One of the things I've enjoyed the most in the past 4 months has been diving into reddit.com/r/fitness. If you spend a few hours reading the FAQ on that site, plus examine.com's nutrition articles, and reddit.com/r/leangains FAQs, you will come out with a much better understanding of your diet.
There are also calculators listed in the FAQs that will help you determine what you need to eat to maintain your bodyweight, lose fat, gain muscle, etc, over a user-selected window of time.
First thing I realized - that the difference between tracking your "macros" and not is like programming with Word or with vi/emacs/slickedit/etc - the difference is AMAZING.
The next thing I realized - is that to get enough protein if you're even moderately active, you have to eat A LOT - eggs, milk, meat, tuna, and even then I still have to supplement with protein supplements.
Now, combine the diet knowledge with a beginner weight training program like Starting Strength and the effect is amazing. I've gained 10 pounds of muscle and lost 10 lbs of fat. I've doubled all my lift numbers (which are still admittedly quite low) in four months. I have far more energy and other activities - I occasionally play tennis - I play better and feel stronger.
Edited to add - and most importantly, use something like myfitnesspal.com - which is free, has a great app, and has millions of food items, and track everything for just a few weeks. it will teach you what protein/fat/carbs common foods you eat have.
to get enough protein if you're even moderately active, you have to eat A LOT - eggs, milk, meat, tuna
Any time someone specifies "A LOT" as a nutritional guide I get a little skeptical. Keep in mind when you're eating these foods the whole nutritional profile to determine if you're over-eating something (or filling yourself with LDLs). Try to balance the eggs, milk and meat with alternatives like quinoa, spirulina, lentils, bulgar, etc.
If you are going to go big on animal protein, naturally fed varieties generally have more vitamins and good fats. And of course, always drink whole milk vs the skim stuff (more vitamins + good fats - and it tastes better!!).
I've for a while now used Boku Super Protein brand powder supplement. It's completely plant-derived and very diverse, unlike most other plant-based proteins, which only source from soy.
Call me a luddite, but the idea of "supplements" in general is wacky to me (unless you have a health disorder). If I want protein I get it from food. If I want vitamins I get it from food (or other crazy things like sunlight). These things exist in nature for a reason; science didn't create the notion of a healthy body.
In fact, i'd propose that some people think about their health a little too much (myself included). Do something outside and don't eat a lot of crap. K.I.S.S.
Sure, there's nothing wrong with that approach. But, for the same reason that you might put shoes on your feet when you go do something outside, you might find employing certain other technological advances useful in achieving your goals. We don't, after all, burn wood in our cars, we use gasoline -- even though the fundamental principle underlying both is the release of energy stored in hydrocarbon-based fuel. The difference is a step-function in refinement.
It depends on how goal-directed you are in this domain. Others may have higher, more specific, or more urgent health/fitness goals.
the recommendation if you're lifting to gain strength from a number of sources is 1g to 1.5g of protein per lb of body weight. for me that's 190 to 260g/day. it's A LOT...
Actually it's 1-2g of protein per kg of weight, not lb. Unless you're on anabolic steroids or are on a protein sparing modified fast (PSMF) 1.5g of protein per lb isn't going to help you gain or retain more muscle.
Source: A week ago I read through all studies I could find on pubmed about optimal protein intake for muscle gain.
this is where i got my data - http://examine.com/faq/how-much-protein-do-i-need-every-day.... - and you're right. I aim for 200g/day which for me is 2g/kg and probably a bit more than i need. I've noticed if i work out and eat much less than that i don't recover as well.
It's 1g per lb of lean weight. That would be for a beginner, trained athletes aren't going to be putting on so much muscle so won't need so much protein.
there is no disadvantage to consuming too much protein.
Uh... there are many sources that cite problems with eating too much protein. Dehydration, kidney stress, calcium deficiency, heart disease, and other side-effects of increased fat or cholesterol levels of foods with large amounts of protein.
None of those links actually cite a disadvantage. In fact from the second:
"Finally, the authors reiterate that even if you consume “unnecessarily high protein intakes” like 1.3 grams per pound of body weight per day, this still isn’t a risk to your kidneys unless you already had kidney disease."
Another important question is whether the ratio is against total or lean body weight? If you've got a lot of fat, you may be over-calculating your protein needs.
Eating too much protein may or may not hurt. Some say excess protein taxes the kidneys (which filter it out into your piss). Some say your body ends up converting it to fat. (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/maki1.htm)
Also following recommendations from people who's goal it is to look like Lou Ferrigno may not make sense for most people.
But wikipedia claims that recent research blames artificial trans fats, not natural cis fats, for artery disease.
And skim milk tastes better than the fatty stuff. It turns out that taste is subjective and modifiable based on life experience. (That is why coffee is tolerable to adults)
Fat composition is affected by the diet of the cow. Grain fed dairy cows yield milk that's lacking in Vitamin K2. K2 is essential for regulating delivery of calcium in the body. Free calcium without K2 contributes to atherosclerosis (and other mis-placed calcium issues) without necessarily contributing to bone and dental health.
Also, most of the vitamins in milk are in the fat, which people usually remove.
Macronutirent. Basically it means one of either fat, protein or carbohydrate. Many diets will have you set a calorie goal, and then suggest a guideline what percentage of your calorie intake should come from each macronutrient group.
As someone who's successfully lost a lot of weight on a low carb / no grain diet, this chart irks me. That a handful of almonds has the same calories as a certain amount of Captain Crunch is irrelevant. The latter will quickly convert to glucose in your body, however, (unlike almonds) and that will make a huge difference in your satiety levels, insulin response (Hello, Metabolic Syndrome!), etc... [1]
Yeah, but in my experience, the people going around saying "calories are stupid" are invariably supporters of low carb diets. (Because no one else cares.)
Since June 2012, I've been tracking my weight almost daily, the food I ate, and the amount of times I've worked out. I drastically increased my workouts from October to December, working out almost 4-5 times per week, and I gained 10 lbs. This was accompanied by a change in diet, since my company started offering free lunches.
In January, I went with low-carb (less than 30g of carbs per day), and besides cutting out most carbs like bread, pasta and rice, I increased the amount of meat and vegetables I ate. I actually eat more after being on this diet than before. As well, I cut my workouts down to 2-3x per day. Since then, I've lost 15 lbs. So, with less workouts, more food, and within 8 weeks, I've lost more weight than any period in the last 8 months. When you look at the graph of my weight over time, you can see that the only significant factor in weight reduction was my low-carb diet.
anecdotal evidence I will add, I lost 30 pounds from February to July last year with a break fast that was either 2 donuts or bagels from Dunkin Donuts along with their large coffee and cream.
I simply counted calories and worked out. I aimed for 1600-2000 a day and the weight just came off. One snack I had to drop, and mean I had to because it was a binge type snack, was nuts. The calories I was consuming were silly. When I measured out my quarter cup (200 calorie average) it was shocking.
My belief, the majority of people have no clue how many calories they truly consume and even a simple picture chart like this one may be the hint they need.
There are plenty of ways to lose weight. Cutting calories is a very effective way of losing weight.
This doesn't discount the fact that cutting carbs also works. In my case, it has been working spectacularly. I believe that I don't need to cut calories or cut the amount of food I eat, and still lose weight, by choosing food that is very low in carbs. I limit myself to 1 granola bar per day, plus whatever incidental amounts of carbs I eat through other means, and I've been able to lose a lot of weight in a short period of time. I don't overeat meat or fat, I eat the same diet, just a lot less carbs.
Cutting calories is the only way to lose weight. Cutting carbs typically means people end up eating less calories, because protein is more satiating.
"Eating the same diet, just a lot less carbs"
If you're eating less carbs, that's 4 calories less for every grab of carbs you've cut out. If previously you were eating around 200g of carbs everyday (probably on the low end, honestly) you've now removed around 800 calories from your diet.
I hope you aren't suggesting that the only ways to lose weight are by lowering intake of calories below your daily usage, or increasing your daily usage of them above your daily intake through some form of additional calorie burning activity...
(cause you'll never sell a best-selling book like that)
I think only the kookiest diets ignore this basic principle. The problem is that most people can't just rationally decide "oh I'll just eat less" or "I'll just eat lower-calorie foods" or "I'll just exercise a lot more and ignore the hunger that comes with it". Well, you can decide that for a variable-length but generally short amount of time, and then billions of years of evolution kick in and hormones make you want to eat more, and eat all kinds of stuff your rational mind tells you is probably a bad idea, but maybe just this once.
Dieting is about tricking that system in one of various ways. Different things work for different people. For some people, no tricks are required but you can't just assume it's that easy for everyone.
The number of calories you burn isn't just a minor detail you can brush away.
