In theory, yes, a calorie is a calorie, BUT that does not take into account that not everyone's body reacts to certain types of food calories the same way. Our bodies are all a bit different, we are not identical clones. To assume that any one "diet" will work for everyone is ridiculous.
There is so much more then just calories involved in weight loss. Personality, lifestyle, and the individual's unique body all contribute to how someone loses weight. If weight loss really were that simple for everyone, obesity wouldn't be an epidemic.
In theory, yes, a calorie is a calorie, BUT that does not take into account that not everyone's body reacts to certain types of food calories the same way. Our bodies are all a bit different, we are not identical clones. To assume that any one "diet" will work for everyone is ridiculous.
There is so much more then just calories involved in weight loss. Personality, lifestyle, and the individual's unique body all contribute to how someone loses weight. If weight loss really were that simple for everyone, obesity wouldn't be an epidemic.
I have to respectfully disagree and say that weight loss is that "simple". There are two main problems 1) People "lie" to themselves (or miscalculate) their real caloric intake and 2) They don't stick with the plan long enough because of will power or dissapointment issues. By no means do I think weight loss is simple because it takes a HUGE amount of willpower and desire to stick with a life long plan, because that is what it takes nothing less.
Ahhh- but SIMPLE and EASY are not the same for me at all! Eat less, move more. Calories in vs. Calories out. High nutrition, low processing. Simple- yes! Reasonable- yes! Easy- HAHAHAHAHAHA! Ask me that on mile 5 this morning. But ask from a distance- I bite when I'm grumpy!
When I was younger, a calorie definitely appeared to be a calorie, in that whether I ate junk or a balanced diet, I lost about the same amount of weight on similar calorie counts. I also didn't feel a huge difference in energy and staminal levels (though I think carbs have always been hunger trigger foods for me). I was never one to say that I "barely ate" and yet was overweight. I knew my eating was out of control (though at the time, I didn't realize why I was so hungry all of the time, or the role carbs and my hormones were playing in triggering the hunger).
That's not true at all any more. I've always thought low carb diets were a sham, so I didn't give my doctor's recommendation to try a carb controlled plan much thought, until I met a doctor who recommended carb restriction who had lost almost 100 lbs herself on a modified Atkins (more veggies, a little less fat). That tempted me to give it a try.
When I eat high carb, I am hungrier (though even if I stay within my calorie limit, the weight loss slows, though most probably from calorie output changes). In addition to being hungrier, I experience a very drastic drop in energy level, stamina and an increase in pain (I have fibromyalgia, and like many fibromites I find that carbs, especially refined carbs trigger symptoms). Too few carbs, and the weight comes off the quickest, but with nausea, dizziness, muscle weakness and fatigue. Even though the weight was coming off fairly quickly, I had less energy for exercise (so I was wondering if a higher proportion of the weight coming off could be muscle - I don't know this for fact, just a thought). As much as I like the rapid weight loss, the side effects tell me that isn't the best for my body. So I have to find the optimal balance, which has been harder for me than I expected. However, when I get it right, the weight comes off (much more slowly than when I was in my 20's, but with age and my health problems, to be expected), my pain is more manageable, and I have more energy and stamina for exercise and daily activities.
Weight loss cannot be reduced to a simple mathematical or chemical formula. Thousands of complex ones, perhaps.
Perhaps, all things being equal, a calorie would be a calorie, but what about when all things aren't equal. When some foods affect energy level, stamina, sleep, pain, depression, digestion..... it's easy to see that while the calorie input can be the same, that some foods can directly or indirectly affect calories burned (and not even mentioning foods that increase hunger that making it more difficult to control calorie intake).
The thing is, all of my life it has taken humongous amounts of willpower to lose weight (even with the assistance of amphetemine diet pills). Every waking moment was consumed with hunger and thoughts of the food I wasn't eating. When I am at my optimal carb intake, very little willpower is required. I don't have to devote every ounce of my strength to my weight loss plan, I can even go for hours and hours without thinking of food to the point that hubby has to remind me to eat (now THAT is a remarkable occurrence for me, and five years ago, heck three years ago I would have told you it was impossible).
My biggest problem in getting the weight off is remembering the effects carbs, especially certain ones have on me. I keep trying to reduce it to a calorie is a calorie, because it's how I thought for at least 35 of my 37 years of dieting.
I use a carb-restricted exchange plan for calorie and carb control, but I still too often try to "cheat the system" by including refined carbs or high sugar foods into my exchange plan. While they fit within the carb count/calorie count, they trigger that old hunger/binge cycle. Just another way in which I have to remember, that at least for me, all things are not equal. Where the calorie is coming from has at least as much to do with my weight loss as the number.
Oddly, I don't watch calories at all. The program on which I lost my weight doesn't go by calories. Instead, it indicates what a "portion" of an item is and how many portions of each type of item you should have per day. I thought it was odd but since I've lost over 90 lbs on it and kept them off for almost a year doing their portion maintenance, I'm not going to knock it.
