" All of a sudden you get fat...BAM!" (From that clip)

I'm not a PhD, etc but how many people are supposedly so insulin resistant that their bodies "have no choice" but to make extra fat? I find this incredibly hard to believe, and yet another way to excuse weight gain and/or the poor success with weightloss. 2/3 of Americans are not overweight/obese from the "BAM! I just got fat!" problem...

Just to be clear - I'm not expert on nutrition. I only brought up in terms of what I do research - which is research methodology and statistics. It felt like they were talling me I didn't understand methods or statistics in a study when actually I'm uniquely qualified to do so.

Yeah, I'm a little dubious of fathead, but I haven't seen it. And the Gary Taubes thing ... its hard to judge from that one little clip. But yeah, he does believe that the things that Americans eat - particularly the low fat diet where we started adding sugar to everything to keep it "low fat" has impacted waistlines because physiologically, this food causes you to eat more and store more.

Here is a Gary Taubes NY Times piece if you want to see a summary of some of what he has to say first hand

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/ma...ie.html?src=pm

Shes in psychology, its not really a medical science not really lol I do psychology as well. Taubes is really not that grand I don't know why you think he is lol If you're fat it is most likely your fault , you ate too much. There are some people were health issues can effect their weight but not so much as they are 300 plus pounds. Its just escapism for your own responsibilities a lot of the time IMO. You don't get fat magically. I'm not saying mandy is saying you do, I'm just stating that you do not just like others have said it this thread. What field of psychology do you adhere to? Social? Health? cognitive? neuro? Behavioral?

Quantitative psychology is basically applied stats. And most of the grants I work on are health research. But none of that is my expertise. neither is "psychology". My expertise is methodology and applied stats - particularly as it pertains to prevention research (my applied focus). That's all I know well. This nutrition stuff is just hobby to try to heal my life. I'm just doing my best. I'm not perfect. I don't know everything. I'm trying my hardest to learn and I like hearing other perspectives.

I agree with you Cherry - people do need to take personal responsibility. From a public health perspective though ,we live in a toxic environment. Also people do need to take responsibility, but thats why people need to take responsibility of trying to learn as much as we can about how it all works (which is what everyone is doing here!) so we can understand and do our best to fix things! I think the fact that we are all visiting the three fat chicks forum in general speaks to the fact that none of us are trying to evade responsibility for being overweight. But it is helpful to know when there are forces working against you - like why some food has addictive-like properties for some people etc. Or why if you don't get enough fat/protein you may get hungrier faster etc etc.

Wow, I see this thread just going in circles.

What I get from what Mandy is saying (sorry if I'm wrong, Mandy) is that yes, a calorie is a calorie. Caloric deficit=weightless surplus =gain. But, on the other hand, a calorie is not just a calorie in the sense of the source and quality of those calories. It is obvious there is a huge difference between 200 cals of spinach and 200 cals of potato chips. Or 200 cals of chocolate cake and 200 cals of carrots. Which one will satisfy your stomach more? Which one is better for your body? You can eat 1500 calories a day of junk or 1500 in whole natural foods, still be in a deficit and lose weight either way, but which way will you reap the most benefits? So yes, a calorie is a calorie is true;but false. I have no credentials. I am just using my common sense (hey, if it's good enough for someone else then it's good enough for me. No nitpicking.)

I think the "bam you're fat" is taken out if context. Yes, most are fat because of our own bad choices. But, how many people realize how big they are getting in the process? So many say "I didn't realize how big I had become. I looked in the mirror one morning and realized I'm fat". Denial, not caring, too busy, whatever the excuse, it happened and most times yes it is our own fault. But I really don't think he's saying "you go to bed skinny then wake up the next day and BAM you're fat!". That's just silly.

What most "diet" plans I've read about boils down to is eating in a caloric deficit, but making those calories count.

Your education doesn't really have much or anything to do with this then :P So I still don't understand why you refer to it so much XD just strange. You don't need to use that to try and back up what you say lol. Thats why I was so confused about the type of psychology cause I was like why if its that does she bring it up at all XD oh well. My diet works for me so I don't really care

Hi! I'm one of those people.

Actually, what happens "in real life" is still not clear.

I have PCOS/IR and some of the studies they are now doing (i.e. studies that were published in 2012) are showing that people with PCOS have LOWER metabolism (BMR) than "normal" people.

So, say you have someone who is normal and loses weight at 1500 calories. Someone with PCOS/IR who has a lower metabolism goes ahead and eats those 1500 calories but rather than losing weight, maintains or GAINS weight! The advice will be to the PCOS person -- you must be eating too many calories, count your calories, blah blah blah. The poor person doubts herself and gives up or tries something else until it clicks.

There are issues with IR that we still don't know and how it affects.

Does a calorie = calorie? Sure, if you define the calorie as a unit of measurement the way that MandyPandy did. But that's it.

What's missing in this conversation is the BODIES where this calorie is being ingested and what is does to you, because the body doesn't treat it the same.

I've been one to reduce the IR to a simple issue of insulin resistance and what that means to the body, but even in people with IR, the issues are not that isolated and there are other systems that are influencing hunger, satiation, and metabolism. And the problem with studies in these areas is that it IS complex and hard to isolate what is causing what, so it's a lot of assumptions and "experiments of 1".

I personally love this debate.

But what I do hate is the idea that people who have IR (whether diagnosed officially or not) are somewhat labeled as being "lazy" or not counting their calories correctly, when the REAL message should be about how calorie counting is actually really complex and the estimations on RMR and BMR are guidelines but experimentation is the only way to truly understand your body.

