Scientific American: Why Calorie Counts Are All Wrong

I hate articles like this. Sensible people read it as "I guess that means I should diligently track things and adjust for my specific circumstances". Others conclude "I'm a special snowflake who does everything right but unicorn hormones are causing me to gain weight".

OK, first I will vent, if you don't want to read it skip this next paragraph (this vent also comes from years of reading misunderstandings regarding psychology studies):

Just because something is simple and works great for group A doesn't meant that it will blanket effect and work great for everyone. There are people, for real, who do follow "all of the rules" and it doesn't work for them. I am in a career field (military) where weight matters so I've seen it happen plenty of times. People hire dietians, work out, count calories, everything and still hold onto weight. For people who honestly have something it can be relavant. Especially if they've seen a Dr. and drugs, thyroid, and all of the other usual factors are ruled out. Science is never irrelevant. Just because you don't care it doesn't meant it shouldn't be sought out. This is the food and nutrition forum and the article is about food and nutrition. Some of us like to know all of the details. I missed the previous posting of this though, otherwise I would have just commited on it. This world isn't black and white, don't make it that way. I mostly thought it was relavant because there always seem to be people who answer the, "why won't I lose weight," posts with, "haha, you are obviously not doing something right." How do YOU know they are not doing something right? Maybe there really is another factor. The majority do well with calories in/out based on labels and HRM (or whatever you use for calorie counting) but not 100% of the population. To read this and say, "woo, I don't need to count calories it's a waste," would also be taking a black and white approach to this. Knowledge is power if you use it right.

Less Ranty reply:

I think it's good that it is studied, knowledge is power (yea I'm keeping that line). If calories in/out works for you then by all means use it! I still am. I also like knowing that my calories might be too low if I don't digest something well (which is obvious if it shows up in my poop) or high if it's something that is quickly digested.. ie sugar. I can plan better diets that might work better knowing more about how the body treats calories. It also might explain why half of my family can eat like horses and not gain a lb while the other half can smell food and gain weight. Maybe one digests things better (my body follows the weight gainers side). Maybe, if I do digest stuff better I can eat lower calories, lose weight, and not become malnurished because I'm obviously abosorbing calories well enough otherwise I wouldn't gain weight. Of course healthier food choices will help in terms of malnurishment vs. not, but you don't have to fear lower calories since there is a little bit of, "OMG, starvation mode!" stiff going around.

"Digestion is far too messy a process to accurately convey in neat numbers. The counts on food labels can differ wildly from the calories you actually extract, for many reasons"

But there also is increasing evidence that calorie counts for various foods are "off" because calorimeters are used to figure the calories. Calorimeter burn off all the calories in the food. Humans don't. That's why they found that almonds, for example, have about 20% fewer calories when digested by humans than they do when burned off by calorimeters.

What does a calorimeter say when you run it on nutshells? Or coal?

This really is not news. It is well known that calculating both "calories in" and "calories out" are very inexact sciences. That's why anyone who's counting calories needs to be ready to make adjustments depending on their results.

The article in no way promotes losing weight without trying. Why do people always exagerate things? *sigh*