
Why the calorie is broken - antouank
http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/01/why-the-calorie-is-broken/
======
Someone1234
Calories definitely aren't accurate but they're "accurate enough." Just as
different foods likely result in more human fat development per calorie than
others (see bleeding edge research), but ultimately none of that is hugely
important because by cutting all calories you're likely cutting the "bad" kind
too (namely sugars and complex carbohydrates). Counting sugars and those foods
that easily metabolise into sugars is just as effective as actual calorie
counting for weight loss.

One key thing to remember is: You cannot outrun a bad diet.

Meaning it isn't realistic to achieve substantial weight loss through
exercise. Thirty minutes of jogging could be undone by one extra chocolate
bar, a Big Mac, or a soda. If you already have control over your diet exercise
can HELP with weight loss goals (e.g. extra pound of body weight a week) but a
lot of people assume they can run off 20-30-40 pounds of excess body weight
which is just totally unrealistic.

Base metabolic rate is the primary means of weight loss. As simplistic as this
sounds, the goal remains to consume less than you burn through BMR, and the
latest research on calorie's inherent inadequacies haven't yet changed that.

~~~
CydeWeys
Another thing I'd like to point out is that, as long as your overall diet is
off by a constant factor, all you have to do to lose weight is calibrating
your diet. Think of a feedback loop between how many calories you're eating
and what your weight is. If you're not losing weight, then cut the number of
calories you're eating more! It doesn't matter what the actual numbers are of
how many you think you're burning versus how many you're losing; all that
matters is results. If you're not getting those results, reduce intake
further. Think of it as solving for an unknown constant factor on calorie
account through experimentation with measurement.

~~~
philh
My understanding is that for some people, I'm not sure what fraction, "just
eat less" basically means "just be perpetually hungry".

I'd rather be overweight than perpetually hungry.

~~~
mamon
As a person who is currently in process of loosing weight through diet I can
say that eating less calories doesn't mean feeling hungry. There are plenty of
foods that are high volume and low calorie at the same time: salads, fruits,
groats, whole bread and cereals. Also, the funny thing is that foods that
appear high calories, like meat, are not inherently like that. Meat is pretty
low in calories until you start to fry it.

EDIT: I wrote my comment in hurry, so I will now take some time to clarify my
point.

Feeling hungry comes from the fact that eating foods rich in sugar and fat
puts your insulin levels at a roller coaster, going up and down like crazy.
With balanced diet, after initial few days of adjustment your insulin level
stabilize making hunger go away.

Also, whole foods, vegetables, grains contain a lot of fiber, which stacks up
in your bowels making you even likely to feel hungry.

~~~
philh
> As a person who is currently in process of loosing weight through diet I can
> say that eating less calories doesn't mean feeling hungry.

No you can't. You can say that eating fewer calories doesn't mean feeling
hungry _for you_. Apparently you're not in the fraction I was talking about.
Good for you.

I also note that you're talking about changing your diet, while the post I was
replying to specifically said you didn't have to do that.

~~~
maxerickson
_while the post I was replying to specifically said you didn 't have to do
that._

I read that post as saying that losing weight _does_ require a change in diet.
Reducing calories is a significant change to make.

I think one of the easiest ways to reduce calories is to change the
composition of the diet, there are a lot of calorie dense foods that provide
little nutrition and not much satiety. Eliminating (or simply reducing) them
can be an easier way to shift calorie consumption in the right direction.

~~~
philh
I read that post as "your diet has the right proportions of things, just too
much of them? Great, just eat less of your existing diet. Still not losing
weight? Eat even less!"

I agree with you that changing your diet seems like generally a much better
idea.

~~~
beachstartup
yes, it's a much better idea. i've lost 30 pounds in the last 6 months by
cleaning up my diet and working out.

at the end of the day, losing weight is work. there's no way around it. work
is generally slightly uncomfortable, and if you're not at least a little bit
willing to endure that, you aren't going to see results. i treat gym time and
kitchen time like office time. it's just work i have to do. it's not a big
deal. after i get this work done, i can relax and chill out and do something
mindless.

and really, in the end it's an individual decision. you have to decide, do i
give a shit about this? you don't have to give a shit about it. if you don't,
that's fine. if you do, then get to work.

maybe in 20 years things will be different, but that's how it is now.

------
roel_v
Losing weight is like a Perlin noise function. The 'primary signal' is food
intake. The 'secondary signal' is caloric expenditure (be it from the base
metabolism or exercise). All the rest are tertiary signals. Yes, one can
debate about the amplitude of each of the signals, but the message is: want to
lose weight? Eat less.

The problem with articles like this is that it sends the signal: 'losing
weight is hard, don't bother trying'. Or 'nobody knows how this works! What
we've thought for decades is completely wrong!'. Which is a poisonous message.
It doesn't matter that we don't know the exact details, or that we can't
measure to the last 25 Cals. The higher-level principle (i.e.: yes, you body
obeys the laws of thermodynamics) is still valid.

------
invesari
I am always surprised how little focus there is on the mental aspects of
overeating. Losing weight is really simple - consume fewer calories, eat less
processed stuff. And yet so many smart, otherwise capable people struggle with
weight loss despite having an excellent knowledge of modern diet plans.

Food doesn't get in a person's stomach by accident, a decision is made with
every meal, especially when a person is aware of being overweight. So why do
people continuously keep making wrong decisions for many months and years?

My case was simple - I was depressed and food made me happy. Making a decision
not to eat something was mentally painful. Fixing things that were wrong with
my life eliminated both my depression and my issues with overeating.

