CONTENTS
🟢 Cold truths about diets and weight loss
🟢 I’ll pay you to not go to college
🟢 Nutritional recommendations are rarely backed by good science
🟢 Second helpings - some good reading from the web
If this email is truncated at some point, please use the “View in browser” button to view the entire material.
LEAD ARTICLE
250 billion USD. That's the value of the weight loss products and services business across the world. Unlike the goals of the target population, business is growing each year and will soon reach figures for morbid obesity.
It's a great business to be in for many reasons, most importantly because of the biology underlying weight loss and obesity.
"It's a truth universally acknowledged..." that there is a well-established, U-shaped graph of weight loss by dieting over time: early rapid weight loss that stalls after several months, followed by progressive weight regain.
Zero-sum game
Many now believe that weight loss is a futile endeavor. Futile for the struggling individual, but great repeat business for the industry, much like gyms.
In a meta-analysis of 29 long-term weight loss studies, more than half of the lost weight was regained within two years, and by five years, more than 80% was back on board.
Why me? Until a mere century or two ago, humans lived in a state of chronic hunger and near starvation. During the many millennia of evolution of our species, the body has evolved numerous mechanisms for holding on to energy sources and adapting to states of low calorie intake, such as the plenitude of branded diets thrown at us.
The house always wins. You are playing against the house, to use a casino metaphor, and the house always wins because the system is rigged against you. As you lose more weight, you have to work harder to burn calories. If that's not enough, your appetite increases as you drop pounds or kilos.
If you are into numbers, for each kilogramme of lost weight, calorie expenditure decreases by about 20–30 kcal/d, whereas appetite increases by about 100 kcal/d above the baseline level prior to weight loss. (More on this later.)
Gambler's curse. Fad diets don't take this biological fact into account. Sooner or later, weight loss will plateau and begin a relentless climb back to where you started. Often, you will overshoot the starting point. You start again and are on a roller coaster known as "yo-yo dieting". It gets harder with each bounce of the yo-yo. Your risk of obesity-related health problems also increases per bounce.
Listicle time
Here's a quick list of some of the most popular diets in decreasing order of long-term effectiveness.
Product warning: A balanced and sustainable approach to eating is generally more effective for long-term health and weight management than short-term, restrictive diets.
Mediterranean Diet: This is inspired by the traditional eating patterns of countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It emphasises whole foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, nuts, and olive oil. Combined with an active lifestyle, this diet has the largest body of scientific evidence in support of its benefits for health and longevity.
Intermittent Fasting: This is not a specific diet but an eating pattern. It involves cycling between periods of eating and fasting. There are various methods, like the 16/8 method (fasting for 16 hours and eating within an 8-hour window). What you eat doesn’t seem to matter. There is a moderate quantity of evidence in support of its effect, for as long as the person stays on the regime.
Low-Carb Diets: This encompasses various diets that restrict carbohydrate intake, such as Atkins, South Beach, and others. The data shows poor long-term results.
Keto Diet: This is a low-carb, high-fat diet that aims to put the body into a state of ketosis, where it burns fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates. This diet could be dangerous for people with underlying metabolic disorders.
Weight Watchers (WW): This is a commercial weight loss programme that assigns point values to foods based on their nutritional content. Participants have a certain number of points to "spend" each day. It's been around for a very long time but suffers from a lack of evidence of long-term effects.
Palaeolithic (Paleo) Diet: This diet encourages eating foods that were available to our hunter-gatherer ancestors, such as lean meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, while avoiding processed foods and grains. Very iffy.
Vegetarian and Vegan Diets: Vegetarianism involves avoiding meat, while vegans avoid all animal products, including dairy and eggs. These diets can be effective for weight loss when they are balanced and include a variety of nutrient-rich foods. Mostly a fad.
Flexitarian Diet: This is a flexible approach to vegetarianism, where individuals primarily eat plant-based foods but occasionally consume meat or fish. Fence sitting.
Is woe, me?
Hang in there. All is not lost. You need to get used to treating weight management as a lifestyle change, not a quick fix. You need to view dieting as a process, a system, not a goal or target. It's for life.
It's not rocket science. Regardless of all that is said and recommended, weight loss follows a simple physical equation: calorie intake minus energy expenditure must be a negative figure. You must burn more than you consume. Any number of apps are available for logging and maintaining a diary of your food intake and figuring out the energy value of your meals and snacks. You have to be compulsive.
It sneaks up on you—the calorie creep. You hardly notice it, but over a year, the weight gain can be gob-smacking. There's a formula.
