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I Don't Believe in Calorie Counting

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Replies

  • ogtmama
    ogtmama Posts: 1,403 Member
    edited May 2016
    I pretty much don't believe anything Tracy Anderson says, ever. Among some of the gems:
    • women shouldn't lift weights over 3 pounds because they'll get bulky
    • running and biking will make women develop bulky man-looking rear ends
    • only work small muscle groups (no, really, she says this)

    Also she has lied about her qualifications (said she studied at Juilliard but they have no record of her enrollment, taught Pilates without any certification), etc., etc. Recommends diets that are unsafe because they are below 1000 calories (I realize that some people go that low with medical supervision but she is NOT a doctor). Has been sued as a result of some shady stuff she did running a fitness center in Indiana.

    Considering the source, I can't get behind anything she says, ever. (Also, MFP and counting calories are working for me.)

    http://thedailybanter.com/2013/09/tracy-anderson-and-the-myth-behind-celebrity-trainers-and-diets/
    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/10/21/madonnas-trainer-fights-back.html
    https://loseweightnobullshit.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/tracy-andersons-methods-are-dangerous-damaging-and-anti-feminist/

    Wow I am doomed!!! I lift weights and they are way more than 3lbs! I bike....A LOT and I run! I work all muscle groups!!! I am fit, healthy and one strong *kitten*!!!!! I feel FANTASTIC!!!!!!!

    Wait a second...Is she the prancercise lady? http://prancercise.com/ ;)
  • trollerskates
    trollerskates Posts: 87 Member
    Good food choices are more satisfying so you gravitate to not eating as much.
  • LKM54
    LKM54 Posts: 48 Member
    It looks like I am coming late to this debate. I would like to comment about the response that science doesn't lie with regards to this post. The truth is we don't have a lot of factual based science regarding how a calorie really works, how it feeds the cells etc. Most of the information out there is what has been deduced but not seriously studied in a lab. There are two doctors, sorry can't remember their names, that were gaining large amounts of weight on the government food pyramid. An aside, the grain lobby got their hands up in government, follow the money, and changed the food pyramid. This is when we started really getting fatter as a society. Back to the doctors, they both started paleo, and of course lost all their weight. They are now embarking on scientific study to truly understand how food is used as energy etc. Are all calories the same or not? What feeds what cell in our body etc. Of course, when trying to lose weight I agree you can't just eat 5,000 calories and expect to shed the pounds. Our limited understanding at this point leads us to counting calories because we don't know enough. There is also a lot of speculation regarding bacterias found in the stomach. There was a study with fat and thin mice. They found that the thin mice had a bacteria the fat mice were lacking. When they added that bacteria to the fat mice, they lost weight. For me, the biggest issue is the small conversation we have in this country regarding size. I believe our country has a food disorder and there is absolutely a prejudice and misunderstanding when it comes to fat. I do believe, we are going to find out it is much more complicated, our systems anyway, than just calories in calories out. Science is behind in factual data regarding the fat conversation. Just wanted to add my two cents. There is a lot going on in this field now and I find it really interesting.
  • jennifer_417
    jennifer_417 Posts: 12,344 Member
    It's a fine concept, but I don't think it's mutually exclusive from calorie counting. Taking care of my body frequently means not giving it whatever it wants, because all I'd ever do would be to sleep, eat and have sex. Those things are fine, but the body is more like a small child that, in its own best interest, must be denied some thing sometimes.
  • ogtmama
    ogtmama Posts: 1,403 Member
    LKM54 wrote: »
    It looks like I am coming late to this debate. I would like to comment about the response that science doesn't lie with regards to this post. The truth is we don't have a lot of factual based science regarding how a calorie really works, how it feeds the cells etc. Most of the information out there is what has been deduced but not seriously studied in a lab. There are two doctors, sorry can't remember their names, that were gaining large amounts of weight on the government food pyramid. An aside, the grain lobby got their hands up in government, follow the money, and changed the food pyramid. This is when we started really getting fatter as a society. Back to the doctors, they both started paleo, and of course lost all their weight. They are now embarking on scientific study to truly understand how food is used as energy etc. Are all calories the same or not? What feeds what cell in our body etc. Of course, when trying to lose weight I agree you can't just eat 5,000 calories and expect to shed the pounds. Our limited understanding at this point leads us to counting calories because we don't know enough. There is also a lot of speculation regarding bacterias found in the stomach. There was a study with fat and thin mice. They found that the thin mice had a bacteria the fat mice were lacking. When they added that bacteria to the fat mice, they lost weight. For me, the biggest issue is the small conversation we have in this country regarding size. I believe our country has a food disorder and there is absolutely a prejudice and misunderstanding when it comes to fat. I do believe, we are going to find out it is much more complicated, our systems anyway, than just calories in calories out. Science is behind in factual data regarding the fat conversation. Just wanted to add my two cents. There is a lot going on in this field now and I find it really interesting.

