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People want to blame others for their problems. Whether it's junk food, drugs, joblessness, etc. The fact is you can't get fat if you don't consume the calories

People want to blame others for their problems. Whether it's junk food, drugs, joblessness, etc. The fact is you can't get fat if you don't consume the calories. Everyone I know who has restricted calories has lost weight. I was 210, and lost 70 lbs by restricting my caloric intake (by eating vegan). I ate sugar during this time. I ate carbs. Every single person I know who's overweight simply eats too much. They also are the first to tell you that its not as simple as eating too much. It is.

da3da 14y ago
Over the past week or so I've seen a lot of food and diet related articles make the front page, and in the comments everyone is going on about how great their favorite diet is and how the science proves that it is the most effective way to lose weight. None of these people show any evidence however that their weight loss came from anything other than calories out > calories in. It's refreshing to see at least a few people like yourself who believe otherwise.
backprojection 14y ago
>People want to blame others for their problems. Whether it's junk food Sure, personal responsibility and all. That doesn't imply that a drug-pusher/dealer isn't an asshole.
omegaworks 14y ago
The human body has mechanisms for making you Hurt Real Bad when you don't have more calories coming in then going out. Maybe your ancestors had more reliable access to food resources and didn't have to develop these responses. The human population on this planet is incredibly varied. Good for you that you and the people in your social network do well following what you describe as a calorie-restricted diet. The self-satisfied responses to your N=1 sample size study, just because it validates the commonly accepted nutritional orthodoxy is what makes me fear for the public policies that come out of this debate.
- dreamdu5t 14y ago
  The science is pretty basic. It's the law of thermodynamics. Your body can't magically create fat or other weight from calories you don't have.
  - grhino 14y ago
    The number of calories are measured in a food using a bomb calorimeter can be different from how many calories of the digested food are available for use to the human body. Also, some foods require more energy to be broken down. Some foods can trigger secondary effects that change behavior which could alter metabolism. Now, I think those secondary considerations have a small impact on overall calorie consumption. For just about any food, a calorie measured by a bomb calorimeter is probably just about a calorie available to move the body, maintain the body, or stored in fat for later. The body is a tough thing to study objectively.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      I don't think that's really OP's point. The point isn't that 1 calorie for me = 1 calorie for you. We know for a fact that the digestive performance of people can vary greatly, and caloric use varies greatly also depending on person and activity level. The high variance is really besides the point, which is that if you are gaining weight, you are consuming too much for your current situation. You can either work to expend more, or reduce your intake, both of which are perfectly reasonable options. There is no objective measure for eating too much, but it's also trivially easy to find out if you're eating too much for you.
      - omegaworks 14y ago
        >You can either work to expend more, or reduce your intake, both of which are perfectly reasonable options. Perhaps I should be more clear: Your body has mechanisms for defeating your ability to work to expend more (fatigue), and driving you to eat (cravings, hunger pangs). I'm not arguing with your basic premise: you must consume less then you expend. I'm arguing with your "calorie is a calorie" dogma. For insulin insensitive people (read: overweight people), 1 calorie of fat will satisfy you more (turning on the satiety mechanism) better then 1 calorie of sugar will.

da3da 14y ago

Over the past week or so I've seen a lot of food and diet related articles make the front page, and in the comments everyone is going on about how great their favorite diet is and how the science proves that it is the most effective way to lose weight. None of these people show any evidence however that their weight loss came from anything other than calories out > calories in. It's refreshing to see at least a few people like yourself who believe otherwise.

backprojection 14y ago

>People want to blame others for their problems. Whether it's junk food Sure, personal responsibility and all. That doesn't imply that a drug-pusher/dealer isn't an asshole.

omegaworks 14y ago

The human body has mechanisms for making you Hurt Real Bad when you don't have more calories coming in then going out. Maybe your ancestors had more reliable access to food resources and didn't have to develop these responses. The human population on this planet is incredibly varied. Good for you that you and the people in your social network do well following what you describe as a calorie-restricted diet. The self-satisfied responses to your N=1 sample size study, just because it validates the commonly accepted nutritional orthodoxy is what makes me fear for the public policies that come out of this debate.

dreamdu5t 14y ago
The science is pretty basic. It's the law of thermodynamics. Your body can't magically create fat or other weight from calories you don't have.
- grhino 14y ago
  The number of calories are measured in a food using a bomb calorimeter can be different from how many calories of the digested food are available for use to the human body. Also, some foods require more energy to be broken down. Some foods can trigger secondary effects that change behavior which could alter metabolism. Now, I think those secondary considerations have a small impact on overall calorie consumption. For just about any food, a calorie measured by a bomb calorimeter is probably just about a calorie available to move the body, maintain the body, or stored in fat for later. The body is a tough thing to study objectively.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    I don't think that's really OP's point. The point isn't that 1 calorie for me = 1 calorie for you. We know for a fact that the digestive performance of people can vary greatly, and caloric use varies greatly also depending on person and activity level. The high variance is really besides the point, which is that if you are gaining weight, you are consuming too much for your current situation. You can either work to expend more, or reduce your intake, both of which are perfectly reasonable options. There is no objective measure for eating too much, but it's also trivially easy to find out if you're eating too much for you.
    - omegaworks 14y ago
      >You can either work to expend more, or reduce your intake, both of which are perfectly reasonable options. Perhaps I should be more clear: Your body has mechanisms for defeating your ability to work to expend more (fatigue), and driving you to eat (cravings, hunger pangs). I'm not arguing with your basic premise: you must consume less then you expend. I'm arguing with your "calorie is a calorie" dogma. For insulin insensitive people (read: overweight people), 1 calorie of fat will satisfy you more (turning on the satiety mechanism) better then 1 calorie of sugar will.