Proof that intelligence doesn't correlate with wisdom

I claim this market should already resolve yes, due to my losing over 60 pounds when I fasted for 8 months during 2019. Otherwise, go ahead and resolve N/A because I'm not trying that again.

If I eat 800 calories per day and no carbs, I lose weight and also get very little work done. There are no diets that result in steady weight and work getting done, so I alternate eating and fasting to maintain weight. The first week of fasting is just water loss as my body burns through stored glycogen, so it's not worth fasting unless it's a month. This is the actual problem.

Mounjaro helps reduce the rate of weight gain while in working phase (maybe, still experimenting). It has vicious side effects, taking it anyways.

Exercise does not appear to my eyeballed stats to reduce the rate of weight gain or increase the rate of weight loss, which tracks with the actual studies rather than CICO-bro theology: exercise expenditures reduce metabolism at other times.

@EliezerYudkowsky Do you also think exercise has no effect on body composition, as measurable via say bf%? If so, wouldn't you say you're goodharting too much on weight? Surely good cardiovascular health and low bodyfat are better metrics of the thing people are vaguely gesturing at and actually care about when they talk about "weight", at least certainly moreso than the literal number when you step on the scale

@Tripping LIke if exercise is increasing lean muscle mass and reducing bodyfat but roughly evened out from a weight perspective and your response is "wow exercise sucks my weight went nowhere" I feel like you've totally missed the point of why people look at metrics like bodyweight in the first place

@EliezerYudkowsky Also, to take a reductio ad absurdum, the Michael Phelps types of the world need to eat 8000+ calories a day just to prevent losing too much bodyweight. Mechanisms that reduce metabolism at other times can necessarily only go so far - you only have so much other metabolism happening per unit time that you can reduce from!

So if exercise isn't working for you at one level you can always just do more exercise. This happens to be a good example of the Zvi-style more dakka effect.

Think about it like your custom light therapy for Seasonal Affective Disorder. In the same way that your then answer was to just pump more lumens, exercise can work for weightloss if you just pump more calorie expenditure.

@EliezerYudkowsky 800 calories is a straw man, ~2000 would probably work, what are you doing now?

@NathanBraun Today? 360 calories from turkey breast, 37 calories from keto hot chocolate, variable cheese but probably ~320 calories.

@Tripping I was measuring body composition with literally weekly DEXA scans, didn't actually notice much of a link between resistance or aerobic exercise and the rate of muscle loss. (Being in ketosis and eating enough protein does seem to maybe be legit good for protecting muscle; the unvarying rate of muscle loss wasn't bad compared to the rate of fat loss.)

Also, please stop assuming that I'm stupid.

@EliezerYudkowsky I mean like generally/on average, if this (~700 calories) is a typical day/has been a typical day in the past and you've not lost weight doing that I would be shocked. I also don't see how that'd be sustainable, but maybe that's a separate issue.

@EliezerYudkowsky Have you considered that the amount/quality of resistance/aerobic exercise you were doing was insufficient? I find this is a fairly common typical-mind-style problem where "dosage" really matters and people very often don't realise that what they think of as substantial exercise is equivalent to taking 10mg of aspirin while expecting to see the effects of taking 800mg.

I'm not trying to be being flippant in saying this, there really is a pervasive way of talking about exercise in a 'satisficing' way, where people expect to see outcomes so long as they are doing the virtuous thing by turning up at a gym and going through the motions of their routine. And while these attitudes are on net probably good to be going around, considering the frontloaded/logarithmic nature of the broad spectrum benefits to exercise, once we're talking about more specific outcomes like changes in body composition as measured on a weekly timescale, it starts to really really matter as to what your specific training regimen was, rather than say merely whether you did something that could get bucketed broadly as resistance exercise or aerobic exercise.

Even otherwise very smart people who make very honest efforts at trying to do things properly can not realise when they're not getting the "dosage" right when it comes to exercise - it just happens to be a common blind spot.

