Calories in, calories out

http://possiblywrong.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/calories-in-calories-out/

by spudlyo • 12 years ago

189 206 12 years ago

possiblywrong.wordpress.com

grecy4• 12 years ago

This has been a very hot topic on HN in the past, so I suspect the comments section will soon blow up.

I've always though of the "calories in vs calories out" technique for weight loss to be the starting point for the majority of people trying to lose weight. Reign in how many calories you're eating, start burning a few more (even just walking a block or two for most people is a great start) and you'll see significant weight loss over a long period of time.

Don't beat yourself up when you have a "bad" day, because the success of this technique is not measured in days. It's not even measured in weeks or months, it's measured in a unit of "the rest of your life".

After many months tending to years of this, and many pounds lost, the approach can be fine tuned and what is being eaten can be examined in slightly more detail.

Once you've mastered crawling, you can move onto walking and running, but it's simply too difficult to jump straight into running where there are so many gains to be made from simple crawling.

jafaku• 12 years ago

I have never been fat but as a sports guy I have read a lot about the subject and I'm pretty sure the best first step (as opposed to running, not as opposed to controlling your calories) is to start lifting weights if you are a guy. The more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn passively (at rest). And once you are done losing weight you will be ripped. It's like what people do in a bulk + cut cycle, but skipping the bulk phase.

x0x02• 12 years ago

I don't think lifting weights to lose weight or fat is the answer. Weight is 80% mouth 20% gym. You'll have to wait a very long time to see reduced fat; much of initial strength gains are simply cns training; it's difficult to add muscle mass while cutting.

jaredsohn2• 12 years ago

My understanding from regularly reading fitness forums is that the actual calorie loss you get from having muscle instead of fat is pretty negligible (maybe 100 calories/day depending on how much muscle you have). However, perhaps it could still help if it gives you esteem about your body (causing you to show more discipline with respect to diet).

I think a really good first step is to 1) drop soda, sweets, or other things that are relatively effortless changes and then 2) just track everything you eat (you don't even need to look up calorie information initially) so you have the data in case you want to start making other dietary changes. I have also found that restricting your diet to a small set of foods where you deeply know the nutritional data, etc. and can build a routine out of it and moving from carbs to proteins are also really helpful.

aantix2• 12 years ago

Coming from Lyle McDonald, one of the most respected trainers in the industry..

"Some of this also comes from the still gross misconception that ‘muscle burns a ton of calories’ (a myth I took apart in Dissecting the Energy Needs of the Body – Research Review). That is, they hope to jack up metabolic rate by increasing muscle mass. Which is a futile activity because the effect is minimal (on top of the fact that the obese are already carrying extra muscle mass). A pound of muscle burns about 6 calories at rest, you have to add a ton to impact on metabolic rate (see also the next issue I discuss, low metabolic rate isn’t a problem). And that takes a lot of time, time better spent focusing on active fat loss."

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/dissecting-...

iolsantr• 12 years ago

I don't really disagree with you, but.

These suggestions ignore the (soft) limitations of human agency. The degree of difficulty in (not) eating an additional (something) has never been really quantified in sufficiently broad spectrum of situations, to my knowledge.

A generally helpful and encouraging life can lead to many positive changes, weight loss not least among them.

Maybe instead of telling fat people to lose weight, we should be inviting them to parties, and when they get there, treating them like everyone else.

Just a thought.

yummyfajitas2• 12 years ago

Why would removing disincentives for being fat reduce the number of fat people? Should we also make smoking cool to reduce the # of smokers?

grecy4• 12 years ago

The degree of difficulty in (not) eating an additional (something)

You've missed the entire point.

Never once has it ever been said you should eat less.

Just eat less calories, not less quantity.

(This reply is so important I replied to two different people with it)

bluecalm8• 12 years ago

Calorie counting technique is basically this: "You need to eat less, here is a nifty tool to help you to keep track and maybe make a bit motivated once you see all those numbers". That may work for some people but for vast majority it won't help at all. Overweight/obese people very often know they need to eat less, the problem is they can't do it. "Count calories and don't go over deficit" is basically like saying to an alcoholic that they shouldn't drink (or don't go over 20g of alcohol a day or w/e). It just misses the problem. Nobody thinks it's great idea to stuff yourself and become obese, the problem is that something (genetics/environment/stuff in food) makes people want to eat a ton more food than they should.

IndianAstronaut• 12 years ago

Until there are effective ways to curb appetite, this problem will persist. Any overweight or obese person can tell you that your brain goes into autopilot mode till you get your food fix. There is instant regret, but that is after eating.

grecy4• 12 years ago

"You need to eat less

In the first 4 words you've already missed the entire point.

Never once has it ever been said you should eat less.

Just eat less calories, not less quantity.

scottious3• 12 years ago

You know, I never really understood this point until I myself faced addiction. I've never had any issues with eating too much or drinking too much but once I discovered weed I was smoking every day for years and on days that I said I wouldn't I found it somehow happening as if there's another person living in my brain who's only purpose in life is to get high. I realized that I was less in control than I thought I was. It's funny because everybody says, "Weed is completely non addictive!!"

I managed to quit, but it was quite hard to do. It really took a major major shift in thinking and a lot of psychological withdrawals. I imagine this is what it's like for people who over eat, and I sympathize.

ragecore• 12 years ago

In bodybuilding terms, "cutting" is being under calorie deficit. It can wreak havoc with your mood systems and that's why people can't keep it up. Start small.

tachyonbeam• 12 years ago

It's not just moods, it's also hunger. AFAIK, fMRI studies have shown that in morbidly obese people, the hunger part of their brain is constantly activated. They're actually hungry all the time, they have an irresistible urge to eat. I'm sure the large majority of them wish they were thinner, but to them, it's a painful struggle against biological urges.

I used to be overweight, lost weight, but it's a constant struggle for me to keep a normal weight. I've spoken to some very thin people, and they don't seem to experience hunger in the same way I do. These people forget to eat, get full very quickly, and when they get full, they lose all of the sense of pleasure they get from eating, they immediately want to stop. Me? I have an urge to eat quickly and I can eat way past "enough". I'm pretty sure I could eat 2000 calories for dinner if I didn't stop myself, but the reasonable mark is at about 900. I can never "forget" to eat, my body/brain doesn't let me.

