Calories - A myth?

>The argument, I've read, is that calorie measurement is far removed from the actual metabolic systems our body uses to breakdown stuff.

And that would be outright wrong. This is science, not intuition.

>I'm starting to think calorie counting is worthless beyond reckoning because it fails to take into account the different ways the body reacts to different nutrients.

Feel free to think whatever absurd witchcraft you want, just keep it away from here.

keto is bad for you I think. on the long term.

Wait, how does meat give diabetes. Not trying to be an asshole im just curious

Can you explain to me? Everything I've read on calories makes an assumption that chemistry equipment can model various metabolic reactions by merely using a caloriemeter.

just abandon thread

>Can you explain to me?

Sure, I started by enrolling in a program called "Exercise Science" and then I took four years of college involving hard courses like organic chemistry.

tl;dr we didn't arrive at the numbers by guessing and I can't explain so much to you.

You are not satiated from and binge on lentils and blueberries?

My knowledge about nutrition is as scarce as food in Africa. I just want to know.

I really hate these threads. They always feel like perpetual motion conspiracy threads. strongerbyscience.com/training-diet-simple-body-complex/

I'm just working from previous experience. Like noticing that keto diets make starches "bland" until you stop keto.

>... Lentils

That's one of my favorite soups. Thank you for reminding me. Haven't had a bowl in years

>Before I'd try to follow some rule and end up eating a box of triscuits.

So it has nothing to do with the current understanding of calories in vs calories out, you just lack willpower?

>What about mixing (intermittent) fasting and a keto diet?
What about it? It's meme overload, memes squared

>And everything I read about calories involves measuring against an abstraction (joules) as opposed to being derived from biological systems.
Then you haven't read enough. It's called Atwater factors.

But you are right that there are some necessary simplifications. For example when glucose is converted to fat (which almost never happens by the way), it requires 25% of the energy. So in that scenario, carbs only provide 3 calories per gram.

You've probably lost weight and upped your vegetable intake. That's nice. But you haven't looked at your arteries, and most Westerners have damaged and clogged arteries before they're 20 due to all the saturated fat and other trash they're eating, regardless of body weight.

>I eat and I'm satiated in a way that I never experienced binging on carbs.
You probably binged on high-fat junk food that you failed to identify as being high in fat. Examples include chocolate, cake, pizza, ice cream, cookies, fries. These things are high in fat, not carbohydrates.

Except the dogma about nutrition has suffered problems from study replication and the fact that big snack makers lobbied for increases in bread/wheat servings.

> These things are high in fat, not carbohydrates

What the fuck? They have massive amounts of carbs that get converted to glucose.

>You've probably lost weight and upped your vegetable intake

I eat a vegetable a week. A vegetable. The rest is eggs, bacon, and milk

>Before I'd try to follow some rule and end up eating a box of triscuits
That's not CICO failing, that's you failing to implement it.
Granted, the reason CICO might be challenging for some is likely due to quality of nutrients, but at the end of the day, you simply can't gain weight when you're spending more energy than you're absorbing, whether you're miserable doing it or not. CICO is just one prong, you still need decent nutrition if you want the energy to exercise or generally go about your day without being miserable.

>Now I can eat 1x a day with 6 eggs, 6 pieces of bacon, and 1/2 - 3/4ths gallon of milk
Is that all you're eating? Don't quote me, but that doesn't sound like enough variety to possibly be healthy.

Write whatever the fuck you want about it, fatass, the bottom line is that you fucking eat too much. Don't use this as an excuse.

>"boohooooo the calorie is misunderstoooood!!! you can't predict how much energy you get based on metabolic processes!!!!!!! that's why I'm fat!!!"

Ok well you're still fucking fat so obviously whatever amount of food you are eating is too much, so you should eat less so these "metabolic processes" don't happen as much you goddamn retard.

>Ok well you're still fucking fat so obviously whatever amount of food you are eating is too much, so you should eat less so these "metabolic processes" don't happen as much you goddamn retard.

