A Calorie REALLY ISN'T a Calorie
Replies
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"...I think that this one line perfectly captures everything irrational about your posts: you are so bizarrely and irrationally anti-carb, you simply read "carbs" as "excess calories" or something..."
I have explained my position on this to you before, Jonnythan. I simply cannot "afford" empty carbs in my calorie allotment if I am to stay healthy. I fail to see how that is such a difficult concept for you. In order to get proper nutrition, I must cut all non-nutritive calories. Now does THIS finally make sense to you or should I just give up?0 -
Whilst TEF is generally not worth worrying about the point David Despain makes in the article I linked is an excellent one - you are more likely to get at the higher end of the maximum deliverable calories as shown on a food label etc the more processing the food has undergone.
Therefore a whole food, minimally "processed" diet is more likely to deliver less calories than a diet higher in junk food although they may have both been calculated as say 2,000 calories or whatever the target figure is by the individual based on food labels etc.
As a result there is a greater buffer against miscalculation and you have to be more careful the more processed foods you are consuming to ensure preserving your deficit.
Now someone pass me the steak tartare...
This is the food lifestyle philosophy that I follow. When I eat whole, minimally processed foods, I lose weight almost effortlessly. When I eat easy to digest, overly processed, pre-prepared foods, I gain weight very easily.
Also, if I eat overly processed foods, I do not feel or look my best.
I don't give a fig if there are studies out there to prove or disprove the effectiveness of primarily eating whole foods for fitness and health. I use my own body as my lab and I see the results, which is proof enough for me to convince me to keep doing what I am doing.
I do find it amusing whenever the discussions here go to processed foods, and most of us know that what is being referred to is junky foods like bologna, hot dogs, chips, pillowy white bready items, etc... folks have to get all nit-picky about "All food is processed in some way, unless you are eating it raw and not washing, or peeling, or chopping it before eating it." We all know full well what most folks are referring to when they say "processed foods."
^^^THIS^^^ It is important to point out to the Pop-Tart crowd that, while they, like Jonnythan might be burning LOTS of calories by playing tennis or weight-lifting or whatever, many others are incapable of burning calories at that rate because of disability. Those who have been conditioned to "hyper-eat" (in Kessler's terminology) and are seriously obese, often can not even walk around the block, let alone burn calories playing tennis. It is necessary for them to avoid the foods that they have been conditioned to "hyper-eat" in order to recover from what is a very serious illness. Once they recover from their addiction, and drastically reduce their weight, likely some of them will be able to indulge in eating some empty foods again, provided they maintain a strict hand on it and are dedicated exercisers. Otherwise, they will find themselves right back in the mess that they escaped. I know so many seriously obese people who have fallen off the wagon, not because they just could no longer control themselves and ate what they knew they shouldn't, but, instead, convinced themselves that a "few cookies won't wreck my diet--I'll just stay in my calorie allotment." Three packages of cookies later, just like the alcoholic surveying the empty bottles on "the day after", they beat themselves up and figure they might as well give up and give in to their addiction. If they had the willpower to resist eating excessive amounts of those foods, they would have done so a long time ago. Abstinence is the best course for most people who are seriously obese.
I have a serious problem with you using such a broad brush to paint people as so pathetically lacking willpower that they need you to scare them away from "processed" food for their own good.
If people don't want to eat certain things, fine. But trying to convince everyone that certain things are automatically bad, when they are not, because they're all just so pathetic and helpless they can't help but binge on them, is stupid.
Ahh--a new tactic born of desperation! What is pathetic is the stubborn defense of food that was deliberately engineered to trap people into overeating it. Would you insist that crack cocaine "is part of a normal healthy lifestyle" and that anyone who questions it is just trying to "demonize it" and that anyone who warns kids about its dangers is attempting to "scare them away from it for their own good". Your line of reasoning would only make sense if you owned stock in or worked for a big food conglomerate. I cannot imagine another reason for it being so important to you that you keep insisting that everyone must eat junk food or risk out-of-control eating on one hand and then accuse others, who advise against eating junk food, of judging those same people to be "pathetically lacking in willpower". You are the one who implied that they must inevitably succumb to the lures of junk food. I find that laughably inconsistent.
Yea you sound like you would be aroundthemulberrybush's brother.
lol @ pinning the blame on processed foods. Yes processed foods have crap satiety. but it wasnt meant to overeat or trap them. nothing is addicting and the evidence against it is crap.
We are not in a world of blind consumption anymore. We know what calories are and we can measure them. If you cant control your caloric intake and "get trapped" then it becomes survival of the fittest and you already lost
Even those CREATING the junk foods have admitted to formulating them in a way that makes them hard to stop eating (or thinking about) by intentionally using what they know about our brains' reward centers.
This is what humans have been doing for millennia to food. We add foods to other foods, spices to other foods, heat and flame to foods to make tem taste better. Just because a company does it in the modern era does not suddenly make that age old process evil, malicious or dastardly. Are master chefs evil because they've learned and perfected how to create food masterpieces in the exact same way? The level of tin foil hattery in this thread is getting ridiculous.
I think the difference would be adding food, spices...etc. rather than chemicals.
I am beginning to think that people truly don't understand that taking a piece of raw meat or raw vegetables and seasoning with herbs and spices, maybe some type of sea salt and pepper is VERY DIFFERENT from the companies that MANUFACTURE food in a factory.
