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Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. Also, hilarious adventure I went on once: I ate 4000 calories

Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. Also, hilarious adventure I went on once: I ate 4000 calories of bacon a day and nothing else for a month... ended up cutting it off a little early because I was losing weight too quickly. Your second and third points however are scientifically supported, but do not confuse this with "obesity is complicated." It is not how many calories you eat, it is where they come from. I used to weigh 340 pounds, I went strictly Paleo, did not increase caloric burn, did not decrease caloric intake in any meaningful way, hit 214 in a year, and then continued dropping; roughly 2000 calories a day and not a lot of exercise (was afraid of joint damage due to weighing so much).

BillinghamJ 10y ago
That sounds more like a malnutrition issue no? If all you were eating is bacon and nothing else.
- Cthulhu_ 10y ago
  A delicious kind of malnutrition though.
- weavie 10y ago
  But does anecdotally disprove the pure calories in, calories out rule.
  - Sunset 10y ago
    It doesn't. If you maintain a fully rounded meal while also scaling calories in/out it holds. I can straight up eat sugar only too for a month and have the same weight loss results, also diabetes.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      That's the point, isn't it? If the roundness of the meal matters, it's not just calories in/out.
      - pkroll 10y ago
        This is what happens all the time when calories in/calories out comes up, it becomes an exercise in pedantry. "It's just calories in/calories out" is not read by any normal person to mean "I should just cut my calorie intake by 500 for the day, and then drink that as olive oil 'cause that's easier to measure" It's there to convey "you can still eat french fries: just not as many."
  - lordnacho 10y ago
    I'm not sure it does. He said he weighed 340 pounds when he did this. His daily break even calories might be well above 4K. IIRC 2500 is recommended for the average male, who certainly does not weigh 340 pounds.
  - fpig 10y ago
    The meaning of that rule is generally "if you consume less calories than you use, it is physically impossible not to lose weight". Which is definitely true. You can eat more than you use and not gain weight if you are not metabolising the food efficiently, but you can't eat less than you use and not lose weight. The former is limited by how badly you are able to mess up your body, the latter is limited by the fundamental laws of physics. If you're at a calorie deficit, you will lose weight no matter what you're eating or what state your body is in.
    - mdemare 10y ago
      Nothing in the Second Law of Thermodynamics prevents your body from turning some of your heart muscle into fuel, as bad of a plan as that may be.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - scriptkiddy 10y ago
        That would still be losing weight(mass). The problem in this thread is that people are considering fat loss and weight loss to be the same thing. They're not. The simple truth is that a caloric deficit will always result in a net decrease in mass. This is fundamentally true of any system. Energy being removed from a system always results in a decrease in mass of that system. This is physics 101. Eating a caloric deficit will always cause a reduction in mass, though it may not be the mass you want to reduce. Eating at a caloric deficit without providing the body with the proper balance of macro-nutrients and exercise could lead to reductions in muscle, bone, and connective tissue mass. Reduction of carbohydrates in one's diet generally has a net positive effect in a caloric deficit due to the fact that there is essentially "more room" in the diet for higher quality nutrients such as proteins and fats. That said, cutting carbohydrates out entirely is a terrible idea as they are the body's primary source of short term energy.
  - OJFord 10y ago
    It doesn't, because exercise isn't the only way of getting 'calories out'. Some amount of bacon a lot less than that provides all the nutrition to be gained from any amount; anything further is just waste.
- shagmin 10y ago
  Makes me wonder how much of the weight loss was more due to water loss rather than body fat. I remember reading something about people who are on the verge of starvation lose weight after getting access to food again due to water loss from the water required to digest food.
fnord123 10y ago
> Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. Citation, please.
- alpb 10y ago
  Watch "Food Inc" where this has been discussed in detail. http://dailyburn.com/life/health/diet-truth-calories-counting/ http://dailyburn.com/life/health/diet-truth-calories-countin...
  - mathias_awkward 10y ago
    How is that scientific though? Anyone can write an blog article :/
  - pkroll 10y ago
    The beginning of the article linked says "if you usually consume 2,500 calories a day and then cut back to 1,600 calories, you’re going to lose weight from that 900-calorie daily deficit — even if all you ate was potato chips. But you won’t be healthy and you most likely won’t be able to keep the pounds off."
    - noir_lord 10y ago
      I went from 245lbs to 185lbs by eating 1500 a day every day for 5 months, that was over a year ago and I still weigh 185lbs, all I did was when I hit my target weight was make sure that over a week my diet averages out to 2500 a day, some days I go over by a few hundred, the next day I just under eat by a few hundred so that it balances out.
      - mhurron 10y ago
        Yep, eating a balanced, calorie reduced diet for a period of time will let you lose weight in a healthy manner - assuming no other issues. Thankfully, most people don't have issues beyond being overweight so loosing weight for most people is just stop eating so much. Calories in, calories out is indeed how it works, but people also need to realize that your body is not a static machine, it reacts to its environment. Restrict caloric intake too much and you hit a point where your body enters a 'starvation mode,' it holds back on as much work as it can and holds everything it doesn't use. If you have problems absorbing foods due to problems with your GI tract, you might find that you don't need to restrict too much before that happens because you weren't getting all the calories you thought you were before. Of course, reducing calories will cause your body to change some of what it does even if you have no other issues, so for maximum benefit, you should pair it with exercise. I've also restricted myself to 1500 calories a day for the past month or so and have lost about 10 lbs so far and am on track to lose a similar amount in a similar time as yourself. My wife did the same thing at the same time, it's not going anywhere near as smooth for her, but she has GI issues.
ctrl_freak 10y ago
To add on to this, my understanding is that technically "calories in, calories out" is correct in the sense that weight gain/loss depends on the net caloric intake for your body. But your base metabolic rate, and as a result your daily energy expenditure, is affected by many different things, including the composition of the calories and the timing of the consumption. Insulin plays a major role in weight gain/loss, and simple carbohydrates have a tendency to spike it.
- betageek 10y ago
  Exactly, no breakdown of thermodynamics needed, any calories not efficiently processed into usable energy will be emitted as waste.
  - amelius 10y ago
    No thermodynamics needed to disprove it, but we probably need something more complicated than thermodynamics to get a good picture of the real balance.
    - UweSchmidt 10y ago
      Nothing more complicated than a scale in your bathroom is needed. Check daily and see if you lose weight with whatever combination of food/activity/metabolism you have going on. If you somehow gain or lose weight, eat accordingly.
      - garrettdc 10y ago
