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Dr Jason Fung - The Useless Concept of Calories

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  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,401 MFP Moderator
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    spiro413x wrote: »
    Calories are a unit of measure - not a substance. Calories are how we accurately measure our weight in relation to what we are eating. That is factual information. CICO is king. This is not a dispute. This is fact.

    Ironically, people, including Dr. Fung, still try to dispute that.
  • nvmomketo
    nvmomketo Posts: 12,019 Member
    edited November 2017
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    Lillymoo01 wrote: »
    nvmomketo wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    Hey I went a day without eating at McDonalds because the suckers locked me out. By the way it is a great place if one wants to eat low carb. I am really like their 200 calorie large coffee.

    I know some do not see out of control (binge) eating an eating disorder. I do not know why I reacted to sugar and grains so badly. While the forty years of binging wrecked my health by fusing joints from head to toe I know the side effects will not go away but it has helped with the pain and mental fog.

    I make no claims for what keto will for others but just state while I did it accidently it has helped in my case.

    It was not until I was sitting in on some Celebrating Recovery classes since I am on the board of a halfway house and wanted to better to learn about addiction and recovery since that had never been a problem for me I thought. The chapter on Denial hit me like a ton of bricks. I suddenly saw I was no better than the guy with needle tracks.

    I was binging because I liked the high to keep on keepin on the doctor mentioned yesterday. At the time I did not even medically understand how carbs could be addicting to some people. My uncles on my dad's side all died directly or indirectly due to alcohol abuse so I knew not to touch it with a obsessive compulsive nature.

    Do I care about others? I will run with what the people watch me daily in action. I can not and will not try to make others act right? I will not make false medical statements about others like some have said about me.

    Before I found MFP at age 63 I had already decided I was though with diet and exercise for weight loss because after being up and down for 40 years and then the heaviest of my life I knew there had to be a better way. I did not want to become homebound and die prematurely so I made working to live to be 110 and walking and talking the entire way my stated goal but I was still binge eating if I was around sugar and grain based foods.

    Upon realizing I was a carb addict I finally stopped going by the Dairy Queen every day on my way home after just eating a full meal. It was a hellish two weeks and so so for another two and just kind of OK for the next two months. I knew several that got away from depending on alcohol and drugs so that surely I could do the same with carbs.

    We can cut out alcohol totally but we can not cut out FOOD totally. We can not even stay away from where food is in most cases. The wife and teenage kids keep right on eating the carbs that I was eating. My carb addiction was my problem and I had no right to expect them to leave off carbs so I set down to a table full of carbs but there are even more carbs around me at McDonalds (they to reopen in 90 minutes :) ).

    Tonight I was reading on what the Sumer people ate like 5000 years ago and they ate mainly carbs and most of the people in the Blue Zones live on carbs but there were no highly processed carbs in the diets of either groups just mentioned.

    Like my friends that have stopped drinking would like to see others stop harming themselves with alcohol I would like to see that food wise but just because going low carb has or is resolving a ton of my 40 years of health issues I have no way to know if my WOE will help them or not.

    It does bother me when some say medically speaking one can not be addicted to carbs but I in the back of my mind they are not saying that to harm others directly but just have not studied the subject. It is true on most any forum most readers never post and that is the ones that concern me when people repeatedly post false medical statements.

    Best of success to all eating the way that works best for you.

    So what you were actually addicted to were hyperpalatable foods that contain both fats and carbs (i.e., meals at DQ). It just so happens that eliminating an entire macros allowed you to stop the binge because restriction works well with you.

    How am i not surprised all those process carbs where also considered bad fats 20 years ago.

    Yes. At the time I was not aware how much damage sugar could cause me when mixed with these fats.

    Without the sugar and a macro of 5% carbs, 15% protein and 80% my health is recovering in most all aspects.

    In my body I now view sugar as damaging as salt is to a car in areas it is used to melt ice and snow in winter. Perhaps sugar with very low fat would be a better combo for health if eating a ton of processed carbs.

