Can someone please explain "a calorie is a calorie"

alladream

We learned in school a hundred years back that a protein and a carbohydrate, at their lowest measure/unit, each have four calories, whereas the same amount of fat has nine calories, so if you use that kind of 'building block', you'd get over twice as much food quantity for the proteins and carbohydrates as for the fats. It's just a measure of energy/heat produced upon burning (calories were also called kilijoules), and so a unit of fat will produce over twice the energy/heat/unused-energy-getting-stored-as-fat as will a unit of protein or carbohydrates. I hope this makes sense and is helpful.

lyttlewon

I am by no means low-carb, and I don't think I ever could be, but I am curious if a calorie is a calorie, why do people lose weight faster (it seems) on Atkins or other low-carb diets?

I am not talking about "all calories being equal" from nutritional standpoint, more so of a weight loss standpoint.

People with low carb diets have issues too. On a lot of South Beach diet message boards they warn not to eat too much beans and cheese calling them "calorie dense diet busters". Same concept as calorie restriction. Plus if you follow the diet as written you are supposed to eat 4 cups of vegetables a day. It is very hard to consume that many vegetables, which I have, then you won't eat many high calorie foods.

nick1109

Sorry, but I just can't agree with the other comments regarding keeping your diet or protein "low fat". I eat a diet based on fat and all of my health problems have vanished, and so is the body fat vanishing (of course, not as quick as the other health issues). Also, for many people (no, i didn't say "all"), high carb intake DOES impede weight loss, and for me, high carb makes me sick in a whole bunch of ways. I eat more veggies than what a person eating a SAD diet is usually eating, and I'm still very low on carbs. No need to cut veggies or fat or protein (quality matters). However, for an experiment, you could try reducing or eliminating grains and sugar and see what happens; and, NO, you won't hurt your health by trying it.

You have hit the nail on head. Conventional wisdom is flawed and is the reason half of America (and a large number in the UK) are fat and riddled with associated diseases. Fat is not the enemy, even saturated fats. Transfat and hydro fat are to be avoided but natural fats from animals and plants (un tampered with) are perfect. Grains and carbs are simply not required beyond what you get from vegetables and limited fruit. I eat a diet high in fat with moderate protein and low ish carbs (20g to 100g a day) and enjoy good health and single digit bodyfat levels.

Yes a calorie in literal terms is a calorie but it matters where the calorie has come from. Carbs produce an insulin spike which is what makes you fat, Protein and fat gives significantly less of a spike and when eating low carb your body turns into a fat burning machine. It will run off ingested fat and protein, after which has been depleted it will eat fat stores.

Also Fat and protein is calorie dense and filling meaning you will likely eat less. Without the spikes in insulin and blood sugar you will feel full and energized for longer without the need for eating every 3 hours.

A good educational read for anyone would be The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson

ReyneDrop

Forgive me if somebody else has said what I'm about to say. It's a bit more technical but I'm going to not make this too much of a biochem lesson!

Low-carb / ketosis diets work by changing body metabolism. In "normal" people with "normal" diets, sugar is metabolized by each cell when cells need energy. When you eat food, it gets broken down into it's very base components by enzymes secreted in the mouth, stomach, and small intestine (secreted by the pancreas and gallbladder, mostly). Those basic things- fats, proteins, and sugars, as well as any micronutrients- then get absorbed by your blood stream (fats are actually absorbed slightly differently as they are nonpolar and will NOT dissolve readily into the blood by themselves- this is another discussion)

Your body recognizes *the amount of glucose* in the blood stream (well, the concentration, to be more specific). It wants to keep a specific amount of glucose in the blood so that the cells can get what they need when they need it. If glucose is too high, your body releases insulin, which stimulates your body cells to take in and STORE more of the glucose. First, your body stores it as glycogen in the liver and muscles. Once those stores are "filled" the excess goes into fat stores. Now, if your blood sugar is too LOW, a hormone called glucagon is released. Glucagon is kind of the opposite of insulin. Glycogen from the liver is broken back down to glucose and is released into the blood stream. Fat IS broken down, too, but your body desires to keep more of the fat and exhaust the glycogen first. Glycogen is first in, first out, typically speaking.

