Weight loss is not easy. It’s ridiculously hard for many people, and that’s awful. I know this from personal experience too, but I’m sure anyone would agree. However, it is impossible to not lose weight if a person eats below his total daily energy expenditure. Not losing weight in this scenario is comparable to taking your car on a drive and finding out it doesn’t consume fuel.
Coming to the conclusion that weight loss is impossible requires extraordinary proof. Attempted scientifically dubious diets are weak evidence. Two months of eating below one’s TDEE while tracking everything with a digital scale is a minimum.
Do you mean “impossible” in the psychological sense? In that case medical interventions to remove fat directly are inadvisable as the fat will simply be regained, psychological treatment is required instead.
There is no thermodynamic law stating that fat cells must release fat just because your body needs it. If you’re built so that weight loss is impossible and you try eating less, your metabolism slows down—possibly in much the same way it would as if you tried eating less and you had no fat cells whatsoever. I can’t cite studies but wouldn’t be particularly surprised to see that muscle gets cannibalized instead of fat being lost, if you try to eat less than the most slowed metabolism needs. And if most metabolically disprivileged people stop trying to eat below their minimal metabolic rate before doing significant damage to themselves, that’s just the survival instinct kicking in. I would seriously not be surprised to find that fat people have starved to death without their fat cells releasing fat, and blinded by preconceptions, nobody managed to notice or note down when this occurred. But I would expect that to be rare—most people, if their body tells them they’re starving to death, will eat. This gets cited as weakness of will.
Metabolically privileged people assume that if you eat less, your fat cells will release fat. (Bitter laughter.) No. We don’t have energy storage units like you do, we have energy retention units. Calories go in, they don’t come out. Or if they do, it’s on special occasions we don’t understand how to predict or trigger, and which don’t have any obvious relation to attempts to eat less or exercise more. The laws of thermodynamics do not require that a physical fat cell physically release stored lipids when you eat less or exercise more—and if your fat cells are malfunctioning, they just won’t.
In that case medical interventions to remove fat directly are inadvisable as the fat will simply be regained, psychological treatment is required instead.
This is simply wrong. If you start out metabolically disprivileged, medical interventions to directly remove fat result in reduced appetite as your fat cells no longer suck glucose and fatty acids out of your bloodstream.
I would seriously not be surprised to find that fat people have starved to death without their fat cells releasing fat, and blinded by preconceptions, nobody managed to notice or note down when this occurred. But I would expect that to be rare—most people, if their body tells them they’re starving to death, will eat. This gets cited as weakness of will.
What outcomes would this metabolic hypothesis predict for obese people who undergo gastric bypass surgeries which render them physically incapable of eating much? What percentage of these patients would be expected to die of malnutrition? What effect on their body composition would be expected?
After working out the predictions of this hypothesis, are they consistent with what actually happens?
One of my friends who’d had weight loss surgery found that her treatment for pneumonia didn’t work until they figured out that she wasn’t absorbing as much of her oral antibiotics as people without the surgery would. I expect that sort of error is fairly common.
I’ve heard that there’s a 30% risk of alcoholism after WLS, and this is backed up by what I’ve heard anecdotally.
The usual theory is “trading one addiction for another”, but it isn’t proven that people who are get WLS are that likely to be addicted to food. I’ve heard that the surgery makes alcohol hit faster, and that makes it a more interesting drug. I’ve wondered whether alcohol is simply a very compact way of getting calories. Some people find they have less appetite after WLS, but some don’t.
I would seriously not be surprised to find that fat people have starved to death without their fat cells releasing fat, and blinded by preconceptions, nobody managed to notice or note down when this occurred.
A lot of diets only focus on what you eat, and not your general lifestyle when your general lifestyle is the determining factor. If you eat healthy and exercise correctly, but only get 4-5 hours of sleep every night, you will not lose weight. And without the exercise part, you will probably gain weight even if you are eating “healthy”. There’s also the risk of sleeping too much also being linked to weight gain. Burning the midnight oil every now and then is ok, but making a habit of it definitely is not.
I used to stay up late coding all the time, because laying in bed about to go to sleep for some reason makes my brain think of solutions, and then I would only get about 4 hours of sleep pretty consistently. That scumbag brain meme comes to mind.
IIRC there are some other lifestyle choices that are linked to being overweight, like having a long commute. A long commute is probably putting yourself under a lot of stress hormones like cortisol for extended periods of time, and cortisol levels are linked to unhealthy weight gain.
