[HN Gopher] The brain has a 'low-power mode' that blunts our senses ___________________________________________________________________ The brain has a 'low-power mode' that blunts our senses Author : mikhael Score : 167 points Date : 2022-06-19 16:16 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.quantamagazine.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.quantamagazine.org) | hkt wrote: | Responding only to the title, my immediate thought was "that must | be the mode I'm always in" | gleenn wrote: | Reminds me of the book "Thinking Fast and Slow", where the author | describes the human brain as having two modes, the always on | "fast" brain which makes lots of mistakes but doesn't consume | much energy, and the more thoughtful but far more energy | consuming "slow" brain. I'm not sure I agree with everything in | the book, but it's some amazing food for thought and one of the | highest rated books by the Hacker News community. | hprotagonist wrote: | One time I bonked so hard on a long ride that i lost color | vision. | | Fastest orange juice i ever drank. | InCityDreams wrote: | ...sugar, sugar, sugar. | rmoriz wrote: | I temporarily lost part of hearing, too. Happend to me after | casually biking in a fasted state after attempting a short but | steep climb. When I was at the top, I made a break just to | start getting into this bonk state rather slowly over the next | approximately 5 minutes. I was still standing all the time not | becoming unconscious. I thought of having a stroke or | something. Scariest moment of my life so far. | lupire wrote: | The headline is obvious (have you tried sleeping?), but the | article is about a specific mechanism for vision, not the general | idea. | aalaee wrote: | fotta wrote: | I get reactive hypoglycemia sometimes and when my blood sugar | levels start dropping my vision starts blurring and I can't focus | on anything. Eating something to bring my blood sugar back | resolves it. This study was about longer term deficits but I | wonder if it's the same mechanism I experience in short bursts. | kilroy123 wrote: | That's insulin resistance. | Trasmatta wrote: | You've got it backwards, insulin resistance causes | hyperglycemia. | bencollier49 wrote: | Not sure about that but it could certainly be pre-diabetes. | Trasmatta wrote: | I'm diabetic and experience the same thing with low blood | sugar. | paulgerhardt wrote: | Recently didn't eat for 40 days and didn't notice this. Suspect | there's some issues by putting the mice on calorie restriction vs | fasting. Ie "the researchers fed the mice right before the | experiments" - if you're in a fasted state and do introduce food | you're going to create an insulin spike - if you were also | previously calorie deprived you could go hypoglycemic right | after. | | Going back as far as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment it | appears in certain survival instances calorie restriction is | worse than no calories. [1] | | [1] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experimen... | number6 wrote: | Ok. How did you not eat for 40 days and why? | | I heard you can go without food for 30 days. My longest fast | was 3 days and while I liked it, I function much better with | food. | paulgerhardt wrote: | I did it back during Covid. I did it imperfectly (just water | initially - don't do that, see below). It looked like a | vaccine was two years out, getting covid was inevitable, and | the outcomes of getting sick were not good for obese people. | At 28 bmi I figured the best thing I could do was lose | weight, wear gloves, mask up, not travel, and expose all my | mail/packages to UV light. Made sense at the time with the | lack of empirical evidence we had then and needed to work | from first principles. This was March of 2020. | | Longer thread on the subject: | https://twitter.com/pmg/status/1463309372793057285 | | tldr; We store fat to get us through periods of lack of food. | Bears do this too. We literally have a "machine" inside us | that we evolved at great expense that gets us through periods | of no food. Fat storage is an "extra" feature - not the | default. Chimps and gorillas don't have it for instance - if | you've seen one, they're basically ripped, no real fat | storage - probably because we evolved on the savannas (or | similar environment with seasonal food scarcity) and they | evolved in the jungle where food was always present. | | Simple (not easy) fat loss guide: drink water, supplement | with essential vitamins and minerals that you don't store | naturally in fat (i.e. sodium, potassium, magnesium, b | vitamins, and vitamin c). As I understand it, most other | vitamins are fat soluble and thus...stored in fat. No, you | don't lose much muscle (I lost 0.1%) - I believe because the | body makes an exogenous amount of HGH when fasting (but not | during calorie restriction). Currently of the mindset short | term fasting (less than 7 days) is better than calorie | restriction for weight loss. Long term fasting (15+ days) has | mild negative outcomes but is an appropriate option when the | alternative is death by "X" - included co-morbidities caused | by long term obesity. Sustained vitamin deficiency over | months or years (anorexia) can cause worse outcomes than | obesity. A "one and done" fast is not that. | Etheryte wrote: | I've seen salt-water fast plans a number of times before | and wouldn't mind trying one out since I do similar short | experiments every now and them myself as well. Would you | please mind explaining how you figured out dosage for | everything you were taking, or what the doses were for you? | I've tried a water fast before, but couldn't find a good | spot between over-hydrated and under-hydrated. | paulgerhardt wrote: | I should just write a post. | | But at a high level. | | You BOTH look at recommended daily values AND listen to | your body. NIH has a decent starting point. I.e. | potassium is 4,700mg: | https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/Potassium- | HealthProfession... | | There's also a fair amount of margin for error. A low | effort is a salt supplement like this: | https://www.amazon.com/Brain-Forza-Electrolytes- | Flavoring-Un... + B complex + C vitamins like this: | https://www.amazon.com/Natures-Bounty-B-Complex-Vitamin- | Cell... - I don't particularly endorse any one supplement | - just look up what are the essential vitamins and | minerals on NIH | (https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/vitamins-and-minerals) | and supplement the recommended daily amounts for the non- | fat soluble ones. You can probably do without the | vitamins on a short fast but you will feel miserable | without the salts. | | Your body is still "eating" - you're still having bowel | movements for instance - but it's just eating your own | fat stores which include some fat soluable vitamins. NB