@EliezerYudkowsky If you're not joking about your calories, then this simply sounds as if you're already way too restrictive. Like that's literally half of the starting point of the starvation phase in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment. That's not just highly unlikely to be true or sustainable, it would also be extremely unhealthy.

I don't think anyone assumes you're stupid, but especially when it comes to health, intelligence alone doesn't help. Literally almost every overweight person knows the basics of dieting and exercise - yet almost none of them strictly does it. It's not a problem of intelligence, it's a problem of fooling yourself into thinking you did "enough" while most of the time you didn't. The number of people that told me they "tried everything", including "tracking" - while I personally witnessed that they didn't - far outweighs the number of people who actually did something and had nothing happen. In fact the number of the latter is precisely zero. Overweight people trying to find the next best thing that makes losing weight easy is about as common as being overweight.

I'm not saying you in particular are part of the group that's too inaccurate/inconsistent. I'm just saying that it's very easy to be inconsistent and to be fooled, especially by oneself.

Do you have a record somewhere that shows what you've done? At least a basic step tracking app? Like maybe we can collectively try to find a way to help you. The collected data may even help others that are in a similar situation.

@Victos

> In fact the number of the latter is precisely zero.

Agree 100%, which is why this market is way too low.

@Victos Go back and reread my top comment beginning this thread. The problem is not that I literally can't lose weight--although nothing in the laws of physics prohibits fat cells from refusing to release fat even as someone's muscle wastes away and they starve to death, that's not actually the problem I have. My problem is that I cannot be intellectually productive while my brain is starving, and something is happening along the lines of "my fat cells are eager to suck glucose and triglycerides out of my bloodstream and reluctant to release triglycerides", so if I eat enough that my brain has adequate energy and I can be intelligent, I'm eating so much that I gain 1-2 pounds per week. This means that to maintain my weight at a level where sleep apnea is choking me relatively less, I need to alternate months of fasting with months of eating enough to be productive. There is no point in doing anything less extreme than a protein-sparing modified fast when I'm burning the gained weight; I'll be unproductive either way, so I might be unproductive for as short a time as possible. Trying to eat 2000 calories per day to maintain a weight means I can never be intellectually productive, period, because then I'm just starving at all times and my brain does not have the fuel to think. There does not have to be a magic out around this if I just behave virtuously enough; metabolisms are not run by a kindly god who always offers you a way out.

@Tripping If 6 miles a day can be insufficient exercise, or two hours at the gym three times a week, or an hour of exercise under the supervision of a personal trainer recommended by a concierge doctor, then your theory is unfalsifiable and I'm not interested in its endless extension of excuses.

@EliezerYudkowsky how long have you tried eating ~2000 calories a day and felt intellectually unproductive? my experience is it takes some getting used to, but you do indeed get used to it. also i'd imagine there's a clear difference between ~2000 and some of the other numbers you've referenced -- wouldn't at all be surprised if you couldn't concentrate/think on 800 calories a day

@EliezerYudkowsky also -- while i agree/it's been my experience that exercise on it's own barely moves the needle re: weight loss -- if you're worried about muscle loss (very valid) that's where the heavy lifting comes in

@NathanBraun I'm glad your metabolism works well enough for you to "get used to it", what I assume is more pain than loss of intellectual capacity. I'm fine at pushing through pain. There isn't anything that works for pushing smartness through lack of stamina. After spending eight months fasting in 2019, I expect I'd hardly notice the pain of eating 2000 calories per day if pain was the problem.

@EliezerYudkowsky But mostly I'm not interested in spending enormous quantities of time testing an endless series of suggestions, collectively unfalsifiable, ultimately based in the belief that metabolism is a kindly and fair god which must surely offer me an out, rather than anything biochemical.

@EliezerYudkowsky my metabolism isn't anything special, and weight has been a (minor/moderate) struggle for me too. I definitely get not having ideal weight genes.