        Using the scale is great if you understand proper nutrient timing and partitioning. What if you don't know the basics of nutrition though? Where do I cut from? What can I add in that will assist with satiety but still reduce overall energy absorbed? Where do I go to understand that these are questions that need to be asked in the first place?
  - gonzo 10y ago
    Or ... Stored. Which is the problem. If we really did eliminate the excess, nobody would be overweight.
xorcist 10y ago
Energy in, energy out sounds pretty basic to me. I would be interested to know where you think your energy intake comes from, unless it is from food? Or is it just the caloric measurement you think is irrelevant for human energy intake? While obviously imperfect, I'm skeptical it could be an order of magnitude off for example.
- taurath 10y ago
  How much your body absorbs is a huge variable which seems insane to have to say but people just want to say calories all day.
  - rimantas 10y ago
    How does that change the fact that if you consume less there be less to absorb from?
    - dahauns 10y ago
      It doesn't change it, but makes it rather less useful.
- ChrisjayHenn 10y ago
  The problem with the 'energy in-energy out' model is that energy is rarely what we need more of. Food cravings persist for the nutrient one needs most, not just the amount of energy needed. Eating less of a conventional diet does reduce the amount of energy one takes in, but also reduces intake of whatever nutrient the subject was craving in the first place. That's why compositional diets work better for so many people, if the subject gets all the nutrients they need, they won't feel the desire to eat more than that, and consequently won't take in more energy than they use. TL;DR: Total energy in matters, but watching energy-to-vital-nutrient-ratios in one's food is a better way of ensuring the proper levels of both. Edit: wording
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  The problem here is people equate calories in/calories out with the equation "calories eaten - (calories burned from activity + basal metabolism) = weight loss". While energy in/out dictating weight loss is basically true on a biochemical level, that equation is false because your biochemistry undergoes massive changes as a result of what you eat, and gut bacterial metabolism also depends on the substrate provided.
gambiting 10y ago
I think it's really obvious that you can eat even 5000 calories a day, and under certain circumstances, not gain weight. However, if you eat 1000 calories or less, it's impossible not to lose weight. Unless you know someone who can synthesize energy to live and move out of thin air......
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  That lethargy you feel when you diet is your body's metabolism slowing, and it also results in you being less active. If your metabolism totally crashed and as a result you felt so bad you didn't do much other than sit around, you might not lose weight on a 1k cal diet.
  - gambiting 10y ago
    Sure, but there is a point where you are taking in less than you are using. Maybe I should have said 500kcal instead. It doesn't matter if your boby absorbs 100% of that, or 20%, or if it's all organic veggies or potato chips or straight up lard - it's just not enough to live on, and you will lose weight.
    - watwut 10y ago
      There are two problems with this diet: 1.) You will underperform in work and life in general. You will be constantly tired, appear lazy to employer (practically speaking be lazy) and will make slower stupider decisions. You may end up weighting less, but will have hard time to keep up at work. 2.) Your body will adapt and become much more efficient in extracting calories from food - people who lost weight through fasting tend to gain weight very quick. Most of them can not keep the weight long term. That practically means you gain weight first time there is longer stressful period in work or life - when all your focus goes to project you are working on o family care or whatever. 3.) You do not eat just for calories - you need also various proteins, vitamins and what not. You are damaging your body by not giving it what it needs more then by being slightly overweight. Yes, people who don't eat at all loose weight, but there is price to pay on their health and performance. It is true that western people tend to eat way more calories then necessary, but "just eat small portions till you have target weight" advice does not work long term.
mike128 10y ago
+1 for Paleo. I'm also on a 'light' version of it for the past 2 years and can confirm the effects.
- bosie 10y ago
  Care to explain what you mean by "Light"?
- botexpert 10y ago
  Paleo is a fad diet, it can be healthy, yes, and many people with unhealthy diets try it, make a success and then the circle of anecdotal evidence reinforces the fad. The easiest diet is a diet filled with starchy vegetables and fruits. It fills you up insanely, it's low on calories, and is extremely hard to overconsume. Try eating a cup of beans, try eating two cups of beans. Practically impossible to do at one sitting. Try eating 10 bananas, extremely hard to do all at once. People just don't realize how much calorically dense foods they eat and how little their physical activity is.
  - tnmrnis 10y ago
    The paleo label might be a fad but I'd argue the diet itself isn't. Avoiding highly processed foods and limitng grain intake simply forces you to eat higher quality/healthier food and is a great way to clean up your diet to lose weight and improve general health.
koliber 10y ago
First of, congratulations for losing significant weight, albeit in a non-conventional way. Eating two pounds of bacon a day takes a lot of determination. I am glad it worked for you. However, most people need to start with a basic rule and go from there. I think it is mainly calories in / calories out. While there seems to be evidence that the source of calories and diet composition do play some role in weight loss, that is what I would call "expert mode". You can't exercise away a bad diet. One hour of very hard cardio, can burn up to 1,000 calories, depending on your weight and exercise intensity. A big mac meal with a medium drink and fries is more or less that as well. Exercise is great, and is an excellent supplement to a diet, but if you don't watch what you eat, it will be difficult to exercise away the extra calories. The base rule is you have to watch what you eat. You can play with the composition, but concentrate on the calories. I can not say this enough. If you have extra pounds that you want to lose, and you have not yet found a way to do it, stay away from gimmicks. Losing weight involves eating less, not eating more. Regarding different types of calories, it's important to note that fats, proteins, sugars, and carbohydrates are digested in different ways. If you ingest 500 calories worth of sugar your body will be able to use almost all of that for its energy needs. Meanwhile, digesting protein is more complicated, and your body will be able to extract fewer of those 500 calories for its own needs.
- thenomad 10y ago
  From reading diet boards, a lot of people find that their weight loss efforts are more successful with a compositional approach than just Eating Less. "Eat less" might be a simple rule, but implementing it is not so simple. Compsitional diets remove that problem, and appear to work for a lot of people. I know there are a lot of HN readers who have used the Keto diet with considerable success, for example. And there are a good number of other diets that work for many people too whilst allowing an ad libitum approach to eating.
bshimmin 10y ago
I was fascinated to see how much bacon 4000 calories really is. A quick Google suggests about ten rashers, which, I guess, spread over a day wouldn't seem all that bad (in comparison with, say, Michael Phelps' reputed diet - he really put the "eating" into "competing"...). Still, that's a pretty epic diet, and could be very popular in developer circles. You should maybe consider patenting it.
- jimms 10y ago
  I would think it would be closer to 100 rashers a day. Ten seems very low. Maybe your results were per 100g?
