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I'm starting to understand why this guy has so many probations and I regret engaging with him, as he's not actually responding to anything anyone in this thread is actually saying.Crystal Geometry posted:One can eat until one feels full. One can also eat until one no longer feels hungry. Few people seem to acknowledge that full and no longer hungry aren't the same thing. Yes, this is a good distinction to make and when I talked about filling up on vegetables I meant to combat hunger. I think it's so common among overweight people to eat practically until discomfort, since eating is so enjoyable. It's where meal planning and pre-counting calories can be very helpful to keep track that this meal you are about to have is sufficient, even if you're not literally bursting like you're used to. Overweight people also eat faster and so don't usually get fullness queues until they've already eaten too much, so slowing down eating and becoming attuned to these different levels is important.
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Jan 18, 2016 04:50
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fishmech posted:That's not a false dichotomy, bro. fishmech posted:It is a lie that doing this actually makes you not miserable. Me? Actually, you're wrong about me. It didn't make me miserable at all. Was that supposed to be a general "you"? In that case, data or gtfo My anecdote in this case is data, since it only takes n=1 to disprove your universal (wrong) claim.
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Jan 18, 2016 04:51
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Trent posted:It is false, because it is not a dichotomy at all, but rather a spectrum as the part of my post you excised (since you presumably didn't understand it) clearly explains It is not false. It is in fact a dichotomy. Good for you. For many people it will. Because they're so used to eating so much.
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Jan 18, 2016 04:55
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Fishmech, you seem to get into a lot of arguments with people in this thread but despite that I have no idea where you actually stand on the issue being discussed. Do you think thin privilege is a thing worth acknowledging/combating? Do you view the increase in obesity as a problem that needs to be fixed? If so, what do you think would be the most effective method?
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Jan 18, 2016 05:14
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When I was younger I started to get fat because I ate cake every day. I quit eating cake every day and went back to being thin in pretty short order. Once I read more about food and nutrition I started eating less meat and more vegetables. I like to make stuff like vegetable soup and vegetable stir fry because I can eat as much of it as I want without giving any shits. I can eat like four bowls of vegetable soup and not worry about getting fat. I can eat until I feel full every meal without worrying about eating too many calories because, you know, vegetables. Biologically speaking that's how humans are supposed to eat; we relied in the past more on gathered stuff than things like meat. My health overall improved considerably when I gave up soda and actively avoided heavily processed foods. I don't eat stuff like hot pockets and pop tarts. Snacks are generally fruit, nuts, and bread. Unlike a lot of Americans I actually pay attention to what I eat and make sure I'm at least trying to be healthy. By some mystery this keeps me non fat. Do I still indulge in junk food from time to time? Yeah. Who doesn't? Fishmech this is the sort of points I'm making and you're utterly ignoring them. Instead of acknowledging my point you're arguing semantics "But calorie is a nutrient!!!!" Well technically yes but you're acting like eating nothing but calories is a healthy diet. It isn't. Nutrition is actually pretty complex and you need more than just energy. The reason Americans generally don't deal with deficiencies or malnutrition is because Americans eat meat basically every meal and lots and lots of cheese while overeating like crazy. However some Americans have their calorie:not calorie ratio hosed up severely. Part of this comes about because of how we process food. We bread it, inject sugar into it, deep fry it, throw cheese on it, then drown it in mayonnaise. Our attitude toward food is "more calories. There are never enough calories. Calories, calories, calories!!!" This is the point people are making. American food is high in calories and salt but low on everything else and it's making Americans fat. Pointing out that a calorie is a nutrient so potato chips are actually nutritious is not arguing in good faith and is, in fact, incredibly loving stupid. It's not just missing the point but deliberately ignoring it while declaring victory based on "nuh uh!!!"
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Jan 18, 2016 05:39
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Autistic? Not autistic? It is not false. It is in fact a dichotomy. Anyway, literally nobody important in public health, nutrition, or obesity research agrees with fishmech so we should all let him have his moment and move the gently caress on. The best case scenario here is that we end the discussion with him thinking that he's smarter than everyone.