~~~
tdkl
Having the guts to admit yourself you were "fixing" the depressed feeling with
food was half the victory already. Now if it was so easy to convince the
population ...

------
blakesterz
So Ars reprinted that from the original at mosaicscience.com and I guess
that's from a Gastropod episode or at least that's a podcast companion to the
story. It's on soundcloud.com iTunes

Really interesting read on why it's so damn hard to figure out how to lose
weight, or why it's so hard to control our eating sometimes. Is it genetics,
gut microbes, insulin, existing fat cells? All of the above? More and more the
science seems to agree stop eating sugar/carbs/whatever and that seems to help
most people. BUT not everyone responds to sugar/carbs/whatever the same way if
you measure blood sugar after you eat. AND it's hard to actually measure
calories. Sure was much easier when all we had to do was "avoid fats", but
apparently that was just wrong.

[http://mosaicscience.com/story/why-calorie-
broken](http://mosaicscience.com/story/why-calorie-broken)

[https://soundcloud.com/gastropodcast/the-end-of-the-
calorie](https://soundcloud.com/gastropodcast/the-end-of-the-calorie)

[https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-end-of-the-
calor...](https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-end-of-the-
calorie/id918896288?i=361353657&amp;mt=2)

~~~
s54b32dd
"avoiding fats" was quite possibly the worst thing to ever happen to the
American diet, mainly because they got replaced by sugars in most situations.

------
1_player
I've been fascinated by low carb diets for a while now, and in the past month
I've been religiously counting everything I ingest, and found I settle
naturally towards a very high fat, low carb diet (5% carbs, 25% prots, 70%
fat)

My flatmate, who's dieting with me, is appaled by the amount of fat I'm
eating, constantly asking me if it's healthy or whether I'm just going to get
fat even if I am well below my TDEE. My response is basically "a calorie is a
calorie", i.e. I'm below my TDEE => I'm losing weight.

I know that the reality is more complicated, and the article does explain that
very well; satiety is more important for dieters, and there's also the unknown
factor of gut microbes: am I comfortable low carbing because of satiety or
just because my gut flora is different? Nobody knows actually.

This is a fascinating subject and there are far too many experts and anecdata
that everybody's right and wrong at the same time. Experiment, if you feel
physically good and are not overeating (by counting calories) you're on the
right track. Take dieting advices with tons of salt. Make them your own.

Personally I struggle having more than two meals a day and eating more than
1800 cals (I'm 1.86m and 88 kg). If I were high carbing I'd go over the limit
just to keep my hunger at bay. I once binged (on processed crap I was craving)
and ate around 4K cals. I honestly don't know how to do that on low carb, and
especially eating healty. Unless I eat nuts: can eat over 1K cals in nuts in a
single sitting.

And whoever said you NEED to eat n times a day: shut up, you're wrong.

My advice: eat when you are hungry, eat real food, forget about macros.

~~~
noondip
> My flatmate, who's dieting with me, is appaled by the amount of fat I'm
> eating, constantly asking me if it's healthy or whether I'm just going to
> get fat

