The Worst Nutrition Advice in History (article)
Replies
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I wonder if it has occurred to anybody that is calling the article nonsense that the article is in fact about nutrition, and not solely about weight loss.0
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#3 is nonsense.
the people who believe it are people who do not understand simple physics and should not be allowed on the intertubes without adult supervision.
for weight loss/gain/maintenance, THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS CALORIES IN VS. CALORIES OUT. period. this is undebatable. this is a metaphysical certainty. it's physics.
for nutrition, the types of foods (i.e. calories) matter. likely not as much as some zealots insist (e.g. the "clean" eaters), but this is why a varied diet is important. we don't have much malnutrition in the western world, so you don't have to go crazy on this point... but yes, the variety of foods you eat is somewhat important when it comes to nourishing your body properly.
so the people, like the author of that article, who attempt to conflate these two ideas, are mistaken.
I agree if it's for weight loss...but not nutrition.
CICO for weight loss doesn't matter where the calories come from...the twinkie diet proved that...
But this article is about nutrition...and for nutrition it does matter where you get those calories....to hit macro/micro targets for health you can't just eat commonly referred to "junk food" you need a wide variety of foods to get all those values in.
@jim the shut it off you type [ / letter]...end it with the slash.
I appreciate your help. Thanks.
I'd also like to add that while CICO is valid, it fails to take into account that it takes more energy to digest protein than it does to digest carbs, and it takes even less (far less) to digest fat; eating protein will raise your metabolism and burn more calories than eating fat.
And obese people digest food easier than thin people. It is unknown if people get obese because their digestive calorie burns are lower or if the lower digestive caloric burn causes obesity. Whatever the cause, we're not all on an equal playing field.
A better formula would be something like (calories in) * (digestive energy factor) - (calories out).
nope. the human body can be modeled as a closed system and the energy expended during digestion is already accounted for by approximating the calorie burn of all metabolic functions.
Yes, but you're completely ignoring the distinctions I posted. Digesting protein requires more energy than digesting carbs and fat requires the least amount of energy to digest. The calories on labels or in nutritional guides do not take into account the calories required to digest the food.
Your simple CICO formula ignores the complexities of real life. A person eating 50% protein 30% carbs and 20% fat will burn more calories than a person eating a 33/33/33 split, and that person will in turn burn more calories than a person on a 15/15/60 split. Further, if two people are eating the same macro split and one is obese and the other is thin, the thin person will burn more calories eating the same exact food.
Nutritionists generally ignore those factors because they are hard to measure and hard to apply to the population at large. It is easier to say CICO, and it's easier for the rest of us to repeat it and follow it. I follow it myself because I don't have a way to try to account for the factors. But the factors are real.
Repeating CICO over and over again as if it's the only thing people need to know doesn't make it any more valid though.
you are wrong. the variations in calorie burn due to eating slightly more protein one day vs. another is background noise. nobody has the same BMR every single day. nobody has the same activity level every single day. the error margin in food logging varies from day to day. etc. in short, there is so much built in error to these calculations that the best we can do is hope for a reasonable estimate (i.e. back of the envelope sort of calculations) each day so that over a period of time, these errors all come out in the wash. that's why anyone with half a brain doesn't get too anal about 15 calories here or 30 calories there. it's meaningless.
people who understand what is going on and have some background in data analysis implicitly understand that you track what you can to the best of your ability, you account for the errors built in, and you continuously refine your "model" as you capture data and compare your actual results to your expected results (i.e. successive approximation). but you'll never get precisely accurate values for the different variables in the equation for any given day. that fact does not negate the validity of the equation (based on the model). you seem to think it does, but it does not.0 -
#3 is nonsense.
the people who believe it are people who do not understand simple physics and should not be allowed on the intertubes without adult supervision.
for weight loss/gain/maintenance, THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS CALORIES IN VS. CALORIES OUT. period. this is undebatable. this is a metaphysical certainty. it's physics.
for nutrition, the types of foods (i.e. calories) matter. likely not as much as some zealots insist (e.g. the "clean" eaters), but this is why a varied diet is important. we don't have much malnutrition in the western world, so you don't have to go crazy on this point... but yes, the variety of foods you eat is somewhat important when it comes to nourishing your body properly.
so the people, like the author of that article, who attempt to conflate these two ideas, are mistaken.
