genetics determines how much nutrients you absorb from things you eat, it determines how easily you feel hunger, it determines your baseline energy consumption.
genetics can absolutely make you more likely to gain weight.
Unfortunately people respond differently to hunger.
Someone I know is trying to lose weight. Problem is, if they go ~100 kcal below maintenance they turn into a stress eater. ~200 below and they are unable to stop themselves from eating 400 kcal worth of food straight or of the fridge at night. All that on top of being hangry all day.
So losing weight means balancing the diet very carefully because that’s not much space between eating enough to maintain the weight and eating so little that hunger overrides reason and overcompensates.
For other people going below maintenance is just kinda uncomfortable but easily doable for a couple days. Advice like “just eat less” actually works for them without having to make a whole science out of it.
Yeah but that is how you lose weight. It’s one thing to be unwilling to do it because of a mental block. It’s another thing entirely to impart that mental block on others as a way of feeling better about their own shortcomings.
It’s quite important that you do not make the mistake of thinking that if you tell someone it is easy to do, because you find it easy to do, that does not make it easy for them to do.
With a kid, for example, you can tell them this and they will believe that it’s easy for everyone, then try it and fail, and suddenly believe they are fucking stupid and it must be their fault entirely. Which makes them feel bad. Which might make them eat more, or become anorexic, or any one of a number of eating disorders.
So instead, realise that there are many factors here beyond energy in and activity out. Those are important, but not the whole story. Be kind, and take your time.
It’s true. I remember when I could go most of the day without eating and feel nothing but minor hunger, which was easy to ignore.
But now I’m in my 30s, and if I try to skip lunch it’s like my entire body goes into revolt. Lethargy, headaches, mood changes, the works. My metabolism has changed with age and now the effects of blood sugar actually pack a punch.
People always underestimate the endocrine system. Your frontal cortex and everything that you are is basically just a tool for your endocrine system to use to get food and sex.
It’s why eating less is so hard for some people. If the endocrine system is being pushy, it can just make you not care about your goal, and not many people can do something uncomfortable that they don’t want to do in furtherance of a goal they don’t care about.
Healthy, stable eating habits need to come before weight loss eating habits, and that needs to be paired with light excercise as you build up.
Like taming a wild animal. Some people just have a capybara, and others have some sort of ocelot that’s addicted to meth. Most people have dogs. Gotta ease in, but once you get started it’s fine as long as you don’t traumatize the poor beastie.
True. Also don’t underestimate your gut microbiome. Those bacteria and fungi can have a distressing amount of control over you and if your microbiome is out of whack it can make it much more difficult to develop decent eating habits.
Sounds easy but we’re deep in “draw the rest of the fucking owl” territory here.
For some people the threshold for healthy eating habits is low. I have to actively try to gain weight and I can handle slight hunger well so for me very little would have to change on a diet.
That person I mentioned, on the other hand, has to pre-plan their nutrition for a week down to the macronutrients of each single meal, just like a bodybuilder. A planning mistake will most likely result in binge eating. And yes, they would eat half a loaf of full-grain bread at night if nothing else was there.
So for someone like them advice like “have some self control and don’t buy junk food” is about as helpful as “have you tried not being poor”. Getting their endocrine system and gut microbiome to accept anything below maintenance calories is a long and nontrivial journey.
No s"t Sherlock. Doesn’t really change the fact that this is much easier to achieve than for others, before we are even talking about will power. Some people can eat much more at the same workout level as others, without gaining weight. No contradiction with thermodynamics needed.
Strawman. I was saying no such thing, merely that for some it is harder than for others. Just like some would starve to dewth in a famine sooner than others at identical feed intake and rate of activity.
This is no excuse for anything, just a fact. People can gave an influence on that, no matter the genes.
You were claiming I was spreading “doomer mentality of “I can’t do anything to lose weight it’s my genetics””
That is false, I did no such thing. I merely stated the fact that metabolisms and especially regulation differ and some have to climb a steeper hill than others to get to the same peak. Harder doesn’t mean impossible.