That's probably because a diet with 70% fat is extremely unhealthy and will
likely lead to coronary atherosclerosis. Also, 5% carbs? How are you getting
any nutrition in, since fruit and vegetables are almost all carbs?

~~~
tzs
> Also, 5% carbs? How are you getting any nutrition in, since fruit and
> vegetables are almost all carbs?

Vegetables are often relatively high in carbs but low in total calories, and
so the contribution of their carbs to your total calories can be low even if
you have a lot of vegetables in your diet.

For instance, I recently had a steak and corn for dinner. The corn was 80
calories per serving, 15 g of carb, so 75% of calories from carbs. The steak
was 600 calories, 3 g of carb (from the steak sauce I used, not the steak
itself), with is 2% calories from carbs. I had two servings of corn with my
steak, so the total meal was 760 calories, 33 g carbs, which is 17% calories
from carbs.

If I had not chosen corn I probably would have chosen a can of green beans (70
calories, 7 g of carbs, which is 40% calories from carbs) which would have
made the total meal 6% calories from carbs. Heck, double the green beans...two
full 14.5 oz cans (almost a kilogram of green beans!), and the total for the
meal would only rise to 9% calories from carbs.

Or consider salads. I use a pre-made salad mix [1] (I'm lazy). One bowl of
this is 20 calories, 3 g carbs. That's 60% of calories from carbs. I use a
dressing on this that is 240 calories, 4 g of carbs, so 7% calories from
carbs. The salad mix combined with the dressing gives me 26 calories, 7 g
carbs, so 11% calories from carbs. Recently I add some chopped up ham to this
that added 200 calories, 0 g carbs, making the total salad 6% calories from
carbs.

[1] [http://www.freshexpress.com/product/refreshing-
mixes/iceberg...](http://www.freshexpress.com/product/refreshing-
mixes/iceberg-garden.aspx) and yes, the nutrition values I gave above do not
match what they give on the site. I'm going by what is printed on the actual
package rather than the web site, although it is a little disturbing that they
are different.

~~~
noondip
> Vegetables are often relatively high in carbs but low in total calories

Exactly, which is why you're supposed to be eating a lot of them.

> I had two servings of corn with my steak, so the total meal was 760
> calories, 33 g carbs, which is 17% calories from carbs.

760 calories and not a whole lot of nutrition. For the same caloric price, you
could have several salads packed with vegetables, legumes and whole grains,
packed with antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and fiber.

~~~
tzs
> 760 calories and not a whole lot of nutrition

Well, I do eat more than just a single meal a day. I also had a salad that
day, and a sandwich on whole grain bread. It's not like every meal is a big
slab of meat and a couple servings of one vegetable.

My main dietary planning since early September has been around carbs, because
my glucose levels have been creeping up, even though I had not made any
dietary changes. My HA1c hit 8.9 early in 2015 [1]. I cut back a bit on sugary
drinks, and it dropped to 8.1 by early September. Then I started aiming for no
more than 40% of calories from carbs, and by my next test 3 months later it
was down to 5.9. I hadn't actually _intended_ to cut calories, but as a
completely accidental side effect my daily calories ended up half what they
were before, so over that 3 months I lost 45 pounds, and have lost another 15
since then. My blood pressure is down noticeably, too.

For my 2016 food tracking spreadsheet I added a column specifically for sugar,
and am thinking of modifying my "40% from carbs" goal to allow a higher
percentage from carbs as long as the percentage specifically from sugar stays
down. That will flip a lot more fruits and vegetables and grain-based products
into the "go ahead and eat a lot of these" category.

From blood tests and food tracking, as far as I can see the only nutrient I'm
low on is protein. I'm getting on average about 75-80% of what is recommended
(based on the 0.36 g of protein per pound you weigh guideline). So, I like to
toss in a delicious slab of meat now and then to boost the protein, like I did
in my steak and corn dinner the other day.

As long as I feel fine, and my blood tests continue showing no problems, I'm
just going to keep on doing what I'm doing, because it is leading to good
steady weight loss and is almost effortless and should be sustainable
indefinitely.

[1] And yes, this is with medication.

------
vnprc
This article seems to be based on a mistaken premise. There is nothing wrong
with the calorie as a unit of measurement. The problem is an inability to
accurately measure it.

There is simply not a good way to measure human calorie expenditure. Fitbits
and their ilk are, to put it bluntly, useless. They measure the number of
movements, not the work expended for each movement. They cannot distinguish
between a step taken on flat ground or an incline (or decline) or even the
difference between an arm movement and a body movement.

It wouldn't be impossible to measure total calorie expenditure, but it would
be pretty impractical. You'd basically need to isolate the person from the
external environment and measure the total heat produced by that person's
body.

But, like other commenters have pointed out, you don't even need to measure
calorie expenditure to lose weight. You just need a running average of calorie
intake and of weight loss. If weight loss is too low or too high, adjust your
calorie intake and wait for more data. Repeat as needed.

------
MCRed
For me, and I believe there are at least two different types of people in this
regard, the key to losing weight was insulin levels. Namely, I went on a low
carb diet and lost around 100 pounds.

Some people, I believe, are insulin resistant and some are insulin sensitive.
The sensitive ones tend to be skinny and have to really overeat to gain
weight, while the resistant ones find it easy to gain weight.

I have dieted for years attempting to lose weight, but cutting out carbs was a
game changer. Suddenly losing weight became _easy_. And who doesn't like an
all BBQ diet?? (ok, well, even BBQ gets tiring after awhile, but I eat a
variety of stuff, and even have managed to work out how to make a low carb
pizza (almond meal+cheese for the crust, tastes like whole wheat).)

I do not believe all calories are the same. I eat a high fat, high calorie
diet, I never worry about calories. If I'm hungry I eat. I only ever budget
for carbs. So long as I'm eating meat and cheese, say, for a snack, I can eat
as much as I want- and I do. (Though one of the side effects of low carb /
high fat, is as your body becomes fat adapted, you find yourself hungry less
often. I have on occasions simply forgotten to eat for an entire 36 hour
period.)

OF course this is anecdote, and I do think that in regards to insulin
sensitivity there are at least two types of people.

And in fact, that's part of my point. The monotonous "just cut out fats and
eat all the pasta you want and you'll lose weight" Official Government
Propaganda Diet is not working- it presumes that everyone is the same too.

Low carb may not work for everybody, I dunno. But it worked for me,
spectacularly.

For the first time in my life I'm confronting the prospect of being normal
sized. Skinny even.

That's going to be weird!

