A Calorie REALLY ISN'T a Calorie

"...The problem comes with the internal stress people create for themselves because they desire the food, but refuse to allow themselves to have it..."

I have never experienced that "stress" ---seems a somewhat odd response.

You are creating that stress in other people by convincing them that some of the foods they desire and want to eat are horrible and automatically bad.

You are setting up a situation where their choice is to either completely abstain from something they really want or utterly fail.

Well, perhaps that "stress" would be productive if it spurred them on to retrain their eating habits. The human race got along quite well without Pop-Tarts for the vast majority of its existence. We were not designed to pursue pleasure at the expense of our bodies and souls. This nation has become preoccupied with rushing into its hedonistic pursuits. It speaks of a vast emptiness of soul. Sad.

Ah yes, the "I'm smarter so I will decide for you" approach. Often the choice of the arrogant and ignorant.

Frankly it's made all the more ridiculous by the appeal to the soul, as this is a health and fitness website and the mods have made it clear that religious discussions belong in private groups. If you don't like sugar then don't eat it but don't go around poisoning other people's minds with garbage and lies.

The rush to victimology concerning food is amazing.

Inadequate self-control =/= trapped.

It is not "victimology" at all. It is simply an attempt to counter the human tendency to succumb to temptation when placed in a tempting situation. Let's paint another scenario: You are in a hotel room in a strange city by yourself, and you are lonely. Suddenly, there is a knock at the door and when you open it, a beautiful woman in a mink coat is there and introduces herself as a friend of a friend of yours and that he recommended she contact you as you would likely be lonely and in need of female companionship. You are flattered and invite her in for a drink. You become acquainted and just as you are about to call it a night, she walks over to the bed, throws off the mink coat and, nude, climbs into your bed. Would you say that you were her "victim" if you succumbed to her obvious charms? Would your friend rightly scold you for being lacking in self-control?

I keep re-reading this because it seems to make my point...and it's a fun idea.

I'm responsible for the situations I find myself in. No one else. In support of my marriage, I'd have to turn her away at the door. The decision to bring her in to my hotel room and lower our inhibitions with alcohol would be a decision to subject myself to ever greater temptation. My fault. Not my friends.

Assuming I did bring her in for drinks and giggles, whom do you think my wife would blame, me or the friend who sent the temptation?

To the contrary, it makes MY point. If you turn the woman away at the door, you would be in the position of someone who abstains from situations where you could be tempted. That is exactly what is done by the person who does not flirt with temptation by eating cookies "in moderation". Your "friend" would be the one seeking to tempt you (with the woman being his co-conspirator)--comparable to the junk food manufacturers and the products they sell. As you have rightly observed, you are the one with the ultimate responsibility just as I am when I abstain from eating foods designed to tempt. While it is true that the seriously obese are ultimately responsible for their plight, wouldn't the best advice be to avoid tempting situations rather than having to rely on "willpower" when already in the tempting situation?

This is the most ridiculous analogy ever. I can't stop laughing. Seriously, how many calories burned can I log from five straight minutes of hard core, belly aching laughter?

Ah yes, the "I'm smarter so I will decide for you" approach. Often the choice of the arrogant and ignorant.

Frankly it's made all the more ridiculous by the appeal to the soul, as this is a health and fitness website and the mods have made it clear that religious discussions belong in private groups. If you don't like sugar then don't eat it but don't go around poisoning other people's minds with garbage and lies.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I did one more smily laugh, so I win the argument. That's how that works, right?

Whilst TEF is generally not worth worrying about the point David Despain makes in the article I linked is an excellent one - you are more likely to get at the higher end of the maximum deliverable calories as shown on a food label etc the more processing the food has undergone.

Therefore a whole food, minimally "processed" diet is more likely to deliver less calories than a diet higher in junk food although they may have both been calculated as say 2,000 calories or whatever the target figure is by the individual based on food labels etc.

As a result there is a greater buffer against miscalculation and you have to be more careful the more processed foods you are consuming to ensure preserving your deficit.

Now someone pass me the steak tartare...

This is the food lifestyle philosophy that I follow. When I eat whole, minimally processed foods, I lose weight almost effortlessly. When I eat easy to digest, overly processed, pre-prepared foods, I gain weight very easily.
Also, if I eat overly processed foods, I do not feel or look my best.

I don't give a fig if there are studies out there to prove or disprove the effectiveness of primarily eating whole foods for fitness and health. I use my own body as my lab and I see the results, which is proof enough for me to convince me to keep doing what I am doing.

I do find it amusing whenever the discussions here go to processed foods, and most of us know that what is being referred to is junky foods like bologna, hot dogs, chips, pillowy white bready items, etc... folks have to get all nit-picky about "All food is processed in some way, unless you are eating it raw and not washing, or peeling, or chopping it before eating it." We all know full well what most folks are referring to when they say "processed foods."

