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Nobody is arguing that reducing calories to below the amount spent will not cause weight loss. Of course it will. I know however that if I ate 1900 calories i

Nobody is arguing that reducing calories to below the amount spent will not cause weight loss. Of course it will. I know however that if I ate 1900 calories in sugar a day, let's say by drinking two 2-liter bottles of Coke, I would be constantly hungry. Eating 1900 calories in high-fat high-protein food however leaves me more than satiated. I think by focusing on the arithmetic in isolation you're making dieting much more difficult than it need be.

buckbova 12y ago
I agree. Would you lose more weight drinking two liters of coca-cola a day or eating the equivalent total calories in a high-fat protein rich food? I would think your body would burn through the straight sugar calories much faster than the protein. But consuming all the sodium in the coca cola product might cause water retention. Toss up. But most if not everyone's diet will never be that one-dimensional.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  > I would think your body would burn through the straight sugar calories much faster than the protein. But consuming all the sodium in the coca cola product might cause water retention. http://zestnzen.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/nutritionenergyhunger.jpg http://zestnzen.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/nutritionenergyh...
- joelrunyon 12y ago
  You completed omitted any impact that hormones will have on this equation. The sugar you eat in Coke is going to send your blood sugar / insulin levels to sky rocket. High insulin levels cause fat storage. You could "lose" weight, but your body composition (or body fat percentage) certainly won't improve.
  - evol262 12y ago
    This isn't how homeostasis works at all. Insulin levels cause fat storage in order to lower blood sugar levels. If all you did was chug two 2-liter bottles of Coke, you'd temporarily go through lipogenesis, then go back through lipolysis to pull the stored calories back out for use later in the day. Insulin doesn't magically make you fatter if you're consuming the same number of calories. A high protein/fat diet is more satiating and you consume less calories, but insulin is not evil.
    - joelrunyon 12y ago
      I think we're arguing semantics. Most people when they say they want to lose "weight" meant they want to lose "fat" and improve body composition. Focusing solely on calories in / calories out omits any effects hormones have on fat burning / storage. In your scenario - yes - if someone drank 2000 calories of coke and that's it, they might not get "fatter", but that's not how real life works. 99/100 times, that person who drank 2000 calories of coke is going to be starving shortly afterwards and isn't going to simply "fast" and let lipolysis take place. Instead, because sugar causes ridiculous cravings - they're probably going to crack and down another 1,000 calories of another carb intensive, sugary food ('cause cravings) until their calorie intake exceeds their calories used and their hormone levels are thoroughly trashed. I like hypothetical scenarios as much as the next guy, but focusing strictly on calories in / calories out and ignoring hormone imbalances, cravings and other real-life factors are typically symptoms of someone who reads lots of books, but hasn't has too many real life case studies to work with.
      - evol262 12y ago
        No, we aren't arguing semantics. You're arguing semantics now that you have a lot of qualifiers on the statement you made earlier. Your initial assertion was that high insulin levels cause fat storage (really, insulin causes blood glucose to drop, either through glycogen uptake in muscle tissue or lipogenesis and glucagon causes it to rise via the opposite mechanisms) in response to the prompt: > Would you lose more weight drinking two liters of coca-cola a day or eating the equivalent total calories in a high-fat protein rich food? I'm sorry that my made-up scenario isn't the same as your made-up scenario, which now has a ton of conditions and it suddenly "real life". Yes, in real life, someone who consumes 2000 liquid calories is going to be hungry. As is someone who consumes 2000 calories of bread. Or donuts. Or anything else which is digested rapidly (and this is exactly why I brought up satiation). But this isn't a "hormone imbalance." This is, in fact, absolutely typical and ideal action from hormones doing their job, unless your made-up-real-world scenario now also involves people with insulin resistance. Because 2000 calories is 2000 calories, and while studies show that the normal metabolic range is +/- 200kcal from calculated bmr, "hormones" are not some wild card. Men eat more (higher bmr, testosterone promotes liposysis and better nutrient partitioning), but a man or a woman doesn't go through massive hormonal changes on a regular basis, and consumption of an equivalent number of calories from different macronutrient groups can be expected to have about the same effects on composition (unless it's all protein, in which case you get to worry about dying). If you want to discuss hypothetical scenarios (2000 calories of sugar vs equivalent total calories in a high-fat protein rich food), discuss them. But don't change your stance when someone questions you.
