[Pius_IX]

Being healthy and being fit is mostly about being healthy and being fit. There are obviously countless ways to get closer to that goal, the gym and calorie counting being one way.

Saying stuff like 'we should try to focus on whole foods and not calories' is a pretty bad take if you ask me. Contrasting that immediately with 'a body builder prepping for a show' is just ridiculous. One is good advice to form part of a healthy lifestyle, the other is a way of life for a tiny group of professional athletes.

There goes more into a healthy diet than just eating lots of whole foods - although whole foods are obviously awesome and healthy. Notice that the linked article compares two groups eating processed and processed with the one eating the processed foods eating 500 more calories a day. They don't gain weight magically but because they ate the less satiating food and as a result ate more calories.

And simply saying 'Instead we should focus on daily fun movements that we like to do. So it doesn't feel like a chore and easy to maintain within your lifestyle.' is such a weird take. Have you ever considered that some people enjoy going to the gym? On the other hand I personally couldn't imagine anything more boring than body weight exercises. In the end it is up to the individual to chose the lifestyle that they enjoy, so please stop selling your personal favorite as if any other choices 'are large time investments that can be better spent elsewhere'. I very much enjoy my time spend at the gym, thank you very much.

[Attummm]

Seems like you misread the thread. The comment is against the training schedules that have been provided that are only about gym and calorie tracking.

And that we "could" also do other things. Like in the video from the bioneer.

But it seems you read "should".

My comment is not against training of any kind. And if the gym is your place where you get it done great, but if you have busy life and your unable to find the time or are unable to commit regularily. Then there are other options that will fit anyone schedule.

[zamfi]

> Instead we should focus on

> And for food we should try to focus on

This post contains some very odd gaslighting: your earlier post says "should"—twice—but you are claiming here that the person responding to you incorrectly read "should"?

Perhaps you meant to write could but wrote should instead?

[Attummm]

If someone likes to go to gym, then that would fall under movements that they like.

We are currently in obesity epidemic. That's only getting worse[0]. Lets try some new ideas instead of calories which is based of steam engines in 1800. The human body is much more complex.

What research is showing is that daily excersice is great for the overall health and strength like as the article posted. And that excersice can help the brain[1][2] with aging [3] and much more.

[0]https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/05/1117402 [1]https://neurosciencenews.com/walking-cognition-20876/ [2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4915811/#:~:tex... [3]https://scitechdaily.com/researchers-discover-how-nearly-eve...

[halfmatthalfcat]

Is the body "much more complex" than calories in/calories out though? If you are overweight, shouldn't calories in/calories out come first, followed quickly by eating healthy to achieve that deficit?

A lot of people, economically, cannot afford the latter while still being able to perform the former. Seems like we should be encouraging people how to lose weight and then educate them on healthier ways to do it...but at the end of the day it's all thermodynamics.

[oezi]

I can recommend the book Burn by Herman Pontzer on this:

The human body can adjust the Basal Metabolic Resting Rate quite a lot in the face of exercise. Spending an extra 500 kcals on exercise can easily only lead to 200 kcals higher total energy expenditure. The body apparently will for instance reduce sex drive and immune functions when under regular exercise. So to achieve weight loss exercise alone is a very hard path unless diet is also modified.

On the other hand it has been shown that dieting alone without exercise also makes it very hard to maintain a lower weight because for instance exercise seems to curb feelings of hunger.

So yes: human bodies definitely are complex adaptable machines. CICO alone doesn't cut it.

[mister_mister]

Correct, and has to because the evolutionary time that we had at least 3 meals a day has been really short. The body is made for extreme conditions, conditions that it's no longer exposed to.

So it had to be smart with when to store energy and when to spend it.

[Attummm]

Great question, because the latest science is pointing to that hormones determine the states of body. Example Insulin triggers storage in cells, and t3 from the thyroid has influence over the metabolism. Testerone has many influences and there many more For feeling full and feeling tired there are different hormones. And they are finding out how little we actually know. Turns out for example the out understanding of cholesterol was incorrect[0] and like calories the wrong focus. So research into the marvel that is human body is very basic at the moment.

thermodynamics is made for steam engines. Just like calories. Its science from 1800, a moment time where everything was powered by steam engines. So understanding how much we need of something to increase the heat of water by 1 Celsius is very important.

