The science of weight loss and why it's unhelpful
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That's the most confusing simple explanation of CICO I've ever read lol0
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I still don't understand what the original argument is setting out to prove. "The science of weight loss" consists of many different theories and methods. Which of them, specifically, are you objecting to? The conclusion that our bodies were designed for what you call the "evolutionary environment" is itself derived from many, many different scientific findings, sometimes taken from fields not directly related to weight loss. For example evolutionary theory significantly influenced the early ancestral health thinkers. Our ideas about caloric balance are taken from thermodynamics, which is a special topic in physics. Are you saying that physics is not useful for weight loss? That's true, in a sense, but why does it matter?
Personally, I tried for two years to lose weight by following the principles of ancestral health, because the simplicity and elegance of the methods appealed to me. I didn't want to count calories or intellectualize my fitness because I saw that approach as neurotic. I didn't want to do endurance workouts of any kind because I thought they were boring, and also because I was persuaded that they are harmful. The result of this prejudice was that I didn't lose a single pound. Then I finally relented, started tracking my macros and restricting calories, and ate and exercised in accordance with principles, instead of my impulses.
Once I abandoned the ancestral health paradigm, I lost fifty pounds in a year. I did it by engaging in what's referred to by that community as "chronic cardio," sometimes at the expense of resistance training and always at the expense of HIIT, eating massive amounts of the supposedly deadly carbohydrate, not giving a *kitten* about the fructose content of fruit, not wasting my time on walking for several hours every day, etc. And after losing, I've maintained without the help of Intermittent Fasting or any of the other tricks that are supposed to match my hormonal profile to the ancestral eating pattern, or whatever the rationale for it currently is.
Now I really wish that I had taken this approach earlier, because it turns out to be extremely simple and totally unrelated to neurosis or obsession of any kind. But taking this approach required me to reverse literally every single one of the positions that I'd taken based on the writings of Mark Sisson, Art de Vany, Loren Cordain, Robb Wolf, and others.
And if you think that none of these recommendations are necessarily part of the "ancestral health" paradigm, then the term has no meaning in this conversation. They themselves have claimed the phrase "ancestral health" as the name for their theory.1. Eat whole foods as best you can.
2. Exercise as best you can
3. Lift weights to build a strong body, as best you can.
4. Stick to your calorie goal through the simple CICO formula.
1. What is a whole food? Are some whole foods better than others?
2. What kind of exercise, how much, how frequently?
3. Same question: what lifts, how much weight, how many reps, how often?
4. How big should the calorie deficit be, what kinds of foods and behaviors can support the body through the stress of deficit eating?
These are the questions that the science of weight loss tries and often manages to answer. But there are many different answers, and "ancestral health" is just one of them.
I'm not saying that ancestral health can't work, but I am curious who it's supposed to work for if it didn't work for me. I was a single man in his early twenties, with a large discretionary budget and otherwise excellent health. Eliminating certain food groups, trying to maximize "naturalistic" movement and sleep, etc. was not sufficient.
TBH I don't think the Paleo guys are even marketing a fitness strategy. They're marketing a lifestyle that can be adhered to as a status symbol by bourgeois with tons of leisure time.0 -
roblloyd89 wrote: »Ladies and gentlemen'
1. Eat whole foods as best you can.
2. Exercise as best you can
3. Lift weights to build a strong body, as best you can.
4. Stick to your calorie goal through the simple CICO formula.
For most people on this board, that will be sufficient.
Sorry for any misunderstanding, it really wasn't deigned to be.
And sorry for offending anyone
I appreciate the passion you bring to the topic, but I like this approach much better! I'd just ask that you be willing to consider the value of the science of weight loss, even though you're right that getting lost in the weeds of some of the details of research doesn't do anything for the poor soul who's just logged on to MFP wondering how the heck to get started on this weight loss thing.
