Are All Calorie Sources the Same?
RichardD83
Posts: 17 Member
We've probably all seen 'Sugar the bitter truth' and so you know how the body treats sugar and alcohol in the same way, as a poison. And they both cause direct weight gain.
Why doesn't my fitness pal do the same?
I've been hitting 2000 calories a day but not lost weight. I thought I could trust my fitness pal. Why doesn't it take into account the glycemic index. We all know how that works I'm sure. If I'm dumping lots of sugar in my blood it will be laid down as fat. So a calorie is not just a calorie. Shouldn't my fitness pal take this into account?
I'm not sure I can trust this app
Why doesn't my fitness pal do the same?
I've been hitting 2000 calories a day but not lost weight. I thought I could trust my fitness pal. Why doesn't it take into account the glycemic index. We all know how that works I'm sure. If I'm dumping lots of sugar in my blood it will be laid down as fat. So a calorie is not just a calorie. Shouldn't my fitness pal take this into account?
I'm not sure I can trust this app
2
Replies
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So full of disinformation I don't even know where to start. Sugar is not a poison like alcohol and is not treated the same way by the body. Basic physiology proves that to be completely false. Neither sugar nor alcohol "cause direct weight gain", that is also false. Weight gain is caused by a calorie intake in excess of your output.
As far as glycemic index, it's only a concern when eating a certain food in isolation. The GI is modulated when eaten with other, lower GI foods. And "dumping a lot of sugar in your blood" will result in fat gain only if you're in a caloric surplus. Obviously we don't "all know how that works", because that's not how it works.
It may be better to stop watching bogus propaganda/scaremongering videos and studying basic nutrition and physiology. Lustig is a known crackpot who preaches junk science.
The answer to the question in your thread title (Are all calorie sources the same?) is that speaking purely in terms of weight loss, they are. Speaking in terms of weight loss combined with body composition, performance and overall health, they are not.30 -
If you are in a deficit you will lose weight. If you are dumping lots of sugar in your system but are still a deficit you lose weight. It can't be laid down as fat because the body cannot conjure energy from thin air. Glycemic index has no bearing on weight loss if calories are kept constant. There is so much misinformation on the topic.
While it's more comfortable to have a scapegoat for not losing weight (sugar in this case) a more practical approach would be to investigate what you are doing wrong. Have you been in a deficit long enough for the numbers on the scale to show? Have you been counting every single thing you eat accurately, preferably using a food scale? Have you been eating your exercise calories back? If so, have you been eating them all back? Have you started any new fitness regimen or increased your current intensity? These kinds of questions will help you troubleshoot your weight loss and they are much more useful than jumping to conclusions and blaming it all on sugar.
This app does work. It has been proven to work for a very large number of users who use it correctly, some of which were able to lose very large amounts of weight. Don't feel discouraged. You are still learning the ropes and if you do everything right and trust the process you are guaranteed to lose, unless you have a medical issue that affects your metabolic rate making it much lower than what the usual calculators give you for an allowance.17 -
Sorry but you have fundamental misunderstandings in your grasp of human physiology.
Suggest you open your food diary if you want help in understanding why you haven't achieved the calorie deficit you need in order to lose weight.
Giving your age/height/weight/activity and exercise details would help otherwise you will just get very generic advice.10 -
RichardD83 wrote: »We've probably all seen 'Sugar the bitter truth' and so you know how the body treats sugar and alcohol in the same way, as a poison. And they both cause direct weight gain.
Why doesn't my fitness pal do the same?
I've been hitting 2000 calories a day but not lost weight. I thought I could trust my fitness pal. Why doesn't it take into account the glycemic index. We all know how that works I'm sure. If I'm dumping lots of sugar in my blood it will be laid down as fat. So a calorie is not just a calorie. Shouldn't my fitness pal take this into account?
I'm not sure I can trust this app
Are all calorie sources the same? For the point of view of weight loss - pretty much yes. There are some differences because calorie counts are estimates (and not all manufacturers use the same methods to estimate), and some differences because protein in particular can have a thermogenic effect, which can result in less usable energy from protein sources. All of that really means that calories are a bit of an estimate, although typically a pretty good one. And of course, nutrition is a whole other ballgame.