It's pretty clear that some people have stronger sex drives than others. I don't understand why it's such a radical notion that some people have a stronger sense of hunger than others. If you've never been overweight, chances are it's not an active effort or perfect habits on your part, it's just the way your body/brain works, it's largely genetics.

bluecalm8• 12 years ago

It's not a radical notion. It would be radical to assume anything else without very strong evidence. I am the same way as you are btw. What changes it for me is very low-carb diet. After few days of suffering I actually stopped being hungry and went some days with one/two small meals. I forgot to eat few times until like 7pm. I imagine that people who are like that by default have it much easier to keep healthy weight.

iopq23• 12 years ago

Of course you can have a stronger hunger/desire to eat than other people. I have a high desire to eat, but I also love spending three hours exercising. I walked one hour to the gym on foot, lifted weights for one hour and walked another hour back. I could spend three hours playing ping pong or basketball. I never used to do that before, but I learned to love it. I don't do it every day, because my body wouldn't last, but I do it often enough to offset sometimes eating a very large meal.

michh• 12 years ago

Same, I lost a lot of weight a couple of years ago and it was hard. And it's still difficult to keep the weight off, even though it's been 5 years since I lost it and am on a regular exercise routine.

I've pretty much learned to accept it's something I'll have to deal with for the rest of my life, rather than "I was fat once, I got rid of it, it's no longer a concern, the end."

It totally pisses me off to see people who can't manage to do the same being judged in awful ways by people who were lucky enough not to have to do it in the first place or for whom it was apparently relatively easy and assume it'll be just as easy for everyone else.

I count myself amongst the lucky, I'll never say "I could do it, so you can too." It's counter productive and an awful thing to hear when you're already really trying.

tw04• 12 years ago

Uhh. "Are all calories equal? I don't know, but it'd be nice to know." Why is this even a blog post? It literally tells us nothing.

wfjackson• 12 years ago

Gut bacteria are a big confounder among a bunch of other things. Different types can do a lot of things differently, like extract more calories from the same food.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/ci-gbi091012....

They can even mess with your mind to make you crave junk food.

http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/08/116526/do-gut-bacteria-rule...

Transplanting them from a thin human to an obese mice slimmed the mice down.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/health/gut-bacteria-from-t...

Jet lagged gut bacteria can contribute to obesity.

http://www.popsci.com/article/science/jet-lagged-gut-bacteri...

Diet soda can alter gut bacteria to make one gain weight.

http://www.prevention.com/health/diabetes/artificial-sweeten...

There are more gut bacteria than human cells in our body, and they actually release chemicals that affect the brain and have evolved to do that and there are a lot of other factors that influence gut bacteria, including what got passed on from your mother, what foods you ate during your life, what antibiotics you took etc. etc.

And gut bacteria is just one variable among things like activity levels, pollution levels, sleep amount and quality(not sleeping well can make you eat about 600 calories more the next day), peers(hanging out with obese people is likely to make you obese, obese people tend to have obese pets!), poverty, car ownership, smoking, tastebud sensitivity, commute time(people with longer commutes tend to be obese),genetics,water intake, muscle mass,stress levels, food additives, pregnancy, childbirth, menopause, time of the month for women, free time in a day(try cooking at home and exercise working 2 grueling jobs to make ends meet), drug side effects, emotional eating, type of exercise, micronutrients in food,portion sizes in restaurant, food advertising, food subsidies, vitamn level, thyroid function, insulin sensitivity, liver health, distribution of fat around body parts and inside organs,will power, processed foods, food availability and cost etc. etc. Some of these variables affect the others in a chaotic state machine kind of way.

It's no wonder that all these low carb, low fat, paleo, etc. diets are not one-size-fits-all solutions and that such discussions descend into WORKED-FOR-ME!!! Y U NO DO IT?!! platitudes. A calorie = a calorie is as true and as useless as answering the question "Why are there so many people inside the Super Bowl stadium during the game?" by saying "Because more people entered it than who left, if only people didn't get in, it wouldn't be so crowded."

jdminhbg2• 12 years ago

A calorie = a calorie is as true and as useless as answering the question "Why are there so many people inside the Super Bowl stadium during the game" by saying "Because more people entered it than who left, if only people didn't get in, it would be empty".

"Why is it warmer in the summer than the winter?"

"Because your hemisphere took in more calories than it gave off."

True! And anyone who denies it is just arguing with thermodynamics.

hspak• 12 years ago

There's been work and research that state gaining weight is not a simple matter of calorie in = calorie out.

Gary Taubes has written a lot about it.

wavegeek2• 12 years ago

Calories = calories is all you need to know.

Unless

* You care about your productivity or health, in which case getting sufficient balanced nutrition is important.

* You care about body composition eg going on a diet is liable to lose you large quantities of lean body mass which sets you up for rebound weight gain down the track.

* You are one of those rare people who are affected by hunger. If you are one of those people you might want to consider the effect of diet composition, adequacy and timing on your appetite.

I also note: sample of one. Duration: 2 months (of people who lose weight over a 2 month period only a small fraction keep it off). Statistical significance: 0.

domdip• 12 years ago

There are more gut bacteria than human cells in our body

"[That] is technically true, in the sense that Vin Diesel is outnumbered by a small bag of crickets."

http://carcinisation.com/2014/08/14/science-journalism-march...

saym• 12 years ago

Thanks for linking me to this. I too made the incorrect assumption.

Synaesthesia• 12 years ago

I read somewhere the mass of gut bacteria in a persons body is about a pound.

pja2• 12 years ago

The rebuttal is itself technically true but I think misses the point of the original statement: The gut is a complex system which has direct effects on many other systems in the body, including the brain. The resultant feedback loops are not well understood at the current time.

