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Fructose may be the ultimate driver of obesity
(bigthink.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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No. Still calories.
I constantly see people bickering about this online, but that's not at odds with CICO. Yes, the overarching limits is CICO, but most people don't track calories. Fructose makes you more hungry and so you eat more food, and therefore CICO means you gain weight. From the article:
So you're correct, but it's an unhelpful response. Kind of like saying "No, the Earth still isn't flat" when people are trying to figure out exactly how round it is.
EDIT: To your other comment:
"direct cause" is the wrong way to look at this. Even if the mechanism by which it acts doesn't cause obesity itself, it can be a root cause if, without it, people wouldn't engage in behaviors that lead to obesity, i.e. overeating. The difference between "he died because he ran into a tree" vs "he died because he was texting and not paying attention".
It really isn't this complicated. You are obese because you do not count calories. End of discussion. External factors of a bad diet are entirely your fault. Personal responsibility is the only outcome for becoming healthier. Calorie counting and adherence are 90% of being not obese. Everything else is supplementary. Fructose is far from the problem, nor is it even as bad as this trash research wants to make believe.
I literally powerlift. I bulked from 230 pounds to 270 within 6 months and cut back to 242 within another 4 by, wait for it, eating whole foods and counting my caloric intake tracked with my weight change twice a week. If you're obese and don't realize the inability to fix it is your own fault, you're coping and desperate for any level of confirmation bias like this trash paper to make you feel better.
6'2, 18% bodyfat (maybe 24% at max weight), under no drug assistance beyond caffeine if you want to count it.
Nevermind Sumo wrestlers who eat a shit ton of rice and protein rich stews and beer. Average about 6000 calories a day and oh would you look there. Obese. (Spoiler, after they retire from the stable they usually end up losing all that weight because, oh, they stop eating 6000 calories a day). You people treat cico like it's a theory and not just basic energy maintenance of the body.
Self admittance that you are not taking personal control over it, causing your being underweight. When you become stressed you're turning focus even more away from your diet, focusing instead on other issues, and begin unconsciously overeating. All the points leading to personal responsibility over your diet and the consequences of inconsistency.
Anyone struggling, and refusing to take the accountability to just flip a food container and check the amount of calories, is lazy. If you're comfortable with your weight, fine that's fair. But if you're unhappy, dealing with health repercussions, and wish for something better: put the work in. This idea that society as a whole is obese because of fructose (a sugar found naturally in fruit) or any sugar is braindead and would come from the same people who fell for "Eggs are bad because they have cholesterol". Uneducated, misinformed, and unwilling to learn or act, those are the issues. All solvable through personal growth and accountability, something sorely missing in this new cringe culture of being coddled. And in my experience/opinion, anyone unwilling to take their issues seriously and grow for themselves, aren't my fucking concern and they could die obese for all I care.
My own anecdotal experience was being overweight after highschool due to a reduction in my activity but no change in intake. I picked up powerlifting as a hobby and began to explore data, books, and videos by well known industry members like Mark Rippetoe and Dr. Mike Israetel regarding both training and nutrition. Since then I've successfully managed my weight the way I need it for competition by calorie counting and tracking how my weight responds weekly. Take this year: I'm 6'2 and in January was ~230 wanted to bulk, by June was ~270 decided to cut, now I'm 242.
Objectively the only way to not be obese is calorie deficit management. This is basic thermogenic energy balance science and the only people who seem to not understand it are the psuedo-intellectuals here that have never been active or done a sport in their life.
I do not count calories and eat until I'm full. Yet I'm not obese, not even overweight. In fact, if I had to become obese, I'm not sure that I physically could. How does a theory of "personal responsibility" explain that?
Obesity is caused by some neurochemical fuckery that affects hunger and/or metabolism. That is a fact, supported by science, though the exact mechanisms are still very badly understood (in large part due to lack of funding for decades, caused by a completely misguided dogma that obesity is a moral failing). If it was all a willpower thing then how come some medications make people lose or gain significant weight?
(Yes, you can gain or lose weight by counting calories. However, every step of the way, you will be fighting your own body's attempts to go back to its baseline, even if that baseline is very unhealthy. Of course in the absence of a better solution it's better to lose weight by counting calories than staying unhealthy, but please realize that you're in deep with the Dunning-Kruger effect and stop disparaging medical science).
Just because you are not actively counting, doesn't mean you aren't at maintenance or below. The vast majority of morons that are incapable of understanding basic thermogenics and the fact that if your body is fueled less than it needs it will draw from stored adipose lipids and if fed more than needed it goes back into storage, are just coping beyond anything.
