean I have a white hole in my intestine? Or did my tapeworm die?
Or you didn't count your calories back then and are grossly overestimating how much you ate.
Okay you must be right. Is a hamburger every day more than a cup of lentil salad? Who can tell! It would be a feat of human intelligence :D! Or maybe you think you know better than everyone and refuse to consider that my memory might be better than a goldfish.
Your memory is inconsequential. As you were never counting calories in the first place, there is nothing relevant for you to remember.
Your anecdotes add nothing to the thread. People like to think of themselves as special snowflakes so are naturally biased to, for example, overestimate their caloric intake and conclude they must be blessed because they didn't gain weight. The reality is probably much more mundane and the same thing that applies to all humans: people are very bad at estimating their caloric intake.
If you truly do make calories disappear like your stomach is another dimension, I suggest you get some hard data and publish it in a peer reviewed scientific journal. Until then, your posts add nothing to the conversation.
You have once again completely missed my point here. I don't think I'm some kind of energy wormhole. I'm saying ny diet would have been invalid for other individuals in terms of weight gain. I ate as much if not more than others some of whom were unfortunately obese. If you want to come to where I live and try to make me fat I invite you to do so hut I promise you will find it more challenging than a similiar experiment performed on other individuals. Bodies do not consume energy at the same rate. I don't know what I am doing, but I am able to eat whenever I want without fear of weight gain. I use more calories than other people I guess in myy daily activity, which is interesting considering I am pretty much a couch potatoe. My brother is the same way. Seems genetic to me
dem delusions. If you want actual proof, record all of your calories and macronutrients and look at the totals of what you eat. Since it's too much of a hassle to settle an internet argument, you won't do it. And I'll still remain completely unconvinced of your anecdote.
Look, I don't know how to say this any more clearly. Even if you fed everyone on earth the exact same diet every day for their entire lives people would still have different weights and the reason, like most human differences, would be genetic. If you don't understand that I'm not sure what else I can do to clarify.
Look, I don't know how to say this any more clearly. I know EXACTLY what your argument is and I'm calling you delusional. For some reason you keep thinking me and others aren't understanding what you're saying. We are. It's just dumb. The difference is hormonal and neurological/psychological, with a SMALL genetic component. If you don't understand that I'm not sure what else I can do to clarify.
EDIT: By the way, you may in fact have some weird thing where you can eat 5000 calories and not gain weight (you don't) but that doesn't mean it's genetic either. Because there's this thing you've lived called a life, and various things you've done and chosen in that life can affect your metabolic rate.
Your ad hominem isn't very flattering. The fact that you think humans in different areas of the world never adapted to the nutrition that was locally available is interesting to say the least. If you don't want to debate that's fine, but don't call me an idiot or delusional. Especially since you have failed to provide evidence for your claim that genetics have nothing to do with diversity. I don't really have time to argue Darwin here, nor the means to link you to anything on what he did. I guess I'll just say - evolution is cool.
Your condescension of acting like I'm incapable of understanding your simple argument isn't very flattering. Where did I say that humans in different areas of the world never adapted to the locally available nutrition...? I am debating, your debating happens to be just saying random things then repeating them as if I don't understand your argument. Well, NOW I'm failing to understand your argument because you're acting like I said that genetics have nothing to do with diversity and randomly decided to bring up evolution.
I also literally just said genetics is part of obesity, but a small part that is overshadowed by hormones, calorie consumption, and psychological/neurological factors. What are you even rambling about at this point? What does adapting to locally available nutrition even have to do with ANYTHING lol? Are the fish that the Native Americans ate different on a molecular and macronutrient level than the fish that the Chinese and Egyptians ate? Did their plants contain different starch? Is anyone even talking about the various eating habits of ancient humans in regards to anything at all? Is a gram of protein in my body 4 calories but in an Asian's body 3? That would certainly be an uh, interesting argument.
edit: by the way, you've probably already read this and are maybe replying but I assume your argument here is that people became used to eating different diets based on their regions, right? Doesn't really make sense and you can see that obesity is a very recent epidemic. Especially in America. It's an extremely oversimplistic viewpoint and assumes that there were just drastically different diets between all sorts of regions to the point that within 20,000 years we developed significantly different metabolic pathways or something. Even though I've yet to see any real study showing a solely genetic-ethnic risk factors for obesity.
On June 21 2013 03:53 Tien wrote: Won't change a thing.
It's a completely voluntary mental disorder.
