A Calorie REALLY ISN'T a Calorie

mommabenefield

Could I ask you something? Don't mean to be nosy, but I was wondering if you ate much sugar growing up?

Here we go again. Obesity is caused by SUGAR! Of course.

Mulberry you've solved it all. It's all just sugar. Calories are irrelevant, sugar is what matters.

You found your little pet scapegoat/demon and man you won't let go for anything. You've made up your mind! Everything is sugar.

Good god.

Heh. The confirmation bias is astonishing. She's actually resorted to intentionally seeking out only information that will support her preconceived notions, rejecting any contrary information.

jonnythan

Okay so I have no idea how this thread spun off to what it has become.

But regarding the original post.
Isn't the calories required to digest food pretty much calculated into our BMR ? I thought BMR was the calories we burned doing basic activities (breathing, eating, digesting, growing, repairing). So isn't it silly to try and recalculate those again, even if to save a few calories?

BMR is the energy you'd be using even with no digestion taking place. So, no, it's not included.

jonnythan

Could I ask you something? Don't mean to be nosy, but I was wondering if you ate much sugar growing up?

Here we go again. Obesity is caused by SUGAR! Of course.

Mulberry you've solved it all. It's all just sugar. Calories are irrelevant, sugar is what matters.

You found your little pet scapegoat/demon and man you won't let go for anything. You've made up your mind! Everything is sugar.

Good god.

Heh. The confirmation bias is astonishing. She's actually resorted to intentionally seeking out only information that will support her preconceived notions, rejecting any contrary information.

lol - you're funny - you cant possibly know what i think because i haven't said a word - it doesn't take rocket science to find a funny picture to match a comment made by someone else

I don't believe I said a word about what you think. I'm confused.

mommabenefield

Could I ask you something? Don't mean to be nosy, but I was wondering if you ate much sugar growing up?

Here we go again. Obesity is caused by SUGAR! Of course.

Mulberry you've solved it all. It's all just sugar. Calories are irrelevant, sugar is what matters.

You found your little pet scapegoat/demon and man you won't let go for anything. You've made up your mind! Everything is sugar.

Good god.

Heh. The confirmation bias is astonishing. She's actually resorted to intentionally seeking out only information that will support her preconceived notions, rejecting any contrary information.

lol - you're funny - you cant possibly know what i think because i haven't said a word - it doesn't take rocket science to find a funny picture to match a comment made by someone else

I don't believe I said a word about what you think. I'm confused.

Yea my mistake you can ignore what i said :flowerforyou: I keep forgetting there's another "she" everyone is referring too

Sarauk2sf

Okay so I have no idea how this thread spun off to what it has become.

But regarding the original post.
Isn't the calories required to digest food pretty much calculated into our BMR ? I thought BMR was the calories we burned doing basic activities (breathing, eating, digesting, growing, repairing). So isn't it silly to try and recalculate those again, even if to save a few calories?

Its included in your TDEE

SanteMulberry

should i even comment??..

here i go.

i am #team i believe a calorie isn't a calorie. i am a pear shaped girl and suffer from pcos. i have diabetes in my family. notice that when i eat more carbs i store fat (even when i am active). when I minimize my carbs and stick to healthy fats and protein... i can eat AS much as i want and still lose weight easily.

i cant believe people believe in this calorie in calorie out thing. only americans obsess with this and look at how fat we are.

You gain more weight when eating more carbs because you're eating more calories.

Calories in vs calories out is a biochemical fact.

I think you're at danger of confusing correlation and causation. Yes, if one gains weight, one will be taking in more calories than they use. That goes without saying. But what the law of thermodynamics doesn't infer (especially as it relates to this particular dietary concern) is causality.

You are saying that she is intaking a ton of food, so her body is storing the excess as fat.

Another valid way to interpret the situation, albeit a bit more complicated way, is as follows:
Her body is not good at processing carbohydrates and utilizing glucose as energy (due to insulin resistance, PCOS, or several other disease states). So her blood sugar is high after she eats carbohydrates. The body is not getting the same energy bump from carbs that a person who normally processes carbs would get -- so what does the body do? Tells you you're still hungry, because you haven't met your energy needs yet. So you eat more. By the time your insulin production catches up and gets your body the energy it needs, you have all this "extra". That gets stored as fat. When it comes time to "exercise it off", her body resists fat oxidation, again due to the insulin resistance issues.

In the one explanation, she's a lazy glutton that could lose weight if only she could stop stuffing her face with Doritos.
In the other explanation, her body functions in a way that makes her predisposed to adipose tissue gain, and makes the conventional "eat less, exercise more" paradigm almost guaranteed to not work for her -- her body is telling her she's still hungry when she eats "normally", so restricting food and upping exercise (something that will generally signal her to intake more) is extremely difficult to do. Maintainability, in my eyes, should be a focus of any dietary restriction. If you're losing weight, but hating life, what's the point?

The low carb high fat answer is a response specifically to scenario two. It seems like it works for her. I know, at similar caloric levels, I feel significantly better on LCHF than I did on low fat restricted calorie diets, and I lose weight significantly more easily.

