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Does calories in vs calories out really matter?
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bercyn1291
Posts: 18 Member
in Debate Club
It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
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At 1400 kcal/day, I lost 1.5 lbs. per week.
At 2700 avg. kcal/day, I gained 2 lbs. per week.
On my current cut (don't ask) I am dropping 3-5 per week.
All of these involved pretty much the exact same types of food and supplements, just scaled up or down.17 -
bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
Calories in vs. calories out are ALL that matters for weight loss.
Quality of food matters for health.
Faster weight loss is usually unhealthy weight loss. Obese people can lose quickly, but the rest of us risk lean muscle mass. When our bodies don't have fuel.....they will catobolize existing lean muscle. High quality food does not make us immune.41 -
bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
Citation needed.
The extent of the calorie deficit is what matters for weight loss.
I've lost about 110 pounds and I certainly don't eat "clean".18 -
bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
Calories in vs. calories out are ALL that matters for weight loss.
Quality of food matters for health.
Faster weight loss is usually unhealthy weight loss. Obese people can lose quickly, but the rest of us risk lean muscle mass. When our bodies don't have fuel.....they will catobolize existing lean muscle. High quality food does not make us immune.
Not immune, but you can eat in ways in crash diets that severely limit LBM loss. I think a lot of the "zomg I lost muscle" stuff comes from people thinking that they are less fat than they actually are. I have yet to see before and after DEXAs of anyone who went on a short term crash, that suffered from notable catabolism in the process. Sure, if they drag it out over months, things can get pretty bad.8 -
For me Calorie quality and make up is huge in ensuring my calorie intake is at a deficit to my calorie out. So I go high protein. I tend to be satiated much longer. So emphasis on low carb diets and lots of rules actually help me see my success.7
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Gallowmere1984 wrote: »bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
Calories in vs. calories out are ALL that matters for weight loss.
Quality of food matters for health.
Faster weight loss is usually unhealthy weight loss. Obese people can lose quickly, but the rest of us risk lean muscle mass. When our bodies don't have fuel.....they will catobolize existing lean muscle. High quality food does not make us immune.
Not immune, but you can eat in ways in crash diets that severely limit LBM loss. I think a lot of the "zomg I lost muscle" stuff comes from people thinking that they are less fat than they actually are. I have yet to see before and after DEXAs of anyone who went on a short term crash, that suffered from notable catabolism in the process. Sure, if they drag it out over months, things can get pretty bad.
There is a proposed maximum rate of fat loss per day based on amount of fat there is on a body as the fat cells can apparently only release their content so fast, so going above and beyond that for your rate of loss would necessarily involve muscle.9 -
bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
Quality of food is important for proper nutrition...but if you're not in a deficit, you aren't going to lose weight. I eat a very high quality diet and right now I'm maintaining...because I'm eating at maintenance. When I was losing my general trend was as expected per my calorie deficit and I was eating just as well. Your calorie deficit is what is going to determine your rate of loss, not food quality. That said, a higher quality diet is likely to make it easier to consistently maintain your deficit over time which in turn will result in consistent weight loss.13 -
bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
I don't think it is "agreed upon" that quality of food matters in faster weight loss. It doesn't. All it has to do with is nutrition and compliance. That is, their are more nutrients in veggies, as well as they are lower calorie density so they provide more bulk allowing for many people to feel more satisfied with their meal because it is bigger so they stick with the calorie goal.
Weight loss is down to calories in versus calories out. There are confounding factors that either make the calories in difficult to calculate completely accurately, and which affect the calories out end due to things that may make a person's metabolism vary significantly from the average. Having said that, the vast majority of people fall within the normal range for calories burned, and the calories in part can be brought to a significantly close approximation through careful measurement of portions consumed.4 -
stevencloser wrote: »Gallowmere1984 wrote: »bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
Calories in vs. calories out are ALL that matters for weight loss.
Quality of food matters for health.
Faster weight loss is usually unhealthy weight loss. Obese people can lose quickly, but the rest of us risk lean muscle mass. When our bodies don't have fuel.....they will catobolize existing lean muscle. High quality food does not make us immune.
Not immune, but you can eat in ways in crash diets that severely limit LBM loss. I think a lot of the "zomg I lost muscle" stuff comes from people thinking that they are less fat than they actually are. I have yet to see before and after DEXAs of anyone who went on a short term crash, that suffered from notable catabolism in the process. Sure, if they drag it out over months, things can get pretty bad.
