21 day 5000 calorie challenge: debunking the calorie myth?

ironanimal

Didn't work for me either.

Lol. Ok. I'm just saying that's what they say. Every Paleo/primal website and book says you don't have to count cals.

In case you're not aware, there are more site like MFP popping up. With restaurants getting pressure to add cals to their menus and food labeling under more scrutiny, I think there is an entire culture of people that is growing against counting calories.

I'm neither for or against. I'm agnostic. I was simply try to answer a question.

Fair enough. It's just not a case of special snowflakism. I was naive to calories entirely when I tried it, and now I can look at most diets that cause rapid weightloss and the ones that don't cause any in of themselves and the common denominator is the amount of calories consumed.

AllonsYtotheTardis

I will put my 4 years of experience and 312 lbs. lost by using the so called myth of calories in vs. calories out vs. this guys 21 day challenge.... but more power to him..... :drinker:

:drinker: :drinker: :drinker:

0OneTwo3

Well the calories in calories out model IS a myth - that's just science.

You can't start by claiming that energy can be generated out of nothing or vanish into nothing and go on claiming that that of all things is science...

SkinnyBubbaGaar

Once he's done with this "myth", then perhaps he can take on a few others.

Maybe continue onwards with dispelling the myth of gravity.

Perhaps Einstein's "myth" of relativity.

Those two myths are just asking for a beat down.

3dogsrunning

Once he's done with this "myth", then perhaps he can take on a few others.

Maybe continue onwards with dispelling the myth of gravity.

Perhaps Einstein's "myth" of relativity.

Those two myths are just asking for a beat down.

:flowerforyou:

pcastagner

Well the calories in calories out model IS a myth - that's just science. the body pursues homeostasis regardless of the number of calories in and the number out. Carbohydrates will tend to add to adipose tissue (i.e. grow fat). so if you eat a lot of carbohydrates you can expect to gain fat. however if your calories are high protein and high fat, unless you are rigourously exercising muscle, the body has no recognized need to add lean muscle mass (i.e. pounds of muscle) unless it is getting the signals (through heavy exercise) of that requirment. so it will pursue 'homeostasis' and those additional 'good calories' will be converted to urea and excreted. that's the chemistry and that's been proven many times. (see the 'good calories bad calories pdf online).

so if this guys is a trainer, he may gain weight but it will likely be muscle mass. i'm assuming he's not consuming excess carbohydrates.

one of the challeenges with MFP is it does tend to support the calories in calories out mythology. but for most people, because of the caloric density of high carbohydrate foods, when you restrict calories but balance your nutrition you will tend to restrict carbohydrates automatically. I've been on WW and Jenny and if you analyze the diet plan, you will find you're restricting your carbs to under 100 grams per day anyway. so most successful diets recognize the importance of carbohydrate restriction whether they tell you that or not.

Converted to urea, eh? So my body will expend energy to get the carbon from a protein, eliminate the nitrogen, and do all this just to stay busy, and not bother storing any excess for later despite being built to do just that? Oh yeah, where is the carbon going?

And why was I able to lose so much fat so predictably by following this "myth", yet unable to lose fat while eating "paleo" without portion control?


Calorie counting also plays an important role in keeping me from overdoing my deficits.


I'm pretty sure the laws of thermodynamics are pretty solid, and a human body isn't an exception. Also pretty sure a biased 21 day experiment with no controls Nd only one subject isn't going to turn physics on its head. Also, pretty sure it will generate many followers hoping to get really fit eating tons of bacon. I hope they don't get the same results as my paleo friends who started their diets at the same time I did, STILL celebrate bacon and the virtues of paleo on their Facebook feeds, and still look pretty much like they did before.

EvgeniZyntx

not sure what the point of any of this is. some people would gain weight doing this whether they ate clean or not. Some people wouldn't. People's bodies are different.

that is kind of the point, if the "calorie is a calorie" theory is as universally applicable as many would have us believe then everyone would gain weight.

The experiment won't collect enough data to understand the outcome I suspect, for example if his non-exercise activity level goes up significantly then the weight gain will be correspondingly less. Unless he's in a metabolic chamber or using doubly labelled water we'll never know.

There are bodybuilders that cut on 5,000 calories a day. For the most part, it depends on activity levels, muscle mass, sex, and age.