I | did not look to see if I was getting _enough_ from this - | but when I did my blood work a few times the only thing I | was consistently low on was sodium and potassium because | I was under supplementing on those because drinking salt | water is gross (like I said, I did this imperfectly.) | | One shouldn't eat salt in pill form. I didn't try. But | supposedly it burns your intestinal lining. Rather I'd | mix a scoop of that into my black coffee, 4 times a day. | If I had muscle fatigue I'd have more potassium. If I | couldn't sleep, more magnesium. Light headed when | standing? More sodium. This is the listening to your body | part and if you're short on salts after two weeks you | absolutely will know it. But, mixing salt in water is | gross and drinking too much salt in too short of time | period will give you the runs. Getting enough salt is the | only "hard" part. You're still doing what one normally | does as a human, just less. | | I think I got it down to 2L of water. Some casual cups of | decaffeinated black coffee or tea. 4 thimble sized | supplements of various salts. | Etheryte wrote: | Thank you very much for taking the time to explain the | approach you took, it's much appreciated. Last time I | tried a water fast I wrote it off as I just felt | absolutely garbage a very short while in, but I now | understand my approach to it was too simplistic. Your | tips on when to supplement more of what are invaluable, I | think you should definitely take the time to write this | up as a post so it gets more visibility. | JamesBarney wrote: | If you lost less than .1% of your muscle mass that's | abnormal. There are 100s of studies on people losing weight | and they almost all lose some amount of muscle mass. | titanomachy wrote: | Did you feel very overweight at BMI 28? | | I have a BMI of 28.5 (6'0, 210 lbs) and I'm pretty lean, | active, and healthy. I have denser bones and a bit more | muscle than average, but my body isn't _that_ unusual. | | Good for you on using covid as motivation to get healthier. | aeonik wrote: | Honestly this is very impressive. You definitely have what | it takes to survive an apocalypse. I also think that level | of caution is warranted in an unknown pathogenic | environment. | | Was food delivery not an option, or were you worried about | that being a vector of transmission? | jb1991 wrote: | I read it as fasting was intentional to reduce BMI. | sjtgraham wrote: | It's easy, you just don't put food in your mouth for 40 days. | You can go safely as long as you have body fat to spare. I've | never fasted myself to the bone. I've fasted 30 days 5 times | in my life, and the only reason I stopped each time was | boredom. You miss out on a lot fasting, more social | experiences than you realize revolve around sharing meals | with friends. | Yajirobe wrote: | Please don't talk about this nonchalantly - people reading | this might try to do something similar and the results may | be fatal. | tines wrote: | I didn't think this was true, because your body can't | create all the chemicals it needs to continue to function, | it has to get some from food. See something like https://ww | w.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-52... for | what I'm talking about. | paulgerhardt wrote: | Don't know why are being downvoted. This matches my own | experiences. Then again, given people's general response | when I bring this up it feels squarely in "What You Can't | Say" territory[1]. I no longer bring it up in casual | conversation. | | [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html | Retric wrote: | People are downvoting because it's actually very | dangerous. You can probably go 6 months without calories, | but many people die on hunger strikes within 2 months | because the body can't magic up salt etc. This is why | starving people will eat leaves and dirt. | quickthrower2 wrote: | The reason is, in my opinion you both are achieving a | feat that most people would be in awe of, but shrug it | off as easy. | | "Anyone can go 30 days without food. No prep needed. No | big deal. Gets a bit boring though." | | Extraordinary claims require a bit more of a story and | context at least. | | The bar is higher online as an anyone can make an | internet comment saying anything. Like "I wrestled a bear | and won. Just gotta punch them right". | | Someone once said they did 3 days without food and I | loved hearing about it. I would be happy if you brought | it up in conversation about 30 days. | paulgerhardt wrote: | Oh yeah. That makes sense. Its super counter-intuitive. | Running a marathon gets harder as the miles stack up. | Huge respect for anyone that can do an ironman. Fasting | starts out very hard and gets trivially easy by day 5. | The accepted explanation is your body just taps out on | making the hormone that makes you feel hungry (ghrelin) | after 3~ish days. You don't actually get hungrier and | hungrier until you're in supraphysiological amounts of | pain. The need to eat just kind of fades away - so you're | just literally doing nothing. It feels like a non- | achievement. | wincy wrote: | I did three days fasting and thought I was going to die | when I consciously decided I was going to break the fast. | It was easy until that moment when it felt like all the | hunger I'd ignored hit me all at once. | number6 wrote: | Food can not legally enter your body if you do not | consent. Just say no! | | Yeah I know this joke. But 40 days is a long time. After | 3 days I felt my mouth ake and my breath went sour and I | was irritable. But Hunger wasn't even a problem. | sjtgraham wrote: | Days 3-5 are the worst then it really is easy (I'm not | just saying that). After that, your only limitations are | your tolerance for boredom and how much body fat you | have. | EugeneOZ wrote: | You need a lot of chemical elements to live, not just | glucose. | alar44 wrote: | They likely had broth/tea/vitamins. | ed_elliott_asc wrote: | keewee7 wrote: | >My longest fast was 3 days and while I liked it, I function | much better with food. | | Three days is the longest people should go for if they | haven't tried fasting before and don't have experience with | gradual refeeding. Any longer than five days and you risk | running into the refeeding syndrome. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome | paulgerhardt wrote: | There's a lot of people overindexing on the dangers of | refeeding. It is important to factor in after a week | (honestly more like 15+ days) but also trivially addressed. | alecst wrote: | This is something I hear repeated without hard evidence. | Plenty of people do 10+ day fasts and don't get refeeding | syndrome. I have never heard of it happening. While I can't | prove it doesn't happen to some sensitive people in rare | cases, my tendency is to think this is an urban myth. We're | not talking about holocaust victims or hunger strikers. | paulgerhardt wrote: | If you've practiced a normal diet and do a seven day fast | you're going to be fine. | | If you're anorexic, fast for 40 days, and don't | supplement with salts (particularly potassium) you're | going to have refeeding syndrome. | | If one's worried about it, just get ones blood work done | before one starts eating again. It takes about an hour | and will show you exactly what you are low on what to | supplement to get to baseline. To the extent people are | advising one not to do an extended fast without medical | supervision - eh - basically the extent of the medical | supervision is "let's run a panel every few days and see | if anything is dangerously out of whack" - and maybe | confine you to a hospital for the duration - but if | you're not outside and walking a normal amount and say | confined to a room you absolutely will lose a large | amount of muscle. | jeremyjh wrote: | In this study that you did on yourself, did you rigorously test | your visual acuity at regular intervals? | Retric wrote: | Be careful, it's believed ~40 days without food can kill you if | you don't take supplements. People have gone for much longer | while taking supplements including salt. | cf141q5325 wrote: | This isnt a matter of believe. There are lots of prisoners | who went on hunger strikes and perished from it. With them | starting with a background of a normal western diet. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Irish_hunger_strike 45-73 | days till death with most lasting 60 days. | | Holger Meins lasted 58 days despite forced feeding. | https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holger_Meins | | List is obviously a lot longer but they offer a great dataset | robonerd wrote: | Excluding salt would surely be insane, you piss and sweat out | a lot of salt and that needs to be replenished. I don't see | any way around that. | Retric wrote: | Of course, but someone is going to take a multivitamin and | assume that's enough. | hrkucuk wrote: | My speculation is that the brain activates the low-power mode | when it really believes that the food is scarce. However a | voluntary fasting, no matter how long, would not trigger a low- | power mode since your mood is still very positive and self | controlled. | 0des wrote: | What is the thing right before I fall asleep where any voices or | noises are at booming volume? Is that my brain's last chance to | alert me of a predator? | braden-lk wrote: | I get these, but for me it's not real-time noise. It's noises | and voices I heard throughout the day. It feels like they're | being replayed from a tape recorder right as I fall asleep. | s__s wrote: | I have a newborn and every night while falling asleep all I | hear is his cooing and laughing on replay. | | It's sort of like when you play a lot of Tetris and you can't | stop seeing the falling bricks as you fall asleep. | throwaway3neu94 wrote: | On two occasions, once after skiing for a week and once | after playing flight sims an entire Saturday, I had an | intense (and very nice) feeling of gliding down a | (glide)slope as I fell asleep. | someweirdperson wrote: | > It's sort of like when you play a lot of Tetris and you | can't stop seeing the falling bricks as you fall asleep. | | Never noticed this from any single-threaded activity. But | once I played two games in parallel for a few hours (two | instances of wow) that had a direct impact on trying to | fall asleep. The task-switching tried to check my other | self, but there was no other instance to switch to. | bowsamic wrote: | I don't have anything to add other than that I have this too. | It seems like it happens at exactly the point where I can | either go to sleep or wake back up. Like suddenly all the | volume rushes up and everything is at full intensity, and if I | choose to sleep I guess it goes away. Super weird tbh | joecool1029 wrote: | Hypanagogic hallucinations. I don't know why or for what | purpose they happen but that's the term. | 0des wrote: | They're things actually happening, they're just very loud. | Someone speaking is like wearing headphones turned all the | way up, is the best approximation for it. Is that still part | of the definition of a hallucination? | guerrilla wrote: | Hmmm, I know what you mean. I've experienced both... hard | to say if they're the same thing or not though... They're | certainly triggered at the same point for me but not always | concurrent, as I've had both in isolation as well. | rzzzt wrote: | Sounds similar to "auditory sleep start" aka. "exploding head | syndrome". The sensation of falling which makes you twitch from | your whole body is "sleep start" or "hypnic jerk" (who comes up | with these names). There is also a visual version where one | experiences flashes. | dinkleberg wrote: | Interesting, I don't think I've ever experienced that (or even | heard of it). Is that something you experience every night | (assuming there is sound)? | bowsamic wrote: | Not OP but I only have it when I sleep in the presence of | voices | SSLy wrote: | This would explain why I've only experienced similar things | on long bus rides from high school. | wwilim wrote: | Interesting, I have type 1 diabetes and I experience this during | low sugar episodes. | zwilliamson wrote: | Psilocybin high powered mode | dontcare007 wrote: | More like running in neutral,. | Hnrobert42 wrote: | The fact that leptin, not food, restored high-power mode makes me | wonder if we could use leptin to increase dieting efficacy. I've | read that there are limits to how much weight you can lose per | week, no matter how much you restrict your caloric intake. Beyond | a certain point, your body senses the deficiency and decreases | your metabolism. If a person could restrict calories AND receive | leptin injections, they could lose weight faster. (note, I am | thinking about this in terms of helping the morbidly obese in | dire circumstances.) | givemeethekeys wrote: | Or they could water fast (under medical supervision). After a | couple of days they won't feel the need to eat. They will lose | a ton of weight. | jhardy54 wrote: | > I've read that there are limits to how much weight you can | lose per week, no matter how much you restrict your caloric | intake. Beyond a certain point, your body senses the | deficiency and decreases your metabolism. | nebulousthree wrote: | The point is that there's a distinct physiological | difference between no calories and some calories | bergenty wrote: | That's only true to a certain extent. After a certain | point, no calories just equals rapid fat burning | guerrilla wrote: | No, not just fat, but all kinds of tissue including | muscle. | donkarma wrote: | Muscle is only burned when you are out of fat. | Enginerrrd wrote: | This is not true at all. There's perhaps a preference | toward fat but muscle wasting