It is absurd to describe a mild, temporary calorie deficit as requiring a "heroic expenditure of raw will and determination." It is temporary - once you've lost the weight, you can increase caloric consumption to your total daily energy expenditure level.
Any expenditure of will is too much. Yes, it will be relatively easy the first time, just as it was for Oprah: stick to 1,200 calories a day and several weeks later, voila!, mission accomplished. Then you will gain the weight back. All the research shows you will gain the weight back. You
will gain the weight back. The second time, it will be harder. Then you will gain the weight back. The third time, it will be even harder. Then you will gain the weight back.
You have no research whatsoever on your side, of which I am aware. The fact that you have assiduously ignored and avoided saying anything responding to my requests for actual research verifying your theories tells me you are not aware of any either. So why do you believe your theory, if you have no scientific evidence to support it? Because it sounds plausible to you. Well it sounds plausible to me, too. It just happens to not be true. Follow the science, Enoch.
People eat for more reasons than just because they're hungry. They eat because they're bored, struggling with emotions, with other people who are eating, or maybe they eat just because the clock says it's time. None of those have anything to do being hungry or a broken "Hunger, Lack-of-Hunger" feedback system or because "mechanisms seeking a happy equilibrium are being short-circuited somehow." Whatever that means.
Was I unclear about what that means? Let me try again:
- Life forms seek to survive and be healthy.
- Life forms that have stuck around and are still with us are successful at this quest.
- Life builds in a variety of biological regulating mechanisms to keep things in the "sweet spot" for that given life form.
- These mechanisms are very robust and flexible. If a life form is too fragile and prone to failure, then, surprise: it will fail!
Here are some examples of things that should not break biological mechanisms:
- Boredom
- Emotions
- Struggles
- Presence of other people
- Awareness of time
Boredom has, sadly, been with mankind since time immemorial. Most experts agree that
emotions are not, it turns out, an innovation invented in the 20th century.
Struggles, last I checked, are likewise not new to the scene. Adam had things all to himself, but ever since Eve absolute solitude has not been a viable long-term option --
other people were always present, and they sometimes would be eating. Humans are spacial-temporal beings, and as such have been
aware of time all along.
Since all these things are constants, not variables, it is impossible that they could be the cause of any new phenomenon.
they didn't count calories until recently. They didn't know how.
Thank you for this revelation.
And supermarkets and unlimited access to food weren't around until fairly recently in human existence, either.
Actually, for many people groups throughout the world, unlimited access to food was their reality and their experience. Climate is kind to the lower latitudes. Hawaii. Polynesia. India. Yet these peoples did not have widespread obesity problems. Why?
My theory provides an answer. Yours provides none.
They also weren't sitting around in front of a computer all day. Almost all of the rise in obesity over the last 20 years can be explained because people are sitting in front of computers and snacking on food out of boredom instead of walking around and doing things.
This is a very nice theory. According to it, construction workers should be the healthiest and thinnest people around, since they are active all day.
That turns out to not be the case.
Non-snackers should also be thinner than snackers.
That turns out to not be the case.
There just is no science supporting anything you say, as good as it all sounds.
As I have said before, obesity is a function of to many calories in and not enough calories out. There is literally no way to get fat any other way. And there is no way to lose weight other than by burning off more than you consume.
Again, this is a statement about physics more than a useful statement about biology.
There isn't a point to counting calories unless you have weight to lose. But if you do, refusing to get an estimate of your daily needs and consumption, however imperfect, just seems like fighting with one hand tied behind your back.
Given the actual results of actual research into weight-loss, a more apt analogy might be that it is fighting without a
bug-catching net (that is, without a weapon known to not work).
Even if you don't want to call it one, the Primal Blueprint is a diet (part of it is), and it does rely on caloric deficit to achieve results, even if you want to close your eyes and not actually count them. It even includes intermittent fasting. It doesn't get any more calorie restricted than not eating at all for a while. The PB tries to restrict calories while limiting a feeling of hunger through intake of fat and controlling hormones like leptin, but it does rely on caloric deficit.
Now we are getting somewhere! Exactly, as you have pointed out 2 or 3 times, the law of conservation of energy does require that all energy go somewhere. Using discipline to try to take advantage of that physics fact fails. Horribly.
However, what works is:
fixing the underlying problem! If your engine is overheating because the radiator is broken, you could drive around with the hood up to get more airflow, or hot wire in a portable 12V fan, or change out the oil to a high-temperature resistant formula so that you can run hot w/o damage, or.... you could fix the radiator! If your roof is leaking because it is partially collapsed and is concave, you could rig up a drainage system to pipe the water down through your living room and out to the back yard, or you could cover the sunken area with a big blue tarp, or.... you could fix the roof!
There are billions of people on this planet who aren't fat, and most of them aren't following the Primal Blueprint, so that's not the only way of keeping weight off.
Exactly! Since all through history and pre-history, the billions of mankind have had no obesity problem, it stands to reason that something changed to cause this very new problem. To get back to our sweet spot, we just need to undo that change. You think the change is the invention of snacking and the rise of computers. I think its a rapid and unprecedented shift in dietary makeup.