But cells are not like steam engines, they don't burn energy. They use atp, mitchondria create atp with the kreb cycle.

Our gut biome plays very important role in digesting food. Turns out that its different for every person even twins.

The gut biome is one the readons everone reacts a bit different to food.

Calories are still used as a proxy. Eat less Calories within a given dieet also means eat less food.

Then the question what should we do to lose weight. Many people have been helped by low carb dieet or intermittent fasting and even prolonged fasting. So in the end you could say that's still Calories. And to that I would have to agree. But it's how we get to same point.

There was actually a study that forced the participants to adhere to low calorie dieet. Hint it turned out really bad for them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experimen...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6082688/#:~:tex....

[naijaboiler]

the physics of weightloss is straightforward (CICO), the chemistry isn't as much, the biology is mind-numbingly complex, and that's before we get to the psychology.

[cercatrova]

> Lets try some new ideas instead of calories which is based of steam engines in 1800. The human body is much more complex.

Sorry but in terms of obesity and weight loss, it's really not more complex. The most surefire way to lose weight is to make sure calories in < calories out, and vice versa for gaining weight.

[tacon]

>Sorry but in terms of obesity and weight loss, it's really not more complex.

No, it is extremely complex. "Calories in < Calories out" isn't even stating the principle you think it is. You want to make a statement about fat balance depending on calorie deficit, independent of what type of food you eat, and even that is completely wrong. Different foods take completely different paths through the human digestive system (e.g., fructose vs. glucose) and thus have completely different effects independent of their "calorie" count. Most people on a calorie deficit are not also exercising, and their weight loss is 25% muscle loss, which is a disaster for their future health.

Peter Attia makes a careful statement about "calories in/calories out" in the first few minutes of this lecture: https://youtu.be/31g94p5J2gE

Doug McGuff covers med school biochemistry and metabolism in the last part of this presentation, and mentions "internal starvation" where obese people crave food at regular intervals, but the food goes directly into fat tissue. https://youtu.be/2PdJFbjWHEU

Hey, if it is just calories in < calories out, why is Bill Gates so much richer than me? All he did was spend less than he earned, right?

[mondocat]

That sounds simple, but only one of the variables in that equation is readily knowable, and the other is a function of the first. Meaning, only by counting calories- and all the calories, including cooking oil, salad “toppings”, etc do you know what the calories in is but then how do you determine what they should be, knowing that if you eat too little, your body slows down to preserve homeostasis? It turns out to be a far more complex situation that involves exercise to preserve the calories out part despite the drop in calories in. There is an ideal deficit below which it is counterproductive to go, certainly if you’re interested in body composition and not just losing “weight”. That ideal depends on activity and a variety of other minutia.

[layer8]

Easy, see the Hacker’s Diet: https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

Basically, control your calorie intake via calorie counting, measure your sliding weight average, and adjust your calorie intake up or down accordingly. It doesn’t matter how accurate your calorie counting is, as long as it’s consistent. That is, you can ballpark a lot of things as long as you’re repeatedly using the same estimates.

Counting calories is the only way I personally manage to lose weight, and it works very well. A simplified version of the Hacker’s Diet I use is the following: First count your calorie intake for a week or two without changing your diet, to establish a baseline of your average calorie intake, and then reduce the intake to 80-85% of that baseline. You’ll slowly be losing weight.

You can go lower (e.g. 70%) if you are able to sustain it and are in a hurry. It helps to pick food that is easy to calorie-count, of course. Reducing carbs generally helps with sustaining the lowered intake, and increasing the ratio of protein (and doing resistance training) helps with not losing muscle (or even building up some).

The mechanics aren’t difficult. You only need to muster the motivation.

[neuralRiot]

It would be a very long writing trying to explain it properly, so i’ll just use my experience as a long time gym rat. It takes a very heavy calorie deficit to enter “starvation mode” all bodies are different but counting calories is the easiest approach, lower your actual intake by 20% and monitor weight for 2 weeks once your curve starts flattening increase by 10% for one week then lower to the previous. I guarantee you that you’ll lose weight without losing muscle mass.

