Calories

[RonBoyd]

That doesn't mean it's good. The best working model could still be crap. Just because it's all we have doesn't mean it's good enough.

As I said above: "Science is not about true or false but simply a search to be less wrong."

That's why diets that ignore satiety fail in the long run, and "move more eat less" is basically the same as saying "work-up an appetite", which is why it's not very helpful advice, imho.

Exactly.

 

[REattempt]

I went and had a resting metabolic rate test done. Sit in a chair and breathe into a mask for 20 minutes.


Gives you calories burned in resting state for the day.

Very accurate, for me. Using that as a baseline and tracking food, I maintain easily.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[misanman]

That doesn't mean it's good. The best working model could still be crap. Just because it's all we have doesn't mean it's good enough.


It doesn't work for me but I am not a fta guy always trying to lose weight. 1500 cals per day would not even require exercise in a normal person (no endocrine problems etc) If I eat almost any amount of carbs, at 19000 cals per day and an hour of any exercise you wanna name the weight will not come off. On the other hand I can increase my calories substantially and reduce the exercise and watch the pounds (never more that 10 or so) come off.

And the willfully ignorant person who wrote that page about No it's the calories. Is sniffing glue. Just because he cheats doesn't mean other people cheat. I know how to keep track of my diet better than any worst case diabetic I have ever seen, and have done so for years. His theory is wrong.

As has been stated, not all calories are the same or have the same effect on a person and every person is different.

And it doesn't count to say "oh yeah! Well starve for 2 weeks and see how much weight you lose", 'cause that's just stupid and admitting defeat

19000 calories per day? Wow!


Sent from my XT1575 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[imoldernu]

Didn't wanna start another thread on this, so squeezing it in here, 'cuz I have to share it....
After reading the headings to DW, it took us a few minutes to stop laughing.

The 10 Worst Foods to Eat in the Morning | Alternet

If you get to the section about pancakes, click on the highlighted link "eggs".

I'm pretty sure that if I followed the recommendations, I might starve to death.

For those who believe, and follow the guidelines of what not to eat, don't stand sideways because others may not see you.

 

[Options]

Options,
That is certainly hard for almost anyone to relate with. But I believe you. My wife genuinely hates to eat as well. She is 'saved' by her exceptions of chocolate, ice cream, and queso.
It is tempting to say you are lucky but I'm sure that's not the case. Hating to eat is like hating to breathe. There's no getting around it.
Don't know how young you may be. If you are younger perhaps it's the type of thing that improves with age. What does your doctor say?
Muir


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

How nice to hear someone else hates to eat, too (misery loves company )! Yes, few relate to people who don't like eating and who are on a perpetual diet to keep weight on. I'm actually 61 soon and have had an issue with not liking to eat/keeping on weight all my life. Getting older didn't help at all, as around the age of 50, my metabolism actually sped up for a few years (but that was most likely due to stress). Interestingly, my physicians say I'm in outstanding health.

I think whether you're trying to lose, maintain, or gain weight, it's like anything else. If you're serious about it, you'll find a way to make it happen. For males over 30, weight control become critical as you sort pass a point of no return where getting a handle on your weight becomes increasingly difficult. For females, I understand the age is even younger. I believe it's something we have no choice but to do, however, as so many health outcomes (not to mention quality of life) are related to proper weight control. Health outcomes, in turn, determine the degree of financial burden of health costs for those in retirement (and isn't that already enough of a burden if you're just healthy?).

 

[Chuckanut]

As I am looking over this discussion the TV has a cooking show on showing how to make 'healthy' whole wheat blueberry muffins. The main ingredients are pulverized whole wheat flour, white sugar, blueberries and brown sugar. That is in order by amount. Other than the blueberries, they will drive a huge insulin response in many if not most people.

Healthy? Not for me.

 

[razztazz]

19000 calories per day? Wow!


Sent from my XT1575 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

You don't count the last zero. See, my blood sugar so low I can't type straight

Bottom line: The calories uber Alles theory is another medical, pop-science turd that simply goes away with any serious observation

 

[MRG]

It's that nagging "how" thing that keeps getting in the way.

No matter how much we think we are in control of what and how much we eat, that's more of an illusion than most of us think. Sure, in the short term, we can will ourselves to do about anything, but over the long-term, not so much. That's why diets that ignore satiety fail in the long run, and "move more eat less" is basically the same as saying "work-up an appetite", which is why it's not very helpful advice, imho.

Interesting. We are in control aren't we? But still many fail long term.

We watched our neighbor drop 50 pounds by eating frozen meals. Not diet meals, she limited her calories to 1000 daily including her 140 calorie coke. A year later she's back up 60 pounds.

Our idea was to change everything about what we ate. We still enjoy many of the same foods but with awareness of the amount of calories were eating. Thanks to logging our meals I became aware of how many high calorie items we'd ingest. For example. Pasta my lord! Pasta a serving is 2 ounces! Two, two lousy ounces for 200 calories! What? I used to cook a pound for the two of us. Now what? Same with sauce, now I make my own with control of what goes in it. Less better quality red meat with some ground turkey and more mushrooms, no added stuff I don't want or can't spell.

