7 ms·

This "calories in, calories out" idea is dangerously wrong. I have problems with my weight and my wife is anorexic. We live day-to-day with the fight against o

by Draiken 10y ago

This "calories in, calories out" idea is dangerously wrong. I have problems with my weight and my wife is anorexic. We live day-to-day with the fight against obesity (for years) and that's hardly a rule, much less golden. The only constant I see on this whole food/nutrition industry is how little information is accurate. Millions of diets and nutrition "experts" saying whatever they hear works without testing anything. The classic "worked for me, must work for everyone". I agree the obesity problem is there to be solved, but don't oversimplify it to 3 bullet points. That's irresponsible to say the least.

cromulent 10y ago
I'm surprised no-one (including OP) is talking about the gut microbiome and how the variations in that can affect the absorption of calories. Twins can have very different results with the same "calories in / calories out" due to differences in the microbiome. This seems like a ripe opportunity.
- rimantas 10y ago
  It just changes the multiplier, the rule stays the same.
  - cromulent 10y ago
    Depends how you measure "calories out". Are you measuring excreta or exercise or both?
arkh 10y ago
> This "calories in, calories out" idea is dangerously wrong. You don't see a lot of overweight people in famine prone areas. Calories out - calories in = your weight curve. That's the easy part for losing weight. Sport does not burn a lot of calories. So it is better to cut on the intake. Which is the hard part: food can be a comfort drug which is easily available. Worse when your entourage is full of overweight people as crab mentality can set-in and they'll try to sabotage your weight loss.
- asafira 10y ago
  This, unfortunately, is not true. Unfortunate cause I think great things would happen if it were that easy. It's also super simple to understand, which is at least part of why people cling to it so tightly. There is a huge amount of scientific literature (see summaries by Gary taubes, for example) that show that calorie counting is not the whole picture when it comes to health or obesity. It's also definitely not a golden rule.
  - arkh 10y ago
    I'd really like to see people who eat less than what they use for the day every day and still gain body weight.
    - asafira 10y ago
      I am not sure if you are being sarcastic, but here is one reference: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-makes-you-fat-too-many-calories-or-the-wrong-carbohydrates/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-makes-you-fa...
      - arkh 10y ago
        Reference which is about a future study. Do you have a link to its results?
        asafira 10y ago
        Hey, sorry I do not, but it was the first thing I saw with Gary Taubes' name on it so I figured it would probably be good. He has a few books out, and other articles online, that I recommend looking up (that does, in fact, have examples of studies that indicate that factors other than calories play a very important role in weight control)
- watwut 10y ago
  People in famine prone areas are considerably more sicker and live shorter (even when they don't die from famine) then western overweight people. Being overweight is healthier then living there. Also, famine makes you passive, tired and well, less bright. There is a reason why famine prone areas dont produce tech hubs and nobel prize winners.
hashmal 10y ago
the "calories in, calories out" thing is not wrong at all. not "believing" in it is just like disregarding global warming or evolution. of course it's not a simple addition. age, genetics and a lot of other factors come in. what is dangerously wrong is thinking that changing your calorie intake is easy. it may be very difficult to gain or lose weight depending on which side you are, because changing the way you eat durably is freaking difficult.
Sholmesy 10y ago
Of course it's more complicated than this, but in terms of a general rule calories in/out is pretty darn accurate. Saying it is 'dangerously wrong', is dangerously wrong.
- DanBC 10y ago
  It's true, but in an unhelpful way. We've been telling fat people to eat fewer calories for many years, and we're not seeing fewer fat people. It reduces a complex problem into a simplistic slogan that's then used by many people to hate and judge fat people. "You're fat, just eat less stupid fatty". It ignores gut microbiome. Here's a story about a bug that makes it harder to gain weight: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22458428 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22458428 and another bit of research about people who are obese: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7122/abs/nature05414.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7122/abs/nature05... It ignores "satiety". It ignores all the psycho-social stuff going on around food. It ignores changed metabolic pathways (one of the reasons people who take antipsychotic medications are overweight is because of the changes to their metabolism: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC487012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC487012/)
  - thecupisblue 10y ago
    > we're not seeing fewer fat people Yeah, because they mostly don't do it. The things you're focusing on are _mostly_ micro and not macro, for 99.999% of obese individuals, CICO would help them lose weight. There are exceptions to every rule tho.
    - DanBC 10y ago
      > CICO would help them lose weight The whole point is that it doesn't help them lose weight because it's unsustainable. Fat people can't manage to do that for more than a few weeks. The rigid focus on the least useful fact (CICO) means that you're failing to give any useful, usable, information.
      - 10y ago
rimantas 10y ago
Alternative physics.
chewxy 10y ago
Actually barring some metabolic disorder, calories in calories out IS correct. Not only is it correct, I find that bodies are quite mechanical in that nature. I wrote about my experience losing weight and gaining abs a couple of years ago (complete with statistical analyses of what matters and what does not): http://blog.chewxy.com/2015/12/02/holy-crap-ive-got-abs/#3500_to_a_Pound http://blog.chewxy.com/2015/12/02/holy-crap-ive-got-abs/#350... I've since maintained (and gained more visible abs :D ) with careful tracking on MyFitnessPal. I also find that if I do not track and weigh the food I eat (I get lazy and just "eyeball" the weight), I very rapidly get out of practice and put on weight. It turns out humans are terrible measuring tools. And the best part is this doesn't only work for me. Everyone I know who has followed me into methodically measuring food (sample size of 6 friends, and a couple has PCOS and one has hypothyroidism but is taking pills) has had their data analysed by me and the results agree with one another - CICO IS true. I should really write up the analyses one fine day.
slowmotiony 10y ago
Can you expand on how the idea is wrong? Because it's not.
- garrettdc 10y ago
  "Dangerously wrong" may be incorrect, but it tends to ignore things like thermic effects of food sources, intake vs. absorption, nutrient timing, and efficient gut microbes.
kj01a 10y ago
Either thermodynamics is wrong, or you are undisciplined. Which do you think is more likely?
- watwut 10y ago
  How much calories your body extracts from food and subsequently stores is not a constant. The thermodynamics argument basically ignores how human body works, but hey, it is simple.
  - kj01a 10y ago
    No one is saying calorie intake should be constant.
- DanBC 10y ago
  Imagine we study you for a year. We put you in a box, we control your food intake; we strictly monitor the amount of exercise you get. The first six months you stay the weight you are now. We then introduce a single change: we put you on antipsychotic medication. Nothing else changes: you're eating the same type of food and in the same quantities. You will gain weight. Is that because thermodynamics is broken? No. Is it because you're "undisciplined"? No. Is it because the antipsychotic medication is full of delicious calories? No. It's because your carbohydrate pathwathway has been altered, and you now process carbs differently to how you used to.
  - UweSchmidt 10y ago
    Don't worry about carbohydrate pathways, if you gain weight, then adapt your food intake (or excercise). Bodybuilders and martial artists do this all the time.
    - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
      Dopamine antagonists shift patterns toward favoring fat storage over muscle building/maintenance. They don't just reduce the amount of calories burned, they screw up the low-level regulatory mechanisms. AFAIK you basically have to starve yourself to bring blood sugar down to normal levels, and of course that's unsustainable.
mason240 10y ago
Every time someone on Reddit posts their weight loss progress pictures, people ask how they did it. They ALWAYS say they did through calorie restriction.