3,500 calorie surplus = 0.45 kg (1 pound) of weight gain.
So, if you were in a consistent daily surplus of 100 calories (meaning you consume 100 more calories than you burn every day), it could theoretically lead to a weight gain of about 4.5 kg (10 pounds) over the course of a year. 100 calories daily—just 3 MIlk Bikis!
Don't gain weight. Easier said than done; you just saw the stats. As you age, you need fewer calories each day. Even if you eat what you always do, you will end up on the plus side and start gaining weight. So, truth #1: Eat less with each passing decade.
Exercise. Diet alone will rarely result in weight loss. You need an active exercise regime. I dealt with this in detail in {P}rescription - #5.
Long horizon, no quick fixes. It's a game you have to play for life. Lifestyles have to change. Don't aim for a 5-6 kg loss in a month; look at a kilo per month till you reach your goal weight. See exercise and eating well as pleasure, not pain.
So, as the now much-vilified Scott Adams advises, systems, not goals.
QUICK BITES
ℍ𝕖𝕣𝕖'𝕤 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕀 𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕕 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕝𝕖
Peter Thiel thrives on provocative ideas and polarising stances. He started a controversial education initiative in 2011 that offered college students $100,000 to drop their studies early. The programme received harsh criticism, with many pointing out Thiel's hypocrisy as a person with degrees in philosophy and law from Stanford University.
Unicorns galore! Of the 271 winners of the Thiel Fellowship, 11 have so far launched unicorns (businesses valued at over a billion dollars), an astounding feat that doesn't even account for the many fascinating ventures that are still in the early stages of development and the other fellows' innovative ideas that have inspired them.
To date, co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain Vitalik Buterin has been the most renowned Thiel fellow. Ethereum has a market valuation of around $200 billion and has given rise to a previously unheard-of environment for the creation of decentralised software.
We're #1! The number of Rhodes Scholars awarded each year exceeds the number of Thiel Fellows, and the value of each grant can easily exceed $100,000. They also provide access to wider networks of more influential individuals than Thiel might possibly do. To find the most talented individuals, there are several more outstanding scholarships and fellowships available. Thiel fellows have achieved unprecedented levels of entrepreneurial success by the time they are 35, and no other group comes close.
Over the years, Thiel has frequently talked about how his prior "tracked" life—which included attending the top colleges, working for a prestigious law firm, and in investment banking—was unfulfilling and had little social benefit. He has contributed to the creation of creative, worthwhile businesses by providing people like his younger self with a little money, some status, and access to a network.
𝕄𝕪 𝕥𝕒𝕜𝕖-𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕪𝕤 | The findings of the Thiel Fellowship reveal that educational institutions are likely to obstruct or postpone the achievement of individuals who have the highest potential.
MORE HERE
🇪🇳🇩🇶🇺🇴🇹🇪
💬 “We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
ℍ𝕖𝕣𝕖'𝕤 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕀 𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕕 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕚𝕔𝕝𝕖
This essay makes a strong case for the unreliability of nutritional research, particularly in the area of nutritional epidemiology.
Nutritional epidemiology is a "null field": one where there is nothing genuine to be discovered and no genuinely effective treatments exist. It has yielded little trustworthy data.
The author draws attention to a number of problems with nutritional research.
Financing biases. Many studies receive funding from food industry organisations, which may be interested in the study's findings. A company that makes breakfast cereals promoted the oft-quoted phrase "breakfast is the most important meal of the day." There is no proof in support. There are dozens of similar examples.
Inadequate sample sizes. Studies are frequently too small and underpowered, which produces incorrect results.
Incorrect result interpretation. Correlations are confused for causality when interpreting the findings of dietary research. Other elements, such as smoking or socioeconomic position, can also be in play. The population studied may not be representative of the real world.
Reproducibility. When assessing nutritional research, it's crucial to take into account the consistency of findings across many studies. Can other independent researchers replicate the results? Very often, not.
𝕄𝕪 𝕥𝕒𝕜𝕖-𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕪𝕤 | Everything in moderation. The author advises readers to use caution when interpreting nutrition science and to enjoy food and drink in moderation. He says that we shouldn't worry too much about our diets and instead places an emphasis on the value of consuming a variety of foods and savouring each meal. Keep in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all diet and that nutrition is a complicated subject.
MORE HERE
🇪🇳🇩🇶🇺🇴🇹🇪
💬 “If you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a strong indication it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat” ― Michael Pollan
SECOND HELPINGS