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There is _no_ amount of butter (or fat, in general) that you can eat that will make you gain weight, provided there is no sugar in your diet. You will physicall

There is _no_ amount of butter (or fat, in general) that you can eat that will make you gain weight, provided there is no sugar in your diet. You will physically not be able to eat more than your body can deal with, this is because fat, unlike sugar, triggers the i-am-full hormones which make food impossible to eat.

y4mi 9y ago
No, that is plain wrong. Calories count, no matter where they are from. Ketogenic diets might increase your metabolism and reduce your appetite and hunger, which makes weight loss easier, but you'll still gain weight if you eat too many fat calories each day. Even if you cut out carbs entirely.
- deleted 9y ago
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- renaudg 9y ago
  "Calories count, no matter where they are from." This is the exact point the article is proving wrong.
  - aaron-lebo 9y ago
    It doesn't really prove it wrong. If you eat 3000 calories of butter every day, you're gonna get fat. In that sense, a calorie is a calorie.
    - barkingtoad 9y ago
      "a calorie is a calorie" This is the exact point the article is... arguing against in a very convincing fashion
      - y4mi 9y ago
        No, the article is saying that people are getting obese and diabetic because of sugar. Its further pointing out that there are calories ("sugars") which make it much easier to gain weight. I didn't disagree there either. The article never claims that you can eat any amount of calories as long as you leave carbs from the table. And thats the only thing i pointed out. Because thats just plain wrong. If you eat too many calories, you will gain weight. And if you're predisposed to obesity, you will eat more calories when you're flavouring stuff with sugar. This will, as the author pointed out, cause you to get even more obese and eventually get diabetes.
        WillPostForFood 9y ago
        You are getting lost in semantics, because if you are saying: there are calories ("sugars") which make it much easier to gain weight. Then a calorie isn't a calorie.
        cheald 9y ago
        Calories are calories (it's literally a measure of energy!) The packages they come in will effect hormonal and psychological responses differently which may affect the amount you would take in if intake is left unmonitored. To that extent, it's wise to take in foods which don't nudge you towards over consuming, but if you can be disciplined and take in a quantity of energy less than you expend on a consistent basis, eating that intake as sugar rather than other macros isn't going to magically make you gain weight.
        mohaine 9y ago
        Sure, it is a measure of energy, but it is not a measure of of how much energy we as humans will utilize from the food. Some calories are much more efferent for us to extract than others. Some can't be extracted at all.
        WillPostForFood 9y ago
        You are making the same semantic argument I was criticizing. In the context of this discussion we aren't talking about the literal measure of energy, but the package. I.e., is a quantity of sugar that has a calorie of energy the same to the body as a quantity of fat or fiber that contains a calorie of energy. That's what someone is claiming when they say a calorie is a calorie. And to that question, the evidence bears out that it the effects are not just psychological, and don't just affect desire to eat. If you took two twins, and fed one 2000 calories of cane sugar a day, and fed the other 2000 calories of raw broccoli, after a month, they wouldn't have the same weight.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >In that sense, a calorie is a calorie. This has been thoroughly disproven for ages -- starting with the naive assumption that you can just eat X amounts of anything and it doesn't affect anything else in your health/apetite/metabolism.
      - aaron-lebo 9y ago
        I know we like to one up each other on HN, but you're just talking past the main point. Calories matter. If you eat too many, you get fat. Some calories might be "better" than others, but they are a standard of unit of energy for a reason. A calorie is a calorie. Would you like to try the butter diet? I can guarantee you you'll get fat.
        coldtea 9y ago
        >Calories matter. If you eat too many, you get fat. Some calories might be "better" than others, but they are a standard of unit of energy for a reason. A calorie is a calorie. That's quite irrelevant though (besides tautological), as we don't just eat calories, we eat food that has calories and tons of other stuff in different arrangements. A calorie being a calorie doesn't cover whether the food you got the calorie from makes you satiated, or conversely makes you eat more, or makes you feel more energetic, or makes you store it as fat, or brings hormonal changes, etc. A "milligram is a milligram" too, a standard unit of weight, but 1mg of cyanide can kill a person, and 1mg of water won't do anything to them. >Would you like to try the butter diet? I can guarantee you you'll get fat. Again this presumes that people can just eat, regardless of what they eat -- and continue to eat it without that affecting anything else. I guarantee you if I ate just butter, I'd threw up after several hundred grams, and feel quite bad and stop the diet after some days.
        aaron-lebo 9y ago
        We're not disagreeing, just talking about different things.
        didgeoridoo 9y ago
        Surprisingly, you wouldn’t. I basically have been on your “butter diet” for over a year. I get about 80% of my calories from fat, much of it saturated. The rest is protein. I’ve lost about 50 pounds, normalized my blood pressure & cholesterol, and feel amazing.
    - gtrubetskoy 9y ago
      To illustrate the point: dietary fiber, which contains a lot of calories, is not digestible. Eat as much as you can, but you will not get one calorie of energy from it. So just based on that, where calories come from matters. There is a difference between fat metabolism and sugar metabolism. They use different metabolic pathways, in other words the process by which a fatty acid molecule becomes ATP (the ultimate source of cellular energy) is very different from how fructose (which has to first be converted to glucose in the liver) becomes ATP.
- analog31 9y ago
  This is exactly what puzzles me. Increasing your metabolism should increase your body temperature, all other things being equal. I still suspect that sheer reduction of calories is the main driver of weight loss, and if anything, fine-tuning one's metabolism plays a minor role.
  - y4mi 9y ago
    I'm just talking anecdotally here but yes, the body temperature does increase significantly. Keto wasn't for me, especially because of the increased food budget, but it sure did help with my chronically cold feet/hands. But I'd still agree with your second assessment: the biggest contributor is the decreased hunger/appetite after the first few weeks.
deleted 9y ago
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y4mi 9y ago