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Jan 18, 2016 05:42
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Fishmech this is the sort of points I'm making and you're utterly ignoring them. Instead of acknowledging my point you're arguing semantics "But calorie is a nutrient!!!!" Well technically yes but you're acting like eating nothing but calories is a healthy diet. It isn't. Nutrition is actually pretty complex and you need more than just energy. The reason Americans generally don't deal with deficiencies or malnutrition is because Americans eat meat basically every meal and lots and lots of cheese while overeating like crazy. Which micro-nutrients, in particular, do you think people should be concerned with? I agree that nutrition is complex. But I don't see what it has to do with any of the practical parts of losing weight.
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Jan 18, 2016 07:08
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falcon2424 posted:Which micro-nutrients, in particular, do you think people should be concerned with? One major issue with fad diets or the belief in super foods is that nutrition as a whole isn't looked at. Which nutrients varies depending on just what the situation is. I don't think there's one simple list of "these nutrients you should pay close attention to" because that varies based on what foods are readily available, what food restrictions somebody has, and what sorts of diets they're following. I, for example, can't eat seafood. None of it. All swimmy things gently caress me up badly. That gives me trouble getting enough iodine so I make it a point to specifically buy iodized salt.
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Jan 18, 2016 07:18
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fishmech posted:The different degrees of hunger are irrelevant to the fact that you will be hungry, and being hungry is not a pleasant feeling to people. They simply need to get over it, and using your particular mix of foods ain't necessarily going to work for them. Fishmech is absolutely right if everyone agrees prior that "Eh, i guess I could eat" is equal to literally dying of starvation. This is a assumption healthy reasonable people make. Let's continue this discussion of this hypothetical dreamlike world as if were a real thing to be mad about on this, the internet.
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Jan 18, 2016 07:37
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silence_kit posted:Yeah, if you are really fat and commit to actually carefully counting and restricting your calories, the first 10 pounds that you lose are way easier than the last 10. Getting rid of bad habits leading to the loss of the first 10 pounds can be pretty hard though. We are all glad she doesn't like beans because when she briefly went carb-free and was forced to introduce them into her diet, the world was a smellier place.
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Jan 18, 2016 07:41
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Once I read more about food and nutrition I started eating less meat and more vegetables. I like to make stuff like vegetable soup and vegetable stir fry because I can eat as much of it as I want without giving any shits. I can eat like four bowls of vegetable soup and not worry about getting fat. I can eat until I feel full every meal without worrying about eating too many calories because, you know, vegetables. Biologically speaking that's how humans are supposed to eat; we relied in the past more on gathered stuff than things like meat. ToxicSlurpee posted:One major issue with fad diets or the belief in super foods is that nutrition as a whole isn't looked at. Which nutrients varies depending on just what the situation is. I don't think there's one simple list of "these nutrients you should pay close attention to" because that varies based on what foods are readily available, what food restrictions somebody has, and what sorts of diets they're following. There's a disconnect here. You're saying that your personal micro-nutrient problem is an iodine deficiency. But then your "nutritious" diet actively reduced the amount of iodine you get from your normal food. Ultimately, I agree that there's not simple list of "nutrients you should pay close attention to." But this also means that it's not useful to talk about "nutritious" food as a general category. In practice, there's macro-nutrients. And there's stuff that corrects for weird, personal edge-cases. The focus on "whole foods" or "natural foods" or "unprocessed foods" whatever seems to help people eat at a calorie deficit. If it works, great. But let's acknowledge that the satiation is the point, not the worry about some unspecified micro-nutrients that would be missing from a big mac sprinkled with a multivitamin.
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Jan 18, 2016 07:44
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I've been trying to eat in a way that's less bad for the climate and my wife simply can't get into legumes, including derivatives like tofu. It's very sad. So, uh. Since we've all made clear where we stand regarding the pop tart and toxic waste vs. lettuce and free range kangaroo meat issue, anybody wanna get back to the thread topic?
