As I understand it, there are many strategies that can cause significant and safe weight loss over a number of months. But, and this is critical, none of those strategies appears to consistently produce effects on the scale of years. Human physiology seems to be designed to hoard weight for times of famine, not to permanently lose it. Only a few people in a hundred seem to be able to keep weight off after losing it.
And this makes sense: for nearly all of our evolutionary history we’ve had a hard time finding enough calories to sustain a large population. Currently, most of us live surrounded by more calories than we can reasonably consume pretty much all the time. We just aren’t built for the environment we’ve created! And all that before we discuss manufactured and superstimulus foods complicating the matter.
I’m more interested to see your data going forward over a 5 year span.
One of the hypotheses is that hoarding calories is supposed to be a fall preparing for winter thing and something about the modern diet is putting us in that state all the time rather than for three months out of the year. Eating a bunch of root vegetables seems to help. Might be gut microbiome related (starches) and/or hormone related or something else.
I heard this hypothesis about fruits and glucose-fructose syrup, that basically when you eat something that contains glucose-fructose syrup, your body thinks “oh, the autumn fruit, better get ready for the winter” and starts depositing fat in the fat cells. (Not sure how reliable is this story.)
tone:neutral, noncritical
As I understand it, there are many strategies that can cause significant and safe weight loss over a number of months. But, and this is critical, none of those strategies appears to consistently produce effects on the scale of years. Human physiology seems to be designed to hoard weight for times of famine, not to permanently lose it. Only a few people in a hundred seem to be able to keep weight off after losing it.
And this makes sense: for nearly all of our evolutionary history we’ve had a hard time finding enough calories to sustain a large population. Currently, most of us live surrounded by more calories than we can reasonably consume pretty much all the time. We just aren’t built for the environment we’ve created! And all that before we discuss manufactured and superstimulus foods complicating the matter.
I’m more interested to see your data going forward over a 5 year span.
One of the hypotheses is that hoarding calories is supposed to be a fall preparing for winter thing and something about the modern diet is putting us in that state all the time rather than for three months out of the year. Eating a bunch of root vegetables seems to help. Might be gut microbiome related (starches) and/or hormone related or something else.
I heard this hypothesis about fruits and glucose-fructose syrup, that basically when you eat something that contains glucose-fructose syrup, your body thinks “oh, the autumn fruit, better get ready for the winter” and starts depositing fat in the fat cells. (Not sure how reliable is this story.)
I’ll post an update in 4 more years, sure. Though me not gaining weight would obviously not prove much either way :-)