All Calories are not created equal!

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Replies

  • FrugalMomsRock75
    FrugalMomsRock75 Posts: 698 Member
    edited October 2017
    That's crazy talk. My diet consists almost entirely of carbs, and I'm losing weight. I'm eating between 1500 and 1900 calories a day of all the carbs too.... And absolutely zero meats at all (or cheese, milk, yogurt) And I'm not hungry...
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,000 Member
    Wrenranae wrote: »
    It is not HOW MANY calories you consume per day BUT what they consist of.

    For weight loss probably not, for heath probably so...
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    J72FIT wrote: »
    Wrenranae wrote: »
    It is not HOW MANY calories you consume per day BUT what they consist of.

    For weight loss probably not, for heath probably so...

    Sort of.

    Overeating on a nutrient-dense diet (which I did) might (or might not) be healthier than overeating on a very poor diet. I think it probably is a little healthier, but eh. Fact is that however you get fat, it's unhealthy to be fat. Was it healthier for me to be fat eating lots of vegetables, a balanced (if excessive) diet, lots of home-cooked foods and no fast food and not a whole lot of sweets (not my thing) vs. someone who is not fat but eats the SAD? IMO, probably not. If you add in that I, in this hypothetical, am sedentary, and the thin person who eats the SAD is active, well, I'd say the thin person definitely would be healthier.

    Now, is WHAT the calories consist of ALSO important, not merely how many, if we are talking about health? Sure, a healthy diet is better than an unhealthy one (although a healthy one can include some foods that don't contribute much in the way of micronutrients, if it is otherwise adequate).

    I don't think you and I actually disagree on any of this, but this was just a good place to tag on my thoughts. ;-)
  • RuNaRoUnDaFiEld
    RuNaRoUnDaFiEld Posts: 5,864 Member
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    J72FIT wrote: »
    Wrenranae wrote: »
    “It is NOT how many "calories" you eat, but what they are made up of.

    What exactly are calories made up of...?

    I'm going to take a crack at answering this fully.

    Calories are a unit of measurement of energy in the form of heat. Specifically one calorie is the amount of energy necessary to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree celsius. When you are talking calories in food then it is written as Calorie and you are actually talking about kilocalories or the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 degree celsius. 1 kg of water is the same as 1 liter of water.

    Hydrocarbons (combinations of hydrogen and carbon) react with oxygen in high heat to form carbon dioxide and water plus releasing heat. All of our macros, protein/fat/carbs are hydrocarbons. The fact that the reaction releases heat means that once started it can self-sustain.

    Take glucose (sugar) for example, it is a hydrocarbon...specifically it is a carbohydrate (hydrated carbon). Hydrated carbons have the chemical formula of C(x)H(2x)O(x) because they are literally carbon C with water H20. Glucose is C6H12O6.

    If you heat up glucose in atmosphere containing oxygen the following reaction happens.

    C6H12O6 + 602 + heat ==> 6CO2 + 6 H2O + heat

    In atmosphere with sufficient heat this manifests as fire where the CO2 billows off as smoke and the water produced turns gaseous from the heat and leaves with the smoke as steam. If you capture all the heat produced from this reaction you would find that burning 10 grams of glucose would provide enough to heat 40 liters of water by 1 degree celsius (which is actually a very large amount of energy) and that amount of energy is equal to 40 Calories. Therefore carbohydrates have about 40 Calories in 10 grams or 4 Calories per gram.

    In your body you injest the glucose and you breath in oxygen. Rather than cause the chemical reaction between glucose and oxygen by heat your body instead uses enzymatic catalysis by having enzymes in your body arrange the molecules in such a way that the reaction happens at 37 degrees celsius instead of much hotter. The reaction proceeds through many different enzymatic steps at the end of which 6 CO2 and 6 H2O are produced. Heat is also produced which helps maintain your body at 37 degrees celsius (or hotter in which case you perspire) and your body gets rid of the CO2 through exhaling and the H20 through urination. The reason more heat isn't produces (as in the case of a fire) is that most of that energy is actually captured and contained by enzymatically coupoling the metabolic breakdown of the carbohydrate to the formation of new chemical bonds in other molecules. Commonly this is in the form of the molecule ATP which can then be used in other chemical reactions as a means of supplying the energy required to carry out those reactions.

    Reactions breaking down molecules are called catabolic, reactions building molecules are called anabolic and combined they are called metabolic. The metabolic breakdown of glucose forms ATP molecules and some waste heat in addition to CO2 and H2O in pretty much what amounts to a controlled burning of the molecule.

    So with all of that said a "calorie" isn't a physical thing, its a unit of energy. Our bodies derive that energy from the metabolic conversion of foods in the forms of hydrocarbons into water, carbon dioxide, a little waste heat and ATP that can be used for other useful work. The amount of energy we derive from a certain amount of hydrocarbon is measured in Calories because it is a measure of energy production. When you say this hamburger has 600 Calories you are literally saying that if you fully metabolized (burning or enzymatically breaking down) that hamburger it would release enough energy to heat 600 liters of water by 1 degree celsius.

    Can I just say--WOW!