Some sources of energy turn preferentially into fat, others promote a higher burning base metabolism. And when you say weight, you're ignoring other factors like muscle mass, water retention, others, that aren't really what we mean when we say lose weight. (Although incidentally, cutting carbs decreases water retention which is one very valid counter to the low-carb weight loss claims.)
Ignoring the very direct counter-statement by OP that he increased his caloric intake and still found success cannot be dismissed.
There are other ways to lose weight. Such as swallowing tape worms, taking a laxative with every meal, using meth, moving to the moon... The statement "Cutting calories is the only way to lose weight" is a gross oversimplification and provably false.
It isn't that simple and a group of us has proved that isn't necessarily true.
Three times I have lead several people through the Whole30 Challenge laid out the Whole9 website mentioned above. We all ate a ton of food and lost fat and almost all of us lost weight. If anything, our caloric intake stayed the same or went up.
(BTW: the goal wasn't to lose weight. It was to become healthier. Last month, someone improved their cholesterol numbers by 93 points by eating that way.)
Assume there are 3,500 calories in 1 pound of body fat.
Then cut, say, 300 calories daily out of your diet for, say, 3 years.
That's 109,500 calories a year or 328,500 calories over 3 years.
328,500 calories divided by 3,500 calories/pound is 93 pounds.
The math isn't that straight forward, but many people use the very math to explain weight loss, at least in the short term. I just can't buy into the math that 'calories in' equals 'calories out'.
That said, I've done the 30-day challenge three times, not restricted my caloric intake, and still lost weight (lost fat quicker than I gained muscle mass). So, even in the short-term, you can lose weight without restricting calories.
* Cutting carbs typically means people end up eating less calories*
Mostly true, but ore specifically, cutting carbs means that you are sending less sugar into your body. Less sugar means it is more difficult for the body to produce fat. Fat is more dense than muscle and the reason most people diet is to lose the fat.
I am not sure this is scientifically accurate, but this is how I make sense of it:
When I eat Paleo, my body thinks it is surround by high quality energy sources. It gets fed those energy sources frequently. The body recognizes that there is low risk that it will go a short period of time without high quality energy. It determines that it has little use for the fat it has stored on the body. The body then converts the fat into energy. Your body enters into a phase where you go for weeks (or months) of high energy because of all the fat you are burning by eating a lot of high quality food---food a caveman would eat.
I mentioned I kept track of all the food I ate in June 2012, and even after increasing my calories after going on low-carb, I still lost weight. What part of that did you not understand?
Just came back from seeing a nutritionist, I had been eating less than 40 grams of carbs a day ... she told me that I need to ramp it up to about 200 grams a day, and need to increase my intake of fiber.
Carb free or low carb isn't entirely healthy either.
It depends on what your goals are, and what foods you eat. I eat A LOT of spinach, it basically replaced bread, pasta and rice for me. As well I eat bell peppers, broccoli and other veggies. They may have some carbs in them, but not a whole lot.
Eat less calories than you use each day. (fullstop!)
While true, that statement is useless. It doesn't take into account the effect insulin has on the ability one has to actually take in those fewer calories. It also doesn't take into account metabolic pathways that allow one to eat more of certain kinds of foods than others.
The scientific literature is pretty clear (once you filter out the government propaganda that caused 300 million people to be unwitting participants in a dietetic experiment):
If you[1] want to loose weight and be healthier, screw calories and worry about insulin (full stop!)
There is nothing that more closely predicts insulin reaction than the number of carbs you are eating. Cut out all the simple carbs (which includes the bags of sugar we've cultivated as most fruit) and focus on fats, protein and very complex carbs and you will lose weight. More importantly, nothing has been shown to affect metabolic disorder[2] as positively.
I look at it like this: what do we use to fatten cattle up before we slaughter them? It's corn. Now look at every nutrition label to see what is in it. Is it surprising we are fat, too?
1. The body is incredibly complex. There are people who will respond better on other diets. So take any general study with a grain of salt and experiment on yourself to find what works!
2. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, heat disease, hypoglycemia, type 2 diabetes, gout, and others have all been lumped together into a disorder that strongly appears to be the result of hyperinsulenimia (eg too much insulin in the blood stream).
If I put 10 gallons into my tank every day, but use 11 gallons daily.. I'm "using up" gas. That's all that matters.
Of course, there are many, many, many tweaks to be made, but for the majority of people, who need to lose a massive amount of weight, if they eat less calories than they use, they will lose weight. End.
I've lost a massive amount of weight (170 pounds). It isn't that easy. If it was that easy, I would never have had to go to the lengths I went to in order to lose it and what I have to do to maintain that loss.
What the basic calorie-in-calorie-out equation doesn't take into account is that it is a biological imperative to eat. That means you have to find the way to balance those calories that overcomes that.
Some people (usually the people espousing "it's just a calorie") have a metabolism that, for whatever reason, either doesn't cause them to be hungry or allows them to eat whatever. Great for them.
For those of us who struggle daily with this issue, "willpower" isn't enough. We need to find the way that overcomes the biological, hormonal imperative that drives people to eat.
And just saying "cut calories" does not work. Three percent of obese people will manage to lose weight by dieting. Do you think they are just "too ignorant" to "get" the equation? Or are they just "too lazy" to do what needs to be done? Because I know that neither is the case.
Edit: The other component, which really screws up an "engine" analogy, is that your "engine" becomes more efficient the less you feed it. If you need 1500 calories a day today and so start eating 1300 calories a day, soon, your engine will only take 1300 calories a day to run. Great, bump up the exercise so you burn 200 calories a day. Soon, your engine only needs 1100 calories a day and you feel lethargic all the time.
I've attended hundreds of Weight Watchers meetings over many years and I've personally seen at least 1000 people go from being completely helpless with weight loss to losing somewhere between 50-200lbs each. It's a great achievement.
> What the basic calorie-in-calorie-out equation doesn't take into account is that it is a biological imperative to eat.
I didn't say eating less calories than you burn is mentally easy. It takes discipline and hard work, no doubt about it. We all have slip-ups and set backs along the way, which is all part of it. Nothing worth doing is easy.
> And just saying "cut calories" does not work. Three percent of obese people will manage to lose weight by dieting. Do you think they are just "too ignorant" to "get" the equation? Or are they just "too lazy" to do what needs to be done? Because I know that neither is the case.
In my experience watching at least a thousand people lose a massive amount of weight, every single one of them did it by slowly reducing their calorie intake, and increasing their activity to burn more calories.
Why did they need WW for that?
There are a variety of reasons, though I think Number 1 is that people honestly don't know fries, coke, burgers, chocolate, alcohol, etc. aren't food and you shouldn't eat them regularly. They are so enormously calorie dense they mess everything up.
Reason number 2 is simply being completely and utterly overwhelmed by the contradictory and complicated information about weight loss, causing them to give up completely. This is evidenced by the > 200 comments here.
> Your "engine" becomes more efficient the less you feed it.
Of course it does!
So next week/month will be a different intake/burn than last week/month. It's a constant process to make sure you're eating less than you take in. Although, again being honest here, anyone that is 100lbs+ overweight can likely just cut out one enormous calorie dense food (soda or fast food for a lot of people) and they will lose weight for a long time before they need to re-jig the equation, because they've been eating an enormous number of calories for a very long time.
Don't be confused and think I said it's an easy process to achieve. Many people find it one of the hardest things they will ever do in their lives. I said it's a simple process to understand.
Good for you. I haven't had as dramatic a change in weight, but it's been substantial (and on-going). You really hit the nail on the head, and it's hard to describe unless you've been there. I don't honestly believe it was a willpower issue, but a lack of information/advice. The generic eat less, exercise more didn't do anything for me.
On a side note, I'd love to hear what sort of issues you have with maintaining?
All the problems can be summed up with "crappy carbs". It's actually a long story about what started me down that path (dealing with health issues), but I've actually put back on some weight (around 40 pounds...it's easy to be blind to oneself :().
What I've found is that when I start eating carb-rich food, my ability to stop snacking on carb-rich foods goes to zero. So I've cycled between maintaining where I eat a low-glycemic diet and not doing that and gaining. When I spoke of "biological imperative", I mean me: when I eat carbs, I can't stop. I never get full. I'm sure I'd be a Type 2 diabetic in about 5 years if I didn't make this change.
A few weeks ago, I dumped the crappy carbs again. I'm back full-on low-carb and have lost about half of that[1]. This time, I'm going to learn from my mistakes. :) I'm going to follow the Atkins notion of gradually increasing carbs until you find your "critical carbohydrate level". Since I've bounced back and forth, I figure realizing that fact will be helpful in my long-term maintenance.
