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The NYTimes just ran an article about nutrition myths. One of them was about calories in - calories out. “ Ultraprocessed foods — such as refined starchy snack

The NYTimes just ran an article about nutrition myths. One of them was about calories in - calories out. “ Ultraprocessed foods — such as refined starchy snacks, cereals, crackers, energy bars, baked goods, sodas and sweets — can be particularly harmful for weight gain, as they are rapidly digested and flood the bloodstream with glucose, fructose and amino acids, which are converted to fat by the liver.”

wooger 4y ago
I guarantee the skinny long distance runners and pro cyclists you see all pound far more ultra processed pure sugar than anyone fat you know. It's literally the only way to take in calories fast enough to keep exercising at an intense level for hours. Regardless of diet you will lose weight if you eat fewer calories than your body is burning. It will be harder if you eat junk food, but quite possible.
snowwrestler 4y ago
Your body will only store surplus fat long-term if you consume enough calories to maintain the surplus. Otherwise your body makes fat from the sugary sweets, but then later converts it back and burns it when you need energy. The real “myth” of calories in = calories out is that it’s possible to do it by feel. It takes a lot of work and math, like spreadsheet-level, to actually track calories in and out. So even though it is physically true as a concept, it’s not a good weight management strategy for most people. Sugary snacks don’t make you feel very full for their caloric content. So unless you’re literally writing down the caloric information on the wrapper and comparing it to your total daily activity, it’s easy to overeat.
- dxhdr 4y ago
  > The real “myth” of calories in = calories out is that it’s possible to do it by feel. It takes a lot of work and math, like spreadsheet-level, to actually track calories in and out. So even though it is physically true as a concept, it’s not a good weight management strategy for most people. The real myth is that you can track calories in and calories out. How do you measure how many calories your body absorbs from the food you eat? How do you measure your calories out, particularly your resting metabolic rate? Here's a hint -- the body changes its resting metabolic rate in response to calories in! Probably! Unless you eat junk food, and then maybe it doesn't!
  - substation13 4y ago
    Smartwatch can give a reasonable approximation of calories out
  - asdff 4y ago
    You don't need to know these rates, you just need to have a point of reference from which you can change according to your weight loss goals. Not losing enough weight for the given caloric intake? Then just dial it back and reassess.
  - evandale 4y ago
    You track calories in by making all your food and weighing everything you eat. In practise you don't need to track the out because it doesn't change much per day. It's not easy to burn 200 calories but it's easy to consume them. That's why it's common to hear that weight loss happens in the kitchen.
  - snowwrestler 4y ago
    It is absolutely possible to do it. Thousands of athletes and artists who depend on their weight professionally do it. Here’s one example: https://youtu.be/5356zt0JiDY https://youtu.be/5356zt0JiDY It does require work to understand your particular body, and discipline to do it consistently. Which is again, why it is not a good technique for most people. Most people don’t have the time, motivation, or really the need to do what this woman (in the video) is doing.
  - sn9 4y ago
    Tracking actually makes this super simple to account for. Apps like Macrofactor do it for you. You just track what you eat and your weight.
  - dahart 4y ago
    It’s really common for the argument against CICO to be that it’s not perfect, measuring input and measuring output seem hard, and metabolism is elastic, and people are different. Those things are all true, but using CICO in practice to lose weight actually works, and it’s quite effective for most people, as long as you actually do it. CICO is how bodybuilding and modeling works. ;) The hardest part isn’t the measuring. The hardest part is making it a habit. One secret about using CICO is that you do not need to know the gut absorption rate! You just need to track the calories before absorption, the numbers printed on the box. Easy these days with a smartphone app. The measurement does not need to be perfect at all. It only has to be decent on average. You can have variable accuracy of 25% on any given food and still get well under 10% on average for a week. It doesn’t matter if there’s a bias either, if you track your weight. The reason absorption and bias don’t matter is because you’re doing science with a black-box (your body). Measure the known input, monitor the output. Do it for a long time and you’ll find the maintenance input. Track input above that and verify mass gain, track below and verify loss. The maintenance value you come up with will “absorb” and bias, and gut calorie conversion rate, and other inaccuracies. Measuring output is easy with a heart rate monitor. Changing metabolism we already discussed, but important to know that the range of elasticity is like around 15%, and in practice for any give person may be lower. It’s not some massive factor you can’t predict, it’s within a narrow enough range for the majority of people, statistically, that you don’t need to worry too much. And it will be accounted for if you track calories and weight over a long enough time frame.
dr_dshiv 4y ago
Here's a Harvard fluff piece making the same "myth" claim: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/stop-counting-calories#:~:text=Cut%20calories%20%E2%80%94%20specifically%203%2C500%20calories,just%20wrong%2C%22%20says%20Dr https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/stop-counting.... And here is a recent peer-reviewed article that summarizes the debate: Ludwig, D. S., Apovian, C. M., Aronne, L. J., Astrup, A., Cantley, L. C., Ebbeling, C. B., ... & Friedman, M. I. (2022). Competing paradigms of obesity pathogenesis: energy balance versus carbohydrate-insulin models. European journal of clinical nutrition, 76(9), 1209-1221.