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Jan 18, 2016 10:52
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Crystal Geometry posted:Fishmech, you seem to get into a lot of arguments with people in this thread but despite that I have no idea where you actually stand on the issue being discussed. Do you think thin privilege is a thing worth acknowledging/combating? Do you view the increase in obesity as a problem that needs to be fixed? If so, what do you think would be the most effective method? Read the thread maybe? There's no need to restate things for the 50th time that you could see if you just read the first couple pages of the thread. ToxicSlurpee posted:When I was younger I started to get fat because I ate cake every day. The sort of point you are making are garbage. Yes thanks for your little story on what foods you do and don't eat, that's not relevant to fixing the problem for most americans And America is not "low in everything else" and salt also doesn't make you fat, it makes you piss. This is why your argument is so garbage: you think Americans are missing things when the problem is they've got everything and then some! You need to stop having this stupid hippy-dippy view of "nutritious" which is "vaguely a food I personally think is healthy" and realize that the actual definition is that it has nutrition, which almost all food does. Cingulate posted:I've been trying to eat in a way that's less bad for the climate and my wife simply can't get into legumes, including derivatives like tofu. It's very sad. I don't see why not liking legumes is preventing you from eating regular food? BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:Anyway, literally nobody important in public health, nutrition, or obesity research agrees with fishmech so we should all let him have his moment and move the gently caress on. The best case scenario here is that we end the discussion with him thinking that he's smarter than everyone. Actually they do. You're confusing "people who write fad diet books" for "people in real research" there bud!
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Jan 18, 2016 16:09
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Hey thread, sorry for all the fishmech I know some of you don't like him. Fishmech, I have read the thread but you're right, I guess. Hoping for some kind of synthesis, I went back and re-read all your posts. Here are the excerpts that I think best capture your views, please correct me if I'm mistaken.fishmech posted:The problem is solely people eating too much. fishmech posted:We had a great cooking class in my high school and most of the students took it. But uh, there's pretty much no difference in prevalence of being fat among those who took the class versus those who didn't. Both judging from facebook and from the 5 year reunion. Don't really expect to see change at the 10 year reunion next year either. fishmech posted:Teaching nutrition isn't going to make people not overeat. We had that mandatory in my high school. There didn't seem to be any difference in proportion of fat people in classes and then years on at the reunion compared to the general public. fishmech posted:No, the only thing that solves it is across the board cutting down on food eaten. fishmech posted:Losing weight is a lifestyle change. But the change in the lifestyle is that you eat less. Deal with it. Everything else is just minor tweaks to the one main thing you do: eat less. fishmech posted:Sorry whiny guy, but in actual fact "eat loving less" is the only thing that works consistently and it works the most by far towards losing weight. Everything else is meager help on top. fishmech posted:And you're not going to convince them to change their minds by a psa campaign of yelling at them about it. fishmech posted:All diet changes are hard when someone's set in their ways. Were it not so, it'd be a lot easier to get people to eat less in general. fishmech posted:It is rather the people who sit and say there must be a solution but can't actually come up with anything workable who don't "add". Like you, f'r'nstance. Essentially: People are fatter because they eat too much. They largely know they eat too much, but don't want to stop. There are no effective mechanisms for getting them to stop eating too much, so whether or not obesity constitutes a societal problem is irrelevant, because there's nothing we can really do about it that isn't already done. Thin privilege is bullshit thought up by people who don't want to change their lifestyles. Does this seem right? Am I missing anything?
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Jan 18, 2016 19:18
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Before now, I thought it was self-evident and common sense that there exist behavioral strategies that can make eating fewer calories easier, but I guess you can't assume anything in D&D.
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Jan 18, 2016 19:50
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BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:Before now, I thought it was self-evident and common sense that there exist behavioral strategies that can make eating fewer calories easier, but I guess you can't assume anything in D&D. I don't think this is what he's actually arguing. Given how he mentions YLLS and stuff I think it's quite clear that fishmech understands this. I think he's saying that these strategies don't work unless the person is committed to them, and that creating such commitment on a macro level isn't possible, especially given that a large portion of the population don't actually want to change anything about their lifestyles (even if in a vacuum they would like to be thinner). have you seen my baby fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 19:53
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Crystal Geometry posted:I don't think this is what he's actually arguing. Given how he mentions YLLS and stuff I think it's quite clear that fishmech understands this. I think he's saying that these strategies don't work unless the person is committed to them, and that creating such commitment on a macro level isn't possible. Odd interpretation. The claim I'm reading is that there are no guidelines or strategies that can help a greater number of people remain committed to losing weight than saying "eat less."
