Calories are NOT equal

Is this really true? I always thought that all food are alright in moderation, but that it's generally better to eat non processed food because it have more beneficial nutrients compared to, say, McDonalds each day. Is there really no evidence that suggests this?

Well, that one guy Morgan Spurlock (i think that was his name) did that 30 day McDonalds ONLY menu, and he ended up getting really sick after about day 27 and couldn't continue.

then again, a homeless person who is starving might be able to survive another 30 days by eating McDonalds.

then again, someone on MFP can eat McDonalds sometimes but they also eat other foods elsewhere.

Could have something to do with the fact that he was eating 4000+ calories a day.

Okay so I'm not saying that it was a particularly healthy diet but for like a week a few years ago I spent every single calorie on crap. I would eat four jaffa cake bars as the majority of my food. I was getting vitamins and minerals from a variety of multivitamins, and okay so I was lacking in protien and fibre etc. But in the end a calorie is a calorie. I lost weight that way, I felt fine.

Weight loss is as simple as calories in < calories out. A calorie is a scientific measurement of energy, and they are all equal.

The horrid, disgusting thing on the right is the product of fast food and ice cream.

Tell your children! Let me be a warning.

If I keep eating fast food and ice cream, I'm going to become a man?! Dammit!

And what in the name of all that's holy is a macro, please? Sounds like something Hubs might put on my computer for playing MMORPGs.

There are three (well, really four if you count alcohol) macros (macronutrient)

Protein, Fats and Carbs.

there r also some laboratory made macros - sugar alcohols. sweet as sugar but about half the cals.

Um no... there isn't.

He's right. Xylitol, sorbitol, etc. These are used in sugar-free gum and syrup, among other things. They taste sweet and are artificial but still have calories. The difference is they're sweeter than sugar so you need less and each molecule has fewer calories to boot. They're mostly found in nature, but produced synthetically.

Those are considered carbs.

carbs have about 4cal per gram. these have less.

Calorie count is irrelevant. Fiber is also considered a carb, yet it has less than 4 calories per gram. A carbohydrate is a molecule containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Sugar alcohols are made from sugar (also a carbohydrate.) Sugar Alcohols are a type of carbohydrate, which is why you will find them under the carbohydrate heading on nutrition labels.

Well, that one guy Morgan Spurlock (i think that was his name) did that 30 day McDonalds ONLY menu, and he ended up getting really sick after about day 27 and couldn't continue.

then again, a homeless person who is starving might be able to survive another 30 days by eating McDonalds.

then again, someone on MFP can eat McDonalds sometimes but they also eat other foods elsewhere.

That guy was full of crap.

I was traveling last year for three months and ate fast food 3x per day nearly the entire time. I lost 45lbs and felt great.

As a contrast to that, for years I ate three to four thousand calories a day of home prepared food, including lots of fruit and vegetables, and got fat and sick. Purely anecdotal evidence, I accept, but these two data points suggest that quantity is far more important than perceived 'quality'.

Make that 3. Look at my ticker, then look at this graph.

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Is this really true? I always thought that all food are alright in moderation, but that it's generally better to eat non processed food because it have more beneficial nutrients compared to, say, McDonalds each day. Is there really no evidence that suggests this?

Well, that one guy Morgan Spurlock (i think that was his name) did that 30 day McDonalds ONLY menu, and he ended up getting really sick after about day 27 and couldn't continue.

then again, a homeless person who is starving might be able to survive another 30 days by eating McDonalds.

then again, someone on MFP can eat McDonalds sometimes but they also eat other foods elsewhere.

Could have something to do with the fact that he was eating 4000+ calories a day.

Yeah, he had to Supersize every time the cashier asked him if he wanted to. The whole 'documentary' was ridiculous and made no point whatsoever except that it is not healthy to be a complete glutton.

Is this really true? I always thought that all food are alright in moderation, but that it's generally better to eat non processed food because it have more beneficial nutrients compared to, say, McDonalds each day. Is there really no evidence that suggests this?

Well, that one guy Morgan Spurlock (i think that was his name) did that 30 day McDonalds ONLY menu, and he ended up getting really sick after about day 27 and couldn't continue.

then again, a homeless person who is starving might be able to survive another 30 days by eating McDonalds.

then again, someone on MFP can eat McDonalds sometimes but they also eat other foods elsewhere.