When you exercise, most of the calories you burn does NOT come from fat cells. It comes from the stored glycogen in the muscles and liver because those are more readily available. I will be honest and say that I haven't covered exact mechanisms on how this works, but when your glucose level is low and your glycogen "tanks" are low, that's when the fat starts being broken down. I *speculate* that what happens is that your fat is broken down until the glucose level is too high, then the glycogen starts to fill back up, so when you rest for cardio the goal is to refill the glycogen. Maybe the mechanism isn't known yet, but we didn't cover this part in my classes- but we might later on in upper division.

SO ANYWAY, low-carb diets work by kind of removing glucose from the process. While we CAN get glucose from proteins and lipids, it's a lot more difficult (another reason why fat cells are harder to break down than glycogen). There is less affinity for it. So, when you eat low-carb, your body ends up going "oh no, i need sugar now!" That's why induction is so difficult. It's like we are all addicted to sugar in some way because it is the easiest way for our bodies to get energy, so we convert almost all of our food to sugar.

Well, your brain requires a lot of energy. It isn't able to get the sugar it needs from fats and proteins. So instead, it stimulates the body to break down fat in ANOTHER way- into ketones. Hence, the term ketosis.

The funny thing about ketones- they are made from fat, yet "one cannot simply transform ketones back into fat" (please tell me somebody got the meme reference?). If the brain isn't using the ketones, the ketones instead need to be urinated out (the concentration gets too high).

So really, instead of burning off the fat, you're pissing it away. It works well. However, as a lot of people are aware, it also requires a ton of water because proteins require a lot of water to metabolize properly. The first week is a lot of water-weight loss, but getting 10-12 cups of water is advisable. When my Beloved was on Atkins, he would drink ~12 cups or more of water a day.

buckmeatball

Head asploadeded.

Forgive me if somebody else has said what I'm about to say. It's a bit more technical but I'm going to not make this too much of a biochem lesson!

Low-carb / ketosis diets work by changing body metabolism. In "normal" people with "normal" diets, sugar is metabolized by each cell when cells need energy. When you eat food, it gets broken down into it's very base components by enzymes secreted in the mouth, stomach, and small intestine (secreted by the pancreas and gallbladder, mostly). Those basic things- fats, proteins, and sugars, as well as any micronutrients- then get absorbed by your blood stream (fats are actually absorbed slightly differently as they are nonpolar and will NOT dissolve readily into the blood by themselves- this is another discussion)

Your body recognizes *the amount of glucose* in the blood stream (well, the concentration, to be more specific). It wants to keep a specific amount of glucose in the blood so that the cells can get what they need when they need it. If glucose is too high, your body releases insulin, which stimulates your body cells to take in and STORE more of the glucose. First, your body stores it as glycogen in the liver and muscles. Once those stores are "filled" the excess goes into fat stores. Now, if your blood sugar is too LOW, a hormone called glucagon is released. Glucagon is kind of the opposite of insulin. Glycogen from the liver is broken back down to glucose and is released into the blood stream. Fat IS broken down, too, but your body desires to keep more of the fat and exhaust the glycogen first. Glycogen is first in, first out, typically speaking.

When you exercise, most of the calories you burn does NOT come from fat cells. It comes from the stored glycogen in the muscles and liver because those are more readily available. I will be honest and say that I haven't covered exact mechanisms on how this works, but when your glucose level is low and your glycogen "tanks" are low, that's when the fat starts being broken down. I *speculate* that what happens is that your fat is broken down until the glucose level is too high, then the glycogen starts to fill back up, so when you rest for cardio the goal is to refill the glycogen. Maybe the mechanism isn't known yet, but we didn't cover this part in my classes- but we might later on in upper division.

SO ANYWAY, low-carb diets work by kind of removing glucose from the process. While we CAN get glucose from proteins and lipids, it's a lot more difficult (another reason why fat cells are harder to break down than glycogen). There is less affinity for it. So, when you eat low-carb, your body ends up going "oh no, i need sugar now!" That's why induction is so difficult. It's like we are all addicted to sugar in some way because it is the easiest way for our bodies to get energy, so we convert almost all of our food to sugar.

