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I Don't Believe in Calorie Counting
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dizzieblondeuk wrote: »
Here's the things I learned after having an Italian best friend living next door, from the age of 6 months to 16 years old (in the UK), and then living with an Italian family, in Italy (working as an au pair), for 8 months when I was 18 years old:MissusMoon wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »There you're wrong. The deserts here in Italy are incredible. They do give you a much smaller portion, but the sugar is there just the same. Chocolates and gelato are also fabulous. The Italians know how to eat well and don't deny themselves anything. Here, there is no talk of grain or sugar lobbies. Everyone just eats smaller portions, and walks alot.
Word. Anyone who has strolled own a street in Italy has seen the bakeries. I can't even think about them without drooling. It's such a ridiculous assertion that they have "better" wheat and don't do sweets.
Sweet treats (i.e. pastries and gelato) are not really part of an Italian meal - they are frequently eaten entirely separately to the normal meals during the day - often in the late afternoon ('La Passeggiata'), where the family would take a long-ish stroll around the fashionable parts of the town/city, meeting friends, chatting, doing a little window shopping, and occasionally having a small tub of gelato, or a pastry.
The fact that Italians eat pasta basically everyday is almost incidental to the fact that the pasta course is a starter/appetiser, and so is appropriately sized. Most of the time, my main meals with the Italian families I knew ended with fruit, or nothing at all - in fact the main meal of the day would frequently be lunch (occasionally antipasti to start, then primo, secondo, followed by fruit with perhaps a cheese course). Evening meals would consequently be lighter - often just soup, a salad, cold meats, with fruit afterwards. Dessert was absolutely an occasional treat - usually weekends, and almost always followed with a walk to aid digestion (and counter the amount eaten). I know for sure that my sugar consumption was pretty damn low during my time in Italy, mostly because they simply don't have the sheer quantity of sugary, pre-prepared snacks that are found in the UK and US. By the way, gelato is made with mostly milk (not just cream, as per most usual ice creams), and I've found gelato usually contains far less sugar than the alternatives (even sorbet). It just tastes creamier because of the way it's made!
It's not that the Italians don't 'do' sweets, they just treat them in a very different way to the average Brit or American. They certainly don't deny themselves great food (heaven forbid!), but everything they eat generally is in much smaller quantities. "A little of what you fancy" could be the Italian food motto!
Yes, exactly. It's not what they eat, it's how they eat.1 -
I am just pointing out we don't have the scientific understanding of the biochemistry of the physical body. There are several books out now discussing this exact topic. I am not sure why people feel the need to defend calorie counting. Yes, calorie counting can work but it is a very small sliver of the equation. Up until now,it is the best we have if wanting to lose weight. Our wheat has been drastically changed due to GMO'S there really isn't any denying it. I really wasn't interested in getting into a big disagreement with anyone. I was just sharing the information I have been studying over the past year. I find it very fascinating but not everyone will. Here are some articles if interested:http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-help-make-us-fat-and-thin/
There are several books out as well.
Fair enough. I agree that the gut bacteria studies are interesting and I'm going to read your link.
You might be right that we don't understand fully the biochemistry of the body. I'm saying that CICO is only about weightloss, the rest of what you mention seems to be all about nutrition. Both are important but not necessarily related. Possibly we agree on this.0 -
I am just pointing out we don't have the scientific understanding of the biochemistry of the physical body. There are several books out now discussing this exact topic. I am not sure why people feel the need to defend calorie counting. Yes, calorie counting can work but it is a very small sliver of the equation. Up until now,it is the best we have if wanting to lose weight. Our wheat has been drastically changed due to GMO'S there really isn't any denying it. I really wasn't interested in getting into a big disagreement with anyone. I was just sharing the information I have been studying over the past year. I find it very fascinating but not everyone will. Here are some articles if interested:http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-help-make-us-fat-and-thin/
There are several books out as well.
Yes, we don't know everything about biochemistry.
However, we know some of the underlying facts which are the main drivers. Some intricacies like gut bacteria are nice and well to read about, but neither practicable for the average Joe, nor making a huge difference in the long run. A bacteria transplant won't suddenly allow you to eat twice as much while staying your weight.
The facts we know are based on the laws of physics at the bottom layer, energy conservation first and foremost. Energy you never put in your body can't become fat.
I don't know which specific law says it but the next part is "Every action requires energy, a perpetuum mobile does not exist." which means that there is an absoulte minimum of energy anything your body does requires, so you will always burn at least that minimum amount of energy.
Those are facts of the universe that are true for everyone, no exceptions.
Then come more detailed things we know based on our actual biology, like metabolic pathways different chemicals take through your body, those are well documented, as well as average bioavailability of calories from different macros (which are not absolutely accurate but still pretty good). We know exactly what happens with a glucose molecule that your body gets out of a food you've eaten, how it gets processed in your body down to the amounts of ATP molecules it ends up getting turned into and how much energy those provide each.
We know a lot more than you're letting on.
