Lumifer comments on Ketogenic Soylent - Less Wrong

6 Post author: BrienneYudkowsky 27 September 2013 01:17AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 28 September 2013 02:35:10AM 5 points [-]

For a randomly chosen person, sure (as per your reply to drethelin); but assuming he hasn't outright lied about his weight loss attempts, it's not that unlikely that EY would be one of the exceptions. (Consider the evolutionary consequences of homosexuality -- and yet gay people do exist.)

Comment author: Lumifer 30 September 2013 04:15:48PM *  0 points [-]

I haven't followed EY's attempts at weight loss, but it's entirely normal for people entering (or trying to enter) ketosis to feel lousy for a while. Effectively you're starving your body of glucose and until the metabolism adjusts many, probably most, will feel weak, light-headed, have headaches, suffer from low energy, etc. I wouldn't be surprised (but I have no data) if people which glucose regulation issues, e.g. pre-diabetics, would be particularly prone to this.

I am also not sure what does "body will just stop maintenance" actually mean. Mitochondria will stop producing ATF? Protein synthesis will stop? What?

I don't know of anyone of normal or higher weight who started to eat below maintenance level (while avoiding major nutritional deficiencies) and then just died or came close to death instead of losing weight. Do you know of any such cases?

Comment author: [deleted] 30 September 2013 04:19:18PM *  0 points [-]

I haven't followed EY attempts at weight loss, but it's entirely normal for people entering (or trying to enter) ketosis to feel lousy for a while.

True that. I wonder how long he tried to endure that state before giving up on each attempt.

I don't know of anyone of normal or higher weight who started to eat below maintenance level (while avoiding major nutritional deficiencies) and then just died or came close to death instead of losing weight. Do you know of any such cases?

I think Nancy Lebovitz once linked to a page listing a dozen or so such cases.

Comment author: gwern 30 September 2013 04:29:46PM 2 points [-]
Comment author: Lumifer 30 September 2013 04:49:42PM 0 points [-]

Um, that's a horror show of very sick people. I don't see how it's relevant to the current discussion.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 September 2013 05:39:45PM 0 points [-]

There is a non-zero number of people who, if they eat less than they consume, would starve to death before reaching a normal weight. For all we know EY might be one of them.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 02 October 2013 02:46:39PM 0 points [-]

It may depend on what you mean by starve to death-- from what I've heard, fat people who starve and die before reaching a "normal" weight die of heart damage from inadequate food.

Comment author: Lumifer 30 September 2013 06:04:49PM 0 points [-]

There is a non-zero number of people who, if they eat less than they consume, would starve to death before reaching a normal weight.

Evidence, please?

The link above didn't show people starving to death (in the causal sense). The only relevant mention that I see is for Michael Edelman about whom the text says "At about 600 lbs, he literally starved to death. (Link - 1)", but the link is dead and I'm not quite willing to take the word of this webpage for that.