Apparently the rules have changed
 

Newest info out there (sorry I don't have a link to back up my info) is that all calories are not created equal. So for instance you're better off eating 200 calories of "clean" food over 100 calories of processed food. I'm not talking the obvious like McDonald's, they're saying pretty much anything with a label that's loaded with artifical ingredients. It seems like a no-brainer but all this time at 3FC I was under the impression that a calorie is a calorie, so in my mind a 100 calorie lean cuisine was better than 2 bananas. Guess not. Remember JohnP's convos about the Twinkie diet for arguments sake? I agreed with him. Now they're saying your body doesn't know how to break down artificial (chemical) ingredients so your body auto stores it as fat. Well...what do I know but that DOES make sense with the rise in obesity since the increase of processed food. Thoughts?

This has been acknowledged many times here on 3FCs. Many people here have discovered for themselves that a calorie is indeed NOT a calorie.

ETA: I myself found that I could eat 1000 calories of processed junk and gain weight. Or 1400 calories of good stuff and lose weight.

I agree with the above. That is why it came out that it is better to eat butter instead of margarine years ago. Even though it has more calories and fat, our bodies know what to do with it. Of course everything in moderation

I have know this for about a year. I eat way too many calories but good foods. It doesn't necessarily help me lose weight but I don't gain either.

To lose, I just eat less of the good stuff.

I posted this article from the NY Times over in the "Weight Loss News" forum a couple weeks ago.

My understanding is that the calories in processed foods are more available to your body. Many whole foods, on the other hand, are more difficult for your body to process and therefore your body does not extract all the calories. For example, an ounce of nuts may have 180 calories as measured in a laboratory, but your body can only extract and use 120 calories (I guess you, ahem, excrete the other 60 calories).

The above article comes with a fun little quiz to demonstrate some foods that have fewer available calories.

For many years, people have been describing this phenomenon on 3FC. I know when I am eating clean (rare these days!), I lose way faster than math would predict, possibly because everything I eat is just a bit lower in calories than I think!

I'll admit I seriously thought a calorie is a calorie up until I read an article recently & then it all made sense. If I eat clean (which is hard) I really don't need to calorie count at all.

I've always sort of subscribed to both schools of thought... Like yeah, don't get all your calories from processed food and if you're going to gorge do it on the good stuff, but if you want that 300 calorie processed snack once in awhile, treat it like 300 calories of your allowance if you count and move on to your healthier thing next time you're hungry.

Even with processed foods and thats all you ate, I'd bet you can lose weight as long as you are eating small enough portions. It would be unhealthy for a dozen other reasons, but for strict weight loss without worry of health, you could do it. I've seen people with candy diets on TV that can't gain weight, but are super unhealthy.

Good thing most of us here though are pursuing healthy lifestyles though and not just slimmer bodies :) Thanks for the update and reminder Novangel!

Personally I believe a calorie pretty much is a calorie in terms of pure weight loss. That said, the calories from some foods are more available to the body than others. In general, though, I think it is false to think that if you are eating unprocessed foods that you can eat as much as you want and still lose weight. The calories still matter.

Having said all that, I have been very deliberating removing very highly processed foods from my diet and limiting other processed foods. I do this for 2 reasons.

First, I think the foods that are less processed are generally healthier foods for us. Second, I think that the food industry designs highly processed foods to be very attractive to us. The more we eat of them the more we want. That is not very conducive to weight loss or good health.

Everyone pretty much stated points I agree with. I wish I'd known this in my 20s when I'd do 1200 calories a day. McDonalds yogurt parfait 2 lean cuisines, and some popcorn. I'm sure all of that was awesome for my metabolism. I probably get to eat four times as much food now (1800 calories) since veggies take space. :P.

Someone posted an article in the weight loss news section, here is the thread: http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/weig...ml#post5160274

Basically, it isn't that a calorie is not a calorie but digestibility plays into how calories are consumed by our bodies. The differences appear to be fairly small except in nuts, which are not as calorie dense as previously thought although they are still calorically dense. The calorie difference may be enough, especially nuts are a major part of your diet, to cause a stall when you are near your goal weight. For many other people, the caloric difference probably wouldn't be that great (100-200 calories/day, maybe 300 if you incorporate lots of nuts).