There's still lots of things we don't know, but the things we DO know provide us with enough insight to know that in the next few years there won't be a huge breakthrough showing poop transplants can make everyone thin forever.5 -
paulgads82 wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »I wouldn't be that confident about Italy. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/statistics-and-causes-of-the-obesity-epidemic-in-the-UK.aspx
Have you ever been here? Meaning Italy.
Yes but what relevance does that have? You can't argue obesity stats with anecdotes.
Well, your stats are from 2013. Also, I live here and have traveled all over the country, and do not often see an obese person--much less people. When I go home to the States, I am surrounded. Now, either the obese folks in Italy are hiding in their homes, and only come out late at night, or your stats are off. So, yes, I'm arguing your obesity stats. When you were here--what did you see? Just curious. And what area of the country did you visit? That is, if you care to share some ancedotes with us.0 -
snowflake954 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »I wouldn't be that confident about Italy. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/statistics-and-causes-of-the-obesity-epidemic-in-the-UK.aspx
Have you ever been here? Meaning Italy.
Yes but what relevance does that have? You can't argue obesity stats with anecdotes.
Well, your stats are from 2013. Also, I live here and have traveled all over the country, and do not often see an obese person--much less people. When I go home to the States, I am surrounded. Now, either the obese folks in Italy are hiding in their homes, and only come out late at night, or your stats are off. So, yes, I'm arguing your obesity stats. When you were here--what did you see? Just curious. And what area of the country did you visit? That is, if you care to share some ancedotes with us.
The obese in Italy are largely children, according to the EASO's 2015 obesity stats - adult obesity (10%) and childhood obesity (34-36%). Obesity is more prevalent in the south than the north. The stats @paulgads cited looks like it probably combined both adult and childhood obesity into a single stat (ETA: plus, was from a different year/different survey).0 -
snowflake954 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »I wouldn't be that confident about Italy. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/statistics-and-causes-of-the-obesity-epidemic-in-the-UK.aspx
Have you ever been here? Meaning Italy.
Yes but what relevance does that have? You can't argue obesity stats with anecdotes.
Well, your stats are from 2013. Also, I live here and have traveled all over the country, and do not often see an obese person--much less people. When I go home to the States, I am surrounded. Now, either the obese folks in Italy are hiding in their homes, and only come out late at night, or your stats are off. So, yes, I'm arguing your obesity stats. When you were here--what did you see? Just curious. And what area of the country did you visit? That is, if you care to share some ancedotes with us.
Observations aren't reliable, for obvious reasons, so I'm not sure if it's worth sharing them. Besides the stats don't say Italy is as high as the US or UK, just that the issue of obesity isn't as small as insinuated in this discussion. I didn't see many obese people in the US, nor did I in Spain or Italy, yet they are there. If my stats are off I'm happy to correct, I made a search as this discussion interested me and most sources had similar results.1 -
snowflake954 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »snowflake954 wrote: »paulgads82 wrote: »I wouldn't be that confident about Italy. http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/statistics-and-causes-of-the-obesity-epidemic-in-the-UK.aspx
Have you ever been here? Meaning Italy.
Yes but what relevance does that have? You can't argue obesity stats with anecdotes.
Well, your stats are from 2013. Also, I live here and have traveled all over the country, and do not often see an obese person--much less people. When I go home to the States, I am surrounded. Now, either the obese folks in Italy are hiding in their homes, and only come out late at night, or your stats are off. So, yes, I'm arguing your obesity stats. When you were here--what did you see? Just curious. And what area of the country did you visit? That is, if you care to share some ancedotes with us.
The obese in Italy are largely children, according to the EASO's 2015 obesity stats - adult obesity (10%) and childhood obesity (34-36%). Obesity is more prevalent in the south than the north. The stats @paulgads cited looks like it probably combined both adult and childhood obesity into a single stat.
Could be, but my husbands family comes from the south. They have a mentality that fat children are healthier. I think it's because the infant mortality rate used to be so high until after WWII. Fatter children had a better chance of survival when illness hit. The south was alot further behind medically than the north. Those children slim down in adolescence--at least that's what I've seen. You also have areas of Calabria, where Keyes and his wife lived and studied Italian nutrition. People easily live to be 100 in the southern "triangle". So, statistics in Italy don't always tell the whole story.2 -
Bye then0
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PiperGirl08 wrote: »by Tracey Anderson,
http://motto.time.com/4315473/tracy-anderson-calorie-counting/?xid=newsletter-brief
"People need to have the courage and the determination to understand food and to really reflect on their past relationships with food. It’s more about the awareness of the kinds of food people are eating, the amounts they’re eating...so much of our hunger is not even rooted in a real biological need to eat; a lot of it is rooted in emotion.
"I think it’s just about having an ongoing dialogue with yourself where you try as often as possible to say, “How can I show up for myself and my body today through my food choices?”"
I agree. Thoughts?
Sure. But that is half it. There is the emotional state but the conscious logic and the conscious emotional must come together
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