If you treat the gut as a simple "food processor" that does nothing more than take in food, break it down and transfer the resluting proteins & sugars into the bloodstream then you're vastly over simplifying things. Yes, it's perfectly true that gut bacteria do not make up a huge percentage of your body mass, but you could say the same thing about your kidneys & anyone who claimed that the kidney "just takes waste products from the bloodstream and excretes them as urine" would be over simplifying things enormously. That statement is as true as the "gut bacteria are only 1% of your body mass" one, but it also misses out on a lot of complexity - the kidneys are involved in all sorts of hormonal feedback loops & can go wrong in many weird and wonderful ways. The same is true of the gut, and that's the point of the original statement about the vast number of gut bacteria IMO - it's reminding us that the digestive system is in fact very complex and an active participant in hormonal feedback loops that affect the rest of the body, including those that affect how much we want to eat.

pessimizer• 12 years ago

I don't think that anyone understands that sentence in the way that this is trying to debunk. Are there people who read that sentence and think that there's a larger amount of gut bacteria than human body in the human body by weight or volume?

That would require that there be people that think that the human gut itself weighs more than the rest of the body.

"[That] is technically true, in the sense that Vin Diesel is outnumbered by a small bag of crickets."

In what sense is Vin Diesel not outnumbered by a bag of crickets? Combat skill?

Terr_• 12 years ago

Alternately, if your body was the world, the nation of "You" would be a single unified hyperpower formed by the intermarried populations of China, India, the USA, and the next 100 biggest countries.

The "Microbe Nations" would be Monaco all the other table-top countries and tiny one-man-on-an-island republics, and they would also fight amongst themselves.

autokad• 12 years ago

actually, almost ANY diet works. if you are over weight and reduce your calorie intake: you.will.loose.weight.period.

people have a tendency to either not adhere to the diet over time or not partake in the diet at all by listening to people say: all these other magical factors effect your weight, why bother? negative platitudes if you will. 'its not that 4000 calorie a day diet that is making you fat, its genetics!' etc etc

while its true gut bacteria makes a difference, it is also true and proven that gut bacteria adjusts to your food intake. it is more likely that a persons weight problems can be moderated by diet and exercise than anything else. diet is most easily moderated by good eating habits.

hrktb2• 12 years ago

actually, almost ANY diet works. if you are over weight and reduce your calorie intake: you.will.loose.weight.period.

What we are saying here is that you reduce your calorie intake within the range where gut bacteria can act, it might not have any effect, or even negative effect.

If you reduce your calorie intake below the level gut bacteria activity matters, you will lose weight, but only if you can sustain the diet for basically the rest of your life.

If the diet doesn't fit you, you will be fighting your body every single day, and your body might cave in and it becomes your new norm, or you can't stand it anymore and go back to your previous behavior.

Fighting your body until it gives up is such a brute force method it's just hell on earth (we say "your body", but litteraly you're punishing yourself). Experimentally the vast majority of people won't be able to brute force their behavior And metabolism, and have to find a diet that fits them. S

What I'm saying is sustaining low calorie intake is a result of having a diet that works. The relevant part is to find that diet in the first place.

cauterized2• 12 years ago

actually, almost ANY diet works. if you are over weight and reduce your calorie intake: you.will.loose.weight.period.

This is absolutely false.

1) there's of course the obvious cas where you're consuming 5000 kcal/day and burning 2500, and then cut that to 4000 kcal consumed -- still gonna gain, albeit more slowly.

2) less obviously but perhaps more importantly, reducing caloric intake can reduce metabolism (because your body thinks food is more scarce) and therefore also reduce calories out!

3) the types of foods you eat help determine whether your body stores the energy as fat -- which is triggered by insulin. Replacing fat calories with sugar calories (as was done extensively in the late 20th C rush to low fat foods) even if the total caloric intake is slightly lower can actually accelerate weight gain.

pygy_5• 12 years ago

Gut bacteria (specifically e. coli) have recently been identified as the root cause of both anorexia and bulimia [0]. I submited that paper here with no luck when it came out two weeks ago.

——

[0] Bacterial ClpB heat-shock protein, an antigen-mimetic of the anorexigenic peptide α-MSH, at the origin of eating disorders http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v4/n10/full/tp201498a.html

DanBC2• 12 years ago

This is fascinating, thank you.

It's surprising to see a causal link between ED and gut flora. Anorexia is, when we adjust for factors, the most fatal mental illness.

Has anyone tested people who have a reliable diagnosis of either anorexia or bulimia? That would seem ethically easy enough. Especially since current treatment sometimes involves detention against the patient's ill in hospital, and forced naso-gastric feeding.

cauterized2• 12 years ago

Causative? Or correlated? Couldn't the causation go the other direction? (Would just read the paper but it won't load on this phone.)

Cacti• 12 years ago

It's calories in, calories out, only if you stick to specific foods.

It's well proven that raw foods, despite being slightly higher calorie content than their cooked version, contribute significantly less calories because FAR less is digested and absorbed.

And it's equally well proven that weight gain is significantly due to the consumption of processed sugars (most carbohydrates that people eat these days), as they contribute far more sugar far quicker to the blood (and hence kick off an insulin reaction to lower the blood sugar by storing the sugar as fat). 1000 calories of white rice will contribute far more to weight gain than 1000 calories of, say, plain chicken.

So we _know_ that it's not just calories in, calories out. It just seems that way sometimes, because most studies don't really change the fundamental type of food (that is, it's almost assuredly cooked food still, and at least somewhat similar in the processing done (e.g. no candy bar but they're still eating white bread)). Everyone's just repeating the same study over and over, not realizing they weren't fundamentally changing the inputs.

nkozyra6• 12 years ago

And it's equally well proven that weight gain is significantly due to the consumption of processed sugars (most carbohydrates that people eat these days), as they contribute far more sugar far quicker to the blood (and hence kick off an insulin reaction to lower the blood sugar by storing the sugar as fat). 1000 calories of white rice will contribute far more to weight gain than 1000 calories of, say, plain chicken.

Not to get into a pissing match, but I think "well proven" needs some citation here.

The role of insulin does not bypass thermodynamics.

bluecalm8• 12 years ago

Thermodynamics have nothing to do with it. Human bodies can vary when it comes to efficiency of converting food to energy. It may also depend on hormonal situation or genetics or w/e else. It may also well be that "calorie out" part depends to some extent of what is eaten. It's not like human bodies are perfect 100% efficient engines of converting food to energy and that rest of the body doesn't take into account what's "in the tank" at any given moment. Thermodynamics argument just doesn't mean anything. It's probably the most silly way to end sensible discussion on this topis.

trustfundbaby• 12 years ago

Not to get into a pissing match, but I think "well proven" needs some citation here.