  - icelancer 12y ago
    > High insulin levels cause fat storage. You need to read more than your confirmation bias-laden sources if you believe these things. Stop reading Taubes and pick up Aragon and McDonald. The best way to actually learn the truth is to read something that runs counter to your viewpoint and analyze it.
    - joelrunyon 12y ago
      > The best way to actually learn the truth is to read something that runs counter to your viewpoint and analyze it. The best way to learn the truth is to experiment for yourself and see what actually happens. I'm always willing to read counterpoints - but I've yet to see anything that counteracts the fact that high insulin levels prevent the fat burning process from taking place. Insulin isn't evil and if you time it right - it can actually be quite beneficial, but chronically elevated insulin levels are a problem for people trying to burn fat. I'm happy to read any links you want to send my way. In the meantime, I suggest you take a look at John Kiefer's work at http://body.io http://body.io to see how your hormone levels can have a bigger effect on your overall body composition than straight calories.
  - phaus 12y ago
    >body composition (or body fat percentage) certainly won't improve. It most certainly would improve. He might have a better result with a more reasonable diet, but he would still see a significant reduction in his body fat percentage if he stayed on the diet long enough.
- deeviant 12y ago
  It is more complex then the situation you presented. Sugar is literally a poison, it's the reason why unchecked type 1 diabetes leads to deterioration of various organs. The body knows this but also runs on the stuff, so it tries to keep it at a sane level that does the least amount of damage to the body while still providing enough energy to run. When blood sugar spikes, the body starts storing in the liver, when that storage is used up, it starts converting the sugar into cholesterol(and fat). Insulin is the primary hormone involved in this mechanism. So the body starts storing the energy in alternative non-immediately usable forms not because it runs out of storage and an excess of sugar in the blood is extremely harmful. Protein based or complex carbs which convert to sugar interaction with this bodily hysteresis differently. It does not cause the blood sugar spike and the associated insulin surge. Using a completely different line of logic, it's trivial to say that energy in / energy used is the dominating factor in weight gain or loss, when you examine people that eat a lot and don't gain weight regardless of exercise/fitness related factors, vs those that eat moderate portions with moderate exercise but nevertheless do not lose weight. In short, there are a lot of factors involved here.
  - vacri 12y ago
    Sugar is not literally a poison. Anything ingested to excess is bad for you, even water.
    - deeviant 12y ago
      "a substance that is capable of causing the illness or death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed." Water can be a poison if it wants to be too, however, sugar is orders of magnitude more poisonous than water. Sugar is not a substance like water in which "hey if you drink enough water, more than most people can even if they were trying to, you can die." It's more like, the body is constantly struggling to keep blood sugar levels at a level that won't kill it, and there are great many metabolic disorders in which it fails to do this, and dies. Also, there are diets which can simply overwhelm the body's ability to regulate blood sugar levels, some which lead to the body dying, see: type 2 diabetes. If you count up the premature deaths(looking at human-life-years lost is probably most informative) associated with type 2 diabetes and heart disease related to sugar-induced metabolic disorders, one might be surprised that the poison we call sugar may have one of the highest kill counts of all known poisons. And to top it off, it happens to be a poison that we are, by an unfortunate evolutionary happenstance, generally addicted to. Oh yeah, it's also supported and pushed by multiple billion dollar industries with significant lobbying power.
toomuchtodo 12y ago
"Calories count. Macros more so." EDIT: I'm on the Keto(genic) diet (protein/fat primarily) and run 3x/week. I'm losing ~3lbs/week. Start weight: 178lbs; goal weight: 148lbs. Height: 5ft 6inches. I almost never feel hungry on the diet, and plan on continuing it after I meet my weight loss goals.