    Not sure why but for some reason if I get into cake and ice cream I will wind up eating the legs off the table before I stop eating. Sure I can try to binge on protein and fat but for some reason I start to gag when I physically get full but not when binging on cake, pie, ice cream etc.

    You just don't see it. It wasnt the sugar that caused you to get fat... it was yummy food. Its funny that you blame sugar when you didnt get fat off of just sugar. You got fat on the same comfort foods as most people. If anything, you got fat on fat because those DQ meals are mostly fat.

    For some it is the carbs, and especially the sugars and highly refined carbs.

    I over ate refined carbs when mixed with fats - hyper palatable foods. I over ate carbs/sugars like jujubes, raisins or noodles. I never over eat fats when they are on their own or mixed with proteins- only when paired with carbs.

    Sometimes it is the carbs, although some say it never is.

    I would say that it is easier to overeat foods that are high in fat and carbs because these foods taste so good. We all wish chips, donuts and cakes were as good for us as kale.

    I agree. Fat and carbs together are amazing. Tastes great. Very easy to overeat. Very easy to store that extra as fat. Add a bit of salt and it is very hard to say no to.

    I am just saying that i generally will not over eat when the carbs are removed. Corn on the cob with butter and salt tastes great and I could eat a lot of it. Without the butter is still really good. Just butter without the corn though? I would not eat that never mind eat too much of it.

    Kale... Yuck. that will forever be just a garnish in my mind. Maybe kale chips... Maybe.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
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    psuLemon wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    Hey I went a day without eating at McDonalds because the suckers locked me out. By the way it is a great place if one wants to eat low carb. I am really like their 200 calorie large coffee.

    I know some do not see out of control (binge) eating an eating disorder. I do not know why I reacted to sugar and grains so badly. While the forty years of binging wrecked my health by fusing joints from head to toe I know the side effects will not go away but it has helped with the pain and mental fog.

    I make no claims for what keto will for others but just state while I did it accidently it has helped in my case.

    It was not until I was sitting in on some Celebrating Recovery classes since I am on the board of a halfway house and wanted to better to learn about addiction and recovery since that had never been a problem for me I thought. The chapter on Denial hit me like a ton of bricks. I suddenly saw I was no better than the guy with needle tracks.

    I was binging because I liked the high to keep on keepin on the doctor mentioned yesterday. At the time I did not even medically understand how carbs could be addicting to some people. My uncles on my dad's side all died directly or indirectly due to alcohol abuse so I knew not to touch it with a obsessive compulsive nature.

    Do I care about others? I will run with what the people watch me daily in action. I can not and will not try to make others act right? I will not make false medical statements about others like some have said about me.

    Before I found MFP at age 63 I had already decided I was though with diet and exercise for weight loss because after being up and down for 40 years and then the heaviest of my life I knew there had to be a better way. I did not want to become homebound and die prematurely so I made working to live to be 110 and walking and talking the entire way my stated goal but I was still binge eating if I was around sugar and grain based foods.

    Upon realizing I was a carb addict I finally stopped going by the Dairy Queen every day on my way home after just eating a full meal. It was a hellish two weeks and so so for another two and just kind of OK for the next two months. I knew several that got away from depending on alcohol and drugs so that surely I could do the same with carbs.

    We can cut out alcohol totally but we can not cut out FOOD totally. We can not even stay away from where food is in most cases. The wife and teenage kids keep right on eating the carbs that I was eating. My carb addiction was my problem and I had no right to expect them to leave off carbs so I set down to a table full of carbs but there are even more carbs around me at McDonalds (they to reopen in 90 minutes :) ).

    Tonight I was reading on what the Sumer people ate like 5000 years ago and they ate mainly carbs and most of the people in the Blue Zones live on carbs but there were no highly processed carbs in the diets of either groups just mentioned.

    Like my friends that have stopped drinking would like to see others stop harming themselves with alcohol I would like to see that food wise but just because going low carb has or is resolving a ton of my 40 years of health issues I have no way to know if my WOE will help them or not.

