-------------------------------------- <----- that's me with my 10 foot pole not touching this topic!

But I found this interesting:
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*

: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

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.

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.

" There is convincing evidence that a higher protein intake increases thermogenesis" http://www.jacn.org/content/23/5/373.short

"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

Thanks, John. If this is indeed the reason for insulin-related weight gain in insulin-resistant people, then it makes perfect sense!

F.

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.

F.

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*

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).

Freelance

Yeah, let's agree to agree.

F.

That is part of it - when calories and macronutrients are equal - the output of energy will vary based on insulin sensativity.

The other part of it has to do wtih compliance, protein being more satiating, insulin levels not creashing will have less effect on appetite etc.

Thanks! I didn't really expect anyone to agree with me. But I'm still right, ha.