I agree if it's for weight loss...but not nutrition.
CICO for weight loss doesn't matter where the calories come from...the twinkie diet proved that...
But this article is about nutrition...and for nutrition it does matter where you get those calories....to hit macro/micro targets for health you can't just eat commonly referred to "junk food" you need a wide variety of foods to get all those values in.
@jim the shut it off you type [ / letter]...end it with the slash.
I appreciate your help. Thanks.
I'd also like to add that while CICO is valid, it fails to take into account that it takes more energy to digest protein than it does to digest carbs, and it takes even less (far less) to digest fat; eating protein will raise your metabolism and burn more calories than eating fat.
And obese people digest food easier than thin people. It is unknown if people get obese because their digestive calorie burns are lower or if the lower digestive caloric burn causes obesity. Whatever the cause, we're not all on an equal playing field.
A better formula would be something like (calories in) * (digestive energy factor) - (calories out).
nope. the human body can be modeled as a closed system and the energy expended during digestion is already accounted for by approximating the calorie burn of all metabolic functions.
Yes, but you're completely ignoring the distinctions I posted. Digesting protein requires more energy than digesting carbs and fat requires the least amount of energy to digest. The calories on labels or in nutritional guides do not take into account the calories required to digest the food.
Your simple CICO formula ignores the complexities of real life. A person eating 50% protein 30% carbs and 20% fat will burn more calories than a person eating a 33/33/33 split, and that person will in turn burn more calories than a person on a 15/15/60 split. Further, if two people are eating the same macro split and one is obese and the other is thin, the thin person will burn more calories eating the same exact food.
Nutritionists generally ignore those factors because they are hard to measure and hard to apply to the population at large. It is easier to say CICO, and it's easier for the rest of us to repeat it and follow it. I follow it myself because I don't have a way to try to account for the factors. But the factors are real.
Repeating CICO over and over again as if it's the only thing people need to know doesn't make it any more valid though.
you are wrong. the variations in calorie burn due to eating slightly more protein one day vs. another is background noise. nobody has the same BMR every single day. nobody has the same activity level every single day. the error margin in food logging varies from day to day. etc. in short, there is so much built in error to these calculations that the best we can do is hope for a reasonable estimate (i.e. back of the envelope sort of calculations) each day so that over a period of time, these errors all come out in the wash. that's why anyone with half a brain doesn't get too anal about 15 calories here or 30 calories there. it's meaningless.
people who understand what is going on and have some background in data analysis implicitly understand that you track what you can to the best of your ability, you account for the errors built in, and you continuously refine your "model" as you capture data and compare your actual results to your expected results (i.e. successive approximation). but you'll never get precisely accurate values for the different variables in the equation for any given day. that fact does not negate the validity of the equation (based on the model). you seem to think it does, but it does not.
I'm not wrong. Everything I said is true. You choose to ignore it because . . . . Well, I don't know why you ignore it. Maybe I should not try to explain your tunnel vision.
As I said earlier, I follow the same guidelines you do. I follow CICO, not because it's the whole story and the only truth, but because it's the best means I have to control my weight and body composition.
If you or somebody else here knows more about the other factors, I'd be happy to hear about them. The factors are real. Just how much of a factor they are in the overall picture I don't know. If someone can help clarify that for me, I'd be grateful.0 -
#3 is nonsense.
the people who believe it are people who do not understand simple physics and should not be allowed on the intertubes without adult supervision.
for weight loss/gain/maintenance, THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS CALORIES IN VS. CALORIES OUT. period. this is undebatable. this is a metaphysical certainty. it's physics.
for nutrition, the types of foods (i.e. calories) matter. likely not as much as some zealots insist (e.g. the "clean" eaters), but this is why a varied diet is important. we don't have much malnutrition in the western world, so you don't have to go crazy on this point... but yes, the variety of foods you eat is somewhat important when it comes to nourishing your body properly.
so the people, like the author of that article, who attempt to conflate these two ideas, are mistaken.
I agree if it's for weight loss...but not nutrition.
CICO for weight loss doesn't matter where the calories come from...the twinkie diet proved that...