> I'm glad your metabolism works well enough for you to "get used to it", what I assume is more pain than loss of intellectual capacity

I think it'd be both -- I think it can be harder to concentrate when you're hungry etc, but that's also something you can get used to.

I'm just curious (I haven't been following, the "meme" at the top is new to me) to what extent you've tried moderate calorie restriction (~1800/2000 calories) vs more extreme fasting and for how long. I would be surprised if you stuck with it for ~ 1 month and still felt significantly intellectually impacted at the end of that. If that's the case maybe I'll update my views.

@NathanBraun Counting calories is something I would have tried so far back that I no longer have the memories at this point.

@EliezerYudkowsky As far as I can tell you seem to have problems with keeping some level of weight while at the same time being at your best intellectually. So in order for your brain to function the way you want it to function, you have to eat in a surplus.

So if I understand it correctly you have some level X that you hover around. So you eat in a surplus in order to be productive until X is greater than some undesired threshold Y, at which point you start an extreme fast to get back down to X. You do so in order to keep the window in which you're in a deficit small such that to not impact your intellectual capacity for an unbearable amount of time.

So the problem isn't your weight per se, it's the continuous necessary cycling that's required to maintain what ever you set as your baseline X.

Is that correct so far?

In that case this entire Market resolves to YES by default, because you likely would lose a reasonable amount of weight in that given time. You would just be in a large intellectual deficit for half a year. But in order for this market to resolve to NO you would have to keep at it for 6 months straight and not end up losing a "reasonable amount of weight", which according to my understanding isn't actually the problem anyways.

Regardless of the market, I have the following question: What are your criteria for your baseline X? So why precisely is X not lower?

@Victos Well done on exhibiting any trace whatsoever of reading comprehension! To answer your question: As X gets lower, I gain more pounds per week. I'm actually currently trying out moving X lower, since Mounjaro may possibly slow my rate of weight gain during productive months (it's early to be sure).

@EliezerYudkowsky It's not unfalsifiable, it's merely that you're unwilling to spend the amount of time/effort on exercise needed to use it as e.g. a weight-loss tool. Which is completely fine, imo! There are lots of reasons you might not want to use exercise that way. The opportunity cost on the time needed is legitimately potentially very high. And many people find exercising mostly unpleasant, and the idea of having to do more than two hours at the gym 3 times a week can sound unfun.

But I do think it's important to separate out "not personally worth the time investment, even if it were to work" from "literally unfalsifiable".

@Tripping Any time I say I've already tried some particular exercise strategy, somebody comes along with a different exercise strategy that I'm supposed to try. You're an element of an unfalsifiable collective, from my perspective, with nothing to distinguish you from the last fifty people with ideas that they're sure will work, or all the previous strategies I've already tried. And go eat 800 calories per day for a few months before you presume to lecture me on my unwillingness to invest.

@EliezerYudkowsky Maybe I'm interpreting this in the wrong way (I'm also quite sleepy, 3 kids at home yay), but that first line seems unnecessarily backhanded.

Thanks for answering the question. Is the inverse relationship between X and pounds gained per week that dramatic? At first glance it seems rather odd considering less bodyfat means less fat cells that are "reager to suck up glucose", which should result in a net positive. But then again, while it would be nice if everything was that simple, we wouldn't be here if it was.

I wish you the best in achieving your goal of a lower X, even though it still sucks to require medication with adverse side effects to do so.

@Victos First line was not aimed at you, it's aimed at the other comments in this thread going "But have you tried dieting tho".

Losing bodyfat doesn't change the number of fat cells, although gaining weight can increase the number (it's a one-way ratchet). It rather makes the existing number of fat cells smaller, which is one of several forces that could cause those fat cells to be more eager to hoover up new blood nutrients and more reluctant to release triglycerides. More generally, the phenomenon of "set point" (googleable) is well known.

Thank you for your best wishes and for your continued superior comprehension.

@EliezerYudkowsky Oh damn I should seriously go to bed. You're right, it doesn't reduce the number of fat cells. I knew that already but for some reason I just went with exactly the wrong thought. Thanks for correcting me!