It just has to do with the way the body deals with sugar. Sugar produced from the digestive process goes straight to your bloodstream as glucose if your body needs it, but if you already have enough ... it is sent to your liver where it is converted to glycogen. The rub is, your liver can only store so much glycogen (about 100mg of it I think), after that ... any sugar that hits your liver is converted to straight fat.

letstryagain• 12 years ago

Calorie counting already takes this into consideration. When we say '100g of raw tomato has X calories' we are talking of what your body gets out of it when you eat it, not the calories theoretically in the tomato.

dllthomas• 12 years ago

"not the calories theoretically in the tomato."

There goes my plan to weigh the tomato and multiply by the c^2.

MicroBerto3• 12 years ago

We deal with this all the time when recommending diet supplements at my startup. When it comes to losing weight, yes, calories in vs. calories out is the most important step to start with.

Sure, protein has a higher TEF (thermic effect of food), and yadda yadda yadda there are some other minor things involved, but they're just not enough for you to discredit the calorie situation.

However, when it comes to burning fat, the next most important thing (after you have determined a reasonable caloric deficit) is to maintain a "high" level of protein.

Too low of protein, and you're going to lose too much muscle mass. Ultimately, this is what's leading to so many "skinny fat" dieters. You get a lot of it from people who do nothing but cardio cardio cardio.

It turns out that all the low-fat vs. low-carb wars are really meaningless, because most of those studies don't control protein - which is MORE important! That last low-fat vs. low-carb study that came out was miserably guilty of this, because protein intake has actually been shown to be more significant than carb or fat control[1].

After you've situated your calories, then your protein (and you are consistent about it), then you choose your carbs and fats however it pleases you. There are extremes on both sides.

What's important is you find something that you can be successful with, and keep that protein number up. Lest you be skinny fat, which I personally feel is worse than being "muscular fat".

In the bodybuilding community, some people have taken this to extremes with Flexible Dieting, or "IIFYM" (If it Fits Your Macros...). Basically, the idea that proper quantities (as discussed above and below) are more important than food quality. I will err on that side of the argument, but the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle when attempting to achieve overall health.

Finally, it's worth noting that while total caloric intake and macronutrients are most important when it comes to weight and aesthetics, please eat some damned vegetables too. And corn is not a vegetable.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22935440

bokonist3• 12 years ago

I had great success starting from a strict calories in vs. calories out diet, and then iterating on what I ate to make myself the most satiated per calorie eaten. Turns out that the diet that solves for satiation ends up being a lot of plain chicken and meat, beans, roasted veggies, modest amounts of starch, and no sugar. (Eating a handful of jelly beans would make be starving 30 minutes later).

The other thing I found, is that I had to avoid foods that tasted too good. Basically any food that combines fat, simple starches, and a sweet sauce will taste too good and give you an overwhelming urge to overeat. If I wanted to eat a burrito for lunch, I would cut it in half, put the other half in the fridge, and save it for dinner, before I even started to eat my lunch. Burritos are quite satiating, and you actually diet while eating them, you just have to portion control, and will yourself past the ten minutes when you are done with the first half and so tempted to eat the other half.

I've wondered if the reason why so many diet strategies succeed in the short run, but fail in the long run, is because they are all hacks to make you eat less tasty food. If you just eat fat, or just eat carbs, or just eat whole wheat, or whatever, your food will be less tasty. In the long run though, people like eating tasty food, and so they keep making exceptions to the diet in the name of taste, and they are back to their normal eating habits.

MicroBerto3• 12 years ago

That's actually a great point, and something I've told friends in a "broscience" fashion: There is nearly nothing in nature that combines fats and carbs. It's almost like you need to choose one or the other - balance is how you get into trouble, because then you think everything is legal.

Take, for instance, potato chips -- and not the low-fat Baked Lay's or Quest Chips kind. If you're on a "balanced diet", they're legal. But good luck measuring them and not eating the entire bag.

It sounds like your success was mainly in portion control. Eating standing up helps you get full faster too, as does focusing on chewing a lot (also prevents choking and other benefits).

The biggest problem I forgot to mention above, however, is that people will read all sorts of literature, but when it comes to actually weighing their food with a food scale (costs literally $20) and counting their calories and macros, they all fail. Yes, it's a pain in the arse, but you learn so much by recording everything you eat. But people simply don't want to do it, and it drives me nuts.

This also leads me to believe that there's a massive business opportunity somewhere in there to make it easier to do (I have ideas but am too busy).

acconrad2• 12 years ago

One thing I can immediately think of is avocados - they are both high in fat and carbohydrate, though 80%+ of those carbs are fibrous.

One way I've managed to make dieting more sustainable (which is the most important part, making sure you find a healthy diet you can stick to in the long run) are cheat days/meals. This allows you to program in "tasty" meals without the psychological guilt and adverse health affects from these typically unhealthy treats. Most nutritionists will agree that if you adhere to your diet 90% of the time, you're going to be successful. That means in a typical 3 meal/day diet, you've got roughly 2 meals / week where you can cheat and eat whatever without it affecting your health or body composition.

My approach, which has allowed me to increase my strength without increasing my body weight, has been through a cyclical ketogenic diet. As always, YMMV, but I have determined through my own empirical research that I am not well carb-adapted, and staying low carb (<50g net carbs) all week doesn't negatively affect my energy levels or strength, in fact it improves moreso than when I ate carbs after workouts. Nonetheless, I love me some carb-rich foods, so once a week, after my biggest workout of the week, I eat roughly 400+g of carbs to refuel glycogen, satiate my desire for a "tasty meal" and overall reward myself for adhering 90%+ to my diet for the week.