Well yeah, I have a shit load of fat from my teenage years eating the worst things. But I've cut down to 220 from 270 and BF, ‰ is down to 16 from 28

>So there's a world of difference between 2000-3000 "calories" of meat and protein and 2000-3000 "calories" of starch and sugar.

There is, but one won't magically make you store fat out of thin air. One may lower your energy, to where you're expending significantly less than you normally would, and thus maintain or gain weight rather than losing it, but that's still a matter of calories in/out.

>I'm starting to think calorie counting is worthless beyond reckoning because it fails to take into account the different ways the body reacts to different nutrients.
That doesn't mean calories are worthless. That just means you need to take those other factors into account yourself.
You might as well say TV screens are worthless because they don't take into account how you're supposed to change the channel. That's what the remote is for, and one is useless without the other.

>chocolate, cake, pizza, ice cream, cookies, fries. These things are high in fat, not carbohydrates

Lol. It's been a while since I last saw a post by this retard.

If you're so smart, I'm sure you can calculate the % energy from carbohydrates and fat in these foods and post it here for us, then explain how these foods are high in carbohydrates but not high in fat.

But that's unfair because insulin response to massive amounts of carbs/sugars changes how fat is stored and allocated.

>That doesn't mean calories are worthless.

The point I should've made in the beginning of the thread is that satiation is a far better (and obviously intuitive) solution to eating a lot as opposed to counting calories but still having those bestial like cravings that sabotage you in the end.

No. It would be more accurate to say that your "calories out" is affected by many factors, one of which, ironically, is what kinds of food you eat. In layman's terms, certain foods can slightly increase or decrease your metabolism. But it's important to note that this effect will never be anywhere nearly enough to overcome the caloric value of the food itself. In other words, anything that says "Eat this food to lose weight" is complete bullshit. What you need to eat in order to lose weight must, first and foremost, be "LESS".

youtube.com/watch?v=8t1JN0RgvO4&index=8&list=WL

>What you need to eat in order to lose weight must, first and foremost, be "LESS".

I understand that. I fucked up by not directing to my real point:

Fats and protein contribute such a high saitation value that it's almost impossible to binge EXCEPT when it's mixed with massive amounts of carbs and sugars.

I eat less because I don't feel the urge to 'eat more" like I do in more carb heavy diets.

>>Before I'd try to follow some rule and end up eating a box of triscuits
>That's not CICO failing, that's you failing to implement it.

Nah. It's just that calorie counting is completely unintuitive to how mankind "traditionally" treated food and their diets.

I eat fine now, not because of some increased moral strength, that the food I eat actually satiates me. I'm done when I finish the meal of the day.

>didn't read a word I said

Fuck you too.

Fat, especially saturated, has consistently lower satiation than carbohydrates. It's the least satiating macronutrient, and the satiation is very delayed (small intestine) which can promote momentary overeating in some people. In combination with fiber, real plant foods always come out on top, which is why lentils and beans provider greater satiation than meat in studies.

You weren't on a "carb heavy diet", you were on a junk food diet (that was most likely low in carbohydrates). There's really no such thing as somebody who got fat on a high carb diet.
Excluding sugar or carbs from your diet removes 99% of junk food.
The same is true for the removal of fat and salt. You know why? Surprise, because the vast majority of junk food is a combination of fat, sugar and salt.

The day will never come when a fat person tells me they got fat eating steamed potatoes, lentils and blueberries. Never ever. It's always "carbs" which are then suddenly pizza, cake, cookies, chips and small portions of pasta in cheese sauce with bacon. That's not what a carbohydrate is.

I read it. It just doesn't gel with my experience. I eat like a king, workout, and get more in shape. Without calorie counting.

Trust me, the feeling of fullness you get after eating a big keto meal is nothing like the fullness of eating some shitty carb/sugar snack.

And regarding nutrition, I supplement with a shitload of different shit anyways. I'm probably still beating at least half of americans when it comes to not eating complete shit.

Hess's Law

>That's not what a carbohydrate is.

