why would you think calories would get you lean? Muscle gets you lean. You could eat fewer processed foods and lose weight but if you don't want to be fluffy, start lifting weights

...and eating lean protein.

I agree with a number of the points made in this thread, especially lifting weights if you want to be lean.

And, yea, the less processed a food is the better it is for health and satiety (the latter of which helps with weight loss).

But, IMO, a calorie is a calorie when it comes to weight management.

Great information Kaplods, yeah I will eat 800 calories worth of pizza and wonder why it makes me gain vs. 800 calories worth of fruits, veggies, high fiber bread, etc. I assumed it was because the pizza raises blood sugar and the carbs are stored as fat? Or perhaps that the fiber moves it along out of my body before it can be fully absorbed vs. simple carbs with little to no fiber that are easily broken down for energy, and the excess is stored as fat.

I know that. I'm saying people with very lean bodies lift and don't eat any processed food...people like Madonna. I'm not saying I'm trying to get to 1% body fat because I don't have that kind of discipline but you get my point.

I really don't eat a lot of processed food to begin with, I just eat too much and don't lift enough. I guess my whole point to this thread was to figure out if all cals are created equal and I think the end result is yes and no. Depends.. but like the previous poster said 800 cals of pizza will more likely result in a gain vs. 800 cals of veggies, but not necessarily.

Actually, I saw an overview of various athletes and what they ate recently. One guy basically only ate chicken mcnuggets (very lean and muscular), another guy who only ate mcdonalds (lean and muscular), michael phelps - swimmer (who eats insane amount of calories and all of it is processed). So there are definitely people in the world who eat processed foods, are very lean and muscular. I'd say in general from what I've seen, athletes often have crappy diets. Madonna is an anecdote, of someone who expends a lot of energy doing yoga (bodyweight work) and dancing and also she keeps her caloric intake low enough to have a low body fat given her caloric expenditures.

and 800 calories of pizza generally results in a gain due to all the salt. Again, if you read the article that was posted, the actual caloric intake difference from processed foods vs non-processed foods isn't that large, not large enough that you still don't have to count calories if you are prone to weight gain. For some people who only have 10-15 lbs to lose, maybe switching from processed foods to non-processed, may get them to their goal weight but for the rest of us, there is no short cut.

By the way am I the only person that went running for the fruit after reading this thread ? lol I ate 2 apples yesterday, while I love fruit that isn't like me.

Personally, I am becoming more and more convinced that insulin primes the fat pump. So sugar plus food, especially fatty foods, equals fat gain. Cut the processed sugars and it becomes an equation of muscle gain or fat loss depending on how much you eat and for the former lean protein really helps with lifting.

I don't think it's "new". I think it's the result of bad information promulgated by the government and big pharma/food/agriculture with economic and political agendas. And the fact that obesity rose as the reliance on high-fructose corn syrup and the proliferation of processed "foods" rose is most definitely NOT a coincidence.

Now, it's not really that "simple". It's still complicated. And I agree, too, that with eating as clean as possible (and, yes, it IS hard) it makes obsessing over calories easier. I mean, to constantly count calories just makes me nuts and doesn't work for me anyway and it's much healthier overall to not eat loads of processed food and just allows for a much easier time to not overeat at all by keeping a much more even keel blood sugar.

And, yes, we have to lift and exercise, not to lose weight but for the health benefits. I think the true question of whether a "calorie is a calorie" will always be debated.

Well its not that insulin necessarily primes the fat pump but insulin helps move things into the cells. Actually for weight lifting, eating carbs and protein is recommended after workouts because glucose will replenish the glycogen but the insulin helps amino acids into the cells. That is why you will see many weight lifters guzzle down a sugary protein concoction after a workout. You can achieve the same thing with whole foods such as fruits and sweet potatoes as well though.

And obviously if you are eating extra calories, and your body can't burn off the glucose in your body, it is going to turn it into fatty acids and store excess fat.

And cutting processed sugars is generally good advice for weight loss and maintenance but it depends on your metabolic rate, how well your body deals with spikes in blood sugar and some other things on how sugar might affect you personally.

We just all need to go find Grandma's cook books from the 50's and live off of it. Almost nobody was obese back in those days...and if you're over a certain age you know most of our meals were prepared and eaten at home. Going to restaurants was a very occasional thing.

Well we also forget that up until 30 years ago, people moved a lot more than they do. The digital revolution has widened our booties more than anything. Even if you worked in an office, you often walked to talk to people instead of emailing. I think there are a lot of factors that go into todays obesity and you can't point to one thing. I've even seen some things that point to air conditioning as a potential factor. That is interesting because I grew up in a house without AC (and I'm in my late 30s)

I don't buy GMOs causing weight gain though because I haven't seen any evidence, most of it is just conjecture.

I guess I am a little confused, but why did the Twinkie diet work if it wasn't just calories in and calories out?

I always gain when I eat more processed food of the same calories but I always figured it was because of the high salt and carbs which hold onto water. I always thought this was true, but literally my friends at the gym literally just convinced me of calories in vs calories out and I feel like I just wrapped my head around that, but apparently it isn't true anymore?

I guess I'm just feeling out of it because I started cooking on my own recently and I eat fairly clean but my weight has been going up and it's a little depressing! I felt like my lean cuisine and diet soda worked a lot better but I know it isn't the ideal situation at all, blah.

How did the Twinkie diet work. It is a "forever" way of eating? There is more to life than just losing weight. There is more to our bodies and our health than fitting into skinny jeans.