Not all calories are equal

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asiandoll77
asiandoll77 Posts: 1 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I usually drink my coffee with Nestle's chocolate syrup (1/2 T) and real cream (2tsp). I only have one cup in the morning with breakfast. I had a coupon for International Delights creamer so decided to try it. Checked it for high fructose corn syrup and there wasn't any. I measure EVERYTHING, only added enough to come about even with the calorie count of my coffee with the chocolate syrup and cream. For 2 weeks, my weight gradually crept up and up again. I went back to my old way and the weight is dropping off again. Anyone else have a similar problem with this or other products?
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Replies

  • thelovelyLIZ
    thelovelyLIZ Posts: 1,227 Member
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    Two weeks isn't really long enough to draw any concrete conclusion. Could be the ID, could be something else. My weight can swing 5 lbs in any direction on any given day. Most people are only losing 1-2lbs a week so that's a max 4lbs which is well within that.

    That being said, I always prefer real ingredients to processed products. Not even from a calorie perspective, I just think real food us better.
  • cerise_noir
    cerise_noir Posts: 5,468 Member
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    *portions. Ugh...headache typing sucks. :/
  • geneticexpectations
    geneticexpectations Posts: 146 Member
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    I think the overall sentiment of OP's post was intended to be extrapolated to a generalization along the lines of "Some people have experienced that WHAT your diet is comprised of may make a difference towards health and fat loss."
  • geneticexpectations
    geneticexpectations Posts: 146 Member
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    stevencloser wrote: »
    geneticexpectations wrote: »
    I think the overall sentiment of OP's post was intended to be extrapolated to a generalization along the lines of "Some people have experienced that WHAT your diet is comprised of may make a difference towards health and fat loss."

    Definitely not which kind of 10 ml creamer you use in your morning coffee.

    Haha, yeah definitely not. :) But to be constructive, the ensuing discussion probably should have gone broader
  • geneticexpectations
    geneticexpectations Posts: 146 Member
    edited November 2016
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    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    geneticexpectations wrote: »
    I think the overall sentiment of OP's post was intended to be extrapolated to a generalization along the lines of "Some people have experienced that WHAT your diet is comprised of may make a difference towards health and fat loss."

    No, it was based on an alleged difference between 42 calories per day of Nestle syrup+cream vs. 42 calories of creamer.

    I'm still curious about the mechanism, or how that difference has any real effect on "what your diet is comprised of." In fact, this is one of many reasons posts like this get the reaction they do: OP is claiming that she lost weight or gained with the same calories based on using different stuff in her coffee. That is her evidence that "calories aren't equal." To extrapolate to a bigger point, the argument seems to be that consuming creamer (because "not real food" or what, I dunno) makes you gain, even if at a deficit, which I see no reason at all to believe. Moreover, it suggests that eating a good diet (a separate topic from weight loss, but one I am interested in) is not about consuming the majority of your calories from nutrient dense foods, getting adequate protein, healthy fats, plenty of fiber, and lots of vegetables, stuff like that, but about completely avoiding creamer. That approach to nutrition is, IMO, not particularly well-informed. (And certainly has nothing to do with calories not being equal, which they are, even though foods, of course, differ.)

    But hey, I never eat creamer (like my coffee black), so maybe that's why I lost weight.

    Then again, I never eat Nestle chocolate syrup. Maybe if I added it I'd magically start losing again, even without a deficit? Cool!

    I guess I'm trying to steer the discussion away from that godforesaken creamer. Hard to believe such an infantesmal portion of one's diet can have any significant effects with other variables kept constant. I think we all agree on that.

    How you are addressing the topic is more useful I think.

    Language can often be inflammatory and incite frustation. I think a calorie from x food and a calorie from y food is of course equal or else they would be called something else if they weren't equal. A unit of whatever measurement is just what it is. And I think attacking that fact can really piss off a lot of people.

    I guess on a more practical level, I wanted to take the discussion to a different place. Do some people find that changing what they eat affects weight loss? I admit, I don't really count calories, but I found that I have had a sustained dramatic fat loss for about 4 years by changing what I ate (200 lbs at >35% body fat to 150 lbs at <15% body fat). I'm not denying CICO, nor am I denying that it's more complex than CICO. I'm just stating the action and consequence - that changing what I ate without any sort of calorie awareness whatsoever seemed to work well for me. And I guess I enjoyed it b/c I don't really like counting and measuring. I know that may be weird to some, but I dunno, it is what it is. Anyone else?

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