Yeah but eggs, milk, and bacon (with some cheese 2x a week) is far more convenient. I've lost weight and had a lot of blood indicators going downward over the past year.

But what reactions are calculated to make up a "calorie"?

I'm suspicious that it represents the sum of all known reactions with enzymes and protein and bile. Hell, what about the reaction with gut microbiota?

>I read it.
Then you didn't comprehend it.

>you were on a junk food diet (that was most likely low in carbohydrates)

Most junk food has a shitload of sugars and carbs. In America.

What country are you from?

That's his point, retard.

>you simply can't gain weight when you're spending more energy than you're absorbing, whether you're miserable doing it or not.

But what's being "absorbed" depends on the type of food and whether you're in a fed state or a fasting state.

Since I've started intermittent fasting, I've been able to lose fat while gaining muscle. From my personal N=1 sample at least. While eating fats and proteins almost exclusively.

I think you fail to realize that "absorbing energy" opens up a whole can of worms about what that actually means in regard to the composition of your body.

>you were on a junk food diet (that was most likely low in carbohydrates).

? ? ?

He's saying I was eating junk food low in carbs. Which is a fucking rarity in America.

How am I retarded for highlighting that?

>But what's being "absorbed" depends on the type of food and whether you're in a fed state or a fasting state.
What's being "absorbed" is completely irrelevant when you're scarfing down a whole box of triscuits, you fucking idiot.

>Most junk food has a shitload of sugars and carbs. In America.
No it is not. Calorie by calorie, most junk food is high in fat, moderately low in carbohydrates, with most carbohydrates present as sugar or refined grains. Junk food is also low in water content and fiber, therefore having a high caloric density.

Junk food such as pastries, donuts, cake, ice cream, chocolate etc. is based on 50/50 mixture of fat and sugar. When you mix fat and sugar 50/50 you end up with a high-fat low-carbohydrate product, with 70% of calories coming from fat. The WHO and most other expert bodies recommend no more than 30% of calories coming from fat.

A subset of junk food exists which is in fact high in carbohydrates, specifically candy made out of pure sugar, and soft drinks of course (if you want to consider drinks as food)

It's relevant because satiation depends on the composition of your food. If you feel no satiation, you're obviously still craving food and probably of the same type.

The point is you do not need to do those because the law is invariant over all systems. With black box modeling all you need is what's going in (via the mouth, nostrils, ...) and what's going out (feces, sweat, ejaculate, ...)

More complex stuff can be done with nutrient partitioning and variable energy expenditure but in humans this stuff is very modest and clinically insignificant aside from protein calories. Somewhat more relevant in others animals like rodents that do torpor, hindgut fermentation, etc.

annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-nutr-071811-150705

>with most carbohydrates present as sugar or refined grains

Which messes with insulin levels which messes with the conversion and storage of other nutrients, including fats & protein.

kek mah bad, glancing through and thought he said low quality.

But the point still stands, even if junk food has a lot of carbs that doesn't necessarily make it high carb relative to the amount of fat it has (though I question that claim, since the low fat craze has seen heaps of shitty food replacing their fat with buckets of sugar). And in any case, the possibility that it's high in carbs isn't the problem, the problem is that it's shit. And if you switch from shitty junk carbs to decent carbs you'll likely be golden, thus it's not a 'high carb' problem.

I have no idea what you're trying to say, but you should probably stop talking about insulin before bad things happen.

>It's relevant because satiation depends on the composition of your food.
No. it's. not.
You monumental fucking idiot. I won't repeat myself again.

>And if you switch from shitty junk carbs to decent carbs you'll likely be golden, thus it's not a 'high carb' problem

Yeah but eating fats/meats is far easier (you can't overeat because saitation) to moderate than even "healthy" carbs.

Carbs get converted into glucose which raises insulin levels. Elevated insulin levels signal the body to store fat in fat cells.

Go on a keto diet for two weeks and try eating bread. IT TASTES BLAND.