That's a lot of sex.

My question to this guy would be what was his prior regimen and are these net above TDEE.

savithny

Real scientists have done studies like this. Repeatedly. They've even done it with twins.

The results do show that its not entirely as simple as calories in calories out, at least as far as individual metabolisms. THe results go towards showing that our bodies are very, very interested in preserving the status quo. Many people who are fed lots of extra calories don't gain the expected amount, and then lose it faster than "the math" would predict when allowed to return to normal eating. Others gain more - some *more* than would be expected via the mathematical predictions. The same thing happens when people are scientifically underfed - some people lose a lot less than would be predicted by simple math.

Our bodies make a lot of fine-tuned adjustments to our burn rate when presented with large excess or deficit. Many of those adjustments are genetically controlled (identical twins respond nearly identically to these experiments). It is always true that calories in vs calories out matters - but what we don't fully understand is:

1) How many calories our bodies actually extract from food. Calories per serving are calculated using a bomb calorimeter and burning the food to ash to extract every kilojoule of energy. Our bodies don't do this -- no one actually extracts all the listed calories from a serving of food, and it turns out that some people extract significantly more or less than other people, depending on gut bacteria and a number of other issues.

2) How many calories our bodies actually burn. As above, there's actually quite a bit of leeway in expenditure rates, and some people go easily into conservation mode when faced with deficit while others don't. Some people respond to overfeeding by actually burning more, others don't. WIthout dailiy RMR testing, we don't actually know, day to day, how efficiently or inefficiently our metabolisms are running.

pcastagner

Real scientists have done studies like this. Repeatedly. They've even done it with twins.

The results do show that its not entirely as simple as calories in calories out, at least as far as individual metabolisms. THe results go towards showing that our bodies are very, very interested in preserving the status quo. Many people who are fed lots of extra calories don't gain the expected amount, and then lose it faster than "the math" would predict when allowed to return to normal eating. Others gain more - some *more* than would be expected via the mathematical predictions. The same thing happens when people are scientifically underfed - some people lose a lot less than would be predicted by simple math.

Our bodies make a lot of fine-tuned adjustments to our burn rate when presented with large excess or deficit. Many of those adjustments are genetically controlled (identical twins respond nearly identically to these experiments). It is always true that calories in vs calories out matters - but what we don't fully understand is:

1) How many calories our bodies actually extract from food. Calories per serving are calculated using a bomb calorimeter and burning the food to ash to extract every kilojoule of energy. Our bodies don't do this -- no one actually extracts all the listed calories from a serving of food, and it turns out that some people extract significantly more or less than other people, depending on gut bacteria and a number of other issues.

2) How many calories our bodies actually burn. As above, there's actually quite a bit of leeway in expenditure rates, and some people go easily into conservation mode when faced with deficit while others don't. Some people respond to overfeeding by actually burning more, others don't. WIthout dailiy RMR testing, we don't actually know, day to day, how efficiently or inefficiently our metabolisms are running.

Very well said! The gut flora aspect is going to be huge in the near future, IMO. I just spent two months as a guest of someone who can eat like a total pig with barely any negative repercussions, mostly because he can lose any fat he gains so quickly.

But as you point out, calories in vs calories out always matters. By pretty much force feeding him, I was able to make him gain fat pretty quickly.


To adjust for individuals, you only have to periodically run an error correction based on predicted vs. actual change.

BoomstickChick

I don't know about that trainer but in the past I lost 15 kg by eating whatever, just small portions...Maybe he is a special snowflake, or maybe I am....

In the past I have done the same as you. It's still a smaller amount of calories, eating less. Now with thyroid problems I have to eat better things and stay away from others or I just won't lose.

jsuaccounting

I appreciate those who report whether eating clean worked for them when trying to loose weight. For some - it seems to work; and others, not.

MarioLozano16

So if you're saying eating a large amount of calories in healthy clean food won't make you put on weight, then how does healthy weight gain happen? You know for people who are underweight and want to put on some flesh in a healthy way?

By weight lifting

neanderthin

I appreciate those who report whether eating clean worked for them when trying to loose weight. For some - it seems to work; and others, not.