I was such an asshole after I dropped 100 pounds in my 20s. I did it, you can too!
I was such a dick. I had actual anger towards fat folks for a few years.
Its like being mad folks are poor, just, knock it off. None of these comments actually help people lose weight. It actually scares them off further into the downward spiral. Lest not forget age gets us all, and you dont know what these people have been through, or are going through. You dont know.
My country, the shit stain one, they dont allow citizens to walk anywhere. Start there. I stayed fit when I could walk/bike places. Once I moved somewhere carcentric, guess what happened. Im not a dick to fat folks anymore.
Its not so black and white. The older I get, the more I realize its systemic, at least here in the god forsaken states.
remain positive, internal work is internal, and you cant make choicss for others. I wanted to give fitness to everyone when I was younger. But not everyone is brave enough to ride a bike in car city. I still get mad when I see parents giving their fat children candy. Sets them up for a lifetine of failure. I used to have my gaurdian lock me in a room, call me fat bitch, and literally throw a bag of mcdonalds at me in my teens.
you never know what someone has been through. Always kindness.
Telling people they need to eat less to lose weight isn’t unkind. These truths only push people who already are unwilling to accept reality further into delusion. I’m not sympathetic to those people.
Our bodies have evolved to protect against weight loss. We like to think we’re modern, enlightened creatures, but we’re still a collection of biological processes that are centred around survival in an unforgiving world. Most of us no longer live in that world.
As a result, when we diet our bodies trigger processes that limit the effects of nutritional deficit. And sure, we’ll lose weight to start with, but that hits a plateau surprisingly quickly as our metabolism catches up.
Then add into that things like ADHD (which is something affects me personally), whereby when weight loss slows to a crawl after a few weeks I get frustrated and lose interest in keeping it up. So I’m 140kg with no sign of that going anywhere any time soon.
This is textbook cope. “I won’t do the thing because it’s technically not the most 100% efficient way so imma be 140 forever” I’ve got ADHD too bud. It’s possible to fast for 3 days a week.
The metabolic effect you’re describing is called “starvation mode” by a lot of people and while its technically real its actually quite a bit smaller than most people think, and can easily be countered by adding a work out to your routine. If you think youre not losing weight because of it, (or gaining weight, as some people claim) I would bet you’re actually not counting all your calories throughout the day.
You might lose weight just not in the region where you want it. Genetics might make you lose muscle mass, bone quality long before you lose fat. Also it might make you at the same time store everything as fat when you take an energy defecit diet.
Muscle mass is directly tied to how much you use the muscle. You can eat 100 protein bars and you won’t gain any muscle mass. Likewise if you continue your current level of exercise while fasting you are gonna keep the muscle and lose the fat.
Muscle mass is directly tied to how much you use the muscle.
I’d describe it more as a loose correlation rather than “directly tied.” There’s the obvious example of sex differences, where a typical untrained woman will not respond as quickly to weight training as a typical untrained man of similar size. There’s a lot of individual variation, too, and more recent research is revealing new insights into high and low responders to resistance training. See, for example, this review.
I learned to be less of a dick to others about this stuff when I learned I was an outlier high responder in muscle strength and growth, getting much better results from near identical workouts with some of my friends. Realizing that I was lucky helped me extend some more grace to others.
Zero muscle loss while on a signifcant calorie deficit to cause noticeable and sustained weekly weightless simply isn’t possible without the right sort of steroids like tren.
The best you can do is to minimise the amount you lose with the right amount of training, rest and quality macros. Ask any successful bodybuilder after making them take a piss test for roids what their losses were for their last cut.
you just missed the entire point i was making… yes, energy in < energy out means losing weight. BUT reducing energy intake is more difficult for some people than for others due to their genetics.
Genetics are a factor, but outside of extreme cases they are going to play a small role. Obesity is a modern epidemic, and we didn’t all suddenly mutate. Environmental factors are much more impactful.
The last time I saw this come up there were approx. 500 calorie difference between the top and the bottom for similar fitness/build of the genetics curve.
500 calories is a pretty big workout, but its at the opposite ends of the curve, most people will be around 250 calories of the middle.