But this article is about nutrition...and for nutrition it does matter where you get those calories....to hit macro/micro targets for health you can't just eat commonly referred to "junk food" you need a wide variety of foods to get all those values in.
@jim the shut it off you type [ / letter]...end it with the slash.
I appreciate your help. Thanks.
I'd also like to add that while CICO is valid, it fails to take into account that it takes more energy to digest protein than it does to digest carbs, and it takes even less (far less) to digest fat; eating protein will raise your metabolism and burn more calories than eating fat.
And obese people digest food easier than thin people. It is unknown if people get obese because their digestive calorie burns are lower or if the lower digestive caloric burn causes obesity. Whatever the cause, we're not all on an equal playing field.
A better formula would be something like (calories in) * (digestive energy factor) - (calories out).
nope. the human body can be modeled as a closed system and the energy expended during digestion is already accounted for by approximating the calorie burn of all metabolic functions.
Yes, but you're completely ignoring the distinctions I posted. Digesting protein requires more energy than digesting carbs and fat requires the least amount of energy to digest. The calories on labels or in nutritional guides do not take into account the calories required to digest the food.
Your simple CICO formula ignores the complexities of real life. A person eating 50% protein 30% carbs and 20% fat will burn more calories than a person eating a 33/33/33 split, and that person will in turn burn more calories than a person on a 15/15/60 split. Further, if two people are eating the same macro split and one is obese and the other is thin, the thin person will burn more calories eating the same exact food.
Nutritionists generally ignore those factors because they are hard to measure and hard to apply to the population at large. It is easier to say CICO, and it's easier for the rest of us to repeat it and follow it. I follow it myself because I don't have a way to try to account for the factors. But the factors are real.
Repeating CICO over and over again as if it's the only thing people need to know doesn't make it any more valid though.
you are wrong. the variations in calorie burn due to eating slightly more protein one day vs. another is background noise. nobody has the same BMR every single day. nobody has the same activity level every single day. the error margin in food logging varies from day to day. etc. in short, there is so much built in error to these calculations that the best we can do is hope for a reasonable estimate (i.e. back of the envelope sort of calculations) each day so that over a period of time, these errors all come out in the wash. that's why anyone with half a brain doesn't get too anal about 15 calories here or 30 calories there. it's meaningless.
people who understand what is going on and have some background in data analysis implicitly understand that you track what you can to the best of your ability, you account for the errors built in, and you continuously refine your "model" as you capture data and compare your actual results to your expected results (i.e. successive approximation). but you'll never get precisely accurate values for the different variables in the equation for any given day. that fact does not negate the validity of the equation (based on the model). you seem to think it does, but it does not.
I'm not wrong. Everything I said is true. You choose to ignore it because . . . . Well, I don't know why you ignore it. Maybe I should not try to explain your tunnel vision.
As I said earlier, I follow the same guidelines you do. I follow CICO, not because it's the whole story and the only truth, but because it's the best means I have to control my weight and body composition.
If you or somebody else here knows more about the other factors, I'd be happy to hear about them. The factors are real. Just how much of a factor they are in the overall picture I don't know. If someone can help clarify that for me, I'd be grateful.
meh.
you are not seeing the forest through the trees. that's my point.
as an engineer, i learned long ago that to solve a problem you have to understand the problem. that means ignoring the things that don't materially affect the sort of solution that i would choose.
some people, especially non-technical and non-scientific people, tend to cling to those irrelevancies as proof that a problem is more complex than it really is. that's what you are doing IMHO. whatever. it's your life and if you want to fret about something as meaningless as the TEF of the calories you eat, then go ahead.
but understand that in the grand scheme of things, the TEF difference between a 50% protein diet and a 30% protein diet (or whatever) is about as significant as mice nuts.
i'll leave it at that.0 -
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"I suggest you go Youtube The Protein Round table by Alan Aragon and Eric Helms.
You are venturing into a discussion that you believe you are right about but due to lack of understanding you don't know that there is a lot you don't know."
Okay. I don't have time to watch it now, but I pulled up the youtube links and I'll get to them later. So thanks, I think. I'd know for sure if I meant the thanks if you didn't sound so condescending and if your source of knowledge wasn't youtube, but I'll watch it. There may be some good info there.0 -
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Since then… many massive studies have been conducted on the low-fat diet.
