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I'm not sure it's quite that simple. There hasn't been much research around gut biome, however that's changing. This topic has been coming up much more recent

I'm not sure it's quite that simple. There hasn't been much research around gut biome, however that's changing. This topic has been coming up much more recently and I've recently been reading "The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-term Health" by two Stanford researchers (Justin & Erica Sonnenburg). Just the first few chapters expose evidence that the simple correlation between consumption and static result is simply not true. The gut biome clearly plays a much more important role that we truly understand at this point in time.

stray 11y ago
You'll never convince the calories in/calories out crowd that there is still room for scientific inquiry. They are convinced. And they will entertain no opposing ideas.
- RIMR 11y ago
  Calories in / Calories out is still perfectly valid. It's just that the same portion of the same food might be considered a different number of "calories in" for different people. The "big-boned" or "genetically fat" arguments still reek of BS, but it's worth humoring the idea that we aren't 100% efficient machines that absorb the exact number of calories on the Nutrition Facts box, or burn the exact number of calories displayed on the Treadmill screen... There's a intelligent middle-ground between equally ridiculous ideas that we are "Healthy at Every Size" and that we are perfectly tuned biological machines.
  - vonmoltke 11y ago
    That's the problem with the so-called "calories in/calories out" crowd: they think all food has a specific energy value that varies by statistically-insignificant amounts from person to person. That people lose weight when they eat an energy deficiency and gain it when they eat an energy surplus is not in doubt. What some people refuse to do is evaluate whether the same foods have different energy values for different people, rather than one global value. I'm not saying they do, but the most ardent "calories in/calories out" fanatics refuse to even acknowledge the question.
    - RIMR 11y ago
      I think human discipline is the most important factor in maintaining a healthy weight, and I find instances of "fatlogic" to be aggravating, but I'm not going to pretend that the human body is so simple that the Law of Conservation of Energy can be perfectly applied to our digestive systems...
  - npsimons 11y ago
    Anyone who thinks the treadmill calorie numbers are correct is deluding themselves. As for calculating actual TDEE's, there are ways to do it (see https://www.reddit.com/r/leangains/comments/2rv09z/this_is_how_you_calculate_your_tdee/ https://www.reddit.com/r/leangains/comments/2rv09z/this_is_h...), and once you've determined your TDEE, calorie counting with something like MyFitnessPal makes it so you can know what you're really taking in.
MisterBastahrd 11y ago
It's pretty much that simple. Unless someone has some sort of lymphatic condition that causes them to retain fluids or an undiagnosed metabolic syndrome, you aren't gaining weight unless you are consuming more than you are expending. That isn't to say that two identical people with two different gut floras would necessarily gain or lose weight identically while eating the same diet, but I've yet to see any evidence that an otherwise healthy person eating maintenance level calories is going to blow up like a balloon simply because his gut flora is different. A person with a healthy gut flora might be able to consume more calories without gaining as much weight, and it's important to understand WHY that is, but the fact remains that if you don't consume any more than you expend, you aren't going to gain weight (previously mentioned caveats notwithstanding). That said, the western diet is horrible for you. Go to any fast food restaurant and the only fiber you'll get is in the lettuce on your burger.
- windexh8er 11y ago
  Fully agree on diet, but you should look at some of the data presented in the book. There is evidence - particularly the book talks about gut sterile mice and some of the studies showcasing weight gain scenarios vs non-sterile biome mice on an exact diet. While it's no silver bullet, dismissing the value of a healthy gut is not productive either. No evidence doesn't mean there isn't something worth pursuing. It's a relatively greenfield area of study at this point in time which is why it's interesting to watch it unfold.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > but I've yet to see any evidence that an otherwise healthy person eating maintenance level calories is going to blow up like a balloon simply because his gut flora is different. The whole point of the article here is that there is a line of research which has established, both in non-human models and human experiments, that "maintenance level calories" (especially when considering the content of food that enters the mouth, rather than what gets absorbed) are not a constant across different gut biomes. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/94/1/58.full http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/94/1/58.full http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Turnbaugh/publication/6617716_An_obesity-associated_gut_microbiome_with_increased_capacity_for_energy_harvest/links/00b7d51adf064f0dc0000000.pdf http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Turnbaugh/publicat... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3601187/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3601187/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3974587/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3974587/

stray 11y ago

You'll never convince the calories in/calories out crowd that there is still room for scientific inquiry. They are convinced. And they will entertain no opposing ideas.