- cheepin 12y ago
  Depending on how carefully you want to track how you eat, I would recommend dropping the weight loss to ~1lb per week (~500 calories under TDEE). Any faster than that and you'll probably be sloughing off whatever muscle you already have, and you probably won't like the result of that.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    I'm consuming ~140g/protein a day. Enough to build muscle while shedding the fat, but not enough to damage my kidneys during the process. EDIT: Here comes the Pubmed! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23219108 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23219108 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17383270 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17383270 TL;DR High protein diets increase kidney filtration rates; whether it causes kidney disease is inconclusive. Non-animal protein is preferable to animal-based proteins.
    - BSousa 12y ago
      I eat about the same protein as you and am the same height, but my start and target weights are slightly lower (st: 160, target:132). I track my calories/macros religiously (my wife calls it an obsession that I weight and track all the food I eat) I would still not advise you to go over 2 lbs a week of weight loss (which if you do everything right, will be about 80% fat, 10% muscle and 10% water, give or take). Just because you eat more protein (or lift weights) doesn't mean your body won't trigger muscle breakdown. It will mitigate the amount, sure, but won't just magically stop it because of high protein intake. What most likely will happen, is your body will use protein for energy. It is quite hard (only found one study that corroborates this (and it was with really untrained obese males) where there was actual muscle increase while losing fat (something along the lines of 2 kgs muscle increase and 9 kg of body fat lost over a period of 6 months I think), but interestingly enough it was a medium carb, medium protein, low fat diet. I'll try to dig up the publication when I can. Also, do note that keto/low carb (and do note, that fitness keto is different from actual ketogenic diet, the latter being more than 85% of calories from fat) diets tend to produce quick weight loss at the beginning due to water weight and I still recommend to regularly have an high carb-eat at maintenance day to restore hormone levels and fill up the muscles with glycogen (and this will make you go up the scale 2-3 pounds). (ps: high carb day = loads of fruit, some rice, bread, not icecream+cookies+chocolate) Good luck with your progress.
grecy 12y ago
> I think by focusing on the arithmetic in isolation you're making dieting much more difficult than it need be. On the contrary, I think by trying to teach a beginner all about the different kinds of food (complex numbers), and how much of each they need, you're make weight loss (learning to count) much harder than it need be. How much easier than "eat less calories than you use" can it be?
- enraged_camel 12y ago
  >>How much easier than "eat less calories than you use" can it be? Because we have no way to accurately measure how many calories your body actually uses. We only have very, very rough estimates and guidelines, and even then there are so many factors to take into account (some personal, some environmental) that it will simply overwhelm a beginner. For example, when you are at a caloric deficit, your metabolism slows down and therefore burns fewer calories too. Not only that, but your hormone balance changes too, and your body can re-prioritize which tissues to retain and which to get rid of. This is why people who lose weight don't lose just fat but also a lot of muscle, and become weaker as a result. This is why an "eat this, not that" approach works a lot better than an "eat less calories than you use" approach. The former is very clear and tangible. The other uses a lot of rough measurements and guesswork and the side effects of its results are not always ideal.
  - grecy 12y ago
    > Because we have no way to accurately measure how many calories your body actually uses. Of course we do! Weigh yourself every week for months and months on end. If you're gaining weight, you're eating more than you're using. If you're more or less maintaining weight, you're in balance. If you're losing weight, you're eating less than you're using. And yes, absolutely your body will adjust and adapt and these values will change. That's why we re-adjust and re-evaluate constantly - in fact weekly! The entire point is to lose weight, which by very definition will reduce your calorie requirements, which will then require you to again eat less calories, which again will make you lose weight, which....... > This is why an "eat this, not that" approach works a lot better than an "eat less calories than you use" approach. They're actually the same approach, one is just at a lower level of abstraction than the other. You're "eat this, not that" is basically just saying "avoid things that are very calorie dense, and as a result you will reduce your calorie intake". Of course, if I eat a lot of "this", I'm still going to put on weight, so your advice is too abstract to always work. AND to include the "emotional" part, telling me I can't eat chocolate cake or have a beer sucks and it's too hard. I'm never going to sustain that for the rest of my life. Everyone slips up.