So even if you are eating unprocessed foods, you still need to count calories or keep track. Trust me, I know. I eat very few processed foods but I have to keep on myself to make sure I don't overeat.

Here's a couple more I've read recently:
Science Reveals While Calorie Counts Are All Wrong
Why Most Food Labels Are Wrong About Calories

The second one is short and I think explains the point very concisely. My favorite part is recognizing that learning to cook food was so important to our ancestors because it meant they were able to good more calories out of their food - hugely important when you don't know where you next food will come from!

It also makes me wonder if I am doing myself a disservice turning my fruits and veggies into smoothies. I imagine that makes them more easily digestible which in turn means I'm absorbing more calories. On the other hand, there's a difference in the amount of calories you absorb from cooked potatoes if they are hot versus cold! Crazy stuff man. Definitely a lot of thoughts about this and I'm so intrigued by the science!

The rules haven't changed, we just know a few more of them and now more non-scientists understand them. A calorie has never been an available calorie, and many of the reasons have been known for 50 years or more.

Calories are units of energy, essentially the "burnability" of an organic substance.

Cellulose fiber calories, for example, are inaccessible to humans. Wood therefore has a considerable calorie content, but humans cannot access them. An apple has more available calories for a cow than for a human.

Even though we've known this for decades, fiber calories still are not routinely subtracted from calorie counts on food labels or in calorie counting resources. They can be, but it is not required in the USA and rarely will US food labels state whether or not fiber calories were subtracted, so to know, you have to redo the math yourself (assuming you know how).


There are many other factors that affect the amount of calories your body will be able to extract from a specific food, or from all of your food in general. While some of these are new discoveries, many have been known for nearly as long as calories have been measured.

At best, calorie counting for weight loss, using available calorie-listing resources, gives you a "worst case" (for weight gain, it would be "best case") estimate.

Unfortunately those resources can leave the impression that 1500 calories of Oreos and Doritos will have the same effect on weight loss as 1500 calories of tilapia and broccoli.

Even in the 1970's (which is about as far back as I personally remember) you could easily find information from reputable sources that refuted this assumption, but it wasn't always communicated in popular resources. Even doctors and other medical and weight loss professionals would often intentionally mislead patients (and would admit it when confronted) because they thought the accurate information would only confuse the average patient (We weren't deemed smart or responsible enough to handle the truth).

The science has never claimed that all calories are equivalent in the body (that a calorie is a calorie), it's only the diet industry and individuals in dieting culture who have made that claim.

I'm going to avoid the science talk because I don't know enough about it to contribute. However, putting the technical function of calories aside it is easy to witness the effect of food on your body! When I started intuitive eating I was like a blind person wading through food in a hole new manner. I knew somewhat that different foods made my body feel different things but I chose foods based on prescribed dietary guidelines rather than on what I wanted instead. Once I took off those training wheels and started to eat based on what my body asked for I was surprised by how obvious the differences were in how food affected my body. That info was always there, I was just never looking at it directly.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that because each food plays a role in how it affects out body that means that the calories in that food affect us differently too. Who here hasn't realized that a 300cal breakfast of a bagel vs a 300cal breakfast of yogurt with nuts and fruit have vastly different effects on how our bodies function throughout the morning? That includes energy, satiety, mood and digestion!

You guys don't have a commercial grade $30,000 calorimeter in your kitchen so you can experiment on this kind of stuff yourself? Jeez, maybe it's time to take weight loss more seriously. :P

Also "clean" calories will get you lean thin over fluffy thin. I'm definitely fluffy thin because I suck with discipline. I agree everything in moderation, even clean cals, but I will definitely be hanging around the fresh produce aisle more often than not. I mean obviously we all know what foods are better for you but now I know that lean cuisine calories are not a better option (weightloss wise) over clean food that might be 100 calories more...