Obesity is not caused by your desire to eat. It is caused by your inability to stop eating. End of discussion. Metabolism is a buzzword to describe people too lazy to understand basic concepts. Look in any gym and the people who maintain willpower to eat less and focus on energy intake are the quickest to achieve results. There are reasons that losers looking for the easy way to weight loss never receive longterm results. This isn't a "well um yes you can gain or lose weight through calories" it's literally the ONLY way. Even hormone imbalances only increase or decrease your need for intake. This is something understood since the Spartans who would eat less if they noticed any fat gain in their physiques. There's a reason every single diet based in fact will tell you to spend 3 months in a deficit and 2-3 months in a ned maintenance, to establish the new baseline. This is a marathon not a sprint. You're the only one disgracing "medical science" by trying to overcomplicate a very simple concept.
Please, for the love of god, get your macho douche-bro ass energy out of here.
"Obesity is not caused by your desire to eat"
"even hormone imbalances only increase or decrease your need for intake"
the fact that you don't see these two sentences as hilariously contradictory shows how circular your entire reasoning is. So close to getting the point, yet so far.
Zzzzzzz. Cope.
You do not want to understand the complexity of things like bioavailability, disruption of regulatory systems like faulty hunger signals and absorption, etc. You might as well be saying that drugs don't don't influence behavior.
Tell people to own their own faults and if they want change look inward instead of for confirmation biased articles rooted in bad data: "erm no its not my fault I just have a thyroid problem and also my brain is telling me im hungry and I HAVE to listen and also um I just erm um"
Cope. Millions of people have fixed their weight issues and it wasn't through anything but a controlled diet.
Source please
Oh I don't know, any respected dietician or nutritionist just telling you to focus on macronutrient balance to get the proper 500 calorie deficit from maintenance to lose 1 pound a week?
Or maybe https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18025815/
Or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8017325/
Or https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/diets-weight-loss-carbohydrate-protein-fat/
Maybe stop looking to psuedo-science that just wants to sell you a product, meal plan, or supplement and just accept it's very basic. This fucking thread article literally says he wants to develop and sell a drug to counteract fructose. Or maybe just maybe take some accountability and just enjoy fructose containing foods in a caloric moderation and boom you're not obese. This is BASIC thermogenic energy management. 90% of a healthy diet is consistency in caloric intake. The rest regarding timing, macros, micros, food quality are all supplementary to reach your goals. But setting being NOT OBESE as the BARE MINIMUM GOAL, it's so fucking easy to just reduce daily calories.
From your second link:
See? The scientists you quoted took a stab at you
"According to a meta-analysis of several diet programs, calorie restriction was the primary driver of weight loss, followed by macronutrient composition." It's like your reading comprehension is designed to just find your own biases and accept them unequivocally. Cope.
Look in the mirror
You're acting like it's trivial. Obesity wouldn't be common if it was trivial
Your own sources says why it's hard and you're pretending you didn't see it
Nah mate you're delusional. If we're talking the LOWEST BAR POSSIBLE: don't be obese. It's so simple to just intake less calories. We're not saying lose body fat, get into shape, become an athlete, or 12% bf. Just literally set your bmi ( a bullshit measurement anyway) to AT MINIMUM overweight.
Yes it's ludicrously trivial and requires you to just stop eating so much. The same fucking method vets have your dog do when they weigh too much.
As I said elsewhere, calories and consistency are 90%, everything else is to optimize your goal. And the vast majority of people are lazy morons who can't stay consistent.
Let me guess, you've literally never heard of the concept that the body reduces energy expenditure and increases hunger when you eat significantly less? (despite both being mentioned in the previous linked research)
Or alternatively, you're in full denial over it and think that doesn't happen?
That literally doesn't happen the way you think it does. A normal reduction of calories for A POUND A WEEK is 500 calories. In no universe is that significant. You don't suddenly start feeling like your starving and your body doesn't shut down metabolic processes just because you omitted a muffin worth of calories at breakfast. You really are so fucking delusional. Not to mention, it's thermogenically impossible for you to stop intaking energy and gain weight. It doesn't slow to a crawl and stop. It spends a short waiting period to refill adipose lipids, and when it came out guess back to the normal rate. I more than understand survival instinct to eat when you stop eating as much. But you're in control of your own desires.
Obese and morbidly obese people only have themselves and their lackadaisical care for their own health to blame. If it's in your control, you either want something enough, or you make excuses.
Strawman, you're making up stuff I haven't said
Blatantly false according to science from the last 3 decades
It slows them down, it takes a fair bit more before they shut down
Strawman, and you know it. Losing weight requires eating much less than a normal person does, for many people you have to eat 1/2 - 1/3 as much to for the body to burn body fat because otherwise you only feel more tired when you don't have enough available calories
Strawman and you know it
For a substantial fraction of the population this is a blatant lie, it does not return to normal energy expenditure for YEARS when the body notices that your stored fat is depleting. You have not read any science from the last 3 decades if you believe otherwise.