One of the sites I really enjoy reading (because I'm one of those "OMG science is FUN" people) is "Science-Based Medicine". They tackle some pretty controversial stuff in a thoughtful way, which I always like. As you can imagine, claims about diet and weight loss pop up on that site now and then, lol. In the midst of a complex and academic debate about some of the research, one physician-researcher shared his thoughts about weight loss (copied below). You'll note the similarities to your own list
So while I may disagree with what your post title says about science (and if we were on a different board I'd also debate some of your assumptions about evolutionary biology, but hey, this is MFP so I ain't going there), it's not hard to agree that the basic principles for weight loss create a clear and strong foundation for all of us. And I think that's all you were trying to say:
My prescription for weight loss is this:
1. Start keeping a food diary. Write down everything that goes in your mouth and track how many calories you are eating to maintain your present weight.
2. Whatever number you come up with, cut it down by 500 calories a day; this should result in loss of a pound a week.
3. If you are not losing a pound a week, cut down by increments until you are.
4. Exercise will allow you to eat more calories but is not absolutely essential; those who abhor exercise or who are unable to exercise due to physical limitations can still lose weight.
5. It doesn’t matter if your calorie estimates are inaccurate; reducing calories on the basis of inaccurate estimates will still result in weight loss.
6. It is the average calorie intake that matters. If you are aiming for 1200 calories a day, you could splurge on a 2400 calorie Thanksgiving dinner or binge on 2400 calories of birthday cake and ice cream and make up for it by cutting down by 100 calories on each of 12 other days.
7. There is no need to deny yourself anything you crave as long as you control total calories.
8. Try to include a variety of foods to insure adequate nutrient intake. If you are concerned that you may have cut calories so much that good nutrition is suffering, it’s better to consult a dietitian than to rely on self-prescribed vitamins and supplements.
9. Try to pick foods that are filling but low in calories (low calorie density foods). Use the diet diary to study your eating habits, identify situations or foods that particularly tempt you to overeat, and look for ways to outwit the temptations. You might want to try tricks like using smaller plates, eating more slowly and consciously savoring every bite, eating in the dining room instead of in front of the TV, etc. One of my patients would walk the dog whenever she felt hungry; when she got back home, the cravings had passed and she and the dog had benefited from the exercise.roblloyd89 wrote: »Ladies and gentlemen'
1. Eat whole foods as best you can.
2. Exercise as best you can
3. Lift weights to build a strong body, as best you can.
4. Stick to your calorie goal through the simple CICO formula.
For most people on this board, that will be sufficient.
Sorry for any misunderstanding, it really wasn't deigned to be.
And sorry for offending anyone
I appreciate the passion you bring to the topic, but I like this approach much better! I'd just ask that you be willing to consider the value of the science of weight loss, even though you're right that getting lost in the weeds of some of the details of research doesn't do anything for the poor soul who's just logged on to MFP wondering how the heck to get started on this weight loss thing.
One of the sites I really enjoy reading (because I'm one of those "OMG science is FUN" people) is "Science-Based Medicine". They tackle some pretty controversial stuff in a thoughtful way, which I always like. As you can imagine, claims about diet and weight loss pop up on that site now and then, lol. In the midst of a complex and academic debate about some of the research, one physician-researcher shared his thoughts about weight loss (copied below). You'll note the similarities to your own list
So while I may disagree with what your post title says about science (and if we were on a different board I'd also debate some of your assumptions about evolutionary biology, but hey, this is MFP so I ain't going there), it's not hard to agree that the basic principles for weight loss create a clear and strong foundation for all of us. And I think that's all you were trying to say:
My prescription for weight loss is this:
1. Start keeping a food diary. Write down everything that goes in your mouth and track how many calories you are eating to maintain your present weight.
2. Whatever number you come up with, cut it down by 500 calories a day; this should result in loss of a pound a week.
3. If you are not losing a pound a week, cut down by increments until you are.
4. Exercise will allow you to eat more calories but is not absolutely essential; those who abhor exercise or who are unable to exercise due to physical limitations can still lose weight.
5. It doesn’t matter if your calorie estimates are inaccurate; reducing calories on the basis of inaccurate estimates will still result in weight loss.
6. It is the average calorie intake that matters. If you are aiming for 1200 calories a day, you could splurge on a 2400 calorie Thanksgiving dinner or binge on 2400 calories of birthday cake and ice cream and make up for it by cutting down by 100 calories on each of 12 other days.
7. There is no need to deny yourself anything you crave as long as you control total calories.
8. Try to include a variety of foods to insure adequate nutrient intake. If you are concerned that you may have cut calories so much that good nutrition is suffering, it’s better to consult a dietitian than to rely on self-prescribed vitamins and supplements.
