MFP Recommended that I read this: Is the Quality of Calories More Important Than Quantity?
jasondjulian
Posts: 182 Member
blog.myfitnesspal.com/quality-of-calories-more-important-than-quantity/
Essentially it states that metabolically speaking, calories are not all the same within the body. It claims that the study shows that what would be considered "clean" foods, or more nutritionally wholesome foods lead to more weight loss, given the same or similar calorie reduction as other diets that do not focus as much on "healthier choices".
What does the community think?
It seems to imply that it is not simply calories in/calories out, but I'd tend to interpret this as yes, yes it is.. HOWEVER the types of foods we choose within that caloric deficit affect other aspects of our metabolism (such as hormonal response, leptin resistance, etc) that may either have no effect on amount of weight lost, or cause a greater loss of excess weight.
Essentially it states that metabolically speaking, calories are not all the same within the body. It claims that the study shows that what would be considered "clean" foods, or more nutritionally wholesome foods lead to more weight loss, given the same or similar calorie reduction as other diets that do not focus as much on "healthier choices".
What does the community think?
It seems to imply that it is not simply calories in/calories out, but I'd tend to interpret this as yes, yes it is.. HOWEVER the types of foods we choose within that caloric deficit affect other aspects of our metabolism (such as hormonal response, leptin resistance, etc) that may either have no effect on amount of weight lost, or cause a greater loss of excess weight.
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Replies
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I would say that science disagrees, and that MFP blogs are notoriously ridiculous.21
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quiksylver296 wrote: »I would say that science disagrees, and that MFP blogs are notoriously ridiculous.
I concur; there have been a huge number of them lately be so-called "experts" and trainers that are just complete BS. MFP recommends the same ones to me sometimes 2 or 3 times per week.. I wish I could mark them as "don't show this to me again!".
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I weighed 210 pounds and had a diet of really high quality food. The MFP blog is an embarrassment.16
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jasondjulian wrote: »quiksylver296 wrote: »I would say that science disagrees, and that MFP blogs are notoriously ridiculous.
I concur; there have been a huge number of them lately be so-called "experts" and trainers that are just complete BS. MFP recommends the same ones to me sometimes 2 or 3 times per week.. I wish I could mark them as "don't show this to me again!".
I never have read one of them. I don't get notifications for them. They just sit on the side of my newsfeed. I ignore them.3 -
The MFP blog sadly seems to be more of an advertising forum for various "experts"6
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I liken it to “click bait”.4
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I'd say the quality of calories matters for health and weight loss.
Their best point is that“There isn’t one diet for everyone.”
Some people are going to find that they lose better with certain ways of eating due to health issues and hormones. Some aren't. Dismissing food quality because it did not matter in your own experience is short sighted. IMO It is basically saying that everyone should eat a certain woe: eat all the foods you want but in moderation. That doesn't work for all.11 -
L1zardQueen wrote: »I liken it to “click bait”.
It is. I wonder if MFP has much say in the articles that are posted, or if they are auto populated from some bigger list of articles.
Either way, they are more about clicks, views and buzz than actual helpful information.2 -
Unfortunately this is how MFP stays free. It is eye opening how much misinformation/disinformation is out there.4
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Unfortunately this is how MFP stays free. It is eye opening how much misinformation/disinformation is out there.
I makes it harder to help people when MFP has begun promoting the very same BS that has been circulating for years. This blog is a perfect example of all the garbage information that keeps people confused and overweight.7 -
Saw one a while back about "blasting belly fat". Never mind the NUMEROUS forum posts in which virtually all of the mods who regularly contribute have pointed out that spot reduction is a myth. MFP blogs are wildly inconsistent with other "reliable" sources of information on here.6
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nutmegoreo wrote: »Unfortunately this is how MFP stays free. It is eye opening how much misinformation/disinformation is out there.
I makes it harder to help people when MFP has begun promoting the very same BS that has been circulating for years. This blog is a perfect example of all the garbage information that keeps people confused and overweight.
So. Much. All. Of. This.6 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »Unfortunately this is how MFP stays free. It is eye opening how much misinformation/disinformation is out there.
I makes it harder to help people when MFP has begun promoting the very same BS that has been circulating for years. This blog is a perfect example of all the garbage information that keeps people confused and overweight.
Wholeheartedly agree.
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Just my 2 cents worth, they are technically right, but it's a technicality. If you just want to lose weight, it's CICO, but for long term health & well being, the kinds of calories do matter. What I mean is you can lose weight on an ice cream diet, a taco bell diet, the baby food diet, the Subway diet & so on. But for long term health, I don't think some of those (ice cream, taco bell) would be very good for you.
