[jorvi]

I can't speak to sleep, but you are wrong about the calories.

Kurzgesagt has a really interesting video on it: https://youtu.be/lPrjP4A_X4s

The caloric part quite blew my mind. I know its not the most scientific source but digging deeper in it it does seem to match up.

[_heimdall]

This is one in a long list of reasons why I continue to view calories as a useless measure. I don't really give a damn about how much water I can heat up by burning my food, that's not how my digestion system works. It was a reasonable enough analog when we had a very rudimentary understanding both of what's really in food and how digestion and the metabolic process works, but its horribly outdated today.

I can say having recently gone from coding at a desk 8 hours a day to working full-time on a farm with no heavy equipment, your food intake absolutely should increase. As long as I'm staying busy I can eat basically whatever I want and not feel sick or gain weight. That's not to imply that I don't still need to eat the right kinds of food as well, but volume and calorie count has no noticeable effect on me like it did when I had a sedentary job.

[gopher_space]

> I can say having recently gone from coding at a desk 8 hours a day to working full-time on a farm with no heavy equipment, your food intake absolutely should increase.

Yeah I think people are missing the transition phase of this equation.

[_heimdall]

I can help fill in the blanks at least on my own anecdotal experience. What are the missing gaps you're interested in?

[aaronbrethorst]

Herman Pontzer, an anthropology professor, talks quite a bit about a study he did on the calorie needs of people who are highly active on this podcast: https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/examining-energy-evoluti...

Spoiler alert: you burn basically the same number of calories per day sitting on your butt as you do being quite physically active.

[nh2]

No, that's wrong.

Somebody else burns the same number of calories being active as you do sitting.

The article does not compare the the same individuals performing sitting vs. being active.

It says that members of hunter-gatherer tribes such as the Hadza on average consume as much energy per day as US-Americans sitting on their butt at home. It says the Hadza's bodies have adapted to perform a more exhausting task with less energy expenditure than US-Americans need.

But the same person (being a Hazda or US-American) will still need more energy being active than being inactive.

(Source: Read from "here's what we know so far" in the article.)

This is similar to finding that from N calories, an obese person may only run 1km while a professional marathon runner will run 5km.

Edit:

The Kurzgesagt video refers to the same Hazda people, and states that if you start working out after being sedentary for a while, you burn a lot more calories, until your body eventually adapts: https://youtu.be/lPrjP4A_X4s?feature=shared&t=212

[gopher_space]

> It says the Hadza's bodies have adapted to perform a more exhausting task with less energy expenditure than US-Americans need.

You're not wrong, but I'd see it as the Americans who've adapted to more recent situations. Not walking ten miles a day is a relatively new phenomenon.

[I_am_uncreative]

You can call us just "Americans". The US is unnecessary, thank you.

[jessekv]

The tone of this comment makes me question if it was made in good-faith. But I will add my perspective. I see this debate all the time, I've seen it since I was young, and not just on the internet.

It stems from a language difference, in Latin American Spanish, words like america and its relatives like americano, latinoamericano, panamericano, etc is inclusive of North and South America.

In English, globally, America refers to the USA. It is context dependent, but to describe the continents you would normally say "the Americas."

This distinction naturally annoys native Latin American Spanish speakers, especially because it is compounded by historical, geopolitical, and economic dynamics.

If someone chooses to be over-explicit in English, it's better to let it pass. Correcting the language can come off as dickish, especially when you consider the historical context. Additionally, the person on the other end is sometimes making this mistake on purpose, trolling for a pointless argument.

If it were up to me, I would add this topic to the list of things HN mods should ban.

[miles]

Cannot hear "US-Americans" without remembering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww

[Alupis]

> Herman Pontzer, an anthropology professor

> you burn basically the same number of calories per day sitting on your butt as you do being quite physically active

Can you provide more evidence for this, because it sounds entirely bogus. Perhaps you mean one's base metabolic rate? If you are physically active, you will consume more calories than sitting all day - because, you know, you are exerting yourself.

Also, an anthropology professor is not a credible source on diet, exercise, fitness and health.

[aaronbrethorst]

https://www.science.org/content/article/scientist-busts-myth...

[Alupis]

Your citation is to another piece by the same guy?

[goostavos]

HN is not the place to discuss diet, exercise, fitness, or health. Every thread is the same: the human body ackchuwally runs on magic. Diet is really, really complicated. In fact, nobody burns calories at all. The body just does it's own thing. Watch this Youtube video about it. They quote an anthropologist.

[lostlogin]

> you burn basically the same number of calories per day sitting on your butt as you do being quite physically active.

I think I’m missing your point. How do you explain weight loss from exercising?

[krapp]

People tend to lose weight from dieting, not exercise. Unless you're training for a marathon or something, even vigorous exercise tends to burn so few calories that an hour at the gym can be erased with a single trip to McDonald's.

[lostlogin]

Probably accurate. The amount of exercise needed for effect is less than a hour per day (less than 30 minutes if intensive) but this is a not done by most.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5556592/

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/exercise.htm

[tomalbrc]

What kind of reference is a "Kurzgesagt" video please? Not only has the this channel been in more controversies than needed, they seem to also spread missinformation

[jorvi]

Someone already linked the actual research in this post thread a few hours before you responded, which you willfully ignored just to.. try to score some cheap contrarian points?

I'm not going to engage with that, go troll somewhere else. Bye :)

[mkatx]

As I understood, kurzgesagt is produced by scientific consensus from a large number of scientists.

As a big fan, I'd be interested in hearing more about the controversy and misinformation.

[a_dabbler]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=uCuy1DaQzWI