1. Yes, a very large percentage of this is water. I'm OK with that. :)
That sounds very familiar from personal experience. Weight loss wasn't/hasn't been a straight down affair. Holidays, life, things get in the way and my experience mirrors yours quite closely from the sound of it. Even a couple days of bad carbs in a row I can see a scale jump 5, 8, 10 pounds (it seems insane, mostly water I am sure, but still insane to see that in a few days). I've been trying to learn and balance myself out and watch for those things. I do enjoy some of those bad carbs every once in a while. Figuring out how to have them occasionally and not ruin my health was/continues to be an interesting (and I feel life long) experience. It's nice to know I am not alone with those issues. Thanks for taking the time to talk about it so candidly, I really appreciate it. If you ever feel the need to reach out to someone and talk about it feel free, I would be happy to talk, learn and share.
Maybe it just is that complicated (not that I view the above as complicated, I just don't view it as simple as you make it).
> If I put 10 gallons into my tank every day, but use 11 gallons daily.. I'm "using up" gas. That's all that matters.
Imagine an engine that behaves differently depending on the type of fuel is put in it. One type of fuel causes the engine to move slower and burn less gas per unit time. So you may continue to put in your 10 gallons a day with this new fuel, but you'll notice a surplus building up because it only burns say 5 gallons a day because of this change. The output you get from the engine varies depending on what is put in it.
That's what the parent was describing. Calories in and calories out are not independent variables despite how they are treated in some research and most popular media. The type and amount of "calories in" affect your energy level (calories out) and hunger level (ability to limit your caloric intake).
Myth: For a long time people have claimed that calories in just needs to be below calories out. Recent studies have confirmed that not all calories affect us the same way when it comes to weight gain and loss.
Lets be perfectly honest here. A person that is 100lbs+ overweight is eating an enormous number of calories just to maintain that weight.
I don't even care if the keep drinking coke and eating fries, as long as they cut their calorie intake somewhat, down to below what they are using, they will lose weight. Period.
Losing weight at that point is the most important thing.
Once they've done that for a while, their body adapts and they'll have to cut more calories, as an ongoing process. In years, they will have lost a lot of weight, and they will have to cut things like Coke and fries, but that's years down the road.
For now, they need to eat less calories. Fullstop.
> A person that is 100lbs+ overweight is eating an enormous number of calories just to maintain that weight.
The point that you are missing is that this is not necessarily true. In fact, the converse may be true; that obese people require less calories to maintain their weight because they live a more sedentary lifestyle.
> I don't even care if the keep drinking coke and eating fries, as long as they cut their calorie intake somewhat, down to below what they are using, they will lose weight. Period.
> Once they've done that for a while, their body adapts and they'll have to cut more calories, as an ongoing process. In years, they will have lost a lot of weight, and they will have to cut things like Coke and fries, but that's years down the road.
And they will be literally starving, dealing with the effects of malnutrition, and have almost no energy to complete daily tasks. Switching to healthier sources of nutrition first will provide the energy the person needs as well as the ability to control caloric intake, which greatly enhances the chances of success.
You seem to have made up your mind about a subject you know little about. This isn't a simple single-variable equation.
> The point that you are missing is that this is not necessarily true.
A body burns more calories for every pound of fat it has to maintain, even if sitting on the couch all day.
> You seem to have made up your mind about a subject you know little about.
Read my other comments here. I've personally witnessed at least a thousand people lose 50-200lbs each over the years due to my involvement with Weight Watchers. I think I have a good idea of what is required for people to lose weight.
I do want to point out I'm not using them to indicate "end of conversion" or "shutup" or anything like that, I'm using them to indicate that is the end of my solution/problem... as in there are no if/buts or maybes.
I think you are ignoring the fact that many people are able to eat way more calories than they burn, yet those extra calories simply don't convert to fat. I am not excessively active yet I eat significantly more calories than many people I know, yet I don't gain weight.
From things I've read [1] it seems that the vast majority of people consume more calories than they 'burn' but only in some people is it converted to unwanted weight gain. The real question, as many people have been referring to, is how do you determine whether your body hangs onto the extra calories as weight or simply disposes of it.
Saying "If you eat less energy than you burn, you will lose weight" is certainly true, but is akin to saying: "If you never get in a car your chances of dying in a car accident are significantly reduced." It's true...but not really helpful or meaningful.
> is akin to saying: "If you never get in a car your chances of dying in a car accident are significantly reduced."
Very bad analogy.
It's more like saying "If you burn more gas each day than you put in, you'll eventually start burning up your reserve tank, (until you run out)."
> but not really helpful or meaningful.
It's extremely helpful and meaningful. For the massive majority of people that are overweight, they simply need to eat less calories. Not less food. Less calories. The original article here is showing what 200 calories looks like, so it's extremely helpful for people trying to eat less of them.
You would be shocked how many people have no idea a mountain of apples is equal to a small amount of alcohol, etc. Once they learn this, they lose weight.
Source: I lived with two girls who lost over 100lbs each at Weight Watchers, one of them became a WW representative, and for years I went to meetings with her as moral support. Over the years I've personally seen at least 1000 people go from being completely helpless with weight loss to losing somewhere between 50-200lbs each. All they did was eat less calories than they were burning. Nothing else. (WW obfuscates that with their points system, but it's just calories/50)
The problem here is that many people make the mistake thinking that all of the calories "used" are calories expended as energy. For people with insulin issues, some of those calories are preferentially stored as fat and are never available to be used as energy, thus requiring them to eat more in order to make up the energy imbalance.
You're falling into the oversimplification trap. You can lose weight with a low calorie, high carb diet + running 4-5 hours a week. You can also lose weight with a low calorie, high protein/high fat diet + lifting weights 2 hours a week. Which routine is easier to keep?
I think one of the reasons people fail at weight loss is because of the conventional wisdom of low-fat (read: low-flavor) diets combined with low-effectiveness exercises like running. It's pseudo-scientific crock. If you've tried the CW and failed, try something else. Have a couple of slices of bacon instead of that plain breadstick (and avoid the urge to blow your calorie budget by slathering it in butter!) and instead of spending hours on a treadmill do high-intensity weightlifting 3x30 min a week. For your average sedentary Aeron-chair dweller, that's going to be a far more likely path to success.
That's because it is more complicated. Feel tired and lethargic after a big carny meal? Guess what - your body is driving on econo-mode and burning less fuel.
Your car doesn't partition its energy. Your body does. Gary Taubs has some interesting things to say. It's not just calories, and there are absolutely individual variances. That said, macronitrient ratios and glycemic load likely play at least some role.
This still doesn't make things terribly complex, and getting the basics down will help a lot.
It's conceptually simple, but pretends that the human animal is a lot more rational and a lot better at arithmetic than he really is. It's hard to start going through your day leaving 1/4 of your sandwich uneaten (and our restaurants, etc, are not set up to give you healthy portion sizes). People are bad at measuring their metabolic rate and bad at estimating their calorie intake. They also get hungry and it's really easy to fall back to your old eating habits when your diet plan is "eat the same food, just less of it."
The key to weight loss is sticking to your diet. That means adopting a diet that's easy to stick to. In my opinion, ketogenic diets are easier to stick to (for typical people) for two reasons:
1) there are lots of tasty, filling, foods that fit into the diet;
2) meat/dairy aren't peddled to bulk-up entrees in the same way as carbs (e.g. free tortilla chips and salsa) so cost forces some discipline;
Re: 1. Say you're at a restaurant and want to order a salad. On a low-fat diet, you might have some grilled chicken with bland greens with no dressing and a bread-stick. On the "eat less" diet, you might just leave a quarter of the food untouched and starting at you. On a keto diet, you can slather an ounce of caesar dressing on that salad in exchange for just leaving aside the croutons and breadstick. The first option fills you up, but isn't tasty. The second option leaves you a little hungry. The third option fills you up (because you eat all the greens, which take up volume) and is tasty (because even greens are tasty with caesar dressing).
YMMV, but pretending it's just a simple math equation is stupid and sets people up for failure. It is math, but it's a complex optimization problem. Each food item has two associated values: satisfaction and calories. The goal is to optimize satisfaction at a given calorie budget.
I think on a satisfaction per calorie basis, carb-y foods often lose unless you put fat/sugar in them. What would you rather have for breakfast? A two-egg omelet with an ounce of shredded Parmesan cheese, or a plain bagel (both 280-300 calories)?
You seem to think I'm suggesting eating less food. I am not.
I am saying people need to eat less calories.
They are not the same thing.
Also, anyone trying to lose weight does not need to be eating in restaurants. Obviously this is very difficult for many people, due to convenience, etc. but I suggest that if people can cut down their restaurant visits by 1 a week, they will likely lose weight.