- jimmoores 10y ago
  It's a lot more than 10 rashers. It's about 1kg or 2lbs of bacon (around 100 rashers). Completely nuts to eat that much, if nothing else, the amount of salt consumed would be enormous.
  - bshimmin 10y ago
    Oh no, I think you're right! DiabloD3, can you confirm this and horrify us with how many rashers of bacon you were getting through in a day?
chewxy 10y ago
> this has been scientifically proven false. [Citation Needed] You'd think that if it has been scientifically proven false, it'd be one of the biggest discoveries of the century - The Human Body, A Perpetual Motion Machine! Energy from Nothing!
- kj01a 10y ago
  No wonder the robots decided to use us for batteries.
erpellan 10y ago
You might find this helpful: https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/rubberbag.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/rubberbag.html A human body is a mechanical system. Fuel + air in --> Work done + waste out. That's it. Any other argument is literally disputing the laws of thermodynamics.
- bcoughlan 10y ago
  It's not that it's wrong really. It's just that it's not particularly useful for weight loss. If I eat mainly sugar and starches I can easily wolf down 4000 calories a day. If I eat a low carb diet it's a struggle to eat 2000 calories a day, the feeling of hunger isn't the growl in my stomach but a kind of mild headache, and after a couple of days my cravings for sugar subsides. The idea that some foods are more "satiating" than others is important, and involves many factors from calorie density to palatability. Our bodies also regulate our desires for energy input and output. If I am depressed, exhausted or do not get enough sleep I will crave carbohydrates. If I eat certain foods I will feel lethargic and be more inclined to sink into the couch for the evening. "Eat less, move more" to lose weight is true, but not useful. How you encourage people to do that that is the domain of biology and psychology, not physics.
  - kj01a 10y ago
    It's not helpful because some food are more calorie dense than others? How does that make sense?
    - XFrequentist 10y ago
      That's not a fair summary of the comment.
- technopath 10y ago
  The percentage of the fuel used relates to the kind of fuel and the amount of work done.
messel 10y ago
This is keeper, I'm at 350+ ideal weight around 230-240lbs (6'7") and looking for something to shake up my consumption that makes sense. I regularly exercise (20hrs/week low-medium impact) but eat fast foods
- Tepix 10y ago
  How did you calculate your ideal weight? Isn't it more around 210lbs?
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Isn't an ideal weight a complex function of things like occupation and personal taste. A brick-layer probably needs to carry more muscle, than people in other occupations; some people probably prefer to look more muscular/toned (etc.). Surely there's not an objective ideal weight for any particular person?
amelius 10y ago
> Also, hilarious adventure I went on once: I ate 4000 calories of bacon a day and nothing else for a month... ended up cutting it off a little early because I was losing weight too quickly. That sounds like an extreme form of a ketogenic diet [1], or Atkins diet [2]. Very effective, but with only bacon you'll miss some important micronutrients. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet
clishem 10y ago
Perhaps "calories in calories out" is still the golden rule for startups that want to make money instead of helping people to lose weight in the long term. I can't see any startup going against this deeply entrenched popular belief.
- droidist2 10y ago
  I could see it being overturned. We used to believe in the old food pyramid which has now been revised. http://blogs-images.forbes.com/michaelpellmanrowland/files/2016/11/USDA_Food_Pyramid.gif http://blogs-images.forbes.com/michaelpellmanrowland/files/2...
numbsafari 10y ago
Weight isn't the only issue. Eating such a high-fat, high-protein diet, with little to no other sources of important nutrients, probably did horrible things to your kidneys, liver and arteries.
- bluedevil2k 10y ago
  Source or speculation?
  - collyw 10y ago
    Sounds similar to a traditional Inuit diet (from my very limited understanding). They don't have any of the problems OP mentioned.
jacquesm 10y ago
That's absolutely awesome, congratulations. You probably were running a lot of other risks besides joint damage, and all or most of those are now substantially less.
Kiro 10y ago
> Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. That's an extreme statement you definitely need to provide source for. I read a lot of scientific journals on the subject and have never heard anything like that.
- Jallal 10y ago
  Actually, this is the main subject of 'Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It' (https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259 https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259) and the book refers to several scientific studies to support its claim.
  - Kiro 10y ago
    Thanks! Ordering the book now.
- wenc 10y ago
  It is technically not incorrect, but incomplete. We know there is conservation of mass and energy in nature. Any chemical engineer can write mass and energy balance equations that represent this conservation. Calories in = Calories out is an simplified form of a more complex energy balance equation that looks something like this: (Enthalpy in) - (Enthalpy out) + (Heat/Energy crossing boundary) - (Work) = (Change in Internal Energy/Accumulation) ... plus a few more equations that represent component energy balances. Calories in = Calories out makes some naive assumptions and neglects all the internal biochemical reactions, and hence presents a skewed picture of the thermodynamics.
  - allwein 10y ago
    I'll agree with you if the equation is stated like this: (Enthalpy in) - (Enthalpy out) + (Heat/Energy crossing boundary) - (Work) - (Change in Internal Energy/Accumulation) = 0 But when you state it like you did, there's an implication that the left hand side are the causal factors and that(Change in internal energy/accumulation) is the effect coming out of those causal factors. The problem is that there are many people with deranged metabolisms where their bodies are hormonally imbalanced to increased internal energy accumulation, which then by necessity disrupt the rest of the equation by either raising food intake or reducing energy expenditure.
delecti 10y ago
You've provided almost no information, but at 340 lbs it's possible your TDEE was more than 4000 calories/day, meaning it's possible you went on a reduced calorie diet with your bacon strategy. Without more information, your anecdote is useless, and even with more information it's still just an anecdote. Also, Paleo, like any similar structured diet, is just a trick to get you to ingest fewer calories. And I'm going to piggy back on the [citation needed] about calories in/out being scientifically disproven. [1] https://mytdee.com/#gender=male&yr=30&cm=182.9&kg=154.2&bfp=&goal=maintain&formula=standard&units=imperial&exercise=moderately https://mytdee.com/#gender=male&yr=30&cm=182.9&kg=154.2&bfp=...
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  While not the OP, there is research demonstrating that the blood glucose and insulin response to various carbohydrate sources is highly specific to the individual. In the study I'm thinking of, some people were given cookies, others were given bananas (among other things). The responses weren't consistent at all. As for calories in/out being a simplification, while it is mostly true, the tricky bit is that calories out actually varies wildly with the foods you eat. Your body's hormonal milieu changes very significantly with what you eat, and that has a massive impact on your biochemistry. Additionally, the microbes in your gut have certain food preferences, and they can metabolize a significant fraction of the calories you eat. Thus, hormonal shifts and rate of microbial metabolism can spike your "calories out" far above what would be predicted by BMR and activity level (and the reverse is unfortunately true as well).
