"Why the Calorie is Broken" - Ars Technica

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  • robertw486
    robertw486 Posts: 2,399 Member
    It's always been an estimate, with overall diet composition on many levels, as well as food timing and other factors, having influence. But really it all comes down to the energy balance and feedback loops. I think the changes to really "fool" anyone would have to be going to extremes of diet and eating habits, something most of us don't do often.

    If it was exacting, weight loss would be linear. Even if we could keep the calories and balanced exact, we would have no exacting info on hormone balances, the out part of the CICO equation, or for that matter even water weight and glycogen stores.

    I don't want to live in a pod that measures all those things, so for now the scale is king. Adjust from there.
  • Downwinds
    Downwinds Posts: 15 Member
    I can't get myself to believe in this. Energy as a unit can't just appear or disappear, and calories are a unit of energy. Sure not the standard unit (joules) but a unit all the same. Each calorie contains the same amount of energy. Fact.

    Now I'm not sure how this could possibly mean certain ones are 'good' or 'bad' for weight loss. Sure there are calorie-dense foods and nutrient-dense foods, and vice-versa. Gettning a lot of nutrients for your calories is clearly a good thing health-wise, but still is the same amount of energy as something of equal calories but without the nutrients...

    Sorry, I have a tendancy to make sense of stuff in a science-y way in my head to understand it. But I can't get how this article is telling any proper truth. Also I'll be honest I don't *want* it to be true because it's just another excuse for not being able to lose weight. I want to be able to lose weight if I follow the simple rules about energy in/out...
  • robertw486
    robertw486 Posts: 2,399 Member
    Downwinds wrote: »
    I can't get myself to believe in this. Energy as a unit can't just appear or disappear, and calories are a unit of energy. Sure not the standard unit (joules) but a unit all the same. Each calorie contains the same amount of energy. Fact.

    Now I'm not sure how this could possibly mean certain ones are 'good' or 'bad' for weight loss. Sure there are calorie-dense foods and nutrient-dense foods, and vice-versa. Gettning a lot of nutrients for your calories is clearly a good thing health-wise, but still is the same amount of energy as something of equal calories but without the nutrients...

    Sorry, I have a tendancy to make sense of stuff in a science-y way in my head to understand it. But I can't get how this article is telling any proper truth. Also I'll be honest I don't *want* it to be true because it's just another excuse for not being able to lose weight. I want to be able to lose weight if I follow the simple rules about energy in/out...

    It's true. A human body is not a bomb calorimeter. Not to say that the differences are so large to prevent people from losing weight, but enough that various differences in the diets can affect exactly how much of the substances are absorbed, and how much pass through the body. As such, the energy doesn't disappear, it simply is not used and passes through the body at greater levels at times.

    If you Google the Atwater Factors it explains how they came up with the standards used on labels and such, though now some things are changing. But even if we used meat proteins, things as small as how well you chew the meat before swallowing, how much fiber you ate with that meal, etc can all make for small changes. Energy balance always exists, it just exists in a more complex state than it seems.

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