    As far as the "grain lobby" is concerned, how do you explain countries like Italy that eat alot of pasta, pizza, risotto, breads, etc., and still have an overly thin population.

    They don't eat a lot of sugar...a more powerful and important lobby IMHO.
  • LKM54
    LKM54 Posts: 48 Member
    The wheat we grow today here in America isn't the wheat of the 1950's. The wheat in Italy is still much more natural. Also, the portions in America are overly large not so in Italy. I never said not to count calories. I said, Science needs to catch up in understanding metabolism, fat, bacteria, cellular use of energy as in calories, hormones etc. My point was in regards to a response that said you can't argue with science. Science is behind the curve in understanding the complexity of the bodily system. Counting calories is the best we have right now but often times we know people still can't lose weight or it takes them forever to lose a few pounds. And, in the end, most times many gain it back. Why is one person able to eat whatever and stay at a normal size and another person gains weight? One woman was thin and had a fecal transplant the donor was obese. After the surgery, the thin woman became obese. Here is the article. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwiFmov7nO7MAhVKOD4KHUglCRQQFggdMAA&url=http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-obese-after-fecal-transplant-overweight-donor&usg=AFQjCNGGNmMbmBusUbAwlnWs7jkbjta
    Calories hardly provide the whole picture we need more scientific data to truly understand metabolism/energy use, bacteria load etc.
  • thefuzz1290
    thefuzz1290 Posts: 777 Member
    Can you get to a point where you don't have to count calories? Sure, but you have to work really hard to get there and you need to not over indulge when you get to that point. However, starting off it is smarter to count calories (which I've gone back to) to get your eating back on track. We're creatures of habit and we tend to eat the same foods week in and week out. Once you learn how many calories are in each food item, its not too difficult to eat and not worry about it.
  • snickerscharlie
    snickerscharlie Posts: 8,581 Member
    LKM54 wrote: »
    The wheat we grow today here in America isn't the wheat of the 1950's.

    http://www.foodandnutrition.org/Stone-Soup/July-2015/Wheat-Has-Not-Changed/

    :)
  • kpeterson539
    kpeterson539 Posts: 220 Member
    edited May 2016
    Deleted as I misread a posting. My bad. :s
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
    LKM54 wrote: »
    The wheat we grow today here in America isn't the wheat of the 1950's. The wheat in Italy is still much more natural. Also, the portions in America are overly large not so in Italy. I never said not to count calories. I said, Science needs to catch up in understanding metabolism, fat, bacteria, cellular use of energy as in calories, hormones etc. My point was in regards to a response that said you can't argue with science. Science is behind the curve in understanding the complexity of the bodily system. Counting calories is the best we have right now but often times we know people still can't lose weight or it takes them forever to lose a few pounds. And, in the end, most times many gain it back. Why is one person able to eat whatever and stay at a normal size and another person gains weight? One woman was thin and had a fecal transplant the donor was obese. After the surgery, the thin woman became obese. Here is the article. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwiFmov7nO7MAhVKOD4KHUglCRQQFggdMAA&url=http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-obese-after-fecal-transplant-overweight-donor&usg=AFQjCNGGNmMbmBusUbAwlnWs7jkbjta
    Calories hardly provide the whole picture we need more scientific data to truly understand metabolism/energy use, bacteria load etc.