It’d be nice to have a standard collection of reading. What came to mind offhand on the specific topic of metabolism slowdown / fat cell energy vampirism is this:
Although when I actually talk to others who are trying to lose weight, a very common comment is, “I’m eating much less on but my weight isn’t going down at all!” Which is worse than what this article reports on—everyone who stayed in the study lost weight on 550 calories/day, but “Some people dropped out of the study” which you would kinda expect if those were the obese people whose fat cells weren’t releasing fat at all.
Any links to data and/or evidence of not burning any fat when in energy deficit? Normally humans burn both fat and muscle when energy from food is insufficient (the ratio depends on a bunch of factors) -- I would be very surprised to see people not lose (some) fat when in prolonged caloric deficit.
If you undergo ketosis your humoural triglycerides will be lysed.
Other people have written much on undergoing ketosis for weight loss, if you’re interested; beware though that much of their weight loss comes from loss of glycogen and water stores. Keeping yourself hydrated mitigates the latter, but liver glycogen stores will be depleted. Absent readily available glycogen, your body will break down humoural trigylcerides as it is your only remaining source of energy; glycogen stored in your muscles is left untouched lest you exercise extreme physical exertion. I now speculate, but at this point your body has become accustomed to using fats as its main energy source. If you enter into any sort of fasted state, be it through a caloric deficit, intermittent fasting, sleeping, etcetera, your body will lipolyse adipose cells for energy; this must happen or you will die—whatever prevented this previously will have been circumvented. Actually, if verily your body is so stubborn it won’t touch your adipose tissue, first you’d lose your skeletal muscle—then you’d die.
These are the physiological properties—if they don’t apply to you, then whatever genetic mutation causes your body’s nonconformity is unknown and I’d venture to guess has other effects as well.
If anyone tries this, pay attention to how fruity your urine/breath smells. If it becomes an overpowering scent, your blood pH may be too high. Either stop or take measures to rebalance your pH.
A zero-carb diet for a couple of weeks did not produce any ketosis as measured by a ketosis stick.
The most likely explanation is that you were eating a large amount of excess protein, most of which turns into glucose before it turns into ATP, and this was supplying (or nearly supplying) your nerve cells’ energy needs and inhibiting ketosis.
Lack of ketosis supplies at least part of an explanation of what’s going on with your metabolism. A fast google doesn’t supply any information about why ketosis might not happen, but it seems like a topic worth researching.
If you have too many amino acids in your blood your body doesn’t need to undergo ketosis. The generally recommended ratio is 65% fat or higher, %30 protein or less, and %5 carbohydrates or less.
Of course.
Sorry, I just realized we had a point of confusion due to a lack of clarity in my expression. I hope my edits are clearer.
If you undergo ketosis your fat cells will be lysed. Anecdotal reports aside, physiologically that must happen unless you are incapable of it (a genetic mutation which would—speculatively—have far-ranging effects).
Why must that happen? Ketosis means that lipolysis is occuring. Lipolysis does not inherently require that fat cells must be lysed as a physiological inevitability. ie. The fat that is to be broken down can itself come from diet instead of the lysing of fat cells.
You’re right—I wasn’t expressing myself thoroughly. I had the latent assumption of a caloric deficit, which as Eliezer has stated might not be enough to trigger breakdown of fat cells in some people. If the default fasted state of those people does not effect adequate catabolisation of their fat stores, then perhaps altering their body’s typical means of energy production would trigger lipolysis not just of humoural triglycerides but adipose cells as well when in a fasted state—exempli gratia through a caloric deficit, intermittent fasting, etcetera.
I would seriously not be surprised to find that fat people have starved to death without their fat cells releasing fat, and blinded by preconceptions, nobody managed to notice or note down when this occurred.
This happens all the time. We give it a different name depending which cell type starts dying first. Usually it’s heart muscle, in which case we call it heart disease, but sometimes it’s nerve cells (alzheimers) or the immune system (cancer). General death of a cell type can have many different causes, so it’s easy to avoid acknowledging this one in particular.
However, it is impossible to not lose weight if a person eats below his total daily energy expenditure.
This is true if you either:
Define “losing weight” such that it includes weight loss due to the decay or cremation of your corpse after death by starvation. Or,
Observe that if if a body dies rather than burn fat to live then “technically it hasn’t expended more energy than was eaten has it? Therefore it doesn’t qualify as a counter-example!”