What's important here is that you plan for the cheat, and that allows you to still enjoy life and food without it negatively affecting your health and body composition.

jsonmez• 12 years ago

I have quite a bit of advice on this topic, targeted directly at programmers on my podcast on fitness for software developers, Get Up and CODE: http://getupandcode.com

nkozyra6• 12 years ago

I've often wondered how we've come to the consensus of:

carbohydrate = 4 kilocalories protein = 4 kilocalories fat = 9 kilocalories alcohol = 7 kilocalories

It seems difficult to quantify this accurately without fully understanding human metabolism and how it utilizes energy sources.

acconrad2• 12 years ago

Dr. Israetel does a great video series on this topic - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szzo5Uy5aQU. Calories in/out is ultimately the foundation to weight loss/gain, but is not the whole picture. Macronutrient arrangement, nutrient timing, and food quality/composition also play a role in optimizing health and body composition.

spo81rty• 12 years ago

I think it is amazing how little we really know about our bodies and how they work.

I also think it is amazing how much we do know and people simply don't give a shit about!

Smoking is terrible for you. Sugar is terrible for you on a daily basis. Highly processed foods are terrible for you.

Everybody knows these things... but nobody gives a shit and the obesity and diabetes epidemic rages on.

I personally think calories are what you track when you eat processed crappy food. Eat real raw foods, which usually have no nutrition labels, and calories don't really matter.

nulldozer• 12 years ago

I think you would be taken more seriously if you used the metric system.

ddt• 12 years ago

(Aside: I am intentionally sticking with U. S. customary units of pounds, miles, etc., to be consistent with much of the related literature.)

From the article, it sounds like dietary science in the US is done with imperial units. It was written by an American for a primarily American audience. Americans track their weight in pounds. Those seem like pretty good reasons to not use metric to me.

paulsutter• 12 years ago

Great work, but I’d propose that percent bodyfat is a better “north star” metric for health than weight itself. I’d like to have more muscle and less fat, and I think that’s true of most men. Focus on weight loss is one of the strangest widespread beliefs. Easy to test, ask a panel of women what male bodies are most attractive, and check the results against bodyfat and weight.

My own experience is that calories in/out controls weight, yes.

But I’ve only been able to lose fat and gain muscle by eating a diet that keeps my blood sugar stable. I think this is the real benefit of avoiding high-glycemic carbs, not some magical exemption from thermodynamics.

I’d be interested to help test this.

thaumasiotes• 12 years ago

I’d propose that percent bodyfat is a better “north star” metric for health than weight itself. I’d like to have more muscle and less fat, and I think that’s true of most men

That depends on the goals you have for your metric. % fat by weight is probably a better fit than total weight for describing body image, but there are two issues that help the viability of total weight:

1. There's not so much variation in % body fat by weight, which means confounding "amount of weight that is fat" with "amount of weight that is anything" doesn't lose you much in practice.

2. Total weight is extremely easy to measure, always desirable in a metric.

And, as you note, while replacing fat mass with muscle mass generally makes men more attractive, the same is not true for women, who are in my experience the vast majority of the "worried about their weight" audience.

iopq23• 12 years ago

You can lose water weight to the tune of 10 pounds and conclude that a low carb diet is superior. But of course, once you lost those ten pounds and start eating carbs again you'll regain them as your body replaces that glycogen and conclude that carbs are the devil.

Just pinching your belly fat with a caliper every week and seeing the numbers go down is much more accurate. It doesn't matter what your body fat IS or how much it went down, as long as your caliper measurements decrease.

For the record, my caliper measurements were something like 25/14/27 (belly/chest/thigh) at a high body fat (maybe 18%?) and more like 17/6/18 in the low teens.

I didn't really see a point of actually trying to track my fat loss through caliper measurements because they were exaggerated, the calculators said I was higher bf% than I really was (19.3% but I wasn't that high), and then they said I was lower bf% than I really was after I lost it (12.1% but I wasn't that low). I only lost 10 lbs between a purported 7% change in BF from 200lbs to 190lbs.

But as a measurement of "yep, losing fat", it's very accurate.

adrianN• 12 years ago

the same is not true for women

Many men would disagree.

rdlecler1• 12 years ago

Nice work. Your predicted result gives you a nice hypothesis to test the calorie in calorie out model. Surprisingly accurate! It was also interesting that the prediction tended to overstimate the weight loss. Something systematic that needs adjusting?

I'd love for someone to do this with beer.

spudlyo2• 12 years ago

I would love to see him repeat this two more times, once eating nothing but white rice, and once eating nothing but cooked chicken. I'd be willing to bet that all three scatter plots would be largely indistinguishable from one another.

iopq23• 12 years ago

The problem is that eating white rice is low in protein, and you'll lose body tissue that's not fat. Eating just chicken you'll lose glycogen which is 80% water, so you'll lose more weight, while losing the same amount of fat.

So when you go into extreme diets, there is a problem with measuring exactly what is going on if all you use is a scale.

scythe2• 12 years ago

So, if you believe "calories in, calories out", obviously. But, if you think that's all there is to dieting I have another question: do you believe in free will?

laichzeit0• 12 years ago

This has nothing to do with beliefs. It's a falsifiable statement.

scythe2• 12 years ago

Um, did you read, or try to understand, at all, thr second sentence?

nl5• 12 years ago

I find this discussion very weird.

Of course calories in/calories out explains your weight loss/gain. I haven't seen a single study that shows anything except this.

But of course that isn't the whole story.

The big issue with using calorie restriction for weight loss is that it take significant self control for long periods of time (months).

People take that as a moral judgement of people who don't lose weight: they assume that it means they are mentally weak.

But the truth is that there are alternatives. The thing that most calorie in/out advocates miss is that it's calories over time that matter. If one can spread digestion of the same calories over a longer period of time the subject will generally feel less hungry.

This is where high-protein, anti-processed food, anti-sugar and insulin reaction people have a point: High protein, high fiber and unprocessed foods generally have a high satiety index[1][2]. This means a person eating them will feel less hungry for longer for the same amount of calories.

Naturally this links back to calories in: if someone who is trying to lose weight doesn't feel hungry they don't have to have so much self control.

To me the low satiety index of confectioneries and soda drinks explains why sugar is so dangerous: It's digested very quickly and contains lots of calories, which is the worst possible combination for weight control.

I don't understand why satiety isn't discussed more in weight control, since to me it is the key factor.

(This is all from the perspective of someone who lost nearly 20kg via calorie counting)

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7498104

[2] http://www.ernaehrungsdenkwerkstatt.de/fileadmin/user_upload...

Evgeny• 12 years ago

I haven't seen a single study that shows anything except this.