People here seem to think I was saying the process of losing weight is easy, which I did not say. The method is simple to understand, but the execution is often the most difficult thing many people will do in their lives.
> You seem to think I'm suggesting eating less food.
> I am saying people need to eat less calories.
Your satisfaction from food isn't simply proportional to the weight or calorie content of the food. Foods aren't created equally in terms of how satisfying they are per calorie. My point is that the conventional wisdom of eating lots of bread/pasta is counter-productive simply because they're not very satisfying. A cheesy omelet isn't more or less food than a plain bagel, but for a similar calorie count I'm a lot happier 2 hours later. That's the essence of my point.
> Also, anyone trying to lose weight does not need to be eating in restaurants.
I live in New York and so pretty much only eat in restaurants (nobody here cooks). On a keto diet it's no big deal. Restaurants make money by selling you tons of carbs to inflate entree sizes. If you don't eat carbs, there actually aren't all that many ways to blow your calorie budget. If I'm at a restaurant, I can easily order a big steak and steamed veggies and mushrooms, or fish/chicken with a fatty sauce and keep within ~600-700 calories. The restaurant has no financial incentive to give me a lot of these expensive ingredients, so they don't. Psychologically, it's a lot easier to feel satisfied cleaning your plate of those things than leaving half your huge plate of pasta uneaten.
No, the goal is to have a long term, healthy, sustainable diet.
Simply reducing calories but eating mostly carbohydrates will cause the body to lose more muscle than fatty tissue. People will lose total weight, but they will not improve their health.
My sister (an M.D.) did an autopsy of a very skinny girl, who ate nothing but redbull sodas and similar stuff, who died of starvation, who looked VERY skinny, but her inner body was full of fatty tissue, with small organs and weak muscles, all because she wanted to be thin and only did calorie counting.
So please stop disseminating that harmful information, so we can save other girls like her from her fate.
> I can say to make money "buy low, sell high" but of course it is not that simple.
It is exactly that simple, it's just not easy.
> Dieting has all sorts of psychological and physical factors that vastly complicated the picture.
They make the task more difficult, they don't make the task more complicated.
I'm not saying that eating less calories than you burn is easy for people with weight issues, but it is a very simple concept to understand and work towards.
The task is complicated, since it asks for a constant choreography of the mind needing to remember to be mindful of what the body eats in a situation that is clouded by suppressed feelings regarding food. Untrained, the mind tries to constantly downplay the positive impact of the diet and tries to focus on the immediate reward of eating food.
Something can only be seen as difficult if you have a clear view of the task at hand. Chopping wood or solving equations might be difficult. Something is complicated when the mind needs many different tactics to solve a problem. Solving equations and the understanding and acting upon multiple feedback loops is difficult.
People suffering from weight problems often cannot comprehend their whole problem. Understanding the products that are eaten will focus on perception, therefor clarifying over time the big picture. It's like asking a gambler to calculate the odds of every bet he makes. Soon, the math becomes more important than the winning, thus freeing the sufferer from the emotions that are attached to food.
Another way of seeing the complications involved with food problems is by understanding that most of the food we eat nowadays is processed. For example, we tend to eat the carbs but not the fibers. This unbalances millions of years of natural evolution and allows for exorbitant high levels of insulin without feeling saturated. Counter-acting these processes that happen partly inside and partly outside our mind is a complicated process that takes years or decades of someones life.
As someone who has lost a lot of weight on a diet that is actually healthy as opposed to a hack, I protest your protest. I eat mostly the things at the top of the chart (though not the soda/milk/meat) and lost about 4 lbs a week until I leveled out at a normal weight without compromising my nutrition. [1]
[1] That said, we both agree that that kind of sugar won't fill you up. I only disagree that eating large quantities of meat or fat is in any way healthy.
There is a well-established link between fat intake and heart disease. [1] Both saturated fat and trans-fat contribute towards increased blood cholesterol and clogged arteries. That research didn't become invalid just because you can lose weight on a low-carb diet.
Now unsaturated fats at moderate levels? Absolutely necessary. A bit of saturated fat in your diet? No problem. But a diet that consists of upwards of 20% saturated fat? You might as well go on low dose aspirin while awaiting your heart attack.
(Note: there are conflicting studies, but meta-analysis seems still to side with this contention. Really the only desenting papers are funded by bigAg, on very high fiber diets or had testing flaws - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturated_fat_and_cardiovascula...)
Actually, there's a lot of counterevidence to this "well-established" link between fat and heart disease. The classic on the subject is Gary Taube's "Good Calories, Bad Calories." But also, check out William Davis' blog (he's a cardiologist who recommends a low carb diet.) Or this:
Remember when eggs used to be bad for you, because they had high cholesterol, and then they became ok again? (http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/eggs-regain-reputat...) I'm afraid I don't fully trust any source of nutritional information until I've tested it empirically.
Which I did. I cut out all grains and found that my cholesterol plummeted and I lost a lot of weight (and I have more energy.) That's on a moderate fat diet. I'm just one anecdote, of course. I invite people to experiment for themselves.
msluyter correctly points to the Inuits as a good case against what you've said. Their diet consists pretty much entirely fat and meat yet they have lower heart disease and rates of cancer.
Oh not those studies again. Those studies are wonderful until you get to the fact that the Inuit have the shortest life expectancy of any other Canadian group - upwards of 15 years shorter.
So of course you find less heart disease in that group. They're dying of TB, diabetes (of all things) and suicide long before they get heart disease.
"Analysis of the 2001 Census data revealed lower levels of education and income and poorer housing conditions for the Inuit-inhabited areas compared with Canada as a whole. Any or all of these, in addition to lifestyle risk factors and environmental conditions, could be at least partly responsible for the lower life expectancy in those areas.
In the three five-year periods studied, from 1989 through 2003, the infant mortality rate was approximately four times higher in the Inuit-inhabited areas, compared with all of Canada."
I'm down 14kg in 120 days on a keto based diet. Works brilliantly, sustainably and enjoyable. Carbs are also full of empty calories, better to eat more nutrients like fat! I'm healthier because of that.
The chart isn't particularly useful, but it's still interesting imo
Whatever works for you of course is the best. Regrettably I've been a bit preachy about keto diets before, but understand now that some people prefer calorie counting better and it works for them, so fair enough!
You can't say it's more trouble than it's worth because it's a sweeping generalisation, and different diets work better for different people.
Calorie restricted diet I have failed at many times before. Keto was difficult for the first month but now it's a doddle.
There's nothing wrong with carbohydrates either. Never said that. Carbs in moderation is a diet that most people I know seem to exist healthily and happily off. However elimination of carbohydrates is a tactic that's giving me awesome results, making me happy and more energetic. You do not need to consume carbohydrates to stay alive of be healthy.
A 12 oz NY Strip + seasonal veggies will run you about 520-540 calories. That's under half as many calories as any of the fajitas, pasta dishes, and most of the salads. It's also half as many calories as any of the sandwiches.
It's bread and pasta that isn't worth it (unless you're poor and need lots of calories per dollar). The food pyramid makes people think bread is good for you, so people dramatically underestimate how many calories they take in from bread. A typical American diet might have two slices of toast at breakfast, two pieces of sandwich bread or a bagel at lunch, and a baked potato for dinner. These are simple accompaniments, not the stars of the meal, yet they add up to a staggering 700 calories daily. You could replace that with two slices of bacon at each meal and still cut your calorie intake substantially.
The traditional definition of empty calories would be something like a spoonful of sugar.
That's an extreme example, but the idea is that the food in question provides calories without nutrients. So there is such a thing and it makes plenty of sense.
No, a spoonful of refined white sugar contains 100% calories.
It does not contain any minerals, vitamins, protein, essential fatty acids, micronutrients or antioxidants, which in the context of this discussion, is what is meant by saying it has no nutrients.
There are only 4 macronutrients (foods metabolism can run on): carbs, fat, protein, & ethanol. So if you believe protein & fat are nutrients, then you must believe carbs are as well.
'Macronutrients' are not diet 'nutrients'. Nutrients are chemicals the body needs an external supply of. Building blocks for cells and structures. They have nothing to do with metabolism.
I don't need carbs to be alive, be healthy and be energetic. The nutrition they give me is pretty much nill relative to other food groups such as fat and protein.
I think the poster is referring to them as empty calories in the sense that they provide no nutritional value. They get processed into blood sugar very quickly but do not provide the body anything essential.
Then why am I more energetic now after starving my body of carbs, than I was before the diet when my diet existed entirely of carbs? Energy does not need to be taken from carbs to survive or be healthy.
I've been losing weight lately without any fad diet. I just cut my caloric intake by 20% and boosted my caloric output by 20-30% with regular exercise.
