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Comment by zrail | Hacker News Reader

This is a hard problem, as the article states. One of the biggest problems is that the "maintenance" level is a) extremely difficult to pin down on a good day, b) is different for everyone, and c) it moves every day. Let alone people who have other confounding medical issues like hypo- or hyper-thyroidism, diabetes, etc. Throw all that in and yes, the biological fact of "eat less move more" is true, it's also almost completely worthless for a very large percentage of the population.

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I am 41 years old. I have been thin my entire life. I don't try to "pin down" my "maintenance level" and frankly don't even know what would be involved in that.

When I am doing more physical work, I make sure I eat a bit more. When I am doing less physical work, I make sure I eat a bit less. It's not easy but it's really not as difficult as you are trying to make it seem. Further, I don't believe that people with legitimately diagnosed medical conditions make up a significant portion of the overweight population.

> I have been thin my entire life

I'm happy for you. People have different metabolisms, and there wouldn't be an entire multi billion dollar industry and worldwide government initiatives to help people if there wasn't a legitimate problem. Your beliefs don't enter into the equation. At all.

People have different metabolisms

That's your belief.

there wouldn't be an entire multi billion dollar industry and worldwide government initiatives to help people if there wasn't a legitimate problem

That's your belief.

Your beliefs don't enter into the equation. At all.

Allow me to turn this one right back around to you. You have a series of old wives tales that you believe and then tell people that their beliefs don't matter. I'm frankly surprised you didn't yank out the "I'm big boned" defense which has been as disproven as a person's intrinsically "faster metabolism".

The funny thing is that I'm usually lectured about how to be thin by people that have struggled with their weight their entire life. These people have had years and years of being overweight, have no idea how to truly eat and their weight has see-sawed their entire life. All the while, I have maintained the same thin weight. For 41 years. But they insist on how wrong I am and how right they are.

>That's your belief.

Really? Resorting to "Well that's just your opinion, man" on HN?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/08/25/5-metabolis...

Really? Responding to a thread that you apparently didn't read. It was the person I was responding to that started the "your beliefs don't mean anything" point. And I demonstrated how silly it was to him which led you to accuse me of doing it.

Oh and your link even agreed with me so you're apparently batting a thousand here.

Lucky you. Lucky me, too, since I'm basically the same way. But we're just lucky; there are millions of other people out there who aren't like us, whose metabolism, instincts, and upbringing betray them. There's no reason to believe that willpower, hunger, appetite, or satiety feel even remotely the same across the population.

See this whole thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5300587

The AMA recently recognized obesity as a disease. Of course, that does not end the argument about whether it is a legitimate medical condition.

And plenty of the 35% of adults that are obese have problems like insulin resistance and high blood pressure (both of which are certainly medical problems). They are also generally at higher risk for cardiovascular problems.

There are probably many people who are told they have metabolic syndrome but fail to understand that this may be (at least partially) a result of their weight problems, not simply a cause of it.

Sorry but your perception of laws of thermodynamics is wrong. No one needs to eat the same amount of calories every day - your metabolism does not simply reset at midnight. It's a difference in energy consumption vs. expenditure that builds in a longer period of time that affects energy balance (positive or negative) and finally your weight change.

Eating less doesn't interfere with having diabetes or hypothyroidism. And 90% of people don't have these conditions.

joe_the_user above states it much better than I can. The body is not a static science experiment in a lab. For people who's bodies don't naturally regulate themselves properly, the body is an active agent that is fighting tooth and nail against what the person knows to be best. For someone who's body is physiologically normal I'm sure it's really difficult to conceive this situation

What I did was stop eating until I'm full, and start eating just enough to feel not hungry. Found it to be a pretty good rough guideline. Never bothered counting calories or anything like that. Nice thing about this method (I figure) is that it solves the problem of not knowing quantitatively where that maintenance level lies on any given day.

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