This is exactly right. Laziness and complacency. "Genetics" is a hilarious excuse.
Although I tend to agree with this, we must still entertain the possibility that someone is fat by genetics. Such a case is probably exceedingly rare though.
In 1967, a medical researcher, Ethan Sims, carried out an experiment at Vermont state prison in the US. He recruited inmates to eat as much as they could to gain 25% of their body weight, in return for early release from prison.
Some of the volunteers could not reach the target however hard they tried, even though they were eating 10,000 calories a day. Sims's conclusion was that for some, obesity is nearly impossible.
Here the calories are tracked, and enough time passes for some people to become obese. There's some less-than-anecdotal data for you.
Their bodies freaked out and went full luxus consumption because they went from prison gruel to 10,000 calories. That's more than an Olympic athlete. It's the opposite of starvation mode, where the body retains more calories when there's a shortage of intake. Those are two ridiculous extremes that aren't naturally occurring if you don't do stupid shit to your body. Without going into extremes on either side, natural "metabolism" will never make a difference of more than like 100kcal unless you have some sort of serious medical condition.
On June 21 2013 08:13 Arghmyliver wrote:
On June 21 2013 08:00 RockIronrod wrote:
On June 21 2013 07:51 Arghmyliver wrote:
On June 21 2013 07:34 RockIronrod wrote:
On June 21 2013 07:12 Arghmyliver wrote: [quote]
Yeah I ate like that (maybe not quite that much every meal) for like a decade. Keep in mind that I also had breakfast and dinner that day too. I don't do it now just because I know my weight isn't necessarily indicitive of like my cholesterol and I don't want a massive heart attack. But imean, I could suck in and wrap my hands around my entire waist even while I was doing that.
If you truly ate highly above your calorie maintenance level and didn't gain weight, you either had worms or a black hole in your digestive tract. More than likely you didn't eat nearly as much as you thought you did, or you didn't eat consistently enough to gain weight (one day of 5000 calories and a week of 1200~). Genetics have little do to with this outside of actual medical problems like hyperthyroidism, and anyone who claims "muh metabolism" on either doesn't understand how metabolism actually works, or how energy works. It's a lot easier to blame genetics than it is to not drink a bottle of coke with every meal, and it feels better to say "I eat so much but never put on weight" than it is to say "I barely eat at sustainable levels every day but I splurged these few times in a month and didn't jump 30 kilos over night."
There were points where I was actively trying to gain weight because girls didn't want to go out with a guy who was skinnier than them with literally no effort. I was literally eating until I felt nauseous just to impress people or maybe gain weight faster than my 5 lbs per year of grade school average. Nowadays I eat when I'm hungry and try to stay on top of my Vits and essentials. If that's not enough calories or whatever I'm not really interested. If you think everyone is an identical machine that needs exactly X calories for Y weight gain maybe it's you who doesn't know how energy works.
Did you ever actually count your calories or did you just kind of assume they were a lot because you felt queasy? Do you think the energy just disappears or something? Either it goes to you and it's not enough maintenance level so it all gets stored and none gets stored as fat or it's going to a parasite. I'm in the exact same spot as you for some of the same reasons, but I actually did count my average calorie intake and it wasn't nearly as much as I thought it was, and what I do need to put on weight at a healthy pace sickens me because I'm not used to eating that much in a day.
Sorry I misread your post. You didn't specify a caloric intake, instead using the term "maintenance level" which is a bit loaded if you consider that obviously I wasn't consuming above my "maintenance level" assuming this is your threshold for weight gain. No one who isn't gaining weight would be right? But lets assume everyone's body consumes energy at different rate. What I'm saying is - the quantity and composition of the food I was eating would have made some people overweight. I knew people that couldn't drink milkshakes without working extra on the treadmill to burn it off. Consider that now, I eat considrably less in terms of quantity but I didn't lose any weight. Even without extra empty carbs. Does that mean I have a white hole in my intestine? Or did my tapeworm die?
Or you didn't count your calories back then and are grossly overestimating how much you ate.
Okay you must be right. Is a hamburger every day more than a cup of lentil salad? Who can tell! It would be a feat of human intelligence :D! Or maybe you think you know better than everyone and refuse to consider that my memory might be better than a goldfish.
Your memory is inconsequential. As you were never counting calories in the first place, there is nothing relevant for you to remember.
