-------------------------------------- <----- that's me with my 10 foot pole not touching this topic!
But I found this interesting:
Quote:
Originally Posted by IanG
Hmm. I am getting more confused also. I drink a lot of beer which contains no fat but has lots of empty calories. But I read, and might be experiencing, that alcohol contains calories that are not efficiently used by the body. Excessive (!) alcohol consumption can also increase the metabolic rate and therefore, causes more calories to burn instead of being stored as fat. I am sure I would put on weight if I was consuming an extra 400-600 calories of junk food on a regular basis but the beer equivalent does not seem to be having the same effect...yet.
This could, of course, all be BS. But something isn't adding up.
I think there may be at least some truth to that. I know alcohol contains 7 calories per gram, but isn't used by the body in the same way as nutritional calories (fat, protein, carbs). Though I tend to shy away from beer (though I love it) and typically choose something like whiskey and diet soda, I never have found a problem working alcohol into my calories at all. I've read so much stuff (blogs, forums etc) that alchol is weight loss' worst enemy, I just haven't found that to be true at all. *Cheers*
Yes, but energy out is not independent of what you eat. The body is a complex organism and what you feed it changes how much energy your body uses just to live. I'm not even talking about energy from moving or being active.
So you need to burn more energy than the calories you put in to lose weight. How much you burn on a daily basis is partially impacted by what you eat.
This is real science. I can send literature or pages out of text books.
Or read Gary Taubes "Why We Get Fat". A lot of his stuff is just a priori hypothesis but a lot of stuff at the beginning of his book is just about how the body works. It's real research.
I agree. Science is beautiful. I am a PhD student, a scientist who studies quantitative methods.
:P I never disagreed with that I said a calorie a calorie. diff energy sources effect you in diff ways thats obvious. I don't know why you bring up your education, you don't need to be a phd student to know this stuff. I am also a science student (neuroscience) :P
Last edited by CherryQuinn; 03-26-2013 at 05:06 PM.
:P I never disagreed with that I said a calorie a calorie. diff energy sources effect you in diff ways thats obvious. I don't know why you bring up your education, you don't need to be a phd student to know this stuff. I am also a science student :P
Sorry, I hang around some people who like to quickly accuse people of science denialism. So when you said "science was beautiful" my own hangups made me get weird and read into that you were saying I'm "anti-science." And I am anything but! Sorry!! My own hangup.
Back to the topic at hand. There seems to be the consensus here that to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat. We know this as the law of thermodynamics. In that sense, calories are the same and, yes, "a calorie is a calorie". The tricky part, is that the nature of the food you eat, may effect the output part of the equation. In that sense, "a calorie is not a calorie" because the amount you burn may be impacted by what you eat. I think we are all actually agreeing without realizing and it's just semantics.
Sorry, I hang around some people who like to quickly accuse people of science denialism. So when you said "science was beautiful" my own hangups made me get weird and read into that you were saying I'm "anti-science." And I am anything but! Sorry!! My own hangup.
Back to the topic at hand. There seems to be the consensus here that to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you eat. We know this as the law of thermodynamics. In that sense, calories are the same and, yes, "a calorie is a calorie". The tricky part, is that the nature of the food you eat, may effect the output part of the equation. In that sense, "a calorie is not a calorie" because the amount you burn may be impacted by what you eat. I think we are all actually agreeing without realizing and it's just semantics.
Yes it is just semantics XD . I am also touchy about science. I had someone argue the law of thermodynamics last week , they said they did not believe in it lol.
The amount of calories you burn in a day isn't just based on how much you move. What you eat can impact your resting metabolic rate.
TEF is always affected by what you eat. SPA and NEAT can be affected. (Not sure if you saw my response to your prior claims) But RMR? What is your source of this?