I feel like any "diet" that is named is instantly called a fad, and that really bothers me. Paleo is more or less eating whole, unprocessed foods, with an emphasis on low sugar intake. What's so faddish about that?
It's popular right now because some dude wrote a book about it and goes around doing speaking engagements about it. In a year or two, the people who are doing it now will move on to whatever the new diet is. That's pretty much every single "fad diet" ever.
What part of Paleo is a fad exactly? It's trying to replicate consumption of food we evolved off. A pretty simple idea. Sugar/carbs are not something readily available in human history in the vast quantities we eat them today.
It's a fad because you draw your "evolutionary diet" line at the Paleolithic for no reason at all. For 100 million years prior all your ancestors ate a pure vegetarian diet. Why isn't that diet more sensible from an "evolutionary" perspective?
I don't know much about the history of nutrition. However, I will assume that prior to Paleolithic time we did eat a pure vegetarian diet.
So what? Vegetation diet 100 million years ago I'll guess that obesity is nill comparatively to today.
I'll also guess that there was comparatively virtually no obesity in the Paleolithic period.
Nowadays we live in a period where we're told pasta is healthy, or orange juice is healthy (a lot of brands have more sugar in the juice than coca cola). We all eat lots of bred, refined carbs. Sugar has never been so readily available. Parents buy their children sweets all the time.
And guess what? We're turning into a developed world of obese people and higher levels of heart disease.
So yes, a modern vegetarian diet probably is healthier and safer than sandwiches, crisps and orange juice.
Paleo diets are not fads. Our bodies are tuned to metabolise those sorts of foods. People relentlessly defend carbohydrates when they are the most likely candidate for the epic levels of obesity and other related diseases.
The question is why do you choose the Paleolithic era as your cut off? We evolved the ability to consume dairy and grains about 10,000 years ago. If you are basing diet on what we evolved to eat, why do you exclude foods that we evolved to eat?
Evolutionarily speaking, 10k years is a drop in the bucket. The paleo diet postulates that while we can eat daily and grains, we haven't evolved to do so b/c 10,000 years is too small a period in which to do so.
This is incorrect, and there are many examples to prove it. For example, alleles conferring lactose tolerance increased to high frequencies in Europe just a few thousand years after animal husbandry was invented. Similarly, recent increases in the number of copies of the gene for salivary amylase, which digests starch, are related to agriculture.
Basically, the response to the change of the environment of a species depends on three factors:
1. Heritability
2. Intensity of the selection
3. Number of generations that selection acts.
What this means is that 10,000 can be more than sufficient to fully evolve the ability to eat and digest dairy and grains.
Whilst I'm sure that is true, it certainly won't be true for the entire human population.
I strongly suspect that my excellent reaction to low carb diets is because I haven't evolved the ability to consume them as well as other humans. Clues include oral allergy to birch pollen and my 'output' when I eat dairy and grains is less than optimal.
I don't believe low carb works for everyone. It doesn't work for my wife. But it is a useful tool, that I'm very glad I found.
That doesn't mean it isn't a fad. And to be accurate, no it didn't actually happened. The cows you are eating did not exist. Neither did any of the fruits or vegetables. Almost everything you eat is much more modern than the grains you eat. Humans have been consuming grains for at least 100,000 years. There is no evidence to support the notion that grains are bad for us in any way.
Wheat is thought to be only be around 10,000 years old or so. If they were eating grains 100,000 years ago, it certainly wasn't what we are used to eating today.
Additionally, beer is considered by many to be the first significantly consumed product of grain. I don't think you could say modern day beer is completely free of any health side-effects. It gets the blame for quite a number of ailments.
>Wheat is thought to be only be around 10,000 years old or so.
Which is older than all of the vegetables that exist today, and older than cattle or chicken. "This food has evolved over time" is not support for a claim that the food is unhealthy or dangerous.
>It gets the blame for quite a number of ailments.
No, it doesn't? Alcohol does, but that's neither unique to beer nor does it have anything to do with grain.
> Net calories are king, regardless of diet macro composition.
God, I hate hearing this.
Let me guess, you say "weight" as in "gain weight" and "lose weight"?
The problems is that nearly everyone...EVERYONE actually means "lose fat, maintain muscle" or "gain muscle, lose/maintain fat".
No one WANTS to gain fat. And when losing weight, no one wants to lose muscle. So talking about "weight" is stupid. And when you only talk about net calories, the only thing you can talk about is weight.
Macros matter when talking about "losing fat, maintaining muscle", "gaining lean muscle" or "recomposition". And the simple fact is that the ratio of macros greatly effects what you are going to do, regardless of total calories.
If you don't get that, you need to spend more time researching.
I don't care about loosing muscle while loosing weight. Weigh 50 lb less and you don't need nearly as much muscle to do the same things. The simple truth is diets are temporary your body will adapt to any healthy steady state you provide it and eventually you end up in the same place.
Depends on your goals. Sure, not being a fatass first is a great goal. I'm just saying, like most things in life, there are optimal ways and sub-optimal ways to go about it. Losing muscle (which is VERY hard to put on, just FYI) and fat at the same time is very sub-optimal.
And also, for those that are extremely obese?
And what if your goal was to actually lose 50 pounds of fat, but losing muscle+fat you can't achieve your goal for 1+ year, but just targeting fat reduces that to 6-8 months. That gain in time is huge.
And, lastly, chances are that if you say "I don't care about losing muscle as well", you will if you actually achieve your goal of being a certain weight b/c you won't look like you thought (or perform as well in x activity as you would have thought). Muscle is a magical thing.
What about the thermic effect of food? 100kcal of protein yields less final energy then 100kcal of carbs.
Calorie counting will probably have you losing weight, but reduction of carbs to protein for example will assist with weight loss better. Also protein is more useful to your body than carbohydrates.
Thermodynamic laws aren't very useful when talking about weight loss and metabolism. Firstly, the human body is not an isolated system (2nd law).
Also a calorie is not a calorie. One small example, different calories have different thermic effects. I've read estimations that from protein you lose 30% of the calories from the thermic effect, and with carbs you'll lose 15%. Therefore reducing carbs and upping protein will assist with weight loss further. Calories in and out will probably have you losing weight, but it's an over-simplistic view.
The main thing that's useful about low-carb diets is that foods high in protein and fat are filling. You don't need ketosis (which is probably a harmful medical condition) to lose weight, but if you get most of your calories from carbohydrates, you'll tend to have trouble feeling satisfied without going overboard on calories.
So you're partially right about satiety levels, but in my experience eating something high in carbs won't make you more hungry; it just won't do much to make you less hungry.
When I'm doing caloric restriction, I try to eat just enough carbs to stave off ketosis, and it works pretty well.
In general, I try to eat lowish carbs (maybe 50-100g a day) avoiding mostly grain based products. When I was more seriously tracking what I ate and did a lot of weight lifting, I ended up eating a few more carbs (maybe around 200g) on training days. Basically high fat/low carb on non training days, moderate carb/low fat on training days. Protein remained the same.
The days I was more satisfied were the carb days. The problem was the next day. Whenever I ate a lot of carbs, the next day I would just feel hungry all the time even though all I ate was protein and fat. The days following not having carbs, even though I ate carbs, I rarely felt hungry.
Firstly, I am not a nutritionist. I've been weight-training for a couple of years, was vegetarian for about 8 years, and I'm back to eating meats for three years now. I also run a lot.
Right now, my diet probably consists of around 40% protein, 40% carbs, and 20% fat, to slightly varying degrees per week.
I watch what I eat and study what I eat quite a bit, though. I've tried the ketosis thing, the low-carb thing, the good high-carb thing. The only thing I've not tried was the high good-fat diet, because I tend to break out and/or get really oily skin when I eat fatty stuff. (Having said that, my skin was the best when I was ovo-lacto vegetarian.)
As everyone has said, each body is very different and the way your body uses what as fuel differs depending on your lifestyle.
Having said that, I do believe everyone has a "sweet spot". That is, a diet and exercise regime that works almost perfectly. I've read people that have been weight training for years that say they go into ketosis with around 100g of carbs a day. Many say this is impossible, but I've seen pictures of the dudes, and unless those aren't his, he seems to be doing extremely well. Personally, I could never go into ketosis with nowhere near that amount.
What I also found to be true is that you can either have lots of carbs and protein and little fat, or lots of fat and protein and little carbs. If you have lots of fat and lots of carbs at the same time, you will get fat quickly. The whole .8g to 1.5g per kilo (of your weight) for protein seems to work for me, as well.
Another thing that I've noticed that is very important, and this is with regard to what you say about insulin, is monitoring your glycemic index levels, because this is another way you can get fat. Unfortunately, this can be tricky, because theoretically, even fruits can get you fat once you consider the excess increase/energy that you do not expend.
