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Leo Abstract's avatar

DST isn't itself a problem, it's just highlighting a problem. Imagine someone who wakes naturally without alarms two hours before he starts work. In the spring, the clocks change, but he doesn't. He now wakes naturally an hour before he starts work. Nothing has to change for his health or his circadian cycle, the only change is what part of his waking day is consumed by work. Is it +2 to +11 or is it +1 to +10? If he doesn't like having only an hour before work, he can slowly shift his sleep cycle until part of the year he starts work at +3 and part of the year he starts at +2.

They can't take the sun from us. Clock-time is a tyranny and an imposition to begin with, but we don't have to let it touch anything except what 'time' we go to work.

If possible move towards having more flexibility in work hours and live life entirely by the solar time.

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

Yea you're right, the real problem is having to start work at a certain time. Clock time is just the messenger, and DST makes it worse temporarily.

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Leo Abstract's avatar

Ok now that I've performed my yearly ritual of DST hate, on to commenting about your actual point: I agree it looks fishy, and I'd wonder if you could fit that to bathtub sales (or whatever that joke meme datapoint is).

From what I've learned (lately, from you and the people you follow on twitter) my assumptions would be:

1) Primary initial weight loss (that portion of the first month exclusive of initial water weight drop) is a function of metabolic rate vs lean body mass.

2) For most dieters, metabolism slows due to starvation signals and effects of dealing with ω6FAs (from WAT and their food if they're e.g. going low fat).

3) It gets harder to stay on the diet due to signals (whether from dying gut flora, ω6FA munchies, or one of a myriad other symptoms of the broken homeostat).

These all together cause the typical tapering-off-and-stopping effect of most diets, which lead us to think of this as a law of nature, and mostly ignore stories of those who escape this.

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6jgu1ioxph's avatar

Apologies if you've already done this and written it up somewhere on your blog, but... have you tried anything in the spirit of Eliezer Yudkowsky's "what if we used more power?" approach to treating his wife's Seasonal Affective Disorder, where, on noticing that normal anti-SAD lamps didn't seem to do much, he simply rigged up a massive amount of lamps to illuminate the living space with about as much power as natural daylight? It wouldn't be trivially cheap, but if you could rig up a "lumenator", as they're calling them in rationalist-space - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZAMA4y6SbtFCTjjY4/a-new-option-for-building-lumenators - with the gradual phase-in function of a sunrise-simulating alarm clock/lamp, you could have your sunrise stay the same across the break into daylight saving time.

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Leo Abstract's avatar

I saw something about that and chuckled. This is what happens when tech guys take to amazon to try to figure out how to solve problems, whereas blue-collar electricians have been installing lights in the ceilings of e.g. cathedrals for a very long time. There are a class of larger bulb that fit in larger bases (they're called 'mogul'), and they're fairly cheap. Wire one onto a box with a light switch on the front and you can make a part of a room too bright to look at. The bulbs come in various temperatures. You can get the parts for the base/box/switch from a local electrican supply store for probably about $10, and each bulb will cost you ~$25.

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Lucas's avatar

I think this kind of light is mentionned here https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens, in "More light for less money". I don't want to speak for all the tech guys, but the ones I know are usually very appreciative of domain experts opinions/tips!

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

I haven't but yea that would probably work! Tbh I could also just go for a walk directly after waking up each morning, but it just kind of doesn't fit me well haha. I dunno.

I've used a SAD lamp previously to try and treat my Non-24, but it gave me headaches. That one was 10k lux IIRC.

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JaziTricks's avatar

have you tried using the sun imitating lamp when walking up to adjust the body clock?

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

You mean one of those "sunrise, get brighter slower" clocks? Haven't, but have heard good things. I know early sun exposure helps, it's just inconvenient.

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JaziTricks's avatar

not a clock. but a lamp that gives you bright light exposure at any hour you want

it's cheap. and I think 10 minutes are enough

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

Oh, yea I tried one of those 10,000 Lux SAD lamps years ago. I kinda didn't notice a big effect (certainly not like a 10 minute walk in the sun) and I got headaches from it :(

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relationer's avatar

Can you link raw data for the weight loss graph? If you want to test if there's a hidden "lipostat" variable, shouldn't you crowdsource such data and have someone do a proper statistics study?

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Experimental Fat Loss's avatar

I'm not super convinced that statistical analysis is useful here. If you want the data, email me (hello@..) and I'll send it to you.

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