For some reason they think it is all created equal and it is not.0 -
A calorie may or may not be a calorie, but a person avoiding (even unnecessarily) fast food or very processed foods isn't an eating disorder, at least not as defined by the DSM. Something people often forget when discussing diagnoses is that there must be clinical (significant) impairment in some kind of functioning (essentially causing real harm in a person's life.) If a person unnecessarily avoids fast food, it's an inconvenience he or she is bringing on himself. If a person avoids these foods and suffers emotional anguish or is terrified of social gatherings because of it, then we are talking disordered, possibly something like EDNOS. (I say possibly because it could be more caused by some other disorder.)
I eat my food in less than 15 minutes. Tyson Diced Grilled Chicken / Rotisserie from the supermarket + steamers. Done. I don't cook, just use my microwave. No excuses these days for anyone to not eat healthy. If you look carefully you can find convenient healthy food.
OMG, do you really think that packaged or supermarket rotisserie chicken is eating healthy?????
I can't wait for you to tell us why it's not.0 -
"...I think that this one line perfectly captures everything irrational about your posts: you are so bizarrely and irrationally anti-carb, you simply read "carbs" as "excess calories" or something..."
I have explained my position on this to you before, Jonnythan. I simply cannot "afford" empty carbs in my calorie allotment if I am to stay healthy. I fail to see how that is such a difficult concept for you. In order to get proper nutrition, I must cut all non-nutritive calories. Now does THIS finally make sense to you or should I just give up?
I would give up.................They seem to think that calories means everything, when in turn calories really mean nothing.
When you are eating for health and well being, calories don't mean jack crap. It is the quality of the food that means something, not the quantity in an arbitrary number.
You know this already............too bad others are stuck in their old, outdated mindset.0 -
I simply cannot "afford" empty carbs in my calorie allotment if I am to stay healthy.
Total nonsense.
Open your diary, and let's talk about the calories you can "afford."
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"...I think that this one line perfectly captures everything irrational about your posts: you are so bizarrely and irrationally anti-carb, you simply read "carbs" as "excess calories" or something..."
I have explained my position on this to you before, Jonnythan. I simply cannot "afford" empty carbs in my calorie allotment if I am to stay healthy. I fail to see how that is such a difficult concept for you. In order to get proper nutrition, I must cut all non-nutritive calories. Now does THIS finally make sense to you or should I just give up?
I would give up.................They seem to think that calories means everything, when in turn calories really mean nothing.
When you are eating for health and well being, calories don't mean jack crap. It is the quality of the food that means something, not the quantity in an arbitrary number.
You know this already............too bad others are stuck in their old, outdated mindset.
LOL, so if someone is obese and just switched to "healthy" foods, but kept caloric intake the exact same, they'd be healthier? Oddly enough blood markers of health tend to improve from weight loss regardless of what foods were eaten, weight loss requires a calorie deficit0 -
OMG, do you really think that packaged or supermarket rotisserie chicken is eating healthy?????
I can't wait for you to tell us why it's not.
No, really. Why do you see rotisserie chicken as unhealthy?
Fat in the dark meat? <gasp!>0 -
I simply cannot "afford" empty carbs in my calorie allotment if I am to stay healthy.
Total nonsense.
Open your diary, and let's talk about the calories you can "afford."
How is it total nonsense. You don't know his / her health status.
You are so ridiculous it is pathetic. Just because you believe in following an arbitrary number to "lose weight" and don't give a heck about your health and well being in regards to proper nutrition, doesn't mean that other people don't.
Why don't you just leave this poster alone. It is bordering on just plain harrasment now.0 -
Whilst TEF is generally not worth worrying about the point David Despain makes in the article I linked is an excellent one - you are more likely to get at the higher end of the maximum deliverable calories as shown on a food label etc the more processing the food has undergone.
Therefore a whole food, minimally "processed" diet is more likely to deliver less calories than a diet higher in junk food although they may have both been calculated as say 2,000 calories or whatever the target figure is by the individual based on food labels etc.
As a result there is a greater buffer against miscalculation and you have to be more careful the more processed foods you are consuming to ensure preserving your deficit.
Now someone pass me the steak tartare...
This is the food lifestyle philosophy that I follow. When I eat whole, minimally processed foods, I lose weight almost effortlessly. When I eat easy to digest, overly processed, pre-prepared foods, I gain weight very easily.
Also, if I eat overly processed foods, I do not feel or look my best.
I don't give a fig if there are studies out there to prove or disprove the effectiveness of primarily eating whole foods for fitness and health. I use my own body as my lab and I see the results, which is proof enough for me to convince me to keep doing what I am doing.
I do find it amusing whenever the discussions here go to processed foods, and most of us know that what is being referred to is junky foods like bologna, hot dogs, chips, pillowy white bready items, etc... folks have to get all nit-picky about "All food is processed in some way, unless you are eating it raw and not washing, or peeling, or chopping it before eating it." We all know full well what most folks are referring to when they say "processed foods."