[cercatrova]

You would calculate your total daily energy expenditure, TDEE, and use that to figure out how much in excess or deficit you'd need to eat. That the body slows down homeostasis is not such a huge reason as to abandon the calories in calories out approach wholesale.

[jononomo]

Then why can't people lose weight by just drinking fewer calories of gasoline than the calories that they burn in a day through exercise? Is it possible that the kind of calories one consumes effects the burn rate of calories by the body's metabolic system? What if some calories are consumed but not burned because they are instead used for rebuilding bones or muscles -- how do you account for that?

[cma]

This does seem like even more gaslighting, you said:

" I would like to argue that being healthy and fit is not about the gym, or investing time in tracking calories."

Instead we should focus on on daily fun movements that we like to do."

Now those daily fun movements include the gym if you like the gym? But you still are saying they should do something daily instead of periodic gym, not that they could.

[spoiler]

Jesus Christ, why be so petty about him slightly confusing his point. I think the point he tried to make is that people often go to the gym and don't enjoy it, because they think it's the only or best option, but that those people should instead just look for a physical activity that's fun/enjoyable to them instead. HOWEVER if someone enjoys going to the gym, then that is perfectly fine. And that was the point they tried to make. Just use a little bit of empathy, people.

[zamfi]

My fault - I started this whole thing, and wish I hadn't. The actual point is totally reasonable, but poorly communicated.

But the issue is not about the poster confusing their point, it's about them blaming the respondent for misunderstanding what the poster was saying, saying the respondent read "should" instead of "could", but the poster actually wrote "should".

"I wasn't being confusing, you just misunderstood!" is a pretty bad-faith argument to make in general, that's what I was trying to point out. But there must be some language barrier thing going on, because the original poster just doubled-down on the bad faith argumentation :shrug:

This whole subthread is pointless.

[itsoktocry]

>This does seem like even more gaslighting

For the love of god, saying something self-contradictory is not "gas lighting".

[solveit]

Thank you for fighting the good fight. Words (should) mean things!

[mister_mister]

Focusing on something doesn't exclude anything. It could maybe come of as self-contradictory but it wasn't.

"Daily movements" is incredibly broad and includes working out in the gym, it also includes walking, playing sport.

[PuppyTailWags]

I think the post is arguing for a superset of the definition of exercise which includes the gym as opposed to a set definition of exercise defined by the gym exclusive of other activities. A superset definition would also include lifting my child for piggyback rides, a brisk walk with a friend, or practicing a flash mob.

[Attummm]

We should focus, that doens't mean we should not.

There is allot research about daily exercise and the enormous health benefits. If we focus on trying to incoperate more movements throughout the the day.

It will be easier to maintain, and if we miss a day we will have the next day.

But if we would do both it will even be better:)

The bioneer in the youtube video explains it way better then this post.

[mister_mister]

Man that poster is trying gaslight us into healthy habits. Let's get him boys. /s

What is going on with these comments. Going to gym could be part healthy lifestyle but it's not needed, when the lock downs happened many found out that it was single point of failure for them. And shouldn't have been that way.

[mister_mister]

"But you still are saying they should do something daily instead of periodic gym, not that they could. " The article of the thread is saying that...

[awillen]

Why did you totally ignore the point that you criticized the responder for reading "should" when that is the exact word you used in your post?

[Attummm]

Maybe the comment isnt written well enough to get the point across. We should focus on, doesnt exclude anything. If anything my point is that both is even better.

Then the second should is about the latest science. I didn't elaborate on that. The latest science is pointing towards daily exercise. Therfor we should ideally have some form of movement each day.

It's beneficial not only to overall health, and longevity. But also your brain health:)

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220815085707.h...

https://www.health.harvard.edu/topics/exercise-and-fitness

[zamfi]

In general, saying "I would like to argue that being X is not about doing Y. Instead we should do Z" is going to make people, quite reasonably think that you are arguing against Y, and that people should do Z instead of Y.

