6 ms·

Good article on why counting calories precisely is pointless and misleading. Another factor is that food labels are often incorrect - the FDA allows them to be

by rm999 14y ago

Good article on why counting calories precisely is pointless and misleading. Another factor is that food labels are often incorrect - the FDA allows them to be up to 20% off in the USA. Even if you could figure out how many calories you consume and absorb, estimating the number of calories you burn is even more difficult.

MichaelApproved 14y ago
Counting calories might be misleading but it's definitely not pointless. You still want to target a range of calories during the day and not go over it. Even with the inaccuracies of the system, counting calories is still part of keeping healthy.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  I rely on more of a feedback loop. I eat when I'm hungry, and I monitor simple metrics like my weight, sense of well being, endurance, and physique. I adjust my food intake (but still keying off when I'm hungry), and watch the results.
  - zrail 14y ago
    The problem with relying on hunger is that, for many people, that hungry signal doesn't shut off at the right time. The Hacker's Diet[1] goes into this in great detail, but the gist is that scale weight + calorie counting is a good proxy for replacing a broken hunger signal. This is one of those things that's really hard to understand unless you experience it, so don't worry if you don't get it. [1]: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/ http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/
    - sliverstorm 14y ago
      Nah, I can understand that. I'm actually mildly hungry much of the time; part of tuning that feedback loop is identifying what level of "hungry" to consider, well, hungry.
- kwantam 14y ago
  Absolutely. Counting calories is a fast feedback loop (count each day, compare to your target, increase or decrease your intake as appropriate); you need a slow feedback loop to set the intermediate target against your actual goal (in this case, say, scale weight). The accuracy of the fast feedback loop isn't critical since you have a pretty accurate slow feedback loop to correct it. The general approach of partitioning problem solving into fast/inaccurate and slow/accurate is very useful, since it's generally hard to make something that's simultaneously fast and accurate. Note one other interesting thing about this approach: you can do unit conversions! That is, I can measure something with different units than the thing I'm trying to control. Our reference is body weight, but what we measure is caloric intake: the function we use to slowly adjust the calorie target as a function of our weight has units of calories per body mass.
- rm999 14y ago
  How do you know what range of calories to target? Or that the labels are correct? How many calories are in the burger from that food truck? That the calories you are eating are healthy? I agree with you that it's good to know roughly how many calories are in your food, but literally counting calories during a diet can be counterproductive. Most people won't count calories in the longterm, so it ends up being a bandaid solution that doesn't encourage lifestyle changes. Ultimately listening to your body (for me this includes semi-regularly weighing myself and checking my body fat %) gives a better idea of how much you should be eating and leads to a stable, longterm solution.
  - cuu508 14y ago
    Labels might be 20% off or even 50% off, but still give you ballpark figure, and is better than nothing. I haven't had patience to precisely track calories, but I find it enlightening to look at labels and compare. For example, my intuition tells peanuts are more calory-dense than carrots. But by how much? Oh, 14x! That's good to know--1kg of raw carrots might barely cover one meal, but 1kg of peanuts would power me for 3 days--careful!
    - rm999 14y ago
      >I haven't had patience to precisely track calories, but I find it enlightening to look at labels and compare Yes, absolutely, everyone should do this (I certainly know how many calories are on the label of most things I eat). But you aren't counting calories.
  - gnaritas 14y ago
    I think you miss the point of calorie counting in the first place. You count calories so that you become aware of just how excessively you've been overeating without noticing it, and where those calories are coming from. It doesn't have to be that accurate.
    - rm999 14y ago
      I realize the point, I think it's the wrong way to lose weight (and I say this as someone who lost considerable weight and has kept it off for more than ten years). Counting calories temporarily tells someone how much he is overeating, but the problem is the amount he eats is an ingrained habit. Habits die hard, eating less for a couple months doesn't change anything for most people. There is a lot of evidence that most people who diet put the weight back on because they took temporary measures to lose weight instead of making deep lifestyle changes. [Anecdotal evidence alert]: making deep lifestyle changes was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, and I believe counting calories would have distracted me from that goal.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- speleding 14y ago
  If you add up all the error margins in the article (and they don't even mention that the FDA allows published calorie counts to be off by 20%) you end up with an error margin that makes the resulting number pointless. I know the hacker in you wants a number to measure but if you know anything about math at all you should concede that calculating numbers which such a high error margin is indeed pointless.
heretohelp 14y ago
>Good article on why counting calories precisely is pointless and misleading. It's really not, you just need to eat healthy relatively unprocessed food for which it is reasonable to estimate calories and start with a baseline calorie target and adjust according to your goals as you go. This subject happens to be uh...my job...so I can answer questions if anyone has any.
- rm999 14y ago
  > relatively unprocessed food for which it is reasonable to estimate calories What I got out of the article is unprocessed foods are the least accurate when it comes to calorie counts because they aren't digested as easily. What's your job BTW?
  - heretohelp 14y ago
    http://nutrivise.com http://nutrivise.com
- JoeAltmaier 14y ago
  The article seems to contradict that - unprocessed foods are the hardest to estimate. Pounding, grinding, cooking free available calories, bringing them closer to the published number.
  - heretohelp 14y ago
    I'd say portion control is a bigger problem than any of the things you just listed. The amount of effort it takes your digestive system to process raw chicken vs. cooked chicken is obviously different, but the fact that they chose to focus on these issues doesn't make them more impactful than portion control. I was thinking in terms of cooking at home versus going to eat at a restaurant. Restaurants are far more egregious in terms of being calorific as well as highly variable and prepackaged food usually isn't that good for you.
- vijayr 14y ago
  1. The comment above says "upto 20%" - that seems a bit high, no? Is it not possible to make better estimate of calories? 2. Any thoughts/experience with raw foods? (also juicing, water fasting etc? someone documented their water fast, I can't remember the URL now. It sounded dangerous, but also awesome to know the results) 3. For a moderately active person, which is better? Eating 2 huge meals a day, or 5-6 small meals? Thank you.
mistercow 14y ago
Whether or not the raw numbers correspond 1:1 to actual calories doesn't really matter. What matters is that you adjust your caloric intake based on whether you are gaining or losing weight, and which direction you need to be moving in. Even though the relative amounts aren't necessarily exactly correct, it gives you a basis for adjustment. The same goes for counting calories burned while exercising. You may not be able to figure out an exact count, but you can get in the ballpark, and that means that you can then adjust your habits so that you are moving toward your goal. Counting the calories precisely will not allow you to scientifically formulate an optimal diet and exercise plan on paper without experimenting on yourself. It will, however, anchor you and protect you against fudging the numbers in the direction of letting you eat more or exercise less. You could, I suppose, use an unbiased rounding system to try and use only as many bits of calorie information as you believe are significant, but that's a lot more work for very little theoretical gain.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  >>Whether or not the raw numbers correspond 1:1 to actual calories doesn't really matter. What matters is that you adjust your caloric intake based on whether you are gaining or losing weight, and which direction you need to be moving in. Even though the relative amounts aren't necessarily exactly correct, it gives you a basis for adjustment. But that's the point: you cannot make accurate adjustments unless you also keep track of the type of food you eat (cooked, processed, raw, etc.). Because you have no way of knowing whether you gained weight due to taking too many calories, or because the food you ate last week was processed and cooked.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    That's one of the reasons that people who make modulating their body composition a key priority (bodybuilders) often stick to very consistent diets. By not varying the type, quality, and preparation of the food, they can modulate quantity for desired effects (bulking, cutting).
    - enraged_camel 14y ago