Actually, there is one.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2011.48/full

The experimental group was prescribed a standard low-calorie diet (20% protein, 30–35% fat, 45–50% carbohydrates, 1,300–1,500 kcal) providing carbohydrates mostly at dinner, whereas the control group received a standard low-calorie diet (20% protein, 30–35% fat, 45–50% carbohydrates, 1,300–1,500 kcal), providing carbohydrates throughout the day

So they were isocaloric.

Anthropometric changes after 6 months are presented in Table 3. Significant weight loss, BMI, abdominal circumference, and body fat percentage reductions were found in both groups. Significantly greater weight loss was observed in the experimental group vs. the control group at the end of the study (11.6 vs. 9.06 kg, P = 0.024).

But the weight loss was different.

It looks like did not live in a ward though.

Participants, who did not attend meetings with the dietitian, did not adhere to the diet or exceeded the caloric range of 1,300–1,500 kcal/day, were excluded from the study.

But I'm not sure how they found out that a person exceeded his caloric range.

beagle3• 12 years ago

Of course calories in/calories out explains your weight loss/gain. I haven't seen a single study that shows anything except this.

Have you seen one that actually claims to prove it? I was looking for something conclusive, and have come up with a lot of explanations why the numbers diverge (atwater factors are inaccurate, everyone is self reporting, BMR not properly estimated, etc, etc.).

A theory that works for 70% of the cases and fails to explain the remaining 30% is WRONG, even if you have no better competing theory.

induscreep5• 12 years ago

Hmm but you can still lose weight by eating low satiety index foods, as long as a calorie deficit is present. This means eating smaller portions of these foods. It just takes more self control because the body "feels hungry" when in fact it isn't.

nl5• 12 years ago

Of course. That's the point!

beloch• 12 years ago

"I learned that it is really hard to accurately measure calories consumed, even if you are trying. "

I'd just like to highlight this, because it is profoundly true. There are probably very few people who have the patience to log everything they eat, diet or no diet, unless they have some kind of payoff close at hand! Even if you do log everything you eat, it's still not easy. Here are just a few reasons why:

1. The best foods to eat on a diet don't come in prepackaged portions with the calorie count labelled on the back.

2. Packaged food often does not have anywhere near the same calories as the label claims. Food manufacturers often aren't very precise and they have an incentive to underestimate.

3. The ideal way to measure the absorbable caloric content of food would be to feed it (and nothing else) to human test-subjects (other animals can metabolize foods quite differently; e.g. grass and cows) for an extended period of time while strictly regulating the test-subjects' physical activity. Measure the weight change, and there you have it. Yeah... This experiment is never going to happen. That's why we stick food in a calorimeter, burn it, and consider the heat it provides to be a measure of its caloric content. This crude method provides decent estimates on average, but can occasionally be misleading.

For these reasons, I'm actually a bit surprised that the author's data matches the theory so closely. This indicates the author scrupulously measured his portion sizes, found accurate estimates for the caloric content of the foods he ate, and logged everything. This is seriously impressive. If the author had failed to log something as insignificant as the sugar and cream he puts in his coffee it would have thrown his numbers way off over a period of 75 days. Similarly, he must have scrupulously recorded his physical activities. The fit is so perfect I actually suspect he... ah... played with his data slightly after the fact. A "fortuitous" choice for alpha is obviously helpful too.

One other thing worth pointing out is that weighing yourself daily and plotting it on a graph like this is a fantastic way to observe progress and stay motivated to stick to your new routine. First, if you don't regularly observe your weight then you have no feedback. If you fail to accurately measure your caloric intake/expenditure the results might not be as desired. Feedback is necessary. However, daily feedback can be wildly misleading if you don't place it in context. If you look at the author's data, there are plenty of ups and downs around the trend. For example, on day 7 he observed a large gain and on day 8 a large loss. If the author only kept the previous day's weight in his head he might conclude that he did poorly on day 6 and made up for it on day 7. In reality, he might have consumed very healthy, fiber-rich food (e.g. a lot of beans) on day 6 and a bunch of sugar-rich processed garbage on day 7. The author might have stored away some fat on day 7 but wound up weighing less on day 8 purely because of passing the fiber from his meal on day 6. Pure sugar doesn't leave much behind to be passed!

I do question the worth of calculating your caloric deficit. It's simply too hard to get an accurate measure of consumption. However, measuring your weight regularly and plotting it so you can observe the larger trend is invaluable. About five years ago I dropped 60 pounds (it's still off, and I've gained lean muscle mass). I didn't count calories. I simply measured my weight regularly and plotted it on a graph similar to the author. I looked at the larger trend and made small adjustments gradually to keep it going in the right direction. If you don't weigh yourself regularly you can undo months worth of progress with one new bad habit. If you don't place your weight in context you'll have difficulty identifying habits that are a problem. Finally, watching that line steadily come down is a fantastic way to stay motivated.

hueving• 12 years ago

Packaged food often does not have anywhere near the same calories as the label claims. Food manufacturers often aren't very precise and they have an incentive to underestimate.

Source? If they aren't within 20% they can be shut down by the FDA. Not exactly something you would want to risk.

x0x02• 12 years ago

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/calorie-detective....

* bodega muffin. 640 claimed, 735 actual

* starbucks pretend coffee. 370 claimed, 393 actual

* chipotle burrito. 1175 claimed, 10% over

* some veggie sandwich. 228 claimed, 100% over

* subway sandwich. came in under

4/5 of tested food underestimated, some wildly

johnward4• 12 years ago

How often do you think the FDA verifies that calorie labels are correct. I'm willing to bet it's not that important to them.

isleyaardvark• 12 years ago

20% is a lot.

tfgg• 12 years ago

One other thing worth pointing out is that weighing yourself daily and plotting it on a graph like this is a fantastic way to observe progress and stay motivated to stick to your new routine.