wooger 4y ago

I guarantee the skinny long distance runners and pro cyclists you see all pound far more ultra processed pure sugar than anyone fat you know. It's literally the only way to take in calories fast enough to keep exercising at an intense level for hours. Regardless of diet you will lose weight if you eat fewer calories than your body is burning. It will be harder if you eat junk food, but quite possible.

snowwrestler 4y ago

Your body will only store surplus fat long-term if you consume enough calories to maintain the surplus. Otherwise your body makes fat from the sugary sweets, but then later converts it back and burns it when you need energy. The real “myth” of calories in = calories out is that it’s possible to do it by feel. It takes a lot of work and math, like spreadsheet-level, to actually track calories in and out. So even though it is physically true as a concept, it’s not a good weight management strategy for most people. Sugary snacks don’t make you feel very full for their caloric content. So unless you’re literally writing down the caloric information on the wrapper and comparing it to your total daily activity, it’s easy to overeat.

dxhdr 4y ago
> The real “myth” of calories in = calories out is that it’s possible to do it by feel. It takes a lot of work and math, like spreadsheet-level, to actually track calories in and out. So even though it is physically true as a concept, it’s not a good weight management strategy for most people. The real myth is that you can track calories in and calories out. How do you measure how many calories your body absorbs from the food you eat? How do you measure your calories out, particularly your resting metabolic rate? Here's a hint -- the body changes its resting metabolic rate in response to calories in! Probably! Unless you eat junk food, and then maybe it doesn't!
- substation13 4y ago
  Smartwatch can give a reasonable approximation of calories out
- asdff 4y ago
  You don't need to know these rates, you just need to have a point of reference from which you can change according to your weight loss goals. Not losing enough weight for the given caloric intake? Then just dial it back and reassess.
- evandale 4y ago
  You track calories in by making all your food and weighing everything you eat. In practise you don't need to track the out because it doesn't change much per day. It's not easy to burn 200 calories but it's easy to consume them. That's why it's common to hear that weight loss happens in the kitchen.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  It is absolutely possible to do it. Thousands of athletes and artists who depend on their weight professionally do it. Here’s one example: https://youtu.be/5356zt0JiDY https://youtu.be/5356zt0JiDY It does require work to understand your particular body, and discipline to do it consistently. Which is again, why it is not a good technique for most people. Most people don’t have the time, motivation, or really the need to do what this woman (in the video) is doing.
- sn9 4y ago
  Tracking actually makes this super simple to account for. Apps like Macrofactor do it for you. You just track what you eat and your weight.
- dahart 4y ago
  It’s really common for the argument against CICO to be that it’s not perfect, measuring input and measuring output seem hard, and metabolism is elastic, and people are different. Those things are all true, but using CICO in practice to lose weight actually works, and it’s quite effective for most people, as long as you actually do it. CICO is how bodybuilding and modeling works. ;) The hardest part isn’t the measuring. The hardest part is making it a habit. One secret about using CICO is that you do not need to know the gut absorption rate! You just need to track the calories before absorption, the numbers printed on the box. Easy these days with a smartphone app. The measurement does not need to be perfect at all. It only has to be decent on average. You can have variable accuracy of 25% on any given food and still get well under 10% on average for a week. It doesn’t matter if there’s a bias either, if you track your weight. The reason absorption and bias don’t matter is because you’re doing science with a black-box (your body). Measure the known input, monitor the output. Do it for a long time and you’ll find the maintenance input. Track input above that and verify mass gain, track below and verify loss. The maintenance value you come up with will “absorb” and bias, and gut calorie conversion rate, and other inaccuracies. Measuring output is easy with a heart rate monitor. Changing metabolism we already discussed, but important to know that the range of elasticity is like around 15%, and in practice for any give person may be lower. It’s not some massive factor you can’t predict, it’s within a narrow enough range for the majority of people, statistically, that you don’t need to worry too much. And it will be accounted for if you track calories and weight over a long enough time frame.

dr_dshiv 4y ago

Here's a Harvard fluff piece making the same "myth" claim: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/stop-counting-calories#:~:text=Cut%20calories%20%E2%80%94%20specifically%203%2C500%20calories,just%20wrong%2C%22%20says%20Dr https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/stop-counting.... And here is a recent peer-reviewed article that summarizes the debate: Ludwig, D. S., Apovian, C. M., Aronne, L. J., Astrup, A., Cantley, L. C., Ebbeling, C. B., ... & Friedman, M. I. (2022). Competing paradigms of obesity pathogenesis: energy balance versus carbohydrate-insulin models. European journal of clinical nutrition, 76(9), 1209-1221.