^^^THIS^^^ It is important to point out to the Pop-Tart crowd that, while they, like Jonnythan might be burning LOTS of calories by playing tennis or weight-lifting or whatever, many others are incapable of burning calories at that rate because of disability. Those who have been conditioned to "hyper-eat" (in Kessler's terminology) and are seriously obese, often can not even walk around the block, let alone burn calories playing tennis. It is necessary for them to avoid the foods that they have been conditioned to "hyper-eat" in order to recover from what is a very serious illness. Once they recover from their addiction, and drastically reduce their weight, likely some of them will be able to indulge in eating some empty foods again, provided they maintain a strict hand on it and are dedicated exercisers. Otherwise, they will find themselves right back in the mess that they escaped. I know so many seriously obese people who have fallen off the wagon, not because they just could no longer control themselves and ate what they knew they shouldn't, but, instead, convinced themselves that a "few cookies won't wreck my diet--I'll just stay in my calorie allotment." Three packages of cookies later, just like the alcoholic surveying the empty bottles on "the day after", they beat themselves up and figure they might as well give up and give in to their addiction. If they had the willpower to resist eating excessive amounts of those foods, they would have done so a long time ago. Abstinence is the best course for most people who are seriously obese.
I have a serious problem with you using such a broad brush to paint people as so pathetically lacking willpower that they need you to scare them away from "processed" food for their own good.
If people don't want to eat certain things, fine. But trying to convince everyone that certain things are automatically bad, when they are not, because they're all just so pathetic and helpless they can't help but binge on them, is stupid.
Ahh--a new tactic born of desperation! What is pathetic is the stubborn defense of food that was deliberately engineered to trap people into overeating it. Would you insist that crack cocaine "is part of a normal healthy lifestyle" and that anyone who questions it is just trying to "demonize it" and that anyone who warns kids about its dangers is attempting to "scare them away from it for their own good". Your line of reasoning would only make sense if you owned stock in or worked for a big food conglomerate. I cannot imagine another reason for it being so important to you that you keep insisting that everyone must eat junk food or risk out-of-control eating on one hand and then accuse others, who advise against eating junk food, of judging those same people to be "pathetically lacking in willpower". You are the one who implied that they must inevitably succumb to the lures of junk food. I find that laughably inconsistent.
Yea you sound like you would be aroundthemulberrybush's brother.
lol @ pinning the blame on processed foods. Yes processed foods have crap satiety. but it wasnt meant to overeat or trap them. nothing is addicting and the evidence against it is crap.
We are not in a world of blind consumption anymore. We know what calories are and we can measure them. If you cant control your caloric intake and "get trapped" then it becomes survival of the fittest and you already lost
Even those CREATING the junk foods have admitted to formulating them in a way that makes them hard to stop eating (or thinking about) by intentionally using what they know about our brains' reward centers.
This is what humans have been doing for millennia to food. We add foods to other foods, spices to other foods, heat and flame to foods to make tem taste better. Just because a company does it in the modern era does not suddenly make that age old process evil, malicious or dastardly. Are master chefs evil because they've learned and perfected how to create food masterpieces in the exact same way? The level of tin foil hattery in this thread is getting ridiculous.
I think the difference would be adding food, spices...etc. rather than chemicals.
ETA: But, that's not what this thread/the link are about.
LOLLERCOASTER, can you name these chemical free spices etc?0 -
OMG, do you really think that packaged or supermarket rotisserie chicken is eating healthy?????
I can't wait for you to tell us why it's not.
No, really. Why do you see rotisserie chicken as unhealthy?
Fat in the dark meat? <gasp!>
First of all, grocery store chickens come from factory farms...........this means that they have been confined, fed vegetarian and heavy soy diets (which chickens are NOT vegetarians) and the meat and skin is full of Omega 6 which causes the imbalances which lead to inflammation.
Also, these rotisserie chickens are also pumped full of vegetable oils, sugary marinades and crap which is not healthy either.
I do not eat any grocery store meats and I rarely eat out anymore. There are a handful of restaurants in St Louis that cater to the Farm to Table and serve local and in season foods on their menu, these are the restaurants I will eat at.
I haven't stepped foot in a grocery store to purchase FOOD items in over 2 years now.0 -
It must be nice to be in a position to only eat completely 'healthy' foods while the rest of the peons eat a terrible diet that apparently will be causing all sorts of health problems.
ETA: I wonder what health markers would be like if you compared a significantly overweight person that only ate totally 'healthy' according to some extreme definition v a healthy weight person who ate a balanced diet with a variety of foods but ate some mass produced foods or non-organic produce.0 -
I haven't stepped foot in a grocery store to purchase FOOD items in over 2 years now.
And yet you're the one that has a spouse that currently has some sort of serious food-related disorder. Hmm.0 -
"...I think that this one line perfectly captures everything irrational about your posts: you are so bizarrely and irrationally anti-carb, you simply read "carbs" as "excess calories" or something..."
I have explained my position on this to you before, Jonnythan. I simply cannot "afford" empty carbs in my calorie allotment if I am to stay healthy. I fail to see how that is such a difficult concept for you. In order to get proper nutrition, I must cut all non-nutritive calories. Now does THIS finally make sense to you or should I just give up?
I would give up.................They seem to think that calories means everything, when in turn calories really mean nothing.
When you are eating for health and well being, calories don't mean jack crap. It is the quality of the food that means something, not the quantity in an arbitrary number.
You know this already............too bad others are stuck in their old, outdated mindset.
