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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