This may be the key missing ingredient of set point, so I'm glad you brought it up. It also explains Minnesota Starvation's extremely high maintenance numbers. At set point, the body may simply discard everything over daily maintenance and this tripwire is turned off in metabolic disorder. The conditions that turn this on or off are the key variable I was looking for in my data analysis project I solicited bidders for here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/v2LazrqH5odiYucaG/quantopian-contest-but-for-food-intake-and-weight
My point wasn't well articulated because I don't have a strong conclusion. More noting that the introduction of this "new" variable may actually collapse us to a simpler model where craving and food noise are the same thing but on different timescales, and both are about set point. Perhaps food noise and hunger split along many axes: time (hunger = today's TDEE, food noise = set point), feedback type (hunger = deterrent, food noise = reward). Trying to reassemble pieces into a different story.
My steelman of your article would be reductionist: perhaps we have a "mastication counter" that multiplies taste and crunch to guess caloric content, and it is fooled by ultra processed foods containing more calories per bite than we expect, so we undercount. Or perhaps fortified micronutrient content everywhere lets us make use of everything, which the body does not expect.
Strongest refutation would be Minnesota Starvation having men eat 3000 calories just to maintain 170 lbs. Fifty years ago you could make just as delicious, if not more, cake from flour, butter, eggs, and sugar and leave it in the fridge and everyone in the house would either 1) easily resist it or 2) eat as much as they want and not become obese. We know this isn't true anymore, but not why.
Loved the post, fully agree (had bulimia, now I'm effortlessly at a perfect weight for years).
I would also add that I think the mentioned thermostat doesn't only regulate your weight, I think it discards excessive calories automatically too.
E.g. for me it currently feels like no matter what I eat, my body would throw away the excessive stuff.
This may be the key missing ingredient of set point, so I'm glad you brought it up. It also explains Minnesota Starvation's extremely high maintenance numbers. At set point, the body may simply discard everything over daily maintenance and this tripwire is turned off in metabolic disorder. The conditions that turn this on or off are the key variable I was looking for in my data analysis project I solicited bidders for here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/v2LazrqH5odiYucaG/quantopian-contest-but-for-food-intake-and-weight
Looking forward to tomorrow’s post
I'm missing your point entirely (apologies), but I thought the Shapiro paper on obesity being driven by advances in technology was pretty compelling: https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/089533003769204371
My point wasn't well articulated because I don't have a strong conclusion. More noting that the introduction of this "new" variable may actually collapse us to a simpler model where craving and food noise are the same thing but on different timescales, and both are about set point. Perhaps food noise and hunger split along many axes: time (hunger = today's TDEE, food noise = set point), feedback type (hunger = deterrent, food noise = reward). Trying to reassemble pieces into a different story.
My steelman of your article would be reductionist: perhaps we have a "mastication counter" that multiplies taste and crunch to guess caloric content, and it is fooled by ultra processed foods containing more calories per bite than we expect, so we undercount. Or perhaps fortified micronutrient content everywhere lets us make use of everything, which the body does not expect.
Strongest refutation would be Minnesota Starvation having men eat 3000 calories just to maintain 170 lbs. Fifty years ago you could make just as delicious, if not more, cake from flour, butter, eggs, and sugar and leave it in the fridge and everyone in the house would either 1) easily resist it or 2) eat as much as they want and not become obese. We know this isn't true anymore, but not why.