  - craigkilgo 10y ago
    I think this is what people are missing. The laws of thermodynamics are not being violated with these various diets, and like you mentioned, for certain individuals their metabolism is being increased.
  - MarkPNeyer 10y ago
    This suggests something tech could actually help with. Since each person has a different gut microfauna, if we had a system to measure my gut and compute what foods would be good for me, we could design custom diets for each person.
kj01a 10y ago
>Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. No. If the laws of thermodynamics had been proven false, we would have heard of it.
- rsfern 10y ago
  The issue with the simplifying "calories in == calories out" is that conservation of energy is being applied over the wrong system. Our bodies are not 100% efficient at extracting energy from food, and to GP's point respond differently to different types of foods.
  - kj01a 10y ago
    No system is 100% efficient. What's your point?
    - dang 10y ago
      Please stop.
      - kj01a 10y ago
        Can I ask why I'm being singled out here? Edit: And why can't I post anymore?
        dang 10y ago
        Your posts stood out (e.g. as rapid, aggressive, and unsubstantive) on a flamewar-prone topic. It's possible that others did worse and we didn't see it; we don't see everything or even close, so that's always the likeliest explanation. When accounts do that, we sometimes rate-limit them. It's not great but it's one of the few tools we have for protecting HN from the destructive effects of such discussions. If people want not to be rate-limited and are willing to commit to posting civil, substantive comments only in the future, they're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com.
maxerickson 10y ago
Your bacon excursion is perfectly compatible with calories in calories out (you burned some of the calories, others took a different exit). The mystery would be if you gained weight over a long period of time while consuming food at a calorie deficit. People do make this argument against calorie counting... The fundamental lesson of calories in calories out is that someone who wishes to lose weight should seek to reduce their calorie intake to a level where it happens. It probably isn't all that useful a lesson, estimating calories consumed is hard, as is reducing them.
at-fates-hands 10y ago
>> Also, hilarious adventure I went on once: I ate 4000 calories of bacon a day and nothing else for a month... ended up cutting it off a little early because I was losing weight too quickly. I had a soccer teammate in college do something similar. He was a central mid and was constantly getting beat by guys faster than him. He felt he was too fat and needed to drop a few pounds so he could compete better. He went on what he called a "beer" diet. He would wake up and drink a beer to curb his appetite in the AM. Then at lunch, he would have a 12" subway sandwich, chips and pop. Once he got hungry again, he would drink another beer to curb his appetite until practice. After practice, he would have another beer. He would still drink water throughout the day to stay hydrated. He dropped some 25lbs in like 45 days. After he lost the weight, he realized that while he did lose the weight, he also suffered a ton of muscle loss. Before he was getting beat because he was slow, now he was getting beat because he was too weak to either fend off other players, or not strong enough to slow other players down, even though now he could keep up with them. Afterwards he said he wouldn't do again, and started doing more weight training and interval cardio to maintain a healthier weight. After another six months, he said he finally found a happy median between being fast and being strong and stable on his feet.
lackbeard 10y ago
Calories-in, calories-out is the golden rule, but what a lot of people forget (like you have here) is that what kind of calories you put in affects calories-out (along with lots of other things.)
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winkle 10y ago
Based on all of the responses to this comment I can see how someone would be completely confused on what they need to do to lose weight. While admitting the rest of this thread is bonkers, I'll explicitly list the formula you should follow right now (science is always evolving): Change in Body Stores = (Actual Calories In - Calories Not Absorbed) - (Resting Metabolic Rate + Thermic Effect of Eating + Physical Activity + Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) This is the more nuanced formula of calories in, calories out. Changing one variable in that equation can have an effect on the rest of the equation, which is why it appears calories is not equal to calories out. You can read about each variable here: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/metabolic-damage http://www.precisionnutrition.com/metabolic-damage. I should note that this program is published in scientific journals: http://www.invent-journal.com/article/S2214-7829(16)30006-9/abstract http://www.invent-journal.com/article/S2214-7829(16)30006-9/... http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11764-016-0582-z http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11764-016-0582-z http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/osp4.98/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/osp4.98/abstract
- wmblaettler 10y ago
  "Calories Not Absorbed" really got me thinking. While a food is labeled with their potential calories - the amount actually extracted from the food by your gut will vary significantly based on the composition of the food. The bioavailability of calories for example in a cookie versus some fibrous raw vegetable are going to differ significantly, being absorbed at different rates and to differing degrees of completeness. Here is an interesting article with an important take away: "In general, it seems that the more processed foods are the more they actually give us the number of calories we see on the box" https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-hidden-truths-about-calories/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-hidden-t...
  - rubber_duck 10y ago
    I found this recently [1] suggesting that 15-18% of calories from peanuts are excreted. It's probably more for me since they give me digestive problems and that's what made me curios about the subject too. So I guess eating processed food vs food that's hard to digest actually matters a decent bit if you're counting calories (10-15% of your calories is not insignificant - that's almost half of what you're trying to cut on a calorie restriction diet) [1]http://www.peanut-institute.org/images/materials_10_1904682630.pdf http://www.peanut-institute.org/images/materials_10_19046826...
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scriptkiddy 10y ago
>Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. Quite the opposite actually. See thermodynamics for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics
ska 10y ago
Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. It's not exactly correct, but it's a pretty good first approximation. As simplified heuristics go, it's much better than: It is not how many calories you eat, it is where they come from. If only because we don't actually understand the where & mechanisms very rigorously (notwithstanding all the violent handwaving surrounding many flavor-of-the-decade diet proponents) About the best we can do with current science is (a better worded version of): How many calories you consume is important, and so is the nature of those calories, and when you consume them. Also something in there about calories being reductive, and other things matter. In fact you can (and man do) do much worse for advice than Michael Pollans' summary: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.[1]" - but "food" is doing extra work here and human health is not the only consideration. 1 -http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/ http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/