by Draiken 10y ago

cromulent 10y ago

I'm surprised no-one (including OP) is talking about the gut microbiome and how the variations in that can affect the absorption of calories. Twins can have very different results with the same "calories in / calories out" due to differences in the microbiome. This seems like a ripe opportunity.

rimantas 10y ago
It just changes the multiplier, the rule stays the same.
- cromulent 10y ago
  Depends how you measure "calories out". Are you measuring excreta or exercise or both?

arkh 10y ago

> This "calories in, calories out" idea is dangerously wrong. You don't see a lot of overweight people in famine prone areas. Calories out - calories in = your weight curve. That's the easy part for losing weight. Sport does not burn a lot of calories. So it is better to cut on the intake. Which is the hard part: food can be a comfort drug which is easily available. Worse when your entourage is full of overweight people as crab mentality can set-in and they'll try to sabotage your weight loss.

asafira 10y ago
This, unfortunately, is not true. Unfortunate cause I think great things would happen if it were that easy. It's also super simple to understand, which is at least part of why people cling to it so tightly. There is a huge amount of scientific literature (see summaries by Gary taubes, for example) that show that calorie counting is not the whole picture when it comes to health or obesity. It's also definitely not a golden rule.
- arkh 10y ago
  I'd really like to see people who eat less than what they use for the day every day and still gain body weight.
  - asafira 10y ago
    I am not sure if you are being sarcastic, but here is one reference: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-makes-you-fat-too-many-calories-or-the-wrong-carbohydrates/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-makes-you-fa...
    - arkh 10y ago
      Reference which is about a future study. Do you have a link to its results?
      - asafira 10y ago
        Hey, sorry I do not, but it was the first thing I saw with Gary Taubes' name on it so I figured it would probably be good. He has a few books out, and other articles online, that I recommend looking up (that does, in fact, have examples of studies that indicate that factors other than calories play a very important role in weight control)
watwut 10y ago
People in famine prone areas are considerably more sicker and live shorter (even when they don't die from famine) then western overweight people. Being overweight is healthier then living there. Also, famine makes you passive, tired and well, less bright. There is a reason why famine prone areas dont produce tech hubs and nobel prize winners.

hashmal 10y ago

the "calories in, calories out" thing is not wrong at all. not "believing" in it is just like disregarding global warming or evolution. of course it's not a simple addition. age, genetics and a lot of other factors come in. what is dangerously wrong is thinking that changing your calorie intake is easy. it may be very difficult to gain or lose weight depending on which side you are, because changing the way you eat durably is freaking difficult.