LOL, so if someone is obese and just switched to "healthy" foods, but kept caloric intake the exact same, they'd be healthier? Oddly enough blood markers of health tend to improve from weight loss regardless of what foods were eaten, weight loss requires a calorie deficit
Once again, here you are to just argue proving no point.
You know as well as I do that simple blood markers are not the only indication of good health. But you are trying to argue, so you make a stupid comment.0 -
A calorie may or may not be a calorie, but a person avoiding (even unnecessarily) fast food or very processed foods isn't an eating disorder, at least not as defined by the DSM. Something people often forget when discussing diagnoses is that there must be clinical (significant) impairment in some kind of functioning (essentially causing real harm in a person's life.) If a person unnecessarily avoids fast food, it's an inconvenience he or she is bringing on himself. If a person avoids these foods and suffers emotional anguish or is terrified of social gatherings because of it, then we are talking disordered, possibly something like EDNOS. (I say possibly because it could be more caused by some other disorder.)
I eat my food in less than 15 minutes. Tyson Diced Grilled Chicken / Rotisserie from the supermarket + steamers. Done. I don't cook, just use my microwave. No excuses these days for anyone to not eat healthy. If you look carefully you can find convenient healthy food.
OMG, do you really think that packaged or supermarket rotisserie chicken is eating healthy?????
OMG, do you really think that a supermarket rotisserie chicken is unhealthy?
Yes, it is known that pre-cooked foods from a supermarket deli are NOT healthy and rather disgusting.
Factory farmed chickens that are pumped full of god knows what..........I am getting nauseous just thinking about it.0 -
You know as well as I do that simple blood markers are not the only indication of good health. But you are trying to argue, so you make a stupid comment.
Well let's talk about other indications of good health. Want to list some for us, and tell us how to use those markers to determine whether we're healthy or not?0 -
A calorie may or may not be a calorie, but a person avoiding (even unnecessarily) fast food or very processed foods isn't an eating disorder, at least not as defined by the DSM. Something people often forget when discussing diagnoses is that there must be clinical (significant) impairment in some kind of functioning (essentially causing real harm in a person's life.) If a person unnecessarily avoids fast food, it's an inconvenience he or she is bringing on himself. If a person avoids these foods and suffers emotional anguish or is terrified of social gatherings because of it, then we are talking disordered, possibly something like EDNOS. (I say possibly because it could be more caused by some other disorder.)
I eat my food in less than 15 minutes. Tyson Diced Grilled Chicken / Rotisserie from the supermarket + steamers. Done. I don't cook, just use my microwave. No excuses these days for anyone to not eat healthy. If you look carefully you can find convenient healthy food.
OMG, do you really think that packaged or supermarket rotisserie chicken is eating healthy?????
OMG, do you really think that a supermarket rotisserie chicken is unhealthy?
Yes, it is known that pre-cooked foods from a supermarket deli are NOT healthy and rather disgusting.
Factory farmed chickens that are pumped full of god knows what..........I am getting nauseous just thinking about it.
Nice for you to be on that pedestal - maybe vertigo is causing the nausea.0 -
I do not eat any grocery store meats and I rarely eat out anymore. There are a handful of restaurants in St Louis that cater to the Farm to Table and serve local and in season foods on their menu, these are the restaurants I will eat at.
I haven't stepped foot in a grocery store to purchase FOOD items in over 2 years now.
That sounds exhausting. What do you buy at the grocery store if not food? Also, what exactly can you link to be the benefit of the strict farm to table?
Paleolithic people also had cancer and tumors that we see in our modern lifestyle?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130605-neandertal-neanderthal-bone-tumor-penn-croatia-science/0 -
"...I think that this one line perfectly captures everything irrational about your posts: you are so bizarrely and irrationally anti-carb, you simply read "carbs" as "excess calories" or something..."
I have explained my position on this to you before, Jonnythan. I simply cannot "afford" empty carbs in my calorie allotment if I am to stay healthy. I fail to see how that is such a difficult concept for you. In order to get proper nutrition, I must cut all non-nutritive calories. Now does THIS finally make sense to you or should I just give up?
I would give up.................They seem to think that calories means everything, when in turn calories really mean nothing.
When you are eating for health and well being, calories don't mean jack crap. It is the quality of the food that means something, not the quantity in an arbitrary number.
You know this already............too bad others are stuck in their old, outdated mindset.
LOL, so if someone is obese and just switched to "healthy" foods, but kept caloric intake the exact same, they'd be healthier? Oddly enough blood markers of health tend to improve from weight loss regardless of what foods were eaten, weight loss requires a calorie deficit
Once again, here you are to just argue proving no point.
You know as well as I do that simple blood markers are not the only indication of good health. But you are trying to argue, so you make a stupid comment.
So if "calories don't mean jack crap" just the nutrient density of the foods, then you could eat unlimited amounts of said foods and you'd be "healthy"? So who is the one making stupid comments?Yes, it is known that pre-cooked foods from a supermarket deli are NOT healthy and rather disgusting.
Factory farmed chickens that are pumped full of god knows what..........I am getting nauseous just thinking about it.
My supermarket deli has jamon serrano, prosciutto di parma and many other non disgusting pre cooked foods. As for not healthy, read the studies that correlate it with negative health consequences and pay attention to intake.0 -
You know as well as I do that simple blood markers are not the only indication of good health. But you are trying to argue, so you make a stupid comment.