The biggest and most expensive diet study in history, The Women’s Health Initiative, randomized 48,835 women into groups… one ate a low-fat diet, the other group continued eating the standard Western diet.
After 7.5-8 years, there was only a 0.4 kg (1 pound!) difference in weight and there was no reduction in heart disease or cancer (15, 16, 17, 18).
Many other studies have led to the same conclusion… the diet that is still being recommended by the mainstream simply does not work (19, 20).
The truth is, the low-fat diet is a miserable failure. Almost every time it is pitted against another type of diet in a study, it loses (21, 22).
Even diabetics have been advised to follow this type of diet… the “carb up and shoot up” strategy that benefits no one but the drug companies.
It is a simple biochemical fact that carbs raise blood sugar. This keeps the diabetic patients dependant on blood sugar lowering drugs (23).
Although low-fat diets may be okay for healthy people, they are a complete disaster for people with obesity, metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.
In fact, several studies show that low-fat diets can adversely affect some of the key risk factors for metabolic syndrome and heart disease. They can raise triglycerides, lower HDL and increase small, dense LDL particles (24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29).
It is time for the mainstream to retire the ridiculous low-fat fad and apologize for all the terrible damage it has done over the decades.
Bottom Line: The low-fat diet is a miserable failure. It has failed in every major study, yet is still being recommended by governments and nutrition organizations all over the world.
There is no such thing as "THE low fat diet". Not all low fat diets are created the same. When people starting eating low fat dairy products, their problems increased. When people eat low fat, whole foods, plant based diets, they don't run into the same problems.
I don't eat butter, or any animal products, but even i would agree that vegetable oils are a lot worse for you than butter.
However… the horrible advice to replace natural butter with processed margarine may be the worst.
This stuff isn’t food, it’s a combination of chemicals that looks and tastes like food.
Margarine, not surprisingly, increases heart disease risk compared to butter (45).
The same can be said about vegetable oils… multiple studies show that they contribute to heart disease and kill people (46, 47).0 -
"3. A Calorie is a Calorie… Food Quality is Less Important "
It's a strawman. They completely ignore the qualifications that are used in that statement.
Caloric deficit determines how much weight you lose. Food quality is not a factor in that. It doesn't mean that food quality is not a factor in ANYTHING. It just means within that specific context (losing fat.)
Also, they once again mistranslate "calorie." This article is talking about "food that contains X amount of calories" instead of "the unit of energy." All "calories" of this latter type are the same. And that is the type of "calorie" that is meant when people say that calories are the only factor in fat loss.
And in practice, it's pretty difficult to hit reasonable macros without eating a decent amount of "quality" (nutrient-dense) foods.0 -
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@ rocbola A low fat diet is a low fat diet. It doesn't make a difference if the low fat diet is from all whole foods. That's just absurd. So the fats in whole foods become super fats in order to compensate for the lack of dietary fat?
don't waste your time with him. it's like arguing philosophy with a dung beetle.0 -
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"Humans were the healthiest and leanest way before they knew that calories existed."
Wow what an idiot.0 -
You don't have to go further than the OP post. 80-100 calories burned a day difference between a high protein0 diet and a low protein diet. That's a neglible amount. That's half a banana. Or an apple. Or a few squares of chocolate. Or a piece of toast. It's the smallest of your worries is what I'm trying to say. It can be safely ignored because the amount you burn every day is an approximate to begin with, So is the amount of calories you eat. It is impossible to pinpoint the exact number, which is why you're supposed to check on your scale if you're on course or need to change something regularly.#3 is nonsense.
the people who believe it are people who do not understand simple physics and should not be allowed on the intertubes without adult supervision.
for weight loss/gain/maintenance, THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS CALORIES IN VS. CALORIES OUT. period. this is undebatable. this is a metaphysical certainty. it's physics.
for nutrition, the types of foods (i.e. calories) matter. likely not as much as some zealots insist (e.g. the "clean" eaters), but this is why a varied diet is important. we don't have much malnutrition in the western world, so you don't have to go crazy on this point... but yes, the variety of foods you eat is somewhat important when it comes to nourishing your body properly.
so the people, like the author of that article, who attempt to conflate these two ideas, are mistaken.
