Theoretic question

ok - I think that your theoretical scenario is fairly straight forward. ignoring any ACTUAL real life repercussions would the calories burned during the process of digestion be the same, resulting in the same maintenance?

I had a google and found the following
The thermic effect of food due to a meal will vary depending on the relative proportions of the macronutrients (i.e. fat, carbohydrates, and protein) that make up the meal. Without a doubt, protein is the macronutrient that induces the largest thermic effect of food response. Roughly 25% of the calories in pure protein will be burned after consumption due to the thermic effect of food. Fat and carbohydrates, on the other hand, each induce a burn of roughly 5% of the calories consumed due to the thermic effect of food. So, for example, if you consume 400 calories of pure protein you will burn 100 (or 25%) of those calories through the thermic effect of food. If you consume 400 calories of pure fat or pure carbohydrates, only 20 calories (or 5%) will be burned through the thermic effect of food.

Unfortunately this didn't mention just veggies...veggies vary though and so the theory is loose at best as some vegetables have more fibre and would therefore use more energy to burn.

I thought it an interesting question in the first place. Possibly you would lose with veggies as after digestion the calory yield would I suppose be less.

you beat me to it.

wow is there anyone on this board that's not *kitten* holes? seriously i am new here and have only read a few threads but so far the feel on here is far from the supportive community i would think would exist despite there always being bad apples in the bunch wherever you go.....

that being said i have wondered the same thing. is dieting and weight loss purely about calorie count or is it critical where the calories come from? Of course if you are also eating for health concerns then yes it would make a difference but to your question - in pure weight loss terms - is a calorie a calorie a calorie with the same results no matter where the calorie comes from. i would guess it is...

so i could eat a 350 calorie piece of pie for every meal or i could eat 350 calories of healthy food for every meal and get the same results.

Maintain.
By the way lard isn't the most evil food out there. I've been known to slap some onto a slice of bread with salt. Try it it's yummy. No joke.

Both eating purely fruit and veg or purely lard would land you in hospital if you did it for prolonged preiods of time.

I disagree. Fruit and veg have all three macros within their matrix, lard has only 1, fat.

which vegetables have fat?

avacados, brocolli, sweetcorn - of the top of my head.

avocados and corn are not veggies. broccoli? really?

The example was fruit and veg, not just veg. Avocado is a fruit. It counts. Corn is a grain, though, so it doesn't count.

Wellllll.... having done this experiment myself I can tell you that in the short term, eating pure fat will actually drop a whole lot of weight. Yep. And not from the "going to the bathroom" theory. I didn't eat lard- but butter, coconut oil, bacon fat, egg yolks (egg yolks cooked in bacon fat...). If you read my profile info, you'll see I lost the majority of my 140 pounds on Atkins. Well, when you stall on Atkins, the recommendation is to go hog-wild on fat and cut out all carbs. I lost 8 pounds in less than two weeks and broke my plateau. I suppose it's not a satisfactory answer to your question in regards to long-term eating pure fat, but it's at least an answer based on actual experience.

*eta- my hair and skin never looked healthier.

Both eating purely fruit and veg or purely lard would land you in hospital if you did it for prolonged preiods of time.

I disagree. Fruit and veg have all three macros within their matrix, lard has only 1, fat.

which vegetables have fat?

avacados, brocolli, sweetcorn - of the top of my head.

avocados and corn are not veggies. broccoli? really?

god, you're a stickler eh?

googled brocolli for you - 0.5g fat per 5.3oz stalk

If you sucribe to the idea of "calories in calories out" then you would maintain.

If you believe your bodies are more complex then that then I would think your body would attenpt to adjust. You would loose for a short amount of time till your body began to crave every nutrient it came across. Your bodies ability to adapt is impressive to say the least. It would burn all your muscle, it would stop hair growth, and sex functions, and anythig else it didnt deem nessacary for survival.

That is unless the scurvy killed you first.

wow is there anyone on this board that's not *kitten* holes? seriously i am new here and have only read a few threads but so far the feel on here is far from the supportive community i would think would exist despite there always being bad apples in the bunch wherever you go.....

that being said i have wondered the same thing. is dieting and weight loss purely about calorie count or is it critical where the calories come from? Of course if you are also eating for health concerns then yes it would make a difference but to your question - in pure weight loss terms - is a calorie a calorie a calorie with the same results no matter where the calorie comes from. i would guess it is...

so i could eat a 350 calorie piece of pie for every meal or i could eat 350 calories of healthy food for every meal and get the same results.

yeah supportive this forum is not. if you post a question, or make a comment about something you find interesting, you will be squished by the mob. 'tis a shame.

Both eating purely fruit and veg or purely lard would land you in hospital if you did it for prolonged preiods of time.

I disagree. Fruit and veg have all three macros within their matrix, lard has only 1, fat.

which vegetables have fat?

Show me one that doesn't contain fat. Small amounts count.

do they?

Yes. They all contain trace fats.

edit: though so little there is no need to track them.

i meant "do they count"

They're virtually all omega's, so yes they count, why wouldn't they. Again, I never suggested that vegetables would give us enough fat in out diet, only that they had fat, which was my retort to the original statement.

Both eating purely fruit and veg or purely lard would land you in hospital if you did it for prolonged preiods of time.

I disagree. Fruit and veg have all three macros within their matrix, lard has only 1, fat.

which vegetables have fat?

Show me one that doesn't contain fat. Small amounts count.

do they?