Lastly, macronutrients! Getting in your macronutrients within your caloric intake I've found to be mandatory, especially if you're working out.
I'm of the opinion that you can eat as many fruits and vegetables as you want and it shouldn't hurt you. You might not lose weight eating too many fruits, but you'll be a lot healthier.
When I need to lose weight, my go-to is Okra. A bag of frozen okra is, IIRC, about 150 calories and eating 3/4 a bag will have you over-full.
Fruit is high in sugar (fructose). Some fruit, like apples, have low calorie density and high fiber and water content so they are very filling for the calories you consume. Others, like grapes and bananas, have higher calorie density and should be eaten in moderation just like anything else that's full of sugar.
The visualization is what it is. It's not the whole story. I can't help thinking of the nutritional value and insulinic response of most of the foodlike substances presented (some are more equal than others).
Almonds are mostly fat, and not very satiating either.
I've done the paleo/lowcarb fad diets too. They just trick you into eating fewer calories by forbidding most of the food you ate before the diet. Not to mention some versions of these diets are based on incorrect understanding of human physiology. For example, despite what the paleotards will tell you, carbs are very rarely converted into body fat. But when you eat any food in excess of TDEE, the dietary fat you eat is stored instead of used as fuel. Even if you eat zero carbs, if you eat more than your TDEE, you will gain fat.
You can't underestimate the psychological importance of tricking yourself into eating fewer calories. Carbohydrates are very calorie dense, and high-carb foods are usually psychologically less satisfying than foods you would eat on a ketogenic diet. A plain bagel has about as many calories as a 7 oz new york strip. Which would you rather have for lunch?
I'm assuming you are not a mid or long distance runner, though.
If you talk to many runners, myself included, we really do crave carbs. Because our bodies need it for the distance we're running.
As a mid-distance runner, proteins are good, but I use them up as energy very, very fast (even when I'm not running), so I get hungry faster if I only eat protein.
Yes, it does depend. That said, I think the intersection of the set of people looking to lose weight and the set of medium/long-distance runners is nearly nil...
I think for your typical person, who is typically somewhat overweight, low-carb and ketogenic diets are a good way to go. People tend to eat what they grew up eating, and western cuisine is the product of historical contexts in which grain was cheap and meat/fat was expensive. A lot of typical food is thus based on flavoring-up bland bread with spare amounts of flavorful meat and fat. But that's not really relevant to people these days. You can get a lot of the flavor and filling quality of meat and fat without the extra calories from the carbs.
E.g. most of the calories in a fajita comes from the tortilla. Most people on a diet might cut net calories by eating half a fajita. Now they're just hungry. I'd rather eat an extra-big portion of the filling out of fajita, maybe with some cheese crumbled on top, and cut calories by getting rid of the least flavorful part of the meal. Again, this won't work for everyone, but I think it's a good "go to" default for typical people.
Most diets are based on tricking you to eat fewer calories. Eating fewer calories is the only real proven way to lose weight. So-called "fad" diets just give you a strategy so you don't feel like you're starving yourself. Some people are successful with brute-force calorie cutting, or strict calorie watching, but there's nothing wrong with following a plan either, even if it is a "fad".
Agreed! I enjoyed eating paleo/low-carb for a while, but now I eat IIFYM and get the same or better results, because no food is off limits If It Fits My Macros. :)
In the end ALL diets work, but the best diet is the one you can stick with.
"Carbohydrates are rarely converted to fat (a process called de novo lipogenesis) under normal dietary conditions. There are exceptions when this occurs. One is with massive chronic overfeeding of carbs. I’m talking 700-900 grams of carbs per day for multiple days. Under those conditions, carbs max out glycogen stores, are in excess of total daily energy requirements and you see the conversion of carbohydrate to fat for storage. But this is not a normal dietary situation for most people."
A basic text on biochemistry will educate you more than this "expert". You really should educate yourself properly instead of following random web sites that confirm your own biases.
Carbohydrates ARE converted to fat under normal dietary conditions, via insulin. If this metabolic process was "rare" as he states, then diabetics that require insulin injections wouldn't need them often.
I don't know where this "expert" is getting his information from, but it's a basic human biochemical reaction to form fat from blood glucose, via insulin.
Insulin does not cause the body to convert glucose into fat. That process is known as 'de novo lipogenesis', and Lyle is correct that it is very rare.
From a high level perspective, I agree that insulin causes the body to burn blood glucose for fuel. The extra "carbs" don't get magically converted to fat though - they're used to replenish muscle glycogen and perform other actions. It is the dietary fat ingested alongside carbohydrates that gets stored as fat in the body.
Note: I am not an advocate of ketogenic or otherwise low carb diets. I think a calorie deficit and adequate protein intake is all that you need to lose fat. No diet can work without some sort of calorie deficit, either explicitly or indirectly induced.
>A basic text on biochemistry will educate you more than this "expert"
No, it will confirm what he said and that you are mistaken. You should try opening one and skimming through it before believing it will always support your assertions, regardless of their lack of factual basis.
> They just trick you into eating fewer calories by forbidding most of the food you ate before the diet.
I eat more calories than before judging by the amounts of meat/butter/nuts that I eat. I lost 15 kilos in body weight accompanied by a 5% reduction in body fat (-> gained muscle).
So at least on a personal level, I can really not confirm this.
>I eat more calories than before judging by the amounts of meat/butter/nuts that I eat.
So, judging by guessing. That is not how you judge. Measure your food and see how many calories you actually consume. It is fewer.
>An interesting article backing the low-carb high-fat diets that has links to the matching double blind studies
Which confirm that the people who successfully lose weight on low carb diets do so by caloric reduction. Might want to pay attention when posting sources that contradict you.
I can't find any of the points saying that low-carb diets restrict calories. The points mentioning calories are those:
"Every randomized controlled trial on low-carb diets shows that they:
- Reduce body fat more than calorie-restricted low-fat diets, even though the low-carb dieters are allowed to eat as much as they want (41, 42).
[...]
- Low carb diets are also easier to stick to, probably because they don’t require you to restrict calories and be hungry all the time. More people in the low-carb groups make it to the end of the studies
"
When you eat low-carb, your body depletes your glycogen stores (if you go as far as keto, you're emptying the glycogen and switching your metabolism to run on ketones). Every gram of glycogen is stored with 3-4g water. When one goes low-carb (especially coming from a high-carb diet) they will loose a LOT of weight quickly, but most of this is water weight, not body fat.
I found cutting out nuts to actually be one of the more effective ways of losing weight. I previously snacked on nuts way too much throughout the day, which ended up being as many calories in aggregate as some of my meals. That oil+salt combo is addictive, at least for me.
Not entirely true. High protein diets allow you to eat more calories because the thermal effect of digesting protein results in a loss of 25% calories (of protein).
Yep. But even though almonds are ~20% protein, they are also ~50% fat. It's not the best protein source by a long shot.
While the TEF of protein does reduce it's net caloric contribution by about 25%, that doesn't matter if you eat in excess of TDEE, which will result in weight gain regardless of the kind of foods eaten. Upping protein to reduce hunger works really well, but there are better foods than almonds to do this (cottage cheese, meat, fish, whey protein, etc).
It's just a term one of the nutrition experts I follow, Alan Aragon has used to describe people who blindly follow the paleo diet. Not that paleo is all bad, but there a lot of people who get it very wrong.
There's a little more to it than that. When you're in a ketonic state your body burns stored fat rather than carbs. [1]
For example for me, normally on a 2 hour bike ride (@ ~120bpm) I would need to drink ~2.5 bottles of glucose drink to keep my blood sugar levels high enough. When I'm on a keto diet I'll only need 0.5 bottles of glucose drink during the ride to stave off the knock. [2]
I'm surprised you need to eat anything at all on a short ride like that, at such a low BPM, and certainly nothing like 2.5 bottles of glucose! Just water to avoid dehydration should be enough.
I doubt the diet has anything to do with it. (In this case anyhow... certainly nutrition is critical for harder efforts).
A short bike ride that burns about 1250 kcal, which is another 50% on top of my normal daily requirements. So not that surprising that I'd need to take in 450 kcal really.
Certainly burns calories which you'll need to make up at some point, but it's a fairly short ride and I doubt you'd hit the wall if you didn't eat anything. I'm not saying you shouldn't eat it, everyone's body is different, and if I were in a 2hr race I'd probably be eating gels etc to guarantee maximal energy availability at all times. I just don't think you need it to be able to get round without running into trouble.
Anecdotal reference point: I go out every weekend with 3 friends, we do minimum 3.5 hours riding time in the local mountains, and the most any of us eat is something like a cereal bar and a banana. I can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times any of us have bonked in the past 5 years...