The knowledge we gained by logging our meals was responsible for a major change in how we eat. Pasta was one example, there were many more. We do enjoy Ben and Jerry’s nightly 100 grams is ~300 calories. I never had a clue to how little a standard half cup of ice cream is either.

I suppose I might be a little obsessed about what we eat. DW just smiles as the dogs wait for me to weigh their food in the morning.

 

[sengsational]

We are in control aren't we?

I saw an only half-joking graphic of a guy's gut microbiome forcing him to grab a cupcake, lol!

 

[walkinwood]

I have a sneaking suspicion (not backed by science) that different people "absorb" different percentages of the calories they consume.

 

[sengsational]

I have a sneaking suspicion (not backed by science) that different people "absorb" different percentages of the calories they consume.

Absolutely not. If you take food, put it into a device called a "bomb calorimeter" and you burn the food, measure the energy output, subtract the energy that you used to burn the food, that is EXACTLY the number of calories that every single person gets as energy. Except maybe not.

 

[walkinwood]

Absolutely not. If you take food, put it into a device called a "bomb calorimeter" and you burn the food, measure the energy output, subtract the energy that you used to burn the food, that is EXACTLY the number of calories that every single person gets as energy. Except maybe not.

The food needs to be digested so that the energy released can be used by the body or stored. What if the system isn't digesting food efficiently?

Like I said earlier, I don't have anything to back this up, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Amethyst]

Where I come from, a pound is two whole boxes of spaghetti. I cook one 8-ounce box for 3 people, and none of us is dieting. Never occurred to me to open a second box.

Not judging; just finding this interesting.

Amethyst

Pasta a serving is 2 ounces! Two, two lousy ounces for 200 calories! What? I used to cook a pound for the two of us.

 

[DrRoy]

I do not try to track calories. If I find I have gained some, I just eat a little less until I am back to par. That is what you would have to do anyway without the extra work.

 

[RonBoyd]

This article is for "Insiders" but us lay people can gain a lot from it:

How to beat health & fitness quacks at their own game: A guide for science-based practitioners. | Alan Aragon's Blog

Here’s a test: head to the mall and ask a dozen random people who they’d consider to be the most influential person in health and fitness.

Unless this particular mall shares a parking lot with Gold’s Gym Venice, the top 3 responses will be Dr. Oz, Jillian Michaels, and The Food Babe.

Ever wonder why the mainstream health and fitness industry is so heavily dominated by quacks and hucksters? There’s no shortage of capable and educated practitioners – why do so few ever bust through the glass ceiling into mainstream popularity?
...
It’s no secret – at least among real fitness pros – that the trainers and health gurus basking in the limelight are among the worst at their craft.

 

[athena53]

Interesting thread. I believe the CICO is pretty much true, but that some people do burn calories faster than others due to factors such as medications, intestinal flora (the longer food stays in your intestine, the more nutrients get absorbed) and whether your body is in "starvation mode".


I don't count my daily calories in although I do log workout calories and those are close to 5,000 per week. I also read a lot of labels because, as noted earlier, a "serving" can be a joke. I calculate total calories in the package, then figure what % of the package I'm likely to eat in one sitting. Over the last few years I've changed what I eat to include far more fruits and vegetables, less refined sugar, less meat (vegetarian 2 days a week) and more nuts and legumes. It's worked well. I just bought 4 Russell Stover chocolate-covered, cream-filled Easter eggs (110 calories each) but will enjoy them over the next few weeks, not all at one sitting.

 

[MRG]

Where I come from, a pound is two whole boxes of spaghetti. I cook one 8-ounce box for 3 people, and none of us is dieting. Never occurred to me to open a second box.

Not judging; just finding this interesting.

Amethyst

Interesting, every brand of pasta I can find is a pound of dry pasta. Except the lasagne noodles I'm cooking for a traditional Easter lasagna are only 13.5 ounces. How does that figure?

This is considered a overweight state, perhaps that's the cause?

 

[Chuckanut]

I think the main point lost in all of this discussion about we we 'do' is that if we eat real foods (not stuff made in plants, but food grown on farms) our bodies will automatically adjust our appetite to even things out in the long run.

I have photos of some of my ancestors in their 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's. Most are fairly thin, though some in their 60's and up seemed to had become bigger (but, that was after the time the gubmint told us to eat less fat and more processed carbs). Somehow they stayed thin most of their lives without counting calories or anything else.

 

[AllDone]

My guess would be that your ancestors lived a modestly different lifestyle. I suspect they weren't spending three hours a day commuting by auto, to and from their completely sedentary jobs, and then slumping in front of Iron Chef, The Biggest Loser, and Serious Eats at night. Your great-grandmother was probably at home cooking, rather than trapped in the office all day. I'm pretty darn certain that there weren't hyper-palatable fast foods on every street corner and eight aisles of hyper-palatable treats in every supermarket. Or any supermarkets.

Of course, it could also have been the government's anodyne, common-sense recommendations, too.