Could have something to do with the fact that he was eating 4000+ calories a day.

Yeah, he had to Supersize every time the cashier asked him if he wanted to. The whole 'documentary' was ridiculous and made no point whatsoever except that it is not healthy to be a complete glutton.

Yep. It was completely unscientific because it didn't isolate food choice from quantity consumed.

And what in the name of all that's holy is a macro, please? Sounds like something Hubs might put on my computer for playing MMORPGs.

There are three (well, really four if you count alcohol) macros (macronutrient)

Protein, Fats and Carbs.

there r also some laboratory made macros - sugar alcohols. sweet as sugar but about half the cals.

Already been mentioned - but they are still considered carbs.

Ever notice that its almost always relative newbies claiming that it's essential to eat clean, and old-timers who have lost 50+ pounds saying that it's rubbish. That speaks volumes if you ask me.

Calories strictly measured as energy units of different foods are equal going in. What varies are the processes used to digest not only different types of nutrients but even the same food depending on whether it it raw, cooked, mashed, etc... All food requires some energy expended by the body to digest it. Carbs are the most direct since breaking chains of sugars into glucose is about as simple as it gets, so for carbs you will net closer to 100% of the calories you take in. Fats take more energy to break down and probably net more like 75% of the original calories. Proteins are even mode inefficient to use as fuel than fats.

There have been studies that found that the same food (potatoes for example) require different amounts of efforts to digest depending on whether they are raw or cooked, hot or cold, and also the sizes of the pieces. More chewing and bigger pieces take more energy to break down.

Then consider that essential proteins and fats are needed by the body as nutrients and the body would rather use them for repair and things it needs than as fuel. it will burn additional protein as fuel, or if that's the only choice it has, but you need many of those amino acids and essential fatty acids the same way you need vitamins and minerals and you can use what you burn as fuel.

So, calories in are all the same, but calories netted are not. For basic weight control, however, calories in works fine. If you consistently run a calorie deficit, you will lose weight and if you consistently run an overage you will gain weight even if the counted calories themselves are not exact. As for accuracy, measuring calories burned is also just an approximation unless you're in a fitness lab measuring oxygen, CO2, and taking blood samples. Most of us can settle for that level of inaccuracy and figure that both netted calories in and calories burned are good approximations at best and the errors in both combined sometimes cancel out and other times give us false highs or lows.

And what in the name of all that's holy is a macro, please? Sounds like something Hubs might put on my computer for playing MMORPGs.

There are three (well, really four if you count alcohol) macros (macronutrient)

Protein, Fats and Carbs.

there r also some laboratory made macros - sugar alcohols. sweet as sugar but about half the cals.

Um no... there isn't.

He's right. Xylitol, sorbitol, etc. These are used in sugar-free gum and syrup, among other things. They taste sweet and are artificial but still have calories. The difference is they're sweeter than sugar so you need less and each molecule has fewer calories to boot. They're mostly found in nature, but produced synthetically.

Those are considered carbs.

carbs have about 4cal per gram. these have less.

Calorie count is irrelevant. Fiber is also considered a carb, yet it has less than 4 calories per gram. A carbohydrate is a molecule containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Sugar alcohols are made from sugar (also a carbohydrate.) Sugar Alcohols are a type of carbohydrate, which is why you will find them under the carbohydrate heading on nutrition labels.

sorry, not correct. fiber is a carb so it has 4 cals. it is just that r bodies do not digest it well to get all the cals from it. sugar alcohols are a kind alcohol made from carbs. the alcohol that we drink is made from carbs but it is not a carb. it is ethyl alcohol 7cals per gram.

I thought soluble fiber had 2 cals.

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Ever notice that its almost always relative newbies claiming that it's essential to eat clean, and old-timers who have lost 50+ pounds saying that it's rubbish. That speaks volumes if you ask me.

a lot of forums have a 100-post rule.

since we have so many bang/murder/pickpocket/dump/marry threads on here where newbs can inflate their post count, maybe we should have a 1000-post rule???

666+ only, so can prove our evil meanness. :devil:

all calories arent equal

neither are centimeters or inches

There is no spoon.

This is the matrix
Amidoingitright?