    Energy you don't consume cannot become fat, that is an immutable fact. Bodyfat can't appaer out of nowhere.
    Another fact is that everybody burns energy just to live, so a certain amount of food going in is required to stay at your weight.
    Next fact: The vast majority of people are very close to each other in resting metabolism. https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/

    Another thing we know because of all of the above: there is no person on the planet who is healthy and can eat everything and stay thin as well as there is no person on the planet who can eat nothing and stay fat.

    Another thing we know: people suck balls at guessing how much they're eating and that disconnect seems to increase with your waist.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19386746

    We know a lot of things about metabolism already, and paired with our understanding of the universe as a whole, all major health institutions will tell you that energy balance is what drives your weight development.
    A fecal transplant alone doesn't make you turn obese. Increased intake of foods does.

    About your link: The donor wasn't obese.
    "As per the patient's request, her 16-year-old daughter was chosen as the stool donor. At the time of FMT, her daughter's weight was ∼140 pounds (BMI of 26.4), but it increased later to 170 pounds."
    The mother who got the transplant then went on to gain 34 pounds, which pushed her into obese (she was in overweight before, as was her daughter).

    http://ofid.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/ofv004.full

    So the daughter only got fat AFTER she gave the transplant, which coincided with the mother getting fat too. One got fatter after getting the feces, the other got fatter after giving them. Doesn't really make much sense.

    Plus the whole thing was about treating CDI.
    If you treat CDI successfully, you may gain weight from eating (now without the pain and diarrhoea from before...)
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,455 Member
    snikkins wrote: »
    LKM54 wrote: »
    It looks like I am coming late to this debate. I would like to comment about the response that science doesn't lie with regards to this post. The truth is we don't have a lot of factual based science regarding how a calorie really works, how it feeds the cells etc. Most of the information out there is what has been deduced but not seriously studied in a lab. There are two doctors, sorry can't remember their names, that were gaining large amounts of weight on the government food pyramid. An aside, the grain lobby got their hands up in government, follow the money, and changed the food pyramid. This is when we started really getting fatter as a society. Back to the doctors, they both started paleo, and of course lost all their weight. They are now embarking on scientific study to truly understand how food is used as energy etc. Are all calories the same or not? What feeds what cell in our body etc. Of course, when trying to lose weight I agree you can't just eat 5,000 calories and expect to shed the pounds. Our limited understanding at this point leads us to counting calories because we don't know enough. There is also a lot of speculation regarding bacterias found in the stomach. There was a study with fat and thin mice. They found that the thin mice had a bacteria the fat mice were lacking. When they added that bacteria to the fat mice, they lost weight. For me, the biggest issue is the small conversation we have in this country regarding size. I believe our country has a food disorder and there is absolutely a prejudice and misunderstanding when it comes to fat. I do believe, we are going to find out it is much more complicated, our systems anyway, than just calories in calories out. Science is behind in factual data regarding the fat conversation. Just wanted to add my two cents. There is a lot going on in this field now and I find it really interesting.

    As far as the "grain lobby" is concerned, how do you explain countries like Italy that eat alot of pasta, pizza, risotto, breads, etc., and still have an overly thin population.

    They don't eat a lot of sugar...a more powerful and important lobby IMHO.

    There you're wrong. The deserts here in Italy are incredible. They do give you a much smaller portion, but the sugar is there just the same. Chocolates and gelato are also fabulous. The Italians know how to eat well and don't deny themselves anything. Here, there is no talk of grain or sugar lobbies. Everyone just eats smaller portions, and walks alot.