Your anecdotes add nothing to the thread. People like to think of themselves as special snowflakes so are naturally biased to, for example, overestimate their caloric intake and conclude they must be blessed because they didn't gain weight. The reality is probably much more mundane and the same thing that applies to all humans: people are very bad at estimating their caloric intake.
If you truly do make calories disappear like your stomach is another dimension, I suggest you get some hard data and publish it in a peer reviewed scientific journal. Until then, your posts add nothing to the conversation.
You have once again completely missed my point here. I don't think I'm some kind of energy wormhole. I'm saying ny diet would have been invalid for other individuals in terms of weight gain. I ate as much if not more than others some of whom were unfortunately obese. If you want to come to where I live and try to make me fat I invite you to do so hut I promise you will find it more challenging than a similiar experiment performed on other individuals. Bodies do not consume energy at the same rate. I don't know what I am doing, but I am able to eat whenever I want without fear of weight gain. I use more calories than other people I guess in myy daily activity, which is interesting considering I am pretty much a couch potatoe. My brother is the same way. Seems genetic to me
dem delusions. If you want actual proof, record all of your calories and macronutrients and look at the totals of what you eat. Since it's too much of a hassle to settle an internet argument, you won't do it. And I'll still remain completely unconvinced of your anecdote. Taubes may state things like hormones are more to blame than just pure calories, but he will also say you will gain weight from excessive consumption of things like carbs due to things like insulin sensitivity increasing. And if you think you eating a surplus of calories of hamburgers, fudge, and chips won't make you gain weight, you really do live in some fantasy world.
edit: by the way, if anyone cares about my anecdote, I was always underweight for my age. Then I started eating a lot more than I normally did (my maintenance of around 2.3ishk) and I gained weight (with 3-4k) . Because I ate in a somewhat healthy fashion and watched my calories, I gained muscle and small amounts of fat. Now that I am no longer trying to gain, and am too lazy to forcefeed myself, I am currently maintaining my weight. Gasp, turns out despite thinking when I was young that I was eating quite a bit, I actually wasn't---and when I bumped my calories up by around 500-1000, I started to gain weight in a linear fashion. Real mindblowing stuff you discover when you start counting your calories and weighing out your food.
You don't simple just start "gaining muscle and small amounts of fat" by eating healthy. Either you were working out or doing some kind of resistance/cardiovascular training because excess calories don't just simple decide they want to turn into muscle.
edit: a lot of people also think that when they work out, "your fat turns into muscle" or something entirely foolish like that.
On June 21 2013 07:39 On_Slaught wrote: Gary Taubes gives a VERY strong argument for why the calories equation has literally nothing to do with weight gain. He says that relying on the law of thermodynamics (which is what people are doing when they argue this) is making an 8th grade level math mistake. This law has no more impact on weight gain than the law of relativity does.
Rather his argument, for those who don't have the patience to watch the whole video, is that the common view is backwards (he goes into the history of how this was lost). Fat people don't get fatter because they eat more, they eat more because they are fat. Basic biology tells us that it has everything to do with how our hormones are influenced by our food (he goes into a lot of detail about how big genetics is to weight gain. Anybody who says it is a minor issue is completely un-grounded). The ultimate conclusion is that the specific substance which causes ALL fat creation in cells is insulin. Insulin is caused by carbohydrate intake. Therefore carbohydrate intake directly leads to fat increases. He argues that you can literally eat as much non-carbohydrated food as you want and you couldn't gain weight gain weight.
However this does not free people from personal responsibility. It happens to be that many of the best tasting food happens to create insulin so personal discipline is still a huge factor.
It's nice to actually listen to somebody who at least gives sound scientific basis for his arguments rather than the pure shit being dredged up in this thread. And even for the people not spouting pure shit, there is no basis other than the ubiquity of their stance upon which they base it.
Currently 25 mins into that video, thanks for posting it- very informative and clears up a lot of misinformation! Some points really hitting home for me- like how incredibly skinny I was as a kid while my parents were overweight etc. :D
Everyone in this thread should watch it. Reposting for the link-paranoid.
Hmm just wondering, did anyone ever do a comparison study looking at obesity in Japan vs America? I'm sure genetics is one component, but diet must be a core component as well right?
He actually did a short comparison at the end talking about breast cancer in Japanese women and how low risk they are in Japan and increases when they come to the US. His conclusion was adding more sugar intake to an already carb heavy diet. Unfortunately, this is where I have a disconnect from his findings (which overall were really spot on) since I had spent so much time living in Italy (back and forth between Italy and the States for a period of time). His conclusion at the end seems contrary to the Mediterranean diet which is fairly high in both sugar (although lower than the US) and carbs (pasta!) and the people over there are generally very fit and there is nowhere near the obesity epidemic like in the US.