@EliezerYudkowsky I'm actually not recommending you try it! I think your time would be better spent working on important things than e.g. doing very hard exercise for 7 hours a day. Leave that to the professional athletes!

But there's no denying that it would work if you did it. If you burn 8000 calories a day via exercise then unless you're also eating 8000+ calories a day then you're going to be losing weight. Even if we take extreme cases where doing exercise activates mechanisms that reduce your metabolism to almost nothing when you're not exercising, sufficient amounts of exercise can render even this counterbalancing force irrelevant.

I hope the best for your results with experimenting with mounjaro!

@Tripping If for some reason you wanted to lose a lot of weight particularly quickly, then exercise is definitely an incredibly handy tool though. For people who need to weigh in below a particular number on a particular day because they e.g. participate in a sport that has weight classes, using lots of exercise will let them hit that target much more quickly than waiting around for normal metabolism expenditure + calorie restriction to get there.

Sometimes the timeframes they're given simply don't allow them to hit their weight goals without doing a lot of exercise! There's only so far you can get per unit time from calorie restriction and regular metabolism, and even if you go for a particularly extreme water cut, you can only go so far before you literally die. Sometimes you have to break out the exercise, because otherwise you won't get under the weight limit of your weight class in time, which means you won't get paid.

But none of that applies to a decision theorist! Do what makes sense for you, I reckon.

@Tripping Having said all of this, where this strategy might come into play for an Eliezer is if you were to take this particular goal into account:

>>There is no point in doing anything less extreme than a protein-sparing modified fast when I'm burning the gained weight; I'll be unproductive either way, so I might be unproductive for as short a time as possible.

If you were to really, genuinely be trying to take "being unproductive for as short a time as possible" seriously, then exercise really is the way you would do that. If you were to say burn 4000+ calories a day by jogging/cycling/swimming/rowing/whatever, that will lose weight at a much faster rate than a strategy of simply eating 800 calories a day and pocketing the difference between that and regular metabolism every day. Rough numbers, but if we were to say that the "eat 800 calories a day" strategy would put someone at a 1000 calorie a day deficit, exercise could very conceivably let someone go 2x or 3x as fast as that, which would therefore reduce "unproductive" time by half or 2/3rds.

There are difficulties with this, though. If you aren't already very fit, it can take a long time to get that VO2max high enough to actually burn this kind of volume of energy in reasonable timeframes. Getting to a stage where you can burn 1000+ calories an hour isn't something anyone can just get off the couch and do immediately.

If you only have the aerobic capacity to burn 400 calories an hour, then burning 4000 calories of energy would require 10 hours of exercise. If only 500 calories, then 8. At this kind of rate of energy expenditure, factors like the health of your joints and wear and tear from things like friction start to become a problem, even if you have abundant willpower to push through this stage.

But once you develop that aerobic capacity, the option becomes available to you. Is it worth bothering though? Probably not for the kind of person who thinks requiring an amount of exercise more than "6 miles a day" (regardless of mode of exercise) makes something unfalsifiable. But the option is always there.

I think I would recommend that someone who would consider this to get their VO2max measured, and see what kind of energy expenditure they could expect of themselves in their current condition. Maybe then work really hard on expanding that aerobic capacity as much as possible, and see how much improvement they can make in a month, and test VO2max again. If that rate of increase in aerobic capacity isn't high enough to make exercise-as-weightloss something they could employ in a reasonable timeframe, then maybe that's a time to consider moving on anyway.

But if we're saying that someone is guaranteed to be unproductive on a calorie deficit, and we need to minimize time spent unproductive, then exercise is how you would maximize that calorie deficit per unit time. The option is there.

@Tripping I've got chronic fatigue, kid. Please stop trying to help me now.

@EliezerYudkowsky Sure, hoping the best with your outcomes with mounjaro!

@EliezerYudkowsky Lift weights, eat vegetables and lean meat.