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> Caloric restriction is bs. Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight. While I agree that for many

by thedz 9y ago

> Caloric restriction is bs. Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight. While I agree that for many people, restricting carbs is a far easier method of eating healthy while still feeling fully sated, stating that you can "literally eat until your stomach hurts" is false, misleading, and potentially destructive. 5000 calories of cream cheese or other caloric dense foods is, still, at the end of the day, 5000 calories. Caloric restriction isn't the only way to diet or eat healthy, but ignoring overall caloric intake (even rough estimates) while only focusing on "what" you eat is one of the biggest pitfalls I see.

rhinoceraptor 9y ago
I don't think anyone is arguing that calories don't matter, what matters is if a free living humans can eat a diet without too much effort. I don't think many people would want to (or even could) eat 5000 calories of cream cheese. But you probably could do it if you're eating ice cream and potato chips.
- thedz 9y ago
  > I don't think anyone is arguing that calories don't matter Ahem: > Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight.
tbv 9y ago
The "a calorie is a calorie" approach to diet and health has been thoroughly debunked. Our bodies metabolize carbs, protein, and fat, very differently. If a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, then we need to be able to explain why two people eating the same amount of calories per day, but one eating a high fat, low carb diet, and the other a low fat high carb diet see starkly different outcomes. All things equal except the composition of their diet, the person on the HF diet will stay lean and feel consistently satiated, while the LF person will put on more fat and feel hungry far more frequently than the HF. IMO, the claim that all calories are created equally is the most damaging "science" that's been put forth as common knowledge about dieting.
- matwood 9y ago
  > IMO, the claim that all calories are created equally is the most damaging "science" that's been put forth as common knowledge about dieting. I completely disagree. At the end of the day losing weight is about changing the amount of calories a person consumes vs. what they use. The most damaging science is trying to say it's not about calories at all when in fact that is almost all it is about in healthy person. Now, if you want to argue about satiation and the ability to keep up with a diet, then the type of food matters, but for strictly weight loss a person has to cut calories (or add activity).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - tbv 9y ago
    > At the end of the day losing weight is about changing the amount of calories a person consumes vs. what they use. Over an extended period, yes, this bears out because the law of thermodynamics. But the question is - can people adhere to a calorie-restricted diet long enough to see meaningful results? More importantly, will they simultaneously be able to build muscle and maintain normal bodily functions (thyroids tend to stop functioning normally during extended calorie restriction, especially when fat intake is low)? You will have a much easier time achieving a healthy body composition and feeling satisfied while eating a high fat low carb diet, than you would eating the same amount of calories on a low fat high carb diet. I say that the "calories in, calories out" approach to dieting is problematic because it's simply not as effective as switching to a HFLC diet. It makes building muscle tissue difficult, it encourages miserable dieting tactics, and taken to the extreme (which many people do) is a threat to a person's health.
- naasking 9y ago
  > Our bodies metabolize carbs, protein, and fat, very differently. If a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, then we need to be able to explain why two people eating the same amount of calories per day, but one eating a high fat, low carb diet, and the other a low fat high carb diet see starkly different outcomes. Show me those studies and we can discuss it further. Because the studies I've seen demonstrated slightly different results for each diet, but not wildly different as you're implying, so calorie counting works just fine.
jerf 9y ago
"5000 calories of cream cheese or other caloric dense foods is, still, at the end of the day, 5000 calories." Even if that is true... try it. Seriously. Try it. It won't hurt you for one day, and the education may well be worth it. Try eating 5000 calories of high-fat food. That's six and a quarter standard 8-oz packages of cream cheese. You're going to be hard-pressed to get that down in one day. By contrast, it's 2.4 party-sized 15-oz Doritos bags. Try eating nothing but those for one day. Or substitute any corn or potato chip or mix of chips of your choice. That may sound like a lot, but I guarantee you that A: you'll get much farther and B: you'll feel much worse afterward. There is, quite frankly, a decent chance you'll find you can get this down in one day, and still feel hungry at the end of the day. This is why a calorie is not just a calorie. Even if that's true by the time they hit your cellular processes as ATP, there's a loooot of body systems between your mouth and the ATP that cares a lot about the differences. In fact the idea that a calorie can just be a calorie is all but incoherent when you look at it with enough detail, because a gram of fat and a gram of carbs and a gram of protein all headed to ATP take very different routes. It would defy all probability if the end result were that there were no meaningful differences between those routes. To say nothing of the differences between various carbs, proteins, or fats within their own category, which are quite substantial on their own.
- thedz 9y ago
  I don't disagree with what you wrote -- I acknowledged in my post that certain foods satiate better than others. But too often, in the swing towards "think about more than just calories!" I see folks completely ignore calories. It's much, much harder to over eat on some foods than others, true, but IMO I find people espousing "you can eat as much as you want all the time!" to be equally damaging. Set a target caloric amount. Eat towards that. Fat/protein heavy foods make that easier to maintain.