I agree if it's for weight loss...but not nutrition.
CICO for weight loss doesn't matter where the calories come from...the twinkie diet proved that...
But this article is about nutrition...and for nutrition it does matter where you get those calories....to hit macro/micro targets for health you can't just eat commonly referred to "junk food" you need a wide variety of foods to get all those values in.
@jim the shut it off you type [ / letter]...end it with the slash.
I appreciate your help. Thanks.
I'd also like to add that while CICO is valid, it fails to take into account that it takes more energy to digest protein than it does to digest carbs, and it takes even less (far less) to digest fat; eating protein will raise your metabolism and burn more calories than eating fat.
And obese people digest food easier than thin people. It is unknown if people get obese because their digestive calorie burns are lower or if the lower digestive caloric burn causes obesity. Whatever the cause, we're not all on an equal playing field.
A better formula would be something like (calories in) * (digestive energy factor) - (calories out).
nope. the human body can be modeled as a closed system and the energy expended during digestion is already accounted for by approximating the calorie burn of all metabolic functions.
Yes, but you're completely ignoring the distinctions I posted. Digesting protein requires more energy than digesting carbs and fat requires the least amount of energy to digest. The calories on labels or in nutritional guides do not take into account the calories required to digest the food.
Your simple CICO formula ignores the complexities of real life. A person eating 50% protein 30% carbs and 20% fat will burn more calories than a person eating a 33/33/33 split, and that person will in turn burn more calories than a person on a 15/15/60 split. Further, if two people are eating the same macro split and one is obese and the other is thin, the thin person will burn more calories eating the same exact food.
Nutritionists generally ignore those factors because they are hard to measure and hard to apply to the population at large. It is easier to say CICO, and it's easier for the rest of us to repeat it and follow it. I follow it myself because I don't have a way to try to account for the factors. But the factors are real.
Repeating CICO over and over again as if it's the only thing people need to know doesn't make it any more valid though.
you are wrong. the variations in calorie burn due to eating slightly more protein one day vs. another is background noise. nobody has the same BMR every single day. nobody has the same activity level every single day. the error margin in food logging varies from day to day. etc. in short, there is so much built in error to these calculations that the best we can do is hope for a reasonable estimate (i.e. back of the envelope sort of calculations) each day so that over a period of time, these errors all come out in the wash. that's why anyone with half a brain doesn't get too anal about 15 calories here or 30 calories there. it's meaningless.
people who understand what is going on and have some background in data analysis implicitly understand that you track what you can to the best of your ability, you account for the errors built in, and you continuously refine your "model" as you capture data and compare your actual results to your expected results (i.e. successive approximation). but you'll never get precisely accurate values for the different variables in the equation for any given day. that fact does not negate the validity of the equation (based on the model). you seem to think it does, but it does not.
I'm not wrong. Everything I said is true. You choose to ignore it because . . . . Well, I don't know why you ignore it. Maybe I should not try to explain your tunnel vision.
As I said earlier, I follow the same guidelines you do. I follow CICO, not because it's the whole story and the only truth, but because it's the best means I have to control my weight and body composition.
If you or somebody else here knows more about the other factors, I'd be happy to hear about them. The factors are real. Just how much of a factor they are in the overall picture I don't know. If someone can help clarify that for me, I'd be grateful.0 -
Actually the source of my knowledge isn't YouTube. I watched those Videos because Alan Aragon is one of the leading forces in this game. Condescending or not if you take the 2 hours to watch and pay attention then you will appreciate it if you actually want to learn."I suggest you go Youtube The Protein Round table by Alan Aragon and Eric Helms.
You are venturing into a discussion that you believe you are right about but due to lack of understanding you don't know that there is a lot you don't know."
Okay. I don't have time to watch it now, but I pulled up the youtube links and I'll get to them later. So thanks, I think. I'd know for sure if I meant the thanks if you didn't sound so condescending and if your source of knowledge wasn't youtube, but I'll watch it. There may be some good info there.
By "actually wanting to learn" you obviously mean to believe what you believe.
