All calories ARE NOT created equal !!!

EatingThisNotThat

Throwing my 2 cents in (and where are all our Aussie friends whose government doesn't even use calories anymore?...

Science evolves and there are many studies being conducted that are disputing "a calorie is a calorie" with some interesting results. Here's just one article that discusses this

http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/2013/02/have-we-been-miscounting-calories

I tend to be in the same boat as the OP, however I also have digestive issues that I've had all my life - a doctor specializing in nutrition and weight loss issues gave me a couple handouts about permeable intestinal disorder and studies that are being done to see if people with this disorder actually absorb more calories than the average person. Fascinating read... I'll try to find the article on line when I get home from work later.

Everyone needs to be open-minded and remember that any scientific "fact" is limited by the knowledge of scientists at the time the fact was established.

Even if with your disorder, you were to absorb more calories, how would that invalidate the energy balance equation as the OP is theorizing?

In the purest sense of the science of what a calorie is as the amount of energy it takes to raise a specific mass 1 degree centigrade, I don't think the OP is necessarily trying to dispute that part of the science. In that way, I agree, a calorie is a calorie.

I think the point of the post was that it's just about finding out how our individual bodies react to different types of foods that provide that fuel/energy, and how efficiently or inefficiently we use them, because not all bodies work alike. There is some solid science that says in *some* people, the ingestion of refined carbs produces a much more pronounced affect - water retention being the most noticeable. Combine that with someone who might have another genetic predisposition to cellular or interstitial water retention and that water retention will lead to pounds gained with no difference in calorie intake.

The science of nutrition is still in its infancy, and I wouldn't be surprised to some major changes in the way science says our bodies handle their fuel.

jcorpern

The OP is reporting his/her findings as a person who is ( a controlled by diet) DIABETIC --- the OP is sharing insight that could possibly work for someone else

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this is info that perhaps, some can use:

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Considering I am a controlled diabetic (I don't take meds b/c my blood sugar is regulated now that I have lost weight.) my body still does not like a lot of carbohydrates (sugar). It does not process and break them down well. Carbs turn straight to stored fat in our bodies. Our bodies burn a protein for fuel before it will chooses a carb for fuel. It will just store the carb as fat. Now I am consuming more protein. I am not on any low carb plan, I am just eating what for one meal per day, then the other meals are mainly, meat & low carb veggies.
So find out what your body's glitch is. If you are struggling with the scale and you seem to be doing everything right, do a process of elimination to your diet. Not cutting things out, but decreasing your consumption of that particular culprit, whether it be protein (meat), carbs (bread, pasta, rice, wheat, potatoes, corn, sweets, sugar, milk, peas)........""""""""""""""""

Absolutely false and not supported by medical science in any way, shape, manner, or form. When we look at the Krebs cycle, the process by which the body turns a molecule of glucose into one unit of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) and a molecule of CO2 (necessary to stimulate breathing), it's clear that the body has a hierarchy of immediate energy use. It will quickly and preferentially use glucose--sugars. To do this, it needs insulin. If you are diabetic, you are therefore taking either insulin or one of the oral hypoglycemics (i.e. metformin). Those oral medications either squeeze the pancreas to make more insulin or operate to make the cells in your body more sensitive to insulin. After glucose, they turn to carbohydrates, which are easily converted to sugars. Protein is broken down and utilized both as energy and to recover the 12 essential amino acids that our body can't produce. Finally, Fat is broken from the foods we eat as it is the cadillac of energy molecules, containing 12Kcal/gram.

The body uses all of this energy to fuel our body, any over and above our energy needs is turned into fat. Simple as that. It doesn't depend on what the source was, and the body doesn't target a food group and say "I'm going to turn that into fat!" It breaks them all down, uses what it needs and turns the rest into fat. End of story.

tigersword

You seem to like the number 12. The number 9 is actually the number you're looking for. 9 essential amino acids, 9 Calories per gram of fat.

weightywarrior

I take in less calories than I burn. So I lose weight.

I find that eating low carb works for me because when I eat carbs I put on weight......

NOT that X calories of carbs is "more fattening" than X calories of protein or fat, but because carbs are my trigger food and I can't stop eating them.

So eating carbs results in my calories for the day no longer being at a deficit. So then I don't lose weight.


To sum up:

A calories is a calorie. But low carb works better for me personally.

Just my own experience.

fboab

All calories are equal. A calorie is a calorie.

However.
We don't know how many calories any individual person needs for any activity, without putting them in a box and measuring their oxygen transference, We don't know how many calories in a foodstuff are actually available to the body (calorie content of foods are measured, mostly, in a bomb calorimeter, and I don't have one of those in my gut). The calories in carbs are either immediately used, or converted to fat by the action of insulin. Calories in fat & protein aren't stored in the same way. Seems to me that avoiding carbs is a pretty sensible thing, if you want to avoid fat storage, and that counting calories will only be completely accurate if you have a bomb calorimeter in your gut, and live in a room calorimeter.

psuLemon

All calories are equal. A calorie is a calorie.

However.
We don't know how many calories any individual person needs for any activity, without putting them in a box and measuring their oxygen transference, We don't know how many calories in a foodstuff are actually available to the body (calorie content of foods are measured, mostly, in a bomb calorimeter, and I don't have one of those in my gut). The calories in carbs are either immediately used, or converted to fat by the action of insulin. Calories in fat & protein aren't stored in the same way. Seems to me that avoiding carbs is a pretty sensible thing, if you want to avoid fat storage, and that counting calories will only be completely accurate if you have a bomb calorimeter in your gut, and live in a room calorimeter.

Carbs, like all other macro's only turn to fat when calories in > calories out. Otherwise, it's used for energy.

SideSteel

All calories are equal. A calorie is a calorie.

However.
We don't know how many calories any individual person needs for any activity, without putting them in a box and measuring their oxygen transference, We don't know how many calories in a foodstuff are actually available to the body (calorie content of foods are measured, mostly, in a bomb calorimeter, and I don't have one of those in my gut). The calories in carbs are either immediately used, or converted to fat by the action of insulin. Calories in fat & protein aren't stored in the same way. Seems to me that avoiding carbs is a pretty sensible thing, if you want to avoid fat storage, and that counting calories will only be completely accurate if you have a bomb calorimeter in your gut, and live in a room calorimeter.

Excess energy will lead to fat accumulation. You can just as readily get fat if you over consume calories even when carbs are low.

Regarding insulin:
http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=319

tigersword

All calories are equal. A calorie is a calorie.

However.
We don't know how many calories any individual person needs for any activity, without putting them in a box and measuring their oxygen transference, We don't know how many calories in a foodstuff are actually available to the body (calorie content of foods are measured, mostly, in a bomb calorimeter, and I don't have one of those in my gut). The calories in carbs are either immediately used, or converted to fat by the action of insulin. Calories in fat & protein aren't stored in the same way. Seems to me that avoiding carbs is a pretty sensible thing, if you want to avoid fat storage, and that counting calories will only be completely accurate if you have a bomb calorimeter in your gut, and live in a room calorimeter.

How exactly does insulin convert carbs to fat, keeping in mind that insulin has nothing to do with carbs being converted to fat?

robeff

Tonight some of my extra calories are going to be in the form of bourbon. They are definitely much, much superior than normal calories so I'm forced to agree :-)