absolutely occurs during | fasting, and often at a relatively significant rate. | | If you were to "run out of fat" entirely, you'd simply | die with fairly significant caloric reserves in the form | of muscle. This is not what is observed. | gilmore606 wrote: | This is very much not true; I lost over 100lbs and saw | the evidence in myself, before I adjusted and started | eating a high protein low calorie diet. If you don't | consume protein and don't work out, you will lose muscle | mass, even if you have fat to burn. This is because | muscle tissue is expensive to maintain; the body tends to | reduce it if it's not being used. | Beaver117 wrote: | I also tried water fasting. Lost both fat and muscle (and | I still have plenty of fat) | LegitShady wrote: | your body is constantly using protein to maintain your | muscle. When you starve your body of protein, you lose | the ability to maintain your muscle, and your body begins | to lose muscle as well, even though it does a bunch of | stuff to try to stave that off. | chiefalchemist wrote: | Right. So you're not actually burning muscle - instead of | fat - per se. Instead muscle wastes as the body isn't | maintaining it. | | While it's not a controlled study, History Channel's | "Alone" (reality survivalist show) always touches on lack | of food and its affects. | staticassertion wrote: | That seems particularly important. Leptin is naturally released | by fat cells, so I wonder how this would have impacted | _overweight_ mice, who may have already been naturally | releasing this leptin - assuming that 's how leptin works. | | But also, no one should be fasting and eating _nothing_ - they | should make sure they 're getting the necessary vitamins and | minerals. Taking more leptin could make sense. | blowski wrote: | I don't understand this obsession with finding secret tricks to | dieting. The root problem is the abundance of cheap, overly | processed food being advertised to people with a lack of | willpower. Until we tackle those core problems, everything is | pointless, because finding a workaround means enabling yet more | of the bad behaviour. | jeroenhd wrote: | Advertising is only part of the problem, as is accessibility | and price. You don't grow obese by eating a candy bar once a | week, you have to turn your unhealthy food consumption into a | pattern and patterns of behaviour are inherently difficult to | change. | | You can remove all advertising for candy and fast food and | most people will still not lose any weight. At best you'll | prevent new obesity cases by a tiny margin. | | When actively trying to lose weight, the body and mind | resist. Partially because change is hard, partially because | you're running your bodies on fewer calories on purpose. | There is the ever present feeling of "I could go for a quick | snack but I really really shouldn't". | | I don't believe there will ever be this One Secret Trick That | Doctors Hate to losing weight (except for getting dangerously | ill, perhaps). However, if research like this can lead to | ways to reduce some of the symptoms of cutting calories, I | think the world might become a lot healthier. | | There is also always the risk of this being exploited, of | course; I'd imagine some less than humane leaders would be | all to pleased if their working populace wouldn't be | complaining about hunger all the time. The brain exhibits | this behaviour for a reason, probably a good one, and | surpressing it willy-nilly can only end in disaster. | nicoburns wrote: | The "trick" is to eat whole foods that will make you feel | full even when eating less. | AmpsterMan wrote: | It's quite simple to understand. An individual has a much | greater control over their diet and activity than they do | over the multifaceted forces that have lead to the current | food situation in the West. | JamesBarney wrote: | I don't understand the obsession with not seeking effective | medical solutions over impossible solutions that feel moral | like changing human nature or society to be less obesogenic. | throwaway09223 wrote: | "people with a lack of willpower" | | Well, people who lack willpower still want to solve their | weight problem. They can't use willpower because they don't | have it. This is why they look for secret tricks. | | Not so complicated. | 988747 wrote: | Solution to weight problem that I found is simple, even if | somewhat expensive: dietary catering (as in: having ready- | made meals delivered to your doorstep). | | The problem isn't usually quantity of food, but quality. | Having 5 pre-packaged, healthy, low GI meals delivered | makes it quite easy to follow the diet. Also, you don't | even have to reduce calorie intake in the beginning: feel | free to order 2500-3000 calorie option, if you so wish. You | won't be losing any weight on that, but at least your | metabolism, your glucose levels will stabilize. Then, after | 2-3 weeks adjustment period, change your calorie intake to | 1500 calories and continue for another month or two - the | results are almost magical. | epicureanideal wrote: | I wonder if it would make sense to have the government | heavily subsidize healthy, low GI, low calorie density | meal preparation and delivery, bringing it down to the | cost of the cheapest junk food? | | I imagine it would be expensive, but only as expensive as | food and delivery of it, and would reduce much more | expensive health care costs, right? | throwaway09223 wrote: | There are so many different ways to address mindfulness | around eating. I'm glad you found one that works well for | you! I'm a big fan of meal prep and portion control. | Casual servings often end up being several times larger | than necessary. I agree with you that practicing | deliberate portioning is really important. | | Another big issue is condiments. It's really easy to add | a few tbsp of dressing to an otherwise healthy meal, | which can add a few hundred "hidden" calories. | BariumBlue wrote: | I've had similar results! At first when I tried | monitoring my diet, I assumed that 2600 calories/day with | exercise would be good enough, but I was only losing | ~1lb/month. It did make it way easier for me to | transition to 1.5-2k calories though, I'm not sure I | could've done that from the start. | | And it's definitely easier to feel satisfied off low cal | food if it's nutritious - smoothies with protein powder | and greens? Filling and diet friendly (esp if no milk). | Water? Low cal, but you'll definitely still feel | cravings. | 1123581321 wrote: | Someone made an idle, curious comment and you called it an | obsession. | PartiallyTyped wrote: | It often isn't lack of will power, but other issues. Nobody | wants to be overweight or obese, but people suffer from all | sorts of other issues that make it harder for them to get | their life in order. | Firmwarrior wrote: | I dunno man, I've been super