What is far more important is the genetic and learned response to feeling full and hunger. Saying its easy for people to just switch track on that is frankly an awful take, the current weight loss drugs work for a reason, while you carry on taking them. People rebound from often impressive weight loss in huge numbers for a reason, and its not because they forget how to calorie count or exercise.
Yeah a couple friends of mine REALLY struggled to lose weight until they got on one of those ozembic drugs. They’d doet for a while but it got to the point where they literally couldn’t stop thinking about food and they’d fall off the wagon. Whatever they’re taking kills those food cravings and they’re both at good weight now.
500 calories is a pretty big workout, but its at the opposite ends of the curve, most people will be around 250 calories of the middle.
Most people will be around 250 calories of the middle? What do you mean by this? You are talking about a difference between caloric intake between multiple people right?
Saying its easy for people to just switch track on that is frankly an awful take, the current weight loss drugs work for a reason, while you carry on taking them.
Did you reply to the right comment? I never said anything like this.
Multiple people of similar height, weight, fitness levels yes. There can be a measurable difference and it can easily be as much as a medium to heavy workout, for the average to extreme ends of the scale.
Obviously someone who eats heathly, has a high percentage of muscle, exercises multiple times a week, will clearly burn even more calories than the same person who does none of that. What I am referring to is people who are close enough in these attributes and there still is a significant genetic difference.
This is very much genetics having an impact. It doesnt even cover the genetic difference between hunger sensitivity issues for things like insulin or GLP-1, which can massively impact dieting success.
I am not saying that environmental factors such as a life long poor diet and lack of exercise dont make this worse on top, but that genetics is a significant factor.
Second part is piggy backing, so apologies if it appears aimed at you.
Obesity is a modern epidemic, and we didn’t all suddenly mutate. Environmental factors are much more impactful.
But not everyone got equally obese, even in the same environments, during these time periods. What portion of the population was predisposed to extra large impacts of unhealthy foods, sedentary lifestyles, external stressors, etc., when those environmental factors weren’t as prevalent?
So for completeness, it’s a bunch of feedback loops between genetic factors, epigenetic factors, and environmental factors, including cultural/social factors. Some genetic factors make it harder or easier in the environments we live in (and some environments make it harder or easier).
Ehhhh sorta kinda. If you eat a more “natural” diet (read: not super processed) then the two are pretty closely linked. But we’ve invented entirely new foods that basically gives you zero satiety, but also has hundreds and hundreds of calories.
You can eat to satiety on carrots and spinach, and literally starve to death from lack of calories. You can also feel hungry all day and gain weight from drinking soda and eating cookies.
This is the only one of your takes I disagree with. The food you eat does mater for weight loss, because some foods are more filling and nutritious while being low in calories. Everything else youve said is right throughout the thread.
Yeah this “thermodynamics” thing is so stupid, there’s enough energy in a sugar cube to power my home for months.
I also probably have the genetics to “keep warm” which helps if you want to lose weight, and as a male I don’t get the hormonal changes at a certain age that makes you gain weight, etc. etc. etc.
Then we have those who just expertly state “eat less”, yeah man who would have thought eh.
On a more reasonable scale, things like ditching sugar (including fruit, corn, cooked carrots etc) make wonders, probably because dropping that addiction (which is hard) makes it easier to eat less.
Sport in itself cannot outrun the spoon,but it might fire up desires to be in good shape, and lose weight might be part of that, and that’s really something, IMO.
No no no you see some people have the E=mc^2 gene which lets them metabolise mass directly into energy and so scientifically can never be held accountable for their weight.
I know you’re sort of joking, but metabolism is extremely badly understood (most is not understood at all), and different people extract different amounts of ATP from food than others, that’s just a verifiable fact. And eating less will make you lose weight, but how much less depends on, you guessed it, metabolism… So just saying “eat less” isn’t very helpful IMO.
And it has not really anything close to do with thermodynamic laws, or you Had to have the emc2-gene for it to matter, thats all.