So I am once again left with my anecdotes hoping science can figure it all out lol.
In 1967, a medical researcher, Ethan Sims, carried out an experiment at Vermont state prison in the US. He recruited inmates to eat as much as they could to gain 25% of their body weight, in return for early release from prison.
Some of the volunteers could not reach the target however hard they tried, even though they were eating 10,000 calories a day. Sims's conclusion was that for some, obesity is nearly impossible.
Here the calories are tracked, and enough time passes for some people to become obese. There's some less-than-anecdotal data for you.
Their bodies freaked out and went full luxus consumption because they went from prison gruel to 10,000 calories. That's more than an Olympic athlete. It's the opposite of starvation mode, where the body retains more calories when there's a shortage of intake. Those are two ridiculous extremes that aren't naturally occurring if you don't do stupid shit to your body. Without going into extremes on either side, natural "metabolism" will never make a difference of more than like 100kcal unless you have some sort of serious medical condition.
On June 21 2013 08:13 Arghmyliver wrote:
On June 21 2013 08:00 RockIronrod wrote:
On June 21 2013 07:51 Arghmyliver wrote:
On June 21 2013 07:34 RockIronrod wrote: [quote] If you truly ate highly above your calorie maintenance level and didn't gain weight, you either had worms or a black hole in your digestive tract. More than likely you didn't eat nearly as much as you thought you did, or you didn't eat consistently enough to gain weight (one day of 5000 calories and a week of 1200~). Genetics have little do to with this outside of actual medical problems like hyperthyroidism, and anyone who claims "muh metabolism" on either doesn't understand how metabolism actually works, or how energy works. It's a lot easier to blame genetics than it is to not drink a bottle of coke with every meal, and it feels better to say "I eat so much but never put on weight" than it is to say "I barely eat at sustainable levels every day but I splurged these few times in a month and didn't jump 30 kilos over night."
There were points where I was actively trying to gain weight because girls didn't want to go out with a guy who was skinnier than them with literally no effort. I was literally eating until I felt nauseous just to impress people or maybe gain weight faster than my 5 lbs per year of grade school average. Nowadays I eat when I'm hungry and try to stay on top of my Vits and essentials. If that's not enough calories or whatever I'm not really interested. If you think everyone is an identical machine that needs exactly X calories for Y weight gain maybe it's you who doesn't know how energy works.
Did you ever actually count your calories or did you just kind of assume they were a lot because you felt queasy? Do you think the energy just disappears or something? Either it goes to you and it's not enough maintenance level so it all gets stored and none gets stored as fat or it's going to a parasite. I'm in the exact same spot as you for some of the same reasons, but I actually did count my average calorie intake and it wasn't nearly as much as I thought it was, and what I do need to put on weight at a healthy pace sickens me because I'm not used to eating that much in a day.
Sorry I misread your post. You didn't specify a caloric intake, instead using the term "maintenance level" which is a bit loaded if you consider that obviously I wasn't consuming above my "maintenance level" assuming this is your threshold for weight gain. No one who isn't gaining weight would be right? But lets assume everyone's body consumes energy at different rate. What I'm saying is - the quantity and composition of the food I was eating would have made some people overweight. I knew people that couldn't drink milkshakes without working extra on the treadmill to burn it off. Consider that now, I eat considrably less in terms of quantity but I didn't lose any weight. Even without extra empty carbs. Does that mean I have a white hole in my intestine? Or did my tapeworm die?
Or you didn't count your calories back then and are grossly overestimating how much you ate.
Okay you must be right. Is a hamburger every day more than a cup of lentil salad? Who can tell! It would be a feat of human intelligence :D! Or maybe you think you know better than everyone and refuse to consider that my memory might be better than a goldfish.
Your memory is inconsequential. As you were never counting calories in the first place, there is nothing relevant for you to remember.
Your anecdotes add nothing to the thread. People like to think of themselves as special snowflakes so are naturally biased to, for example, overestimate their caloric intake and conclude they must be blessed because they didn't gain weight. The reality is probably much more mundane and the same thing that applies to all humans: people are very bad at estimating their caloric intake.
If you truly do make calories disappear like your stomach is another dimension, I suggest you get some hard data and publish it in a peer reviewed scientific journal. Until then, your posts add nothing to the conversation.