This is absolutely the most important "diet" that I've done - having a mobile phone app, I use "Libra" on Android, that prompts me every morning for my weight and shows the trend curve. I can easily see now that my weight consistently goes down when I'm exercising and watching my diet, which is a slow process of experimentation in lifestyle, and it stalls if I'm only doing one of those or neither. Previously monitoring my day-to-day weight was ineffective due to the fluctuations you mentioned.

eitally2• 12 years ago

Agreed 100%. I don't use it to track weight, but being "Fitbit shamed" when I don't hit 10,000 steps per day is a strong motivator. More athletically speaking, so is missing workouts and thereby kudos from my friends & followers on Strava & Garmin Connect. On days when I really just don't feel like running, this makes the difference between getting out of the house and wasting more time on the innerweb.

nanoman• 12 years ago

There are probably very few people who have the patience to log everything they eat, diet or no diet, unless they have some kind of payoff close at hand!

After trying a few apps, I have found MyFitnessPal and tracking what I eat has become my daily routine. The app makes it very easy, has a great database of foods and in my case, I can almost always choose from my food history with 1 tap.

I'm in the 9th week of my diet, which simply means burning 1000 kcal more a day than I consume. My results are similar to the one in the blog post - spare 7000kcal a week and lose 1 kg.

Sure, measuring calories is imprecise at best, but my results speak another language.

The fitbit app sucks, it isn't well thought out and has numerous UI bugs. I had the fitbit one step tracker for a while until I lost it. Now I'm using my iPhone as step tracker, as I'm almost always carrying it in my pocket.

johnward4• 12 years ago

I use MFP and weigh my food. Everyone gets caught up on the science and numbers. Ultimately, it doesn't matter if the calories are exact or not. If you aren't losing weight then you trim some more out of your diet. If you are losing weight and that's your goal then you keep doing what you are doing. The tracker just helps give you a guideline and history.

randlet3• 12 years ago

The MyFitnessPal app is great and includes a barcode scanner which makes it super easy to find the calories/macros for a big chunk of your food. It also allows you to set your goals for your macros (fat/protein/carbs) which is very handy. I'm able to hit my macro goals within +/- 5% a day which seems quite good.

I weigh and log virtually everyting (not coffee/tea/water though) but as you said, measuring calories is imprecise at best. I'm currently targeting ~3400kcal a day and I would estimate a healthy error margin of +/- 400kcal a day on that figure.

The biggest benefit is that it makes me totally conscious of what's going into my body and developing a feel for the caloric content of various foods (e.g. wow I had no idea 2 cups of spinach was only ~10 calories!).

possiblywrong• 12 years ago

"For these reasons, I'm actually a bit surprised that the author's data matches the theory so closely... The fit is so perfect I actually suspect he... ah... played with his data slightly after the fact. A "fortuitous" choice for alpha is obviously helpful too."

Author of the linked blog post here. I made the comment that "if I had instead chosen 12, or 13 (for alpha), the resulting predictions would not agree nearly as well." This is perhaps overstating the "luck" of my initial midpoint choice. Here is a quick plot showing the same data with predictions using 12, 12.5, and 13: http://imgur.com/lP5sjwB

(Note also that a better least-squares estimate of alpha is actually about 12.7.) Even these "endpoints" still look to be in reasonable agreement with measurements. That is, if 12 to 13 calories per pound really represents most of the range of variability among the (male) population, then one can likely make useful predictions without needing to be spot-on with their choice of alpha.

Of course, it's a valid question whether 12 to 13 really covers a large chunk of the distribution. Are there men out there with alpha<10, or >15, for example?

iopq23• 12 years ago

As a 6'4", 200lbs male my maintenance calories going to the gym 2.5 times a week (5 times every 2 weeks) was 2700. But once you get thinner, the weight loss slows because of slowing metabolism, so under 190lbs (and under 15% bf) my maintenance probably decreased by a lot because my weight loss slowed considerably.

throwaway283719• 12 years ago

There's a fun piece of math you can do with this model. Given the relation

  w[t+1] = w[t] + (c[t] - alpha * w[t] - beta * d[t] * w[t]) / 3500

and assuming c, d are both constant (i.e. assume they are your long-run average of calories consumed and exercise done) you can solve to get

  w[t] = c / (alpha + beta * d) + const * (phi ** t)

where phi is a number smaller than 1, and const is some constant that depends on your initial weight. Over time, the phi t term decays away, and you are left with your long-term stable weight,

  w = c / (alpha + beta * d)

Using c = 2000, alpha = 12.5, beta = 0.63 and d = 0 you get a long-run stable weight of

  w = 2000 / 12.5 = 160 lb

On the other hand, if you eat 2500 calories per day but run five miles, you get

  w = 2500 / (12.5 + 0.63 * 5) = 160 lb

so if you want to eat an extra 500 calories per day, you should run 5 miles per day.

It'd be interesting to see how accurate this is.

koobz• 12 years ago

As you gain weight, you burn more calories passively. I'm 155lbs and could imagine it being difficult walking around with what amounts to nearly a barbell and two 35lb plates should I be in the extremely obese range for a man my size.

Assuming no lifestyle changes - I might be less excited to ride my bike with a 115 lb bag on my back - you should reach some sort of thickquilibrium.

bdaw11• 12 years ago

Conversely, if you're done with losing fat and wish to add some muscle I would recommend the High Intensity Training technique, described in e.g. the book High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way. The basic idea is to train once or twice a week for around 30 minutes, send as big a signal as possible to your body that your muscles are inadequate, and then recover until the next session.

CuriouslyC2• 12 years ago

Not to be a downer, but I have spent a lot of time in powerlifting/bodybuilding circles, and I've never met anyone with an advanced physique that told me that type of training worked for them.

I've also tried training that way, and didn't see good results.

raverbashing• 12 years ago

He didn't consider two things:

- Water. This is either in your digestive system, your bladder or "your body" (blood plasma and also water in tissues and glycogen in muscles - http://8fit.com/blog/glycogen-gluconeogenesis-and-water-weig... )

- Food. You eat food, not calories. Yes, some parts are not digestible, and some are staying in your digestive system right now

dgerges2• 12 years ago

Just eat normally (fruits, vegetables, meat/fish from time to time, not too much bread...) for a long period of time and you'll get to your normal weight. All the rest is bullshit.

johnward4• 12 years ago

The problem is for many people eating "normal" is what caused them to get so big in the first place. Most people in the US don't seem to see their diet as out of the ordinary even if they hit fast-food joints for every meal.

dgerges2• 12 years ago

Seen like that my reaction was a bit too simplistic :)

ghshephard4• 12 years ago

"That is, even two different people of exactly the same weight, height, age, gender, and activity level do not necessarily burn calories at the same rate." The AJCN (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition), has tons of paper on these types of topics, and one of the clever things they do is use isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen (Doubly Labeled Water, DLW), to get an exact measurement of a persons metabolic rate.