Well, your brain requires a lot of energy. It isn't able to get the sugar it needs from fats and proteins. So instead, it stimulates the body to break down fat in ANOTHER way- into ketones. Hence, the term ketosis.

The funny thing about ketones- they are made from fat, yet "one cannot simply transform ketones back into fat" (please tell me somebody got the meme reference?). If the brain isn't using the ketones, the ketones instead need to be urinated out (the concentration gets too high).

So really, instead of burning off the fat, you're pissing it away. It works well. However, as a lot of people are aware, it also requires a ton of water because proteins require a lot of water to metabolize properly. The first week is a lot of water-weight loss, but getting 10-12 cups of water is advisable. When my Beloved was on Atkins, he would drink ~12 cups or more of water a day.

Crayvn

Calories ---> Change in weight.
Macronutrients----> Change in body composition
Micronutrients

---

> Health

Going from obese/overweight to a healthy weight will also tend to improve health markers considerably.

this is a great and simple breakdown.... ..why do ppl have to complicate it for themselves..argggh!

Crayvn

I think the below is very well done. Ppl should really consider all the information provided in all forms(books,media,internet, etc) and use them as "references". There are 100s of success stories. Some fell off and back on again. We MUST remember that in all research and statistics there are many many variables that stand to play.

There is the basic science to it all..yes..... but then to get the results you need there is always trial and error. Scientists did not always get the answers right off the bat. And many add variables to coerce the results they want. Wow..doesnt that sound familiar??? We do this in our everyday lives with lots of things.. What makes us awesome beings in this world is we are all unique. Pleassse...give yourself room for trial and error. Patience and love.

below is a quote of a topic i made before that talks about calories.

People fully don’t understand calories and macro nutrients. Some believe that if they follow a specific macro nutrient ratio they will lose more weight. To understand the link between calories and macro nutrients we first must understand what a calorie is.

calorie - A calorie equals the amount of thermal energy necessary to raise the temperature of one gram of water by 1 Celsius degree, at a pressure of 1 atm.

The Calories in food were determined by putting them in a container, then they putting the container in water and exploded the food. They would then determine the temperature of the water, the higher the temperature the more calories it has. Calories is just a unit energy. It’s a measurement of how much energy is used. It’s like how we use feet or meters to measure distance, we can use calories to measure energy. I will state this now, calories in food, and calories used in science aren’t exactly the same thing. For every calorie used in science there are 1,000 food calories. Food calories are identified with a capital C, “Calories”. The ones used in science are lower case “calories.” Due to the fact I am using word pad to write this, it has auto correct and capitalizes the first word of a sentence I will use calories and Calories interchangeably. I am referring to food calories in both cases.

Macro nutrients such as carbs, proteins, fats are NOT calories. They contain calories, but they are not calories. So yes, a calorie is a calorie just like a foot is foot, and a meter is a meter. If your body burns 2000 calories(energy) at rest, what would happen if you consumed 1,500 calories? Energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transformed. For your body to burn 500 calories more it has to use energy from the body, such as fats, proteins, or carbs. The energy is used to support your normal body functions. Since you’re using energy from the body it will contain less energy from protein,carbs,fats. Since you have less energy in the body you will weigh less. If you consume more energy than you burn it will be stored. The law of thermodynamics states “Energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transformed.” Turning food in to fat is a transformation of energy.

Some people do low carb for health reasons. Others do it because they think it burns more fat which will result in greater weight loss. It does burn more fat, but this doesn’t mean it will result in more weight loss. The reason is because if you're burning a lot of fat and consuming a lot of fat you're in the same spot initially, only a limited net change in body composition. So you can't out trick your body. Some low carbers shoot for ketosis. This just means the body isn’t using carbs so much as an energy source, they are using mostly fat. What some of these people fail to realize the more protein you eat the more protein you burn(prevents the body from using fat). The more fat you eat the more fat you’re storing. In the end it doesn’t make a difference. It will always boil down to calories.