Just looked at your posting history. I'm not sure you're in any position to be telling us all how unhealthy we are.0 -
Why do people invest so much emotion and energy into these discussions? It always ends up like this: A bunch of monkeys flinging poop at each other and running in circles trying to screech louder than all the other monkeys. Just sayin'.
^^^^ this!!!
LOL0 -
It must be nice to be in a position to only eat completely 'healthy' foods while the rest of the peons eat a terrible diet that apparently will be causing all sorts of health problems.
ETA: I wonder what health markers would be like if you compared a significantly overweight person that only ate totally 'healthy' according to some extreme definition v a healthy weight person who ate a balanced diet with a variety of foods but ate some mass produced foods or non-organic produce.
When I was a kid we lived on a farm and grew our own vegetables (even made our own cleaning products, lotions, ect). We lived out in the country where there was no fast food, my brother and I only had McDonalds on special occasions (maybe twice a year). Despite growing and preparing our own food I was still obese and sick. By high school I was almost 300 pounds and on several meds including high bp medicine, depression medicine, pain medicine, and I was bordering on high cholesterol. So my markers were horrible. I was going through health issues of a middle aged women. Now I eat IIFYM. I have lost weight, lowered my body fat %, I no longer take any daily medications ( my bp actually tends to run low now), and my cholesterol levels are back to healthy levels.
I ate to many calories, plain and simple. It didn't matter that it was all unprocessed healthy meats and veggies. I ate too much, I got fat and I was still sick.0 -
It must be nice to be in a position to only eat completely 'healthy' foods while the rest of the peons eat a terrible diet that apparently will be causing all sorts of health problems.
ETA: I wonder what health markers would be like if you compared a significantly overweight person that only ate totally 'healthy' according to some extreme definition v a healthy weight person who ate a balanced diet with a variety of foods but ate some mass produced foods or non-organic produce.
When I was a kid we lived on a farm and grew our own vegetables (even made our own cleaning products, lotions, ect). We lived out in the country where there was no fast food, my brother and I only had McDonalds on special occasions (maybe twice a year). Despite growing and preparing our own food I was still obese and sick. By high school I was almost 300 pounds and on several meds including high bp medicine, depression medicine, pain medicine, and I was bordering on high cholesterol. So my markers were horrible. I was going through health issues of a middle aged women. Now I eat IIFYM. I have lost weight, lowered my body fat %, I no longer take any daily medications ( my bp actually tends to run low now), and my cholesterol levels are back to healthy levels.
I ate to many calories, plain and simple. It didn't matter that it was all unprocessed healthy meats and veggies. I ate too much, I got fat and I was still sick.
0 -
It must be nice to be in a position to only eat completely 'healthy' foods while the rest of the peons eat a terrible diet that apparently will be causing all sorts of health problems.
ETA: I wonder what health markers would be like if you compared a significantly overweight person that only ate totally 'healthy' according to some extreme definition v a healthy weight person who ate a balanced diet with a variety of foods but ate some mass produced foods or non-organic produce.
When I was a kid we lived on a farm and grew our own vegetables (even made our own cleaning products, lotions, ect). We lived out in the country where there was no fast food, my brother and I only had McDonalds on special occasions (maybe twice a year). Despite growing and preparing our own food I was still obese and sick. By high school I was almost 300 pounds and on several meds including high bp medicine, depression medicine, pain medicine, and I was bordering on high cholesterol. So my markers were horrible. I was going through health issues of a middle aged women. Now I eat IIFYM. I have lost weight, lowered my body fat %, I no longer take any daily medications ( my bp actually tends to run low now), and my cholesterol levels are back to healthy levels.
I ate to many calories, plain and simple. It didn't matter that it was all unprocessed healthy meats and veggies. I ate too much, I got fat and I was still sick.
Congratulations on your weight loss. That is fantastic.0 -
It must be nice to be in a position to only eat completely 'healthy' foods while the rest of the peons eat a terrible diet that apparently will be causing all sorts of health problems.
ETA: I wonder what health markers would be like if you compared a significantly overweight person that only ate totally 'healthy' according to some extreme definition v a healthy weight person who ate a balanced diet with a variety of foods but ate some mass produced foods or non-organic produce.
When I was a kid we lived on a farm and grew our own vegetables (even made our own cleaning products, lotions, ect). We lived out in the country where there was no fast food, my brother and I only had McDonalds on special occasions (maybe twice a year). Despite growing and preparing our own food I was still obese and sick. By high school I was almost 300 pounds and on several meds including high bp medicine, depression medicine, pain medicine, and I was bordering on high cholesterol. So my markers were horrible. I was going through health issues of a middle aged women. Now I eat IIFYM. I have lost weight, lowered my body fat %, I no longer take any daily medications ( my bp actually tends to run low now), and my cholesterol levels are back to healthy levels.
I ate to many calories, plain and simple. It didn't matter that it was all unprocessed healthy meats and veggies. I ate too much, I got fat and I was still sick.
i think this should just about settle the argument although its been entertaining to follow and read this :flowerforyou:0 -
I might as well wade in on this, though I'm somewhat leery to do so based upon the vitriol that I've been reading. Whatever, I guess, take these as my opinions.