buckbova 12y ago

I agree. Would you lose more weight drinking two liters of coca-cola a day or eating the equivalent total calories in a high-fat protein rich food? I would think your body would burn through the straight sugar calories much faster than the protein. But consuming all the sodium in the coca cola product might cause water retention. Toss up. But most if not everyone's diet will never be that one-dimensional.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
> I would think your body would burn through the straight sugar calories much faster than the protein. But consuming all the sodium in the coca cola product might cause water retention. http://zestnzen.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/nutritionenergyhunger.jpg http://zestnzen.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/nutritionenergyh...
joelrunyon 12y ago
You completed omitted any impact that hormones will have on this equation. The sugar you eat in Coke is going to send your blood sugar / insulin levels to sky rocket. High insulin levels cause fat storage. You could "lose" weight, but your body composition (or body fat percentage) certainly won't improve.
- evol262 12y ago
  This isn't how homeostasis works at all. Insulin levels cause fat storage in order to lower blood sugar levels. If all you did was chug two 2-liter bottles of Coke, you'd temporarily go through lipogenesis, then go back through lipolysis to pull the stored calories back out for use later in the day. Insulin doesn't magically make you fatter if you're consuming the same number of calories. A high protein/fat diet is more satiating and you consume less calories, but insulin is not evil.
  - joelrunyon 12y ago
    I think we're arguing semantics. Most people when they say they want to lose "weight" meant they want to lose "fat" and improve body composition. Focusing solely on calories in / calories out omits any effects hormones have on fat burning / storage. In your scenario - yes - if someone drank 2000 calories of coke and that's it, they might not get "fatter", but that's not how real life works. 99/100 times, that person who drank 2000 calories of coke is going to be starving shortly afterwards and isn't going to simply "fast" and let lipolysis take place. Instead, because sugar causes ridiculous cravings - they're probably going to crack and down another 1,000 calories of another carb intensive, sugary food ('cause cravings) until their calorie intake exceeds their calories used and their hormone levels are thoroughly trashed. I like hypothetical scenarios as much as the next guy, but focusing strictly on calories in / calories out and ignoring hormone imbalances, cravings and other real-life factors are typically symptoms of someone who reads lots of books, but hasn't has too many real life case studies to work with.
    - evol262 12y ago
      No, we aren't arguing semantics. You're arguing semantics now that you have a lot of qualifiers on the statement you made earlier. Your initial assertion was that high insulin levels cause fat storage (really, insulin causes blood glucose to drop, either through glycogen uptake in muscle tissue or lipogenesis and glucagon causes it to rise via the opposite mechanisms) in response to the prompt: > Would you lose more weight drinking two liters of coca-cola a day or eating the equivalent total calories in a high-fat protein rich food? I'm sorry that my made-up scenario isn't the same as your made-up scenario, which now has a ton of conditions and it suddenly "real life". Yes, in real life, someone who consumes 2000 liquid calories is going to be hungry. As is someone who consumes 2000 calories of bread. Or donuts. Or anything else which is digested rapidly (and this is exactly why I brought up satiation). But this isn't a "hormone imbalance." This is, in fact, absolutely typical and ideal action from hormones doing their job, unless your made-up-real-world scenario now also involves people with insulin resistance. Because 2000 calories is 2000 calories, and while studies show that the normal metabolic range is +/- 200kcal from calculated bmr, "hormones" are not some wild card. Men eat more (higher bmr, testosterone promotes liposysis and better nutrient partitioning), but a man or a woman doesn't go through massive hormonal changes on a regular basis, and consumption of an equivalent number of calories from different macronutrient groups can be expected to have about the same effects on composition (unless it's all protein, in which case you get to worry about dying). If you want to discuss hypothetical scenarios (2000 calories of sugar vs equivalent total calories in a high-fat protein rich food), discuss them. But don't change your stance when someone questions you.
