[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.

[mister_mister]

Yeah, It's starting point. if it would lead into Macro and micro nutrients that would be great.

[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 links to research about changing your metabolism. one google search away.

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4044302/ 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3830935/ 3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21311363/

Here research on the gut biome and link with food. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950569/ 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5385025/ 3. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/10/study-finds-g...

This is what the lastest science is pointing to. We are currently in obesity epidemic, how long have we counting calories? Calories are measurement for steam engines. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and...

[Pius_IX]

Yeah, I'll give up. It is quite obvious we won't come to an agreement, though I am still not sure what you actually take issue with. Especially since we obviously both agree that obesity is a big problem and should be tackled.

On metabolism: 1. & 2. seem to indicate that you want to do hormone therapy with triiodothyronine? I don't know how we got to hormone therapy from 'eating healthy food' but sure. If you want to go that far I obviously was wrong in saying you can't change your metabolism. I assumed you meant by doing something that didn't involve something as extreme. Like: 3. Exercise increases metabolic rate. Which I thought was obvious. But yes, I should have expressed myself more clearly by saying 'besides the things we are doing anyways because we are in a fitness thread'. That is my fault and you are right here.

On gut biome: 2. 'Overall, further research on long-term diets that include health and microbiome measures is required before clinical recommendations can be made for dietary modulation of the gut microbiota for health.' 3. is on mice but interesting. 1. Is pretty interesting as well. Still, none of those papers have actual recommendations for the common individual.

I mean I readily admit that there might be some amazing cutting edge academic research that already points to a great new way to lose weight by either increasing your metabolism or changing your gut biome. But I haven't seen it yet and your linked stuff doesn't convince me that it is there yet. Sure, I have never heard about triiodothyronine therapy, but that honestly sounds very, very experimental to me.