A lot of people say “well I ate under my TDEE(Total Daily Energy Expeniture) and I didn’t lose weight doing x method.” How do you know what your TDEE is? Because some formula told you? Calorie tracking devices such as bodybugg, fit bit, or calculators don’t tell you anything about your metabolic situation. It can be highly suppressed. You maybe burning less calories than you think.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/737410-understanding-calories-and-weight-loss

Brian_VA

On the subject of a calorie is a calorie, it is true. Calorie is a measure of heat. A gram of protein can produce 4 calories of heat, a gram of fat produces 9, and a gram of carbs produces 4. But our bodies do not respond to these substances and calories the same. Protein contains amino acids that help rebuild cells and muscles - and are not necessarily used for energy. Fats are digested in the liver and provide sustained energy over a relatively long time. Carbs hit the bloodstream fast (some faster than others), and need insulin to be used. And insulin is the substance that replenishes our muscles with energy (glycogen), and then puts the rest as fat in our fat cells. And it does this more efficiently and quickly than fat we eat can be stored as fat on our bodies. And our pancreas has a nasty habit of making a little too much insulin. Why would we care? The extra insulin takes our blood sugar below normal, and makes us tired (ever wonder why we have no energy after that huge bowl of pasta?) And what do we want when our blood sugar is low and our bellies are full? The sweetest thing we can find. That's why we're hunting for sweets 5 minutes after we finish eating! And new insulin sweeps that away - to store more fat. And by then we're snoozing on the couch.

There is growing evidence that carbs are not good for us, especially the kind of low nutrient rapid absorbing kinds - like bread, white potato, pasta, rice, and desserts. And to make it worse, the food industry likes to refine the foods to make them even more appealing (imaging that) so that we will buy them and eat them and then want to buy more and eat more and more.

If you are interested, search for Gary Taubes, a science writer for the NY Times. He has written extensively on how scientific research has been pointing us towards a higher fat, lower card diet for decades and decades, but that the decisions of a very few, based more on "comment sense" than hard research, turned the food pyramid on its head and told us it is good to eat the very foods that make us fat, and avoid the foods that make us full. I know we like to trust these experts, but do a little research and you;ll find few facts behind these decisions.

Below is a link to a recent experiment on people in the midst of weight loss, studying what happens if they eat the same number of calories with different mixes of carbs, fats, and protein. And guess what, those eating carbs have to do an extra hour of exercise EVERY DAY to lose the same weight as those eating more fats and proteins. Same calories. Is this one study proof? Maybe not. But maybe it is enough to get more of us to try a different way of eating and see for ourselves.

I have lost over 40 lbs following a low carb, higher protein and fat diet. I eat a lot of veggies, including salads and green veggies. I also eat fruit most every day. I eat zero bread, zero rice, zero white potato, zero cereal and zero dessert. (Okay, once in a blue moon I succumb, but it is very rare). I am never hungry, and when I am I eat until I am full. (It is funny that fatty foods like nuts and cheese and chunks of meat fill us up quickly and tell us to stop eating them. ) I repeat, I AM NEVER HUNGRY. I need no will power to resist eating. I can eat as much as I want. My body tells me when to eat and when to stop. I have lots of energy, in fact I just completed my first triathlon. I feel great. I can go to most any restaurant and find something to eat. Even Chinese food, hold the rice, works on occasion. I do eat low carb wraps, of which there are many on the market. They make adequate substitutes for bread in sandwiches, and used creatively replace pizza crust and even chips in nachos. I'll bet if you looked at what I eat and what someone keeping their calories to 1200 a day eat, you'd say I eat a lot more and much less "healthy" based on conventional wisdom. No apologies here. When I am doing lots of exercising, I eat more in preparation. When I am not going to exercise, I eat less knowing I won't need the energy. My urge to eat does not overwhelm this rational thinking. I feel I can keep eating this way and be happy for years to come. My mantra has been "none is easier than one", a reference to not eating that first potato chip, french fry, or bite of dessert is easier than eating a bite and resisting the second. Because I know that I will want it. Not because I am a bad weak person, but because, after the first bite, my body will take over and drive me toward that second bite with a fury. But resisting the first bite - that I can do.

