
What Does 200 Calories Look Like? - shawndumas
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-200-calories-look-like.htm
======
rubyrescue
One of the things I've enjoyed the most in the past 4 months has been diving
into reddit.com/r/fitness. If you spend a few hours reading the FAQ on that
site, plus examine.com's nutrition articles, and reddit.com/r/leangains FAQs,
you will come out with a much better understanding of your diet.

There are also calculators listed in the FAQs that will help you determine
what you need to eat to maintain your bodyweight, lose fat, gain muscle, etc,
over a user-selected window of time.

First thing I realized - that the difference between tracking your "macros"
and not is like programming with Word or with vi/emacs/slickedit/etc - the
difference is AMAZING.

The next thing I realized - is that to get enough protein if you're even
moderately active, you have to eat A LOT - eggs, milk, meat, tuna, and even
then I still have to supplement with protein supplements.

Now, combine the diet knowledge with a beginner weight training program like
Starting Strength and the effect is amazing. I've gained 10 pounds of muscle
and lost 10 lbs of fat. I've doubled all my lift numbers (which are still
admittedly quite low) in four months. I have far more energy and other
activities - I occasionally play tennis - I play better and feel stronger.

Edited to add - and most importantly, use something like myfitnesspal.com -
which is free, has a great app, and has millions of food items, and track
everything for just a few weeks. it will teach you what protein/fat/carbs
common foods you eat have.

~~~
choxi
what's a "macro"?

~~~
gryphonic
Macronutirent. Basically it means one of either fat, protein or carbohydrate.
Many diets will have you set a calorie goal, and then suggest a guideline what
percentage of your calorie intake should come from each macronutrient group.

------
msluyter
As someone who's successfully lost a lot of weight on a low carb / no grain
diet, this chart irks me. That a handful of almonds has the same calories as a
certain amount of Captain Crunch is irrelevant. The latter will quickly
convert to glucose in your body, however, (unlike almonds) and that will make
a huge difference in your satiety levels, insulin response (Hello, Metabolic
Syndrome!), etc... [1]

Some good resources: <http://whole9life.com/start/> <http://thepaleodiet.com/>

[1] Standard disclaimers. I'm not a nutritionist. This works for me. YMMV.

~~~
c1u
Almonds are mostly fat, and not very satiating either.

I've done the paleo/lowcarb fad diets too. They just trick you into eating
fewer calories by forbidding most of the food you ate before the diet. Not to
mention some versions of these diets are based on incorrect understanding of
human physiology. For example, despite what the paleotards will tell you,
carbs are very rarely converted into body fat. But when you eat any food in
excess of TDEE, the dietary fat you eat is stored instead of used as fuel.
Even if you eat zero carbs, if you eat more than your TDEE, you will gain fat.

~~~
rb2k_
> They just trick you into eating fewer calories by forbidding most of the
> food you ate before the diet.

I eat more calories than before judging by the amounts of meat/butter/nuts
that I eat. I lost 15 kilos in body weight accompanied by a 5% reduction in
body fat (-> gained muscle).

So at least on a personal level, I can really not confirm this.

An interesting article backing the low-carb high-fat diets that has links to
the matching double blind studies: [http://authoritynutrition.com/11-biggest-
lies-of-mainstream-...](http://authoritynutrition.com/11-biggest-lies-of-
mainstream-nutrition/)

~~~
brown9-2
Are you also exercising more than before the diet? If so, it's an uneven
comparison.

~~~
rb2k_
Not initially. This process was over 15 months or so and for the first 4-5 I
didn't change my exercise routine.

------
jgrahamc
Some time ago I wrote about my own weight loss "program" which was fairly
simple: [http://blog.jgc.org/2010/01/johns-amazing-diet-secrets-
revea...](http://blog.jgc.org/2010/01/johns-amazing-diet-secrets-
revealed.html)

Largely I cut down on carbohydrates (because I was stuffing myself with crap
like Coke, sweets, etc.) and ate less in general.

Late last year I realized that I had put on weight again because of the same
bad habits so I cut them out again and redid my "program". I now weigh 71kg
which is very healthy for my height.

To be honest, a small investment in knowing the calorie and nutrient content
of foods, cutting out processed and useless foods, and most importantly
"listening to my stomach and not my mouth" made weight loss pretty easy for
me.

The other important motivator was realizing the asymmetry between the effort
required to insert calories in my mouth (100s of calories per minute are easy)
and burn calories once in me (100s of calories per hour).