fat all my life, except in | college when I decided to get in shape | | I developed a healthy diet and healthy habits, and was able | to get down to a healthy weight.. but staying there | required a constant influx of willpower. If I only ate | enough food to stay at a low weight, I was hungry all the | time. (Eventually I ballooned back out, although now I'm | losing weight again since I've realized that Morbid Obesity | is no place for old men) | | I think there is a systems issue at work. My body is just | calibrated to hog food until it gets pretty fat, and then | it'll stay there unless I do something out of the ordinary. | | Telling fat people to get their shit together _can_ work, | the same way telling poor people to learn to code works. (I | don 't think that thin people are thin because they're | hungry all the time and they overpower those urges, the | same way poor people aren't necessarily all bad people who | piss away all their money) | Enginerrrd wrote: | Yeah this aligns pretty well with the research. | | There's a lot we don't know. But it definitely does | appear that a lot of obese people have some sort of | homeostatic miscalibration on where their body's set | point is for weight. The mechanisms involved there are | numerous and complex. It's quite possible that there's | something simple going on that could be adjusted in the | future to get a person's weight set point down, and from | there it's quite likely that they will be able to | autoregulate. Conversely, it's really hard for any | intervention to succeed long-term when a person's weight | doesn't match this internal set point. | epicureanideal wrote: | > some sort of homeostatic miscalibration | | Possibly leftovers of a highly adaptive mechanism that | let some of their ancestors survive times of extreme | famine? | confidantlake wrote: | I agree with this. As a non overweight person I don't | feel hungry all the time. | | However, I don't think it is genetics can explain why the | obesity rate has exploded in recent decades. | | Seeing friends and family members that are overweight, | they tend to have some similar habits. They consume a lot | of liquid calories, ie sodas, fruit juice, sugar in | coffee etc. They also eat calorie dense foods, ie ranch | dressing, fast food, cookies while consuming fewer fruits | and vegetables. They also tend to not consume as much | protein and are usually fairly sedentary. | | I don't think blaming individuals does much good, but at | the same time I don't think some people are just doomed | to be fat. If everyone around you is eating healthy non | calorie dense food and walking a lot you probably will | too. Conversely if everyone around you is eating high | quantities of processed food while being sedentary you | probably will too. | kenjackson wrote: | I doubt that lack of willpower is often the issue. Even a | slightly more efficient metabolism can lead to 5 lbs per year | of additional weight with no increase in caloric consumption. | That adds up quickly. | | Properly balancing caloric efficiency at a young age is | probably far more effective long term and honestly likely | more pragmatic. | crdrost wrote: | The metaproblem is that you're thinking of this as a systems | problem, the people who irk you are thinking of it as | isolated--an isolated closed-box test, no less. | | Like, most people in this discussion would not think of | mental-health therapy as a diet plan, but if you're thinking | in terms of the systems involved then that seems more likely | to generate more weight loss than any fad diet over a long | run. | | It's just really tempting to be reductive. | epicureanideal wrote: | > most people in this discussion would not think of mental- | health therapy as a diet plan | | Absolutely. | | "Just eat less" is not a viable strategy for a parent | working 60-70 hours per week who needs to eat a high | calorie diet, among other unhealthy practices, just to stay | barely functional to support their family. | | Or someone who is so exhausted by their work just to keep a | roof over their head that they have no mental energy to | think about shopping for different food, preparing it, and | so on. | Gordonjcp wrote: | > eat a high calorie diet, among other unhealthy | practices | | Eating a high-calorie diet is not unhealthy. | cjohansson wrote: | Very good points, I'm saving that text in my library | standardUser wrote: | I don't believe you don't understand why people would want to | find easier ways to lose weight. | honkler wrote: | You're trying to treat cancer with bandaids | notnaut wrote: | If there were a bandaid cure for cancer, we'd use it. | blowski wrote: | Absolutely. But there isn't a bandaid for either cancer | or obesity. | throwaway09223 wrote: | Of course there isn't. That's why we're still looking for | one. | | Looking for easy solutions is very understandable, re: | the original topic. | jasonhansel wrote: | +1. People seem to think that, since _they_ had to suffer | through diet and exercise to lose weight, everyone _else_ | should have to suffer equally; for some reason people | think it 's "unfair" to lose weight through e.g. | medications. This makes no sense, and it isn't consistent | with how we treat any other illness. | effingwewt wrote: | We have band-aids for _both_. | | Both cancer and weight loss are filled to the brim with | pills that do absolutely nothing. | | Thousands of expensive treatments, no cure (for cancer at | least, I believe the weight loss pill industry os 100% | fraudulent). | | Saw some pill adverts the other day at a restaurant as | the tv played. The pill promised to help lose weight | without diet or exercise. | | At the end of the commercial it was explicitly stated it | workwd if used in conjunction with _diet and exercise_. | | This is what the US has become. | Gordonjcp wrote: | > Thousands of expensive treatments, no cure (for cancer | at least, | | Immunotherapy is pretty damn close to a cure, with very | few side-effects. It costs a couple of hundred quid a | session to administer, which of course costs the patient | nothing. | effingwewt wrote: | Not in the US. Here it's almost certainly a death | sentence, and unless you are rich it will most certainly | bankrupt your entire family. | cjohansson wrote: | Even if you eat healthy food you still need willpower to | prevent yourself from eating too much. But it's a easier | problem | gustavpaul wrote: | After moving tk the USA I was shocked to find that fast food | (mcD, burger king, etc) was cheaper than buying fruit and | vegetables. In South Africa anything that tastes good costs a | lot more money, so you're naturally more inclined to eat | healthy - or eat nothing but meat, which is how my | demographic solved that problem. Also, try and find granola | or cereal without sugar, corn syrup, or dextrose (low fat or | sugar free products all