Glycemic index has no effect on weight loss over the long term. It may have some impact on hunger and satiety, although studies that have looked at satiety found GI to only weakly correlate to satiety.
It's also uncommon for your body to make new fat from carbohydrates. Most sugar that gets stored in the body gets stored as glycogen. For the most part, the fat in your fat cells comes from dietary fat, because if you have a total caloric surplus, fat is the easiest thing to store as fat, so the body tends to burn the carbs and store the fat. Of course if you have a caloric surplus and you eat low dietary fat, your body will turn carbs or proteins into fat.5 -
Contrary to Lustig's whacky claims, the process of the body converting carbohydrates into stored fat is called de novo lipogenesis. Perhaps a primer in DNL would help: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10365981
Note this part in particular:Only when CHO energy intake exceeds TEE does DNL in liver or adipose tissue contribute significantly to the whole-body energy economy. It is concluded that DNL is not the pathway of first resort for added dietary CHO, in humans. Under most dietary conditions, the two major macronutrient energy sources (CHO and fat) are therefore not interconvertible currencies.
In layman's terms: If you're in a caloric deficit, de novo lipogenesis (converting carbohydrates/sugars to fat) doesn't happen.
So sugar isn't the devil you're looking for. If you're not losing weight, you're not in a deficit, period. You're either miscalculating your intake (by not properly weighing/measuring foods), or you've miscalculated your output and are exceeding it.6 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »If you are in a deficit you will lose weight. If you are dumping lots of sugar in your system but are still a deficit you lose weight. It can't be laid down as fat because the body cannot conjure energy from thin air. Glycemic index has no bearing on weight loss if calories are kept constant. There is so much misinformation
If there is too much sugar in your blood stream doesn't insulin convert it to fat? Isn't this the based for diabetes?
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RichardD83 wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »If you are in a deficit you will lose weight. If you are dumping lots of sugar in your system but are still a deficit you lose weight. It can't be laid down as fat because the body cannot conjure energy from thin air. Glycemic index has no bearing on weight loss if calories are kept constant. There is so much misinformation
If there is too much sugar in your blood stream doesn't insulin convert it to fat? Isn't this the based for diabetes?
It only stores it as fat if you are eating at a surplus, more calories than your body's current energy needs. It also stores fat and protein as fat if you are eating at a surplus. Diabetes does not cause obesity, the correlation is actually the other way around (obesity increases the risk of diabetes). One of the symptoms of diabetes can actually be weight loss.6 -
What about 'Sugar the bitter truth'? Doesn't that explain why so many people are obese now? And how sugar works in the body?1
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RichardD83 wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »If you are in a deficit you will lose weight. If you are dumping lots of sugar in your system but are still a deficit you lose weight. It can't be laid down as fat because the body cannot conjure energy from thin air. Glycemic index has no bearing on weight loss if calories are kept constant. There is so much misinformation
If there is too much sugar in your blood stream doesn't insulin convert it to fat? Isn't this the based for diabetes?
Typically, this only happens when you eat so much carbohydrate that you exceed your TDEE. Glycogen is the first place carbohydrates are stored, and if you're eating less than you burn, your body can almost always store more glycogen.
Further, if carbohydrates actually were transformed to fat in significant amounts during a calorie deficit, this would actually be a really good thing for dieters. Transforming energy from one form to another causes some energy to be wasted (entropy). If you did start with 1000 calories worth of sugar and transformed it all to fat, you'd end up with something like 990 calories of fat.
Plus the whole point about sugar transforming into fat is kind of bizarre when the same people claim fat is good. Fat already IS fat - it needs no transformation of any kind. It's like they want to play both sides of the "fat is good"/"fat is bad argument" - "fat is good, but sugar is bad because it can be turned into fat". It's nonsensical.5 -
RichardD83 wrote: »What about 'Sugar the bitter truth'? Doesn't that explain why so many people are obese now? And how sugar works in the body?
It's a propaganda piece and has a lot of incorrect information.15 -
How well are you logging?
