"Spoon-Fed" by Tim Spector


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #41

No one has yet refuted Gary Taubes’s point that CICO as generally understood gets the direction of causality wrong. It’s not that we lose weight because we eat less, but rather that we eat less because our hormones put us in weight-loss mode. Attempting to adjust our energy balance by restricting calories is self-defeating over the long term, because of the body’s metabolic adjustments to the shortage of calories. We all know that teenagers gain height and weight because their hormones cause them to do so; the voracious appetite is a consequence of the growth, not the cause. I personally see no reason why that should fail to remain true in adulthood.

I heartily recommend this explanation of how human metabolism works, by Nadir Ali, M.D.:


#42

Brilliant that a book review can engender so much comment!

Tim Spector - http://www.tim-spector.co.uk


#43

High growth hormone leads to a gain in height. Weight is always caused by overeating and being overweight plummets growth hormone release. We see this in the scientific literature of obese children.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ebese+children+growth+hormone

Voracious appetite is caused by eating foods which dysregulate our metabolism. Chocolate, grains, seed oils, refined sugar, air pollution, technology use, etc…

Growth hormone plummets in adulthood because we don’t need to grow.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #44

Depends on what you are overeating. That it is possible to shed excess fat while on a high-calorie ad libitum ketogenic diet has been well-documented over the last sixty years or so.

And these foods are those that raise serum insulin to levels that block the receptors of the appetite-suppressing hormones in the hypothalamus.


(Doug) #45

Paul, as long as we’re considering both the in and the out, how can we go wrong?

(:smile:)

Can’t it be both, or either? Just eating less can make for weight loss. This isn’t saying that just cutting intake of calories is a good solution for people to lose fat over the long term. Hormonal effects - more access to our stored fat and less hunger, discomfort/emotional pain, etc. - no question that being in “hormonal weight loss mode” is usually FAR better than being in fat-storage mode. But on the physical level, CICO will mean either weight gain or loss, depending on whether the ‘in’ or ‘out’ is bigger.

Maybe in a more-perfect world. Totally hear you on the teenage massive appetite related to what’s going on, physically and hormonally. But the psychological/emotional causes of appetite (if that’s even the right word) can have their effect too, and continue if not increase in adulthood.


#46

What’s missing?


(Doug) #47

A good five cent cigar?