I didn't notice the length of these videos. I found the Protein Roundtable (1 hour 37 minutes) and Protein Roundtable Part II (58 minutes). Before I begin to invest that kind of time, maybe you can give me a general, brief idea of what I'm going to "learn."0 -
"You don't have to go further than the OP post. 80-100 calories burned a day difference between a high protein0 diet and a low protein diet. That's a neglible amount. That's half a banana. Or an apple. Or a few squares of chocolate. Or a piece of toast. It's the smallest of your worries is what I'm trying to say. It can be safely ignored because the amount you burn every day is an approximate to begin with, So is the amount of calories you eat. It is impossible to pinpoint the exact number, which is why you're supposed to check on your scale if you're on course or need to change something regularly."
Steven, thanks. You make a good point. And if the author is correct, you've helped me quantify what I've been trying to explain.0 -
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I'm confused by where it's going really... it sort of tries to use science to claim science is incorrect. Makes no sense.
Which bits make no sense?
This line in particular: "The truth is… calories are important, but that doesn't mean we need to count them or even be consciously aware of them."
It spends a lot of time focused on how to eat better calories for weight loss, we all know that deficit equals weight loss, but then claims counting them in not important. The writer follows up with the idea that we've never had to count them before but then fails to mention we spent a hell of a lot more time moving (vs. sitting behind a desk or driving vs. biking/walking) so he doesn't take the reduction of exercise into account when claiming that counting calories isn't important. Etc...
That's what makes no sense.
I agree that this bit not making sense.
Without a calorie deficit weight loss will not happen. You can be eating the most nutrient dense, well balanced diet otherwise, but if you're eating more calories than you burn off, you will gain weight and can become obese. Calories absolutely do count, and for weight loss it is calories in v calories out.
I think people get confused because they think "calories in v calories out"/"a calorie is a calorie"/etc and "you need the right balance of macronutrients and a sufficient intake of micronutrients" are mutually exclusive and only one of them can be true. Fact is they're both true and both important. If you ignore calories in v calories out, then success at fat loss is hit and miss. You can be doing everything else right, but not lose, because you're eating at maintenance. A lot of people need to count calories to lose weight. And of course if you ignore macronutrient balance and micronutrients then you can end up losing lean mass along with the fat, or in an extreme case even get scurvy, rickets or kwashiorkor. But just because it's important to pay attention to nutrition, it does not mean a calorie is not a calorie or that calories in v calories out don't matter.0 -
I suggest you go Youtube The Protein Round table by Alan Aragon and Eric Helms.#3 is nonsense.
the people who believe it are people who do not understand simple physics and should not be allowed on the intertubes without adult supervision.
for weight loss/gain/maintenance, THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS CALORIES IN VS. CALORIES OUT. period. this is undebatable. this is a metaphysical certainty. it's physics.
for nutrition, the types of foods (i.e. calories) matter. likely not as much as some zealots insist (e.g. the "clean" eaters), but this is why a varied diet is important. we don't have much malnutrition in the western world, so you don't have to go crazy on this point... but yes, the variety of foods you eat is somewhat important when it comes to nourishing your body properly.
so the people, like the author of that article, who attempt to conflate these two ideas, are mistaken.
I agree if it's for weight loss...but not nutrition.
CICO for weight loss doesn't matter where the calories come from...the twinkie diet proved that...
But this article is about nutrition...and for nutrition it does matter where you get those calories....to hit macro/micro targets for health you can't just eat commonly referred to "junk food" you need a wide variety of foods to get all those values in.
@jim the shut it off you type [ / letter]...end it with the slash.
I appreciate your help. Thanks.
I'd also like to add that while CICO is valid, it fails to take into account that it takes more energy to digest protein than it does to digest carbs, and it takes even less (far less) to digest fat; eating protein will raise your metabolism and burn more calories than eating fat.
And obese people digest food easier than thin people. It is unknown if people get obese because their digestive calorie burns are lower or if the lower digestive caloric burn causes obesity. Whatever the cause, we're not all on an equal playing field.
A better formula would be something like (calories in) * (digestive energy factor) - (calories out).
nope. the human body can be modeled as a closed system and the energy expended during digestion is already accounted for by approximating the calorie burn of all metabolic functions.