seem to contain dextrose, which is | like "super sugar", congrats food industry on selling that | one.) | throwaway09223 wrote: | "Beyond a certain point, your body senses the deficiency and | decreases your metabolism. " | | As far as I'm able to tell this is a myth. There isn't any | scientific evidence supporting it, and quite a bit which | implies it is impossible - if a body could run itself more | efficiently then it would by default. Calorie consumption is | necessary to sustain life. | | This myth is usually perpetuated by people who believe they are | on calorie restricted diets, but who are actually eating more | than they think. | IggleSniggle wrote: | I think the main issue is just that "efficient" can | misleading to dieters. It's not efficiency as in "do more | with less," but rather, "do less with less." | | As your body sheds fat, it no longer needs to expend energy | building, preserving, and keeping your fatty tissue warm. JIT | energy use instead of lossy battery storage. It doesn't | further slow your metabolism beyond what you are genetically | predisposed towards, but metabolism does slow (a little bit). | Another way to think of this is, when you consume in excess | of what you need for healthy living, your body begins | consuming additional calories in order to build and support | the additional long-term reserves you are creating and | maintaining. We have decades of research supporting this | notion (as well as common sense). | | There may also be an aspect of "hibernation" that kicks in | when dramatic caloric restriction is suddenly introduced. | That is, you are _further inclined_ to be less active as you | lose weight quickly. I 'm less certain of that, though. | rawoke083600 wrote: | squinting hard enough there are some evolutionary mechanism | at play, for example in times of famine(severe calorie | restriction), menstruation will stop for female. Pretty | sure sperm production also fall for men. | | So the body has definitely way to sense and adjust in some | areas. | rossnordby wrote: | "Do less with less" is a good way to put it. It can be | helpful to look at the extremes- for example, people who | are starving can end up with suppressed thyroid function | (among other things). This appears to be adaptive; a | hypothyroid state will tend to avoid building or sometimes | even maintaining metabolically expensive muscle, | overwhelming exhaustion will tend to suppress nonvital | calorie expenditure, and even fidgeting behaviors can be | suppressed. In other words, by reducing burn rate, you | starve slower. | | This is _not_ something you want happening in a well- | nourished individual. Beyond making you more likely to die | to predation or accidents from severe muscle wasting, it | also just feels horrible. There 's a reason why people with | untreated hypothyroidism (unrelated to starvation) struggle | with exercise and weight loss. | | I've also personally observed some people on... inadvisable | extreme crash diets getting some _weird_ bloodwork numbers. | Like TSH spiking by a factor of 10- which, unlike the above | starvation case which typically suppresses TSH, may imply | malnutrition and inability to produce sufficient thyroid | hormone. Their empirically derived caloric burn rate | dropped by more than 30% over the duration of the diet, and | a substantial amount of that was from dramatic muscle | wasting. Not exactly ideal! | stakkur wrote: | No, this is called homeostasis-- the 'set point' or 'settling | point' idea. Your body only sees weight loss as a threat to | survival and tries to achieve a balance. | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6039924/ | dataangel wrote: | > if a body could run itself more efficiently then it would | by default | | Don't suppose you see the article you're commenting on. | ncallaway wrote: | > if a body could run itself more efficiently then it would | by default. | | Nobody suggested that the body "run itself more efficiently". | They suggested that the body _do less_. | | This would be like if someone suggested that you could reduce | gas consumption by not driving across the state, and for you | to dismiss their argument as impossible because you just | can't simply increase the MPG of the car. | | Of course, your statement is probably factually correct, but | it's a non sequitur! | throwaway09223 wrote: | "Nobody suggested that the body "run itself more | efficiently". They suggested that the body _do less_." | | This is another way of saying the exact same thing. | Increased efficiency _is_ doing less work. | | "Of course, your statement is probably factually correct, | but it's a non sequitur! " | | It's a synonym! We are saying the same thing. | ncallaway wrote: | > This is another way of saying the exact same thing. | Increased efficiency is doing less work. | | That's just not the definition of efficiency that I use. | | Efficiency is a ratio of how much _useful_ work something | does over how much energy it consumes. If you change the | numerator _and the denominator_ in the same proportions | the efficiency doesn't change. Therefore, we cannot use | "how much work changes" as a short-hand to speak to a | chance in efficiency, _unless_ we also note how the | denominator is or isn't changing. | | So, back to my analogy, the efficiency is the MPG and the | "work" is the number of miles driven. Those are different | things. You can reduce the number of miles you drive | _without_ changing the MPG. | | > We are saying the same thing. | | From my definitions of words we are absolutely, | categorically, not saying the same thing. | throwaway09223 wrote: | I understand you use a different definition. Now that you | know my definition there should be nothing more for us to | discuss. | | Have a good one! | ncallaway wrote: | > Now that you know my definition there should be nothing | more for us to discuss. | | I disagree. The reason I disagree is the impact of the | different definitions on the original statement I was | challenging: | | > if a body could run itself more efficiently then it | would by default. | | Using my definition of "efficiency", this statement | strikes me as self-evidently true. | | Using your definition of "efficiency", this statement | strikes me as probably false and strongly contradicts my | priors. After all, _every_ system in the face of input | energy restrictions _must_ do less total work. | | So, if I accept your definition (which I'm happy to do | for the conversation, since it's just a semantic | difference), I think this statement is much less likely | to be accurate, and certainly isn't self-evident. | robonerd wrote: | > _people who believe they are on calorie restricted diets, | but who are actually eating more than they think._ | | Absolutely. For instance only counting the calories of their | scheduled meals, but "snacks don't count because its