BillinghamJ 10y ago

That sounds more like a malnutrition issue no? If all you were eating is bacon and nothing else.

Cthulhu_ 10y ago
A delicious kind of malnutrition though.
weavie 10y ago
But does anecdotally disprove the pure calories in, calories out rule.
- Sunset 10y ago
  It doesn't. If you maintain a fully rounded meal while also scaling calories in/out it holds. I can straight up eat sugar only too for a month and have the same weight loss results, also diabetes.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    That's the point, isn't it? If the roundness of the meal matters, it's not just calories in/out.
    - pkroll 10y ago
      This is what happens all the time when calories in/calories out comes up, it becomes an exercise in pedantry. "It's just calories in/calories out" is not read by any normal person to mean "I should just cut my calorie intake by 500 for the day, and then drink that as olive oil 'cause that's easier to measure" It's there to convey "you can still eat french fries: just not as many."
- lordnacho 10y ago
  I'm not sure it does. He said he weighed 340 pounds when he did this. His daily break even calories might be well above 4K. IIRC 2500 is recommended for the average male, who certainly does not weigh 340 pounds.
- fpig 10y ago
  The meaning of that rule is generally "if you consume less calories than you use, it is physically impossible not to lose weight". Which is definitely true. You can eat more than you use and not gain weight if you are not metabolising the food efficiently, but you can't eat less than you use and not lose weight. The former is limited by how badly you are able to mess up your body, the latter is limited by the fundamental laws of physics. If you're at a calorie deficit, you will lose weight no matter what you're eating or what state your body is in.
  - mdemare 10y ago
    Nothing in the Second Law of Thermodynamics prevents your body from turning some of your heart muscle into fuel, as bad of a plan as that may be.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - scriptkiddy 10y ago
      That would still be losing weight(mass). The problem in this thread is that people are considering fat loss and weight loss to be the same thing. They're not. The simple truth is that a caloric deficit will always result in a net decrease in mass. This is fundamentally true of any system. Energy being removed from a system always results in a decrease in mass of that system. This is physics 101. Eating a caloric deficit will always cause a reduction in mass, though it may not be the mass you want to reduce. Eating at a caloric deficit without providing the body with the proper balance of macro-nutrients and exercise could lead to reductions in muscle, bone, and connective tissue mass. Reduction of carbohydrates in one's diet generally has a net positive effect in a caloric deficit due to the fact that there is essentially "more room" in the diet for higher quality nutrients such as proteins and fats. That said, cutting carbohydrates out entirely is a terrible idea as they are the body's primary source of short term energy.
- OJFord 10y ago
  It doesn't, because exercise isn't the only way of getting 'calories out'. Some amount of bacon a lot less than that provides all the nutrition to be gained from any amount; anything further is just waste.
shagmin 10y ago
Makes me wonder how much of the weight loss was more due to water loss rather than body fat. I remember reading something about people who are on the verge of starvation lose weight after getting access to food again due to water loss from the water required to digest food.

fnord123 10y ago

> Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. Citation, please.

alpb 10y ago
Watch "Food Inc" where this has been discussed in detail. http://dailyburn.com/life/health/diet-truth-calories-counting/ http://dailyburn.com/life/health/diet-truth-calories-countin...
- mathias_awkward 10y ago
  How is that scientific though? Anyone can write an blog article :/
- pkroll 10y ago
  The beginning of the article linked says "if you usually consume 2,500 calories a day and then cut back to 1,600 calories, you’re going to lose weight from that 900-calorie daily deficit — even if all you ate was potato chips. But you won’t be healthy and you most likely won’t be able to keep the pounds off."
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    I went from 245lbs to 185lbs by eating 1500 a day every day for 5 months, that was over a year ago and I still weigh 185lbs, all I did was when I hit my target weight was make sure that over a week my diet averages out to 2500 a day, some days I go over by a few hundred, the next day I just under eat by a few hundred so that it balances out.
    - mhurron 10y ago
      Yep, eating a balanced, calorie reduced diet for a period of time will let you lose weight in a healthy manner - assuming no other issues. Thankfully, most people don't have issues beyond being overweight so loosing weight for most people is just stop eating so much. Calories in, calories out is indeed how it works, but people also need to realize that your body is not a static machine, it reacts to its environment. Restrict caloric intake too much and you hit a point where your body enters a 'starvation mode,' it holds back on as much work as it can and holds everything it doesn't use. If you have problems absorbing foods due to problems with your GI tract, you might find that you don't need to restrict too much before that happens because you weren't getting all the calories you thought you were before. Of course, reducing calories will cause your body to change some of what it does even if you have no other issues, so for maximum benefit, you should pair it with exercise. I've also restricted myself to 1500 calories a day for the past month or so and have lost about 10 lbs so far and am on track to lose a similar amount in a similar time as yourself. My wife did the same thing at the same time, it's not going anywhere near as smooth for her, but she has GI issues.

ctrl_freak 10y ago

To add on to this, my understanding is that technically "calories in, calories out" is correct in the sense that weight gain/loss depends on the net caloric intake for your body. But your base metabolic rate, and as a result your daily energy expenditure, is affected by many different things, including the composition of the calories and the timing of the consumption. Insulin plays a major role in weight gain/loss, and simple carbohydrates have a tendency to spike it.

betageek 10y ago
Exactly, no breakdown of thermodynamics needed, any calories not efficiently processed into usable energy will be emitted as waste.
- amelius 10y ago
  No thermodynamics needed to disprove it, but we probably need something more complicated than thermodynamics to get a good picture of the real balance.
  - UweSchmidt 10y ago
    Nothing more complicated than a scale in your bathroom is needed. Check daily and see if you lose weight with whatever combination of food/activity/metabolism you have going on. If you somehow gain or lose weight, eat accordingly.
    - garrettdc 10y ago
      Using the scale is great if you understand proper nutrient timing and partitioning. What if you don't know the basics of nutrition though? Where do I cut from? What can I add in that will assist with satiety but still reduce overall energy absorbed? Where do I go to understand that these are questions that need to be asked in the first place?
- gonzo 10y ago
  Or ... Stored. Which is the problem. If we really did eliminate the excess, nobody would be overweight.