"We should focus on Z" does indeed suggest to most readers that you are excluding things that are not Z, whether you meant that or not.

Highly recommend going with "I'm sorry, I meant ..." rather than "You read it wrong, I didn't say ABC ..." to avoid confusion, especially when you do indeed use the phrase ABC.

[appel_user]

That is the link from the post you are replying too it's from Harvard Medical.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/stop-counting....

""" "This idea of 'a calorie in and a calorie out' when it comes to weight loss is not only antiquated, it's just wrong," says Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity specialist and assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. """

edit: | And simply saying 'Instead we should focus on daily fun movements that we like to do. So it doesn't feel like a chore and easy to maintain within your lifestyle.' is such a weird take

Did you watched youtube link provided? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWuKIlbybqY

Because after watching it, it makes allot of sense. And your points are all addressed there.

[Pius_IX]

Reply to your Edit:

'Instead we should focus on daily fun movements that we like to do. So it doesn't feel like a chore and easy to maintain within your lifestyle.' Yep, I watched the beginning of the video and totally agree with the guy. I feel like my next sentence :

'Have you ever considered that some people enjoy going to the gym? On the other hand I personally couldn't imagine anything more boring than body weight exercises. In the end it is up to the individual to chose the lifestyle that they enjoy, so please stop selling your personal favorite as if any other choices 'are large time investments that can be better spent elsewhere'. I very much enjoy my time spend at the gym, thank you very much.'

basically sums up the guys take in the video. The guy who posted the video on the other hand seemed to think (Or at least seemed to imply) that going to the gym was a waste of time and that everybody should do these 'Micro workouts'. Which is the opposite of the video guy, who expressly said that some people love power-lifting, some other stuff. And that everybody should try to find their flavor and enjoy doing that kind of exercise because doing sport is great and it helps your health in many ways.

If you still think that I wrote something that videoguy would disagree with please write again and I'll check the part of the video you mean. Because he seems like a pretty cool dude, and I certainly don't feel like I disagree with him.

[mister_mister]

The poster didn't imply that from what I understand.

It's response to links training methodologies that solely focus on the gym and calories. As such is saying "there is more then the gym and calories". and you seem to agree with that statement. that was the context of the comment, and looks like you missed it.

[Pius_IX]

Yes? And even in that article there is the following paragraph which implies that the number of calories consumed is important:

'"People who ate the ultra-processed food gained weight," says Dr. Stanford. Each group was given meals with the same number of calories and instructed to eat as much as they wanted, but when participants ate the processed foods, they ate 500 calories more each day on average. The same people's calorie intake decreased when they ate the unprocessed foods.'

I am *not* saying that 'losing weight is a matter of simple math' by counting calories as the article suggests. That is a a stupid thing to say and kind of a strawman. I am saying that 'investing time in tracking calories' (A thing the other guy implied being a waste of time) is a great tool in a tool-kit. I am also saying that eating whole foods is a great idea, but - by itself - not the ultimate solution either. I'd further say that eating healthy isn't just about losing weight, it is about a number of things for different people - some need to gain weight for example.

In addition to that, I think the article does a disservice to counting calories and is just generally written in a sloppy way. While obviously nothing it says is wrong, it also doesn't tell you a lot of other true things. For example that it can be quite easy for some people to eat enough healthy whole food to grow quite fat or at least to not lose weight (If that is the goal). It also doesn't mention that counting calories helped countless people lose a lot of weight.

But the most important flaw is that it doesn't tell you the intended target audience of the information. Do I need to eat tons of McDonalds and be way overweight? Or do pasta and pesto twice a week count while eating lots of vegetables on the other days? Will I magically lose weight if I don't eat those two meals a week? What about if I lead a very active lifestyle and work in construction? What if I am a hobby athlete and just want to lose 10kg while already eating healthy whole foods? Depending on you personally the information in this article is probably useless. I mean for gods sake, they use The biggest loser as an example, hardly relevant for most people (Outside the US? I don't know). Also note that in the 3 reasons they list, only *1* is something you are actually able to control, and that one reason breaks down to *people eat less calories*. If they want to convince me that counting calories is a bad idea they should really find better arguments.

