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Wes_W comments on Group Rationality Diary, November 1-15 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Yeah, that's why it confuses me. But after posting this and sleeping on it, I think I'm really experiencing one part epistemic confusion to two parts regular frustration.
Discussions of metabolism adjustments are almost never quantitative, for some frustrating reason. My impression has been that 750 cal/day is well beyond a realistic adjustment, especially in the absence of obvious side effects (lethargy, severe hunger, chills, sexual dysfunction, etc). But it occurs to me that I've been too dismissive: supposing e.g. a 250 cal/day depression in metabolism, and that self-reporting inaccuracy has me really overeating by 250 cal/day compared to my target intake, that would leave me at a 250 cal/day deficit, which... would just about match the observed rate of progress.
So okay, yes, those two things together would just about explain it. Then epistemically, I don't have much reason to dispute the model. Now there's just the instrumental problem of actually making progress: attempting a steeper deficit of 1000 cal/day has proven deeply unpleasant before, and rapidly produced the previously-mentioned side effects. Perhaps I need to plan more for hunger management, and/or get really obsessive about not eating things during a cut unless I can measure them exactly? At least this gives me some parameters to experiment with.
The reason is that directly measuring your metabolism is highly inconvenient (you basically spend time in a gas mask) and requires specialized and expensive equipment.
No, I don't think so.
For a frame-of-reference adjustment consider reports that the Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps consumed 8-10,000 calories per day while training. He didn't get fat :-)
You don't need a steep deficit, you just need some deficit which is visible as weight loss.
Given that you don't know the output side of the calorie balance, I am not a big fan of counting calories to start with. I would suggest setting a reasonable rate of weigh loss (say, 1-2 lbs/week -- if you can measure body fat % it would be even better) and eating at the level which sustains this weight loss regardless of how many calories it takes. If the weight loss stalls, eat a bit less. If it accelerates, eat a bit more. That, of course, does not exclude using whatever "tricks" you find to be helpful like load-up days or intermittent fasting or whatever.
Is that a result of his metabolism adjusting upward, as opposed to simply burning lots of energy on activity and maybe having an unusually high metabolism in general?
I'm not sure how to actually apply this. Eating consistently at a certain level without somehow tracking calorie intake seems exceptionally tricky, unless I could standardize my meals to a degree that I don't think I can realistically do.
With Michael Phelps it's tricky. There are actually three parts here. Part of his energy balance goes just to do the physical movements of swimming, part goes to increased heat production as he spends hours per day in a cold-water pool, and part is just high resting metabolism.
Depends on how your food is structured. But if you're counting calories already, you can just continue to do this, just don't have a fixed level in mind. E.g. last week you were eating, say, 1,700 cal/day and lost zero pounds, so this week reduce to 1,500. Don't pay attention to absolute numbers, all you need to know is whether to shift up or down.