4 ms·

"Calorie reduction" is in general a rather poor goal when the result is overall health, and is overall not very well supported as a method of weight loss (which

by blix 5y ago

"Calorie reduction" is in general a rather poor goal when the result is overall health, and is overall not very well supported as a method of weight loss (which is only one axis of overall health). This is a larger blindspot than the calories in oil. It's actually pretty hard to eat 2000 calories a day with olive oil as the main source. Pasta and meat on the other hand are pretty easy. There's an increasingly large body of evidence that there is 'magic' to 'whole foods,' mainly through the avenue of microbiome health. The human body evolved to handle eating fruit, not diet soda.

yomly 5y ago
Also calories are so dumb. In its most primitive form, we burn food as a proxy for metabolism. Slightly more sophisticated techniques first breakdown the food by its components (sugars/fats) Calories are not just calories. That level of reduction is pseudoscience to the point where it's not really science. It's better than nothing, sure, but hair's breadth. Food is insanely complex and messy. The body's digestive chemistry is messy - a process of soups of enzymes, acids and bases. Metabolism is messy. Imagine the difference between chewing a stick of celery, a nut, drinking honey and drinking soda. Mechanically, the breakdown process of these differ wildly. Celery and nuts will be broken down very roughly. Honey is nice and viscous. Soda is lovely and runny. Now take those mechanically broken down food items and then pass them through a base bath and an acid bath and you'll unlock x% of compounds ready for metabolysis where x will differ wildly thanks also to the weird and wonderful world of solvation chemistry. THEN those compounds of varying energy richness will get broken down. The "calories" of an energy dense nut really aren't the same as a fructose-laden drink
- seanwilson 5y ago
  What's a better measurement than calories then?
  - yomly 5y ago
    Unfortunately, for energy state of the art is calorimetry for now. But relying on just "energy" or calorimetry is a terrible heuristic for energy uptake or nutrition/dieting. I am not a nutritionist but I'd probably choose something akin to blood glucose over calories for food consumption. If I had to go so simple I'd probably optimise for sugar reduction. And after that carbohydrate reduction. You'll find you can eat a lot of food and food will be filling if you have a pseudo keto diet. You have to work so much harder to get your calories and fats (when not mixed with sugar) is much more satiating.
seanwilson 5y ago
Do you agree that eating less than 2000 calories a day when your body only needs 2000 calories a day will result in weight loss? What subgoal would you recommend for overall health when you're very overweight if not calorie reduction? Obviously I'm not saying don't exercise and eating junk is okay as long as it's within 2000 calories. I personally don't find e.g. 200 calories of olive oil (which could be 10% of your calories for the day) filling at all in say a salad dressing (vs more salad) so skipping it is a simple way to eliminate excessive calories per day if required. Eating fat is fine though as long as you're watching the calories.
- blix 5y ago
  > Do you agree that eating less than 2000 calories a day when your body only needs 2000 calories a day will result in weight loss? The human body's caloric needs are not fixed at some number of calories per day; the human body's caloric needs adapt to inputs. You can lose weight by starving in the short term, but over the long term it is an ~extremely~ ineffective method of weight loss. There's been a lot of research looking at this over the past 10 years, and it is basically unanimous that the calorie defecit model of weight loss doesn't a really work. The number of very overweight people who have returned to and maintained a healthy weight through counting calories is vanishingly small. A good introductory source on this effect is Why Diet's Make us Fat by Susan Aamodt, but a google search will lead you to many studies. My personal recommendation for improving overall health for very overweight people would be, first off, to focus on a goal of physical capability rather than weight loss. Excessive fat is a hinderance to most physical acitivty, so you will lose weight naturally as you progress. This has the benefit of being a positive goal rather than a negative/mixed one. Many people lose large amounts of weight after getting cancer; few become better boxers. As for diet, here are some simple rules than I find improve physical capability and promote healthy weight: 1) drink water 2) quit sugar/sweeteners 3) eat when hungry, not for emotional reasons 4) more cooked green vegetables and fish. In my personal experience, rebalancing psychological relationships with sugar/sweetness and chewing/swallowing is much more effective than counting calories.
  - seanwilson 5y ago
    > As for diet, here are some simple rules than I find improve physical capability and promote healthy weight: 1) drink water 2) quit sugar/sweeteners 3) eat when hungry, not for emotional reasons 4) more cooked green vegetables and fish. In my personal experience, rebalancing psychological relationships with sugar/sweetness and chewing/swallowing is much more effective than counting calories. I agree with you. All I'm saying is if you're going to follow simple rules like e.g. eat more cooked vegetables, I think skipping or really limiting oils is a good rule too as it's about the most calorific food stuff you can eat and easy to overdo. You could easily eat 200 calories of oil in a salad without really thinking, but not 200 calories of carrot. I do think most people would benefit from counting calories for at least some part of their life though. I've known friends and family that have been trying to lose weight for years where they couldn't even guess how many calories they eat or roughly what has more calories than what e.g. they'll say a big sandwich is 200 calories, a whole pizza is 400 calories and a bar of chocolate is 100 calories. You don't need to count everything but I don't see how you can ignore calorie counts completely or at least be aware where the big wins are. Your simple rules have some of this knowledge encoded inside them even if you're not technically counting calories e.g. water has less calories than soft drinks and fruit juice. Same with "eat whole foods". I assume your "green vegetables" rule is encoding something about avoiding potatoes too, not that non-green is somehow bad by itself? More anecdotes but I've never seen the problem with sweeteners. I wish they weren't demonised by some people who then use sugar with x10 the calories instead.