- icelancer 12y ago
  > High insulin levels cause fat storage. You need to read more than your confirmation bias-laden sources if you believe these things. Stop reading Taubes and pick up Aragon and McDonald. The best way to actually learn the truth is to read something that runs counter to your viewpoint and analyze it.
  - joelrunyon 12y ago
    > The best way to actually learn the truth is to read something that runs counter to your viewpoint and analyze it. The best way to learn the truth is to experiment for yourself and see what actually happens. I'm always willing to read counterpoints - but I've yet to see anything that counteracts the fact that high insulin levels prevent the fat burning process from taking place. Insulin isn't evil and if you time it right - it can actually be quite beneficial, but chronically elevated insulin levels are a problem for people trying to burn fat. I'm happy to read any links you want to send my way. In the meantime, I suggest you take a look at John Kiefer's work at http://body.io http://body.io to see how your hormone levels can have a bigger effect on your overall body composition than straight calories.
- phaus 12y ago
  >body composition (or body fat percentage) certainly won't improve. It most certainly would improve. He might have a better result with a more reasonable diet, but he would still see a significant reduction in his body fat percentage if he stayed on the diet long enough.
deeviant 12y ago
It is more complex then the situation you presented. Sugar is literally a poison, it's the reason why unchecked type 1 diabetes leads to deterioration of various organs. The body knows this but also runs on the stuff, so it tries to keep it at a sane level that does the least amount of damage to the body while still providing enough energy to run. When blood sugar spikes, the body starts storing in the liver, when that storage is used up, it starts converting the sugar into cholesterol(and fat). Insulin is the primary hormone involved in this mechanism. So the body starts storing the energy in alternative non-immediately usable forms not because it runs out of storage and an excess of sugar in the blood is extremely harmful. Protein based or complex carbs which convert to sugar interaction with this bodily hysteresis differently. It does not cause the blood sugar spike and the associated insulin surge. Using a completely different line of logic, it's trivial to say that energy in / energy used is the dominating factor in weight gain or loss, when you examine people that eat a lot and don't gain weight regardless of exercise/fitness related factors, vs those that eat moderate portions with moderate exercise but nevertheless do not lose weight. In short, there are a lot of factors involved here.
- vacri 12y ago
  Sugar is not literally a poison. Anything ingested to excess is bad for you, even water.
  - deeviant 12y ago
    "a substance that is capable of causing the illness or death of a living organism when introduced or absorbed." Water can be a poison if it wants to be too, however, sugar is orders of magnitude more poisonous than water. Sugar is not a substance like water in which "hey if you drink enough water, more than most people can even if they were trying to, you can die." It's more like, the body is constantly struggling to keep blood sugar levels at a level that won't kill it, and there are great many metabolic disorders in which it fails to do this, and dies. Also, there are diets which can simply overwhelm the body's ability to regulate blood sugar levels, some which lead to the body dying, see: type 2 diabetes. If you count up the premature deaths(looking at human-life-years lost is probably most informative) associated with type 2 diabetes and heart disease related to sugar-induced metabolic disorders, one might be surprised that the poison we call sugar may have one of the highest kill counts of all known poisons. And to top it off, it happens to be a poison that we are, by an unfortunate evolutionary happenstance, generally addicted to. Oh yeah, it's also supported and pushed by multiple billion dollar industries with significant lobbying power.

toomuchtodo 12y ago

"Calories count. Macros more so." EDIT: I'm on the Keto(genic) diet (protein/fat primarily) and run 3x/week. I'm losing ~3lbs/week. Start weight: 178lbs; goal weight: 148lbs. Height: 5ft 6inches. I almost never feel hungry on the diet, and plan on continuing it after I meet my weight loss goals.