How active are you?1 -
RichardD83 wrote: »What about 'Sugar the bitter truth'? Doesn't that explain why so many people are obese now? And how sugar works in the body?
No. Rapid availability of high calorie food and drink is why.
I'm probably eating more sugar now while I'm losing weight than I did when I gained. I gained on--almost exclusively--ribeye steaks, brie and other fine cheeses.8 -
RichardD83 wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »If you are in a deficit you will lose weight. If you are dumping lots of sugar in your system but are still a deficit you lose weight. It can't be laid down as fat because the body cannot conjure energy from thin air. Glycemic index has no bearing on weight loss if calories are kept constant. There is so much misinformation
If there is too much sugar in your blood stream doesn't insulin convert it to fat? Isn't this the based for diabetes?
Are you diabetic? If so, speak to your doctor about an appropriate diet. If you want to read more about diabetes then go here
https://www.diabetes.org.uk/
or here
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Diabetes/Pages/Diabetes.aspx
My (basic) understanding of diabetes is in type 1, the pancreas doesn't produce insulin and in type 2 you don't produce enough. Insulin doesn't convert sugar into fat. From my understanding it helps turn glucose into usable energy. There's always glucose in your blood. Hence why both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are conditions that need to be treated.2 -
RichardD83 wrote: »What about 'Sugar the bitter truth'? Doesn't that explain why so many people are obese now? And how sugar works in the body?
Here's a great writeup about Sugar the Bitter Truth by Alan Aragon (a well-known, widely respected source on nutrition and training), complete with plenty of research references at the end: http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/2 -
RichardD83 wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »If you are in a deficit you will lose weight. If you are dumping lots of sugar in your system but are still a deficit you lose weight. It can't be laid down as fat because the body cannot conjure energy from thin air. Glycemic index has no bearing on weight loss if calories are kept constant. There is so much misinformation
If there is too much sugar in your blood stream doesn't insulin convert it to fat? Isn't this the based for diabetes?
Are you diabetic? If so, speak to your doctor about an appropriate diet. If you want to read more about diabetes then go here
https://www.diabetes.org.uk/
or here
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Diabetes/Pages/Diabetes.aspx
My (basic) understanding of diabetes is in type 1, the pancreas doesn't produce insulin and in type 2 you don't produce enough. Insulin doesn't convert sugar into fat. From my understanding it helps turn glucose into usable energy. There's always glucose in your blood. Hence why both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are conditions that need to be treated.
Type 1 diabetes is caused by an autoimmune disorder where your body kills the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. It's not known exactly why, although there are genetic predispositions and strong geographical effects, so it's likely an environmental trigger in those genetically predisposed. In type 2 diabetes, your body produces insulin - in fact, it overproduces it - but your cells stop responding as strongly.
It's not totally wrong to say that insulin is important in the storage of fat - it's important in moving glucose into fat cells to ultimately be converted to fat - but insulin also is a signal for glycogen storage as well, which is where most of your carbohydrate storage is.
And lipogenesis is not a bad thing, either. If you're in a calorie deficit, it's fine if you make some small amount of glucose into fat - because in a deficit, you are burning more fat than you are storing. Everyone burns some fat and stores some fat on a daily basis, the problem is a long-term trend towards storing more than you burn.5 -
RichardD83 wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »If you are in a deficit you will lose weight. If you are dumping lots of sugar in your system but are still a deficit you lose weight. It can't be laid down as fat because the body cannot conjure energy from thin air. Glycemic index has no bearing on weight loss if calories are kept constant. There is so much misinformation
If there is too much sugar in your blood stream doesn't insulin convert it to fat? Isn't this the based for diabetes?
Here's a primer on what insulin is, what it actually does, and why it's not the devil that tinfoil hat pseudoscientists like Lustig make it out to be: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/index.php/free-content/free-content/volume-1-issue-7-insulin-and-thinking-better/insulin-an-undeserved-bad-reputation/6 -
RichardD83 wrote: »We've probably all seen 'Sugar the bitter truth' and so you know how the body treats sugar and alcohol in the same way, as a poison. And they both cause direct weight gain.