just a | snack". Or counting a heaping plateful of spaghetti as a | single serving because they put it on a single plate. | Underestimating calorie counts is _much_ more common than | estimating it accurately. | | Eat a few meals with a huge person who "just can't lose | weight" and it will usually become obvious that they eat a | huge amount of food. | idontwantthis wrote: | I thought this too until I actually tried to lose weight. | You measure everything you eat, and you lose weight for a | week or so, and then you get tired, and irritable, and | progress greatly slows down, stops, or reverses. | | Yes, some of it is willpower, and probably for lots of | people it's entirely willpower, but there is definitely a | metabolic component to it. | | If you eat less than you expend you must lose weight, but | it's naive to discount a decrease in the expenditure part | as well. Keep in mind that just living requires the vast | majority of your calories, and any exercise is a blip | covered by a couple cookies. | Hammershaft wrote: | Fasting makes the process easier. | JumpCrisscross wrote: | For some people. I'm one of those. When I eat, I'm fine | adding healthy things to the food I want to make/order, | and I'm fine cutting back certain ingredients like sugar | in my cooking, but I'm not going to order the salad when | I want to eat the trout or steak. Fasting side steps | that. For other personalities, restricting elements is | easier. | what-the-grump wrote: | Cut your food intake by 50% and start drinking water / | coffee to combat hunger. | | I know I am losing weight when I am hungry between meals, | most of the time I eat because it's time to eat. | | Down 10 pounds in two weeks. It's nothing special just | eating what I should be eating in terms of quantity. | Eating sweets? Skip a meal, etc. | TylerE wrote: | 2 weeks is easy. | | 2 months is hard. | | 2 years is _really_ hard | moron4hire wrote: | 2 weeks is a laugh | guerrilla wrote: | > This myth is usually perpetuated by people who believe they | are on calorie restricted diets, but who are actually eating | more than they think. | | Nonsense, the only places I've seen it are in popular | scientific literature and in official recommendations, from | dieticians and physical therapists. I don't know whether it's | true or not, but my guess is you're probably wrong. The less | someone eats, the more tired and weaker they feel, so they | less they'd do, so the less energy they'd use. All kinds of | feedback loops like that could happen. So it's definitely | plausible. | throwaway09223 wrote: | "Popular" scientific literature, dieticians and physical | therapists are demonstrably, profoundly unreliable sources. | Besides, if you look around for opinions about the | "starvation mode myth" you will find there is actually a | lack of consensus. | | If you believe this is wrong then I suggest trying to | articulate why you believe it is wrong, rather than | appealing to cherry-picked non-authority opinions. | | The vast majority of calories our bodies burn are upkeep | related and this upkeep does not change significantly based | on our diet. | | Exercise is certainly a factor, but it is orthogonal to the | question of whether our bodies somehow stop burning | calories while continuing to operate itself. Most people in | these extreme circumstances do not significantly exercise | at all. | | Calorie restricted diets in a clinical setting where | calorie inputs are strictly controlled will reduce weight | 100% of the time. | cf141q5325 wrote: | >The vast majority of calories our bodies burn are upkeep | related and this upkeep does not change significantly | based on our diet. | | Apparently it does if you went on too many yoyo diets. | Look up reverse dieting to increase your sustaining | calorie level again, it works in both directions. Its | more or less the efficiency with which your metabolism | functions | | I liked Jeff Nippards Video with Eric Trexler on the | topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiYJW9pViaM | https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eric-Trexler | | From 2019 | dahfizz wrote: | > The vast majority of calories our bodies burn are | upkeep related and this upkeep does not change | significantly based on our diet. | | I don't think people really appreciate this. Running only | burns about 100 calories per mile. So if you run 5 miles, | you've only burned the calories you would get from eating | one muffin. | | Many people will go for a walk around the block and feel | like their getting into shape, but restricting calories | is the only practical way to lose weight. | IIsi50MHz wrote: | Er, are we talking about same order of magnitude here? I | notice that in USA, notably on food packaging, "Calories" | (captalised) equals "thousand calories" (lower case). | Elsewhere (including Japan), it seems that the kCals is | used, avoiding confusion capitalisation. | goosedragons wrote: | Yes, a muffin is usually 300+ Calories or kCals and | running a mile is ~100 Calories or kCals depending on | your speed and weight. | | North Americans typically just use Calories for food and | excerise contexts. Small c calories is really just used | for science. | kenjackson wrote: | I think you don't much about how this works. The reason the | body doesn't just do this all the time is because when you | lose weight in this mode your body begins to break down fat | and eventually muscle. This is not a desired state for your | body. These processes are far less efficient. And as noted in | this article the body can reduce power in many ways to dampen | the impact of these more inefficient and damaging processes. | It's advantageous to burn more calories when they are readily | available. | throwaway09223 wrote: | These effects have been pretty well studied and while there | are some small changes the body can make they are not | significant. If you eat fewer calories you will lose fat. | | "when you lose weight in this mode your body begins to | break down fat and eventually muscle. This is not a desired | state for your body. " | | For the average american this is a _highly_ desirable | state. Almost all of us would be much healthier with a | reduced calorie diet, with our bodies breaking down our | excess fat. | | The effect of muscle loss is overstated. There are many | obese and out of shape people who paradoxically point to | "muscle loss" as a reason for not eating healthy, but | people who actually understand muscle -- bodybuilders -- | are _very_ familiar with bulking and cutting cycles. This | is a very well understood dynamic. | blindmute wrote: | Cutting yes, but note that cutting involves a very high | protein diet in conjunction with continuing to lift | weights. If a bodybuilder/powerlifter just stops eating | and lifting, or even just stops eating, they will lose a | large amount of