A Calorie is NOT a calorie

I plan to eat a handful or two of Wonka's Bottle Caps in a few minutes, followed later by a few Everlasting Gobstoppers. Should I update my will first? Who wants my 12 bags of Tootsie Pops once I'm gone?

*waves and jumps up and down*
I'll take them. I have some calories left today and no sugar phobias. :laugh:

You're right, OP - a calorie is not a calorie.

It's a unicorn.

This is a far better response than mine. If only you'd had a unicorn jpeg.

I'll go one better. A unicorn gif.

A++++++

nobody suggests that the Twinkie Diet is the one you should chose to adopt and yes when you have little to lose and are small having 1300 cals worth of junk isn't going to fill you up, but that doesn't mean that if I eat 2000 cals worth of veggies I am not going to gain weight. In fact it's almost easier to follow the Twinkie diet, because the packet will tell me exactly what's in it whilst my green beans don't really come with that.

Please do post again when you have proof that eating large amounts of veggies won't make you gain weight, cause as a vegetarian I super interested in that ...

Although, I have to say, I am amused by the gut flora aspect. Because if you can treat C. dificile with a pill made of human poop, maybe a poop pill can be created with the feces of lean people to help with weight loss!

So much hostility. Granted the OP should have provided a link to the study for some credibility, but this idea is not impossible. If we think about it, we are lead to believe that low fat high carb diet is healthy and help prevent heart disease for years which couldn't be further from the truth. I'm not saying what the OP say is true/ not true, but I always keep an open mind about new information. Carb and fructose will be store in our fat cells if we over indulge. I guess its easier to overdo sodas and items with added sugars cause they are usually empty calories and doesn't fill you up.

From personal experience, when I was attending UW I barely ate, maybe 900 ish (eat once at dinner when I get home) calories a day plus a can of energy drink and sometime a coke. Yet I was gaining a lot of weight over 40 lbs (125lb to 167lb) in the course of the last 2 years. After I graduated took me 2 month to completely stopped all sodas and energy drink and only drink black coffee, I started losing some of the weight eating 3 meals a day again. Then I started MFP last month and lost an additional 7 lbs ( only 12 more until I'm back to my original weight). I've always had a really high metabolism and could eat w/e I wanted but ever since I habitually drank energy drink I started put on pounds really fast. I was getting stretch mark on my stomach which scared me and made me realize i need to lose some weight. Of course this is not proof of anything cause it could just me by body reacts differently to high sugar content than other people. However, this theory is interesting and maybe we don't know as much about calories as we think.

So much hostility. Granted the OP should have provided a link to the study for some credibility, but this idea is not impossible. If we think about it, we are lead to believe that low fat high carb diet is healthy and help prevent heart disease for years which couldn't be further from the truth. I'm not saying what the OP say is true/ not true, but I always keep an open mind about new information. Carb and fructose will be store in our fat cells if we over indulge. I guess its easier to overdo sodas and items with added sugars cause they are usually empty calories and doesn't fill you up.

From personal experience, when I was attending UW I barely ate, maybe 900 ish (eat once at dinner when I get home) calories a day plus a can of energy drink and sometime a coke. Yet I was gaining a lot of weight over 40 lbs (125lb to 167lb) in the course of the last 2 years. After I graduated took me 2 month to completely stopped all sodas and energy drink and only drink black coffee, I started losing some of the weight eating 3 meals a day again. Then I started MFP last month and lost an additional 7 lbs ( only 12 more until I'm back to my original weight). I've always had a really high metabolism and could eat w/e I wanted but ever since I habitually drank energy drink I started put on pounds really fast. I was getting stretch mark on my stomach which scared me and made me realize i need to lose some weight. Of course this is not proof of anything cause it could just me by body reacts differently to high sugar content than other people. However, this theory is interesting and maybe we don't know as much about calories than we think.

Oh.

So much hostility. Granted the OP should have provided a link to the study for some credibility, but this idea is not impossible. If we think about it, we are lead to believe that low fat high carb diet is healthy and help prevent heart disease for years which couldn't be further from the truth. I'm not saying what the OP say is true/ not true, but I always keep an open mind about new information. Carb and fructose will be store in our fat cells if we over indulge. I guess its easier to overdo sodas and items with added sugars cause they are usually empty calories and doesn't fill you up.

From personal experience, when I was attending UW I barely ate, maybe 900 ish (eat once at dinner when I get home) calories a day plus a can of energy drink and sometime a coke. Yet I was gaining a lot of weight over 40 lbs (125lb to 167lb) in the course of the last 2 years. After I graduated took me 2 month to completely stopped all sodas and energy drink and only drink black coffee, I started losing some of the weight eating 3 meals a day again. Then I started MFP last month and lost an additional 7 lbs ( only 12 more until I'm back to my original weight). I've always had a really high metabolism and could eat w/e I wanted but ever since I habitually drank energy drink I started put on pounds really fast. I was getting stretch mark on my stomach which scared me and made me realize i need to lose some weight. Of course this is not proof of anything cause it could just me by body reacts differently to high sugar content than other people. However, this theory is interesting and maybe we don't know as much about calories as we think.

Were they purple stretch marks? Was most of your weight gain in the abdomen? You may have had excess cortisol due to stress. If you were truly eating 900/day and gaining rapidly you probably had an endocrine disorder. I bet you are sleeping better and your skin has improved too.

Cutting edge experts say the "calories in, calories out", philosophy is oversimplified and inadequate. Quality of calories determnes the quantity your body burns or stores.

Fiber: delays the absorbtion of calories. For example, when you eat a 160 calorie portion of almonds, you absorb 130 calories because some calories are delivered to your intestine, where your gut bacteria burn them for their own energy source

How does delaying the absorption of food make the caloric value different?

Protein: You use twice as much energy to metabolize protein as carbohydrate- due to thermic effect of food. Protein reduces hunger hormones more than carbs do.

That is well established - not cutting edge. Also, TEF impacts TDEE, it does not impact the unit known as a calorie.

Carbs: starches (like potatoes) contain mainly glucose, which every cell in your body uses for energy.

Are you saying that no other carb converts into glucose?

Fructose-- found in soda and candy and added to most processed foods--is metabolized in your liver as fat, which drives chronic diseases such as diabetes.

On a caloric deficit?

You do realize that fructose is found in fruit I hope.



Edited to fix quotes

Quoting this to bring to the OP's attention to answer the questions

Ummm Researchers at Harvard University and University of Pittsburgh. Of course I am sure you know much more than experts in their fields BTW Harvard is ranked the number one institution for obesity research by many "experts" However I know MFPers know a unicorn when they see one, cuz they are such fanciful thinkers stuck to "Baaahhhh "a calorie is a calorie"

Says no such thing on the study at Harvard. Here's the link:

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/06/when-a-calorie-is-not-just-a-calorie/

Reducing refined carbs may help maintain weight loss better than reducing fat

That's not the same as saying "a calorie is not a calorie".


This is from the University of Pittsburg:

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

A second study in the same medical journal showed that people in an 18-month weight-loss program that started with monthly meetings lost nearly as much weight as those in a much costlier program of the same duration with group sessions that initially met weekly. That study, led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, found that the monthly program cut about $600 off the cost of a $1,360 traditional weight-loss program with the weekly classes.

All that's spoken of hear is the differences in cost of programs.

Thanks for playing though.


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