Why doesn't my fitness pal do the same?
I've been hitting 2000 calories a day but not lost weight. I thought I could trust my fitness pal. Why doesn't it take into account the glycemic index. We all know how that works I'm sure. If I'm dumping lots of sugar in my blood it will be laid down as fat. So a calorie is not just a calorie. Shouldn't my fitness pal take this into account?
I'm not sure I can trust this app
You trust a nonsense documentary full of misinformation but can't trust this app. You have issues beyond health bro10 -
JoshuaMcAllister wrote: »RichardD83 wrote: »We've probably all seen 'Sugar the bitter truth' and so you know how the body treats sugar and alcohol in the same way, as a poison. And they both cause direct weight gain.
Why doesn't my fitness pal do the same?
I've been hitting 2000 calories a day but not lost weight. I thought I could trust my fitness pal. Why doesn't it take into account the glycemic index. We all know how that works I'm sure. If I'm dumping lots of sugar in my blood it will be laid down as fat. So a calorie is not just a calorie. Shouldn't my fitness pal take this into account?
I'm not sure I can trust this app
You trust a nonsense documentary full of misinformation but can't trust this app. You have issues beyond health bro
So Much this.1 -
rankinsect wrote: »RichardD83 wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »If you are in a deficit you will lose weight. If you are dumping lots of sugar in your system but are still a deficit you lose weight. It can't be laid down as fat because the body cannot conjure energy from thin air. Glycemic index has no bearing on weight loss if calories are kept constant. There is so much misinformation
If there is too much sugar in your blood stream doesn't insulin convert it to fat? Isn't this the based for diabetes?
Are you diabetic? If so, speak to your doctor about an appropriate diet. If you want to read more about diabetes then go here
https://www.diabetes.org.uk/
or here
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Diabetes/Pages/Diabetes.aspx
My (basic) understanding of diabetes is in type 1, the pancreas doesn't produce insulin and in type 2 you don't produce enough. Insulin doesn't convert sugar into fat. From my understanding it helps turn glucose into usable energy. There's always glucose in your blood. Hence why both type 1 and type 2 diabetes are conditions that need to be treated.
Type 1 diabetes is caused by an autoimmune disorder where your body kills the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. It's not known exactly why, although there are genetic predispositions and strong geographical effects, so it's likely an environmental trigger in those genetically predisposed. In type 2 diabetes, your body produces insulin - in fact, it overproduces it - but your cells stop responding as strongly.
It's not totally wrong to say that insulin is important in the storage of fat - it's important in moving glucose into fat cells to ultimately be converted to fat - but insulin also is a signal for glycogen storage as well, which is where most of your carbohydrate storage is.
And lipogenesis is not a bad thing, either. If you're in a calorie deficit, it's fine if you make some small amount of glucose into fat - because in a deficit, you are burning more fat than you are storing. Everyone burns some fat and stores some fat on a daily basis, the problem is a long-term trend towards storing more than you burn.
Thanks for the clarification. That's especially interesting about type 2 overproducing insulin. Never knew that...and I take care of a man with type 2 diabetes. I clearly need to hit the books some more lol.5 -
And then people defending Lustig say he doesn't actually say this kind of stuff and we're just meanies who haven't actually read up on him...7
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The Glycemic Index is mostly BS -- the science is iffy. The studies can not be replicated to individuals.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/76/1/290S.fullThus, to conclude that high-GI diets result in diabetes, it must first be definitively shown that these diets result in insulin resistance that in turn increases the insulin demand to such an extent that it eventually overwhelms and exhausts the pancreas. No such evidence exists, as noted previously. In fact, data from countries whose populations ingest high-carbohydrate diets and thus have an increased insulin demand, show a generally lower incidence of diabetes.3 -
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RichardD83 wrote: »Why doesn't it take into account the glycemic index.
Even those who think "glycemic index" is important agree that: (1) it's really glycemic load (GI isn't adjusted for normal serving, so suggests that carrots are a bad thing to eat); and (2) everything you eat together must be taken into account to determine the GL of a meal. So the GL/GI of a potato is irrelevant if you normally eat it with steak, butter, and broccoli (as many do--far more than eat it plain, I'd guess).
