21 day 5000 calorie challenge: debunking the calorie myth?

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  • jwdieter
    jwdieter Posts: 2,582 Member
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    If he approached his experiment as:

    I'm 26, extremely fit, and been working out my entire adult life. Will a 3-week increase of 1,500 cals/day (clean protein/fat calories), while doing cardio, result in a notable body composition and weight change?

    Anyone who has been in this position would say, well maybe you'll pick up a couple pounds. Or maybe you'll feel hotter at night and have looser stools. Maybe both.

    But his premise is he'll gain 13 pounds in 3 weeks, based on a flawed metabolic formula. And if he doesn't gain significant weight, he'll present that as proof that people can eat high calories and not gain weight. Which is true, for people in his situation, but most of the people who might care are overweight and in a completely different metabolic situation.

    I appreciate he's testing his theories on himself, and I think that's actually pretty cool, but his presentation is irresponsible.
  • pcastagner
    pcastagner Posts: 1,606 Member
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    I see this as his own n=1 experiment and do not understand the freakin' negativity surrounding it.

    What about the IFer who decided to eat 2 lbs of potatoes every day. It was his own n=1
    There is another dude on another forum who offers his body to science for his own little n=1 experiments as well.

    Frankly, I find it interesting and don't care to nit pick at him because it is HIS body and he can do what he wants with it.

    Would I do it? No. Is he suggesting everyone jump in and do this? No.

    Haters gonna hate.

    Actually, yes, he is making claims that just picking the right foods means you don't need to worry about intake, and he's selling his advice. He is a "trainer" trying to cash in on the fact that a sucker is born every minute. Who cares if most people won't see results? He can always say: *






















    *results not typical
  • lj8576
    lj8576 Posts: 156
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    wow thats a lot of food lol I can hardly make my 1680 calories a day
  • Binkie1955
    Binkie1955 Posts: 329 Member
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    http://www.why-low-carb-diets-work.com/first-law-of-thermodynamics.html

    Interesting website comparing the law of thermodynamics to the lipophilia theories. I feel the body's chemistry is sufficiently complex that the thermodynamics theory is a poor model for understanding how diets work.

    Good luck.
  • pcastagner
    pcastagner Posts: 1,606 Member
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    http://www.why-low-carb-diets-work.com/first-law-of-thermodynamics.html

    Interesting website comparing the law of thermodynamics to the lipophilia theories. I feel the body's chemistry is sufficiently complex that the thermodynamics theory is a poor model for understanding how diets work.

    Good luck.

    Thermodynamics may not be enough to predict what will happen, precisely, but it is an absolute way to predict what CAN happen.

    Because it says energy can not be created or destroyed.


    No theory so far is able to predict what will happen in all cases, because it IS too complex, but that doesn't invalidate the laws of thermodynamics. Which, by the way, don't state, in any version, anything about carbon compounds ingested finding their way to any particular place in a system.


    Life is a quest for carbon. A fat person is a more complex set of carbon compounds than a skinny person with the same muscle mass, but a muscular person of the same mass as the fat guy is a more complex set of carbon compounds than that. So body recomposition is initially about entropy, but after that is about increasing complexity beyond where you started.


    Again, people pointing out that the law of thermodynamics can't be violated don't seem to me, as a group, to be simpletons who believe the body is as simple a set of chemical reactions as a furnace. That would be stupid. Rather, they tend to understand that since it is impossible to create or destroy energy, a person running a deficit will either lose mass or die. Since we assume we are not dealing with someone actually starving, we are then quite able to give advice that will apply to everyone: eat at a deficit and you will lose mass.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,017 Member
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    http://www.why-low-carb-diets-work.com/first-law-of-thermodynamics.html

    Interesting website comparing the law of thermodynamics to the lipophilia theories. I feel the body's chemistry is sufficiently complex that the thermodynamics theory is a poor model for understanding how diets work.

    Good luck.
    Or that we don't fully understand all of the complexities and therefore deduce that it must be thermodynamics. Nothing worse than a puzzle with a piece missing, eh.
  • pcastagner
    pcastagner Posts: 1,606 Member
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    http://www.why-low-carb-diets-work.com/first-law-of-thermodynamics.html

    Interesting website comparing the law of thermodynamics to the lipophilia theories. I feel the body's chemistry is sufficiently complex that the thermodynamics theory is a poor model for understanding how diets work.

    Good luck.
    Or that we don't fully understand all of the complexities and therefore deduce that it must be thermodynamics. Nothing worse than a puzzle with a piece missing, eh.

    Again, you are confused. Thermodynamics regards adding or taking energy from a system, entropy, complexity, etc... If the energy never actually enters the system, not becoming more complex is what happens. If the energy enters, then leaves, same deal.


    Predictions of what comsititutes a surplus or deficit are based on averages and are not themselves natural laws, nor does an outlier prove or disprove a basic natural law.
  • tootoop224
    tootoop224 Posts: 281 Member
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    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.

    Sounds like he is better at working out than thinking. Did he actually say a calorie doesn't know something? They are sentient now?
    You have to take that comment about calories "knowing" in context. Remember, it's twitter and limited to 140 characters. His point was that the body reacts differently to different types of calories based on which macro-nutrient they are delivered by. In the example, cutting carbs results in water weight loss. Therefore, "a calorie is a calorie" is a myth.