It has no saitation value. On a normal diet, you just want to eat more instead of getting the same "full signal" from keto.

Here's a news flash for ya: For the great majority of the humans it is very difficult to overeat calories from whole, minimally processed foods, including most animal foods.

The problems begin when you add a shit ton of oil, butter, sugar, salt and even herbs and spices, and when you remove water and fiber from foods by drying, frying, milling etc.

There was never any fat or carb problem. The problem was always junk food and restaurant food which is loaded with concentrated calories and salt which overrides normal satiety mechanisms because it's high-reward high-pleasure food. People aren't sitting at home eating giant bowls of pasta, or meat, or nuts, they're binging on potato chips, cake, restaurant food, ice cream, all of which combined fat, sugar and salt in some way or another to make the food taste too good to stop. Simple. And that combines with the fact that people don't adjust their behavior when they start getting fat because it's socially acceptable and half the population is fat anyway.

>Go on a keto diet for two weeks and try eating bread. IT TASTES BLAND.
>It has no saitation value. On a normal diet, you just want to eat more instead of getting the same "full signal" from keto.

More things that have nothing to do with fucking anything. It's amazing, how are you so fucking lost? None of this is remotely relevant. You're responding to something your imaginary friend said. I have said literally nothing about fucking keto. Scroll up and put on your thinking cap you fucking lunatic.

That's why I recommend keto and IF. Because it's simple and it works.

No moralism about willpower either. You eat 1x a day and you're full for the rest of the day.

>all of which combined fat, sugar and salt in some way or another to make the food taste too good to stop.

It's not even about being "good". It's a stupid reaction where you find yourself fog headed and full from shit that seems almost compulsive.

Try over eating on boiled cabbage. I'll wait.

>Scroll up and put on your thinking cap you fucking lunatic.

Okay, I'm a lunatic for taking actions which reduced my body weight, lowered BP, cholesterol, and LDL. While eating less but being far more satisfied from a meal.

I'm a lunatic. This fucking world.

That's a reason diets fail. Because the food isn't satisfying.

Yeah I could eat boiled cabbage and fucking hang myself. Or I can eat high fat and high protein and never think about food for the rest of the day.

>Okay, I'm a lunatic for taking actions which reduced my body weigh

HOLY SHIT.
No. You fucking moron. You're a lunatic because you're unbelievable incapable of following an extraordinarily simple line of conversation.
What the actual fuck is WRONG with you?

There are 3 levels of dietary awareness:

>1. You don't care, you just eat what tastes good and ignore science.

>2. You quote all the popular studies and consider these studies concrete law.

>3. You realize that most of these studies are funded by special interests and you do your own research and draw your own conclusions.

Losing weight is not as simple as counting calories. The body is not that simple, and you are foolish for perpetuating it like its the law.

>muh thermodynamics
>muh twinkie study
>implying this fitness board values intellectual integrity and can think for themselves at all

I pointed out rising insulin levels signaling excess sugar to be converted and stored as fat.

That's one way the composition of your meal matters. I pointed out triscuits because they're high in carbs and it's impossible to be satisfied (for me) until I eat the box.

If I eat eggs, the composition of them doesn't trigger the rise in insulin levels which in turn...

>That's a reason diets fail. Because the food isn't satisfying.

Yeah, so? That doesn't mean fats and proteins hit some magic off switch in your brain that carbs can't reach. That doesn't mean you can eat 10,000 calories in ham and eggs and be fine because there's no carbs.
We're not discussing what's fun, we're discussing how this shit actually works. If keto is a more appealing means for you to eat below maintenence, fucking go for it. That doesn't mean calories are irrelevant or that carbs are the problem.

Yes but you fail to see that any restrictive diet that somebody sticks to will work. Penn Jillette did a potato diet for a couple weeks, then added other carbs and vegetables. It was a very high carb diet and it worked for him, he said he never felt hungry or had any desire for junk food.

