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> What causes us to eat more calories than our bodies require? One big reason is eating foods that aren't filling relative to the energy and nutrients they pro

> What causes us to eat more calories than our bodies require? One big reason is eating foods that aren't filling relative to the energy and nutrients they provide. There's nothing unique about carbs in that regard. I can barely put away a 1000-calorie meal with an equal amount of calories from chicken breast and white rice (100+ grams of carbs just from the rice). Putting away the same amount of calories split between chicken breast and greens would be almost physically impossible--I ate a whole pound of grilled asparagus with my chicken breast on Sunday, and the asparagus barely amounted to 100 calories. But I can easily put away a 2000-calorie pepperoni pizza with extra cheese. If you think carbs are the calorically-dominant macronutrient in that pizza, think again. I'm not blaming the fat either. My point is that the issue goes much deeper than simple macronutrient composition.

iand 14y ago
Fats and proteins are more filling and satisfying per gram than carbs. The pizza example you give is basically wrong. Carbs would be the largest source of calories. For example see http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fast-foods-generic/9307/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fast-foods-generic/9307/... which is for a 2500 calorie pepperoni pizza. Almost half the calories come from carbs.
- psykotic 14y ago
  > Fats and proteins are more filling and satisfying per gram than carbs. Again, that statement makes no sense. You don't eat carbs, fats and proteins. You eat foods. Is 100 calories of olive oil as filling as 100 calories of asparagus (about a pound)? If that's too extreme, I'd still gladly put up your 100 calories of olive oil (a few spoonfuls) against my 100 calories of white rice (a small bowl) for satiety and fullness. Different macronutrients stimulate hormones differently, so I'm not saying that macronutrient composition doesn't play a role in these matters, only that those effects are mostly irrelevant if you don't go overboard. For example, high GI and low GI foods have virtually identical glycemic loads when consumed alongside a lean protein like chicken breast (GI is measured by feeding food to a subject after a 12-hour fast), so even if you accept that insulin is the master regulator of fat storage (which is out of date nonsense that Taubes can't get out of his head), it still wouldn't matter appreciably so long as you eat your carbs alongside your fiber and protein. > The pizza example you give is basically wrong. I was going by the pizza recipe I usually make at home, which per slice has 200 calories from fat and 100 from carbs.
  - jcheng 14y ago
    You seem to know what you're talking about. Is there a book, author, or website you'd recommend for getting a primer on nutrition? Many of my friends are doing paleo diets, juice diets, no-carb diets and all of them have pseudo scientific sounding explanations and bestselling books espousing them. I don't personally need to lose any weight (in fact I could stand to gain a few) but I am still curious about how the food I eat is affecting my body. With everyone yelling different sets of "facts", it's hard to know where to even start.
    - psykotic 14y ago
      Lyle McDonald is the best source out there. His website at http://bodyrecomposition.com http://bodyrecomposition.com has a near-endless wealth of articles. Alan Aragon's work (http://alanaragon.com/ http://alanaragon.com/) is on a similar level, and in many ways he's a kinder, gentler version of Lyle. However, his best stuff is only available as part of his subscriber-only Alan Aragon's Research Review. James Krieger is another one whose website at http://weightology.net http://weightology.net I already referenced elsewhere in this thread. As a rule, the people whose work I lean on are those with both a deep knowledge of the underlying theory as well as clinical experience working with a range of athletes and non-athletes. Of course, you should never trust anyone unconditionally and always evaluate their reasoning on its own intrinsic merits. Someone like Charles Poliquin seemingly fits my description, but he makes most of his money from selling supplements and is always pushing his products--he recommends that you consume massive doses of his insanely overpriced fish oil, rub licorice cream on your abdomen for spot-reduction fat loss, etc--so everything he says must be taken with a truckload of salt. People like Robb Wolf and Mathieu Lalonde from the paleo community also fit my desiderata. You can learn a lot from them, so long as you keep in mind that most of their clinical inferences are so far by necessity based mostly on anecdotal data rather than controlled studies. There are also some general issues to keep in mind with the ancestral dietary approach as generally preached and practiced. There's an underlying assumption that the ancestral diet was far more uniform across cultures than the evidence shows. They also tend to downplay the evidence that grain consumption has been around for much longer than 10,000 years, indeed closer to 100,000 years, giving plenty of time for many physiological adaptations to have taken place. Stuff like that. As with everyone with strong commitments to a specific point of view, their analysis is often subject to confirmation bias. A classic case would be Robb's analysis of the traditional Okinawan diet where he completely downplayed the very high levels of carbs consumption via rice by giving virtually all the credit for the health benefits to the fatty fish consumption.