    It does bother me when some say medically speaking one can not be addicted to carbs but I in the back of my mind they are not saying that to harm others directly but just have not studied the subject. It is true on most any forum most readers never post and that is the ones that concern me when people repeatedly post false medical statements.

    Best of success to all eating the way that works best for you.

    So what you were actually addicted to were hyperpalatable foods that contain both fats and carbs (i.e., meals at DQ). It just so happens that eliminating an entire macros allowed you to stop the binge because restriction works well with you.

    How am i not surprised all those process carbs where also considered bad fats 20 years ago.

    Yes. At the time I was not aware how much damage sugar could cause me when mixed with these fats.

    Without the sugar and a macro of 5% carbs, 15% protein and 80% my health is recovering in most all aspects.

    In my body I now view sugar as damaging as salt is to a car in areas it is used to melt ice and snow in winter. Perhaps sugar with very low fat would be a better combo for health if eating a ton of processed carbs.

    Not sure why but for some reason if I get into cake and ice cream I will wind up eating the legs off the table before I stop eating. Sure I can try to binge on protein and fat but for some reason I start to gag when I physically get full but not when binging on cake, pie, ice cream etc.

    You just don't see it. It wasnt the sugar that caused you to get fat... it was yummy food. Its funny that you blame sugar when you didnt get fat off of just sugar. You got fat on the same comfort foods as most people. If anything, you got fat on fat because those DQ meals are mostly fat.

    Getting fat or even obese came after the sugar/carb damage (spontaneous joint fusing) was well underway. The Ankylosing Spondylitis got started in my teens as I now have learned more about AS over the last 40 years since the doctors labeled it AS.

    In this thread I was just supporting Dr. Jason Fung's research about the useless concept of calories based on me personally learning that in my case the kind of calories that I eat is key to me reducing my health risks including obesity is more important than total calorie count because my new WOE soon addressed my binge eating for some reason.

    No one become obese without eating too many calories. No one over eats without some cause. I was 63 before I learned my binging was related to eating sugar or any other highly processed carb based food sources. When my binging on sugar based foods stopped by mental choice to eat no more than 50 grams of carbs daily yet keep my daily calorie count in the 2000-2500 calorie range my pain was the first thing addressed by my new WOE started Oct 2014. After 6 weeks the weight loss slowly started but I had been losing inches well before the weigh loss started. I have actually lost another 40 pounds as a side effect of my new WOE that somehow cut out my bingeing.

    I found the most important thing is not how many calories that I was eat but what kind of calories that I was eating that were the cause of my overeating and bingeing. I felt totally helpless to stop eating the high carb food. I knew it was in the process of killing me. I saw the sadness in the kids faces when I could not do things with them like the fathers of their friends did with their kids. I never realized it was the sugar laden junk food that was leading to the binge eating on a regular bases until I was 63.

    It was on a hunch out of the blue as to how to avoid starting Enbrel injections 7 Nov 2014 that I finally left sugar and all forms of all grains. It was still hard to get off of the yummy food as you called it. I had to visualize myself in my coffin at the funeral home and for hours hearing people walk by saying, "Well he finally ate enough to kill his fat butt."

    In the end it was my desire to live with health as long as possible that lead me to find a new WOE and stick with it for several years now. This is just what happened in my case and who knows if it would work the same way for another. In hindsight I do wish I had known to change my WOE 40 years ago and had a more normal life but what is important is what I do with the rest of my life.

    Gale can you provide more specifics about what a typical day of eating was like, before you made the changes that you've found very beneficial - including the quantities of the foods you were eating, compared to a typical day's worth of foods now? You describe binge eating at DQ - what specifically were you eating? A large meal followed by a blizzard? Multiple blizzards? An entire ice cream cake? You also now continue to go to McDonalds regularly - what's a typical day of eating look like today?
  • GaleHawkins
    GaleHawkins Posts: 8,159 Member
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    WinoGelato wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    Hey I went a day without eating at McDonalds because the suckers locked me out. By the way it is a great place if one wants to eat low carb. I am really like their 200 calorie large coffee.