For me, it's just using common sense. Maintain a calorie deficit while eating mostly food good for you (lean meats, fruits, veggies, etc.) & I don't care if it's non-organic, has GMO's, clean, dirty or whatever the next buzzwords are & you'll lose weight & be healthy.
But I'm not a doctor & don't play one on TV, although I've been told I have a face for radio, so I've got that going for me.5 -
This thread covers the same basic topic: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10660811/calorie-in-calorie-out-method-is-outdated#latest
I recommend reading it, as I think it would answer your question.
The study they are talking about didn't actually keep track of the specifics of people's diets, so we don't know if people who lost more weight ate better. We do know they were either trying to cut carbs or cut fat and that they were given education (similar to what I think we all know, but maybe people don't always think about it) about eating healthfully (I will further note that "clean" is a separate thing).
I personally think that focusing on eating healthfully may well help with satiety when combined with trying to eat less, and that if you tend to overeat on a lot of low nutrient foods (junk food, snacks) as many do, of course it may make you more mindful of that. It DOES NOT suggest that CICO doesn't work or that what you eat is more important than calories (although I think both are important, for different reasons).
As I said in the thread I linked, most people eat a mix of foods anyway, it's unlikely people eat all junk food or all (ugh) clean (that term for food is SO stupid), and what's healthy depends on overall diet. Eating a mix of whole and processed foods (as I describe in the other thread) obviously doesn't make a diet poor, that's a really uninformed idea about nutrition that it's quite sad that MFP is pushing, if that's the spin of the article.1 -
What grinds my gears is that calories are a unit of measure and don't have a quality.
The article should have been titled "Is What You Eat More Important Than How Much?" but that isn't as click-baity.10 -
I think quality is important...but ultimately the number of calories you're eating is going to dictate what happens in regards to your weight. I eat a very healthful diet with lots of quality calories and I gain 5-10 Lbs every winter because my activity level and exercise dips and I eat more calories than I need to support my activity during the winter.
I do think for sure that certain medical conditions are going to require more specific nutrition to deal with those issues and how those medical conditions could potentially interfere with weight management.3 -
JBApplebee wrote: »Just my 2 cents worth, they are technically right, but it's a technicality. If you just want to lose weight, it's CICO, but for long term health & well being, the kinds of calories do matter. What I mean is you can lose weight on an ice cream diet, a taco bell diet, the baby food diet, the Subway diet & so on. But for long term health, I don't think some of those (ice cream, taco bell) would be very good for you.
For me, it's just using common sense. Maintain a calorie deficit while eating mostly food good for you (lean meats, fruits, veggies, etc.) & I don't care if it's non-organic, has GMO's, clean, dirty or whatever the next buzzwords are & you'll lose weight & be healthy.
But I'm not a doctor & don't play one on TV, although I've been told I have a face for radio, so I've got that going for me.
Serious question. Do you think anyone is advocating for an all "insert whatever" diet? Do you think anyone who asks the questions about if a calorie is just a calorie actually wants to eat an all "insert whatever" diet? I don't know why people bring up these ridiculous extremes to say "yeah sure you could do that but it wouldn't be very healthy". No one asked about it, no one recommended it. The only people who ever mention it are people who engage in something like that as a short term experiment to prove a point that a calorie is just a calorie.... OR people who just bring it up out of nowhere as you did to somehow caveat the concept of CICO.
I got a surprise bonus this year at work - a little something extra that I wasn't expecting. It's like if I asked someone, "should I spend my little bonus on a frivolous expenditure like a pair of Frye boots or a Gucci purse" and they said, "well yes you could but you shouldn't only spend money on expensive leather goods, you need to pay your mortgage and your car payment and buy groceries and save money for retirement too...."
Do you see the similarity?
Genuinely curious why you felt the need to bring up the technicality argument. And also curious if when you said "for long term health I don't think some of those (ice cream, taco bell) would be very good for you" if you meant eating those exclusively, or if you meant eating any quantity, ever, of ice cream and taco bell isn't very good for you.
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I’ve eaten gluten free, as organic as possible and what I would consider high quality foods for years and two years ago weighed in at 182 at 5’3”. I was clearly eating too much of it.10
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I'm waiting for the MFP blog entry from shouty guy.11
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nutmegoreo wrote: »Unfortunately this is how MFP stays free. It is eye opening how much misinformation/disinformation is out there.
I makes it harder to help people when MFP has begun promoting the very same BS that has been circulating for years. This blog is a perfect example of all the garbage information that keeps people confused and overweight.
Failure is good for the weight loss industry - if people stay fat, it keeps them in business. And MFP is part of the weight loss industry.10 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »Unfortunately this is how MFP stays free. It is eye opening how much misinformation/disinformation is out there.