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Jan 18, 2016 20:08
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BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:Odd interpretation. The claim I'm reading is that there are no guidelines or strategies that can help a greater number of people remain committed to losing weight than saying "eat less."
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Jan 18, 2016 20:17
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BRAKE FOR MOOSE posted:Odd interpretation. The claim I'm reading is that there are no guidelines or strategies that can help a greater number of people remain committed to losing weight than saying "eat less." Because there isn't. No single guideline or strategy works with the majority of people. Really now, if you had a One True Strategy diet plan you could do that everyone was able to stick to, someone would be selling it and be the king of diet plans. But what we see in reality is that to achieve the needed goal of "consistently eat less" there are a myriad of options to do it, and none of them approaches working for half the population, let alone a larger majority. Crystal Geometry posted:
Yeah pretty much. Although thin privilege does exist it tends be a factor of, if you can afford to be thin you're probably also better off financially and all the rest like that. The problem comes down to: eating a lot of food feels good, and when food is cheap (Which is a good thing, because it reduces the chance of the poor starving, and even the best social aid system is still going to have people slip through the cracks) people are gonna bloat up over time if they're not actively watching themselves.
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Jan 18, 2016 20:49
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I want to lose weight by eating less food, how can I do that? Count your calories, compare them to your calculated BMR, weigh yourself regularly, eat more filling foods, also while you're at it you might want to look into running or lifting weights, . . .I want to lose weight by making no dramatic changes to my lifestyle, how can I do that?  The argument I'm reading says that the latter is most people
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Jan 18, 2016 21:49
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Crystal Geometry posted:I want to lose weight by eating less food, how can I do that?
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Jan 18, 2016 23:13
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Cingulate posted:BMR is such a big word. All them crazy formulae man. And people always mix it up with the actual concept of interest, TDEE. In real research, scientists usually use a fixed multiplier of bodyweight and that works fine. You're right, thanks for the correction! What do you think of the "can't change other people's lifestyles" argument?
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Jan 18, 2016 23:19
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I don't know. Correction? It's my half-assed opinion. I doubt the failure rates between people who go by BMR and people who go by TDEE and people who go by very simple formulas are much different. I'm just nitpicking. Don't listen to me, I'm super pessimistic. People are fat, and this is at best going to very slowly change for the better. Like, a tenth of a BMI point per year better would be a radically fast improvement beyond what anyone should hope for. In reality, we can be happy if things stay approximately as they are. But if I decide I want to lose/gain weight, I'm gonna think about how that would be implemented in the least uncomfortable way, for me. Cingulate fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jan 18, 2016 |
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Jan 18, 2016 23:24
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Cingulate posted:BMR is such a big word. All them crazy formulae man. And people always mix it up with the actual concept of interest, TDEE. In real research, scientists usually use a fixed multiplier of bodyweight and that works fine. This brings up a longstanding question I've had, namely the science behind BMR determination. I've read that they link it with oxygen consumption studies, but the underlying idea that all the different efficiencies of metabolic pathways will match up equally with oxygen consumption make me suspicious as a professional chemist (physical chemist, however, definitely not a biochemist). Given the lack of comparative rigor in nutritional studies, I was always curious whether this suspicion was founded or not. Do you (or anyone else) have any light to shed on this angle?