^^^THIS^^^ It is important to point out to the Pop-Tart crowd that, while they, like Jonnythan might be burning LOTS of calories by playing tennis or weight-lifting or whatever, many others are incapable of burning calories at that rate because of disability. Those who have been conditioned to "hyper-eat" (in Kessler's terminology) and are seriously obese, often can not even walk around the block, let alone burn calories playing tennis. It is necessary for them to avoid the foods that they have been conditioned to "hyper-eat" in order to recover from what is a very serious illness. Once they recover from their addiction, and drastically reduce their weight, likely some of them will be able to indulge in eating some empty foods again, provided they maintain a strict hand on it and are dedicated exercisers. Otherwise, they will find themselves right back in the mess that they escaped. I know so many seriously obese people who have fallen off the wagon, not because they just could no longer control themselves and ate what they knew they shouldn't, but, instead, convinced themselves that a "few cookies won't wreck my diet--I'll just stay in my calorie allotment." Three packages of cookies later, just like the alcoholic surveying the empty bottles on "the day after", they beat themselves up and figure they might as well give up and give in to their addiction. If they had the willpower to resist eating excessive amounts of those foods, they would have done so a long time ago. Abstinence is the best course for most people who are seriously obese.

I have a serious problem with you using such a broad brush to paint people as so pathetically lacking willpower that they need you to scare them away from "processed" food for their own good.

If people don't want to eat certain things, fine. But trying to convince everyone that certain things are automatically bad, when they are not, because they're all just so pathetic and helpless they can't help but binge on them, is stupid.

Ahh--a new tactic born of desperation! What is pathetic is the stubborn defense of food that was deliberately engineered to trap people into overeating it. Would you insist that crack cocaine "is part of a normal healthy lifestyle" and that anyone who questions it is just trying to "demonize it" and that anyone who warns kids about its dangers is attempting to "scare them away from it for their own good". Your line of reasoning would only make sense if you owned stock in or worked for a big food conglomerate. I cannot imagine another reason for it being so important to you that you keep insisting that everyone must eat junk food or risk out-of-control eating on one hand and then accuse others, who advise against eating junk food, of judging those same people to be "pathetically lacking in willpower". You are the one who implied that they must inevitably succumb to the lures of junk food. I find that laughably inconsistent.

Yea you sound like you would be aroundthemulberrybush's brother.

lol @ pinning the blame on processed foods. Yes processed foods have crap satiety. but it wasnt meant to overeat or trap them. nothing is addicting and the evidence against it is crap.

We are not in a world of blind consumption anymore. We know what calories are and we can measure them. If you cant control your caloric intake and "get trapped" then it becomes survival of the fittest and you already lost

Even those CREATING the junk foods have admitted to formulating them in a way that makes them hard to stop eating (or thinking about) by intentionally using what they know about our brains' reward centers.

This is nothing more than making it taste good. I haven't had my mother's lasagna in decades but I still crave it. It didn't take a lab or any studies for her to activate my reward centers. Just good Italian cooking.

Really, if the food producers cared about us, they'd sprinkle crap flavor on top of everything to be sure not to get those reward centers going.

I think you've just settled on blaming sugar

I became obese and unhealthy from eating too much sugar.

I think you've just settled on blaming sugar

I became obese and unhealthy from eating too much sugar.

Heh. Well, there you go.

Selecting words out of context in order to mislead is lying, Jonnythan. I SAID, I became obese and unhealthy AS A CHILD from eating too much sugar. I did not buy the food that was put in front of me and I learned to make much better food choices when I became an adult.

I think you've just settled on blaming sugar

I became obese and unhealthy from eating too much sugar.

Heh. Well, there you go.

Selecting words out of context in order to mislead is lying, Jonnythan. I SAID, I became obese and unhealthy AS A CHILD from eating too much sugar. I did not buy the food that was put in front of me and I learned to make much better food choices when I became an adult.

What do you blame your adult obesity on, then?

What do you blame your adult obesity on, then?

A lack of exercise due to arthritis and a higher carbohydrate diet than is correct for my particular body type and bio-chemistry.

What do you blame your adult obesity on, then?

A lack of exercise due to arthritis and a higher carbohydrate diet than is correct for my particular body type and bio-chemistry.

So you believe that exercise is necessary, and that you can't lose weight on "high carb."

Both of these are ridiculously false.

What do you blame your adult obesity on, then?

A lack of exercise due to arthritis and a higher carbohydrate diet than is correct for my particular body type and bio-chemistry.

So you believe that exercise is necessary, and that you can't lose weight on "high carb."

Both of these are ridiculously false.

How do you know those are false? I think it's interesting the way you tell strangers how their individual body chemistry works.