Yes, but you're completely ignoring the distinctions I posted. Digesting protein requires more energy than digesting carbs and fat requires the least amount of energy to digest. The calories on labels or in nutritional guides do not take into account the calories required to digest the food.
Your simple CICO formula ignores the complexities of real life. A person eating 50% protein 30% carbs and 20% fat will burn more calories than a person eating a 33/33/33 split, and that person will in turn burn more calories than a person on a 15/15/60 split. Further, if two people are eating the same macro split and one is obese and the other is thin, the thin person will burn more calories eating the same exact food.
Nutritionists generally ignore those factors because they are hard to measure and hard to apply to the population at large. It is easier to say CICO, and it's easier for the rest of us to repeat it and follow it. I follow it myself because I don't have a way to try to account for the factors. But the factors are real.
Repeating CICO over and over again as if it's the only thing people need to know doesn't make it any more valid though.
you are wrong. the variations in calorie burn due to eating slightly more protein one day vs. another is background noise. nobody has the same BMR every single day. nobody has the same activity level every single day. the error margin in food logging varies from day to day. etc. in short, there is so much built in error to these calculations that the best we can do is hope for a reasonable estimate (i.e. back of the envelope sort of calculations) each day so that over a period of time, these errors all come out in the wash. that's why anyone with half a brain doesn't get too anal about 15 calories here or 30 calories there. it's meaningless.
people who understand what is going on and have some background in data analysis implicitly understand that you track what you can to the best of your ability, you account for the errors built in, and you continuously refine your "model" as you capture data and compare your actual results to your expected results (i.e. successive approximation). but you'll never get precisely accurate values for the different variables in the equation for any given day. that fact does not negate the validity of the equation (based on the model). you seem to think it does, but it does not.
I'm not wrong. Everything I said is true. You choose to ignore it because . . . . Well, I don't know why you ignore it. Maybe I should not try to explain your tunnel vision.
As I said earlier, I follow the same guidelines you do. I follow CICO, not because it's the whole story and the only truth, but because it's the best means I have to control my weight and body composition.
If you or somebody else here knows more about the other factors, I'd be happy to hear about them. The factors are real. Just how much of a factor they are in the overall picture I don't know. If someone can help clarify that for me, I'd be grateful.
You are venturing into a discussion that you believe you are right about but due to lack of understanding you don't know that there is a lot you don't know.
and neither Alan or Eric cherry pick their research or have a bias view!!
That's fact and there are studies to prove it (although I do not think they are peer reviewed).0 -
The guy that wrote this is a "medical student" "personal trainer" and apparently a reader of books (the same books all of us have access to - he has NO inside knowledge). He could be Santa Claus for all we know. When he becomes an actual MD, DO or registered dietician, or writes a peer-reviewed article instead of a blog, I'll listen to him.
Until then, this is the worst kind of broscience.0 -
I do not believe they do 'cherry pick' their research - their conclusions certainly seem to make sense when I search for reasarch.and neither Alan or Eric cherry pick their research or have a bias view!!
That's fact and there are studies to prove it (although I do not think they are peer reviewed).
Also, note while they have "a bias", it is a "biased view" - don't think American is different to English in that manner
.
Anyway, yes, they do seem to have a bias... for the truth, from what I've seen.
Which would make sense for someone wishing to be educated to provide their clients with the best possible results as far as body composition and so on goes. Rather than trying to sell books on their chosen fad, their profits are likely based on how their views translate into real world results for real world people.0 -
I do not believe they do 'cherry pick' their research - their conclusions certainly seem to make sense when I search for reasarch.and neither Alan or Eric cherry pick their research or have a bias view!!
That's fact and there are studies to prove it (although I do not think they are peer reviewed).
Also, note while they have "a bias", it is a "biased view" - don't think American is different to English in that manner.
Anyway, yes, they do seem to have a bias... for the truth, from what I've seen.
Which would make sense for someone wishing to be educated to provide their clients with the best possible results as far as body composition and so on goes. Rather than trying to sell books on their chosen fad, their profits are likely based on how their views translate into real world results for real world people.
LOL.
That's the exact same answer I would use for something/someone that fitted in with my belief system.