9. Try to pick foods that are filling but low in calories (low calorie density foods). Use the diet diary to study your eating habits, identify situations or foods that particularly tempt you to overeat, and look for ways to outwit the temptations. You might want to try tricks like using smaller plates, eating more slowly and consciously savoring every bite, eating in the dining room instead of in front of the TV, etc. One of my patients would walk the dog whenever she felt hungry; when she got back home, the cravings had passed and she and the dog had benefited from the exercise.
Needs a like button.
Something that occurred to me earlier in thinking about this post was thinking back on teach my two children how to read. Each of them required a different approach to learn how to do the same thing. As their schooling progressed, their difference in learning styles continued to diverge. One loved workbooks and seat work. The other is hands on and loves computer learning. Both are excellent students.
Some people might not like the fussier details of the weight loss game and find those details bog them down; for others, it's their jam and helps give them incentive.
Give me data baby.
OP, you rock on your way.0 -
roblloyd89 wrote: »Do you think our ancestors gave a damn about macros?
We are designed to live in a world where the only stress we have is worrying about predators, scarcity of food and warmth.
I appreciate we can't go back to these times unfortunately, but replicate as best we can our natural requirements, exercise, weight training and natural food, and stick as best you can to your your calorie requirements.
It's that simple, for most people, everything outside of this is jargon, designed to confuse and adds little benefit.
In philosophy, this is known as an is-ought problem. You've take evolution, which tells us what is, and using it to try to derive what ought. The problem with this is something evolutionary theory itself will tell you: nature doesn't look for optimality, it looks for what works right with what it has to work with.
Me, I'm interested in thriving, not simply surviving.0 -
Six words. Universal law, calories in calories out0
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GuitarJerry wrote: »roblloyd89 wrote: »Do you think our ancestors gave a damn about macros?
We are designed to live in a world where the only stress we have is worrying about predators, scarcity of food and warmth.
I appreciate we can't go back to these times unfortunately, but replicate as best we can our natural requirements, exercise, weight training and natural food, and stick as best you can to your your calorie requirements.
It's that simple, for most people, everything outside of this is jargon, designed to confuse and adds little benefit.
In philosophy, this is known as an is-ought problem. You've take evolution, which tells us what is, and using it to try to derive what ought. The problem with this is something evolutionary theory itself will tell you: nature doesn't look for optimality, it looks for what works right with what it has to work with.
Me, I'm interested in thriving, not simply surviving.
This is it. I've said this so many times that I'm sick of saying it. But the fallacy of a Paleo diet, as an example only, but since we're talking about ancestral, I think it's appropriate, is that Paleo people didn't decide to eat Paleo. They ate was available to them. They were survivors. They didn't chose a diet. And, it doesn't explain people in other parts of the world who probably had a completely different diet and still thrived at that same time in history. So, it's just a bunch of BS, really.
Science has helped us understand some of this.
The other thing overlooked is that Paleo (short for Paleolithic) was an age, era or period, not a people. It would be equivalent to naming today's age and making up a diet with the assumption that everybody everywhere in the world eats the same way. There were people during the Paleolithic era who lived in temperate climates, desert climates, arctic climates, etc. - they were in different parts of the world, had different indigenous flora and fauna available to them and thus, ate differently.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong or unhealthy about the Paleo diet - I just think it's arbitrarily/unnecessarily restrictive and the whole "ancestral/paleo" thing is founded upon bogus principles. It's another gimmick in the diet world intended to sell books, plans, supplements, etc.
Not to mention the fact that the life expectancy of humans in the paleolithic period was 33 years. Chronic diseases didn't have as much time to manifest themselves and medical care was so primitive that there was no way of diagnosing/treating any of them.0 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »I could bet that if doughnuts grew on trees our ancestors would have been all over them.
That's the best thing I've read all day!
@amusedmonkey0 -
People have covered what individuals can do, but I'd like to see all kinds of more collective actions taken to reduce sedentarism and improve knowledge about nutrition. E.g.