There's also a study where they force-fed overweight people a pound of plain bread a day or more and they all lost weight too (without even telling them to). Because literally anything is satiating compared to junk food which is mostly just oil and sugar chucked into a blender, which provides exactly 0 satiety

You're literally retarded aren't you little fella?

>Yeah, so?

A successful diet should be a life diet.

I can't imagine life eating boiled cabbage. I can imagine sticking to milk, bacon, and eggs for the rest of my life.

>That doesn't mean fats and proteins hit some magic off switch in your brain that carbs can't reach.

Actually they do. I don't think you really understand what it means to be full on a high-carb diet and what it means to be full on a low-carb diet.

It's a world of difference.

> that carbs are the problem.

Elevated insulin levels are a BIG fucking problem.

Just stop.

Okay. Explain to me why elevating your insulin is irrelevant to trying to cut down fat and eating less.

>A successful diet should be a life diet.
>I can't imagine life eating boiled cabbage. I can imagine sticking to milk, bacon, and eggs for the rest of my life.
That's nice. It's not the point being argued though. Quite obviously I'm not suggesting anyone fucking live off nothing but boiled cabbage the rest of their goddamn life. It was an example to illustrate a very specific point.

No, because that has nothing to do with fucking anything. And that's the reason I just keep telling you to fuck off instead of explaining what my original point WAS, because you're so fucking obtuse that you'd just replace it with whatever the voice in your head has already decided I'm talking about, since you somehow manage to concoct a completely different conversation out of nowhere in response to a post as simple as 'just stop'.

Okay I'll play nice.

What was your point exactly? I am a bit obtuse after all.

Thanks for this video, found it a very interesting watch, especially since I've been doing Keto and seeing great success after switching from a carb heavy diet of the same calories.

Calories in Calories out isn't a meme, but there's certainly more going on in the body than that.

Lack of willpower doesn't mean it doesn't work

>Elevated insulin levels are a BIG fucking problem.
It's funny that you say that because a high-fat diet will put your fasting insulin through the roof due to the insulin resistance you're creating (and the fact that meat and fish release more insulin than pure glucose)

>Explain to me why elevating your insulin is irrelevant to trying to cut down fat and eating less.
Because the only thing that matters for weight loss is being in a calorie deficit long term. Insulin is not relevant, it's a hormone that regulates blood sugar levels and mediates the fuel economy in the body in response to changes in energy balance (food input and calorie output).

As I just said, which you also failed to comprehend: No.

Lack of willpower doesn't sever the human need to be satisfied after a meal.

You can make up for "lack of willpower" by a diet that actually satisfies. That's the fucking point.

If you're not satisfied, you're going to eat more. If you're satisfied, you're going to eat less.

Guys, guys, look at all the calories from fat in this junk food.

Fuckin none, and it's not remotely satiating, could eat a kg of these easily

>because a high-fat diet will put your fasting insulin through the roof due to the insulin resistance you're creating

Temporarily but ketogenic diets have been show to increase insulin SENSITIVITY by 75% or more over a two week period.

That's amazing.

>Because the only thing that matters for weight loss is being in a calorie deficit long term

It's not the only thing that matters. If you have insulin resistance from american high-carb/junk diet, then you're going to have a much easier time packing the pounds.

Insulin signals to do other things completely antagonistic to fat storage like activate brown adipose and futile cycling in skeletal muscle and liver. And it's substrate-limited regardless. Gotta love fat people logic, always cherry picking certain pathways for concocting some diet religion that shifts the blame away from their armchair.

>It has no saitation value.

How do you explain all the fat retards like Jimmy Moore and Adam Nally who manage to overeat on it then?

Okay but the problem with insulin resistance is that it fails at a lot of functions because the beta cells can't keep up with the demand. And if they can't keep up with demand, glucose levels are fucked.

What type of diet promotes insulin resistance?

>Twizzlers

Maybe this is subjective, but would people really consider this junk food? It's just fucking candy, that's not any kinda food. No one eats a big bag of Twizzlers and calls it a meal.
Big macs, fruit loops, pizza, that's the kinda shit I think when I say junk FOOD. Who eats Twizzlers and expects to be satisfied?