It’s like relativity physics and car driving, it does intersect, but really not in any meaningful way.
My point is people get too hung up on “how much less depends on, you guessed it, metabolism… So just saying “eat less” isn’t very helpful IMO.” That they forget “And eating less will make you lose weight”
That’s my whole point. You gotta eat less if you want to lose weight and you can dig around in the science and semantics of it all you want but the bottom line doesn’t change.
Sure, but it’s not like people don’t know that, right? My take is sport, ditching sugar and so on will help you to eat less. Another thing is that the body reacts differently when you eat fat and sugar at the same time versus eating sugars, then later eating the fat. You are not wrong but there are many ways to get to the “eat less” IMO.
Nope, there’s just even more energy in a lump of coal.
I believe their point is that it’s a bit silly to sit around focusing too much in thermodynamics beyond the raw limits, when there’s a lot of factors that weigh in to how much of the theoretical maximum is available or used. Beyond just the basic chemistry involved, there’s hormones that influence how it’s used, and peoples urges to consume.
The average home in the US uses 10,000 kWH per year; let’s be generous and call that 500 kWH per month, or 2e9J.
A sugar cube is 5g. To power a home for a month, it would therefore need a specific energy of 2e9J/5g = 0.4e9 J/g. Normally specific energy is given in MJ/kg, so we get a minimum needed of 400,000 MJ/kg.
Coal, per Wikipedia, comes in at 26-33 MJ/kg. Liquid hydrogen gets over 140, and that’s the most efficient fuel on the list.
I didn’t bother to look up the specific energy of sugar, but somehow I doubt it laps coal by orders of magnitude. The only possible way it could have that much energy is if we could convert its mass directly to energy, but neither technology nor biology can do that right now so it’s a bit silly to even mention.
neither technology nor biology can do that right now
Yes, that was the point. If we focus purely on the math to the exclusion of reality you get results that don’t apply to reality.
If you only look at thermodynamics when discussing weight loss you get the best possible weight loss advice: “eat less”.
It happens to ignore the reality of biology, how the body reacts to changing nutrition, or how it reacts towards changing your desires when nutrition changes, but it is technically correct.
Just like it’s technically correct to say that a sugar cube has enough energy to power your home for a long time. It may be a useless observation, but it’s technically true.
Yup. Good habits come first. Every 12 pack of pop is roughly a marathon, give or take.
The simple act of cutting pop for water saves a massive amount of calories, but can be really hard if you’re not used to liquid not being strongly flavored.
Excercise, beyond being a bit self fulfilling (“I want to be in shape so it sucks less when I excercise”), does also increase your baseline metabolic rate once you get in the groove. Once you start moving your body becomes more free with burning energy when you’re just sitting around, and you’ll passively burn 3-6 cans of pop more than you would before.
But 100% to your main point. If you don’t have your diet under control it doesn’t matter how much you excercise, the medieval peasant that lives in your endocrine system will make it very hard to resist putting the calories right back in.
genetics determines how much nutrients you absorb from things you eat, it determines how easily you feel hunger, it determines your baseline energy consumption.
genetics can absolutely make you more likely to gain weight.
Yes and regardless of any of those factors if your energy intake is below your energy usage you’ll lose weight.
Unfortunately people respond differently to hunger.
Someone I know is trying to lose weight. Problem is, if they go ~100 kcal below maintenance they turn into a stress eater. ~200 below and they are unable to stop themselves from eating 400 kcal worth of food straight or of the fridge at night. All that on top of being hangry all day.
So losing weight means balancing the diet very carefully because that’s not much space between eating enough to maintain the weight and eating so little that hunger overrides reason and overcompensates.
For other people going below maintenance is just kinda uncomfortable but easily doable for a couple days. Advice like “just eat less” actually works for them without having to make a whole science out of it.
Yeah but that is how you lose weight. It’s one thing to be unwilling to do it because of a mental block. It’s another thing entirely to impart that mental block on others as a way of feeling better about their own shortcomings.
It’s quite important that you do not make the mistake of thinking that if you tell someone it is easy to do, because you find it easy to do, that does not make it easy for them to do.