- Local governments working to make e.g. suburban neighbourhoods more walkable, by changing zoning and development laws, where possible, and developing realistic alternatives to driving, by investing in public transit and cycling paths
- Employers supporting employees' health by providing fitness facilities on-site (and showers for cyclists), and more flexible scheduling of breaks - where possible - so that employees can more easily engage in some kind of activity at e.g. lunch. And by providing fridge and storage space for food brought from home, or if there's a cafeteria, making better choices available alongside higher-cal options
- Tax incentives for participation in fitness (given proof, e.g. receipts from gym bills); subsidies for healthy food choices for people earning less than a certain amount
- More daycare options for parents at city-run community centres
- Mandatory class in nutrition / cooking / meal planning and budgeting in secondary schools. (Some people really don't know how to cook. I mostly picked up what I know from my family or on my own, but I also got some great tips from home ec)0 -
roblloyd89 wrote: »Ladies and gentlemen'
1. Eat whole foods as best you can.
2. Exercise as best you can
3. Lift weights to build a strong body, as best you can.
4. Stick to your calorie goal through the simple CICO formula.
For most people on this board, that will be sufficient.
Sorry for any misunderstanding, it really wasn't deigned to be.
And sorry for offending anyone
Classy! Well done for that.0 -
Guys where can I find some tasting chicken?0
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schibsted750 wrote: »I still don't understand what the original argument is setting out to prove. "The science of weight loss" consists of many different theories and methods. Which of them, specifically, are you objecting to? The conclusion that our bodies were designed for what you call the "evolutionary environment" is itself derived from many, many different scientific findings, sometimes taken from fields not directly related to weight loss. For example evolutionary theory significantly influenced the early ancestral health thinkers. Our ideas about caloric balance are taken from thermodynamics, which is a special topic in physics. Are you saying that physics is not useful for weight loss? That's true, in a sense, but why does it matter?
Personally, I tried for two years to lose weight by following the principles of ancestral health, because the simplicity and elegance of the methods appealed to me. I didn't want to count calories or intellectualize my fitness because I saw that approach as neurotic. I didn't want to do endurance workouts of any kind because I thought they were boring, and also because I was persuaded that they are harmful. The result of this prejudice was that I didn't lose a single pound. Then I finally relented, started tracking my macros and restricting calories, and ate and exercised in accordance with principles, instead of my impulses.
Once I abandoned the ancestral health paradigm, I lost fifty pounds in a year. I did it by engaging in what's referred to by that community as "chronic cardio," sometimes at the expense of resistance training and always at the expense of HIIT, eating massive amounts of the supposedly deadly carbohydrate, not giving a *kitten* about the fructose content of fruit, not wasting my time on walking for several hours every day, etc. And after losing, I've maintained without the help of Intermittent Fasting or any of the other tricks that are supposed to match my hormonal profile to the ancestral eating pattern, or whatever the rationale for it currently is.
Now I really wish that I had taken this approach earlier, because it turns out to be extremely simple and totally unrelated to neurosis or obsession of any kind. But taking this approach required me to reverse literally every single one of the positions that I'd taken based on the writings of Mark Sisson, Art de Vany, Loren Cordain, Robb Wolf, and others.
And if you think that none of these recommendations are necessarily part of the "ancestral health" paradigm, then the term has no meaning in this conversation. They themselves have claimed the phrase "ancestral health" as the name for their theory.1. Eat whole foods as best you can.
2. Exercise as best you can
3. Lift weights to build a strong body, as best you can.
4. Stick to your calorie goal through the simple CICO formula.
1. What is a whole food? Are some whole foods better than others?
2. What kind of exercise, how much, how frequently?
3. Same question: what lifts, how much weight, how many reps, how often?
4. How big should the calorie deficit be, what kinds of foods and behaviors can support the body through the stress of deficit eating?
These are the questions that the science of weight loss tries and often manages to answer. But there are many different answers, and "ancestral health" is just one of them.
I'm not saying that ancestral health can't work, but I am curious who it's supposed to work for if it didn't work for me. I was a single man in his early twenties, with a large discretionary budget and otherwise excellent health. Eliminating certain food groups, trying to maximize "naturalistic" movement and sleep, etc. was not sufficient.
TBH I don't think the Paleo guys are even marketing a fitness strategy. They're marketing a lifestyle that can be adhered to as a status symbol by bourgeois with tons of leisure time.