Like others, I try to stick with my portions, but I know here and there I'm not sticking to them as I should, but it's working. I just can't let the here and there get out of hand. For example, I have a salad with almonds, cranberries, RF cheese, and tortilla strips on it. I list it as "salad etc" and count it only as salad, but I do file it away in my mind that I am eating more than salad. One day if my weight begins to rise, I'll cut out those "etc" items and see if they are the problem.
As for "treats", I'm usually pretty good. Certainly I have problems here and there with certain foods--the most recent was those darn carmels (which I still want!). I knew my weight would go up and it did. It took me a week to get it back down below 180. If I make that stupid choice again, I'll see my weight go up again.
As for a calorie being a calorie, I would have to agree; but I would also say that I know when those calories have too much sodium in them (eating out often for example), then my weight goes up. I know I can't gain 3 lbs overnight when I've been OP, so I know it's water weight. Then, I monitor that supposed knowledge to make sure that the weight doesn't slip higher. I don't play too much with food choices. I've learned to enjoy salads, actually look forward to them. I love fruit and would choose to overeat on it if I allowed myself to do so. I love starches and have learned that they are dangerous. They're probably the reason why I weighed so much. It's hard to limit them to 3 a day, but it's worth it. I know I have to exercise, but I'm always looking for something new to do.
Calories In may be the same, and thats fine. But the Calories Out side of this equation can and DOES change depending on what you eat.
1, certain nutrients (macro and micro) are needed to maintain muscle. If you do not eat those macronutrients and micronutrients, you will lose a higher proportion of muscle with any fat loss you get. Since muscle burns more calories a day than fat does, the more muscle you can preserve, the more calories you'll burn. So what you take in on the "Calories In" side can affect what you burn on the "Calories Out" side. So even if it is a "calories in vs calories out" simple equation, WHAT YOU BURN is dependent on what you eat and how that affects your body composition.
So you take in 1200 calories of chocolate, and that causes you to be missing essential nutrients and lose muscle, and therefore your metabolic fire only burns 1800 calories to keep you alive each day. You're losing weight at the same rate as someone who eats 1400 calories of nutrient rich, protein rich foods that preserve metabolism and include all the micronutrients necessary for human metabolism and whose body burns 2000 calories to keep him/her alive each day.
I think people tend to think the "Calories Out" part is a constant. It isn't! Food takes energy to digest, and fiber-filled foods take MORE energy (calories) to digest than highly processed foods. Your body DOES burn calories digesting, and a spoonful of sugar takes WAY less calories to digest than a few cups of broccoli.
Let me know if you want citations on any of the above.
2, you bring up willpower and disappointment. Common sense (and research) indicates that when people feel deprived, they find it harder to stay on plan. Which then challenges willpower. Personally, eating healthy, whole foods that are DELICIOUS, I spend way less time feeling deprived. That means I can save up that willpower and ultimately have more success.
Last edited by mandalinn82; 10-18-2008 at 05:38 PM.
I think that the emphasis on willpower (and the need to have more of it) has generally been stressed alot more than the need to find ways to make weight loss doable with less willpower.
In a lot of ways, I think weight loss (as we so often hear in the business world) is often a matter of working smarter, not harder. This current weight loss journey has been the most successful, and embodies smarter not harder working, as the effort I'm having to put in and still succeed, is a fraction of the effort I had to put in during past (ultimately unsuccessful) attempts.
So, when I thought a calorie was a calorie, I had to work a heck of a lot harder and use alot more willpower (and still failed). I failed because the work was so overwhelming and progress so slow, I got discouraged and gave up. The progress is still slow, but because I'm not having to sacrifice everything else in my life to the weight loss effort, it's alot more doable than ever before.
I have to completely disagree with you guys. I hate to break it to you but a calorie is a calorie isa calorie. I can guarantee you that if you only eat 1000 calories a day and it only comes from choclate you will lose more weight than if you eat 1500 calories of fruit. Folks its a simple mathamatically equation burn 3500 calories lose 1lb fat.
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Originally Posted by JulieJ08
And you get to feel like crap doing it.
If I ate that much chocolate I would be crapping a lot!
I think that the emphasis on willpower (and the need to have more of it) has generally been stressed alot more than the need to find ways to make weight loss doable with less willpower.
I have to COMPLETELY disagree with you. I think people need to learn to use will power and that is why they fail. Nothing comes easy in life and trying to take the easy way out, by not using will power, will set you up for utter failure not in just weight loss but life in general. Life is a struggle and the struggles are what make us stronger.
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Originally Posted by EZMONEY
If I ate that much chocolate I would be crapping a lot!
My curiosity is piqued here. Benchmarkman, you joined the site recently and have posted some pretty strong statements ... but you haven't posted anything about yourself or how you came to these beliefs.
Pretty much everyone else who has posted here has shared some info that helps explain why they hold the thoughts they do. What about you? Have you lost weight yourself? Are you currently overweight? Do you count calories or are you following some other diet plan? Do you exercise?