If I eat according to ANY BMR calculator+activity, I will GAIN weight. Period. If I eat a lot of carbs, my body will go crazy with my blood sugar levels and cause me to have cravings, to have UNCONTROLLABLE hunger, to lose the will to exercise because internally my body is fighting the crazy glucose/insulin response, and emotionally I turn into a wreck -- depressed, angry, moody and *****y.

And those emotions and other "willpower" stuff has to also be included in these discussions. Because while someone like Freelancemom who has an awesome insulin response (I envy that ability!) will have an entirely different diet experience than someone like me, who needs to watch her carbs and calories.

I agree with MandyPandy that in the next 10 years or so, with all the focus on nutrition and physiology studies a lot of new information will be coming out that explains a lot of this stuff better.

P.S. I'm a PhD candidate as well, but not in nutritional science or psychology or neuropsychology or beer.

I think the PRACTICAL question embedded in this discussion is: Even if macronutrient composition does affect the "calories out" part of the equation, is the difference large enough to justify overhauling one's diet?

Just as an example, if it turns out that I burn 50 more calories per day on a high-protein diet than on a high-carb diet (with the same amount of calories), I'm not gonna give up my carbs for those 50 extra calories. If the differential is 300, however, I might make a different decision.

F.

You might if you don't really care for carbs. That could be five pounds of weight loss over the year.

Hi there. It's me, Freelancemomma. I suppose having a good insulin response makes things easier in some ways, because I don't experience sugar crashes or any discomfort from eating carbs. I also don't find them any less (or more) satiating than protein. I have my own struggles, though. My curse is a very large appetite. Eating 2,000 calories per day never seems like enough. Never.

F.

I see this is a heated question. I'm not a scientist, but have my own personal experience with dieting. I've been on many diets through the years, lost some, then gained more. I always wanted to believe a calorie is a calorie, but I've learned that's not true for me after said calorie is put in my body. After seeing Dr Robert Lustig on 60 minutes, then reading his book "Fat Chance," I realized all the carbs (that I dearly love) have been my enemy all along. This led me to a low carb diet for the first time in my life. Where I used to eat based on what I was hungry for, I now eat when I feel physical hunger. I can face temptations and resist them so easily now it still baffles me. Carbs affect insulin levels, and that affects other hormones that control satiety among other things. When I eat carbs, it makes me want to eat more carbs. This book makes an alarming number of parallels to alcoholism/addiction, and they were all spot on for me. Everyone is different I know and what we put into our bodies will be metabolized in a different way. I know I am done with counting calories, it's not a good method for weight loss in my case.

Ah, but I do care for carbs. What I'm saying is that I'd rather maintain on a 2,000-calorie high-carb diet than on a 2,050-calorie low-carb diet.

F.

Thank you making this point...

So many people who are overweight and obese have metabolic issues, many who are walking around not even realizing it... so the "calorie is a calorie" and the just "eat less and move more" message really needs to be tweaked a little IMHO... because it's just not working...

I'm like Rana; I have IR, and PCOS. I'm also pre-diabetic, and working hard to keep from becoming full-blown T2 diabetic.

I know I can't eat a "normal" weight-loss diet and lose. I've tried it. I've done very low-fat (Pritikin), vegetarian, Weight Watchers, calorie counting... It's all I can do to hold steady. I cannot lose weight on these plans. And when I don't even try, I creep up in weight 10 pounds a year. It's slow enough not to trip the alarms.

Any calculator I use says I need at least 2000 calories/day, even when I'm sedentary, to maintain my weight. So 1500 should have me lose, right? It doesn't.

And I know from experience that eating 1500 calories of eating low-fat/high carb, " healthy grains and veggies and lean protein", would have me ravenous and irritable and ready to give up in two months.

In contrast, I can stick with 1200-1300 calories/day of very low-carb eating (fewer than 50 carb/day) and be satisfied, have no cravings, be able to resist temptation foods (my husband bought TWENTY boxes of Girl Scout cookies this year!!!). My blood sugar doesn't spike on VLC; I am not overly hungry, and I don't have cravings.

So while a calorie is a calorie for the simple purposes of heat measurement, in my body a fat calorie is much more satisfying and healthy than a carb calorie.

"We are IR. We're different."

I would posit that our medical knowledge regarding food, exercise, and weight loss are inhibited by the fact that we don't have a clear understanding of the genetic environment interactions of the aforementioned variables. More specifically, as John has pointed out, no study can control for every variable (John talks about protein) so how can we really understand the influence of different calories. Robert Lustig (look up his video on youtube "Sugar: The bitter Truth") talks about how the rise in fats coincided with the rise in fructose which led people to believe that reducing fats would result in health benefits; however, he suggests that simply reducing fats does not improve health outcomes. Reduce fructose intake is the actual "casual" mechanism in health gains. While I personally believe that we would all be better off without fructose, I know people whose genetics are not affected by fructose consumption. Most studies are dependent upon mean difference changes and not all of us fall within 68% or one standard deviation of the mean.

I think the conventional wisdom of decreasing your total caloric intake and increasing caloric expenditure is the best scientific practice that we have right now and works for most people. That might change in the future as we determine the interactive influences of food, exercise, and genetics. I would recommend to any one interested in understanding food policy refer to Kelly Brownell's research. He also has the most used and evidence based therapy for treating over eating. Based on Brownell's perspective and being health researcher/practioner, I think focusing too much on the biomedical issues neglects the behavioral issues which is what weight loss comes down too. Since there's no prescription for weight loss (read: simply telling people about the calorie equation does not translate into weight loss) and there are no therapies that produce weight loss maintenance, we all have to be diligent scientists to determine what works best on an individual level. At least until science can do better.