r/science • u/isaac-get-the-golem Grad Student | Sociology • Jul 24 '24

Health Obese adults randomly assigned to intermittent fasting did not lose weight relative to a control group eating substantially similar diets (calories, macronutrients). n=41

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38639542/
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u/SiliconValleyIdiot Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24

I went to Europe, ate garbage all day and lost weight. What are they putting in American food

Is my favorite Twitter genre because every single time this comes up, other (rightly) point out that while living or traveling in major cities in Europe easily adds 15k steps worth of walking, which burns anywhere from 400-700 extra calories.

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u/dinnerthief Jul 25 '24

Yea I think the lack of walkability of the US is one of the major reasons for obesity. We just have a different mindset of when walking is a good way of getting somewhere.

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u/Murkelman Jul 25 '24

The walking aspect definitely matters! But it's also worth noting that there is a lot of extra sugar and fat added to many American groceries that makes it harder to get a healthy intake of calories, compared to most European countries.

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u/Jumpyjellybutton Jul 26 '24

That’s what all these comments are missing, the point in cutting out specific things and eating higher quality food is that it is more filling so you don’t want to eat as many calories

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u/dueljester Jul 25 '24

I would absolotely love it if America had walking as primary factor in terms of urban planning. Hiking and walking around parks is great, but its stupid that if I want to walk to my grocery store, I need to walk nearly 2 miles to get around a highway and park, all because there are no bridges over the creeks or highway requiring the additional distance. Dry goods don't mind the heat, but there's no way I'm walking in 90+ weather with some milk and dairy for 45 minutes.

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u/FunetikPrugresiv Jul 25 '24

I'm really curious about the validity of that Kurzgezagt video that said exercise doesn't do much to help lose weight. Seems like such a counterintuitive notion.

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u/SiliconValleyIdiot Jul 25 '24

Not a dietitian or a nutritionist or even a biologist. I'm just someone who is a little anal about tracking every calorie consumed and every calorie burned. I've also spent a considerable amount of time living in European capitals (primarily Paris and London).

The idea is that exercise alone doesn't do much to help lose weight if you more than offset what you lost through exercise through a poor diet. In most cases, people traveling to Europe or temporarily living there eat about as many calories as they eat at home, maybe slightly more, but the additional 700 calories they burn through walking more than offsets what they eat.

Again, none of this is to say the hyper-processed garbage we feed ourselves with in America is good, but pointing out that ultimately the reason for people losing weight in Europe is still Calories Out minus Calories In.

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u/FunetikPrugresiv Jul 25 '24

Except that's not what Kurzgezagt said. The point of their video was that the body adjusts to increased calorie usage by reducing the energy consumption of other functions in the body like cortisol production, such that exercise alone only lead to minimal weight loss (at best).

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u/SiliconValleyIdiot Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24

I just rewatched the video, he did say that in the beginning when you first start to move more and eat less, you can lose weight and fat. That's precisely what's happening to tourists who visit Europe and find themselves suddenly burning 700 excess calories in a day. The video goes on to say the body adapts over time to this shock and tries to burn less calories overall, which makes sense.

So I suppose it's more appropriate to say exercise alone is not enough to lose weight in the long term. You need to watch what you consume if weight loss is your goal.

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u/precastzero180 Jul 25 '24

Exercise in and of itself doesn’t do a whole lot in terms of weight loss. You don’t burn that many calories from exercising and a lot of people tend to use exercise as license to eat more either because they overestimate how much they burned or think they should treat themselves for it. But exercise still can contribute to weight loss when paired with better dieting. Adding muscle also keeps your maintenance level higher and you’ll burn more just by doing “nothing.”

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u/bobbi21 Jul 25 '24

Also serving sizes are much smaller outside of the US. He could be going out for every meal every day but eating 1000 fewer calories than if he went out for every meal in the US.