I makes it harder to help people when MFP has begun promoting the very same BS that has been circulating for years. This blog is a perfect example of all the garbage information that keeps people confused and overweight.
Failure is good for the weight loss industry - if people stay fat, it keeps them in business. And MFP is part of the weight loss industry.
There is terrifying truth in this statement. What all industries/governments want is control. They need a small percentage of people to prop as a shining example that a system does work, but they need a larger percentage to fail, struggle, and continue to return to the trough for guidance and support...all provided at a nominal fee of course.4 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »Unfortunately this is how MFP stays free. It is eye opening how much misinformation/disinformation is out there.
I makes it harder to help people when MFP has begun promoting the very same BS that has been circulating for years. This blog is a perfect example of all the garbage information that keeps people confused and overweight.
Failure is good for the weight loss industry - if people stay fat, it keeps them in business. And MFP is part of the weight loss industry.
There is terrifying truth in this statement. What all industries/governments want is control. They need a small percentage of people to prop as a shining example that a system does work, but they need a larger percentage to fail, struggle, and continue to return to the trough for guidance and support...all provided at a nominal fee of course.
^ Exactly. Well said.2 -
To be clear on my own standpoint on this topic, I hold firm on the quantity of calories consumed dictates weight loss/gain, regardless of the alleged "quality" of the food. I only go so far as to state that some foods are clearly more nutritious than others, but when it comes to excess weight carried on the body, there is only one thing to blame for that: excess food consumption and/or inactivity (barring any medical condition that causes it as well).
The quality of the recommended MFP blogs of late has been atrocious and full of pseudo-science and myths, even the blog about the myths trainers wish people would forget, was full of its own myths.7 -
I'd say the quality of calories matters for health and weight loss.
Their best point is that“There isn’t one diet for everyone.”
Some people are going to find that they lose better with certain ways of eating due to health issues and hormones. Some aren't. Dismissing food quality because it did not matter in your own experience is short sighted. IMO It is basically saying that everyone should eat a certain woe: eat all the foods you want but in moderation. That doesn't work for all.
No, that's a strawman. I didn't eat all the foods I wanted in moderation.
I ate a whole foods vegetarian diet devoid of sugar and refined grains.
I still weighed 210 pounds.
The quality of my calories didn't impact any loss of weight even though I hoped that it might, because I was told high quality food was supposed to do just that.
When I low carbed for ten years and at one point started gaining weight back? I wasn't eating anything in the way of carbs but non starchy vegetables, no fruit, no grains, no sugars... and never cheated. The quality of my calories didn't matter for weight loss.
I'm sorry, but calories are the number one driver of weight loss and you know this. The quality of them can greatly enhance satiety, which will, of course, make compliance easier, which will in turn affect how effective one's dieting efforts are.10 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »Unfortunately this is how MFP stays free. It is eye opening how much misinformation/disinformation is out there.
I makes it harder to help people when MFP has begun promoting the very same BS that has been circulating for years. This blog is a perfect example of all the garbage information that keeps people confused and overweight.
Failure is good for the weight loss industry - if people stay fat, it keeps them in business. And MFP is part of the weight loss industry.
I know. And this is beginning to border on politics, but it's very much the same with healthcare. It's not health care, it's sick care. Prevention would be ideal, but there's no money in it. Sad statement. And probably a considerable part of my current personal struggles (there's wanting to be effective and then the reality - I sense an internal shift coming, but it's still foggy at the moment).2 -
nutmegoreo wrote: »Unfortunately this is how MFP stays free. It is eye opening how much misinformation/disinformation is out there.
I makes it harder to help people when MFP has begun promoting the very same BS that has been circulating for years. This blog is a perfect example of all the garbage information that keeps people confused and overweight.
Failure is good for the weight loss industry - if people stay fat, it keeps them in business. And MFP is part of the weight loss industry.
There is terrifying truth in this statement. What all industries/governments want is control. They need a small percentage of people to prop as a shining example that a system does work, but they need a larger percentage to fail, struggle, and continue to return to the trough for guidance and support...all provided at a nominal fee of course.
Yep. That's why the hot-button issues never get attacked. Solve minimum wage or compromise - away goes the issue - and the voters with it. Come up with an immigration compromise - away goes the "fight" (and the voters). Balance the federal budget? "Not on your life - where will our voters come from in the next election?" (I know this is US-centric). It doesn't matter which side of the political aisle you are on. Government and industries like health thrive on keeping the issues out there. Take away problems, the problem solvers have to find something new....
It does not pay to solve issues that already pay so much to those whose interests it is better served for those issues to remain unsolved.1 -
This thread has gotten remarkedly deep and frighteningly insightful for something that started with the MFP blogs...6
This discussion has been closed.
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