1. Calories In, Calories Out. I think it's obvious that you cannot make energy (stored as fat) where no energy previously existed (taken in). That's logical. However, I think it ignores several things that, for the purposes of diet/weight loss/health enhancement, should factor in. From the mental impact, such as satiety rate, that has an effect on one's ability to maintain one's diet, to the more physical/metabolic, with regard to how your body uses and partitions specific nutrients that are taken in. We like to consider the body a closed system when considering a CICO paradigm (in at the mouth, out as energy), which I think is useful but doesn't consider the fact that our body is a collection of many very complex systems which are affected by the nutrients we take in. The "out" is very difficult to measure in an exact way, because it's always changing.
2. Carbohydrates. As far as carbohydrates go, I think we generally have a range. As an example, take two people. Person A and Person B. Person A has normal fasting glucose levels, and fasting insulin levels around, oh, 10. Person B has normal fasting glucose levels, and fasting insulin levels around 40. Person A has a relatively healthy carboydrate processing system: normal blood glucose, normal insulin needed to keep that blood glucose, etc. Person B shows problems -- it takes four times as much insulin for Person B to maintain a normal blood glucose level as Person A. Person B is insulin resistant and probably likely to develop Type II diabetes at some point.
Now, we know that insulin is secreted in response to your body's attempts to normalize blood glucose after a meal. Now, it's a drastic simplification, but let's assume Person A eats 100g of carbs at a meal, and requires 1000 units of insulin to keep blood glucose normal. Person B eats 100g of carbs, and requires 4000 units of insulin to keep blood glucose normal. Given insulins role in adipose storage, it's going to be more difficult for Person B to achieve the same levels of fat regulation of Person A - specifically, they are going to be more inclined to store the excess glucose as fat. They're less tolerant of carbohydrates than Person A, and the specific dietary recommendations given to both of them should likely differ. Person B may benefit from more carbohydrate restriction, whereas Person A can get by without it.
3. Health versus Weight. I see these terms getting conflated quite a bit, and I think it makes sense to have some common ground on it. I believe most of us can agree that using weight as the determinant factor for health is likely myopic -- you can have very unhealthy slender people. That being said, however, obesity is a very strong correlator with all sorts of disease states: CVD, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's, etc., so being overweight is, generally speaking, "not healthy". So what else do we look at? Commonly, we use cholesterol levels, triglyceride levels, and other assay markers in the blood to determine whether or not our body is working at an optimal rate.
There is danger here, though, in that the science regarding all of these is always changing, and our adoption of a lot of these standards are strongly related to the amount of press each new study gets. For instance, it is the general belief that cholesterol is a strong indicator for CVD. However, studies from well before the current cholesterol recommendations through to today often show that it's actually a very poor indicator -- that many times, low blood serum cholesterol has shown higher correlation to heart disease and sudden cardiac death than high cholesterol. So what do we do?
We make compromises and sacrifices, and we eventually come upon something that we can live with. Then we implement it and see how it works. If it doesn't work, we likely make changes to it, and try again. If it does work, we've hit the jackpot -- clearly we've stumbled upon the ideal way that people should eat. And therein lies the problem.
We feel strongly about what has worked/is working for us, so it's natural to want to extrapolate that out to the scope of public health policy -- "It worked for me, ergo, it will work for everyone." While we are all human, and all process nutrients via the same mechanisms, the devil is in the details. Some people find a high fat diet more satiating, wherein if they went high carb, they'd be ravenously hungry. Other people can't imagine eating 70% fat, because they're concerned that their heart will explode immediately.
Who's right? The better question is, why does it matter? If you've found something that you're comfortable with, that you can live with, and has worked for you, congratulations. I, for one, had tried low fat, calorie restriction, and tons of exercise, and found that I had problems losing weight and felt miserable all the time. On my current diet, which is 70-80% fat, 20-25% protein, and minimal carbohydrate, I have lost weight easily, I eat a normal amount, and I get to exercise because I like it, not because of some compulsive need to do so. For what it's worth, I lose weight at 2000 kcal with this diet significantly more easily than I did with my previous attempts.
Does this mean that my diet is right for you? Not if you think it's unhealthy and will make your heart explode. I may think that your diet isn't ideal, either -- but if it works for you, why should my opinion count? We have a limited amount of time, no matter which way you cut it. Losing 50, 100, 150 pounds is almost guaranteed to make that time longer. So what we're really doing is arguing at the margins -- trying to find an "ideal" for everyone else. I think there is benefit to this, public policy wise (of which I think our current recommendations are probably poor), but not interpersonally. Just be happy for each other if they've found something that works for them.
Besides, I think the multiple camps could probably find some common ground, anyway:
1. Exercising is generally healthy.
2. Eating vegetables is not a bad thing.
3. Self-control is helpful when trying to lose weight.
4. Copious amounts of refined sugar are probably not good for you (I'll leave it to you to define "copious").
Stuff like that. We get too worked up over the minutiae - and trust me, I really like having discussions/debates regarding the science of it, too. When I do that, however, I like to make sure we discuss science, as opposed to "you". Discussing "you" always makes people upset, understandably.
Sorry for the wall of text.0 -
I might as well wade in on this, though I'm somewhat leery to do so based upon the vitriol that I've been reading. Whatever, I guess, take these as my opinions.