You have once again completely missed my point here. I don't think I'm some kind of energy wormhole. I'm saying ny diet would have been invalid for other individuals in terms of weight gain. I ate as much if not more than others some of whom were unfortunately obese. If you want to come to where I live and try to make me fat I invite you to do so hut I promise you will find it more challenging than a similiar experiment performed on other individuals. Bodies do not consume energy at the same rate. I don't know what I am doing, but I am able to eat whenever I want without fear of weight gain. I use more calories than other people I guess in myy daily activity, which is interesting considering I am pretty much a couch potatoe. My brother is the same way. Seems genetic to me
dem delusions. If you want actual proof, record all of your calories and macronutrients and look at the totals of what you eat. Since it's too much of a hassle to settle an internet argument, you won't do it. And I'll still remain completely unconvinced of your anecdote. Taubes may state things like hormones are more to blame than just pure calories, but he will also say you will gain weight from excessive consumption of things like carbs due to things like insulin sensitivity increasing. And if you think you eating a surplus of calories of hamburgers, fudge, and chips won't make you gain weight, you really do live in some fantasy world.
edit: by the way, if anyone cares about my anecdote, I was always underweight for my age. Then I started eating a lot more than I normally did (my maintenance of around 2.3ishk) and I gained weight (with 3-4k) . Because I ate in a somewhat healthy fashion and watched my calories, I gained muscle and small amounts of fat. Now that I am no longer trying to gain, and am too lazy to forcefeed myself, I am currently maintaining my weight. Gasp, turns out despite thinking when I was young that I was eating quite a bit, I actually wasn't---and when I bumped my calories up by around 500-1000, I started to gain weight in a linear fashion. Real mindblowing stuff you discover when you start counting your calories and weighing out your food.
You don't simple just start "gaining muscle and small amounts of fat" by eating healthy. Either you were working out or doing some kind of resistance/cardiovascular training because excess calories don't just simple decide they want to turn into muscle.
edit: a lot of people also think that when they work out, "your fat turns into muscle" or something entirely foolish like that.
Well yeah, I worked out, and have been working out consistently since February 04, 2008, while doing sports + some lifting before that. I should've clarified I exercised as well. I was just talking strictly in a nutritional sense of my calorie intake. I stupidly assumed (no sarcasm) it would be obvious that anyone who is bulking with a calorie surplus to gain weight is also exercising.
In 1967, a medical researcher, Ethan Sims, carried out an experiment at Vermont state prison in the US. He recruited inmates to eat as much as they could to gain 25% of their body weight, in return for early release from prison.
Some of the volunteers could not reach the target however hard they tried, even though they were eating 10,000 calories a day. Sims's conclusion was that for some, obesity is nearly impossible.
Here the calories are tracked, and enough time passes for some people to become obese. There's some less-than-anecdotal data for you.
Their bodies freaked out and went full luxus consumption because they went from prison gruel to 10,000 calories. That's more than an Olympic athlete. It's the opposite of starvation mode, where the body retains more calories when there's a shortage of intake. Those are two ridiculous extremes that aren't naturally occurring if you don't do stupid shit to your body. Without going into extremes on either side, natural "metabolism" will never make a difference of more than like 100kcal unless you have some sort of serious medical condition.
On June 21 2013 08:13 Arghmyliver wrote:
On June 21 2013 08:00 RockIronrod wrote:
On June 21 2013 07:51 Arghmyliver wrote:
On June 21 2013 07:34 RockIronrod wrote: [quote] If you truly ate highly above your calorie maintenance level and didn't gain weight, you either had worms or a black hole in your digestive tract. More than likely you didn't eat nearly as much as you thought you did, or you didn't eat consistently enough to gain weight (one day of 5000 calories and a week of 1200~). Genetics have little do to with this outside of actual medical problems like hyperthyroidism, and anyone who claims "muh metabolism" on either doesn't understand how metabolism actually works, or how energy works. It's a lot easier to blame genetics than it is to not drink a bottle of coke with every meal, and it feels better to say "I eat so much but never put on weight" than it is to say "I barely eat at sustainable levels every day but I splurged these few times in a month and didn't jump 30 kilos over night."