With a kid, for example, you can tell them this and they will believe that it’s easy for everyone, then try it and fail, and suddenly believe they are fucking stupid and it must be their fault entirely. Which makes them feel bad. Which might make them eat more, or become anorexic, or any one of a number of eating disorders.
So instead, realise that there are many factors here beyond energy in and activity out. Those are important, but not the whole story. Be kind, and take your time.
Yeah and I haven’t said it was easy I just said it’s how you do it
It’s true. I remember when I could go most of the day without eating and feel nothing but minor hunger, which was easy to ignore.
But now I’m in my 30s, and if I try to skip lunch it’s like my entire body goes into revolt. Lethargy, headaches, mood changes, the works. My metabolism has changed with age and now the effects of blood sugar actually pack a punch.
People always underestimate the endocrine system. Your frontal cortex and everything that you are is basically just a tool for your endocrine system to use to get food and sex.
It’s why eating less is so hard for some people. If the endocrine system is being pushy, it can just make you not care about your goal, and not many people can do something uncomfortable that they don’t want to do in furtherance of a goal they don’t care about.
Healthy, stable eating habits need to come before weight loss eating habits, and that needs to be paired with light excercise as you build up.
Like taming a wild animal. Some people just have a capybara, and others have some sort of ocelot that’s addicted to meth. Most people have dogs. Gotta ease in, but once you get started it’s fine as long as you don’t traumatize the poor beastie.
True. Also don’t underestimate your gut microbiome. Those bacteria and fungi can have a distressing amount of control over you and if your microbiome is out of whack it can make it much more difficult to develop decent eating habits.
Changing to healthier eating habits will make managing hunger easier. Also self control and just not keeping easy junk food around.
Sounds easy but we’re deep in “draw the rest of the fucking owl” territory here.
For some people the threshold for healthy eating habits is low. I have to actively try to gain weight and I can handle slight hunger well so for me very little would have to change on a diet.
That person I mentioned, on the other hand, has to pre-plan their nutrition for a week down to the macronutrients of each single meal, just like a bodybuilder. A planning mistake will most likely result in binge eating. And yes, they would eat half a loaf of full-grain bread at night if nothing else was there.
So for someone like them advice like “have some self control and don’t buy junk food” is about as helpful as “have you tried not being poor”. Getting their endocrine system and gut microbiome to accept anything below maintenance calories is a long and nontrivial journey.
No s"t Sherlock. Doesn’t really change the fact that this is much easier to achieve than for others, before we are even talking about will power. Some people can eat much more at the same workout level as others, without gaining weight. No contradiction with thermodynamics needed.
By all means keep spreading the doomer mentality of “I can’t do anything to lose weight it’s my genetics”
Strawman. I was saying no such thing, merely that for some it is harder than for others. Just like some would starve to dewth in a famine sooner than others at identical feed intake and rate of activity.
This is no excuse for anything, just a fact. People can gave an influence on that, no matter the genes.
Not understanding what you’re saying doesn’t mean I’m making a straw man argument lol
You were claiming I was spreading “doomer mentality of “I can’t do anything to lose weight it’s my genetics””
That is false, I did no such thing. I merely stated the fact that metabolisms and especially regulation differ and some have to climb a steeper hill than others to get to the same peak. Harder doesn’t mean impossible.
You’re still just failing to understand what you’re saying while dancing in a circle pointing at it
You are failing to make an argument at all. come back when you manage to formulate a concrete argument.
I was such an asshole after I dropped 100 pounds in my 20s. I did it, you can too!
I was such a dick. I had actual anger towards fat folks for a few years.
Its like being mad folks are poor, just, knock it off. None of these comments actually help people lose weight. It actually scares them off further into the downward spiral. Lest not forget age gets us all, and you dont know what these people have been through, or are going through. You dont know.
My country, the shit stain one, they dont allow citizens to walk anywhere. Start there. I stayed fit when I could walk/bike places. Once I moved somewhere carcentric, guess what happened. Im not a dick to fat folks anymore.