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Jan 18, 2016 23:51
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fishmech posted:Because there isn't. No single guideline or strategy works with the majority of people. Says you. Of course, even if this is true, all that means is that we need to find two or three or ten strategies that together cover a majority of people. Then make educating the public about these strategies a priority, making the information and ability to utilize it (food scales, checkups, trainers, cooking class, whatever) freely and readily available. Or we could just tut tut at the fatsos under our breath as you would, and mutter to ourselves "they simply should have eaten less"
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Jan 19, 2016 00:52
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Trent posted:Says you. The problem then becomes that parents tend to pass lifestyles on to their children. How does the thread feel about treating childhood obesity as a form of child abuse? have you seen my baby fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Jan 19, 2016 |
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Jan 19, 2016 02:04
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weird vanilla posted:This brings up a longstanding question I've had, namely the science behind BMR determination. I've read that they link it with oxygen consumption studies, but the underlying idea that all the different efficiencies of metabolic pathways will match up equally with oxygen consumption make me suspicious as a professional chemist (physical chemist, however, definitely not a biochemist). Given the lack of comparative rigor in nutritional studies, I was always curious whether this suspicion was founded or not. Do you (or anyone else) have any light to shed on this angle? The figures are good within reasonable boundaries. The margin of error is usually so good that if you base your calories on these equations, you will be in a deficit (if you attempt so, that is). Another huge hairy issue is food calories. Calories are measured in the lab by literally burning stuff and looking at poo. In the real world, in human stomachs, some fats will have a significantly (~+10%) higher accessible caloric value to human digestion, and a bunch of carbs and especially protein has much lower calories than what's derived by Atwater protocols and calorimetry. And here, too is individual variance - some people simply don't digest certain food well, so the calorie numbers on the box labels will be an overestimate. FAO have a number of very in-depth studies on this. But the bottom line is, if you start with any reasonable formula, you'll almost never end far from a reasonable estimate of useful calories. Moreover, these forms of noise are usually in the range of neigh-unavoidable and much more trivial noise such as imprecision in serving sizes. When you bake a cake, you will be off my fractions that would be intolerable to lab science! And in the end, it all roughly balances out and if you stay fat, it's usually not because the formula was wrong, but because you're not actually eating what the formula says. Or at least that's what I remember from having read a bunch of studies a few years ago.
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Jan 19, 2016 02:06
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Hey guys my bmr is like 3500 but I only eat 2kcal of soylent a day. Being hungry between meals and even I go to bed is how I know its working. Hunger is a success signal.
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Jan 19, 2016 02:07
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Crystal Geometry posted:Or we could approach overweight people with something like "Your chosen lifestyle does not produce optimal health, as you probably know, however this doesn't give me an excuse to judge you for how you, an adult, choose to live your life. I respect your right to make your own decisions". Calling raising fat children child abuse is tantamount to calling religious upbringing child abuse. It does absolutely nothing to further the conversation, puts those people you're talking about on the defensive where they will never listen to a word you say, and alienates people who have more moderate beliefs about your cause. Whether you believe it is irrelevant because it shuts everything down. If you want to stop children from becoming obese you have to find an approach that is appealing to parents and make them want to invest in what you're telling them, and nobody will react positively to someone saying you are abusing your child.
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Jan 19, 2016 02:36
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Asiina posted:If you want to stop children from becoming obese you have to
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Jan 19, 2016 02:40
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Also a valid option.
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Jan 19, 2016 02:41
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Asiina posted:Calling raising fat children child abuse is tantamount to calling religious upbringing child abuse. It does absolutely nothing to further the conversation, puts those people you're talking about on the defensive where they will never listen to a word you say, and alienates people who have more moderate beliefs about your cause. Whether you believe it is irrelevant because it shuts everything down. I agree, it's not a realistic solution at all and almost certainly does more harm than good. I posted it as an idea because I knew there had been a few instances of this already happening and wanted to see what the thread thought. I don't have a cause and I'm definitely not trying to attack anyone. I probably should have lead with the links.