There were points where I was actively trying to gain weight because girls didn't want to go out with a guy who was skinnier than them with literally no effort. I was literally eating until I felt nauseous just to impress people or maybe gain weight faster than my 5 lbs per year of grade school average. Nowadays I eat when I'm hungry and try to stay on top of my Vits and essentials. If that's not enough calories or whatever I'm not really interested. If you think everyone is an identical machine that needs exactly X calories for Y weight gain maybe it's you who doesn't know how energy works.
Did you ever actually count your calories or did you just kind of assume they were a lot because you felt queasy? Do you think the energy just disappears or something? Either it goes to you and it's not enough maintenance level so it all gets stored and none gets stored as fat or it's going to a parasite. I'm in the exact same spot as you for some of the same reasons, but I actually did count my average calorie intake and it wasn't nearly as much as I thought it was, and what I do need to put on weight at a healthy pace sickens me because I'm not used to eating that much in a day.
Sorry I misread your post. You didn't specify a caloric intake, instead using the term "maintenance level" which is a bit loaded if you consider that obviously I wasn't consuming above my "maintenance level" assuming this is your threshold for weight gain. No one who isn't gaining weight would be right? But lets assume everyone's body consumes energy at different rate. What I'm saying is - the quantity and composition of the food I was eating would have made some people overweight. I knew people that couldn't drink milkshakes without working extra on the treadmill to burn it off. Consider that now, I eat considrably less in terms of quantity but I didn't lose any weight. Even without extra empty carbs. Does that mean I have a white hole in my intestine? Or did my tapeworm die?
Or you didn't count your calories back then and are grossly overestimating how much you ate.
Okay you must be right. Is a hamburger every day more than a cup of lentil salad? Who can tell! It would be a feat of human intelligence :D! Or maybe you think you know better than everyone and refuse to consider that my memory might be better than a goldfish.
Your memory is inconsequential. As you were never counting calories in the first place, there is nothing relevant for you to remember.
Your anecdotes add nothing to the thread. People like to think of themselves as special snowflakes so are naturally biased to, for example, overestimate their caloric intake and conclude they must be blessed because they didn't gain weight. The reality is probably much more mundane and the same thing that applies to all humans: people are very bad at estimating their caloric intake.
If you truly do make calories disappear like your stomach is another dimension, I suggest you get some hard data and publish it in a peer reviewed scientific journal. Until then, your posts add nothing to the conversation.
You have once again completely missed my point here. I don't think I'm some kind of energy wormhole. I'm saying ny diet would have been invalid for other individuals in terms of weight gain. I ate as much if not more than others some of whom were unfortunately obese. If you want to come to where I live and try to make me fat I invite you to do so hut I promise you will find it more challenging than a similiar experiment performed on other individuals. Bodies do not consume energy at the same rate. I don't know what I am doing, but I am able to eat whenever I want without fear of weight gain. I use more calories than other people I guess in myy daily activity, which is interesting considering I am pretty much a couch potatoe. My brother is the same way. Seems genetic to me
dem delusions. If you want actual proof, record all of your calories and macronutrients and look at the totals of what you eat. Since it's too much of a hassle to settle an internet argument, you won't do it. And I'll still remain completely unconvinced of your anecdote. Taubes may state things like hormones are more to blame than just pure calories, but he will also say you will gain weight from excessive consumption of things like carbs due to things like insulin sensitivity increasing. And if you think you eating a surplus of calories of hamburgers, fudge, and chips won't make you gain weight, you really do live in some fantasy world.
edit: by the way, if anyone cares about my anecdote, I was always underweight for my age. Then I started eating a lot more than I normally did (my maintenance of around 2.3ishk) and I gained weight (with 3-4k) . Because I ate in a somewhat healthy fashion and watched my calories, I gained muscle and small amounts of fat. Now that I am no longer trying to gain, and am too lazy to forcefeed myself, I am currently maintaining my weight. Gasp, turns out despite thinking when I was young that I was eating quite a bit, I actually wasn't---and when I bumped my calories up by around 500-1000, I started to gain weight in a linear fashion. Real mindblowing stuff you discover when you start counting your calories and weighing out your food.
You don't simple just start "gaining muscle and small amounts of fat" by eating healthy. Either you were working out or doing some kind of resistance/cardiovascular training because excess calories don't just simple decide they want to turn into muscle.
edit: a lot of people also think that when they work out, "your fat turns into muscle" or something entirely foolish like that.
It is very common for men to more or less spontaneously gain muscle mass without working out between the mid-teens and mid-twenties. Bulking up is sort of the final stage of male puberty.