And I would totally concur with this. I eat significantly more calories now than I did before when I was eating a lower protein/high carb/low fat diet. Then I was maintaining my weight (but was suffering a significant loss of muscle mass and fat gain all the while). And I feel a LOT better on 50% fat, 30% protein and 20% carbohydrate (although, on my heavier exercise days, I have trouble eating enough protein and fat to make those levels).

SanteMulberry

There is no such thing as organic /non-chemical laden ice cream.

Milk.

Egg.

Cream.

Sugar to taste.

Vanilla.


Make custard, allow to cool, put in tub, put in freezer. Take out a couple of times and break up with a fork and return to freezer. Plenty of that calcium, protein and fat, as well as some sugar. Separate it into individual small portions and freeze separately.

Yes--IF I wanted to eat ice cream, that is what I would do. My husband makes "ice cream" out of bananas all the time (he has a dairy allergy and has never had a weight problem). But, I have never seen any type of store-bought ice cream that has no chemical additives (but then, I admit that I haven't looked especially hard).

jonnythan

There is no such thing as organic /non-chemical laden ice cream.

Milk.

Egg.

Cream.

Sugar to taste.

Vanilla.


Make custard, allow to cool, put in tub, put in freezer. Take out a couple of times and break up with a fork and return to freezer. Plenty of that calcium, protein and fat, as well as some sugar. Separate it into individual small portions and freeze separately.

Yes--IF I wanted to eat ice cream, that is what I would do. My husband makes "ice cream" out of bananas all the time (he has a dairy allergy and has never had a weight problem). But, I have never seen any type of store-bought ice cream that has no chemical additives (but then, I admit that I haven't looked especially hard).

As if you'd eat any food that included "the devil himself" in the ingredient list. I mean, "sugar."

SanteMulberry

Could I ask you something? Don't mean to be nosy, but I was wondering if you ate much sugar growing up?

Here we go again. Obesity is caused by SUGAR! Of course.

Mulberry you've solved it all. It's all just sugar. Calories are irrelevant, sugar is what matters.

You found your little pet scapegoat/demon and man you won't let go for anything. You've made up your mind! Everything is sugar.

Good god.

I was not addressing you, Jonny.

ETA: And by the way, He IS good!

etoiles_argentees

I ate spoonfuls of sugar growing up.

* and Betty Crocker straight from the can.

jonnythan

I ate spoonfuls of sugar growing up.

That's why you were fat!

Oh, wait....

LiftAllThePizzas

SanteMulberry

I ate spoonfuls of sugar growing up.

* and Betty Crocker straight from the can.

I have known thin folks who ate a LOT of sugar--apparently their bio-chemistry could tolerate it (some people lack fructokinase and cannot even digest table sugar or fructose). But what has that to do with anything?

mommabenefield

There is no such thing as organic /non-chemical laden ice cream.

Milk.

Egg.

Cream.

Sugar to taste.

Vanilla.


Make custard, allow to cool, put in tub, put in freezer. Take out a couple of times and break up with a fork and return to freezer. Plenty of that calcium, protein and fat, as well as some sugar. Separate it into individual small portions and freeze separately.

Yes--IF I wanted to eat ice cream, that is what I would do. My husband makes "ice cream" out of bananas all the time (he has a dairy allergy and has never had a weight problem). But, I have never seen any type of store-bought ice cream that has no chemical additives (but then, I admit that I haven't looked especially hard).

As if you'd eat any food that included "the devil himself" in the ingredient list. I mean, "sugar."

rrsuthy

My ex is an alcoholic and he's about 125lbs overweight. He eats a lot of crap (chips, etc.). When he tries to stop drinking, his body craves sweets and he turns to ice cream. Before he was an alcoholic, he rarely ate sweets of any kind.

jofjltncb6

I ate spoonfuls of sugar growing up.

* and Betty Crocker straight from the can.

I have known thin folks who ate a LOT of sugar--apparently their bio-chemistry could tolerate it (some people lack fructokinase and cannot even digest table sugar or fructose). But what has that to do with anything?

I would think not being able to digest something...(and especially something as common as that)...would actually have reduced weight since the calories wouldn't be available for utilization/storage.

jonnythan

I ate spoonfuls of sugar growing up.

* and Betty Crocker straight from the can.

I have known thin folks who ate a LOT of sugar--apparently their bio-chemistry could tolerate it (some people lack fructokinase and cannot even digest table sugar or fructose). But what has that to do with anything?

It's not that their body can "tolerate" the sugar. It's that they're not consuming more calories than they burn.

etoiles_argentees

I ate spoonfuls of sugar growing up.

That's why you were fat!

Oh, wait....

mmmhmmm... you're still getting bitten! :devil:

SanteMulberry

My ex is an alcoholic and he's about 125lbs overweight. He eats a lot of crap (chips, etc.). When he tries to stop drinking, his body craves sweets and he turns to ice cream. Before he was an alcoholic, he rarely ate sweets of any kind.

Interesting. I know several recovering alcoholics who are now addicted to sweets as well. I guess it makes sense, in that alcohol (along with sugar alcohols like maltitol, xylitol, sorbitol, etc.) are processed in the liver in ways that are very similar to the way that fructose and the fructose portion of sucrose (sucrose is 50% fructose) is processed.

mommabenefield