------
rb2k_
Seeing as this usually turns into a low-carb diet thread, here is a great post
about the common nutritional misconceptions of most modern diets and links to
the accompanying scientific papers: [http://authoritynutrition.com/11-biggest-
lies-of-mainstream-...](http://authoritynutrition.com/11-biggest-lies-of-
mainstream-nutrition/)

~~~
3minus1
This makes it sound like I could eat greasy pizza all the time and it would be
healthy.

~~~
rb2k_
sadly no. the carbs in pizza in combination with the fat are a bit of a
problem. If you want to go for cauliflower pizza (
[https://www.google.com/search?q=cauliflower+pizza&oq=cau...](https://www.google.com/search?q=cauliflower+pizza&oq=cauliflower+pizza&ie=UTF-8)
), knock yourself out :)

------
muxxa
The idea that eating healthily can be simplified to the reduction in a single
number (a calorific value) really annoys me.

Always remember that a calorie is a proxy metric, and a very poor one at that;
it's the energy output of _burning_ the food, which has very little
correlation with what goes on in your body during consumption/digestion.

~~~
Robin_Message
Assuming you are right here, which macronutrient (out of protein, fats and
carbs) either: a) converts into ATP with significantly less or more than 40%
efficiency; or b) is not absorbed in significant fractions by the human
digestive system?

Otherwise, bah to _very little correlation_.

~~~
muxxa
I'm not a nutritionist but I'll back up my assertion of 'very little
correlation' by drawing attention to the following which aren't taken into
account by the calorific value:

\- Glycemic Index: how quickly blood sugar levels spike after eating

\- Proportional mix of the protein, fat and carbs that you mention (Maybe
someone can help me out with a citation on the affect on health, both long and
short term, of the different mixes of these).

\- Micro-nutritional content: presence or absence of vitamins & minerals

\- Poorly understood factors such as whether a requirement to chew (or suck)
food prior to swallowing primes the digestive system and/or alters perception
of 'fullness' (peanut butter vs. peanuts, sugar in a glass of coke vs. same
amount of sugar in hard boiled sweets)

It's also important to remember that foods are not simply energy, but have
direct effects on the levels of various neurotransmitters in the brain,
leading to feedback loops (sugar addiction comes to mind).

I think you are better off to literally _trust your gut_ over a calorific
value.

------
voidlogic
I'm guessing this list as the same pitfall as food labels and is showing
quantities based on the amount of energy (calories) in the raw material rather
than using the amount of energy the human digestive system can actually
exploit. For example while you might get nearly 200 calories of from 200 of
white bread, you would only actually get 150 calories from 200 calories of
many meats. I think that if nutrition labels changed to estimated "exploitable
calories" that a lot of the magic diet nonsense would evaporate.

~~~
moggie
How is the exploitable amount of calories determined, exactly? Is there a
layperson-readable resource somewhere that you might recommend?

~~~
dfxm12
I'm not sure what exactly OP is referring to, but there is a difference in the
nutritional data of, for example, raw chicken breast (which is marked on the
packaging) and baked chicken breast (which is what gets digested [unless you
actually eat it raw]).

See <http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/poultry-products/701/2> VS
<http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/poultry-products/703/2>

Make sure you line up the serving sizes.

~~~
Evbn
Self.com has great data tables for many variations of foods.

------
jws
This would be much more useful with a recognizable, standard sized object in
each picture. Maybe not as pretty, but a heap of flour is a heap of flour.

(For bonus usability, they could stop shifting the popups off to the right so
I need to make my browser window wider to close the popup.)

~~~
elsewhen
From the bottom of the article:

"All pictures were taken with the same camera (Nikon D70 digital camera) and
with the same setup; in other words, the portion sizes displayed are all
relative to each other.

The plate is 10.25" (26cm) in diameter and the bowl is 6.25" (16cm) "

------
smackfu
Peanut butter, nuts, and bagels tend to be the ones that are most surprising
to people who are dieting for the first time. Just way more calories than
people think because they think they are "healthy" because they are natural.

~~~
jwoah12
People think bagels are healthy? They're just a big, dense (delicious) ring of
simple carbs.

~~~
peterwwillis
They also have (on average) ~12g protein and 1.5g fat. At a little over 20% of
the carbs you need per day, it's not going to ruin your diet, but could have
an unhealthy effect on blood sugar levels in some people
[<http://www.phlaunt.com/lowcarb/19060174.php>]

~~~
tocomment
Are pumper nickel bagels much better? That's what I've been telling myself ...

