Only insofar as it affects you, heck yes. But if you’re costing others or the state money or hardship, that can be a problem. Of course, that is not included in “self” destructive. But then again if it is helping you or making life worth living, where is the destruction?

Were I a younger man.

I can tell we agree on a lot here too. I’m simply saying calories in and out isn’t wrong, it just isn’t the full story. And you’re right to be suspicious of anybody that says it is. It can be a good jumping off point. Like “eat less”. “Great, how do I actually reliably eat less, doc?” The answer there is the nuanced point you are making, about changing how the body responds.

And like you said, the “move more” thing goes out the window if you aren’t able to get your energy out of storage well. One just feels sluggish.

I lost about 30 kg, and that was primarily by just tracking what I ate. Even just knowing is helpful for accountability.

Yeah it definitely isn’t the whole story. And protein is a great example. It takes about 15% of the calories in proteins just to break down the protein, so you sort of get that as a discount. But that can be said as calories out immediately goes up by that 15%. :)

Calories on a label are not the calories in the metabolic equation, so I don’t see how that is relevant here. Calories in are calories absorbed by the body, which is some subset of those taken in. Some come right back out the other side; we don’t count those. To say calories have nothing to do with it is bonkers to me. It is precisely the chemical process to which you refer. When we expend energy / heat / calories, we get that from food and drink. Yes, more immediate from one of the three major energy distribution mechanisms, but it all comes from what we put in. Then the carbon atoms stripped off of saccharides are bonded to oxygen and exhaled as CO2.

And all this to say, one cannot gain weight while eating fewer calories than being expended, reductive or not.

You do not absorb all the calories. Those, therefore, are part of neither calories in nor out. I make no assumption here. BMR is a closely related topic but doesn’t change the calories in / calories out impact, which is what I am getting at and what most the remainder of your post says.

Nearly all of what you say here is correct and I wouldn’t dispute it. Except the last paragraph. It is, I’m sorry, categorically false. Calories in and out, in fact, simplifies nothing and does take things like brown fat and body maintenance prioritization into account; those simply change those two variables. I’m not saying the systems are simple. I’m saying the amount of carbon atoms absorbed into your body via energy stored in food and drink as one of a few macronutrients less the carbon atoms breathed out via respiration is a fairly accurate account of weight change. Everything else you’re saying is not in dispute. It isn’t easy and it isn’t simply, but calories in / out is not inaccurate, if still reductive.

While it is more complex, regarding how brains and other metabolic systems signal and process desire to eat etc., it IS calories in / calories out, I believe. If one eats a 500 calorie deficit, they will lose weight. It borders on impossible for some for completely understandable and forgivable reasons, but I’m sorry to say, I suspect you accounting of either calories in or calories out was mistaken.

Yes, there are differences in bioavailability across foods and people but still carbon goes in, breaks off, and is mostly breathed out.

To anybody that downvotes this, I challenge you to suggest what chemical atoms are you adding to your weight when you gain even while eating at a calorie deficit. Don’t mistake me for saying insulin and such don’t play a huge role; they do. But the role they play is in the delicate balance of calories in and out. So, too, does one’s microbiome, which weighs more than one’s brain; so who is doing the thinking. Complex processes that all affect calories in and out.

True, but I imagine anybody who trains agility and reactions are better off then many.

Oh I completely agree. Just struck me as odd from a brand new account.

Guilty as charged. Dead internet theory and all that. Anyway, I know nothing. I’m sure it’s all in the up and up.

Doesn’t this just seem like some sort of propaganda. Maybe that isn’t the right word, but I don’t know how to put it. A brand new account? “Is everybody going to piefed.” “There is a great piefed app, guys.” Something is weird. Maybe I’m just paranoid.

A few things. The python is looking good. Nice work.

Did you know about soxfor/qbittorrent-natmap? This is a tool that automates this for you.

Lastly, I’ve been using this for a while, but just now found neither you nor I may need it any more. It looks like gluetun may now handle this on its own. Check out Custom port forwarding up/down command.

So we should be able to use VPN_PORT_FORWARDING_UP_COMMAND=/bin/sh -c 'wget -O- --retry-connrefused --post-data "json={\"listen_port\":{{PORTS}}}" http://127.0.0.1:8080/api/v2/app/setPreferences 2>&1' or something close to that.

(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻

┬─┬ ︵ /(.□. ）

How did you miss “Christmem Tree”?

Alan Parsons Project - Eye in the Sky.

They have the world’s internet by the balls, and this weakness has really become apparent lately. This one looks like it may be even worse, as the 500’s are at a higher level. Not even branded custom error pages now.

I married at 18 and became a father just a year later. Been married 25 years, I and still cherish every wake-up next to my gal.

I’m not saying if you should or shouldn’t, at all. What I’m saying is sometimes, you know. Not that it will work, but that you’re ready to work for it. That’s it. You want to put the work in? If so, it might be the best time ever available to you. But it isn’t easy.

Some of us just enjoy spending the day with family and eating good food. Not for everybody, I accept, but I don’t understand the ire.

That’s good. I hope your family has a wonderful time together.

They’re still alive and kicking.