by rm999 14y ago

MichaelApproved 14y ago

Counting calories might be misleading but it's definitely not pointless. You still want to target a range of calories during the day and not go over it. Even with the inaccuracies of the system, counting calories is still part of keeping healthy.

sliverstorm 14y ago
I rely on more of a feedback loop. I eat when I'm hungry, and I monitor simple metrics like my weight, sense of well being, endurance, and physique. I adjust my food intake (but still keying off when I'm hungry), and watch the results.
- zrail 14y ago
  The problem with relying on hunger is that, for many people, that hungry signal doesn't shut off at the right time. The Hacker's Diet[1] goes into this in great detail, but the gist is that scale weight + calorie counting is a good proxy for replacing a broken hunger signal. This is one of those things that's really hard to understand unless you experience it, so don't worry if you don't get it. [1]: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/ http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    Nah, I can understand that. I'm actually mildly hungry much of the time; part of tuning that feedback loop is identifying what level of "hungry" to consider, well, hungry.
kwantam 14y ago
Absolutely. Counting calories is a fast feedback loop (count each day, compare to your target, increase or decrease your intake as appropriate); you need a slow feedback loop to set the intermediate target against your actual goal (in this case, say, scale weight). The accuracy of the fast feedback loop isn't critical since you have a pretty accurate slow feedback loop to correct it. The general approach of partitioning problem solving into fast/inaccurate and slow/accurate is very useful, since it's generally hard to make something that's simultaneously fast and accurate. Note one other interesting thing about this approach: you can do unit conversions! That is, I can measure something with different units than the thing I'm trying to control. Our reference is body weight, but what we measure is caloric intake: the function we use to slowly adjust the calorie target as a function of our weight has units of calories per body mass.
rm999 14y ago
How do you know what range of calories to target? Or that the labels are correct? How many calories are in the burger from that food truck? That the calories you are eating are healthy? I agree with you that it's good to know roughly how many calories are in your food, but literally counting calories during a diet can be counterproductive. Most people won't count calories in the longterm, so it ends up being a bandaid solution that doesn't encourage lifestyle changes. Ultimately listening to your body (for me this includes semi-regularly weighing myself and checking my body fat %) gives a better idea of how much you should be eating and leads to a stable, longterm solution.
- cuu508 14y ago
  Labels might be 20% off or even 50% off, but still give you ballpark figure, and is better than nothing. I haven't had patience to precisely track calories, but I find it enlightening to look at labels and compare. For example, my intuition tells peanuts are more calory-dense than carrots. But by how much? Oh, 14x! That's good to know--1kg of raw carrots might barely cover one meal, but 1kg of peanuts would power me for 3 days--careful!
  - rm999 14y ago
    >I haven't had patience to precisely track calories, but I find it enlightening to look at labels and compare Yes, absolutely, everyone should do this (I certainly know how many calories are on the label of most things I eat). But you aren't counting calories.
- gnaritas 14y ago
  I think you miss the point of calorie counting in the first place. You count calories so that you become aware of just how excessively you've been overeating without noticing it, and where those calories are coming from. It doesn't have to be that accurate.
  - rm999 14y ago
    I realize the point, I think it's the wrong way to lose weight (and I say this as someone who lost considerable weight and has kept it off for more than ten years). Counting calories temporarily tells someone how much he is overeating, but the problem is the amount he eats is an ingrained habit. Habits die hard, eating less for a couple months doesn't change anything for most people. There is a lot of evidence that most people who diet put the weight back on because they took temporary measures to lose weight instead of making deep lifestyle changes. [Anecdotal evidence alert]: making deep lifestyle changes was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, and I believe counting calories would have distracted me from that goal.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
speleding 14y ago
If you add up all the error margins in the article (and they don't even mention that the FDA allows published calorie counts to be off by 20%) you end up with an error margin that makes the resulting number pointless. I know the hacker in you wants a number to measure but if you know anything about math at all you should concede that calculating numbers which such a high error margin is indeed pointless.