Here is the link to the Taubes article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/what-really-makes-us-fat.html

Good luck to all with your weight loss journey!

ReyneDrop

When you exercise, most of the calories you burn does NOT come from fat cells. It comes from the stored glycogen in the muscles and liver because those are more readily available. I will be honest and say that I haven't covered exact mechanisms on how this works, but when your glucose level is low and your glycogen "tanks" are low, that's when the fat starts being broken down. I *speculate* that what happens is that your fat is broken down until the glucose level is too high, then the glycogen starts to fill back up, so when you rest for cardio the goal is to refill the glycogen. Maybe the mechanism isn't known yet, but we didn't cover this part in my classes- but we might later on in upper division.

SO ANYWAY, low-carb diets work by kind of removing glucose from the process. While we CAN get glucose from proteins and lipids, it's a lot more difficult (another reason why fat cells are harder to break down than glycogen). There is less affinity for it. So, when you eat low-carb, your body ends up going "oh no, i need sugar now!" That's why induction is so difficult. It's like we are all addicted to sugar in some way because it is the easiest way for our bodies to get energy, so we convert almost all of our food to sugar.

Well, your brain requires a lot of energy. It isn't able to get the sugar it needs from fats and proteins. So instead, it stimulates the body to break down fat in ANOTHER way- into ketones. Hence, the term ketosis.

The funny thing about ketones- they are made from fat, yet "one cannot simply transform ketones back into fat" (please tell me somebody got the meme reference?). If the brain isn't using the ketones, the ketones instead need to be urinated out (the concentration gets too high).

What you said is accurate, but it's also highly misleading. Stating that "when glycogen stores are low that's when we metabolize fat." You also state, that "when we rest our glycogen stores get filled up again."

I'll make this as simple as possible. If your TDEE is 1,500 and you eat 2000 of any macro nutrient you will store fat. If you go over with protein, you utilize more protein for energy limiting fat oxidation(glucoeogenesis), Go over with carbs, you utilize more carbs and limit fat oxidation. If you go over with fat you are oxidizing the fat in the blood stream(what you consumed) and not body fat.

Your glycogen stores won't get filled up during rest. They will only get filled up by consuming carbs or through the gluconeogenesis process(consuming higher amounts of protein). .48g/1g of protein gets converted to glucose. Almost 50%.


Low carb diets "only work" if you're under your TDEE. As you also stated ketones come out through urine. I know you said this but I want it to be clear as not to mislead anyone. Only "excess" ketones pass through the urine. If your body is using the ketones you won't pass ketones through the urine.

Just because you "metabolize" more fat doesn't mean you're burning "more body fat." It can easily come from excess dietary fat. So you won't lose any weight just because you're "metabolizing more fat." It will always boil down to calories one way or the other.

I'm just giving a really run-of-the-mill general idea. It's a lot more complex than "excess" ketones. Even if your body is using ketones, you're still going to pass some. Would you like me to go into detail about partial pressure, solute concentration, and how the kidneys actually function in the nephrons? I could, but I just assumed people were smart enough to realize that if your brain needs ketones, you're not going to piss away EVERY ketone you make and your body isn't going to stimulate a bunch to be made all at once. Most people here know all to well that the body is pretty damn good at reserving energy.

But, the funny thing is, it isn't JUST about calories in and calories out when your body is into ketosis. Sure, fat that you eat will be metabolized into ketones, but as I said, ketones aren't transfigured back into storage. If you have the hormone that controls ketone formation in the right quantity, make a bunch of it, and then your body is pissing away some of it due to the way too high partial pressure, in essence you could be urinating out some odd amount of "calories" that people NOT on a low-carb diet would have to work really hard to burn off.

The odd thing though is that there is conflicting ideas about how many "calories" are necessary in low-carb diets. Calories DO matter because a carb IS going to be metabolized the same way as before. You CAN store some of what you eat as glycogen and fat. Some of the fat you eat WILL turn into ketones.