    I ate so much gelato in Italy... so good! I haven't been able to find anything quite like it in the US. I think that may be an excuse to go back. ;)

    IKR! I ate gelato every day for a month when we were in Florence... We have a couple gelatarias here but nothing compares!
  • MissusMoon
    MissusMoon Posts: 1,900 Member
    LKM54 wrote: »
    It looks like I am coming late to this debate. I would like to comment about the response that science doesn't lie with regards to this post. The truth is we don't have a lot of factual based science regarding how a calorie really works, how it feeds the cells etc. Most of the information out there is what has been deduced but not seriously studied in a lab. There are two doctors, sorry can't remember their names, that were gaining large amounts of weight on the government food pyramid. An aside, the grain lobby got their hands up in government, follow the money, and changed the food pyramid. This is when we started really getting fatter as a society. Back to the doctors, they both started paleo, and of course lost all their weight. They are now embarking on scientific study to truly understand how food is used as energy etc. Are all calories the same or not? What feeds what cell in our body etc. Of course, when trying to lose weight I agree you can't just eat 5,000 calories and expect to shed the pounds. Our limited understanding at this point leads us to counting calories because we don't know enough. There is also a lot of speculation regarding bacterias found in the stomach. There was a study with fat and thin mice. They found that the thin mice had a bacteria the fat mice were lacking. When they added that bacteria to the fat mice, they lost weight. For me, the biggest issue is the small conversation we have in this country regarding size. I believe our country has a food disorder and there is absolutely a prejudice and misunderstanding when it comes to fat. I do believe, we are going to find out it is much more complicated, our systems anyway, than just calories in calories out. Science is behind in factual data regarding the fat conversation. Just wanted to add my two cents. There is a lot going on in this field now and I find it really interesting.

    As far as the "grain lobby" is concerned, how do you explain countries like Italy that eat alot of pasta, pizza, risotto, breads, etc., and still have an overly thin population.

    They don't eat a lot of sugar...a more powerful and important lobby IMHO.

    There you're wrong. The deserts here in Italy are incredible. They do give you a much smaller portion, but the sugar is there just the same. Chocolates and gelato are also fabulous. The Italians know how to eat well and don't deny themselves anything. Here, there is no talk of grain or sugar lobbies. Everyone just eats smaller portions, and walks alot.

    Word. Anyone who has strolled own a street in Italy has seen the bakeries. I can't even think about them without drooling. It's such a ridiculous assertion that they have "better" wheat and don't do sweets.
  • JaneSnowe
    JaneSnowe Posts: 1,283 Member
    snikkins wrote: »
    LKM54 wrote: »
    It looks like I am coming late to this debate. I would like to comment about the response that science doesn't lie with regards to this post. The truth is we don't have a lot of factual based science regarding how a calorie really works, how it feeds the cells etc. Most of the information out there is what has been deduced but not seriously studied in a lab. There are two doctors, sorry can't remember their names, that were gaining large amounts of weight on the government food pyramid. An aside, the grain lobby got their hands up in government, follow the money, and changed the food pyramid. This is when we started really getting fatter as a society. Back to the doctors, they both started paleo, and of course lost all their weight. They are now embarking on scientific study to truly understand how food is used as energy etc. Are all calories the same or not? What feeds what cell in our body etc. Of course, when trying to lose weight I agree you can't just eat 5,000 calories and expect to shed the pounds. Our limited understanding at this point leads us to counting calories because we don't know enough. There is also a lot of speculation regarding bacterias found in the stomach. There was a study with fat and thin mice. They found that the thin mice had a bacteria the fat mice were lacking. When they added that bacteria to the fat mice, they lost weight. For me, the biggest issue is the small conversation we have in this country regarding size. I believe our country has a food disorder and there is absolutely a prejudice and misunderstanding when it comes to fat. I do believe, we are going to find out it is much more complicated, our systems anyway, than just calories in calories out. Science is behind in factual data regarding the fat conversation. Just wanted to add my two cents. There is a lot going on in this field now and I find it really interesting.