It's really not about the food but the adherence to a diet that allows control and genuine long term weight loss. If eating "clean" is a new concept for a person and they can't stick with it, and fail, it's not the food, right.

pcastagner

So if you're saying eating a large amount of calories in healthy clean food won't make you put on weight, then how does healthy weight gain happen? You know for people who are underweight and want to put on some flesh in a healthy way?

By weight lifting

Weight lifting can't defy the laws of thermodynamics either.

The extra weight needs to be made of actual matter, which can't be created out of nothing.

honeysprinkles

I don't know about that trainer but in the past I lost 15 kg by eating whatever, just small portions...Maybe he is a special snowflake, or maybe I am....

same here. obviously there are other factors that make weight loss a little more complex than just calories in vs. calories out, but in general it seems to work that way for most people.

honeysprinkles

Real scientists have done studies like this. Repeatedly. They've even done it with twins.

The results do show that its not entirely as simple as calories in calories out, at least as far as individual metabolisms. THe results go towards showing that our bodies are very, very interested in preserving the status quo. Many people who are fed lots of extra calories don't gain the expected amount, and then lose it faster than "the math" would predict when allowed to return to normal eating. Others gain more - some *more* than would be expected via the mathematical predictions. The same thing happens when people are scientifically underfed - some people lose a lot less than would be predicted by simple math.

Our bodies make a lot of fine-tuned adjustments to our burn rate when presented with large excess or deficit. Many of those adjustments are genetically controlled (identical twins respond nearly identically to these experiments). It is always true that calories in vs calories out matters - but what we don't fully understand is:

1) How many calories our bodies actually extract from food. Calories per serving are calculated using a bomb calorimeter and burning the food to ash to extract every kilojoule of energy. Our bodies don't do this -- no one actually extracts all the listed calories from a serving of food, and it turns out that some people extract significantly more or less than other people, depending on gut bacteria and a number of other issues.

2) How many calories our bodies actually burn. As above, there's actually quite a bit of leeway in expenditure rates, and some people go easily into conservation mode when faced with deficit while others don't. Some people respond to overfeeding by actually burning more, others don't. WIthout dailiy RMR testing, we don't actually know, day to day, how efficiently or inefficiently our metabolisms are running.

this is the "a little more complex" that I referenced, stated much better by someone who knows more than I do!

summertime_girl

I was thinking about this the other day. Say I ate a piece of cheesecake. And it was 2,000 calories. Not a lot of volume and I'd still be hungry.

Or I ate 1,500 calories of healthy foods, lean proteins, lots of veggies, etc.

I bet I would weigh less eating the 2000 calories of cheesecake, simply due to volume. Something has to take into account the weight of the foods.

tootoop224

Just had a rather long discussion on twitter with the person doing the experiment. His point seems to be that the calorie is not the best measure of energy as it applies to the human body and he wants to improve on it. I pointed out that by changing his macros from 30% carbs to 10%, he was skewing the data because he would be losing water weight at the same time gaining muscle/fat. His take was that while HE differentiated between water weight and “real” weight, a CALORIE does not. I think the point is specious relative to real weight gain, but have to grant him that the fact that by changing the macro-nutrient %'s, he offset the caloric changes short term. Again specious, but accurate. If it leads to some better way to measure energy in the human body, great, but my concern was that people would see the experiment and think that if they ate “clean” they could eat all they want and not gain weight. I expressed this concern and asked that he address it in his conclusion.

lithezebra

Well the calories in calories out model IS a myth - that's just science.

You can't start by claiming that energy can be generated out of nothing or vanish into nothing and go on claiming that that of all things is science...

Calories in vs. calories out isn't a myth. However there are complications because we don't always get the same number of calories from the same food, or use calories with the same efficiency as the hypothetical model suggests.

jofjltncb6

I've kept a weekly spreadsheet for the past 10 weeks showing my current TDEE, calories in and calories out and therefore the calorie deficit .

Using 3500 calories as a pound I've lost within 1/4 pound of exactly what the spreadsheet estimates I should have.

I did the same, but daily and for almost two years...except I don't use it to support the estimates so much as I use it to calculate TDEE over time. Interesting correlation between the amount of food I'm eating (bulking vs cutting) and my TDEE. (Sounds like you have a solid estimate of TDEE though based on your numbers.)