No, that is plain wrong. Calories count, no matter where they are from. Ketogenic diets might increase your metabolism and reduce your appetite and hunger, which makes weight loss easier, but you'll still gain weight if you eat too many fat calories each day. Even if you cut out carbs entirely.

deleted 9y ago
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renaudg 9y ago
"Calories count, no matter where they are from." This is the exact point the article is proving wrong.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  It doesn't really prove it wrong. If you eat 3000 calories of butter every day, you're gonna get fat. In that sense, a calorie is a calorie.
  - barkingtoad 9y ago
    "a calorie is a calorie" This is the exact point the article is... arguing against in a very convincing fashion
    - y4mi 9y ago
      No, the article is saying that people are getting obese and diabetic because of sugar. Its further pointing out that there are calories ("sugars") which make it much easier to gain weight. I didn't disagree there either. The article never claims that you can eat any amount of calories as long as you leave carbs from the table. And thats the only thing i pointed out. Because thats just plain wrong. If you eat too many calories, you will gain weight. And if you're predisposed to obesity, you will eat more calories when you're flavouring stuff with sugar. This will, as the author pointed out, cause you to get even more obese and eventually get diabetes.
      - WillPostForFood 9y ago
        You are getting lost in semantics, because if you are saying: there are calories ("sugars") which make it much easier to gain weight. Then a calorie isn't a calorie.
        cheald 9y ago
        Calories are calories (it's literally a measure of energy!) The packages they come in will effect hormonal and psychological responses differently which may affect the amount you would take in if intake is left unmonitored. To that extent, it's wise to take in foods which don't nudge you towards over consuming, but if you can be disciplined and take in a quantity of energy less than you expend on a consistent basis, eating that intake as sugar rather than other macros isn't going to magically make you gain weight.
        mohaine 9y ago
        Sure, it is a measure of energy, but it is not a measure of of how much energy we as humans will utilize from the food. Some calories are much more efferent for us to extract than others. Some can't be extracted at all.
        WillPostForFood 9y ago
        You are making the same semantic argument I was criticizing. In the context of this discussion we aren't talking about the literal measure of energy, but the package. I.e., is a quantity of sugar that has a calorie of energy the same to the body as a quantity of fat or fiber that contains a calorie of energy. That's what someone is claiming when they say a calorie is a calorie. And to that question, the evidence bears out that it the effects are not just psychological, and don't just affect desire to eat. If you took two twins, and fed one 2000 calories of cane sugar a day, and fed the other 2000 calories of raw broccoli, after a month, they wouldn't have the same weight.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >In that sense, a calorie is a calorie. This has been thoroughly disproven for ages -- starting with the naive assumption that you can just eat X amounts of anything and it doesn't affect anything else in your health/apetite/metabolism.
    - aaron-lebo 9y ago
      I know we like to one up each other on HN, but you're just talking past the main point. Calories matter. If you eat too many, you get fat. Some calories might be "better" than others, but they are a standard of unit of energy for a reason. A calorie is a calorie. Would you like to try the butter diet? I can guarantee you you'll get fat.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >Calories matter. If you eat too many, you get fat. Some calories might be "better" than others, but they are a standard of unit of energy for a reason. A calorie is a calorie. That's quite irrelevant though (besides tautological), as we don't just eat calories, we eat food that has calories and tons of other stuff in different arrangements. A calorie being a calorie doesn't cover whether the food you got the calorie from makes you satiated, or conversely makes you eat more, or makes you feel more energetic, or makes you store it as fat, or brings hormonal changes, etc. A "milligram is a milligram" too, a standard unit of weight, but 1mg of cyanide can kill a person, and 1mg of water won't do anything to them. >Would you like to try the butter diet? I can guarantee you you'll get fat. Again this presumes that people can just eat, regardless of what they eat -- and continue to eat it without that affecting anything else. I guarantee you if I ate just butter, I'd threw up after several hundred grams, and feel quite bad and stop the diet after some days.
        aaron-lebo 9y ago
        We're not disagreeing, just talking about different things.
      - didgeoridoo 9y ago
        Surprisingly, you wouldn’t. I basically have been on your “butter diet” for over a year. I get about 80% of my calories from fat, much of it saturated. The rest is protein. I’ve lost about 50 pounds, normalized my blood pressure & cholesterol, and feel amazing.
  - gtrubetskoy 9y ago
    To illustrate the point: dietary fiber, which contains a lot of calories, is not digestible. Eat as much as you can, but you will not get one calorie of energy from it. So just based on that, where calories come from matters. There is a difference between fat metabolism and sugar metabolism. They use different metabolic pathways, in other words the process by which a fatty acid molecule becomes ATP (the ultimate source of cellular energy) is very different from how fructose (which has to first be converted to glucose in the liver) becomes ATP.
analog31 9y ago
This is exactly what puzzles me. Increasing your metabolism should increase your body temperature, all other things being equal. I still suspect that sheer reduction of calories is the main driver of weight loss, and if anything, fine-tuning one's metabolism plays a minor role.
- y4mi 9y ago
  I'm just talking anecdotally here but yes, the body temperature does increase significantly. Keto wasn't for me, especially because of the increased food budget, but it sure did help with my chronically cold feet/hands. But I'd still agree with your second assessment: the biggest contributor is the decreased hunger/appetite after the first few weeks.

deleted 9y ago

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