iand 14y ago

Fats and proteins are more filling and satisfying per gram than carbs. The pizza example you give is basically wrong. Carbs would be the largest source of calories. For example see http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fast-foods-generic/9307/2 http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/fast-foods-generic/9307/... which is for a 2500 calorie pepperoni pizza. Almost half the calories come from carbs.

psykotic 14y ago
> Fats and proteins are more filling and satisfying per gram than carbs. Again, that statement makes no sense. You don't eat carbs, fats and proteins. You eat foods. Is 100 calories of olive oil as filling as 100 calories of asparagus (about a pound)? If that's too extreme, I'd still gladly put up your 100 calories of olive oil (a few spoonfuls) against my 100 calories of white rice (a small bowl) for satiety and fullness. Different macronutrients stimulate hormones differently, so I'm not saying that macronutrient composition doesn't play a role in these matters, only that those effects are mostly irrelevant if you don't go overboard. For example, high GI and low GI foods have virtually identical glycemic loads when consumed alongside a lean protein like chicken breast (GI is measured by feeding food to a subject after a 12-hour fast), so even if you accept that insulin is the master regulator of fat storage (which is out of date nonsense that Taubes can't get out of his head), it still wouldn't matter appreciably so long as you eat your carbs alongside your fiber and protein. > The pizza example you give is basically wrong. I was going by the pizza recipe I usually make at home, which per slice has 200 calories from fat and 100 from carbs.
- jcheng 14y ago
  You seem to know what you're talking about. Is there a book, author, or website you'd recommend for getting a primer on nutrition? Many of my friends are doing paleo diets, juice diets, no-carb diets and all of them have pseudo scientific sounding explanations and bestselling books espousing them. I don't personally need to lose any weight (in fact I could stand to gain a few) but I am still curious about how the food I eat is affecting my body. With everyone yelling different sets of "facts", it's hard to know where to even start.
  - psykotic 14y ago
    Lyle McDonald is the best source out there. His website at http://bodyrecomposition.com http://bodyrecomposition.com has a near-endless wealth of articles. Alan Aragon's work (http://alanaragon.com/ http://alanaragon.com/) is on a similar level, and in many ways he's a kinder, gentler version of Lyle. However, his best stuff is only available as part of his subscriber-only Alan Aragon's Research Review. James Krieger is another one whose website at http://weightology.net http://weightology.net I already referenced elsewhere in this thread. As a rule, the people whose work I lean on are those with both a deep knowledge of the underlying theory as well as clinical experience working with a range of athletes and non-athletes. Of course, you should never trust anyone unconditionally and always evaluate their reasoning on its own intrinsic merits. Someone like Charles Poliquin seemingly fits my description, but he makes most of his money from selling supplements and is always pushing his products--he recommends that you consume massive doses of his insanely overpriced fish oil, rub licorice cream on your abdomen for spot-reduction fat loss, etc--so everything he says must be taken with a truckload of salt. People like Robb Wolf and Mathieu Lalonde from the paleo community also fit my desiderata. You can learn a lot from them, so long as you keep in mind that most of their clinical inferences are so far by necessity based mostly on anecdotal data rather than controlled studies. There are also some general issues to keep in mind with the ancestral dietary approach as generally preached and practiced. There's an underlying assumption that the ancestral diet was far more uniform across cultures than the evidence shows. They also tend to downplay the evidence that grain consumption has been around for much longer than 10,000 years, indeed closer to 100,000 years, giving plenty of time for many physiological adaptations to have taken place. Stuff like that. As with everyone with strong commitments to a specific point of view, their analysis is often subject to confirmation bias. A classic case would be Robb's analysis of the traditional Okinawan diet where he completely downplayed the very high levels of carbs consumption via rice by giving virtually all the credit for the health benefits to the fatty fish consumption.