But at the same time, you are NOT burning off calories the same way. Some calories are simply wasted. People are actually told while on Atkins that after induction they should up the carbs so they end up only losing 1-2 lbs a week (the recommended weight loss for ANY program), but people on Atkins still don't count calories and sometimes they can eat 2,500, do no exercise, and still lose 5 lbs a week (reference person in this case being somebody who weighed around 180 lbs at the time)

And let me be frank about low-carb diets. The amount of fats and proteins required to sustain a low-carb dieter can be incredibly dangerous. It taxes the heart and the liver and the kidneys. Your brain can function on ketones but for most people, glucose is much preferred. I've been in ketosis accidentally before and I had headaches and poor concentration... Point is, it's not some magically healthier diet.

Oh, and by the way, protein does not just go immediately to muscle recovery. You can't just overeat on proteins and think you're gonna get bigger in muscles instead of in fat. Your body needs protein for a lot more than just muscles and it is really good at synthesizing the proteins it needs- only the essential amino acids need to be consumed and then they are typically broken down to be translated into the proteins that shape who we are at the cellular level (genes code for proteins, in case anybody's biology background didn't cover that).

renkatrun

If you are seriously interested in the debate - this is an important contribution. World politics and economics make a difference in what is being researched, what is being promoted at any given time.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4362041487661765149


It is a long lecture, but extremely interesting (no matter which side you fall on in the end.)

It makes sense to me. I ate the same number of calories for 9 months without losing - Then I did not change my calorie intake, but did change what I ate (cut out sugars and processed foods - including grains) and I lost weight. It wasn't my intention to lose more weight, but to control my mood swings by avoiding surges in blood sugar.

"Conventional wisdom" is not always wise. Beware of scientists who don't understand the scientific method. Cause and effect are not always obvious and are often complex.

A note: I have been chatting about this with a doctor and she said that one of the dangers of "paleo" or low carb (Atkinds is not what I am talking about - that can easily be crammed with high -processed foods) is that people who do it as a temporary diet change get used to the higher fat foods and then go back to eating grains and processed foods. The combo of high glucose and high fat means an improved delivery system of fat to the fat cells ...

- that is why people talk about (and get ridiculed for talking about) "lifestyle change".

yarwell

I would suggest checking out the American Diabetes Assoc website to understand how your body processes carbs.

Only if you read who funds them first. There love of carbs will then be understandable, whereas without that knowledge you will be stuck trying to understand how an association concerned with a carb based and aggravated disorder is so keen for people to eat them.

Marmitegeoff

Bump for later

macdiver

While a calorie is a calorie and it takes a calorie deficit to lose weight, recent studies are showing that high protien and high fat diets are better for your overall health. Here is one such study. There are also similar studies on different populations. This one was on obese diabetic women but other studies show the same in relatively healthy individuals as well.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15616799

There was a recent study in JAMA that also showed on a high protein and high fat diet there was less lowering of your bmr (ree in the study) and a higher tde (tee in the study). Keep in mind that a decrease in ree and tee is bad. It means less calories used (or the evil starvation mode mentioned frequently here on MFP).

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154

saraphim41

All carbs are not equal. The body does everything better when the blood glucose is in the normal range. Low glycemic carbs are fine. High glycemic carbs spike the blood glucose, and can eventually promote type II diabetes. Just sayin'.

fallser

On the subject of a calorie is a calorie, it is true. Calorie is a measure of heat. A gram of protein can produce 4 calories of heat, a gram of fat produces 9, and a gram of carbs produces 4. But our bodies do not respond to these substances and calories the same. Protein contains amino acids that help rebuild cells and muscles - and are not necessarily used for energy. Fats are digested in the liver and provide sustained energy over a relatively long time. Carbs hit the bloodstream fast (some faster than others), and need insulin to be used. And insulin is the substance that replenishes our muscles with energy (glycogen), and then puts the rest as fat in our fat cells. And it does this more efficiently and quickly than fat we eat can be stored as fat on our bodies. And our pancreas has a nasty habit of making a little too much insulin. Why would we care? The extra insulin takes our blood sugar below normal, and makes us tired (ever wonder why we have no energy after that huge bowl of pasta?) And what do we want when our blood sugar is low and our bellies are full? The sweetest thing we can find. That's why we're hunting for sweets 5 minutes after we finish eating! And new insulin sweeps that away - to store more fat. And by then we're snoozing on the couch.