Without such stretching of interpretation, however, it is false, misleading and all too common advice.
Weight loss is not easy. It’s ridiculously hard for many people, and that’s awful. I know this from personal experience too, but I’m sure anyone would agree. However, it is impossible to not lose weight if a person eats below his total daily energy expenditure. Not losing weight in this scenario is comparable to taking your car on a drive and finding out it doesn’t consume fuel.
Coming to the conclusion that weight loss is impossible requires extraordinary proof. Attempted scientifically dubious diets are weak evidence. Two months of eating below one’s TDEE while tracking everything with a digital scale is a minimum.
Do you mean “impossible” in the psychological sense? In that case medical interventions to remove fat directly are inadvisable as the fat will simply be regained, psychological treatment is required instead.
There is no thermodynamic law stating that fat cells must release fat just because your body needs it. If you’re built so that weight loss is impossible and you try eating less, your metabolism slows down—possibly in much the same way it would as if you tried eating less and you had no fat cells whatsoever. I can’t cite studies but wouldn’t be particularly surprised to see that muscle gets cannibalized instead of fat being lost, if you try to eat less than the most slowed metabolism needs. And if most metabolically disprivileged people stop trying to eat below their minimal metabolic rate before doing significant damage to themselves, that’s just the survival instinct kicking in. I would seriously not be surprised to find that fat people have starved to death without their fat cells releasing fat, and blinded by preconceptions, nobody managed to notice or note down when this occurred. But I would expect that to be rare—most people, if their body tells them they’re starving to death, will eat. This gets cited as weakness of will.
Metabolically privileged people assume that if you eat less, your fat cells will release fat. (Bitter laughter.) No. We don’t have energy storage units like you do, we have energy retention units. Calories go in, they don’t come out. Or if they do, it’s on special occasions we don’t understand how to predict or trigger, and which don’t have any obvious relation to attempts to eat less or exercise more. The laws of thermodynamics do not require that a physical fat cell physically release stored lipids when you eat less or exercise more—and if your fat cells are malfunctioning, they just won’t.
This is simply wrong. If you start out metabolically disprivileged, medical interventions to directly remove fat result in reduced appetite as your fat cells no longer suck glucose and fatty acids out of your bloodstream.
What outcomes would this metabolic hypothesis predict for obese people who undergo gastric bypass surgeries which render them physically incapable of eating much? What percentage of these patients would be expected to die of malnutrition? What effect on their body composition would be expected?
After working out the predictions of this hypothesis, are they consistent with what actually happens?
Gastric bypass surgery: Mortality and complication rates
Results and health benefits of gastric bypass
One of my friends who’d had weight loss surgery found that her treatment for pneumonia didn’t work until they figured out that she wasn’t absorbing as much of her oral antibiotics as people without the surgery would. I expect that sort of error is fairly common.
I’ve heard that there’s a 30% risk of alcoholism after WLS, and this is backed up by what I’ve heard anecdotally.
The usual theory is “trading one addiction for another”, but it isn’t proven that people who are get WLS are that likely to be addicted to food. I’ve heard that the surgery makes alcohol hit faster, and that makes it a more interesting drug. I’ve wondered whether alcohol is simply a very compact way of getting calories. Some people find they have less appetite after WLS, but some don’t.
Out of curiosity, I googled, and indeed it turns out that some of the heaviest people on record died of starvation.
A lot of diets only focus on what you eat, and not your general lifestyle when your general lifestyle is the determining factor. If you eat healthy and exercise correctly, but only get 4-5 hours of sleep every night, you will not lose weight. And without the exercise part, you will probably gain weight even if you are eating “healthy”. There’s also the risk of sleeping too much also being linked to weight gain. Burning the midnight oil every now and then is ok, but making a habit of it definitely is not.
I used to stay up late coding all the time, because laying in bed about to go to sleep for some reason makes my brain think of solutions, and then I would only get about 4 hours of sleep pretty consistently. That scumbag brain meme comes to mind.
IIRC there are some other lifestyle choices that are linked to being overweight, like having a long commute. A long commute is probably putting yourself under a lot of stress hormones like cortisol for extended periods of time, and cortisol levels are linked to unhealthy weight gain.
That does sound very sensible. I stand corrected.