RIMR 11y ago
Calories in / Calories out is still perfectly valid. It's just that the same portion of the same food might be considered a different number of "calories in" for different people. The "big-boned" or "genetically fat" arguments still reek of BS, but it's worth humoring the idea that we aren't 100% efficient machines that absorb the exact number of calories on the Nutrition Facts box, or burn the exact number of calories displayed on the Treadmill screen... There's a intelligent middle-ground between equally ridiculous ideas that we are "Healthy at Every Size" and that we are perfectly tuned biological machines.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  That's the problem with the so-called "calories in/calories out" crowd: they think all food has a specific energy value that varies by statistically-insignificant amounts from person to person. That people lose weight when they eat an energy deficiency and gain it when they eat an energy surplus is not in doubt. What some people refuse to do is evaluate whether the same foods have different energy values for different people, rather than one global value. I'm not saying they do, but the most ardent "calories in/calories out" fanatics refuse to even acknowledge the question.
  - RIMR 11y ago
    I think human discipline is the most important factor in maintaining a healthy weight, and I find instances of "fatlogic" to be aggravating, but I'm not going to pretend that the human body is so simple that the Law of Conservation of Energy can be perfectly applied to our digestive systems...
- npsimons 11y ago
  Anyone who thinks the treadmill calorie numbers are correct is deluding themselves. As for calculating actual TDEE's, there are ways to do it (see https://www.reddit.com/r/leangains/comments/2rv09z/this_is_how_you_calculate_your_tdee/ https://www.reddit.com/r/leangains/comments/2rv09z/this_is_h...), and once you've determined your TDEE, calorie counting with something like MyFitnessPal makes it so you can know what you're really taking in.

MisterBastahrd 11y ago

It's pretty much that simple. Unless someone has some sort of lymphatic condition that causes them to retain fluids or an undiagnosed metabolic syndrome, you aren't gaining weight unless you are consuming more than you are expending. That isn't to say that two identical people with two different gut floras would necessarily gain or lose weight identically while eating the same diet, but I've yet to see any evidence that an otherwise healthy person eating maintenance level calories is going to blow up like a balloon simply because his gut flora is different. A person with a healthy gut flora might be able to consume more calories without gaining as much weight, and it's important to understand WHY that is, but the fact remains that if you don't consume any more than you expend, you aren't going to gain weight (previously mentioned caveats notwithstanding). That said, the western diet is horrible for you. Go to any fast food restaurant and the only fiber you'll get is in the lettuce on your burger.

windexh8er 11y ago
Fully agree on diet, but you should look at some of the data presented in the book. There is evidence - particularly the book talks about gut sterile mice and some of the studies showcasing weight gain scenarios vs non-sterile biome mice on an exact diet. While it's no silver bullet, dismissing the value of a healthy gut is not productive either. No evidence doesn't mean there isn't something worth pursuing. It's a relatively greenfield area of study at this point in time which is why it's interesting to watch it unfold.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> but I've yet to see any evidence that an otherwise healthy person eating maintenance level calories is going to blow up like a balloon simply because his gut flora is different. The whole point of the article here is that there is a line of research which has established, both in non-human models and human experiments, that "maintenance level calories" (especially when considering the content of food that enters the mouth, rather than what gets absorbed) are not a constant across different gut biomes. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/94/1/58.full http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/94/1/58.full http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Turnbaugh/publication/6617716_An_obesity-associated_gut_microbiome_with_increased_capacity_for_energy_harvest/links/00b7d51adf064f0dc0000000.pdf http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter_Turnbaugh/publicat... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3601187/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3601187/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3974587/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3974587/