muscle mass and/or strength along with | the fat. | xboxnolifes wrote: | > For the average american this is a highly desirable | state. | | Poster means from an evolutionary point of view, not a | societal/modern individual point of view. | staticassertion wrote: | I think the myth's origin is that if you start fasting/ | really cut calories you'll notice a huge, immediate drop for | a day or two - a lot of that being that you're losing water | weight. Then that stops, and suddenly your scale isn't | showing you the same drastic win as the first few days. You | might reasonably think "I guess my body has adjusted". | | That isn't to say that your body doesn't change how it | functions in order to save energy, obviously a lot changes | when you've exhausted your glycogen stores. But I think a lot | of the "drastic" results for people hitting a wall after a | few days of fasting is based on that initial huge win. | JamesBarney wrote: | This isn't true. Your metabolism does slow down but it never | slows down 1 cal per cal of food restriction. You always lose | more weight the less you eat. | yieldcrv wrote: | I read that the differences between metabolism speeds are | nearly insignificant. Is where somewhere I can go to understand | more about that? The general understanding between "fast" and | "slow" metabolism seems to be a magic used to rationalize | anything about the body, while one of my golden rules is to | never trust any scale that lacks a base unit. | CSMastermind wrote: | > while one of my golden rules is to never trust any scale | that lacks a base unit. | | BMR is a very real thing: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basal_metabolic_rate | | > It is reported in energy units per unit time ranging from | watt (joule/second) to ml O2/min or joule per hour per kg | body mass J/(h*kg). | | There has been plenty of research into this, see this study | into the variance among people for example: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15534426/ | | If you do the math, you'll find that the resting number of | calories people burn will vary by a few hundred per day based | on their metabolism. | | I agree that there is too much woo around the science of | weight loss but at the same time we don't need to act like | there aren't real facts that we do know. | yieldcrv wrote: | I asked and you delivered. I wasn't claiming there was an | absence, I'm claiming that the general understanding isn't | quantifying anything. | | Thanks, this looks like a good starting point. | 1123581321 wrote: | This diet trick does exist and it's called eating eggs. :) The | protein and fat in conjunction with leptin are highly satiating | and are easier and cheaper to feed than the macros and | chemicals individually. | 4ad wrote: | Eggs are completely non-satiating to me. I eat 20 eggs in one | sitting and I feel hungry. | 1123581321 wrote: | Well, not all of us can be Gaston. Most people cannot do | that regularly without feeling full much sooner, and even | you are better served eating those eggs than trying to feel | full from massive quantities of starches. | bebna wrote: | Just use a cheat day. This will help to keep the metabolism up | and also psychological, because if you got desire to eat X, | just put it on the cheat day list and eat it at that day. (If | you keep fulfill your desires at the cheat day regularly, u | develop trust in your list, which makes it even more | effective). | | You shouldn't go under 1 cheat day a week. See 4 hours body | book for sources. | Enginerrrd wrote: | That probably won't work for everyone. Personally, the times | I've had to diet down to a lower bodyweight, I find it MUCH | easier to maintain that diet with 100% adherence. If I just | abstain from calorically dense foods entirely, and mentally | remove those things from the list I consider food, it's MUCH, | MUCH easier for me to maintain the prescribed diet. | | Otherwise, I will crave those foods. But if I just create a | wall in my brain where I no longer consider such things food, | it's way easier for me to stick to with way less willpower. | It's like my brain recalibrates and shifts the whole baseline | to a healthier level, rather than having to use willpower | alone to keep my eating where it needs to be. | blindmute wrote: | At the levels most people will be dieting, around 500 calorie | deficit per day or less, you will wipe out an entire week of | dieting with one cheat meal. This is how people stay fat. | Cheat meals are idiotic and unsustainable. Just stop eating | crap, and deal with it. Once per month if you must. | layer8 wrote: | You're implying a cheat meal of 7 x 500 = 3500 kcal. | That's... a lot. | Nowado wrote: | There's research in neurodietetics, for example | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3105244/ | | I can't quite tell how strong each and every paper in the field | is, nor would this be the place to do it, but what I recognize | as their foundational observation that Holocaust survivors | brains were roughly the same size as of normally fed people, | while other organs shrunk, is quite striking. | ren_engineer wrote: | >if we could use leptin to increase dieting efficacy | | it's called a refeed and bodybuilders have been doing it for | decades to drop fat while maintaining muscle mass, you don't | need leptin injections | | some recent studies have backed up the bro science as well | | >The researchers reported that 19 participants in the | continuous diet group completed the study and lost an average | of 9.1 kg furthermore, 17 participants in the intermittent diet | group completed the study and lost an average of 14.1 kg | (4).Hence, the authors concluded that greater weight and fat | loss was achieved in the intermittent diet group (4) | hammock wrote: | How frequently does one need to refeed? | sydthrowaway wrote: | What is a refeed? | jonahx wrote: | Eating normal or excess calories, usually for a day. | jolmg wrote: | Apparently specifically high carb, low fat. | narrator wrote: | Weight loss is such a well explored topic with high commercial | demand that anything you've thought of has probably already | been done. As far as drugs to speed up weight loss there's DNP, | which actually works. It's justifiably banned though because it | is easy to overdose on and die from overheating. Not a good way | to go. | | Morbidly obsese can just water fast. /r/fasting on Reddit is | full of success stories. | jasonhansel wrote: | There's also semaglutide, which was recently approved for | weight loss. It's quite safe and reasonably effective, though | using it currently requires a once-weekly injection and your | insurance may not cover it. | | (Rybelsus is a version of semaglutide available in tablet | form, but it hasn't officially been approved for obesity | yet.) ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-19 23:00 UTC)