xorcist 10y ago

Energy in, energy out sounds pretty basic to me. I would be interested to know where you think your energy intake comes from, unless it is from food? Or is it just the caloric measurement you think is irrelevant for human energy intake? While obviously imperfect, I'm skeptical it could be an order of magnitude off for example.

taurath 10y ago
How much your body absorbs is a huge variable which seems insane to have to say but people just want to say calories all day.
- rimantas 10y ago
  How does that change the fact that if you consume less there be less to absorb from?
  - dahauns 10y ago
    It doesn't change it, but makes it rather less useful.
ChrisjayHenn 10y ago
The problem with the 'energy in-energy out' model is that energy is rarely what we need more of. Food cravings persist for the nutrient one needs most, not just the amount of energy needed. Eating less of a conventional diet does reduce the amount of energy one takes in, but also reduces intake of whatever nutrient the subject was craving in the first place. That's why compositional diets work better for so many people, if the subject gets all the nutrients they need, they won't feel the desire to eat more than that, and consequently won't take in more energy than they use. TL;DR: Total energy in matters, but watching energy-to-vital-nutrient-ratios in one's food is a better way of ensuring the proper levels of both. Edit: wording
CuriouslyC 10y ago
The problem here is people equate calories in/calories out with the equation "calories eaten - (calories burned from activity + basal metabolism) = weight loss". While energy in/out dictating weight loss is basically true on a biochemical level, that equation is false because your biochemistry undergoes massive changes as a result of what you eat, and gut bacterial metabolism also depends on the substrate provided.

gambiting 10y ago

I think it's really obvious that you can eat even 5000 calories a day, and under certain circumstances, not gain weight. However, if you eat 1000 calories or less, it's impossible not to lose weight. Unless you know someone who can synthesize energy to live and move out of thin air......

CuriouslyC 10y ago
That lethargy you feel when you diet is your body's metabolism slowing, and it also results in you being less active. If your metabolism totally crashed and as a result you felt so bad you didn't do much other than sit around, you might not lose weight on a 1k cal diet.
- gambiting 10y ago
  Sure, but there is a point where you are taking in less than you are using. Maybe I should have said 500kcal instead. It doesn't matter if your boby absorbs 100% of that, or 20%, or if it's all organic veggies or potato chips or straight up lard - it's just not enough to live on, and you will lose weight.
  - watwut 10y ago
    There are two problems with this diet: 1.) You will underperform in work and life in general. You will be constantly tired, appear lazy to employer (practically speaking be lazy) and will make slower stupider decisions. You may end up weighting less, but will have hard time to keep up at work. 2.) Your body will adapt and become much more efficient in extracting calories from food - people who lost weight through fasting tend to gain weight very quick. Most of them can not keep the weight long term. That practically means you gain weight first time there is longer stressful period in work or life - when all your focus goes to project you are working on o family care or whatever. 3.) You do not eat just for calories - you need also various proteins, vitamins and what not. You are damaging your body by not giving it what it needs more then by being slightly overweight. Yes, people who don't eat at all loose weight, but there is price to pay on their health and performance. It is true that western people tend to eat way more calories then necessary, but "just eat small portions till you have target weight" advice does not work long term.

mike128 10y ago

+1 for Paleo. I'm also on a 'light' version of it for the past 2 years and can confirm the effects.

bosie 10y ago
Care to explain what you mean by "Light"?
botexpert 10y ago
Paleo is a fad diet, it can be healthy, yes, and many people with unhealthy diets try it, make a success and then the circle of anecdotal evidence reinforces the fad. The easiest diet is a diet filled with starchy vegetables and fruits. It fills you up insanely, it's low on calories, and is extremely hard to overconsume. Try eating a cup of beans, try eating two cups of beans. Practically impossible to do at one sitting. Try eating 10 bananas, extremely hard to do all at once. People just don't realize how much calorically dense foods they eat and how little their physical activity is.
- tnmrnis 10y ago
  The paleo label might be a fad but I'd argue the diet itself isn't. Avoiding highly processed foods and limitng grain intake simply forces you to eat higher quality/healthier food and is a great way to clean up your diet to lose weight and improve general health.

koliber 10y ago

First of, congratulations for losing significant weight, albeit in a non-conventional way. Eating two pounds of bacon a day takes a lot of determination. I am glad it worked for you. However, most people need to start with a basic rule and go from there. I think it is mainly calories in / calories out. While there seems to be evidence that the source of calories and diet composition do play some role in weight loss, that is what I would call "expert mode". You can't exercise away a bad diet. One hour of very hard cardio, can burn up to 1,000 calories, depending on your weight and exercise intensity. A big mac meal with a medium drink and fries is more or less that as well. Exercise is great, and is an excellent supplement to a diet, but if you don't watch what you eat, it will be difficult to exercise away the extra calories. The base rule is you have to watch what you eat. You can play with the composition, but concentrate on the calories. I can not say this enough. If you have extra pounds that you want to lose, and you have not yet found a way to do it, stay away from gimmicks. Losing weight involves eating less, not eating more. Regarding different types of calories, it's important to note that fats, proteins, sugars, and carbohydrates are digested in different ways. If you ingest 500 calories worth of sugar your body will be able to use almost all of that for its energy needs. Meanwhile, digesting protein is more complicated, and your body will be able to extract fewer of those 500 calories for its own needs.

thenomad 10y ago
From reading diet boards, a lot of people find that their weight loss efforts are more successful with a compositional approach than just Eating Less. "Eat less" might be a simple rule, but implementing it is not so simple. Compsitional diets remove that problem, and appear to work for a lot of people. I know there are a lot of HN readers who have used the Keto diet with considerable success, for example. And there are a good number of other diets that work for many people too whilst allowing an ad libitum approach to eating.

bshimmin 10y ago

I was fascinated to see how much bacon 4000 calories really is. A quick Google suggests about ten rashers, which, I guess, spread over a day wouldn't seem all that bad (in comparison with, say, Michael Phelps' reputed diet - he really put the "eating" into "competing"...). Still, that's a pretty epic diet, and could be very popular in developer circles. You should maybe consider patenting it.