Its not so black and white. The older I get, the more I realize its systemic, at least here in the god forsaken states.
remain positive, internal work is internal, and you cant make choicss for others. I wanted to give fitness to everyone when I was younger. But not everyone is brave enough to ride a bike in car city. I still get mad when I see parents giving their fat children candy. Sets them up for a lifetine of failure. I used to have my gaurdian lock me in a room, call me fat bitch, and literally throw a bag of mcdonalds at me in my teens.
you never know what someone has been through. Always kindness.
Telling people they need to eat less to lose weight isn’t unkind. These truths only push people who already are unwilling to accept reality further into delusion. I’m not sympathetic to those people.
Do you honestly, seriously believe anyone trying to lose weight doesn’t know that you need to eat less to achieve that?
Really??
Well, one of the factors makes it hard to know what your actual caloric intake is. You are right, but it’s not quite as simple as you make it sound.
Simple does not mean easy.
If I could accurately monitor both calorie intake and expenditure … that sure would simplify things.
Imagine trying to balance your bank account where you only have estimates of your income and expenditures.
Our bodies have evolved to protect against weight loss. We like to think we’re modern, enlightened creatures, but we’re still a collection of biological processes that are centred around survival in an unforgiving world. Most of us no longer live in that world.
As a result, when we diet our bodies trigger processes that limit the effects of nutritional deficit. And sure, we’ll lose weight to start with, but that hits a plateau surprisingly quickly as our metabolism catches up.
Then add into that things like ADHD (which is something affects me personally), whereby when weight loss slows to a crawl after a few weeks I get frustrated and lose interest in keeping it up. So I’m 140kg with no sign of that going anywhere any time soon.
This is textbook cope. “I won’t do the thing because it’s technically not the most 100% efficient way so imma be 140 forever” I’ve got ADHD too bud. It’s possible to fast for 3 days a week.
It’s not cope, it’s biology.
Yes… biology you are using as an excuse to not do something, hence cope.
Youre so mean
I prefer the term naughty
The metabolic effect you’re describing is called “starvation mode” by a lot of people and while its technically real its actually quite a bit smaller than most people think, and can easily be countered by adding a work out to your routine. If you think youre not losing weight because of it, (or gaining weight, as some people claim) I would bet you’re actually not counting all your calories throughout the day.
You might lose weight just not in the region where you want it. Genetics might make you lose muscle mass, bone quality long before you lose fat. Also it might make you at the same time store everything as fat when you take an energy defecit diet.
Muscle mass is directly tied to how much you use the muscle. You can eat 100 protein bars and you won’t gain any muscle mass. Likewise if you continue your current level of exercise while fasting you are gonna keep the muscle and lose the fat.
I’d describe it more as a loose correlation rather than “directly tied.” There’s the obvious example of sex differences, where a typical untrained woman will not respond as quickly to weight training as a typical untrained man of similar size. There’s a lot of individual variation, too, and more recent research is revealing new insights into high and low responders to resistance training. See, for example, this review.
I learned to be less of a dick to others about this stuff when I learned I was an outlier high responder in muscle strength and growth, getting much better results from near identical workouts with some of my friends. Realizing that I was lucky helped me extend some more grace to others.
Zero muscle loss while on a signifcant calorie deficit to cause noticeable and sustained weekly weightless simply isn’t possible without the right sort of steroids like tren.
The best you can do is to minimise the amount you lose with the right amount of training, rest and quality macros. Ask any successful bodybuilder after making them take a piss test for roids what their losses were for their last cut.
https://www.fitnessnetwork.com.au/does-fasting-burn-fat-or-muscle/
Fat goes first, muscle mass loss is limited to negligible and can be countered by exercise as I originally said.
Actual scientific studies not Facebook slop please.
For pro body builders the holy grail of cutting is zero muscle loss and not one achieves it without chemical help, not one.
Okay, you first.
Really? You making the outlandish claim boss, 100% because you looked and couldn’t find anything
First fucking result, showing loss of muscle and bone: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landia/article/PIIS2213-8587(24)00272-9/abstract
you just missed the entire point i was making… yes, energy in < energy out means losing weight. BUT reducing energy intake is more difficult for some people than for others due to their genetics.