Benchmarkman, Even if you don't believe, as many of my graduate school professors claimed (especially the behaviorists, but even some of the psychoanalysts) that willpower is a myth, there's a lot of good research supporting the fact that people who attempt changes by willpower alone are far less likely to succeed than those who make things easier for themselves, "setting themselves up for success."
A good bit of this research has been in drug and alcohol addiction rather than weight loss, but the principles are the same. Many alcohol and drug abusers try to succeed with willpower alone, keeping all of their old friends and habits, and try to abstain from alcohol and/or drugs by sheer force of will. But when your friends are still using, and you're still hanging out in the bars, willpower will serve you for a while, but in a moment of weakness, with the substance of choice still handy, relapse is very likely, for most folks.
However, those who set themselves up for success, need less willpower and statistically are more successful. They change their environment so use of their substance is less convenient, and therefore requires less test of will, and less work to succeed.
This isn't too different than me getting all of the sugar and processed carbs out of my house, and out of my diet, and all of the other things I've done to make the process of making my diet and exercise changes easier.
Hard work, effort and struggling are indeed character builders, but making pointless work out of mundane tasks is not character building, it's time wasting. Do you handwash your clothes, beating them on a rock with soap you made yourself, because all of the extra effort is so character building? Do you make every day tasks harder for yourself so each requires more effort and willpower?
I've always had plenty of struggles and work to do, with or without weight loss, without having to make extra work for myself by making weight loss harder than it had to be intentionally. I'm on disability now, but all of my working life, I burned the candle at both ends (until there was no candle left, which has a lot to do with how I got on disability in the first place). I've always held at least 60 hours or more of work and/or school obligations. Going to college and graduate school full time and working part time. Then going to graduate school part time while working part time, or holding one to three jobs requiring 60 to 80 hours of work per week. One semester I was teaching three college classes (the full time faculty taught 4 to 5), and working 50 to 60 hours each week in a unpredictably swinging swing shift job in a juvenile detention center with lots of mandatory overtime.
If you have so much time on your hands that you can afford to go out of your way to make mundane tasks more difficult for yourself, purely for the sake of character building, you don't have much of a life. Maybe you need a job, or another job, or should take a class or find a hobby.
As for me, there's a lot more I want to accomplish besides weight loss, so in picking my battles, weight loss is not the hill I want to die on, or the accomplishment I want to be remembered for. So I'll continue to do it in as easy a way and save my time and skills for more important accomplishments, those that have a lasting impact on the world, and perhaps even leave it a little better place than I found it.
But by all means, if you've got nothing better to do, and have no skills to offer the world, waste as much time and energy as you want to on weight loss or any other task, but I've got better things to do.
My curiosity is piqued here. Benchmarkman, you joined the site recently and have posted some pretty strong statements ... but you haven't posted anything about yourself or how you came to these beliefs.
Pretty much everyone else who has posted here has shared some info that helps explain why they hold the thoughts they do. What about you? Have you lost weight yourself? Are you currently overweight? Do you count calories or are you following some other diet plan? Do you exercise?
Or are you just here to rabble rouse.
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You must not have been reading my posts because I think I've explained my situation in prety good detail. If after reading my threads below and you still have questions ask and be specific.
In my original post I should have been more specific, my fault, but I'm talking if you eat 3000 calories a day in fruit it is equal to 3000 caloires a day in chocolate when trying to lose weight. I am also saying you eat based on calories not on hunger, which is what I do. I bring this post up because I am tired of people see me eat a 150 calories turkey sandwich and a 210 calorie candy bar for lunch and then claim why can all the skinny people eat whatever they want. They are trying to lose weight and eat a 160 calorie bag of "low"fat pretzels and a 150 calorie banana with that 150 calorie sandwich. Its idiotic because that is more calories than the freaking candy bar yet they think they should be losing weight because they are eating "healthier" than me. In reality they are eating 100 more than me but they think they are eating less because its "healthy".
Thanks for the links, but please keep in mind that not everyone reads every post in every forum on the board. I can't possibly keep up with all the posts everyone makes, so it really helps if you fill out your profile with at least a little bit of info. That way people don't have to go searching for information on you in order to understand your perspective and respond properly.
As far as this:
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I'm talking if you eat 3000 calories a day in fruit it is equal to 3000 caloires a day in chocolate when trying to lose weight.
I disagree. If you eat 3000 calories a day of junk, you create a situation where your body is deprived of nutrition and your body will react - most likely by gaining weight in an attempt to hold on to whatever small amount of nutrients it's getting. You'll also develop other illnesses based on malnourishment.
So no, from the example you've given, a calorie is NOT just a calorie and all calories are not equal.
As far as the perception: You're right. People do have warped ideas about what eating healthy and eating to lose weight really is. People still buy into the idea that to lose weight you have to deprive yourself and you can't have that candy bar or that piece of cake or whatever. People think that the 1500 calorie "salad" that they get from Cheesecake factory is a better diet choice than your turkey sandwich and candy bar. Sure.
But that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not a calorie is a calorie. It has to do with people who have been brainwashed by popular media, by diet books, by fads, and so forth ... and a society that doesn't place any emphasis on teaching people proper nutrition.