And when people work out, they both tend to gain muscle mass and lose body fat. I'm not sure what is entirely foolish about describing that as fat turning into muscle, though individual fat cells are not transforming into muscle.
On June 21 2013 03:53 Tien wrote: Won't change a thing.
It's a completely voluntary mental disorder.
This is exactly right. Laziness and complacency. "Genetics" is a hilarious excuse.
Although I tend to agree with this, we must still entertain the possibility that someone is fat by genetics. Such a case is probably exceedingly rare though.
I always think it's funny whenever somebody confidently proclaims that there is absolutely no genetic contribution to obesity in some individuals. It's basically the same as stating "I'm fucking ignorant and damn proud of it".
It turns out there's a neuropeptide called "ghrelin" and a hormone called "leptin" that are encoded by GENES in humans and other animals. These molecules are directly involved in feelings of hunger and satiety. A *very well* understood process occurs involving those molecules that contribute to normal regulation over eating tendencies.
If an individual possesses a genetic derangement at ghrelin or leptin loci then it follows that obesity may result from that abnormality.
If genetics play such a huge role in determining someone's weight how come obesity has become a problem only recently? I doubt the human genome has undergone a drastic change over the last 2-3 generations.
I've always thought obesity is symptomatic of a variety of diseases, not a disease itself. Sounds like this is intended to be for something along the lines of EOE though hm.
Is a fever a disease now too? Is a sore throat a disease? I'm pretty sure obesity is a symptom of other problems in most cases just like fever and sore throat... Well I guess I can't be pretty sure about that any more since it's officially its own disease now. Hmm..
On June 21 2013 03:53 Tien wrote: Won't change a thing.
It's a completely voluntary mental disorder.
This is exactly right. Laziness and complacency. "Genetics" is a hilarious excuse.
Although I tend to agree with this, we must still entertain the possibility that someone is fat by genetics. Such a case is probably exceedingly rare though.
I always think it's funny whenever somebody confidently proclaims that there is absolutely no genetic contribution to obesity in some individuals. It's basically the same as stating "I'm fucking ignorant and damn proud of it".
It turns out there's a neuropeptide called "ghrelin" and a hormone called "leptin" that are encoded by GENES in humans and other animals. These molecules are directly involved in feelings of hunger and satiety. A *very well* understood process occurs involving those molecules that contribute to normal regulation over eating tendencies.
If an individual possesses a genetic derangement at ghrelin or leptin loci then it follows that obesity may result from that abnormality.
The issue is that this could only be true for a tiny minority of those who are obese today, given what we know about historical obesity trends.
On June 21 2013 03:56 Kazius wrote: There are proper medical conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as diseases.
There are psychological conditions that cause obesity. Those should be treated as mental illness.
This mocks both of those. Obesity is a symptom, in which case this is an unneeded definition, or a choice, which makes a farce of people with actual problems.
Exactly my thoughts on it. Suddenly all the people who are obese because of bad lifestyle choices are grouped with people who can't control their obesity.
YES!
EDIT: Since it is declared as a disease now and require medical treatment... + Show Spoiler +
On June 21 2013 10:23 MichaelDonovan wrote: Is a fever a disease now too? Is a sore throat a disease? I'm pretty sure obesity is a symptom of other problems in most cases just like fever and sore throat... Well I guess I can't be pretty sure about that any more since it's officially its own disease now. Hmm..
Just to be even more obnoxious and pedantic in this thread, a symptom is something only the patient can feel, like nausea and sore throat. A sign is something anyone can see or measure, like vomiting and fever. They beat that shit into our heads.
obesity isn't a disease imo It can be caused by some diseases/genetic defects etc but even with those issues one can adopt a diet and lifestyle and perhaps medication allowing them to be as slim as anyone. This move I think is damaging because it justifies people's laziness a gluttony and will possibly increase the obesity problem
If this helps obese people become less obese I (obviously) really like this change.
Having a dad that used to workout like a madman, biking 100miles+ in weekends on a grandma bike in his youth, but once kids hit he gained weight like crazy and haven't managed to go down.
That is a story that many share, and once you reach that big amount of weight it can be really hard despite discipline, if one simply doesn't have the knowledge of great diat and effective training for starters then it doesn't matter that you are willing to do anything 100% because you don't know what to put that effort into.
Myself, prior to 2 years ago, I never worked out and I had periods I ate 0,5-1 litres of ice cream a day, hotdogs, pasta etc for meals, no vegetables, and I ate 3 average sized meals a day+deserts and snacks in the weekends. Despite all that I remained a bit on the low end with weight, not unhealthy thin by any means but definitly thin.