God damn, this is excellent0 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »I could imagine an ancient human telling the kids "back in my day we did not use tools for hunting or fire for cooking. You lazy younglings don't have the stamina or the strength to apprehend a prey without tools, with your cooked junk food and animal skin apparel"
This made me giggle
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GuitarJerry wrote: »roblloyd89 wrote: »Do you think our ancestors gave a damn about macros?
We are designed to live in a world where the only stress we have is worrying about predators, scarcity of food and warmth.
I appreciate we can't go back to these times unfortunately, but replicate as best we can our natural requirements, exercise, weight training and natural food, and stick as best you can to your your calorie requirements.
It's that simple, for most people, everything outside of this is jargon, designed to confuse and adds little benefit.
In philosophy, this is known as an is-ought problem. You've take evolution, which tells us what is, and using it to try to derive what ought. The problem with this is something evolutionary theory itself will tell you: nature doesn't look for optimality, it looks for what works right with what it has to work with.
Me, I'm interested in thriving, not simply surviving.
This is it. I've said this so many times that I'm sick of saying it. But the fallacy of a Paleo diet, as an example only, but since we're talking about ancestral, I think it's appropriate, is that Paleo people didn't decide to eat Paleo. They ate was available to them. They were survivors. They didn't chose a diet. And, it doesn't explain people in other parts of the world who probably had a completely different diet and still thrived at that same time in history. So, it's just a bunch of BS, really.
Science has helped us understand some of this.
The other thing overlooked is that Paleo (short for Paleolithic) was an age, era or period, not a people. It would be equivalent to naming today's age and making up a diet with the assumption that everybody everywhere in the world eats the same way. There were people during the Paleolithic era who lived in temperate climates, desert climates, arctic climates, etc. - they were in different parts of the world, had different indigenous flora and fauna available to them and thus, ate differently.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong or unhealthy about the Paleo diet - I just think it's arbitrarily/unnecessarily restrictive and the whole "ancestral/paleo" thing is founded upon bogus principles. It's another gimmick in the diet world intended to sell books, plans, supplements, etc.
Not to mention the fact that the life expectancy of humans in the paleolithic period was 33 years. Chronic diseases didn't have as much time to manifest themselves and medical care was so primitive that there was no way of diagnosing/treating any of them.
I loved the way this woman explain it during a TED talk.
http://youtu.be/BMOjVYgYaG8 0 -
We are designed to live in a world where the only stress we have is worrying about predators, scarcity of food and warmth.
I appreciate we can't go back to these times unfortunately
You want to go back to a time where we're being hunted and struggling to find food and stay warm?0 -
We are designed to live in a world where the only stress we have is worrying about predators, scarcity of food and warmth.
I appreciate we can't go back to these times unfortunately
You want to go back to a time where we're being hunted and struggling to find food and stay warm?
Baha #PaleolithicWorldProblems0 -
I'm somewhat confused as to why a marketing manager who confessedly isn't very good at explaining things feels the need to announce his opinion on a public forum. A hundred better qualified people than him have expressed his exact opinion; a hundred better qualified people have expressed a different opinion.0
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paultucker1007 wrote: »I'm somewhat confused as to why a marketing manager who confessedly isn't very good at explaining things feels the need to announce his opinion on a public forum. A hundred better qualified people than him have expressed his exact opinion; a hundred better qualified people have expressed a different opinion.
Its a public forum, everyone is free to express an opinion regardless of good or not we may be at expressing it. Who are these hundred better qualified people? Forum members?0 -
Oh yes, I agree everyone is and should be free to express an opinion. I too have an opinion, but as I'm not a dietitian, scientist or similar (who would comprise the 200+ better qualified people) I can't imagine why anyone else would be interested in it.
Which makes me wonder why I'm posting this. Oh well, live and learn0 -
paultucker1007 wrote: »I'm somewhat confused as to why a marketing manager who confessedly isn't very good at explaining things feels the need to announce his opinion on a public forum. A hundred better qualified people than him have expressed his exact opinion; a hundred better qualified people have expressed a different opinion.
I'm somewhat confused as to why you felt the need to be so dismissive to be honest
Everybody is entitled to an opinion, and a discussion and to change their minds in the light of said discussions0
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