For me the lil tiny effects the type of energy source will have on any calorie output is not gonna matter weight loss wise. If I have a 500 deficit I lose a lb if I have a 1000 deficit I lose 2 lbs (this is weekly) . We're not gonna have an exact number of total calories burned every day or total takin in every day its just a best guess. for example we're not gonna know if we burn exactly 2136 calories a day and ate exactly 1488. We aim for closest to it and for me my results are usually spot on with my best guess for what I burn on average regardless of the types of food I ate
John - You are right - its not as clear that RMR is affected depending on how you operationalize and define RMR. I guess I really meant total energy needs - that would include calculations for TEF. And for sure, EF is impacted by what you eat. But what you eat may have other influences as well.
I spent a long time doing research for my own personal gain and to heal myself - conventional diet wisdom just wasn't working for me - I'd cut calories and not see any loss so I decided to really go straight to the literature and learn all I could. I'm certainly no expert. And I know there is a lot of conflicting info out there. There is a pressing need for a lot more nutrition research and hopefully we will gain a lot more insight over the next ten years.
I am actually enjoying discussing this - I hope no one sees it as a fight - I think its good for us to all learn from each other as much as we can. There may be places I am wrong. And like I said, the research and information on nutrition has a long way to go.
Here are some sources for now. I have to get back to work, but can find better ones or discuss this further later. And in the interest of full disclosure, you can go to the nutrition literature and find support for just about anything you ever heard ..... this is why nutrition is so confusing and contradictory sometimes.
"Excessive consumption of energy appears to increase resting metabolic rate while fasting and very low calorie dieting causes resting metabolic rate to decrease." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2204100
You're right - there would be no difference if movement and exercise were the same. If you Google up insulin resistance and what effect it has and you'll see that for insulin resistant people a meal rich in carbs will make them feel lethargic.
Thanks, John. If this is indeed the reason for insulin-related weight gain in insulin-resistant people, then it makes perfect sense!
For the same reason insulin sensative people will do better on a carb rich diet. They'll expend more energy with the carbs and less without due to energy levels.
This is also interesting. Does it mean I can have my bread and eat it too? I certainly notice that I have more energy for working out the morning after eating a carb-rich dinner -- and the difference isn't subtle.
I've read so much stuff (blogs, forums etc) that alchol is weight loss' worst enemy, I just haven't found that to be true at all. *Cheers*
Someone found one of my posts interesting? That's a first! My guess is that I am not drinking with a belly full of food which I used to. I have heard that drinking alcohol plus food is bad for weight gain because the alcohol is processed first and any fat in the food eaten just stored. I have removed the food (especially the fat) so there's no fat to add. I am super disciplined with avoiding the munchies. *Cheers*
Here are some sources for now. I have to get back to work, but can find better ones or discuss this further later. And in the interest of full disclosure, you can go to the nutrition literature and find support for just about anything you ever heard ..... this is why nutrition is so confusing and contradictory sometimes.
"Excessive consumption of energy appears to increase resting metabolic rate while fasting and very low calorie dieting causes resting metabolic rate to decrease." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2204100
With respect I don't find it confusing or contradictory very often. Usually when the results seem to conflict one another it is because the design or execution of the study is poor.
I didn't read every study in the first link there but I read the most promising one "Protein choices targeting thermogenesis and metabolism " and they measured TEF not RMR.
The second study has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Increasing calories will increase RMR and lowering calories will decrease RMR. Not the same thing as macronutrient or specific foods.
Short of a food acting as a stimulant or doing something like DNP where ATP is made less efficient I don't see how a macronutrient or specific food can increase RMR to any significant degree. Maybe I'm naive but the energy has to go somewhere right?
Thanks for the excellent read. It was also very well written, which makes me suspect the dude had an editor doing the heavy lifting. (Just my bias as a freelance writer/editor accustomed to working with language-challenged physicians).
Misti- I 100% agree. And there is a lot of empirical evidence and science that strongly support some of this. I think there are people who take it to far. There are chemical and man made things that are perfectly safe, but the newest understanding of nutrition and how the body works does demonstrate that actually, a calorie is not just a calorie. The type of food you consume DOES impact how you use energy in your body.
Thanks! I didn't really expect anyone to agree with me. But I'm still right, ha.
-------------------------------------- <----- that's me with my 10 foot pole not touching this topic!
F.
But I'm still right, ha.