~~~
maxerickson
Insulin resistance is considered a medical condition. At first, prediabetes.
Later, Type 2 diabetes.

There may indeed be differences in "normal" insulin response, but it probably
doesn't make sense to label one end of that range as insulin resistant,
insulin is a hormone that is deeply involved in energy metabolism. The failure
to respond to it is a dysfunction.

------
Tepix
I'd say the calorie is fine (other than being obsolete, you should use Joule.
1c = 4.2j). It may not be easy to measure with high accuracy. That's not going
to change with a new system. Also, just because the body sometimes can't use
parts of the calories you feed it, doesn't mean it's broken.

~~~
maxerickson
Food calories are 4200 joules.

~~~
lorenzhs
A calorie is still 4.18... Joules whether in food or in physics homework. It's
just that nobody says "kilocalories" even though the label says "kcal" ;)

~~~
roel_v
No. A 'food calorie' ('1 Cal') = 1000 calories ('1000 cals').

~~~
lorenzhs
Interesting, the American usage seems to be quite different from usage in
Germany. There is no such thing as a "food calorie" here, they're labelled as
"kcal" (kilocalories). From the German Wikipedia article on "Kalorie":

> Umgangssprachlich werden oft Nährwertangaben in Kilokalorien fälschlich >
> als „Kalorien“ bezeichnet. In den USA ist bei Nährwertangaben > die
> Bezeichnung calorie für Kilokalorien auch offiziell zulässig.

In English: Informally, kilocalories in food are often referred to simply as
"calories". In the USA, using "calories" instead of "kilocalories" in
nutritional information is officially allowed.

Here it's not allowed to label them as calories, they have to be labelled as
kilocalories. They're still called "calories" informally though.

------
funkyy
I see a lot of people have big problem with calories. The simple way to count
it better is to round it up to 50. So if you had a tea with sugar - thats 50.
If you had coffee, instead of 70 - thats 100. Then I also see a lot of people
wont count snacks. Snacks and "bites" in between meals is a huge problem.
Check how much calories have one slice of cheese or few M&Ms.

------
vzip
Why We Get Fat is an excellent book that investigates this topic:
[http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-
About/dp/0307474259/](http://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-
About/dp/0307474259/)

In short, for most of us, our fat tissue is regulated primarily through our
response to insulin.

~~~
rogeryu
An interesting read is Why Zebras don't get Ulcers by Sapolsky. It's a book
about stress. Eating, fat, insulin and weight are an interesting part of it,
and their relation to stress and health in general.

[http://www.amazon.com/Why-Zebras-Dont-Get-
Ulcers/dp/07167321...](http://www.amazon.com/Why-Zebras-Dont-Get-
Ulcers/dp/0716732106/)

------
noobie
> _Haelle is a freelance science journalist_.... _“I’m kind of pissed at the
> scientific community for not coming up with something better for us,” she
> confesses_

Pissed?

~~~
shawabawa3
British English for "annoyed"

~~~
SixSigma
Nope. We British wouldn't use "pissed at" we'd use "pissed off with". And in
writing we'd never write that because it's actually quite strong language for
us. We'd write "annoyed with"

~~~
philh
I'm British too, and I'm a bit pissed at you for trying to tell people how I
speak and write.

~~~
SixSigma
You sound like some sort of foreigner. Stop watching so much US tv and get
back on to Dad's Army.