Sholmesy 10y ago

Of course it's more complicated than this, but in terms of a general rule calories in/out is pretty darn accurate. Saying it is 'dangerously wrong', is dangerously wrong.

DanBC 10y ago
It's true, but in an unhelpful way. We've been telling fat people to eat fewer calories for many years, and we're not seeing fewer fat people. It reduces a complex problem into a simplistic slogan that's then used by many people to hate and judge fat people. "You're fat, just eat less stupid fatty". It ignores gut microbiome. Here's a story about a bug that makes it harder to gain weight: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22458428 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22458428 and another bit of research about people who are obese: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7122/abs/nature05414.html http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7122/abs/nature05... It ignores "satiety". It ignores all the psycho-social stuff going on around food. It ignores changed metabolic pathways (one of the reasons people who take antipsychotic medications are overweight is because of the changes to their metabolism: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC487012/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC487012/)
- thecupisblue 10y ago
  > we're not seeing fewer fat people Yeah, because they mostly don't do it. The things you're focusing on are _mostly_ micro and not macro, for 99.999% of obese individuals, CICO would help them lose weight. There are exceptions to every rule tho.
  - DanBC 10y ago
    > CICO would help them lose weight The whole point is that it doesn't help them lose weight because it's unsustainable. Fat people can't manage to do that for more than a few weeks. The rigid focus on the least useful fact (CICO) means that you're failing to give any useful, usable, information.
    - 10y ago

rimantas 10y ago

Alternative physics.

chewxy 10y ago

Actually barring some metabolic disorder, calories in calories out IS correct. Not only is it correct, I find that bodies are quite mechanical in that nature. I wrote about my experience losing weight and gaining abs a couple of years ago (complete with statistical analyses of what matters and what does not): http://blog.chewxy.com/2015/12/02/holy-crap-ive-got-abs/#3500_to_a_Pound http://blog.chewxy.com/2015/12/02/holy-crap-ive-got-abs/#350... I've since maintained (and gained more visible abs :D ) with careful tracking on MyFitnessPal. I also find that if I do not track and weigh the food I eat (I get lazy and just "eyeball" the weight), I very rapidly get out of practice and put on weight. It turns out humans are terrible measuring tools. And the best part is this doesn't only work for me. Everyone I know who has followed me into methodically measuring food (sample size of 6 friends, and a couple has PCOS and one has hypothyroidism but is taking pills) has had their data analysed by me and the results agree with one another - CICO IS true. I should really write up the analyses one fine day.

slowmotiony 10y ago

Can you expand on how the idea is wrong? Because it's not.

garrettdc 10y ago
"Dangerously wrong" may be incorrect, but it tends to ignore things like thermic effects of food sources, intake vs. absorption, nutrient timing, and efficient gut microbes.

kj01a 10y ago

Either thermodynamics is wrong, or you are undisciplined. Which do you think is more likely?

watwut 10y ago
How much calories your body extracts from food and subsequently stores is not a constant. The thermodynamics argument basically ignores how human body works, but hey, it is simple.
- kj01a 10y ago
  No one is saying calorie intake should be constant.
DanBC 10y ago
Imagine we study you for a year. We put you in a box, we control your food intake; we strictly monitor the amount of exercise you get. The first six months you stay the weight you are now. We then introduce a single change: we put you on antipsychotic medication. Nothing else changes: you're eating the same type of food and in the same quantities. You will gain weight. Is that because thermodynamics is broken? No. Is it because you're "undisciplined"? No. Is it because the antipsychotic medication is full of delicious calories? No. It's because your carbohydrate pathwathway has been altered, and you now process carbs differently to how you used to.
- UweSchmidt 10y ago
  Don't worry about carbohydrate pathways, if you gain weight, then adapt your food intake (or excercise). Bodybuilders and martial artists do this all the time.
  - 0xcde4c3db 10y ago
    Dopamine antagonists shift patterns toward favoring fat storage over muscle building/maintenance. They don't just reduce the amount of calories burned, they screw up the low-level regulatory mechanisms. AFAIK you basically have to starve yourself to bring blood sugar down to normal levels, and of course that's unsustainable.

mason240 10y ago

Every time someone on Reddit posts their weight loss progress pictures, people ask how they did it. They ALWAYS say they did through calorie restriction.