Water has weight… Not eating as much causes stress which causes water retention. Nothing is guaranteed.
Genetics are a factor, but outside of extreme cases they are going to play a small role. Obesity is a modern epidemic, and we didn’t all suddenly mutate. Environmental factors are much more impactful.
The last time I saw this come up there were approx. 500 calorie difference between the top and the bottom for similar fitness/build of the genetics curve.
500 calories is a pretty big workout, but its at the opposite ends of the curve, most people will be around 250 calories of the middle.
What is far more important is the genetic and learned response to feeling full and hunger. Saying its easy for people to just switch track on that is frankly an awful take, the current weight loss drugs work for a reason, while you carry on taking them. People rebound from often impressive weight loss in huge numbers for a reason, and its not because they forget how to calorie count or exercise.
Yeah a couple friends of mine REALLY struggled to lose weight until they got on one of those ozembic drugs. They’d doet for a while but it got to the point where they literally couldn’t stop thinking about food and they’d fall off the wagon. Whatever they’re taking kills those food cravings and they’re both at good weight now.
Most people will be around 250 calories of the middle? What do you mean by this? You are talking about a difference between caloric intake between multiple people right?
Did you reply to the right comment? I never said anything like this.
Multiple people of similar height, weight, fitness levels yes. There can be a measurable difference and it can easily be as much as a medium to heavy workout, for the average to extreme ends of the scale.
Obviously someone who eats heathly, has a high percentage of muscle, exercises multiple times a week, will clearly burn even more calories than the same person who does none of that. What I am referring to is people who are close enough in these attributes and there still is a significant genetic difference.
This is very much genetics having an impact. It doesnt even cover the genetic difference between hunger sensitivity issues for things like insulin or GLP-1, which can massively impact dieting success.
I am not saying that environmental factors such as a life long poor diet and lack of exercise dont make this worse on top, but that genetics is a significant factor.
Second part is piggy backing, so apologies if it appears aimed at you.
But not everyone got equally obese, even in the same environments, during these time periods. What portion of the population was predisposed to extra large impacts of unhealthy foods, sedentary lifestyles, external stressors, etc., when those environmental factors weren’t as prevalent?
So for completeness, it’s a bunch of feedback loops between genetic factors, epigenetic factors, and environmental factors, including cultural/social factors. Some genetic factors make it harder or easier in the environments we live in (and some environments make it harder or easier).
Feeling hunger is completely different than needing nutrients and energy.
Ehhhh sorta kinda. If you eat a more “natural” diet (read: not super processed) then the two are pretty closely linked. But we’ve invented entirely new foods that basically gives you zero satiety, but also has hundreds and hundreds of calories.
You can eat to satiety on carrots and spinach, and literally starve to death from lack of calories. You can also feel hungry all day and gain weight from drinking soda and eating cookies.
No you can’t bro be serious.
This is the only one of your takes I disagree with. The food you eat does mater for weight loss, because some foods are more filling and nutritious while being low in calories. Everything else youve said is right throughout the thread.
I’m specifically calling out the idea that you can literally starve to death from eating spinach and carrots. But fair enough I’ll take the L
Nobody said that
“You can eat to satiety on carrots and spinach, and literally starve to death”
You’re stupid bro
Yeah this “thermodynamics” thing is so stupid, there’s enough energy in a sugar cube to power my home for months.
I also probably have the genetics to “keep warm” which helps if you want to lose weight, and as a male I don’t get the hormonal changes at a certain age that makes you gain weight, etc. etc. etc.
Then we have those who just expertly state “eat less”, yeah man who would have thought eh.
On a more reasonable scale, things like ditching sugar (including fruit, corn, cooked carrots etc) make wonders, probably because dropping that addiction (which is hard) makes it easier to eat less.
Sport in itself cannot outrun the spoon,but it might fire up desires to be in good shape, and lose weight might be part of that, and that’s really something, IMO.