My point being that there are many obese people that simply have really bad genetics and due to that become overweight making it very hard mentally to reach a desired shape, there are many obese people with the will and determination to work on losing weight, but simply lack the know-how, and if this change increases the help for those groups of people I think it is great, because both of those groups have a large number of people that with some help and guidance can lose a lot of weight and be a lot more healthy as a result.
On June 21 2013 03:57 codonbyte wrote: To be honest I don't see this having any real effect on how much treatment patients get for obesity. Doctors already know that being obese is unhealthy, and I'm pretty sure most people who are fat already know it's unhealthy but are unable to lose weight for one reason or another (self-discipline, succumbing to temptation, slower metabolism, etc.). I don't see how classifying obesity as a disease is going to deal with any of those issues.
On June 21 2013 03:45 Lycaeus wrote: "It's not my fault I'm fat, I have a DISEASE"
Yes, I know we all love to call out fat people for their often-times poor eating habits and lack of self-discipline. However, I don't think that's really all that fair.
Sure, having a lack of self discipline may be what ultimately causes obesity many times, however genetics determines how much any individual person is punished for a lack of self-discipline.
I'll use myself as an example. I was blessed with a ridonkulously fast metabolism. I have never had to worry about my weight, no matter how poor my eating habits. I'll often eat an entire box of oreos or 2 (big) bags of jelly beans after a long day of work. Last night I ate an entire gallon of ice cream.
Yet I am never punished for these poor eating habits in the slightest, simply because of my genes, while some other person with poor eating habits may be getting obese, even if their eating habits are better than mine (not great, but still better than mine).
I suspect that a lot of skinny people are thin for the same reason that I am: genetics. And therefore it's never quite sat right with me to go around labeling fat people as being lazy and having no self-control.
Edit: With that rant out of the way I would like to say that I think this decision is ridiculous because it's confusing the causes with their symptoms (i.e. a obesity is a symptom of something, either poor lifestyle or a medical condition, etc.). I made another post in this thread that goes into that more.
See, I disagree. I used to be like you when I was younger. I've never had to exhibit self-control or practice moderation while eating and never learned how to. When I hit the age of 22 or so my metabolism started slowing down and my poor eating/health habits started catching up with me. Gas station food for lunch every day, a doughnut for breakfast every morning, a pack of cigarettes a day, pizza on Fridays and binge drinking on the weekends. This went on for a LONG time and I went from weighing 145-150lbs from 10th grade all the way til 21 to now weighing 200-220lbs. Then one day I decided to lose the weight because I thought I looked disgusting. I quit smoking and drinking and started eating healthy while also working out. It's now two years later and I weigh 160-165lbs and am in the best shape of my life.
One could argue that it would be much harder for me, someone who had spent a lifetime of suffering no consequences from his eating habits, to begin practicing moderation. As opposed to someone who has been (allegedly) attempting to practice moderation for a while. Their problem is that they are COMFORTABLE, they have nothing driving them to put down that doughnut and now they even have an EXCUSE not to. It's pathetic if you ask me.
Oh nooooes!! I'm 21 right now!! Don't tell me that my life of eating whatever the hell I want and never having any consequences for my actions is about to end!! D:
I turn 22 in september. I MUST make the most of these last few months of unlimited consumption of crappy food and candy and ice cream!!! *runs off to buy a couple gallons of ice cream and a few kilograms of jelly beans*
25 here, I can still eat whatever and stay very slim. Right now I can't exercice, I'm eating a lot (healthy, mind you, but still lots of meat/eggs/nuts, and it's a recent habit, like only 2 weeks), I drink one or 2 beer a day, and I'm actually losing weight. 110 lbs right now for an average height. And it's annoying to be honest.
Its well known throughout the medical community that your metabolism does decrease as you age. Reason why a lot of the younger generations don't experience obesity as much is due to genetics. If they carry the habits throughout their lives into the middle point of their lives it catches up with them. Although this does not mean you will go from 100lbs to 250lbs in the course of your life. It just means you can gain weight at a different pace and may even be medically obese for you body type.
All in all being fat is a combination of poor lifestyle choices and genetics. Each person has their own status quo to maintain their weight and must find that caloric number to work around it. Now the people who obviously know their limits and choose to remain fat are the people that need the help.
EPT