Can anyone recommend any further reading on the subject?
It’d be nice to have a standard collection of reading. What came to mind offhand on the specific topic of metabolism slowdown / fat cell energy vampirism is this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?pagewanted=all
Although when I actually talk to others who are trying to lose weight, a very common comment is, “I’m eating much less on but my weight isn’t going down at all!” Which is worse than what this article reports on—everyone who stayed in the study lost weight on 550 calories/day, but “Some people dropped out of the study” which you would kinda expect if those were the obese people whose fat cells weren’t releasing fat at all.
I’ve posted some exerpts from another possibly relevant article here:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/hpz/open_thread_june_1630_2013/96na
What you’re calling “metabolically privileged” is, for the most part, the ability to lose weight unsustainably.
Any links to data and/or evidence of not burning any fat when in energy deficit? Normally humans burn both fat and muscle when energy from food is insufficient (the ratio depends on a bunch of factors) -- I would be very surprised to see people not lose (some) fat when in prolonged caloric deficit.
If you undergo ketosis your humoural triglycerides will be lysed.
Other people have written much on undergoing ketosis for weight loss, if you’re interested; beware though that much of their weight loss comes from loss of glycogen and water stores. Keeping yourself hydrated mitigates the latter, but liver glycogen stores will be depleted. Absent readily available glycogen, your body will break down humoural trigylcerides as it is your only remaining source of energy; glycogen stored in your muscles is left untouched lest you exercise extreme physical exertion. I now speculate, but at this point your body has become accustomed to using fats as its main energy source. If you enter into any sort of fasted state, be it through a caloric deficit, intermittent fasting, sleeping, etcetera, your body will lipolyse adipose cells for energy; this must happen or you will die—whatever prevented this previously will have been circumvented. Actually, if verily your body is so stubborn it won’t touch your adipose tissue, first you’d lose your skeletal muscle—then you’d die.
These are the physiological properties—if they don’t apply to you, then whatever genetic mutation causes your body’s nonconformity is unknown and I’d venture to guess has other effects as well.
If anyone tries this, pay attention to how fruity your urine/breath smells. If it becomes an overpowering scent, your blood pH may be too high. Either stop or take measures to rebalance your pH.
A zero-carb diet for a couple of weeks did not produce any ketosis as measured by a ketosis stick. Also lipolysis != dead fat cells.
The most likely explanation is that you were eating a large amount of excess protein, most of which turns into glucose before it turns into ATP, and this was supplying (or nearly supplying) your nerve cells’ energy needs and inhibiting ketosis.
Lack of ketosis supplies at least part of an explanation of what’s going on with your metabolism. A fast google doesn’t supply any information about why ketosis might not happen, but it seems like a topic worth researching.
Of course.
If you have too many amino acids in your blood your body doesn’t need to undergo ketosis. The generally recommended ratio is 65% fat or higher, %30 protein or less, and %5 carbohydrates or less.
Sorry, I just realized we had a point of confusion due to a lack of clarity in my expression. I hope my edits are clearer.
Why must that happen? Ketosis means that lipolysis is occuring. Lipolysis does not inherently require that fat cells must be lysed as a physiological inevitability. ie. The fat that is to be broken down can itself come from diet instead of the lysing of fat cells.
You’re right—I wasn’t expressing myself thoroughly. I had the latent assumption of a caloric deficit, which as Eliezer has stated might not be enough to trigger breakdown of fat cells in some people. If the default fasted state of those people does not effect adequate catabolisation of their fat stores, then perhaps altering their body’s typical means of energy production would trigger lipolysis not just of humoural triglycerides but adipose cells as well when in a fasted state—exempli gratia through a caloric deficit, intermittent fasting, etcetera.
This happens all the time. We give it a different name depending which cell type starts dying first. Usually it’s heart muscle, in which case we call it heart disease, but sometimes it’s nerve cells (alzheimers) or the immune system (cancer). General death of a cell type can have many different causes, so it’s easy to avoid acknowledging this one in particular.
This is true if you either:
Define “losing weight” such that it includes weight loss due to the decay or cremation of your corpse after death by starvation. Or,
Observe that if if a body dies rather than burn fat to live then “technically it hasn’t expended more energy than was eaten has it? Therefore it doesn’t qualify as a counter-example!”
Without such stretching of interpretation, however, it is false, misleading and all too common advice.