'putting the emphasis on improving diet quality and making sustainable lifestyle improvements to achieve a healthy weight.' as described in the article is such a non-committal take. No surprise, eating good food and making livestyle improvements (Whatever that is) is a good idea.

Reality is obviously way more complicated than a small essay on the internet can do justice. As such I personally kind of despise these articles, whether they be from Harvard Medical or Mens Healthy. Especially if they don't acknowledge this and instead write the article in a way that seems to imply that it contains all the information you need.

[User23]

Losing weight isn’t even particularly desirable in itself. It’s a reduction in fat mass, especially visceral fat, that’s going to improve health. Gaining muscular and skeletal weight is going to improve most persons’ well-being.

The metric to target is body composition, not weight. And for that metric, there is a whole lot more than calories in or even nutrients in. Endocrine profile has a huge effect on nutrient partitioning, just to name one thing.

[mister_mister]

If experts from reputable sources won't change your mind, I don't think any post on HN will either. The points in the article are pretty clear. The gut biome, your metabolism, sleep, exercise , and stress all play role.

[bitexploder]

Calories in / calories out is a model. To paraphrase a famous quote: all models are bad, some are useful. You won’t find a a much simpler discipline than calorie logging. It /generally/ works, teaches people about their food habits and lets them start understanding things like macros. If you are doing it (weight loss) on your own it is an amazing starting point.

[mister_mister]

Except that body is unable to sense calories, but it's capable of sensing protein and blood sugar levels. but calories can works as a proxy, "more calories" == "more food" but calories are not all the same.

[halfmatthalfcat]

A calorie derived from a carbohydrate is the exact same as a calorie derived from protein. Are you talking about more caloric densities of different macronutrients? Aka, there's more caloric density in fatty foods vs proteins, for instance?

[bitexploder]

Kinda like with running. Our hearts have no pedometer. It just works however hard it needs to for however long. The numbers, paces and such are things we add to gain insight into what that performance means. Calorie counting is often also the first introduction many people have to what their macros are like. And there is some wisdom here, around individuals and “calorie quality”, but you can ultimately still use calorie and macro counting as a baseline measurement to start understanding your body. I should caveat, when I say calorie counting I mean, tracking key macros too: protein, carbs, fat, fiber, etc.

[Spoom]

FWIW the calorie counting model has worked well for me where others have failed. Anecdata, of course. But counting calories, as well as making some general, loosely-held shifts of what I eat (near zero liquid calories, minimize sugar, more fruits and veggies, max one fist-sized portion of meat per meal) have gotten my weight down significantly, and it feels easier than other methods I've tried.

[bena]

He's got a valid criticism though. The article says one thing and then contradicts itself. Most of the advice is of the nature "This causes people to eat more".

Being stressed causes you to eat more. Poor sleep causes you to eat more.

There is some variance, but it's nowhere near significant enough to really matter in the face of the largest contributor: the number of calories you consume.

[mister_mister]

The criticism comes from someone who not a expert or even basic knowlegde of role of hormones in the body. Such as insulin on cells or thyriod t3 hormone on metabolism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3830935/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4044302/

[Pius_IX]

Maybe I didn't explain myself very well, if so I am very sorry. English is obviously not my first language.

The gut biome, your metabolism, sleep, exercise , and stress all play role.

Yep. You can't control your gut biome and your metabolism as far as I know so while interesting, those are irrelevant for most people. Everybody will tell you that no stress, sleep and exercise are great. Combine all of these if you want to live a good, healthy life - great, but you probably didn't need an article for that. But wait, there are lots of people who do all those things (Whole food, no/little stress, sleep, exercise) and still don't lose weight.

There are tons of reasons for that. Maybe they still eat way more than they should - people are horrible at estimating how many calories a meal has. Maybe they are sick, either in mind or body. Maybe they don't train as well as they think (A lot of people think that jogging for half an hour equals a whole meal, instead of one slice of bread). Maybe there is another reason out of the myriad of reasons that exist.

