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Calories is an extremely reductive measure and isn't really good for much more than a general rule of thumb for evaluating food. The problem with calories comes

Calories is an extremely reductive measure and isn't really good for much more than a general rule of thumb for evaluating food. The problem with calories comes from how the caloric value of food is determined: quite literally incinerating the food and measuring the released heat. This is obviously not how your body digests food and disregards completely the macro structure of what you're taking in. Take pasta and rice for example, both have around the same calorific value however, the carbon chains in rice are much longer than those in pasta. The implication of which is that it will take your body more time and energy to digest rice than pasta meaning that the energy release to your body will be quite different. Looking just at calorific value though, one would erroneously conclude that these two foods are more or less identical.

EMM_386 5y ago
> Take pasta and rice for example, both have around the same calorific value however, the carbon chains in rice are much longer than those in pasta. It doesn't matter. This is over-analyzing the simple fact that reducing intake results in weight loss. Like I said, this is an unpopular opinion due to the difficulty people have in losing weight. But I did it and I have the facts to back it up. And I managed to get over my body's natural fight against it by simply continuing to intake less calories. If my body doesn't continue to get a constant influx of energy, it stores less as fat reserves. It's all proven by raw results. The truth is you can lose weight on a diet of Cheetos, pasta and soda. It's not healthy, and you may die sooner than you planned, but you will lose weight, as long as the intake is less than the expenditure.
- BFLpL0QNek 5y ago
  If you read a lot of the top body builders who are professionals at getting to single digit body fat methodically and repeatedly they’ll agree with you. If you burn more calories than you eat you’ll loose weight. Doesn’t matter what those calories are. As you say if you choose to eat low nutrient food below your required daily intake you may loose weight but wouldn’t recommend it for a healthy diet. Choosing better calories may help loose weight quicker as overall health improves but the fundamentals are the same, you are consuming less than your body requires. Some people may be surprised that if they eat better the volume of food they eat increases but total calories decrease. It’s surprising how calorie dense junk food is which leaves you hungry as low volume so you eat more to feel full.

EMM_386 5y ago

> Take pasta and rice for example, both have around the same calorific value however, the carbon chains in rice are much longer than those in pasta. It doesn't matter. This is over-analyzing the simple fact that reducing intake results in weight loss. Like I said, this is an unpopular opinion due to the difficulty people have in losing weight. But I did it and I have the facts to back it up. And I managed to get over my body's natural fight against it by simply continuing to intake less calories. If my body doesn't continue to get a constant influx of energy, it stores less as fat reserves. It's all proven by raw results. The truth is you can lose weight on a diet of Cheetos, pasta and soda. It's not healthy, and you may die sooner than you planned, but you will lose weight, as long as the intake is less than the expenditure.

BFLpL0QNek 5y ago
If you read a lot of the top body builders who are professionals at getting to single digit body fat methodically and repeatedly they’ll agree with you. If you burn more calories than you eat you’ll loose weight. Doesn’t matter what those calories are. As you say if you choose to eat low nutrient food below your required daily intake you may loose weight but wouldn’t recommend it for a healthy diet. Choosing better calories may help loose weight quicker as overall health improves but the fundamentals are the same, you are consuming less than your body requires. Some people may be surprised that if they eat better the volume of food they eat increases but total calories decrease. It’s surprising how calorie dense junk food is which leaves you hungry as low volume so you eat more to feel full.