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I think we would both agree that a theoretically imperfect diet that improves health is preferable to a perfect diet that doesn't maintain health in practice.

I think we would both agree that a theoretically imperfect diet that improves health is preferable to a perfect diet that doesn't maintain health in practice. However, it's not "all calories" at the end of the day. If all we cared about was losing or maintaining weight, then calories might approach being a tool for it. Yet it's not actually the weight we care about when we say we want to lose weight; it's the body fat we care about, and probably muscle maintenance, which is why CICO falls apart. Diets composed of different macro ratios can have drastically different outcomes, and what's funny about that is most camps ranging from vegans to carnivores implicitly agree on this, yet many still choose to elevate theoretical physics above physiology. A lump of coal has measurable "calories" when burned in a bomb calorimeter. That doesn't mean that a human will oxidize a lump of coal and produce calories. A human can eat carbs or fat, but they result in different outcomes because those things are fundamentally metabolized and utilized differently. Even different types of carbs and different types of fat have different effects from each other, regardless of caloric value. In terms of a person's health status, calories are hardly relevant. Also, most people don't even come close to measuring their "calories." When they lose weight counting calories, they are getting lucky by figuring out how much it takes to under eat, which can also mean unnecessary muscle loss when they don't take into account the composition of what they are eating. Many people who count calories either struggle to lose that weight or lose a ton of muscle because they believe that a calorie is a calorie and that therefore they can eat crap and "run it off." In either case, they're not really measuring what they think they're measuring because calorie counts on food are allowed to be as far off as 20%, and virtually nobody weighs their feces to estimate how many consumed "calories" didn't actually get used.

JohnMakin 3y ago
When you're at a caloric deficit your body will begin to burn fat. It doesn't make a difference what kind of calories you're intaking - your body literally does not know. What you're speaking to wrt fat loss vs weight loss is a much more complicated subject than just eating the right foods and having a calorie deficit.
- ravenstine 3y ago
  There's no "caloric deficit." Your body stores and oxidizes fat because it needs to get the appropriate mass from somewhere. If the body has fat to oxidize, then there's no deficit of anything. > It doesn't make a difference what kind of calories you're intaking - your body literally does not know. You're conflating a few things here. Fundamentally, you're saying that the body doesn't contain an internal calorie counter. In that sense, you are absolutely correct. The human body, and pretty much all organisms performing respiration, does not keep track of calories in any capacity or measure mass. The only thing the body can do is delegate different kinds of mass to the places in different cells where their presence would be of benefit to the survival of the system. That's really it, though it's a bit of an oversimplification. However, if we correct "kind of calories" to "kind of mass", and drop the whole idea of the body "knowing" something, then what you are saying is fundamentally untrue. It is not controversial in any way that the cells in the human body, and all creatures for that matter, treat macronutrients differently and prioritize them in ways that are not equivalent. Yes, it's more complicated, but food composition is way up there in terms of importance.
- vlod 3y ago
  >When you're at a caloric deficit your body will begin to burn fat. It doesn't make a difference what kind of calories you're intaking Of course it matters. Here's an experiment. Drink only 12 cans of soda (~140 cals each) spread over the day (so 1680 cals total). Assuming a BMR of 2000 cals (standard male), you're at a deficit. Assuming you start drinking as soon as you get up and last one just before you got to sleep, will you lose weight? No.. because your insulin is constantly spiked throughout the day which inhibits fat burn. Now try it with broccoli (or even just fat).

JohnMakin 3y ago

When you're at a caloric deficit your body will begin to burn fat. It doesn't make a difference what kind of calories you're intaking - your body literally does not know. What you're speaking to wrt fat loss vs weight loss is a much more complicated subject than just eating the right foods and having a calorie deficit.

ravenstine 3y ago
There's no "caloric deficit." Your body stores and oxidizes fat because it needs to get the appropriate mass from somewhere. If the body has fat to oxidize, then there's no deficit of anything. > It doesn't make a difference what kind of calories you're intaking - your body literally does not know. You're conflating a few things here. Fundamentally, you're saying that the body doesn't contain an internal calorie counter. In that sense, you are absolutely correct. The human body, and pretty much all organisms performing respiration, does not keep track of calories in any capacity or measure mass. The only thing the body can do is delegate different kinds of mass to the places in different cells where their presence would be of benefit to the survival of the system. That's really it, though it's a bit of an oversimplification. However, if we correct "kind of calories" to "kind of mass", and drop the whole idea of the body "knowing" something, then what you are saying is fundamentally untrue. It is not controversial in any way that the cells in the human body, and all creatures for that matter, treat macronutrients differently and prioritize them in ways that are not equivalent. Yes, it's more complicated, but food composition is way up there in terms of importance.
vlod 3y ago
>When you're at a caloric deficit your body will begin to burn fat. It doesn't make a difference what kind of calories you're intaking Of course it matters. Here's an experiment. Drink only 12 cans of soda (~140 cals each) spread over the day (so 1680 cals total). Assuming a BMR of 2000 cals (standard male), you're at a deficit. Assuming you start drinking as soon as you get up and last one just before you got to sleep, will you lose weight? No.. because your insulin is constantly spiked throughout the day which inhibits fat burn. Now try it with broccoli (or even just fat).