jimms 10y ago
I would think it would be closer to 100 rashers a day. Ten seems very low. Maybe your results were per 100g?
jimmoores 10y ago
It's a lot more than 10 rashers. It's about 1kg or 2lbs of bacon (around 100 rashers). Completely nuts to eat that much, if nothing else, the amount of salt consumed would be enormous.
- bshimmin 10y ago
  Oh no, I think you're right! DiabloD3, can you confirm this and horrify us with how many rashers of bacon you were getting through in a day?

chewxy 10y ago

> this has been scientifically proven false. [Citation Needed] You'd think that if it has been scientifically proven false, it'd be one of the biggest discoveries of the century - The Human Body, A Perpetual Motion Machine! Energy from Nothing!

kj01a 10y ago
No wonder the robots decided to use us for batteries.

erpellan 10y ago

You might find this helpful: https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/rubberbag.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/rubberbag.html A human body is a mechanical system. Fuel + air in --> Work done + waste out. That's it. Any other argument is literally disputing the laws of thermodynamics.

bcoughlan 10y ago
It's not that it's wrong really. It's just that it's not particularly useful for weight loss. If I eat mainly sugar and starches I can easily wolf down 4000 calories a day. If I eat a low carb diet it's a struggle to eat 2000 calories a day, the feeling of hunger isn't the growl in my stomach but a kind of mild headache, and after a couple of days my cravings for sugar subsides. The idea that some foods are more "satiating" than others is important, and involves many factors from calorie density to palatability. Our bodies also regulate our desires for energy input and output. If I am depressed, exhausted or do not get enough sleep I will crave carbohydrates. If I eat certain foods I will feel lethargic and be more inclined to sink into the couch for the evening. "Eat less, move more" to lose weight is true, but not useful. How you encourage people to do that that is the domain of biology and psychology, not physics.
- kj01a 10y ago
  It's not helpful because some food are more calorie dense than others? How does that make sense?
  - XFrequentist 10y ago
    That's not a fair summary of the comment.
technopath 10y ago
The percentage of the fuel used relates to the kind of fuel and the amount of work done.

messel 10y ago

This is keeper, I'm at 350+ ideal weight around 230-240lbs (6'7") and looking for something to shake up my consumption that makes sense. I regularly exercise (20hrs/week low-medium impact) but eat fast foods

Tepix 10y ago
How did you calculate your ideal weight? Isn't it more around 210lbs?
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Isn't an ideal weight a complex function of things like occupation and personal taste. A brick-layer probably needs to carry more muscle, than people in other occupations; some people probably prefer to look more muscular/toned (etc.). Surely there's not an objective ideal weight for any particular person?

amelius 10y ago

> Also, hilarious adventure I went on once: I ate 4000 calories of bacon a day and nothing else for a month... ended up cutting it off a little early because I was losing weight too quickly. That sounds like an extreme form of a ketogenic diet [1], or Atkins diet [2]. Very effective, but with only bacon you'll miss some important micronutrients. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet

clishem 10y ago

Perhaps "calories in calories out" is still the golden rule for startups that want to make money instead of helping people to lose weight in the long term. I can't see any startup going against this deeply entrenched popular belief.

droidist2 10y ago
I could see it being overturned. We used to believe in the old food pyramid which has now been revised. http://blogs-images.forbes.com/michaelpellmanrowland/files/2016/11/USDA_Food_Pyramid.gif http://blogs-images.forbes.com/michaelpellmanrowland/files/2...

numbsafari 10y ago

Weight isn't the only issue. Eating such a high-fat, high-protein diet, with little to no other sources of important nutrients, probably did horrible things to your kidneys, liver and arteries.

bluedevil2k 10y ago
Source or speculation?
- collyw 10y ago
  Sounds similar to a traditional Inuit diet (from my very limited understanding). They don't have any of the problems OP mentioned.

jacquesm 10y ago

That's absolutely awesome, congratulations. You probably were running a lot of other risks besides joint damage, and all or most of those are now substantially less.

Kiro 10y ago

> Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. That's an extreme statement you definitely need to provide source for. I read a lot of scientific journals on the subject and have never heard anything like that.

Jallal 10y ago
Actually, this is the main subject of 'Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It' (https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259 https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-About/dp/0307474259) and the book refers to several scientific studies to support its claim.
- Kiro 10y ago
  Thanks! Ordering the book now.
wenc 10y ago
It is technically not incorrect, but incomplete. We know there is conservation of mass and energy in nature. Any chemical engineer can write mass and energy balance equations that represent this conservation. Calories in = Calories out is an simplified form of a more complex energy balance equation that looks something like this: (Enthalpy in) - (Enthalpy out) + (Heat/Energy crossing boundary) - (Work) = (Change in Internal Energy/Accumulation) ... plus a few more equations that represent component energy balances. Calories in = Calories out makes some naive assumptions and neglects all the internal biochemical reactions, and hence presents a skewed picture of the thermodynamics.
- allwein 10y ago
  I'll agree with you if the equation is stated like this: (Enthalpy in) - (Enthalpy out) + (Heat/Energy crossing boundary) - (Work) - (Change in Internal Energy/Accumulation) = 0 But when you state it like you did, there's an implication that the left hand side are the causal factors and that(Change in internal energy/accumulation) is the effect coming out of those causal factors. The problem is that there are many people with deranged metabolisms where their bodies are hormonally imbalanced to increased internal energy accumulation, which then by necessity disrupt the rest of the equation by either raising food intake or reducing energy expenditure.

delecti 10y ago

You've provided almost no information, but at 340 lbs it's possible your TDEE was more than 4000 calories/day, meaning it's possible you went on a reduced calorie diet with your bacon strategy. Without more information, your anecdote is useless, and even with more information it's still just an anecdote. Also, Paleo, like any similar structured diet, is just a trick to get you to ingest fewer calories. And I'm going to piggy back on the [citation needed] about calories in/out being scientifically disproven. [1] https://mytdee.com/#gender=male&yr=30&cm=182.9&kg=154.2&bfp=&goal=maintain&formula=standard&units=imperial&exercise=moderately https://mytdee.com/#gender=male&yr=30&cm=182.9&kg=154.2&bfp=...