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Jan 19, 2016 03:18
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Cingulate posted:The relevant figure is that in empirical studies, BMR-based equations on average slightly underpredict the actual caloric expenditure of obese individuals. But usually not by much. The error will be larger than what physicists would be comfortable with, but for human sciences, it's tolerable. Thank you for the thoughtful response. The FAO reports were the ones I dug up before, unless there's some specific set I've overlooked? The oxygen/energy hypothesis just seems like it rests on assumptions that have an inherent issue relative error (especially with relation to efficiency), enough that you wouldn't have any real way of checking the accuracy of those energy numbers. They then use those fuzzy numbers and extrapolate them with the statistical data (since, as you say, there's all sorts of individual variablility) to get fuzzier numbers that aren't actually meaningful in a context to relate to "calories" we measure in food due to a more scientifically rigorous combustion measurement. I'm not meaning to argue with the qualitative result of BMR studies - that increasing activity level increases background energy consumption in a scaling manner - but I just don't see anything that validates the specific, quantitative numbers used, especially in comparison to nutritional calories in food as measured (a shortcoming you specifically noted). That's what my out-of-field, off-hand research hasn't turned up for me, and it seems like a reasonable critique given the emphasis placed on those numerical values. It could be that there's no ethical way yet of getting better information (human sciences and all), but it strikes a nerve that they're using something with an actual energy connotation (calories) rather than inventing a special semi-quantitative unit to use in its place. As a side note, I actually have rotating exam questions for my general chemistry students on these nutritional energy topics - I have them do the 1 pound of fat to 3500 kcal of combustion energy conversion, or determine the kcal for combusting a gram of glucose versus sucrose, etc. It's always fun watching them realize where those numbers they've seen/heard before actually come from.
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Jan 19, 2016 03:39
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Why are we discussing a societal problem that has already been solved? - While Europe is getting fatter, the Netherlands is getting thinner. It's the only country in which the World Health Organisation (WHO) is predicting a decline in obesity rates. The organisation's recent obesityreport predicts 49% of Dutch men will be overweight, and 8% obese, in 2030 — compared to 54% and 10% in 2010. Phone posting, so I can't link the report and I am of course aware that this is not the ultimate answer but the Dutch government has basically been using the message: 1 excersise for at least 30min a day (mostly not for weight control, but for the general health effects, brisk walking is fine.) 2 Reduce caloric intake, the exact makeup of your diet is not important and high protein diets are silly. IAMNOTADOCTOR fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Jan 19, 2016 |
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Jan 19, 2016 12:45
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:Why are we discussing a societal problem that has already been solved? I don't know man this eat less and move more thing sounds like a bit of a fad to me.
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Jan 19, 2016 15:46
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Everyone (well, everyone but Gary taubes, and I guess the 100.000.000 people who buy his books) knows that the solution is to move more and eat less. The question, both for each individual and for public policy makers, is how to get people to do this thing they don't want to do.
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Jan 19, 2016 16:56
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IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:Why are we discussing a societal problem that has already been solved? America is not the Netherlands, for starters. There is a wider variety of subcultures and messaging. "Eat less and exercise more" is what 99% of people would probably answer if you asked them how someone should lose weight. Then, nearly every aspect of our culture makes this difficult for various reasons. Possibly worst of all is all the competing claims of what is healthy from various interests. Even if you do go to the gym, the most accessible gyms tend to have a counter selling high-calorie "energy drinks" or protein shakes and ignorant busy people will think they are doing a good thing by drinking one, probably consuming more calories than their half hour of cardio burned off. I agree that an official position to try and counteract all the misinformation is important, but Americans also variously distrust government instructions on how to act, and think lobbyists run the show, which are two challenges for direct messaging. I think an independent official organization that doesn't need to fundraise would be a good move.
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Jan 19, 2016 17:08
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It's about as much and more about our biology than about our culture (unless you want to go back to or below subsistence levels). We simply have frontal vortices that are too small for our own good, and a behavioral program that cares only indirectly about our well being and that of our society.
