A little help required backing up CICO

PAV8888 wrote: »

Hmmm.... am I going to get flamed?

A calorie is a unit of heat energy. A caloric deficit is all that is necessary for weight loss.

The effect of a substance that you ingest in order to acquire calories is not limited to the amount of calories it provides.

How you achieve your caloric deficit a story. How you achieve it in good health a different story. How you sustain your weight loss yet another one.

MY choice between "good and bad" calories boils down to "do these 100 calories fill me up more and suit me better than these other 100 calories once I account for taste, health, money and convenience"

But, I also chose within the framework of my belief that long term weight loss is un-successful in part because it is predicated on unsustainable changes.

Now this discussion you're having blends in a whole whack of things and goes in too many directions to be useful.

Is celery healthier than a Big Mac? Not if you haven't eaten any protein and fat today. And not if you need to eat 600 calories, because you will have to eat a lot of celery to net 600 calories.

Are 134g of Avocados healthier than a 134g Egg McMuffin? The avocados are about 70 calories less; but, they have 13g less protein than the EggMcMuffin, and 9g more fat, though most of it monounsaturated. I would call it a wash since if your muscles needed repairs the Egg McMuffin would win!

Do ALL 290 calories of the EggMcMuffin happily absorb into your body? Why, yes, they do, which arguably means you got 100% of your money's worth! Celery? Not so sure. A lot of its energy gets wasted to digest it. And the fiber. It has to go somewhere. But wait: that would be good if you're constipated from the Egg Mcmuffin you ate earlier!

And nuts. The have great fats and almost magical properties. And they taste dang good. And we even poo a % of our nut calories back out (because, you know, the nut doesn't fully break down on its way out-sort of like the "net carb" concept), so the nutty "net calories" are less than we think!

Does that make Macademia nut calories better than Rotisserie Chicken calories? And how about that brown rice? I mean it has more of EVERYTHING compared to white rice. Is it good calories?

So, on to that article your friend quoted.

As you may know, at the end of a longer period of caloric restriction some metabolic adaptation takes place that is not explainable by changes in lean body mass.

In other words our metabolism slows down after we diet. By how much and for how long is still an open question.

The study (falsely advertised by a headline as proving that calories are not equal) compares three types of restrictive diets as to how much of a metabolic slow down they caused.

Of course the study wasn't particularly long term and didn't follow the participants for the year+ I've been restricting my calories; but, I digress!

One diet restricted carbohydrates (Atkins type), one restricted fat (government type) and the one that your friend advocates was the low-glycemic index diet which restricted carbohydrates that rapidly increase your blood sugar level.

The study found that the Atkins type diet had the best results when it came to metabolism adaptation, while the standard government (20% calories from fat) diet caused the greatest slow down in the participant's metabolism. The 300 calories a day figure came from comparing the two.

But, the study then goes on to recommend the third diet. The low-glycemic index diet. Which was better than the low fat diet; but, NOT as good as the Atkins type diet in terms of preventing metabolic slow down.

WHY? Well because the health outcomes of the Atkins type diet were inferior to those of the other two diets. They mentioned cortisol levels and C-reactive protein levels. And, furthermore because, let's face it, most people go back to what they used to do before they went on a diet, so long term compliance is probably the biggest issue we all face.

"Because in addition to the benefits noted in this study, we believe that low-glycemic-index diets are easier to stick to on a day-to-day basis, compared to low-carb and low-fat diets, which many people find limiting"

And now we've come full circle.

Where in all this BLEEPING wall of text has there been a discussion about a calorie not being a calorie? The discussion is about what type of food it is "better" for someone to eat in the pursuit of some type of (varying) goal.

I am happy to report to your friend that I am not using ANY restriction. Other than restricting my calories.

Which incidentally does mean that I am reducing my consumption of a whole whack of items. Including gratuitous fats, and gratuitous high-glycemic load carbs.

But the REASON I am not eating them is not because of what they are. The reason I am not eating them is because they don't provide me with a good enough bang for my caloric buck!

And I am hoping that, even though my food choices may change over time based on my daily needs, my health choices, or plain cravings, learning to operate in a calorically balanced framework will allow me to keep things heading in the direction I want.