    As far as the "grain lobby" is concerned, how do you explain countries like Italy that eat alot of pasta, pizza, risotto, breads, etc., and still have an overly thin population.

    They don't eat a lot of sugar...a more powerful and important lobby IMHO.

    There you're wrong. The deserts here in Italy are incredible. They do give you a much smaller portion, but the sugar is there just the same. Chocolates and gelato are also fabulous. The Italians know how to eat well and don't deny themselves anything. Here, there is no talk of grain or sugar lobbies. Everyone just eats smaller portions, and walks alot.

    I ate so much gelato in Italy... so good! I haven't been able to find anything quite like it in the US. I think that may be an excuse to go back. ;)

    DO IT! B)

  • JaneSnowe
    JaneSnowe Posts: 1,283 Member
    edited May 2016
    LKM54 wrote: »
    The wheat we grow today here in America isn't the wheat of the 1950's. The wheat in Italy is still much more natural. Also, the portions in America are overly large not so in Italy. I never said not to count calories. I said, Science needs to catch up in understanding metabolism, fat, bacteria, cellular use of energy as in calories, hormones etc. My point was in regards to a response that said you can't argue with science. Science is behind the curve in understanding the complexity of the bodily system. Counting calories is the best we have right now but often times we know people still can't lose weight or it takes them forever to lose a few pounds. And, in the end, most times many gain it back. Why is one person able to eat whatever and stay at a normal size and another person gains weight? One woman was thin and had a fecal transplant the donor was obese. After the surgery, the thin woman became obese. Here is the article. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwiFmov7nO7MAhVKOD4KHUglCRQQFggdMAA&url=http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/woman-becomes-obese-after-fecal-transplant-overweight-donor&usg=AFQjCNGGNmMbmBusUbAwlnWs7jkbjta
    Calories hardly provide the whole picture we need more scientific data to truly understand metabolism/energy use, bacteria load etc.

    Energy you don't consume cannot become fat, that is an immutable fact. Bodyfat can't appaer out of nowhere.
    Another fact is that everybody burns energy just to live, so a certain amount of food going in is required to stay at your weight.
    Next fact: The vast majority of people are very close to each other in resting metabolism. https://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/

    Another thing we know because of all of the above: there is no person on the planet who is healthy and can eat everything and stay thin as well as there is no person on the planet who can eat nothing and stay fat.

    Another thing we know: people suck balls at guessing how much they're eating and that disconnect seems to increase with your waist.
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19386746

    We know a lot of things about metabolism already, and paired with our understanding of the universe as a whole, all major health institutions will tell you that energy balance is what drives your weight development.
    A fecal transplant alone doesn't make you turn obese. Increased intake of foods does.

    About your link: The donor wasn't obese.
    "As per the patient's request, her 16-year-old daughter was chosen as the stool donor. At the time of FMT, her daughter's weight was ∼140 pounds (BMI of 26.4), but it increased later to 170 pounds."
    The mother who got the transplant then went on to gain 34 pounds, which pushed her into obese (she was in overweight before, as was her daughter).

    http://ofid.oxfordjournals.org/content/2/1/ofv004.full

    So the daughter only got fat AFTER she gave the transplant, which coincided with the mother getting fat too. One got fatter after getting the feces, the other got fatter after giving them. Doesn't really make much sense.

    Plus the whole thing was about treating CDI.
    If you treat CDI successfully, you may gain weight from eating (now without the pain and diarrhoea from before...)

    I was going to say the same thing! Of course the recipient would be more likely to gain weight after the procedure. If her health improved, her body would be absorbing more nutrition from her food!

    Now, are there any cases of people getting skinner after receiving a fecal transplant from a skinny person? Edit: Cuz if there are, sign me up!