by thedz 9y ago

rhinoceraptor 9y ago

I don't think anyone is arguing that calories don't matter, what matters is if a free living humans can eat a diet without too much effort. I don't think many people would want to (or even could) eat 5000 calories of cream cheese. But you probably could do it if you're eating ice cream and potato chips.

thedz 9y ago
> I don't think anyone is arguing that calories don't matter Ahem: > Carb restriction is key. You can literally eat until your stomach hurts all day long and lose weight.

tbv 9y ago

The "a calorie is a calorie" approach to diet and health has been thoroughly debunked. Our bodies metabolize carbs, protein, and fat, very differently. If a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, then we need to be able to explain why two people eating the same amount of calories per day, but one eating a high fat, low carb diet, and the other a low fat high carb diet see starkly different outcomes. All things equal except the composition of their diet, the person on the HF diet will stay lean and feel consistently satiated, while the LF person will put on more fat and feel hungry far more frequently than the HF. IMO, the claim that all calories are created equally is the most damaging "science" that's been put forth as common knowledge about dieting.

matwood 9y ago
> IMO, the claim that all calories are created equally is the most damaging "science" that's been put forth as common knowledge about dieting. I completely disagree. At the end of the day losing weight is about changing the amount of calories a person consumes vs. what they use. The most damaging science is trying to say it's not about calories at all when in fact that is almost all it is about in healthy person. Now, if you want to argue about satiation and the ability to keep up with a diet, then the type of food matters, but for strictly weight loss a person has to cut calories (or add activity).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tbv 9y ago
  > At the end of the day losing weight is about changing the amount of calories a person consumes vs. what they use. Over an extended period, yes, this bears out because the law of thermodynamics. But the question is - can people adhere to a calorie-restricted diet long enough to see meaningful results? More importantly, will they simultaneously be able to build muscle and maintain normal bodily functions (thyroids tend to stop functioning normally during extended calorie restriction, especially when fat intake is low)? You will have a much easier time achieving a healthy body composition and feeling satisfied while eating a high fat low carb diet, than you would eating the same amount of calories on a low fat high carb diet. I say that the "calories in, calories out" approach to dieting is problematic because it's simply not as effective as switching to a HFLC diet. It makes building muscle tissue difficult, it encourages miserable dieting tactics, and taken to the extreme (which many people do) is a threat to a person's health.
naasking 9y ago
> Our bodies metabolize carbs, protein, and fat, very differently. If a calorie is a calorie is a calorie, then we need to be able to explain why two people eating the same amount of calories per day, but one eating a high fat, low carb diet, and the other a low fat high carb diet see starkly different outcomes. Show me those studies and we can discuss it further. Because the studies I've seen demonstrated slightly different results for each diet, but not wildly different as you're implying, so calorie counting works just fine.

jerf 9y ago

"5000 calories of cream cheese or other caloric dense foods is, still, at the end of the day, 5000 calories." Even if that is true... try it. Seriously. Try it. It won't hurt you for one day, and the education may well be worth it. Try eating 5000 calories of high-fat food. That's six and a quarter standard 8-oz packages of cream cheese. You're going to be hard-pressed to get that down in one day. By contrast, it's 2.4 party-sized 15-oz Doritos bags. Try eating nothing but those for one day. Or substitute any corn or potato chip or mix of chips of your choice. That may sound like a lot, but I guarantee you that A: you'll get much farther and B: you'll feel much worse afterward. There is, quite frankly, a decent chance you'll find you can get this down in one day, and still feel hungry at the end of the day. This is why a calorie is not just a calorie. Even if that's true by the time they hit your cellular processes as ATP, there's a loooot of body systems between your mouth and the ATP that cares a lot about the differences. In fact the idea that a calorie can just be a calorie is all but incoherent when you look at it with enough detail, because a gram of fat and a gram of carbs and a gram of protein all headed to ATP take very different routes. It would defy all probability if the end result were that there were no meaningful differences between those routes. To say nothing of the differences between various carbs, proteins, or fats within their own category, which are quite substantial on their own.

thedz 9y ago
I don't disagree with what you wrote -- I acknowledged in my post that certain foods satiate better than others. But too often, in the swing towards "think about more than just calories!" I see folks completely ignore calories. It's much, much harder to over eat on some foods than others, true, but IMO I find people espousing "you can eat as much as you want all the time!" to be equally damaging. Set a target caloric amount. Eat towards that. Fat/protein heavy foods make that easier to maintain.