1. Calories In, Calories Out. I think it's obvious that you cannot make energy (stored as fat) where no energy previously existed (taken in). That's logical. However, I think it ignores several things that, for the purposes of diet/weight loss/health enhancement, should factor in. From the mental impact, such as satiety rate, that has an effect on one's ability to maintain one's diet, to the more physical/metabolic, with regard to how your body uses and partitions specific nutrients that are taken in. We like to consider the body a closed system when considering a CICO paradigm (in at the mouth, out as energy), which I think is useful but doesn't consider the fact that our body is a collection of many very complex systems which are affected by the nutrients we take in. The "out" is very difficult to measure in an exact way, because it's always changing.
2. Carbohydrates. As far as carbohydrates go, I think we generally have a range. As an example, take two people. Person A and Person B. Person A has normal fasting glucose levels, and fasting insulin levels around, oh, 10. Person B has normal fasting glucose levels, and fasting insulin levels around 40. Person A has a relatively healthy carboydrate processing system: normal blood glucose, normal insulin needed to keep that blood glucose, etc. Person B shows problems -- it takes four times as much insulin for Person B to maintain a normal blood glucose level as Person A. Person B is insulin resistant and probably likely to develop Type II diabetes at some point.
Now, we know that insulin is secreted in response to your body's attempts to normalize blood glucose after a meal. Now, it's a drastic simplification, but let's assume Person A eats 100g of carbs at a meal, and requires 1000 units of insulin to keep blood glucose normal. Person B eats 100g of carbs, and requires 4000 units of insulin to keep blood glucose normal. Given insulins role in adipose storage, it's going to be more difficult for Person B to achieve the same levels of fat regulation of Person A - specifically, they are going to be more inclined to store the excess glucose as fat. They're less tolerant of carbohydrates than Person A, and the specific dietary recommendations given to both of them should likely differ. Person B may benefit from more carbohydrate restriction, whereas Person A can get by without it.
3. Health versus Weight. I see these terms getting conflated quite a bit, and I think it makes sense to have some common ground on it. I believe most of us can agree that using weight as the determinant factor for health is likely myopic -- you can have very unhealthy slender people. That being said, however, obesity is a very strong correlator with all sorts of disease states: CVD, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's, etc., so being overweight is, generally speaking, "not healthy". So what else do we look at? Commonly, we use cholesterol levels, triglyceride levels, and other assay markers in the blood to determine whether or not our body is working at an optimal rate.
There is danger here, though, in that the science regarding all of these is always changing, and our adoption of a lot of these standards are strongly related to the amount of press each new study gets. For instance, it is the general belief that cholesterol is a strong indicator for CVD. However, studies from well before the current cholesterol recommendations through to today often show that it's actually a very poor indicator -- that many times, low blood serum cholesterol has shown higher correlation to heart disease and sudden cardiac death than high cholesterol. So what do we do?
We make compromises and sacrifices, and we eventually come upon something that we can live with. Then we implement it and see how it works. If it doesn't work, we likely make changes to it, and try again. If it does work, we've hit the jackpot -- clearly we've stumbled upon the ideal way that people should eat. And therein lies the problem.
We feel strongly about what has worked/is working for us, so it's natural to want to extrapolate that out to the scope of public health policy -- "It worked for me, ergo, it will work for everyone." While we are all human, and all process nutrients via the same mechanisms, the devil is in the details. Some people find a high fat diet more satiating, wherein if they went high carb, they'd be ravenously hungry. Other people can't imagine eating 70% fat, because they're concerned that their heart will explode immediately.
Who's right? The better question is, why does it matter? If you've found something that you're comfortable with, that you can live with, and has worked for you, congratulations. I, for one, had tried low fat, calorie restriction, and tons of exercise, and found that I had problems losing weight and felt miserable all the time. On my current diet, which is 70-80% fat, 20-25% protein, and minimal carbohydrate, I have lost weight easily, I eat a normal amount, and I get to exercise because I like it, not because of some compulsive need to do so. For what it's worth, I lose weight at 2000 kcal with this diet significantly more easily than I did with my previous attempts.
Does this mean that my diet is right for you? Not if you think it's unhealthy and will make your heart explode. I may think that your diet isn't ideal, either -- but if it works for you, why should my opinion count? We have a limited amount of time, no matter which way you cut it. Losing 50, 100, 150 pounds is almost guaranteed to make that time longer. So what we're really doing is arguing at the margins -- trying to find an "ideal" for everyone else. I think there is benefit to this, public policy wise (of which I think our current recommendations are probably poor), but not interpersonally. Just be happy for each other if they've found something that works for them.
Besides, I think the multiple camps could probably find some common ground, anyway:
1. Exercising is generally healthy.
2. Eating vegetables is not a bad thing.
3. Self-control is helpful when trying to lose weight.
4. Copious amounts of refined sugar are probably not good for you (I'll leave it to you to define "copious").
Stuff like that. We get too worked up over the minutiae - and trust me, I really like having discussions/debates regarding the science of it, too. When I do that, however, I like to make sure we discuss science, as opposed to "you". Discussing "you" always makes people upset, understandably.
Sorry for the wall of text.
I can agree with this. What works for one person may not work for another. And that there are folks that 'know' what's best for everyone, despite different health issues.0 -
I might as well wade in on this, though I'm somewhat leery to do so based upon the vitriol that I've been reading. Whatever, I guess, take these as my opinions.