I cycled competitively in my teens, and got a few ok results in my speciality (hill climb) at a national level, but not good enough to want to take it any further. Some of the friends I trained with went pro.
I trained 400 - 500 miles per week, riding anywhere from 10 to 140 miles per session. I'm 40 now and still cycle but just for pleasure and getting around now, slower than I was before but riding centuries is still no problem.
In short, I know exactly what the knock feels like.
I expect you are carb loading either the day before or in the morning before your rides, and that could easily give you enough stored glycogen to see you through a 2 hour ride.
I however was cycling to burn off fat that I'd built up during a few months of strength training, so the last thing I'm going to do is gorge on pasta the night before.
>That a handful of almonds has the same calories as a certain amount of Captain Crunch is irrelevant.
No, it really is relevant. It actually does matter. Your fad diet is not magical, just like every other fad diet was not magical.
>The latter will quickly convert to glucose in your body
This is irrelevant. There is no evidence at all to suggest "insulin spikes" (which are actually minor and totally normal) are a problem at all. And they occur when you consume any food, not just carbs.
>will make a huge difference in your satiety levels
For some people. As much as it pains true believers to hear it, many people do not lose weight on low carb diets. The only way the diet works is by making you feel full so you consume fewer calories. Many people feel very hungry without carbs, and can eat massive quantities of fat without feeling full. Those people gain weight on low carb diets.
Largely I cut down on carbohydrates (because I was stuffing myself with crap like Coke, sweets, etc.) and ate less in general.
Late last year I realized that I had put on weight again because of the same bad habits so I cut them out again and redid my "program". I now weigh 71kg which is very healthy for my height.
To be honest, a small investment in knowing the calorie and nutrient content of foods, cutting out processed and useless foods, and most importantly "listening to my stomach and not my mouth" made weight loss pretty easy for me.
The other important motivator was realizing the asymmetry between the effort required to insert calories in my mouth (100s of calories per minute are easy) and burn calories once in me (100s of calories per hour).
Seeing as this usually turns into a low-carb diet thread, here is a great post about the common nutritional misconceptions of most modern diets and links to the accompanying scientific papers: http://authoritynutrition.com/11-biggest-lies-of-mainstream-...
The idea that eating healthily can be simplified to the reduction in a single number (a calorific value) really annoys me.
Always remember that a calorie is a proxy metric, and a very poor one at that; it's the energy output of burning the food, which has very little correlation with what goes on in your body during consumption/digestion.
Assuming you are right here, which macronutrient (out of protein, fats and carbs) either: a) converts into ATP with significantly less or more than 40% efficiency; or b) is not absorbed in significant fractions by the human digestive system?
I'm not a nutritionist but I'll back up my assertion of 'very little correlation' by drawing attention to the following which aren't taken into account by the calorific value:
- Glycemic Index: how quickly blood sugar levels spike after eating
- Proportional mix of the protein, fat and carbs that you mention (Maybe someone can help me out with a citation on the affect on health, both long and short term, of the different mixes of these).
- Micro-nutritional content: presence or absence of vitamins & minerals
- Poorly understood factors such as whether a requirement to chew (or suck) food prior to swallowing primes the digestive system and/or alters perception of 'fullness' (peanut butter vs. peanuts, sugar in a glass of coke vs. same amount of sugar in hard boiled sweets)
It's also important to remember that foods are not simply energy, but have direct effects on the levels of various neurotransmitters in the brain, leading to feedback loops (sugar addiction comes to mind).
I think you are better off to literally trust your gut over a calorific value.
It really annoys me as e.g. the trend in industrial bread making is to reduce the relative quantity of flour (the most expensive ingredient), in favour of cheaper vegetable fats. This is achieved by the addition of emulsifiers. So the calorific value of the bread may go down, and you'll have to eat more bread to make you feel as full, but the overall nutritional balance is completely skewed away from what was originally a quite nourishing, wholesome food (the majority component of the European diet at one time).
Next time you buy a loaf of bread look at the end of the list of ingredients. If there is an emulsifier listed it's a red flag; there really should only be Flour, Water, Yeast and (some) Fat. You can also tell the quality of the bread by squeezing it and feeling for the spring-back. Many supermarkets don't actually stock 'real' bread.
I'm guessing this list as the same pitfall as food labels and is showing quantities based on the amount of energy (calories) in the raw material rather than using the amount of energy the human digestive system can actually exploit. For example while you might get nearly 200 calories of from 200 of white bread, you would only actually get 150 calories from 200 calories of many meats. I think that if nutrition labels changed to estimated "exploitable calories" that a lot of the magic diet nonsense would evaporate.
I'm not sure what exactly OP is referring to, but there is a difference in the nutritional data of, for example, raw chicken breast (which is marked on the packaging) and baked chicken breast (which is what gets digested [unless you actually eat it raw]).
This would be much more useful with a recognizable, standard sized object in each picture. Maybe not as pretty, but a heap of flour is a heap of flour.
(For bonus usability, they could stop shifting the popups off to the right so I need to make my browser window wider to close the popup.)
"All pictures were taken with the same camera (Nikon D70 digital camera) and with the same setup; in other words, the portion sizes displayed are all relative to each other.
The plate is 10.25" (26cm) in diameter and the bowl is 6.25" (16cm) "
Peanut butter, nuts, and bagels tend to be the ones that are most surprising to people who are dieting for the first time. Just way more calories than people think because they think they are "healthy" because they are natural.
If you had a bagel (plain with no spread) and a cream filled iced donut sitting next to each other, I think most people would think choosing the bagel would be the obvious healthy choice.
(Honestly, I think that's why people have success with low-carb diets. So much of their calorie intake is from carbs from simple basics like breads and pasta.)
They also have (on average) ~12g protein and 1.5g fat. At a little over 20% of the carbs you need per day, it's not going to ruin your diet, but could have an unhealthy effect on blood sugar levels in some people [http://www.phlaunt.com/lowcarb/19060174.php]
That really depends on what you mean by "pumpernickel". If you mean black rye flour bread, it's not significantly different from any other grain-flour bread. If you mean rye meal bread ("real" pumpernickel), it would have significantly higher fat and caloric content (it's much denser than a flour bread, containing very little in the way of gas pockets, and uses more of the seed).
True, relative to those things. I guess I was setting the "healthy" bar at things like eggs, oatmeal, whole wheat toast, lower-fat deli meats and completely forgetting about the fact that people eat donuts and other pastries for breakfast.
If one is ingesting only, say, 80 proof hard liquor, your body actually burns net calories metabolizing it. Notice I say only because alcohol without carbs is rarely consumed.
I find it very interesting that an imgur gallery with the same title made it to the top of Reddit the other day and a different link with different pictures but the same premise made it to the front page on Hacker News. Of course on Hacker News imgur isn't the default.
I have always asked myself why that is so? how did it happen that this "mistake" got into everyones mind? you don't say "meters" if you mean "kilometers"...
Yes, it’s strange. My idea here is: for distances both things are typical: meters and kilometers. Every day we need to handle both unites. It would be impractical to give longer distances in meters (“Hey Jeff, it’s still around 100000000000000000 picometers to your home, will be there in roughly 4200000000000 nanoseconds…”).
But even huge distances on Earth can be measured in km, and we don’t need megameters.
With calories however for all practical purposes we have a number range in which it is okay to use kcal. So here people just forgot that the k actually has a meaning. It makes not much sense to go down to the level of cal.
For what it's worth... I lost a lot of weight by eating the same stuff I have always ate, just much less of it. Cookies, oatmeal, chocolate, beans, nuts, fruit, etc.
Pre-historic or not, paleo is a fad. People with self control are going to lose weight no matter what method they chose. People with no self control are going to stay fat no matter what they do.
Uh, carbs as in "you burn it, you get X carbs", or carbs as in "when your body digests this, it uses A carbs to process, B carbs go out in waste, and the balance is C carbs"?
The former isn't nearly as useful (but of course is much easier to figure out with any accuracy).
The picture changes, though, if you decide not to steam your vegetables but sauté them with oil instead. Doesn't make vegetables any less healthy, just something to take into account.
The way the government allows corporations to calculate calories is a very corrupt system, self-moderated with little to no supervision or enforcement.
Which is more satiating, though? Coca cola is sugar dissolved in water. If you pureed broccoli and thinned it in water, it would be much larger than the equivalent amount of coke.
That article also links to the OP wisegeek article, and mentions protein calorie overcounting and cooked-food calorie undercounting, which other commenters here have mentioned. And it was published yesterday!
Whenever I see a thread like this pop up on HN, I feel a need to reply and dispel some myths. I'm going to do my best to provide a quick, yet thorough summary. I hope this helps.