They're cheating. Literally. I can't eat another fucking thing after six eggs, six bacon, and almost a gallon of milk.

>It's not the only thing that matters.
It's the bottom line. Other factors will definitely determine how EASY it is to maintain a deficit, and how nourished you are while doing it. But at the end of the day, if you're losing fat then you're on a calorie deficit. All the diet tricks in the world won't make you lose fat on a calorie surplus.

>this article I read says that thermodynamics isn't real actually real

Kys bud

Americans have among the lowest carb intakes of the entire world population. Stop saying "high carb" when referring to junk food and the American diet. It isn't even possible to eat a high carb diet unless you're nearly vegan. Is the average American vegan? Or a fruitarian? No

That's the inverse of reality though. Ketogenic diets cause insulin resistance. That is such a hard scientific fact that it's accepted even in keto circles, they just find some excuse for why it's not a problem.

And insulin resistance has no effect on weight loss. CICO works just as well for diabetics as everyone else.

The first problem in diabetes is that glucagon suppression fails and the liver doesn't stop releasing glucose even after a carb meal, not that glucose isn't taken up as glycogen. But the released insulin only accounts for the meal glucose

>>this article I read says that thermodynamics isn't real actually real
>Kys bud

It's a book actually. And nutrition is a bit more than thermodynamics. Like construction is a bit more than thermodynamics. You have to get the right pieces in the right parts and yadda yadda. You can't just theoretically master it by pure knowledge of thermodynamics.

>CICO

I know but the body makes bizarre structures and behaviors which complicate body composition beyond modeling it as a black box system. Yes x energy is used...but for what and how?

>Is the average American vegan? Or a fruitarian? No

Most high-carb foods in America are junk food. Welcome to the year 2017. Enjoy your stay.

>insulin resistance

marksdailyapple.com/does-eating-low-carb-cause-insulin-resistance/

"
In overweight women, a diet with less than 10% of calories as carbs improved insulin sensitivity, while a 30% fat, low-fat diet reduced it.
In obese, insulin-resistant women, both high-fat and high-protein low-carb diets reduced insulin resistance, while the high-carb diet was not as effective.
In obese kids, a very low carb diet was able to reduce indices of insulin resistance along with bodyweight and body fatness."

>Most high-carb foods in America are junk food.

Well that's just false. And even if you flip it and say most junk foods in America are high carb, which I think is what you meant to say, that's also dubious at best. And the 'truth tea'-esque emphasis is just weird.

>Losing weight is not as simple as counting calories.

it unironically is, though.
if the food you eat provides your body with more energy than your body expends, then that surplus energy is stored in the form of fat cells.

if the food you eat provides your body with less energy than your body expends, then that energy deficit is filled by using up body fat reserves.

it is a simplified model and omits a lot of details, but the bottom line of it is the foundation that the human metabolism operates on.

tl;dr
if you eat less than you need, you WILL lose weight
if you eat more than you need, you WILL gain weight
it is that simple

>No one eats a big bag of Twizzlers and calls it a meal.

uhmm...

How is it false? Cake? carbs (and HFCS)
Ice cream? carbs (and HFCS)
Soda? carbs
Pancakes? carbs
Waffles? carbs
Syrup? No shit, carbs
Starbucks brand drinks? Carbs out the fucking wazoo
Granola bars? Carbs
Hamburgers? The bread has as much carbs as a couple of fucking sodas.

Most americans eat a junk diet.

>How is it false?

"Most high carb foods are junk food". What about fruit? What about grains? What about lentils? What about pretty much all plant matter in general?
Think before you speak.

>if you eat less than you need, you WILL lose weight
>if you eat more than you need, you WILL gain weight
>it is that simple

But that's also dependent on satiation. If you feel "full", you're not going to eat more. If you still feel "anxiously hungry/compulsive", you're going to eat more.

Referencing to "willpower" is silly when the body changes its appetites to the timing and composition of food.