heretohelp 14y ago

>Good article on why counting calories precisely is pointless and misleading. It's really not, you just need to eat healthy relatively unprocessed food for which it is reasonable to estimate calories and start with a baseline calorie target and adjust according to your goals as you go. This subject happens to be uh...my job...so I can answer questions if anyone has any.

rm999 14y ago
> relatively unprocessed food for which it is reasonable to estimate calories What I got out of the article is unprocessed foods are the least accurate when it comes to calorie counts because they aren't digested as easily. What's your job BTW?
- heretohelp 14y ago
  http://nutrivise.com http://nutrivise.com
JoeAltmaier 14y ago
The article seems to contradict that - unprocessed foods are the hardest to estimate. Pounding, grinding, cooking free available calories, bringing them closer to the published number.
- heretohelp 14y ago
  I'd say portion control is a bigger problem than any of the things you just listed. The amount of effort it takes your digestive system to process raw chicken vs. cooked chicken is obviously different, but the fact that they chose to focus on these issues doesn't make them more impactful than portion control. I was thinking in terms of cooking at home versus going to eat at a restaurant. Restaurants are far more egregious in terms of being calorific as well as highly variable and prepackaged food usually isn't that good for you.
vijayr 14y ago
1. The comment above says "upto 20%" - that seems a bit high, no? Is it not possible to make better estimate of calories? 2. Any thoughts/experience with raw foods? (also juicing, water fasting etc? someone documented their water fast, I can't remember the URL now. It sounded dangerous, but also awesome to know the results) 3. For a moderately active person, which is better? Eating 2 huge meals a day, or 5-6 small meals? Thank you.

mistercow 14y ago

Whether or not the raw numbers correspond 1:1 to actual calories doesn't really matter. What matters is that you adjust your caloric intake based on whether you are gaining or losing weight, and which direction you need to be moving in. Even though the relative amounts aren't necessarily exactly correct, it gives you a basis for adjustment. The same goes for counting calories burned while exercising. You may not be able to figure out an exact count, but you can get in the ballpark, and that means that you can then adjust your habits so that you are moving toward your goal. Counting the calories precisely will not allow you to scientifically formulate an optimal diet and exercise plan on paper without experimenting on yourself. It will, however, anchor you and protect you against fudging the numbers in the direction of letting you eat more or exercise less. You could, I suppose, use an unbiased rounding system to try and use only as many bits of calorie information as you believe are significant, but that's a lot more work for very little theoretical gain.

enraged_camel 14y ago
>>Whether or not the raw numbers correspond 1:1 to actual calories doesn't really matter. What matters is that you adjust your caloric intake based on whether you are gaining or losing weight, and which direction you need to be moving in. Even though the relative amounts aren't necessarily exactly correct, it gives you a basis for adjustment. But that's the point: you cannot make accurate adjustments unless you also keep track of the type of food you eat (cooked, processed, raw, etc.). Because you have no way of knowing whether you gained weight due to taking too many calories, or because the food you ate last week was processed and cooked.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  That's one of the reasons that people who make modulating their body composition a key priority (bodybuilders) often stick to very consistent diets. By not varying the type, quality, and preparation of the food, they can modulate quantity for desired effects (bulking, cutting).
  - enraged_camel 14y ago