Site is a link aggregation of a series of blog posts that cite various studies about the mystery of why the obesity rate is increasing, and why the rate of increase is itself accelerating. Authors make a compelling argument that normal homeostatic processes (the theorized lipostat specifically) tend to keep people within a certain BMI range. Authors argue that environmental contamination is breaking the lipostat, driving obesity rates upwards, and faster where there's more contamination.

Interesting read and a great reason to switch to :vegan-v: with a focus on not buying anything wrapped in plastic.

  • Shinji_Ikari [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    CICO is weird because there are some weird things regarding metabolism but overall it is reliable.

    IMO the best benefit of CICO is to expose the lies you tell yourself about what you put in your mouth. By forcing the count for everything, you can no longer try to logic away little snacks here and there and one is forced to confront how much they're actually eating.

    I've had tons of friends and family struggle with various EDs. The biggest thing I've seen is people will have extremely caloric snacks and then logic that it doesn't count. CICO is extremely useful in breaking that mentality, but once you're deep into it, it gets more complicated.

    • john_browns_beard [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      I've helped several friends try to straighten out their diets and it's usually the case that they are habitually snacking on something and not doing the math on how many calories it is. I would never blame anybody for overeating in this godforsaken timeline, lord knows I stress eat all the fucking time, but if you genuinely want to lose weight you have to do some sincere dietary self-crit.

      One of my friends went "keto" for a bit and didn't budge the scale at all after a couple of months, turned out she would be good all week and then drink like 4000 calories worth of sugary alcoholic beverages every weekend and not count them (no nutritional info on the cans).

      Another would make a meal that would normally be healthy but she would add, no joke like 3-4 tablespoons of butter to every dinner and that's all it takes to go from losing 1 lb per week to 0 lbs per week.

      • Shinji_Ikari [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        things like keto bug me for a lot of reasons. I'm a firm believer in that a "diet" is a long term pattern, not just something you do for a bit. you don't describe an animals diet as something that it does for a couple months on and off.

        The examples you gave are why I'm big into CICO, less for the restriction, more for the knowledge of what you're eating.

        • john_browns_beard [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Yep, I was able to make sustainable, permanent changes to my diet because of what I learned about the caloric density of the foods I was eating. The best example is that I don't drink regular full-sugar soda anymore, and I hardly ever drink juice. It's just not worth it. I am a total sucker for baked goods, but I found that oatmeal will scratch that itch and is much more filling than the same amount of calories in cookies.

          Another way I started thinking with high calorie stuff was converting those calories to miles run. Is eating four Oreos worth running two miles? Fuck no.

    • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      You also naturally trend towards eating healthier stuff, because healthier stuff is more filling per calorie.