    A calorie IS a calorie (although I also do agree, protein is the most important); it's things like fluid,hormone balance, and body composition that make people THINK thermodynamics somehow goes out the window. Fat loss is non linear and there's plenty of reasons/theories out there for it.

    At the end of the day though if you know the RIGHT calorie balance (IE have an accurate picture of your metabolism) you can do what you want with your body. Most of this is best guess work though, and why people anecdotally refute cals in/out (there's simply a ton of variables to account for).
    I think that is the exact point he is trying to make.
  • tootoop224
    tootoop224 Posts: 281 Member
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    but it will tell us if 3,500 surplus calories = 1 lb. of weight gain.

    I respectfully disagree.

    The only thing he will determine based on the construct of his experiment is the rate at which he gains or loses weight given the current intake of calories and macronutrients.

    The more accurate outcome is that his weight will change by a given amount and he can then determine how much of a surplus or deficit he was truly in.
    I agree. I should have added "for him, during this experiment" to the end of my sentence above. And, I think that is his point. If he can eat 3,500 surplus calories and it doesn't = 1 lb. of weight gained, then it can drive a conversation about why, and potentially lead to a better understanding of how the body processes energy beyond the simplicity of calories in v. calories out.
  • sarahmoo12
    sarahmoo12 Posts: 756 Member
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    bumping to read later !
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    but it will tell us if 3,500 surplus calories = 1 lb. of weight gain

    That number already has an assumed split of fat to non-fat built in of around 70:30. If he was doing an energy balance - which he isn't - then he would account for fat content changes (he can't, he isn't measuring it) at the calorific value of fat and FFM at a lower value.

    1 lb = 454g * 9 cals/g = 4086 calories.
  • tomcornhole
    tomcornhole Posts: 1,084 Member
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    I just did a one day challenge (7,300 cal) and gained 4 lbs. Then I lost 5.4 lbs the next day. I should stop drinking water.
  • freerange
    freerange Posts: 1,722 Member
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    Arguing against the first law of thermodynamics?

    Ambitious to put it nicely.

    It's a little more complicated than that. What the research that I've been reading seems to show is that both count. Calories count, but not all calories are equal. The law of themodynamics would work perfectly for the calories-in-calories-out thoeyr except that they're finding our bodies aren't calorimeters. They burn some foods more completely than others, and it takes more "effort" to burn some calories than others. Also glycemic index and glycemic load play a role. We're complicated little machines.

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304458604577490943279845790.html

    I'm not advocating one way or another way. Just saying the research indicates that type of calories does count, though it's not the be-all-end-all.

    I don't think you and I have the same concept when it comes to the laws of thermodynamics.


    But at least you are not making the other goofball argument in this thread:

    Science has been wrong before, then made a correction
    Someone is attempting to make a correction
    Therefore, someone must be right and science must be wrong


    Because, you know, like, science used to say earth is the center of the universe, and, like, thought there were too few stars

    Yep that's it, science is the end all to all knowledge. The fool is a person that does not question.
  • totem12
    totem12 Posts: 194 Member
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    'Questioning' is what scientists do all day, every day, professionally.

    The fool is the person who reads an article and thinks they now know better.
  • freerange
    freerange Posts: 1,722 Member
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    'Questioning' is what scientists do all day, every day, professionally.

    The fool is the person who reads an article and thinks they now know better.


    Yep that's it LOL

    How about this, a fool is a person that reads an article and, because it goes against their paradigm, dismisses it? We can do this all day.
  • NoleGirl0918
    NoleGirl0918 Posts: 213 Member
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    Bump for later.
  • LarryLaird
    LarryLaird Posts: 94 Member
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    What is wrong with the cal. in cal out?? And there is the KISS method...Keep It Simple Stupid. Cal in Cal out for me!!
  • strongmindstrongbody
    strongmindstrongbody Posts: 315 Member
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    So the guy gains only 1.3 kg at the end of the 21 days and actually loses 3 cm around his waist. And he claims it was because of his high fat, natural foods diet. Damn. I did that sort of diet before (minus the 5,000 calorie intake, lol) and didn't lose anything for months. I wonder if he had the results he had because he was already lean at the get-go. Like his body was pushing for homeostasis, working hard to keep his body the way it was.

    Off to read more about this guy's story.
  • strongmindstrongbody
    strongmindstrongbody Posts: 315 Member
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    The guy says he's going to do two more experiments. One in September, eating a high refined carb diet, and one in January, eating a high natural carb diet. Curious what his results will be.
  • johnrossmckay
    johnrossmckay Posts: 66 Member
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    If it's just a myth then 10000 calories or 15000 calories should be good too. As should 1000 or 500.

    And how, in 21 days do you offset for transient lifestyle changes, thermogenesis, and water retention. Put your money where your mouth is and do it for a year. And get a reasonable sample size, and double blind it so that your results are meaningful. Because the laws of energy conservation and thermodynamics are fact not fiction. You burn calories for fuel. No matter how hard you drive a Prius, you can't pour as much gas (calories) into it as you do a hummer without having to store it in a pool (fat cell) in the back seat. And no matter how wishful the thinking, you can't power a hummer for long on the fuel (calories) you'd use in a Prius. But that Prius will go a long way on the fuel (fat) that is stored in the tank and backseat.

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