    I know some do not see out of control (binge) eating an eating disorder. I do not know why I reacted to sugar and grains so badly. While the forty years of binging wrecked my health by fusing joints from head to toe I know the side effects will not go away but it has helped with the pain and mental fog.

    I make no claims for what keto will for others but just state while I did it accidently it has helped in my case.

    It was not until I was sitting in on some Celebrating Recovery classes since I am on the board of a halfway house and wanted to better to learn about addiction and recovery since that had never been a problem for me I thought. The chapter on Denial hit me like a ton of bricks. I suddenly saw I was no better than the guy with needle tracks.

    I was binging because I liked the high to keep on keepin on the doctor mentioned yesterday. At the time I did not even medically understand how carbs could be addicting to some people. My uncles on my dad's side all died directly or indirectly due to alcohol abuse so I knew not to touch it with a obsessive compulsive nature.

    Do I care about others? I will run with what the people watch me daily in action. I can not and will not try to make others act right? I will not make false medical statements about others like some have said about me.

    Before I found MFP at age 63 I had already decided I was though with diet and exercise for weight loss because after being up and down for 40 years and then the heaviest of my life I knew there had to be a better way. I did not want to become homebound and die prematurely so I made working to live to be 110 and walking and talking the entire way my stated goal but I was still binge eating if I was around sugar and grain based foods.

    Upon realizing I was a carb addict I finally stopped going by the Dairy Queen every day on my way home after just eating a full meal. It was a hellish two weeks and so so for another two and just kind of OK for the next two months. I knew several that got away from depending on alcohol and drugs so that surely I could do the same with carbs.

    We can cut out alcohol totally but we can not cut out FOOD totally. We can not even stay away from where food is in most cases. The wife and teenage kids keep right on eating the carbs that I was eating. My carb addiction was my problem and I had no right to expect them to leave off carbs so I set down to a table full of carbs but there are even more carbs around me at McDonalds (they to reopen in 90 minutes :) ).

    Tonight I was reading on what the Sumer people ate like 5000 years ago and they ate mainly carbs and most of the people in the Blue Zones live on carbs but there were no highly processed carbs in the diets of either groups just mentioned.

    Like my friends that have stopped drinking would like to see others stop harming themselves with alcohol I would like to see that food wise but just because going low carb has or is resolving a ton of my 40 years of health issues I have no way to know if my WOE will help them or not.

    It does bother me when some say medically speaking one can not be addicted to carbs but I in the back of my mind they are not saying that to harm others directly but just have not studied the subject. It is true on most any forum most readers never post and that is the ones that concern me when people repeatedly post false medical statements.

    Best of success to all eating the way that works best for you.

    So what you were actually addicted to were hyperpalatable foods that contain both fats and carbs (i.e., meals at DQ). It just so happens that eliminating an entire macros allowed you to stop the binge because restriction works well with you.

    How am i not surprised all those process carbs where also considered bad fats 20 years ago.

    Yes. At the time I was not aware how much damage sugar could cause me when mixed with these fats.

    Without the sugar and a macro of 5% carbs, 15% protein and 80% my health is recovering in most all aspects.

    In my body I now view sugar as damaging as salt is to a car in areas it is used to melt ice and snow in winter. Perhaps sugar with very low fat would be a better combo for health if eating a ton of processed carbs.

    Not sure why but for some reason if I get into cake and ice cream I will wind up eating the legs off the table before I stop eating. Sure I can try to binge on protein and fat but for some reason I start to gag when I physically get full but not when binging on cake, pie, ice cream etc.

    You just don't see it. It wasnt the sugar that caused you to get fat... it was yummy food. Its funny that you blame sugar when you didnt get fat off of just sugar. You got fat on the same comfort foods as most people. If anything, you got fat on fat because those DQ meals are mostly fat.

    Getting fat or even obese came after the sugar/carb damage (spontaneous joint fusing) was well underway. The Ankylosing Spondylitis got started in my teens as I now have learned more about AS over the last 40 years since the doctors labeled it AS.