 

[RonBoyd]

My guess would be that your ancestors lived a modestly different lifestyle.

However, the actual "ancestors" that are troubling are those who lived in my lifetime. In the Fifties (for instance) everyone had 2nds... or as many helpings as they needed to be "done" eating. We had big bowls of cereal with milk and lots of sugar for breakfast. In fact, everyone was encouraged to eat more. There were no "fat" people, however... well okay maybe a few but they were nothing of the size that the average person is today. (I seem to recall a photo of the "Fat Man" in the 1800's Barnum & Bailey Circus who looked like today's "normal-sized" man.)

Something happened in the 60's and 70's that changed things -- perhaps food production, perhaps Government interference, perhaps something not yet thought of, perhaps all of the above. I suspect that this issue is so complex (even, more so, complicated) that the solution will turn out to be a long time in coming.

In the meantime, we each, as individuals, must find our own unique answer -- the "n=1 experiment" -- and not accept someone else's simple solution -- particularly from those with a financial incentive to get people excited.

 

[MRG]

My guess would be that your ancestors lived a modestly different lifestyle. I suspect they weren't spending three hours a day commuting by auto, to and from their completely sedentary jobs, and then slumping in front of Iron Chef, The Biggest Loser, and Serious Eats at night. Your great-grandmother was probably at home cooking, rather than trapped in the office all day. I'm pretty darn certain that there weren't hyper-palatable fast foods on every street corner and eight aisles of hyper-palatable treats in every supermarket. Or any supermarkets.

Of course, it could also have been the government's anodyne, common-sense recommendations, too.

The amount of processed food in any modern grocery store is amazing. An early attempt to clean up our diet and eat more nutrient rich food was to eat the majority of your food from the perimeter of the grocery store. Why? Generally stores have produce, meats and dairy there. What else do we need for sustaining life? (OK, grains) That's only three aisles of how many? The Super Walmart I go to has two aisles of chips and another one for candy. Don't get me started on those "meals" made from fake chicken and other ingredients.

I belive the amount of cheap, nutritionally poor, calories is a big factor in why so many folks have weight issues. Even after weighing our food for months I don't feel comfortable winging it. People are naturally poor estimators of what they consume.

 

[Amethyst]

We've found that after going back to unprocessed foods and going without the so-called hyper-palatable foods for a while, the processed foods are not palatable any more. You can actually taste the added crud.

We humans are not, thank goodness, pet animals who blindly eat any kind of fake nutriment that's been treated to smell good to them.

The hard part, for me, is that preparing whole, unprocessed, balanced meals is time-consuming and kind of tiring. I'm not a born cook or foodie; simply a woman who is determined to feed herself and others on healthy food. I can well see why many others do not bother.

Amethyst

 

[RonBoyd]

We've found that after going back to unprocessed foods and going without the so-called hyper-palatable foods for a while, the processed foods are not palatable any more. You can actually taste the added crud.

An excellent example of the kind of n=1 experimentation I was referring to.

 

[dixonge]

That doesn't mean it's good. The best working model could still be crap. Just because it's all we have doesn't mean it's good enough.

It's not 'all' we have, but it is the most accurate, imho. Unless you have another model that explains it better

And the willfully ignorant person who wrote that page about No it's the calories. Is sniffing glue. Just because he cheats doesn't mean other people cheat. I know how to keep track of my diet better than any worst case diabetic I have ever seen, and have done so for years. His theory is wrong.

And yet has worked perfectly fine for me. I've lost 50 pounds just counting calories -- which is pretty amazing for a wrong theory...

As has been stated, not all calories are the same or have the same effect on a person and every person is different.

This is true, but the difference is rather small.

And it doesn't count to say "oh yeah! Well starve for 2 weeks and see how much weight you lose", 'cause that's just stupid and admitting defeat

It's a perfectly valid point. If no food = death, and a LOT of food = weight gain, then that proves CICO. If someone could continually eat more and more and never gain weight, well - that would prove it wrong. Fairly simple, really...

 

[dixonge]

It's that nagging "how" thing that keeps getting in the way.

No matter how much we think we are in control of what and how much we eat, that's more of an illusion than most of us think. Sure, in the short term, we can will ourselves to do about anything, but over the long-term, not so much. That's why diets that ignore satiety fail in the long run, and "move more eat less" is basically the same as saying "work-up an appetite", which is why it's not very helpful advice, imho.

Well satiety is certainly part of the equation. I make no claims to having some sort of extraordinary willpower. If I had such, I'd have never gained all the weight I did. I didn't hit 240+ eating rabbit food

But I did lose 50+ over the last couple of years. I switched to more nutrient-dense foods (vs calorie-dense). I dropped most meat and dairy. I laid off the sweets and drank less. But I did so in a way which avoided 95% of anything approaching a hunger pang. I've never felt starved or deprived. Just lighter. I also walked more. I keep intending to do more exercise but have never been able to get that habit going (yet). So I am moving more and eating less, taking my own advice. I can only say that it has worked wonderfully for both myself and my wife.