by blix 5y ago

yomly 5y ago

Also calories are so dumb. In its most primitive form, we burn food as a proxy for metabolism. Slightly more sophisticated techniques first breakdown the food by its components (sugars/fats) Calories are not just calories. That level of reduction is pseudoscience to the point where it's not really science. It's better than nothing, sure, but hair's breadth. Food is insanely complex and messy. The body's digestive chemistry is messy - a process of soups of enzymes, acids and bases. Metabolism is messy. Imagine the difference between chewing a stick of celery, a nut, drinking honey and drinking soda. Mechanically, the breakdown process of these differ wildly. Celery and nuts will be broken down very roughly. Honey is nice and viscous. Soda is lovely and runny. Now take those mechanically broken down food items and then pass them through a base bath and an acid bath and you'll unlock x% of compounds ready for metabolysis where x will differ wildly thanks also to the weird and wonderful world of solvation chemistry. THEN those compounds of varying energy richness will get broken down. The "calories" of an energy dense nut really aren't the same as a fructose-laden drink

seanwilson 5y ago
What's a better measurement than calories then?
- yomly 5y ago
  Unfortunately, for energy state of the art is calorimetry for now. But relying on just "energy" or calorimetry is a terrible heuristic for energy uptake or nutrition/dieting. I am not a nutritionist but I'd probably choose something akin to blood glucose over calories for food consumption. If I had to go so simple I'd probably optimise for sugar reduction. And after that carbohydrate reduction. You'll find you can eat a lot of food and food will be filling if you have a pseudo keto diet. You have to work so much harder to get your calories and fats (when not mixed with sugar) is much more satiating.

seanwilson 5y ago

Do you agree that eating less than 2000 calories a day when your body only needs 2000 calories a day will result in weight loss? What subgoal would you recommend for overall health when you're very overweight if not calorie reduction? Obviously I'm not saying don't exercise and eating junk is okay as long as it's within 2000 calories. I personally don't find e.g. 200 calories of olive oil (which could be 10% of your calories for the day) filling at all in say a salad dressing (vs more salad) so skipping it is a simple way to eliminate excessive calories per day if required. Eating fat is fine though as long as you're watching the calories.

blix 5y ago
> Do you agree that eating less than 2000 calories a day when your body only needs 2000 calories a day will result in weight loss? The human body's caloric needs are not fixed at some number of calories per day; the human body's caloric needs adapt to inputs. You can lose weight by starving in the short term, but over the long term it is an ~extremely~ ineffective method of weight loss. There's been a lot of research looking at this over the past 10 years, and it is basically unanimous that the calorie defecit model of weight loss doesn't a really work. The number of very overweight people who have returned to and maintained a healthy weight through counting calories is vanishingly small. A good introductory source on this effect is Why Diet's Make us Fat by Susan Aamodt, but a google search will lead you to many studies. My personal recommendation for improving overall health for very overweight people would be, first off, to focus on a goal of physical capability rather than weight loss. Excessive fat is a hinderance to most physical acitivty, so you will lose weight naturally as you progress. This has the benefit of being a positive goal rather than a negative/mixed one. Many people lose large amounts of weight after getting cancer; few become better boxers. As for diet, here are some simple rules than I find improve physical capability and promote healthy weight: 1) drink water 2) quit sugar/sweeteners 3) eat when hungry, not for emotional reasons 4) more cooked green vegetables and fish. In my personal experience, rebalancing psychological relationships with sugar/sweetness and chewing/swallowing is much more effective than counting calories.
- seanwilson 5y ago
  > As for diet, here are some simple rules than I find improve physical capability and promote healthy weight: 1) drink water 2) quit sugar/sweeteners 3) eat when hungry, not for emotional reasons 4) more cooked green vegetables and fish. In my personal experience, rebalancing psychological relationships with sugar/sweetness and chewing/swallowing is much more effective than counting calories. I agree with you. All I'm saying is if you're going to follow simple rules like e.g. eat more cooked vegetables, I think skipping or really limiting oils is a good rule too as it's about the most calorific food stuff you can eat and easy to overdo. You could easily eat 200 calories of oil in a salad without really thinking, but not 200 calories of carrot. I do think most people would benefit from counting calories for at least some part of their life though. I've known friends and family that have been trying to lose weight for years where they couldn't even guess how many calories they eat or roughly what has more calories than what e.g. they'll say a big sandwich is 200 calories, a whole pizza is 400 calories and a bar of chocolate is 100 calories. You don't need to count everything but I don't see how you can ignore calorie counts completely or at least be aware where the big wins are. Your simple rules have some of this knowledge encoded inside them even if you're not technically counting calories e.g. water has less calories than soft drinks and fruit juice. Same with "eat whole foods". I assume your "green vegetables" rule is encoding something about avoiding potatoes too, not that non-green is somehow bad by itself? More anecdotes but I've never seen the problem with sweeteners. I wish they weren't demonised by some people who then use sugar with x10 the calories instead.