    In this thread I was just supporting Dr. Jason Fung's research about the useless concept of calories based on me personally learning that in my case the kind of calories that I eat is key to me reducing my health risks including obesity is more important than total calorie count because my new WOE soon addressed my binge eating for some reason.

    No one become obese without eating too many calories. No one over eats without some cause. I was 63 before I learned my binging was related to eating sugar or any other highly processed carb based food sources. When my binging on sugar based foods stopped by mental choice to eat no more than 50 grams of carbs daily yet keep my daily calorie count in the 2000-2500 calorie range my pain was the first thing addressed by my new WOE started Oct 2014. After 6 weeks the weight loss slowly started but I had been losing inches well before the weigh loss started. I have actually lost another 40 pounds as a side effect of my new WOE that somehow cut out my bingeing.

    I found the most important thing is not how many calories that I was eat but what kind of calories that I was eating that were the cause of my overeating and bingeing. I felt totally helpless to stop eating the high carb food. I knew it was in the process of killing me. I saw the sadness in the kids faces when I could not do things with them like the fathers of their friends did with their kids. I never realized it was the sugar laden junk food that was leading to the binge eating on a regular bases until I was 63.

    It was on a hunch out of the blue as to how to avoid starting Enbrel injections 7 Nov 2014 that I finally left sugar and all forms of all grains. It was still hard to get off of the yummy food as you called it. I had to visualize myself in my coffin at the funeral home and for hours hearing people walk by saying, "Well he finally ate enough to kill his fat butt."

    In the end it was my desire to live with health as long as possible that lead me to find a new WOE and stick with it for several years now. This is just what happened in my case and who knows if it would work the same way for another. In hindsight I do wish I had known to change my WOE 40 years ago and had a more normal life but what is important is what I do with the rest of my life.

    Gale can you provide more specifics about what a typical day of eating was like, before you made the changes that you've found very beneficial - including the quantities of the foods you were eating, compared to a typical day's worth of foods now? You describe binge eating at DQ - what specifically were you eating? A large meal followed by a blizzard? Multiple blizzards? An entire ice cream cake? You also now continue to go to McDonalds regularly - what's a typical day of eating look like today?

    DQ is not a sit down type in Murray so I was just getting the full size banana split but the last time was over 3 years ago. This was typically after a full meal with 2-3 large sugar drinks somewhere else.

    McDonald's was just an hour. 2 100% beef patties ($0.60 each), 4 packs of mustard to make the side serving of dehydrated chopped onions stick well then I slice the patties like pies and eat the 12 pieces of 100% beef with a knife and fork, 1 side salad ($1.69) with one packet of Balsamic Vinaigrette dressing (the movie star guy brand), 2 12 oz cups of regular coffee each laced with 10 half and half creamers at the cost of $1.00. With tax and food to the table service it was a total of $4.22 for my LCHF supper. Because my sister's boyfriend offered to haul the 1966 Ford 3000 tractor we recently purchased to the shop for real end seals after church I was in a rush to get the tractor down to church so all I had for lunch was a can of StarKist Selects Solid Yellowfin Tuna in extra virgin olive oil with Bob's Red Mill unsweetened flaked coconut unsulphured and a few ounces of Baker's 100% Cacao premium baking bar. Breakfast was in the normal 1000-1500 calorie range from a combo of eggs, coffee, coconut oil, almonds, 100% Cacao bar, coconut flakes and a handful of supplements from vegetables and fruits hopefully kept heart disease, cancer, Parkinson's, etc at bay.
  • jofjltncb6
    jofjltncb6 Posts: 34,415 Member
    Options
    @GaleHawkins

    This is what binge eating looks like. It's excessive amounts of food at one time or through a day. It's not a meal at dairy queen and a banana split.

    *True even if those meals and banana splits are eaten at a consistent calorie surplus over time that resulted in weight gain/unhealthy weight.
This discussion has been closed.