cheepin 12y ago
Depending on how carefully you want to track how you eat, I would recommend dropping the weight loss to ~1lb per week (~500 calories under TDEE). Any faster than that and you'll probably be sloughing off whatever muscle you already have, and you probably won't like the result of that.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  I'm consuming ~140g/protein a day. Enough to build muscle while shedding the fat, but not enough to damage my kidneys during the process. EDIT: Here comes the Pubmed! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23219108 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23219108 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17383270 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17383270 TL;DR High protein diets increase kidney filtration rates; whether it causes kidney disease is inconclusive. Non-animal protein is preferable to animal-based proteins.
  - BSousa 12y ago
    I eat about the same protein as you and am the same height, but my start and target weights are slightly lower (st: 160, target:132). I track my calories/macros religiously (my wife calls it an obsession that I weight and track all the food I eat) I would still not advise you to go over 2 lbs a week of weight loss (which if you do everything right, will be about 80% fat, 10% muscle and 10% water, give or take). Just because you eat more protein (or lift weights) doesn't mean your body won't trigger muscle breakdown. It will mitigate the amount, sure, but won't just magically stop it because of high protein intake. What most likely will happen, is your body will use protein for energy. It is quite hard (only found one study that corroborates this (and it was with really untrained obese males) where there was actual muscle increase while losing fat (something along the lines of 2 kgs muscle increase and 9 kg of body fat lost over a period of 6 months I think), but interestingly enough it was a medium carb, medium protein, low fat diet. I'll try to dig up the publication when I can. Also, do note that keto/low carb (and do note, that fitness keto is different from actual ketogenic diet, the latter being more than 85% of calories from fat) diets tend to produce quick weight loss at the beginning due to water weight and I still recommend to regularly have an high carb-eat at maintenance day to restore hormone levels and fill up the muscles with glycogen (and this will make you go up the scale 2-3 pounds). (ps: high carb day = loads of fruit, some rice, bread, not icecream+cookies+chocolate) Good luck with your progress.

grecy 12y ago

> I think by focusing on the arithmetic in isolation you're making dieting much more difficult than it need be. On the contrary, I think by trying to teach a beginner all about the different kinds of food (complex numbers), and how much of each they need, you're make weight loss (learning to count) much harder than it need be. How much easier than "eat less calories than you use" can it be?

enraged_camel 12y ago
>>How much easier than "eat less calories than you use" can it be? Because we have no way to accurately measure how many calories your body actually uses. We only have very, very rough estimates and guidelines, and even then there are so many factors to take into account (some personal, some environmental) that it will simply overwhelm a beginner. For example, when you are at a caloric deficit, your metabolism slows down and therefore burns fewer calories too. Not only that, but your hormone balance changes too, and your body can re-prioritize which tissues to retain and which to get rid of. This is why people who lose weight don't lose just fat but also a lot of muscle, and become weaker as a result. This is why an "eat this, not that" approach works a lot better than an "eat less calories than you use" approach. The former is very clear and tangible. The other uses a lot of rough measurements and guesswork and the side effects of its results are not always ideal.
- grecy 12y ago
  > Because we have no way to accurately measure how many calories your body actually uses. Of course we do! Weigh yourself every week for months and months on end. If you're gaining weight, you're eating more than you're using. If you're more or less maintaining weight, you're in balance. If you're losing weight, you're eating less than you're using. And yes, absolutely your body will adjust and adapt and these values will change. That's why we re-adjust and re-evaluate constantly - in fact weekly! The entire point is to lose weight, which by very definition will reduce your calorie requirements, which will then require you to again eat less calories, which again will make you lose weight, which....... > This is why an "eat this, not that" approach works a lot better than an "eat less calories than you use" approach. They're actually the same approach, one is just at a lower level of abstraction than the other. You're "eat this, not that" is basically just saying "avoid things that are very calorie dense, and as a result you will reduce your calorie intake". Of course, if I eat a lot of "this", I'm still going to put on weight, so your advice is too abstract to always work. AND to include the "emotional" part, telling me I can't eat chocolate cake or have a beer sucks and it's too hard. I'm never going to sustain that for the rest of my life. Everyone slips up.