Also, GI is usually used (other than for diabetics) to estimate satiety, and it turns out a high GL potato is actually really good for satiety for the average person and that it gets worse when you add butter or fry it in fat (thereby lowering its GL/GI).
So there are problems with GI as a measure.
On the other hand, for carbs specifically, lower GI tends to correlate with more micronutrients and more fiber, so there likely is a positive to eating lower GI carbs (although not a lower GI diet -- i.e., HF and LC) in general for health. But that's not actually because the GI matters -- it's because fiber and micros are good. In other words, eating high GL potatoes a lot tends to compare negatively to eating lots of lower GL brussels sprouts and steel cut oats and berries. But on the other hand, eating lots of high GL plain roasted potatoes compares positively to eating (ironically) lower GL/GI chips or fries. Almost all the negative correlation between health/obesity and potatoes is removed if one controls for excessive consumption of chips and fries. The rest would (I would bet my house) be removed if one controlled for overall vegetable consumption (lots of people seem to assume potatoes sub for non starchy veg, when they do not, despite being perfectly healthful foods in themselves).We all know how that works I'm sure. If I'm dumping lots of sugar in my blood it will be laid down as fat.
Apparently not, as you can't add net fat at a deficit and WILL gain net fat at a surplus, even if you avoid carbs/sugar. I gained my weight eating a moderate fat, moderate carb diet (I never was scared of fat or much of a carb fanatic) and I lost doing the same. Also, sugar will first be stored as glycogen, and only then be stored as fat if your glycogen stores are full, which is unlikely on a deficit and even if it happened would be made up for by more fat being burned later, since you can't magically make you run on less energy than you burn.
Fat can actually be stored as fat more easily than carbs. But still it will not be if you are not at an excess, so if you are someone for whom it turns out that you can keep a deficit more easily by doing HFLC (that's not the case for everyone, probably not the case for most after a short period of time), then definitely consider doing that. MFP lets YOU make that choice.4 -
HarperWinterberry wrote: »No, not all calories are the same. If you got all of your daily calories from table sugar and drank nothing else but water, it would kill you.
Who does that?3 -
HarperWinterberry wrote: »No, not all calories are the same. If you got all of your daily calories from table sugar and drank nothing else but water, it would kill you.
Who does that?
Nobody4 -
From my personal experience, the bitter truth about sugar, (and fat to some extent) is that it is calorically dense but non-filling. Put 4oz of sugar on a scale and eat that, 439 calories (and probably a sick stomach!) and see how full you feel.
Put 4oz of grilled boneless skinless chicken breast on the scale 184 calories, add in 1/3 cup cooked brown rice, 2c of leafy greens 1 med tomato and some vinegar s&P 265 total kcal. Eat that and see how full you feel.
Most people , myself included, get obese from eating too much, period. Sugar exacerbates the problem because it adds the calories so fast and it does not satiate the appetite.
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And having just fat or just protein would kill you too.
And eating nothing at all kills you even faster.7 -
HarperWinterberry wrote: »No, not all calories are the same. If you got all of your daily calories from table sugar and drank nothing else but water, it would kill you.
So? Eating any one thing would kill you. This isn't what this discussion is about. No one is advocating eating nothing but sugar. Take your straw men to your own threads and don't hijack and derail a good thread where a person is asking questions because he genuinely wants to learn. I hope no one gets sucked into a useless semantics war.14 -
HarperWinterberry wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »And having just fat or just protein would kill you too.
And eating nothing at all kills you even faster.
Actually, this is false. If all you have is water and sugar to survive, you will live longer if you just drink the water. The sugar will speed up the process of your death.
This is painfully and powerfully wrong.13 -
HarperWinterberry wrote: »stevencloser wrote: »And having just fat or just protein would kill you too.
And eating nothing at all kills you even faster.
Actually, this is false. If all you have is water and sugar to survive, you will live longer if you just drink the water. The sugar will speed up the process of your death.
unlikely. You wouldn't get any fuel at all to support your organs, etc from water where you do from sugar2
This discussion has been closed.
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