They then use those exact measurements to do things like calculate how much the various activities like sitting, walking, typing, reading, running, sleeping, lying down quietly, etc... consume in terms of calories.

What's nifty (and surprising to me), is that for most people, the standard models that are based on age, weight, height, and gender are pretty good predictors as to how much energy you will consume doing a particularly activity.

nl5• 12 years ago

You can also do New Leaf testing which measures your caloric burn rate[1]. It's more for optimising nutrition for endurance sports than for weight loss though. Once it is done Garmin devices can load a New Leaf profile and tell you when you need calories (if you are doing an Ironman or something).

[1] http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/01/look-at-testing-with-new-...

Paul_S2• 12 years ago

You lose weight by eating less in the same way that you achieve success by working hard. One doesn't necessarily follow the other but unless you do it you can't possibly expect anything but more of the same.

obsurveyor• 12 years ago

Neither of these are true. Plenty of people work hard but don't achieve success, just the same way plenty of people eat less but don't lose weight. The body is a wonderfully efficient and adaptable machine and its own processes can sabotage your efforts to change it. There's also genetic predispositions that are a factor as well.

Paul_S2• 12 years ago

I think you should read my second sentence in the original post again. Working hard does not guarantee success - we both agree on that one. I hope we can also agree that unless you do work hard you are unlikely to achieve success.

CuriouslyC2• 12 years ago

I would rephrase his statement as:

You lose weight by having a good plan and taking consistent action to follow it. You achieve success the same way.

I honestly believe that the problem with people who work really hard and never achieve success is that they didn't formulate a good plan. You can be the fastest runner in the world but you're never going to win a race if you run in the wrong direction.

darkxanthos• 12 years ago

The question of "...is what you eat more important than how much?" Went unanswered it appears. Essentially, what if he ate the same calories each day but improved the number of calories he burned per pound of body weight? A hypothesis I've seen scattered around the t00b lands is eating sugar effectively lowers that value (I think it's alpha in his analysis). I wonder how much one can change that and how so.

gitaarik• 12 years ago

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, there's a diet called "The Hacker's Diet" [0] that is based upon this calorie in/out theory. The website also has a simple webapp where you can create your own chart to track your weight.

Personally I think this is a great way to control your weight. The diet doesn't say anything about what to eat, just how much (in calories). It doesn't necessarily make it easier, but it does give you constant feedback, which can help you stay motivated.

[0] http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/

logfromblammo3• 12 years ago

That's great as a measurement regime and daily exercise program. But you will also need to follow a food composition diet that helps you to keep your "eat watch" calibrated correctly. This will vary by individual, and may require some experimentation.

Fresh, intact fruits and vegetables are often the foods highest in satiety per absorbed kilocalorie, but there's only one person that has your brain connected to your guts. You may find that hard-boiled eggs do the trick for you. Or guacamole. Or olives and feta cheese. Whatever it takes to reprogram your "eat watch" to alert in a way that helps you shed fat instead of gaining it.

(This post will probably only make sense after you read far enough into the parent post's link.)

induscreep5• 12 years ago

Diets are more about getting people to not feel hungry. This is done by reducing carbs, and increasing fat/protein. So, people won't "feel hungry" on a low carb diet, and thus, they are less likely to binge or gorge on some snack.

johnward4• 12 years ago

The biggest problems for me having nothing to do with science and everything to do with social pressures / self control. I was on a keto diet (low carb/high fat) and lost about 45 pounds. Then I started having to travel for work and giving into going out to lunch because I don't want to appear anti-social. For a while I was able to make low carb choice but some places just don't have that option. Also have been skipping the gym because of money (can't afford a second membership) and time constraints (work 8-6, drive back to the hotel to be on calls until bed time) on the project. I put all of the weight back on. Within about 18 months I lost and gained 45lbs.

annnnd• 12 years ago

I learned that a chicken thigh loses over 40% of its weight from grilling...

Wow, seriously? Does that depend on whether the chicken is raised on farm (in open spaces, with enough room to run around) versus in battery cage? I would expect it matters a lot (the taste is _very_ different to me).

kyllo6• 12 years ago

Supermarket chicken is injected with saline solution to make it look more plump and appealing. This solution, as well as much of the water that was inside the meat to begin with, evaporates during cooking.

stefantalpalaru• 12 years ago

Aside: I am intentionally sticking with U. S. customary units of pounds, miles, etc., to be consistent with much of the related literature.

Add to that the ridiculous habit of shortening "kilocalorie" to "calorie" when talking to humble folk without temptation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie (yeah, the wikipedia article makes it even more ridiculous with its "small"/"large" calorie language, somewhat in the vein of "up goer five").

JeremyNT• 12 years ago

This is a really great blog post.

I've been doing something similar (but less rigorous) over the past two years. I was obese at the start and decided to get back to my college-age weight. I have now lost 70 pounds using "calories in / calories out" as the sole consideration.

The challenge, as this blog post states, is knowing what calin and calout actually are.

I have often wondered: how do healthy weight people seemingly know how much they should eat to maintain weight? Many people can maintain a weight without meticulous logging and data collection. They seem to know how to consume the appropriate portion sizes instinctively, without having to learn the actual numbers underneath it all.

I have come to view the ability to know "how much should I eat?" as some combination of talent and skill. Some people seem to have much better intuition about this and need no training. Others, like myself, may live most of our lives without such intuition. Only through extensive data collection, observation, and analysis have I learned to approximate how much "calin" a meal will result in.

I wonder: is there a way to teach this ability to children? Is this something that some people learn early in life, which they retain for a lifetime? Is this an avenue that researchers are exploring?

induscreep5• 12 years ago

Anyone have insight on how "my thyroid" affects weight gain/loss? As in, does TDEE decrease when something is wrong with the thyroid? If a typical TDEE is 2200 calories, then with thyroid problems, will it go down to 1500, or is 2100 a more likely figure?

Calories in, calories out

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