Nutrition
Showing only #4212 and its comments.
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Most people are overnourished. One way to take control is to measure your daily energy expenditure and not eat above that.
Using an online calculator like https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html, you can get a decent estimate of your daily caloric needs.
Then, using https://cronometer.com/, track your food to ensure you don’t exceed your daily caloric needs.
By eating in a 500-calorie deficit, you can lose about a pound per week. Lift heavy weights a couple of times a week so the weight you lose is fat, not muscle.
This is a simple way to do body recomposition.
While following this kind of protocol does help some people lose weight, the model it is based off is incomplete.
'Calories in vs calories out' dieting is based on the idea that each person has a fixed rate of at which they burn calories at rest, proportional to their bodyweight. This fails to account for the fact that ‘calories out’ depends entirely on the metabolic state of the individual, which is highly dependent on the quality of their nutrition.
Some diets lack certain key nutrients required for efficient metabolism, thereby inhibiting the body’s ability to utilise calories. Some diets also contain metabolic toxins that diminish the body’s ability to utilise calories.
For these reasons, diets that are equal in calories but that vary in nutritional content can have vastly different weight gain/loss outcomes.
For these reasons, diets that are equal in calories but that vary in nutritional content can have vastly different weight gain/loss outcomes.
I don’t know if I agree with the word “vastly”. People have done Twinkie diets where they eat nothing but Twinkies (plus some supplements to get the bare minimum) while monitoring calories and they lost weight.
Still, I’ll edit my idea to say that people should get all the nutrients they need while in a deficit.
A chronic calorie deficit will trigger a suppression of the active thyroid hormone T3. Lowering T3 causes a lowering of the metabolic rate, which lowers the rate of caloric burn at rest.
For this reason, CICO dieting often hits a wall when the body adjusts to the new low calorie lifestyle.
An alternative is to improve the quality of the foods, such that the metabolic rate increases while caloric intake is kept the same (or even increased too, by a lesser amount). This would be preferred by the body as it is a more complete solution: all nutrient requirements are being met and energy is being produced and utilised in abundance.
I think it is much more useful to think of the body as a dynamic energy-processing system, rather than a ledger of calories.
A chronic calorie deficit will trigger a suppression of the active thyroid hormone T3. Lowering T3 causes a lowering of the metabolic rate, which lowers the rate of caloric burn at rest.
#4212 doesn’t advocate a chronic deficit. Still, I’ll edit it to say that people shouldn’t be in prolonged deficits.
On a general note, your writing would benefit from simplification. I’ve noticed this throughout your contributions on V, but here are some examples from this specific idea:
“will trigger a suppression of” -> ‘suppresses’
“causes a lowering of” -> ‘lowers’
“An alternative is to improve” -> ‘Instead, improve’
“is kept the same” -> ‘stays the same’
“This would be preferred by the body” -> ‘The body would prefer this’
“utilised” -> ‘used’
I like to follow George Orwell’s writing advice (especially 2, 4, and 5):
- Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
- Never use a long word where a short one will do.
- If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
- Never use the passive [voice] where you can use the active [voice].
- Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
- Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
Yes, there are many factors that influence how many calories the body metabolizes. I’d add fiber content and thermic effect. But I think of them as footnotes to the CICO model, not criticisms. Taking them into account makes CICO more accurate. Cronometer takes them into account.