There is a proposed maximum rate of fat loss per day based on amount of fat there is on a body as the fat cells can apparently only release their content so fast, so going above and beyond that for your rate of loss would necessarily involve muscle.
While this is true, it ignores that fact that fat isn't just fat. There's water, connective tissue, capillaries, etc. involved in the storage. While yes, technically those are not fat, they go out the door along with it. There will always be some loss that's "not fat" if only for that reason alone. There are a lot of things that the body stores and uses other than fat an muscle. Unfortunately, we seem to have this weird "all LBM is either muscle, bone, or organs" thing going on around here.2 -
bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss
No it is not.but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
CICO is all that matters for weight loss, period.
Quality of food is important for nutrition, but CICO is always king when it comes to gaining or losing weight.
I have gained weight eating mostly "clean" and I am currently losing weight at a calorie deficit not only eating a wide variety of nutrient-dense foods but also incorporating things like cookies, ice cream, beer, and fast food.
If I wanted to speed up my weight loss, I would eat less calories, not necessarily cut out certain foods.11 -
bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
no, it is not agreed, but nice way to try and set up a straw man about "everyone agrees" with this ludicrous statement.
calorie deficit for weight loss; micro/macro aderehcne for body comp and overall nutrition.
200 calories of oreos = 200 calories of carrots from an energy standpoint; however, they do not contain the same nutritional profile.13 -
In my experience, I have health issues to the point CICO alone doesn't work with weight gain. In fact, I am underweight. I only started gaining weight when I had to get rid of all packaged processed foods plus certain whole foods that cause my symptoms to worsen. I still work with CICO with mostly meat, seafood, low carb veggies and fruits.
That's just my experience. CICO matters if your only goal is weight loss/gain. Eating a variety of quality food is for your overall health, but you can still enjoy what you like if it doesn't create any issues.2 -
Is this going to be one of those threads where an OP drops a provocative and inaccurate statement like "everyone agrees quality of food determines how fast you lose weight" and then the rest of post comments which largely agree with each other but disagree with the OP, but we never hear from OP again to clarify where the inaccurate information came from or if she meant something different?18
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WinoGelato wrote: »Is this going to be one of those threads where an OP drops a provocative and inaccurate statement like "everyone agrees quality of food determines how fast you lose weight" and then the rest of post comments which largely agree with each other but disagree with the OP, but we never hear from OP again to clarify where the inaccurate information came from or if she meant something different?
this is one of those threads where OP is never coming back ...7 -
WinoGelato wrote: »Is this going to be one of those threads where an OP drops a provocative and inaccurate statement like "everyone agrees quality of food determines how fast you lose weight" and then the rest of post comments which largely agree with each other but disagree with the OP, but we never hear from OP again to clarify where the inaccurate information came from or if she meant something different?
It is agreed that OP rarely returns to the thread after making posts like these.15 -
WinoGelato wrote: »Is this going to be one of those threads where an OP drops a provocative and inaccurate statement like "everyone agrees quality of food determines how fast you lose weight" and then the rest of post comments which largely agree with each other but disagree with the OP, but we never hear from OP again to clarify where the inaccurate information came from or if she meant something different?
I'm betting yes. Hope not.3 -
janejellyroll wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Is this going to be one of those threads where an OP drops a provocative and inaccurate statement like "everyone agrees quality of food determines how fast you lose weight" and then the rest of post comments which largely agree with each other but disagree with the OP, but we never hear from OP again to clarify where the inaccurate information came from or if she meant something different?
It is agreed that OP rarely returns to the thread after making posts like these.
I see what you did there...
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bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
I agree. I once splurged on this $3200 high-quality steak. After that delicious meal, I couldn't afford groceries for the next two weeks, so I lost a bunch of weight really quickly.19 -
Down 188# in 20 months and maintaining using CICO.8
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bercyn1291 wrote: »It is agreed upon that quality of the food matters in faster weight loss but ideally calories out-calories in should determine how much weight you lose. Please share your experience.
Citation needed.
The extent of the calorie deficit is what matters for weight loss.
I've lost about 110 pounds and I certainly don't eat "clean".
Yep, my experience as well. I've lost around 50lbs and I don't eat clean or any special way-I just eat the foods I like, but in smaller calorie amounts.2
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