1. Calories In, Calories Out. I think it's obvious that you cannot make energy (stored as fat) where no energy previously existed (taken in). That's logical. However, I think it ignores several things that, for the purposes of diet/weight loss/health enhancement, should factor in. From the mental impact, such as satiety rate, that has an effect on one's ability to maintain one's diet, to the more physical/metabolic, with regard to how your body uses and partitions specific nutrients that are taken in. We like to consider the body a closed system when considering a CICO paradigm (in at the mouth, out as energy), which I think is useful but doesn't consider the fact that our body is a collection of many very complex systems which are affected by the nutrients we take in. The "out" is very difficult to measure in an exact way, because it's always changing.
2. Carbohydrates. As far as carbohydrates go, I think we generally have a range. As an example, take two people. Person A and Person B. Person A has normal fasting glucose levels, and fasting insulin levels around, oh, 10. Person B has normal fasting glucose levels, and fasting insulin levels around 40. Person A has a relatively healthy carboydrate processing system: normal blood glucose, normal insulin needed to keep that blood glucose, etc. Person B shows problems -- it takes four times as much insulin for Person B to maintain a normal blood glucose level as Person A. Person B is insulin resistant and probably likely to develop Type II diabetes at some point.
Now, we know that insulin is secreted in response to your body's attempts to normalize blood glucose after a meal. Now, it's a drastic simplification, but let's assume Person A eats 100g of carbs at a meal, and requires 1000 units of insulin to keep blood glucose normal. Person B eats 100g of carbs, and requires 4000 units of insulin to keep blood glucose normal. Given insulins role in adipose storage, it's going to be more difficult for Person B to achieve the same levels of fat regulation of Person A - specifically, they are going to be more inclined to store the excess glucose as fat. They're less tolerant of carbohydrates than Person A, and the specific dietary recommendations given to both of them should likely differ. Person B may benefit from more carbohydrate restriction, whereas Person A can get by without it.
3. Health versus Weight. I see these terms getting conflated quite a bit, and I think it makes sense to have some common ground on it. I believe most of us can agree that using weight as the determinant factor for health is likely myopic -- you can have very unhealthy slender people. That being said, however, obesity is a very strong correlator with all sorts of disease states: CVD, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's, etc., so being overweight is, generally speaking, "not healthy". So what else do we look at? Commonly, we use cholesterol levels, triglyceride levels, and other assay markers in the blood to determine whether or not our body is working at an optimal rate.
There is danger here, though, in that the science regarding all of these is always changing, and our adoption of a lot of these standards are strongly related to the amount of press each new study gets. For instance, it is the general belief that cholesterol is a strong indicator for CVD. However, studies from well before the current cholesterol recommendations through to today often show that it's actually a very poor indicator -- that many times, low blood serum cholesterol has shown higher correlation to heart disease and sudden cardiac death than high cholesterol. So what do we do?
We make compromises and sacrifices, and we eventually come upon something that we can live with. Then we implement it and see how it works. If it doesn't work, we likely make changes to it, and try again. If it does work, we've hit the jackpot -- clearly we've stumbled upon the ideal way that people should eat. And therein lies the problem.
We feel strongly about what has worked/is working for us, so it's natural to want to extrapolate that out to the scope of public health policy -- "It worked for me, ergo, it will work for everyone." While we are all human, and all process nutrients via the same mechanisms, the devil is in the details. Some people find a high fat diet more satiating, wherein if they went high carb, they'd be ravenously hungry. Other people can't imagine eating 70% fat, because they're concerned that their heart will explode immediately.
Who's right? The better question is, why does it matter? If you've found something that you're comfortable with, that you can live with, and has worked for you, congratulations. I, for one, had tried low fat, calorie restriction, and tons of exercise, and found that I had problems losing weight and felt miserable all the time. On my current diet, which is 70-80% fat, 20-25% protein, and minimal carbohydrate, I have lost weight easily, I eat a normal amount, and I get to exercise because I like it, not because of some compulsive need to do so. For what it's worth, I lose weight at 2000 kcal with this diet significantly more easily than I did with my previous attempts.
Does this mean that my diet is right for you? Not if you think it's unhealthy and will make your heart explode. I may think that your diet isn't ideal, either -- but if it works for you, why should my opinion count? We have a limited amount of time, no matter which way you cut it. Losing 50, 100, 150 pounds is almost guaranteed to make that time longer. So what we're really doing is arguing at the margins -- trying to find an "ideal" for everyone else. I think there is benefit to this, public policy wise (of which I think our current recommendations are probably poor), but not interpersonally. Just be happy for each other if they've found something that works for them.
Besides, I think the multiple camps could probably find some common ground, anyway:
1. Exercising is generally healthy.
2. Eating vegetables is not a bad thing.
3. Self-control is helpful when trying to lose weight.
4. Copious amounts of refined sugar are probably not good for you (I'll leave it to you to define "copious").
Stuff like that. We get too worked up over the minutiae - and trust me, I really like having discussions/debates regarding the science of it, too. When I do that, however, I like to make sure we discuss science, as opposed to "you". Discussing "you" always makes people upset, understandably.
Sorry for the wall of text.
that's probably one of the most level headed, resonable and intelligent responses i've ever seen to one of these threads lol0 -
Who's right? The better question is, why does it matter? If you've found something that you're comfortable with, that you can live with, and has worked for you, congratulations.
From an excellent post this was the stand out point.0 -
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.0 -
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.0
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