    That says it succinctly

    Great post @Aaron_K123
  • shillbert
    shillbert Posts: 20 Member
    edited October 2017
    jpaulparis wrote: »
    Please eat 800 calories of twinkies for even a week.... guarantee you'll gain... and be pre diabetic.

    http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/
    On his "convenience store diet," he shed 27 pounds in two months.
    For a class project, Haub limited himself to less than 1,800 calories a day. A man of Haub's pre-dieting size usually consumes about 2,600 calories daily. So he followed a basic principle of weight loss: He consumed significantly fewer calories than he burned.
    His body mass index went from 28.8, considered overweight, to 24.9, which is normal. He now weighs 174 pounds.
    But you might expect other indicators of health would have suffered. Not so.
    Haub's "bad" cholesterol, or LDL, dropped 20 percent and his "good" cholesterol, or HDL, increased by 20 percent. He reduced the level of triglycerides, which are a form of fat, by 39 percent.
  • stevencloser
    stevencloser Posts: 8,911 Member
    Bry_Lander wrote: »
    I always find it fascinating when MFP users at the beginning/middle of their weight loss journey seem inclined to dispense philosophical fitness advice to the world.

    It's the evil endorphines I tell you. That's a sign of addiction you know.
  • J72FIT
    J72FIT Posts: 6,000 Member
    lemurcat12 wrote: »
    J72FIT wrote: »
    Wrenranae wrote: »
    It is not HOW MANY calories you consume per day BUT what they consist of.

    For weight loss probably not, for heath probably so...

    Sort of.

    Overeating on a nutrient-dense diet (which I did) might (or might not) be healthier than overeating on a very poor diet. I think it probably is a little healthier, but eh. Fact is that however you get fat, it's unhealthy to be fat. Was it healthier for me to be fat eating lots of vegetables, a balanced (if excessive) diet, lots of home-cooked foods and no fast food and not a whole lot of sweets (not my thing) vs. someone who is not fat but eats the SAD? IMO, probably not. If you add in that I, in this hypothetical, am sedentary, and the thin person who eats the SAD is active, well, I'd say the thin person definitely would be healthier.

    Now, is WHAT the calories consist of ALSO important, not merely how many, if we are talking about health? Sure, a healthy diet is better than an unhealthy one (although a healthy one can include some foods that don't contribute much in the way of micronutrients, if it is otherwise adequate).

    I don't think you and I actually disagree on any of this, but this was just a good place to tag on my thoughts. ;-)

    I hear ya. That's why I used "probably". There are very few absolutes in my experience...
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
    Bry_Lander wrote: »
    I always find it fascinating when MFP users at the beginning/middle of their weight loss journey seem inclined to dispense philosophical fitness advice to the world.

    Still, it's probably more actionable than the philosophical advice dispensed after the final-final portion of our weight loss journeys. "Eram quod es, eris quod sum."
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Daveacpa2 wrote: »
    While reading through the posts as the OP was getting beat up on, I couldn't help but wonder that if the only way to lose weight is by having a calorie deficit, how do people on Atkins type diets manage to lose weight while eating more calories then required. Is it possible that there is more then one scientifically based method to losing weight.

    Because they aren't....
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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,103 Member
    I see from another thread that you're writing a book about weight loss. It's good that you're throwing out some of your ideas here first.

    That explains a lot. This kind of *baby-feline* will sell - heck, it's all over the diet books section already. It won't work, but it'll sell.

    Not working is part of the magic formula that keeps the chump consumer coming back for more.

    (P.S. One of my (overweight) friends argued very passionately that it was impossible to lose weight except by cutting carbs, literally telling me indignantly that she knew this because she had "read all the books over the Winter, and they all said so". The fact that what I'd done over the Winter (plus a few months) was go from obese to the lower end of a normal BMI, while continuing to eat carbs? Completely unpersuasive. SMH.)
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,732 Member
    jpaulparis wrote: »
    Aren't you the same person espousing 800 cals a day? No matter what you eat, you're going to lose on 800 cals a day. Eat 800 calories of twinkies if you want. It doesn't make it healthy.

    If it's not how many calories you eat, but what you eat, why starve yourself at 800 calories per day? Why not eat whatever you want of the "good" calories and lose away?

    Also, by the logic that if you eat the good ones you will lose, how come people who don't need to lose and only eat the "good" calories don't slowly starve to death? Or do they have to add some "bad" to maintain?

    Please eat 800 calories of twinkies for even a week.... guarantee you'll gain... and be pre diabetic.

    That's a guarantee you will be wrong on. Blows my mind, This is why I have a rule and it's never take advice from someone who has less than 50 posts (actually it's really at least 1,000), 95% of the time they are nothing but a fount of misinformation and body cleansing toxins BS. You could have at least googled a credible source to find out if you were right first.

    Whoa, I do the same thing but thought that was just me being a snob. It's rare that anyone under a certain amount of posts (not really sure of the amount tho) doesn't need some schoolin'.
  • Johns_Dope_AF
    Johns_Dope_AF Posts: 460 Member
    Bry_Lander wrote: »
    I always find it fascinating when MFP users at the beginning/middle of their weight loss journey seem inclined to dispense philosophical fitness advice to the world.

    Me too