Also - sorry to break the news but Eric and Alan are both peddling their own books about their chosen fad. 0 -
Calories in calories out does not necessarily = weight loss. We've known this for 3-4 years. Problem is, it's hard to make money selling a diet of healthy, less processed foods. First article references a study by Harvard, link is in the article if you want to read it yourself. Second one was published in a medical journal.
I'm not posting this to debate the point. I'm posting this because I am tired of hearing so many say eat at a deficit and you'll lose weight as though it is a law of physics. You can read or not read these, and believe as you choose. Just thought that some people may want to take a look. Especially if they are doing everything "right" and still not losing weight. These are both well respected medical institutions and journals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/health/19brody.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=11991540 -
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Agree.Calories in calories out does not necessarily = weight loss. We've known this for 3-4 years. Problem is, it's hard to make money selling a diet of healthy, less processed foods. First article references a study by Harvard, link is in the article if you want to read it yourself. Second one was published in a medical journal.
I'm not posting this to debate the point. I'm posting this because I am tired of hearing so many say eat at a deficit and you'll lose weight as though it is a law of physics. You can read or not read these, and believe as you choose. Just thought that some people may want to take a look. Especially if they are doing everything "right" and still not losing weight. These are both well respected medical institutions and journals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/health/19brody.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154
The people who are "doing everything right" but not losing weight are not ACTUALLY doing everything right.
Calories in, calories out is physically correct.
Maybe the confusion is the interpretation of cal in, cal out.
Exactly how are you proposing it works?
Most people may be agreeing with you and we just do not know it.0 -
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Calories in calories out does not necessarily = weight loss. We've known this for 3-4 years. Problem is, it's hard to make money selling a diet of healthy, less processed foods. First article references a study by Harvard, link is in the article if you want to read it yourself. Second one was published in a medical journal.
I'm not posting this to debate the point. I'm posting this because I am tired of hearing so many say eat at a deficit and you'll lose weight as though it is a law of physics. You can read or not read these, and believe as you choose. Just thought that some people may want to take a look. Especially if they are doing everything "right" and still not losing weight. These are both well respected medical institutions and journals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/health/19brody.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154
ummm... it is actually a law of physics.
but thanks for playing. we have a nice consolation prize for you. :flowerforyou:0 -
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The problem with CICO is that it's an over simplification of an extremely complex system. Even when you get down to the basics of thermodynamics, the equation is still quite complex and the out side of the equation is incredibly difficult to quantify in precise numbers. Lyle McDonald does a good job of explaining the various aspects for those that like to nerd out (link below). But, even then, there are a considerable amount of assumptions in those equations having to do with biochemical reactions in the body, many of which we know about and many of which we're still investigating. And, when one of those important assumptions ends up being false for an individual, it throws off the entire equation. It doesn't make the equation wrong, but merely impacts the application of the equation in an individual circumstance. That's where most of the true error comes in -- not in the equation but in people's incorrect application of the equation in specific circumstances.
Easy examples of things that change assumptions and throw off application of the equation would be a thyroid issue, a glucose metabolism issue like insulin resistance, adrenal issue, etc. And, like many things, these usually exist on a spectrum -- they are not on-off phenomena. People with severe issues usually end up eventually diagnosed with them. But, people with minor issues may never get diagnosed, but the application of their energy equation isn't quite functioning as optimally as it may be for others.
But, so many people don't want to acknowledge this, likely either because it simply hurts their brain, they're literally incapable of understanding it or it conflicts with their need for simplicity. So, they declare it not to exist.
CICO is a good guideline and works for many people for good reasons. But it is just a guideline, with certain exceptions. Different macros will affect weight loss as well as body composition. Making the differentiation between nutrition and weight loss or body composition and weight loss seems silly to me as there is overlap since weight loss is affected by the composition of tissue lost (i.e. lean body mass vs. adipose).
It's like the same semantic game some play about muscle weighing more than fat. Some think that means one lb of fat weighs more than one lb of muscle. The statement is comparing volume not weight. The comparison of weight is useless as 1 lb of anything equals 1 lb of anything else. The whole point is that the same VOLUME of fat weighs less than the same VOLUME of muscle because muscle is more dense. But, man, will you see that same stupid semantic war rage on forever.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html0
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