Yes. They all contain trace fats.

edit: though so little there is no need to track them.

i meant "do they count"

They're virtually all omega's, so yes they count, why wouldn't they. Again, I never suggested that vegetables would give us enough fat in out diet, only that they had fat, which was my retort to the original statement.

you said that eating only fruits and veg for a long period of time would not land you in the hospital because they have all three macros. that's what I was curious about. I don't think there's near enough protein OR fat to get adequate micronutrients or macronutrients, and doing that for a long time could create health risks.

yeah supportive this forum is not. if you post a question, or make a comment about something you find interesting, you will be squished by the mob. 'tis a shame.

THAT'S NOT TRUE! [SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH!]

:flowerforyou:

For gods sake the guy said he was just thinking about a theoretical scenario, the answers on this thread are a perfect example of the attitude problems on this forum, everyone just wants to condemn anyone that asks a question.

I personally think that provided that was your BMR you would not gain weight if you ate your calorie allowance in lard but taking it back to reality I think the problem with eating high fat food on a calorie restricted diet is you can't consume enough mass to fill you up and so you get hungry or you get short hits of high blood sugar and apparently that spiking can negatively affect weight loss and also your more likely to get hungry and break....

Exactly what I expected someone to say. Not interested, it's a theoretical question to determine whether fatty calories would have any difference on weight loss ALONE. Assuming the fatty calories were eaten to the value of 2000 of course.

Let me add some details to this question.

I am talking about an imaginary person with normal health and normal functioning digestive system.

Your answers are not helpful, sorry.

Well, as you know, apart from all the physical symptoms and the fact that one type of food might cause you to *want* to eat more than another, to me this interesting question prompts the answer: there would be no difference.

If we are assuming the same calorific value for either food, then their effects are the same in terms of body weight. To think otherwise would imply that one source of calories has more energy value than another, which is clearly nonsense. It would be like saying a tonne of feathers weighs more than a tonne of lead.

"A normal person would not have a normal functioning system for very long"

That's common knowledge. You'd have to be one hell of a dumbass to not realise that.

Clearly I'm asking from a purely scientific, methodical and non-health perspective.

This is worse than yahoo answers, nobody cant just post and give me a straight forward calorific answer, clearly realising I'm well aware of health issues, as no-one would eat pure lard. Hence THEORETIC.

All I want to know........
Would you maintain your weight? (assuming it could be consumed without illness)
Would you lose weight?
Would you put on weight?

I am trying to ascertain whether eating something with high-fat content would have the same effect on weight management than something with low fat content. - again assuming both foots had a 2000kal value.

please could I have some answers I am looking for?

and sorry to cause offence to anyone, but it's blatantly obvious that NOBODY is looking to eat lard as a diet.
It seems that people answer to try and look clever, when really they don't help the OP at all.

If you don't have the answer, don't post! I'll go elsewhere, it's not a problem.

So, quite alot of unpleasent things would happen.
Firstly, you can wind up looking like those poor children in Africa they show on commercials that you can "save a life for just the cost of a cup of coffee and a news paper a day", who are priactially skin and bones, but have very large stomaches and almost look like they are 8 months pregnant. They have what is known as kwashiorkor. It is defined as protien energy malnutrition. Meaning, you are getting enough calories but not enough protien, so you body breaks down its muscles. Side effects of this include edema, muscle wasting, dermatoses and depigmentation,diarrhea, fatty liver and organs, anema. changes in hair texture or hair loss, growth failure, and obviously irritability. This disease is more common in children then adults. It typically occurs in developing countries, when a child is weaned off nutritionally balanced breastmik to early (typically when a sibling is born), and put on a very high carb diet. Although, the lard only diet would not have carbs, it is still void of protien which is what is mainly causing the symptoms.

Next, your brain runs on glucose. It is a picky eater, it pretty much only likes glucose. If you eat lard, you are not suppying it with glucose. So what is it to do once it uses up all the glucos that you have stored (which is not alot). But, it can make glucose using fat and protien through gluconeogenisis, but wait, there is not protien in your diet, so it will have you break down your muscle mass. Eventually with not carbs or protien you will begin to rely on fat only for brain food and your body will break down fats to ketones and go into a state of ketoasidosis. Not only will this give you bad breath, but since your brain does not like ketones as its main food source, your body will not function propertly, I would imagine being very disoriented for starters, and since your brain controls pretty much everything in your body, you want to keep it happy with glucose. All those ketones floating around also change the PH of your blood which pisses off the kidneys and other organs as wel which can result in hypotension, deyhdration, and and unhealthy increase in heart rate.

After that, you would be extreamly malnurished. You would be lacking all major vitamins. So I would at least suggest you take a mutlivitamin with your new all lard diet. Some vitamin deficiencies you will get will include, good old scruvy from lack of vitamin C, enemia from lack of iron, blindness from lack of vitamin A, Pellegra and Beri Beri from lack of B vitamins, osteoperosis from lack of calcium, there are just a few that I could name off the top of my head, but believe me, there are much more and they are not pleasent.

I'd imagine all these side effects of a fat only diet (plus it being saturated animal most likely makes it worse), will eventually kill you.

However, fruits and vegetables alone, you can manage to have a healthy balanced diet. It is full of vitamins and minerals for one. You wil get plenty of carbs and glucose for your brain, protien from beans, and fat from avacodos and seeds.

I am not sure you can ignore the fact that fat cannot be converted into glucose (well, that and the obvious health issues)...however

The TEF of fats is lower than carbs and fruits and veggies have fiber...so the actual calories, net of TEF, will be lower with all fruits and veggie diet than an all fat diet.