21 day 5000 calorie challenge: debunking the calorie myth?

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.)

I am not impressed. If I chose to move for 8 hours a day or it was my job (as a trainer to move that much) I would burn at least 5000 calories a day. I aim to walk for an hour and a half a day and it says I burn off close to 900 calories. So, basically if I increased that a couple more hours I would be burning close to 5000 a day.

Arguing against the first law of thermodynamics?

Ambitious to put it nicely.

WHy to folks assume the human body is nothing more than a furnace?

Arguing against the first law of thermodynamics?

Ambitious to put it nicely.

Idk what his maintenance calories are but there's a chance he could maintain. One of my gym bros is a bodybuilder and >200lbs with 5% body fat and he told me he maintains at 4,000 calories. If this dude upped his activity/exercise he could potentially maintain on 5,000. I just don't understand why anyone would want to eat that much.

OK, so he proves that he can burn 5000kcal a day. good for him.

But as I understand he is trying to disprove the "Calorie Myth" and the Calories in = Calories Out "Theory". See the original Post.

These are no myths or theories its a law of physics.

His experiment is therefor not based in Science which makes it objectively worthless.

It is painfully obvious you, and most here, did not bother to go to the link and read. Try it, you'll like it.

Arguing against the first law of thermodynamics?

Ambitious to put it nicely.

Idk what his maintenance calories are but there's a chance he could maintain. One of my gym bros is a bodybuilder and >200lbs with 5% body fat and he told me he maintains at 4,000 calories. If this dude upped his activity/exercise he could potentially maintain on 5,000. I just don't understand why anyone would want to eat that much.

OK, so he proves that he can burn 5000kcal a day. good for him.

But as I understand he is trying to disprove the "Calorie Myth" and the Calories in = Calories Out "Theory". See the original Post.

These are no myths or theories its a law of physics.

His experiment is therefor not based in Science which makes it objectively worthless.

It is painfully obvious you, and most here, did not bother to go to the link and read. Try it, you'll like it.

Oh, i read it, had a good laugh, and felt a bit sorry for the people he sold his BS to.

Arguing against the first law of thermodynamics?

Ambitious to put it nicely.

WHy to folks assume the human body is nothing more than a furnace?

Not the law of furnaces, you goof. Thermodynamics. It says you can't make something from nothing. It doesn't rule out not gaining fat because certain foods don't get stored, but it DOES say you can't make fat without a calorie surplus.

The first law of thermodynamics is a version of the law of conservation of energy, adapted for thermodynamic systems. The internal energy of an isolated system is constant and energy can be transformed from one form to another, but cannot be created or destroyed. The first law is often formulated by stating that the change in the internal energy of a closed system is equal to the amount of heat supplied to the system, minus the amount of work done by the system on its surroundings.