• jet@hackertalks.com
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    2 days ago

    Calories in calories out. CICO. It’s given to people as the ultimate truth to health and fitness. It’s technically correct but not helpful for a few reasons

    The laws of thermodynamics apply to reality, however in human nutrition there are some problems

    • humans are not a closed system
    • humans do transfers of mass all the time drinking, eating, peeing, pooping, sweating.

    A much more clinically relevant model, to helping people solve their health problems, is the carbohydrate insulin model of obesity.

    That is to say consumption of carbohydrates drives insulin, insulin drives obesity and drives most of the modern problems people are trying to fix. Cardiovascular issues, hypertension, neuropathy, fatty liver disease, PCOS etc etc etc

    As an example consider a person who wants to gain or lose 1 lb in a month. If they’re eating three meals a day, that means they need to eat 30 calories less per meal. There’s no way anybody can accurately measure their calories down to 30 per meal. It’s much more effective to let the human machinery operate and do it homeostasis job, and that’s principally done by keeping insulin levels low and allowing the hormones to work.

    • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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      2 days ago

      Wat.

      There’s no way anybody can accurately measure their calories down to 30 per meal.

      That’s why that’s not a recommendation anyone gives but “eat on average x amount of calories less than you use in a day” which is fairly easy to accomplish.