There is growing evidence that carbs are not good for us, especially the kind of low nutrient rapid absorbing kinds - like bread, white potato, pasta, rice, and desserts. And to make it worse, the food industry likes to refine the foods to make them even more appealing (imaging that) so that we will buy them and eat them and then want to buy more and eat more and more.

If you are interested, search for Gary Taubes, a science writer for the NY Times. He has written extensively on how scientific research has been pointing us towards a higher fat, lower card diet for decades and decades, but that the decisions of a very few, based more on "comment sense" than hard research, turned the food pyramid on its head and told us it is good to eat the very foods that make us fat, and avoid the foods that make us full. I know we like to trust these experts, but do a little research and you;ll find few facts behind these decisions.

Below is a link to a recent experiment on people in the midst of weight loss, studying what happens if they eat the same number of calories with different mixes of carbs, fats, and protein. And guess what, those eating carbs have to do an extra hour of exercise EVERY DAY to lose the same weight as those eating more fats and proteins. Same calories. Is this one study proof? Maybe not. But maybe it is enough to get more of us to try a different way of eating and see for ourselves.

I have lost over 40 lbs following a low carb, higher protein and fat diet. I eat a lot of veggies, including salads and green veggies. I also eat fruit most every day. I eat zero bread, zero rice, zero white potato, zero cereal and zero dessert. (Okay, once in a blue moon I succumb, but it is very rare). I am never hungry, and when I am I eat until I am full. (It is funny that fatty foods like nuts and cheese and chunks of meat fill us up quickly and tell us to stop eating them. ) I repeat, I AM NEVER HUNGRY. I need no will power to resist eating. I can eat as much as I want. My body tells me when to eat and when to stop. I have lots of energy, in fact I just completed my first triathlon. I feel great. I can go to most any restaurant and find something to eat. Even Chinese food, hold the rice, works on occasion. I do eat low carb wraps, of which there are many on the market. They make adequate substitutes for bread in sandwiches, and used creatively replace pizza crust and even chips in nachos. I'll bet if you looked at what I eat and what someone keeping their calories to 1200 a day eat, you'd say I eat a lot more and much less "healthy" based on conventional wisdom. No apologies here. When I am doing lots of exercising, I eat more in preparation. When I am not going to exercise, I eat less knowing I won't need the energy. My urge to eat does not overwhelm this rational thinking. I feel I can keep eating this way and be happy for years to come. My mantra has been "none is easier than one", a reference to not eating that first potato chip, french fry, or bite of dessert is easier than eating a bite and resisting the second. Because I know that I will want it. Not because I am a bad weak person, but because, after the first bite, my body will take over and drive me toward that second bite with a fury. But resisting the first bite - that I can do.

Here is the link to the Taubes article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/opinion/sunday/what-really-makes-us-fat.html

Good luck to all with your weight loss journey!

Beautifully said! Completely agree!! And this approach has worked for me as well (quality foods, packed with nutrients, focusing a bit more on lean proteins, good fats, and carbs that come from certain fruits & non-starchy veggies, quinoa, lentils, Greek yogurt, etc., not sugar, flour, processed foods, etc). I'm never hungry either & now am 3 lbs from my goal weight (relying on resistance & weight training, not cardio).

justcallmet

Hi Carrieannal! I haven't read ALL the comments here, but I urge you to check out a film (which you can watch for free on Hulu) called Fathead. It is, sort of, a comedic response to Super Size Me. There is a distinct explanation, about half way in, that describes HOW our bodies make fat. CARBS DEFINITELY MATTER. Check it out, if you don't agree, fine, but at least you've been exposed to the information. And good luck in what you do!!