Good luck with your long term goals everyone!
…what? If that were close to true we’d be burning sugar instead of coal
No no no you see some people have the E=mc^2 gene which lets them metabolise mass directly into energy and so scientifically can never be held accountable for their weight.
I know you’re sort of joking, but metabolism is extremely badly understood (most is not understood at all), and different people extract different amounts of ATP from food than others, that’s just a verifiable fact. And eating less will make you lose weight, but how much less depends on, you guessed it, metabolism… So just saying “eat less” isn’t very helpful IMO.
And it has not really anything close to do with thermodynamic laws, or you Had to have the emc2-gene for it to matter, thats all.
It’s like relativity physics and car driving, it does intersect, but really not in any meaningful way.
My point is people get too hung up on “how much less depends on, you guessed it, metabolism… So just saying “eat less” isn’t very helpful IMO.” That they forget “And eating less will make you lose weight”
That’s my whole point. You gotta eat less if you want to lose weight and you can dig around in the science and semantics of it all you want but the bottom line doesn’t change.
Sure, but it’s not like people don’t know that, right? My take is sport, ditching sugar and so on will help you to eat less. Another thing is that the body reacts differently when you eat fat and sugar at the same time versus eating sugars, then later eating the fat. You are not wrong but there are many ways to get to the “eat less” IMO.
You’re just crying about phrasing then.
“U crying” lol what a lame take.
Nope, there’s just even more energy in a lump of coal.
I believe their point is that it’s a bit silly to sit around focusing too much in thermodynamics beyond the raw limits, when there’s a lot of factors that weigh in to how much of the theoretical maximum is available or used. Beyond just the basic chemistry involved, there’s hormones that influence how it’s used, and peoples urges to consume.
That’s just not true.
The average home in the US uses 10,000 kWH per year; let’s be generous and call that 500 kWH per month, or 2e9J.
A sugar cube is 5g. To power a home for a month, it would therefore need a specific energy of 2e9J/5g = 0.4e9 J/g. Normally specific energy is given in MJ/kg, so we get a minimum needed of 400,000 MJ/kg.
Coal, per Wikipedia, comes in at 26-33 MJ/kg. Liquid hydrogen gets over 140, and that’s the most efficient fuel on the list.
I didn’t bother to look up the specific energy of sugar, but somehow I doubt it laps coal by orders of magnitude. The only possible way it could have that much energy is if we could convert its mass directly to energy, but neither technology nor biology can do that right now so it’s a bit silly to even mention.
Yes, that was the point. If we focus purely on the math to the exclusion of reality you get results that don’t apply to reality.
If you only look at thermodynamics when discussing weight loss you get the best possible weight loss advice: “eat less”.
It happens to ignore the reality of biology, how the body reacts to changing nutrition, or how it reacts towards changing your desires when nutrition changes, but it is technically correct.
Just like it’s technically correct to say that a sugar cube has enough energy to power your home for a long time. It may be a useless observation, but it’s technically true.
Yup. Good habits come first. Every 12 pack of pop is roughly a marathon, give or take.
The simple act of cutting pop for water saves a massive amount of calories, but can be really hard if you’re not used to liquid not being strongly flavored.
Excercise, beyond being a bit self fulfilling (“I want to be in shape so it sucks less when I excercise”), does also increase your baseline metabolic rate once you get in the groove. Once you start moving your body becomes more free with burning energy when you’re just sitting around, and you’ll passively burn 3-6 cans of pop more than you would before.
But 100% to your main point. If you don’t have your diet under control it doesn’t matter how much you excercise, the medieval peasant that lives in your endocrine system will make it very hard to resist putting the calories right back in.
Gl on everyone’s long term goal but don’t you dare suggest eating less to achieve the goal of losing weight.
Let’s miss my point lol
I think it’s a lot of conditioning around eating. What you write is a factor but behavior is an easy thing to fix.
There are terribly fat parents who teach their kids how to be terrible fat by example. Our DNA did not change to ultra fat mode since the 1950s.
And all of these can be easily overcome by eating less.