Assumptions are not strawmen. It's a direct response to a point you made.
Conflating feeling mildly peckish and the feeling of actually starving. That sure makes sense.
Right, as doing a 500 calorie deficit is literally nothing, and it takes about 2 weeks for your metabolism to adapt to the cut. You'd be dead for them it stop.
My god. There is no fast way to lose weight but you don't have to "eat much less" you just need to be in a long term energy deficit.
You're making it blatantly obvious you're even more delusional by not understanding what a strawman is. Even if I was wrong I'm not setting up an arg I'mument no one stated just to trash it. Regardless, lmao. This is literally basic biology. Something can't grow without the energy to supply growth. Try growing a tree without sunlight and water. I'm sure it'll sprout in an energy deficit. You can recomposition in a cut sure, but you can't pack muscle or lipids if there's no incoming energy.
Wow so when your body no longer needs the same energy to maintain your 400lb fatass, you should just eat less energy, revolutionary!
This is why it's fucking trivial to lose weight. Weigh in twice a week, count calories, adjust weekly income based on weigh-in changes, and for god sake exercise. Wow so complex, so many variables! Every ground you stand on is so unbelievably antithetical to how simple and well researched this is. I know you want to believe in boogeymen, and ard probably obese yourself (assumption not strawman, learn your terms) but it's easy. Just because it can take 4 months to lose 16 pounds, doesn't mean it isn't simple. I regularly do this for powerlifting body recomposition. I know the science. I know the processes. I actively participate. You are fucking lazy, stupid, or delusional if you cannot lose weight in an energy deficit, or gain muscle and weight in a surplus. End of discussion.
Lying to me about what I said when my words are right there isn't the smartest strategy.
You're also factually wrong on almost everything here.
You're still rejecting the fact that the body reduces energy expenditure during weight loss, you're absolutely blatantly lying about hunger not being intense when you try to lose a lot of weight, and you're being obnoxious about it too.
Your mention of powerlifting explains everything - your extra muscle mass increases your base metabolic rate compared to regular people (some studies say 5-10%) more than a person with similar build and normal activity level, and since total energy expenditure also decreases when you're losing weight (one study below says -30%!) the difference is even bigger between you and ordinary overweight people.
And you're clearly one of the people doing it for ego. You are so disconnected from reality that you can not comprehend that other people have different experiences than you do.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3943438/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3673773/
You're the one spewing psuedo-science and cope. Just because it becomes stubborn doesn't mean it will never budge. Secondly lmao 1 pound a week being "a lot of weight" I can lose 8 pounds in a day by dehydrating myself. Just shut the fuck up and move on. You're actually moronic.
The difference in my muscle mass of 220 and someone who's 220 mostly fat is still a caloric energy balance. Do I have to increase my calories more than them to maintain? Yes. No one had stated an objective maintenance caloric intake. Mine could be 3500-4000, their's 2800 or some shit. Still doesn't change it's a trivial intake issue. I'm done replying to someone so objectively stupid. Eat less, lose adipose tissue, lose weight. I guess overall starving nations having no fat people is just coincidence.
Everyone needs calories, no one needs fructose.
What kind of statement is this. Calories are not comparable to the macronutrients that make them. Secondly, fructose (the worst of sugar) still isn't even dangerous unless in extreme amounts. It is objectively overeating calories, whether they be from protein fats or carbs, that make people obese. Objectively. At no point is fructose a direct cause of obesity, a byproduct yes.
Saying "People are obese due to calories" is about on the same level as "Cars crash because they move" or "Your floor is dirty because you spilled coffee". It's entirely correct, but it's also pretty useless.
"Eat fewer calories" is advice that's on the same level as "Next time, instead of dropping your coffee, don't drop it". It's true, and it works, but it's also useless since that's just not how it works. Why does someone overeat? Do they not know something is bad? Do they feel hungry all the time because of their diet? Are they eating shit because they don't have time/knowledge/ability to cook? Did I drop my coffee because I sneezed? Did I trip over the cat? Is my floor full of random holes? Am I wearing rollerscates? The nuances make all the difference, and the nuances are what you can use to improve the situation.
"If you don't want to crash, do not press the accelerator" is not road safety advice. "Make sure you keep your distance and check your brakes" is road safety advice.
Lmao, such a reach to defend people being too lazy to count calories. Dieting isn't this complicated and if you're fat, it's 100% your fault.
I'm sure you need to tell yourself that to have people you can feel superior to
Cope