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Jan 19, 2016 17:32
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I think that there is room for more public education on common sense nutrition, like PSAs and such. I remember the "power up with 5 a day" commercials on PBS or WB back when I was growing up, but there was nothing tangible in that to me as a kid. For example, it had not occurred to me until reading this thread today, that maybe I can end up feeling hungry merely an hour or two after a substantial 600-700 Calorie meal because it lacked some of the micronutrients or types of proteins that I need. So I can't just satiate myself by shoving down more broccoli, as that just occupies my stomach but doesn't kill the hunger signal because there are still molecules in shortage. It explains the times I've been bloated yet weirdly feeling an emptiness. I guess I'll have to make more salads now. This is the kind of information that could have a real serious impact for people who have tried to lose weight but give up because they don't understand how to get the right variety to address hunger at its roots. A "Why am I hungry?" PSA, in other words, would be good.
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Jan 19, 2016 18:26
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Stinky_Pete posted:For example, it had not occurred to me until reading this thread today, that maybe I can end up feeling hungry merely an hour or two after a substantial 600-700 Calorie meal because it lacked some of the micronutrients or types of proteins that I need. First, "hunger" and "satiety"/"being full" are to the body not atomic, but complex packages. There are multiple hunger pathways, and multiple anti-hunger pathways. Some are very simple; simply having a full stomach, and be it water or lettuce, will make you eat less in the near future. Some depend not on food, but on time (Ghrelin); your body learns when you serve breakfast, and in time makes you hungry before breakfast, regardless of how full you are. There is also the unbeatable reality of a calorie deficit leading near-inevitably to hunger: on a longer time scale, the body realizes if you're in a calorie deficit, and you'll be hungry. And then, there's food specific stuff. Okay, protein. Protein has in many ways the most "bang for the buck" what the calories:hunger ratio is concerned. This is for a number of reasons. It is metabolically inefficient; that is, it's very hard, and that means wasteful, to derive energy from protein, compared to fat or carbs. This effect shows some variance between different protein sources (e.g. legumes vs. meat vs. dairy), but the variance within proteins is low compared to the difference between proteins (which lose around 10 or 15% of their energy content to waste) and fat (which lose approx. 0%). The process is also slow, so protein will occupy your digestive system for longer. There is also a specific pathway of satiety signals that is only, or at least preferentially, triggered by protein food: the mu-opioid receptors. Protein is also a cost-effective way of triggering insulin signals, which also decrease appetite. On these multiple dimensions, protein has a good ratio of effect per caloric worth; you can trigger all, or at least most, of these with other macronutrients (e.g. use carbs to raise insulin), but protein is better. It has the lowest energy density to begin with, and then the other factors come on top of that. A similar story is fiber: fiber is inefficiently digested, slow, and by this keeps you full for what it "costs" regarding your calorie budget. But then, protein and fiber are just words, right? Worse, some people will read stuff this and think "okay, I can't eat apples cause they're carbs, but sausages are good because they're protein". This is of course not the way to think about this; in the end, it's calories, and apples are very low in them compared to how filling they are, and sausages not (mostly because they're much more fat than protein). And one way I think really helps here is trying to not overthink any of this complicated biology stuff (the complexities of hunger signals are vastly beyond my comprehension!*), but come up with pragmatic solutions. Such as this: sometimes, you really hunger after a certain food experience. You need something fresh now, or something hearty. And the story of why that is so, if it is a desire for a certain nutrient you're deficient in, that is not so important. What matters is that you have available, cognitively and practically, the option to answer your desire for something fresh by getting an apple and cold water, and not a bunch of carbs in water (which will trigger satiety signals in very inefficient ways), and that you fulfill your desire for something hearty by going for a comparatively lean source - chicken breast instead of burgers. If you want to, you can look at numbers: protein high fiber high carbs low fat low CALORIES LOW. And as a rule of thumb, if you need a modern factory to produce it, it is probably not the best choice. And this isn't surprising, right? I hope that makes some sense. Finally, broccoli is pretty nutrient rich. The "dark green" stuff usually is. 100g of broccoli has like 100% of your daily dose of vitamin C, easily more than oranges. You should probably try adding protein to your meals. And in the end, no matter how smart you go about it, if you're eating less calories than you expend, your body WILL make sure you feel this. * I haven't mentioned leptin, the possibly biggest player, at all, although I've hinted at its role.
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Jan 19, 2016 19:22
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