Thursday, July 10, 2008
Related to the Dunning-Kruger effect discussed in a previous post is the fallacious appeal to authority. Specifically, I'm talking about an improper appeal to one's own authority. This is when a very smart person with a high level of achievement in a given field thinks they can intelligently discuss another, unrelated field. A classic (and especially dangerous) example of this is when a famous actor feels qualified to publicly weigh-in on macroeconomics, climatology, or veterinary science.
Most people, as the D-K effect would suggest, believe they have expert knowledge and correct opinions on a wide variety of topics, which makes the problem especially pernicious. You might have even noticed on this very blog, how most of the posts unrelated to my area of expertise -- self-gratification -- are complete rubbish.
The above was brought to mind when I recently stumbled upon a post entitled, "An Engineer's Guide to Weight Loss." It amazed me that this person, who appears to be a high achiever otherwise, could write the single worst post on diet and nutrition available anywhere on the entire internet.
The quick summary of his prescription for weight loss is to eat less (but more coffee and low-fat ice cream), and use the elliptical machine for an hour a day. You might recognize this as the technique millions of fat people fruitlessly use to lose weight or keep it off.
Ted says, "the science of weight loss is simple: eat fewer calories than your burn." This is wrong. It is not simple. And this sentence bakes in multiple unsubstantiated assumptions, including unlikely ones such as that energy intake and expenditure are independent and unrelated variables, and that the type of food does not effect other bodily systems, such as hormonal.
The first assumption is wrong, and dieters even know it's wrong, because they talk about how lowering calories reduces your metabolism, which requires a further reduction in calories. It seems possible that the equation could be rewritten as [Energy_In - Energy_Stored = Energy_Burned], which would make the "Simple I/O operation" fruitless in the long term. As a counterexample, if it were a simple I/O equation, I would've weighed 600 lbs by the end of college solely from my liquid caloric ingestion (here for further info).
The second assumption is wrong as well. Take a person eating 2000 calories of cane sugar a day versus a person eating 2000 calories of lean protein and vegetables. Do you think they will have the same outcome?
Moving on to the exercise suggestion: one hour on the elliptical. One thing he's right about is that this will really suck. And it's a great way to ensure you will not be following this plan for long. I heard once that someone wrote a whole book on exercise, but for the sake of brevity I will just say -- don't do the exercises people tell you to do. Do what you enjoy. That is the only way you will be able to keep it up long term.
Hopefully it will include a healthy dose of weight training, since additional lean body mass has a host of positive effects on the body, including higher metabolism. And if you really want to do elliptical, don't do it for an hour. If you can maintain your pace for an hour you are doing very low intensity, no matter what you might think. Do some intervals, or tabata. And when your vagina stops hurting start doing some real workouts.
[Author's Note: I have no particular expertise in diet, nutrition, physiology, exercise science, grammar, or personal hygiene. The information in this post is probably wrong, and I am unaware of this.]
Most people, as the D-K effect would suggest, believe they have expert knowledge and correct opinions on a wide variety of topics, which makes the problem especially pernicious. You might have even noticed on this very blog, how most of the posts unrelated to my area of expertise -- self-gratification -- are complete rubbish.
The above was brought to mind when I recently stumbled upon a post entitled, "An Engineer's Guide to Weight Loss." It amazed me that this person, who appears to be a high achiever otherwise, could write the single worst post on diet and nutrition available anywhere on the entire internet.
The quick summary of his prescription for weight loss is to eat less (but more coffee and low-fat ice cream), and use the elliptical machine for an hour a day. You might recognize this as the technique millions of fat people fruitlessly use to lose weight or keep it off.
Ted says, "the science of weight loss is simple: eat fewer calories than your burn." This is wrong. It is not simple. And this sentence bakes in multiple unsubstantiated assumptions, including unlikely ones such as that energy intake and expenditure are independent and unrelated variables, and that the type of food does not effect other bodily systems, such as hormonal.
The first assumption is wrong, and dieters even know it's wrong, because they talk about how lowering calories reduces your metabolism, which requires a further reduction in calories. It seems possible that the equation could be rewritten as [Energy_In - Energy_Stored = Energy_Burned], which would make the "Simple I/O operation" fruitless in the long term. As a counterexample, if it were a simple I/O equation, I would've weighed 600 lbs by the end of college solely from my liquid caloric ingestion (here for further info).
The second assumption is wrong as well. Take a person eating 2000 calories of cane sugar a day versus a person eating 2000 calories of lean protein and vegetables. Do you think they will have the same outcome?
Moving on to the exercise suggestion: one hour on the elliptical. One thing he's right about is that this will really suck. And it's a great way to ensure you will not be following this plan for long. I heard once that someone wrote a whole book on exercise, but for the sake of brevity I will just say -- don't do the exercises people tell you to do. Do what you enjoy. That is the only way you will be able to keep it up long term.
Hopefully it will include a healthy dose of weight training, since additional lean body mass has a host of positive effects on the body, including higher metabolism. And if you really want to do elliptical, don't do it for an hour. If you can maintain your pace for an hour you are doing very low intensity, no matter what you might think. Do some intervals, or tabata. And when your vagina stops hurting start doing some real workouts.
[Author's Note: I have no particular expertise in diet, nutrition, physiology, exercise science, grammar, or personal hygiene. The information in this post is probably wrong, and I am unaware of this.]