Who am I? I'm a techie and a fitness nut. I've played high level basketball, amateur football, rugby, aussie rules football. I've done some triathlons (not my forte), a couple ultra races (hate them, learned a lot about myself). My current area is gaining muscle, losing fat, and building strength. I write fitness books in my nights and weekends (no link provided).
I'll try to give the briefest of summaries, though I know it is going to be challenging. If I didn't summarize something well enough or if it is unclear, let me know and I can try to do a better job.
1. Calories vs Macros also known as Weight vs Composition
Calories matter for losing and gaining weight, but they don't tell the whole story. If the only thing you know about are calories, you can't lose weight or gain weight intelligently (ie. lose fat and gain muscle). You can do it by accident, but you certainly can't do it optimally.
But, I'll offer this, if the only thing you care about is the number on the scale, you can safely just track calories and eat in a deficit. You'll lose weight.
Macros, or macronutrients, are important to understand so you can achieve the goal you actually care about. Most people say "lose weight" and mean "lose fat". "Gain weight" actually means "gain lean muscle".
If that is true of you, you need to understand and track macros. And, no, you do not need to track both macros and calories. Macros are just fine.
2. Gaining Muscle
I wrote an entire book on gaining lean muscle mass complete with 3 workouts, nutrition info and a diet. I'm going to do my best to summarize it here as quickly as possible.
A. Workout with heavy weights (see workouts below).
B. Spike insulin after a workout (more on this in a sec).
C. Cycle your days.
Recommend:
For C, cycle your food in the following manner:
Workout days: 1g protein/desired lean bodyweight. Even simpler (if you hate math), just 1g protein/desired bodyweight. 1-2g carbs (post workout only)/desired lean bodyweight (this is more important to nail 100%), .5g fat(before workout only)/desired lean bodyweight.
Non-workout days: 1g protein/desired lean bodyweight. Even simpler (if you hate math), just 1g protein/desired bodyweight. 0-30g MAX carbs, .5g fat(before workout only)/desired lean bodyweight.
For B, you can see above that I'm recommending carbs post workout. The goal with the carbs is two fold: to replenish glycogen stores and to spike insulin. If you are diabetic or for some other reason can't eat carbs, you can still spike insulin, though not as fast and not as high. If no carbs, do the following: protein shake with creatine, leucine (5-10g) and MCT oil (prefer straight MCT, but coconut oil will do as well). (Note: this is the same shake I use in the 'lose fat' below to still build some muscle while losing fat).
3. Losing Fat
Again, I wrote an entire book on this, so I'll do my best to summarize. Remember, lose fat probably means 'lose fat and maintain whatever lean muscle mass I currently have' .
A. Workout with heavy weights (preferred, mostly to maintain your muscle mass...need to continue to stimulate the body), sprints/HIIT, or very low intensity walking (mid-level cardio, i.e. running is bad for this goal, just FYI).
B. Spike insulin without carbs post heavy weight workout. If HIIT or low intensity cardio, NO insulin spike.
C. Carbs once a week.
For A, I prefer people to continue to workout with heavy weights simply to make sure they can maintain their muscle, or even pack a bit more on.
For B, just use the same post workout shake above. Again, if workout was HIIT or low-intensity cardio, don't do this.
And for C, follow "non-workout day" above and go ultra low carb for 5-6 days a week (in a row). Then carb-refeed (also called carbing up) once or twice a week. I highly recommend you start out with this approach:
6.5 days ultra low carb (less than 30g/day) and then on the 7th night, have a 6 hour window where you eat basically whatever carbs you want. On the order of 300-700g of carbs in that window. The next day you are going to feel pretty bloated and you'll gain weight (water), but in 2-3 days all that is gone and you are back to losing fat. The reason for the .5 days of carbs is hormonal adjustment.
I initially intended to write much more, but this is already getting too long for a HN post. It is really hard to summarize everything down to the barest of essentials, so I hope I did an adequate enough job for people to get a start.
I follow something similar to what you say and can attest that it has been working for me for over a year, with slight variations and tailoring it to my day-to-day life, since I am first and foremost a runner. However, I still weight train (heavy weights), so going back and forth from the "runner's world" to a "weight-trainer's world" are two different beasts, but I am too stubborn to give up one for the other and seek a balanced approach that seems to be working for me.
The only thing I must say is that because I am so active, I eat an incredible amount of foods that everyone around me remains in awe. The problem is that it can get very expensive! Especially when trying to have a clean diet.
My co-author for my book on gaining muscle is a runner (and trainer etc). Loves running, marathons, ragnar, the whole lot etc.
Before we started writing, I finally convinced him to give the program a shot, eat the way I recommended and workout with weights the way I recommended. He put on over 10 pounds of muscle and never felt better. His marathon time dropped, his 5k/10k was faster and he has 6-pack abs. He's a convert.
Now, he still runs but he works with weights with equal intensity and he runs much, much less than he did previously. And since his diet changed, he is able to maintain the muscle and leanness.
Interesting. Could you provide a link to your website or book? Also, what do you think of "slow" exercises/arts like yoga, taichi etc in general? Obviously you don't do this (as you are in to HIIT), just curious to know your thoughts though.
You could. I use gummy bears (main ingredient is glucose) from time to time. Just be sure to take in some protein so the spike can actually shuttle some protein to the muscle. I don't like soda, though, for a variety of reasons. But, if you wanted to you could. After all, it does spike insulin. I probably wouldn't do it all the time but that is mostly because I don't like sodas in general.
FYI, my personal muscle building post workout shake is this:
WPI (whey protein isolate)(50+g), leucine (5-10g), creatine(5-10g), dextrose(20-30g), skim choc milk(about 15g carbs). If leg day, I'll probably up the dextrose a bit or eat the aforementioned gummy bears (or other similar treat).
I know quite a few people who do something like egg whites (beaters), WPI, creatine and fruit juice (mostly orange from what I've seen).
For absolute beginners, Starting Strength or Stronglifts is great.
In the book I recommend something similar, but a bit more custom for muscle building. Basically, stick to the big four (deadlifts, squats, bench press and overhead press), throw in some accessory work for lagging bodyparts and problem areas. It'll do wonders.
For more advanced people, same as above, but with more volume and tension training.
I like people to follow this progression when weight training:
Focus on strength first, volume second and tension third. Seems the best recipe for putting on muscle fast.
Correct. It's not that I think the grandfather is unqualified to give advice, his post appears upon a close skimming to be pretty good. I'm just curious what numbers a weight trainee is putting up after a long history of ultra endurance type sports.
I've been able to low bar squat 300# at 175lbs bodyweight and full snatch 130# at approximately 145lbs bodyweight at various times in my life, fyi. Nothing to write home about obviously
I weight 200lbs, I focused on muscle building most of last year. This year was going to be the year I focused on strength.
Deadlift: 500
Bench: 295 (this and OHP are a source of annoyance for me)
Squat: 350 for 5 (low bar). Haven't maxed in squat in a while...mostly been box squating lately.
Box squat (what I actually do most often): 390x2
OHP: 185 (this is a source of annoyance for me)
Both numbers are totally wrong. Because both should be closer to a quarter million, and not 200. Even one gram of sugar already has over 4000 calories.
But besides that, and this is probably your question:
you only need a tiny amount of artificial sweetener, to get the same sweetness that you would get with sugar. For example Aspartam is about 200x as sweet as sugar, but it contains a very similar amount of energy. Sugar has ca. 16.8 kJ/g and Aspartam more like 17 kJ/g.
Also, Canola oil (aka Rapeseed oil) is possibly the best oil you can use.
If you eat a lot of good fats (good = monounsaturated, e.g. olive oil, avocados, peanuts), then it reduces cravings for bad fats (fried foods, butter, animal fat etc.).
A rule of thumb is that any fat that it is liquid at room temperature is 'good'.
There are also calculators listed in the FAQs that will help you determine what you need to eat to maintain your bodyweight, lose fat, gain muscle, etc, over a user-selected window of time.
First thing I realized - that the difference between tracking your "macros" and not is like programming with Word or with vi/emacs/slickedit/etc - the difference is AMAZING.
The next thing I realized - is that to get enough protein if you're even moderately active, you have to eat A LOT - eggs, milk, meat, tuna, and even then I still have to supplement with protein supplements.
Now, combine the diet knowledge with a beginner weight training program like Starting Strength and the effect is amazing. I've gained 10 pounds of muscle and lost 10 lbs of fat. I've doubled all my lift numbers (which are still admittedly quite low) in four months. I have far more energy and other activities - I occasionally play tennis - I play better and feel stronger.
Edited to add - and most importantly, use something like myfitnesspal.com - which is free, has a great app, and has millions of food items, and track everything for just a few weeks. it will teach you what protein/fat/carbs common foods you eat have.