CuriouslyC 10y ago
While not the OP, there is research demonstrating that the blood glucose and insulin response to various carbohydrate sources is highly specific to the individual. In the study I'm thinking of, some people were given cookies, others were given bananas (among other things). The responses weren't consistent at all. As for calories in/out being a simplification, while it is mostly true, the tricky bit is that calories out actually varies wildly with the foods you eat. Your body's hormonal milieu changes very significantly with what you eat, and that has a massive impact on your biochemistry. Additionally, the microbes in your gut have certain food preferences, and they can metabolize a significant fraction of the calories you eat. Thus, hormonal shifts and rate of microbial metabolism can spike your "calories out" far above what would be predicted by BMR and activity level (and the reverse is unfortunately true as well).
- craigkilgo 10y ago
  I think this is what people are missing. The laws of thermodynamics are not being violated with these various diets, and like you mentioned, for certain individuals their metabolism is being increased.
- MarkPNeyer 10y ago
  This suggests something tech could actually help with. Since each person has a different gut microfauna, if we had a system to measure my gut and compute what foods would be good for me, we could design custom diets for each person.

kj01a 10y ago

>Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. No. If the laws of thermodynamics had been proven false, we would have heard of it.

rsfern 10y ago
The issue with the simplifying "calories in == calories out" is that conservation of energy is being applied over the wrong system. Our bodies are not 100% efficient at extracting energy from food, and to GP's point respond differently to different types of foods.
- kj01a 10y ago
  No system is 100% efficient. What's your point?
  - dang 10y ago
    Please stop.
    - kj01a 10y ago
      Can I ask why I'm being singled out here? Edit: And why can't I post anymore?
      - dang 10y ago
        Your posts stood out (e.g. as rapid, aggressive, and unsubstantive) on a flamewar-prone topic. It's possible that others did worse and we didn't see it; we don't see everything or even close, so that's always the likeliest explanation. When accounts do that, we sometimes rate-limit them. It's not great but it's one of the few tools we have for protecting HN from the destructive effects of such discussions. If people want not to be rate-limited and are willing to commit to posting civil, substantive comments only in the future, they're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com.

maxerickson 10y ago

Your bacon excursion is perfectly compatible with calories in calories out (you burned some of the calories, others took a different exit). The mystery would be if you gained weight over a long period of time while consuming food at a calorie deficit. People do make this argument against calorie counting... The fundamental lesson of calories in calories out is that someone who wishes to lose weight should seek to reduce their calorie intake to a level where it happens. It probably isn't all that useful a lesson, estimating calories consumed is hard, as is reducing them.

at-fates-hands 10y ago

>> Also, hilarious adventure I went on once: I ate 4000 calories of bacon a day and nothing else for a month... ended up cutting it off a little early because I was losing weight too quickly. I had a soccer teammate in college do something similar. He was a central mid and was constantly getting beat by guys faster than him. He felt he was too fat and needed to drop a few pounds so he could compete better. He went on what he called a "beer" diet. He would wake up and drink a beer to curb his appetite in the AM. Then at lunch, he would have a 12" subway sandwich, chips and pop. Once he got hungry again, he would drink another beer to curb his appetite until practice. After practice, he would have another beer. He would still drink water throughout the day to stay hydrated. He dropped some 25lbs in like 45 days. After he lost the weight, he realized that while he did lose the weight, he also suffered a ton of muscle loss. Before he was getting beat because he was slow, now he was getting beat because he was too weak to either fend off other players, or not strong enough to slow other players down, even though now he could keep up with them. Afterwards he said he wouldn't do again, and started doing more weight training and interval cardio to maintain a healthier weight. After another six months, he said he finally found a happy median between being fast and being strong and stable on his feet.

lackbeard 10y ago

Calories-in, calories-out is the golden rule, but what a lot of people forget (like you have here) is that what kind of calories you put in affects calories-out (along with lots of other things.)

deleted 10y ago

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winkle 10y ago

Based on all of the responses to this comment I can see how someone would be completely confused on what they need to do to lose weight. While admitting the rest of this thread is bonkers, I'll explicitly list the formula you should follow right now (science is always evolving): Change in Body Stores = (Actual Calories In - Calories Not Absorbed) - (Resting Metabolic Rate + Thermic Effect of Eating + Physical Activity + Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) This is the more nuanced formula of calories in, calories out. Changing one variable in that equation can have an effect on the rest of the equation, which is why it appears calories is not equal to calories out. You can read about each variable here: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/metabolic-damage http://www.precisionnutrition.com/metabolic-damage. I should note that this program is published in scientific journals: http://www.invent-journal.com/article/S2214-7829(16)30006-9/abstract http://www.invent-journal.com/article/S2214-7829(16)30006-9/... http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11764-016-0582-z http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11764-016-0582-z http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/osp4.98/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/osp4.98/abstract

wmblaettler 10y ago
"Calories Not Absorbed" really got me thinking. While a food is labeled with their potential calories - the amount actually extracted from the food by your gut will vary significantly based on the composition of the food. The bioavailability of calories for example in a cookie versus some fibrous raw vegetable are going to differ significantly, being absorbed at different rates and to differing degrees of completeness. Here is an interesting article with an important take away: "In general, it seems that the more processed foods are the more they actually give us the number of calories we see on the box" https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-hidden-truths-about-calories/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-hidden-t...
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  I found this recently [1] suggesting that 15-18% of calories from peanuts are excreted. It's probably more for me since they give me digestive problems and that's what made me curios about the subject too. So I guess eating processed food vs food that's hard to digest actually matters a decent bit if you're counting calories (10-15% of your calories is not insignificant - that's almost half of what you're trying to cut on a calorie restriction diet) [1]http://www.peanut-institute.org/images/materials_10_1904682630.pdf http://www.peanut-institute.org/images/materials_10_19046826...

deleted 10y ago

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scriptkiddy 10y ago

>Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. Quite the opposite actually. See thermodynamics for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics

ska 10y ago

Calories in, calories out is not the golden rule, and this has been scientifically proven false. It's not exactly correct, but it's a pretty good first approximation. As simplified heuristics go, it's much better than: It is not how many calories you eat, it is where they come from. If only because we don't actually understand the where & mechanisms very rigorously (notwithstanding all the violent handwaving surrounding many flavor-of-the-decade diet proponents) About the best we can do with current science is (a better worded version of): How many calories you consume is important, and so is the nature of those calories, and when you consume them. Also something in there about calories being reductive, and other things matter. In fact you can (and man do) do much worse for advice than Michael Pollans' summary: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.[1]" - but "food" is doing extra work here and human health is not the only consideration. 1 -http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/ http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/unhappy-meals/