But this article makes it seem like the most important thing is Put the focus on food quality and healthy lifestyle practices to attain a healthy weight. By the way, here are other 'experts from reputable sources' (The same journal) who pretty much say the same thing I do:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/calorie-count... (Explains how to count)

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/counting-on-c... (Describes how many you probably need)

https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/dont-count-calorie... (This one says exactly what I say - they aren't the only thing that counts, but you still better are aware of them.)

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/counting-calorie... (This one for whatever reason claims it keeps your heart young. I don't care enough to research that one)

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/simple-math-e... (And this one is so badly written and claims the exact opposite as far as I can tell, that I very much doubt this is a 'reputable source').

Don't always believe what a single, hastily written and completely non-sourced (Not a single source/quotation in that article!!! How is that reputable??) in a weird online magazine claims. Even if the print Harvard on the top.

[mister_mister]

"You can't control your gut biome and your metabolism as far as I know"

that is incorrect, and shows that your level of understanding doesn't warrant the certainty of your comments about weight loss.

[Pius_IX]

Oh please. To quote your much loved Harvard Medical Journal (https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/do-gut-bacter...): 'We are just beginning to understand the role of gut bacteria in obesity, and the science hasn't led yet to treatments that will make it easier to lose weight. However, I believe that day is coming.'

And to quote it again (https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-abo...): 'How fast your metabolism works is determined mostly by your genes.' and also saying: 'But you can't entirely blame a sluggish metabolism for weight gain, says Dr. Lee. "The reality is that metabolism often plays a minor role," he says. "The greatest factors as you age are often poor diet and inactivity."'. Sure, they then list a number of ways to 'boost it', but they all come back to the exact same tune I have been talking about. Exercise and food (And apparently Green tea. Huh, a 100 cal a day isn't great but isn't horrible either).

So if you know of some great way to control either of them, please link me a journal or paper, I would love to learn more.

[mister_mister]

"the other is a way of life for a tiny group of professional athletes."

The issue is that the links provided by first poster are advocating for such weight loss strategies. While they themselves are on steroids.

[nonameiguess]

That isn't true, though. Neither the article nor the comment you're referring to say anything at all about weight loss. In fact, while most of the links in the top comment are guys who care somewhat about staying lean, Mike Israetel explicitly does not. His goal is just to get as big as humanly possible given his genetic constraints (but also while doing steroids). That is entirely legitimate when the topic of the study being discussed here is whether infrequent or more frequent lifting builds more muscle.

Your comment is non-sequitur. Perhaps weight loss is the majority fitness goal in industrialized nations of the world today, but it is still a legitimate and separate topic worth discussing for people who succeed or were never fat in the first place, but still aren't necessarily all that "fit," to think about what they can do to achieve some goal beyond just not being obese.

You'd think Hacker News of all places would understand this. For the majority of the world, simple tech literacy is a goal and presumably a whole lot of research and think pieces discuss that kind of thing, how to best promote it and what not. But everybody here is already tech literate. We want to be technically excellent, not literate. That is a different goal and the tools you need to get there are different.

The above resources are not promoting how to not be obese. They're promoting how to be athletically excellent.

[mister_mister]

The links provided themselves point to programs, the information is to sell courses.

If you take steroids your body will respond different then normal people. Using steroids and then to promote your programs that act like it's possible to achieve them without is dangerous.

The strain they will be able to put on their bodies are not the same as without. Even with steroids the strain is so high it can lead to serious life changing injuries like at least one the some of the linked have found out. There many young people that have used steroids and have completely worn out joints.

[User23]

> On the other hand I personally couldn't imagine anything more boring than body weight exercises.

I’m with you here. I can push and pull a respectable amount for my age and body weight on a barbell, but with the exception of pull ups and dips I also find body weight exercises to be boring.

I do wish though I’d trained as a gymnast in my youth. Somehow I don’t think I’d find ring planche push ups boring. But sadly the progression from where I’m at to there is way too much without a daily coach.

[iosono88]

Hail Christ! My Musclar Christian brother!

[Pius_IX]

And honor to the blessed mother, my even more muscular brother <3