Rehashing my regular humans are not calorimeters post.
Metabolism is driven by hormones, it’s very possible for signaling peptides to prevent weight gain no matter how much a person eats.
While a person who eats nothing will clearly lose weight knowing that isn’t helpful as it’ll lead to a substantial loss in quality of life and most probably it is not long term stable.
In my case I have ME/CFS at the same time that I have uncontrollable weight gain, I also did extended fasts to keep the weight off as best I could. It wasn’t a willpower thing, having to manage both while making enough money to survive is incredibly difficult and it was impossible to keep all the plates spinning at the same time. Post Exertional Malaise is very real for some people and triggers can cause me to be bed-bound for months on end. Thankfully not so much anymore since I’ve found a good combo of very strong medications.
When almost half the country is obese/overweight, these kind of medical conditions are not the cause. For 99% of people it is not a metabolic disorder.
What I am talking about is people saying things like "Wow you have fast metabolism", without even understanding what metabolism is. Having twice as fast metabolism would mean my body requires twice the amount of calories for the same cellular activity. That'd be terrible!
The truth is I am skinny because i barely eat and if I eat 500 calories above my calculated BMR, I gain 1 pound a week just like the science suggests. I think this is the fact for most people.
>While a person who eats nothing will clearly lose weight
That's a strawman. What I am saying is take your BMR+caloric expenditure from exercise - 500 calories, not starve yourself.
When giving a generalization it's important to constantly note that exceptions exist. On the percentage of exceptions I think it's higher than commonly thought for a few reasons, most autoimmune disorders are still undiagnosed and will remain undiagnosed for the duration of the persons life. Consider hEDS for example, a walking bag of symptoms yet still 20 years to get diagnosed from onset of symptoms for those who are eventually diagnosed - again most are never diagnosed.
The other reason is that autoimmune conditions can be induced - it's not a genetic switch where you have it or you don't though there is a substantial genetic component especially with regards to susceptibility. People with my genetic background hEDS from multiple TNXB SNPs are extremely susceptible. The US population is also in new circumstances - we're several generations into the generally accepted medical advice that intermittent fasting will impair your metabolism. Prior generations would fast much more frequently than todays, they would just call it skipping meals.
While what you are saying is technically correct the framing of it leads to poor conclusions and suboptimal strategy, it will meet the stated aim of weight loss but not meet the implied aim of a maintainable lifestyle. The source of the calories is incredibly important given the effect that has on the hormones, and the cadence of calories is also very important. Instead of counting calories a person would be better of eating one meal a day of heavy caloric foods with the occasional multi-day fast would be far more productive. Augmenting this with a GLP-1A would be even more productive.
That's a good point but consider that a lot of modern countries, were not seeing the same obesity epidemic. Its hard to believe the difference between say 5% obesity and 40% obesity is from metabolic disorders in populations.
>While what you are saying is technically correct the framing of it leads to poor conclusions and suboptimal strategy, it will meet the stated aim of weight loss but not meet the implied aim of a maintainable lifestyle. The source of the calories is incredibly important given the effect that has on the hormones, and the cadence of calories is also very important. Instead of counting calories a person would be better of eating one meal a day of heavy caloric foods with the occasional multi-day fast would be far more productive. Augmenting this with a GLP-1A would be even more productive.
I think you're right that there is an effect, if you have any data to back this up I'd love to this see. My assumption is the effects were talking about (in anyone who doesn't have a metabolic disorder), is a difference in 100-200 calories in metabolic rate. In my personal experience, which I admit is not the most convincing, simply counting calories regardless of source tracks very accurately with the expected weight gain/loss based on estimates.
NONETHELESS, I think my original point stands, that there is a ton of misinformation on how weight loss works.
You have to be careful how you define metabolic disorder, do you mean entirely genetic of which there are not many, or do you mean auto-immune of which there are very many. To the point I'd even suggest that it's the dominant factor. Also there are no places in Latin America which has 5% obesity - it's more like 5 to 20%. Really only leaves Sub Saharan Africa, and parts of South East Asia. Additionally Europe is 5-10% so it's not a 1st world 3rd world split as you are presenting.
Anyway, if you are interested in researching check out the field of dysautonomia - there are many good books on the topic. It's an established science but not well known so people are unlikely to come across it by chance.
The main problem is that these conditions are severely underdiagnosed, thankfully people can now access GLP-1As without diagnoses so are no longer reliant on the competence of doctors.
I am comparing modern countries so that relatively a lot of the factors, like access to food, stay the same as the US.
My question is, why does Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, Denmark have a <20% obesity rate, and Japan, South Korea have <6%, but the US has 40%+? Certainly this isn't all from metabolic disorders, undiagnosed or not?
Lastly, metabolic disorders can be caused by being overweight and inactive, so I think the causality is often opposite the direction you're suggesting.
Your logic is scattered and incoherent. You still haven't pinned down your definition of metabolic disorder, as mentioned my definition includes those caused by auto-immune. I explicitly stated that poor quality of food eaten too regularly is causative in many cases, genetics and lifestyle also plays a factor. You're hung up on the number of calories, my position is that is entirely secondary to what those calories are and the cadence of intake. There needs to be a gap in the intake for the natural GLP-1As to take effect. The point of having a mental model is to help make wise choices to optimize an outcome - your model is reductive and far too simplistic and elides many important factors that should be considered. Your position was more tenable in the absence of the data we now have. GLP1-As work, people know it works, and no amount of 'diet and exercise' is the one true path to enlightenment religiosity is going to cause people to unlearn it. I understand the strong desire to blame people for their choices, empathy is painful, and I understand the assumption that there is a price for everything - that nothing comes for free. But that presupposes a prior optimal homeostasis which for a variety of reasons we did not have. Modern diets / lifestyles created a problem that now modern medicine can help with. As a side benefit the medication works for those with my genes where diet and exercise simply wouldn't work. And in my case it's not a modern ailment, people with my genetic profile have had a rough life since before Hippocrates.
Metabolism is driven by hormones, it’s very possible for signaling peptides to prevent weight gain no matter how much a person eats.
While a person who eats nothing will clearly lose weight knowing that isn’t helpful as it’ll lead to a substantial loss in quality of life and most probably it is not long term stable.
In my case I have ME/CFS at the same time that I have uncontrollable weight gain, I also did extended fasts to keep the weight off as best I could. It wasn’t a willpower thing, having to manage both while making enough money to survive is incredibly difficult and it was impossible to keep all the plates spinning at the same time. Post Exertional Malaise is very real for some people and triggers can cause me to be bed-bound for months on end. Thankfully not so much anymore since I’ve found a good combo of very strong medications.