~~~
stan_rogers
That really depends on what you mean by "pumpernickel". If you mean black rye
flour bread, it's not significantly different from any other grain-flour
bread. If you mean rye meal bread ("real" pumpernickel), it would have
significantly higher fat and caloric content (it's much denser than a flour
bread, containing very little in the way of gas pockets, and uses more of the
seed).

------
drucken
Easy way to remember, something bodybuilders know intimately: for 1g,

 _Carbs = 4 calories

Protein = 4 calories

Fat = 9 calories

Alcohol = 7 calories._

~~~
anoncow
But aren't alcohol calories "empty"?

~~~
TeMPOraL
So? They still can make you gain weight:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_calorie>

------
jonathanjaeger
I find it very interesting that an imgur gallery with the same title made it
to the top of Reddit the other day and a different link with different
pictures but the same premise made it to the front page on Hacker News. Of
course on Hacker News imgur isn't the default.

------
devrelm
I'm really depressed at the amount of Bailey's in that glass.

------
lorenzfx
I might be a nitpicker, but I really hate it when people say (or in this case
write) "calorie" but mean "kilo calorie". There is a difference.

~~~
38leinad
I have always asked myself why that is so? how did it happen that this
"mistake" got into everyones mind? you don't say "meters" if you mean
"kilometers"...

~~~
Mitt
Yes, it’s strange. My idea here is: for distances both things are typical:
meters and kilometers. Every day we need to handle both unites. It would be
impractical to give longer distances in meters (“Hey Jeff, it’s still around
100000000000000000 picometers to your home, will be there in roughly
4200000000000 nanoseconds…”).

But even huge distances on Earth can be measured in km, and we don’t need
megameters.

With calories however for all practical purposes we have a number range in
which it is okay to use kcal. So here people just forgot that the k actually
has a meaning. It makes not much sense to go down to the level of cal.

------
brendoncrawford
For what it's worth... I lost a lot of weight by eating the same stuff I have
always ate, just much less of it. Cookies, oatmeal, chocolate, beans, nuts,
fruit, etc.

Pre-historic or not, paleo is a fad. People with self control are going to
lose weight no matter what method they chose. People with no self control are
going to stay fat no matter what they do.

------
jtheory
Uh, carbs as in "you burn it, you get X carbs", or carbs as in "when your body
digests this, it uses A carbs to process, B carbs go out in waste, and the
balance is C carbs"?

The former isn't nearly as useful (but of course is much easier to figure out
with any accuracy).

------
pothibo
A calorie is not a calorie. Fructose could be the problem, and Robert H.
Lustig explains what he believes to be true.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM>

------
stdbrouw
The picture changes, though, if you decide not to steam your vegetables but
sauté them with oil instead. Doesn't make vegetables any less healthy, just
something to take into account.

~~~
Evbn
Because of oil or because of cell wall collapse?

~~~
stdbrouw
I can't say I know the biology, just that vegetables + oil come to calories
than only vegetables – so #1 :-)

------
ck2
The way the government allows corporations to calculate calories is a very
corrupt system, self-moderated with little to no supervision or enforcement.

So keep that in mind when reading labels.

------
Udo
There is some surprising stuff in there. I would never have guessed that
onions or broccoli have about the same energy density as Coca Cola.

~~~
Evbn
Which is more satiating, though? Coca cola is sugar dissolved in water. If you
pureed broccoli and thinned it in water, it would be much larger than the
equivalent amount of coke.

------
iand
How were the calories counted? It seems that many common foods are mislabeled
since they are using older forms of calorific calculation that don't include
fibre. See [http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/18/food-
retailers...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/feb/18/food-retailers-
underestimating-calorie-content)

~~~
Evbn
That article also links to the OP wisegeek article, and mentions protein
calorie overcounting and cooked-food calorie undercounting, which other
commenters here have mentioned. And it was published yesterday!

Strange loop, or filter bubble?

------
fingerprinter
Whenever I see a thread like this pop up on HN, I feel a need to reply and
dispel some myths. I'm going to do my best to provide a quick, yet thorough
summary. I hope this helps.

Who am I? I'm a techie and a fitness nut. I've played high level basketball,
amateur football, rugby, aussie rules football. I've done some triathlons (not
my forte), a couple ultra races (hate them, learned a lot about myself). My
current area is gaining muscle, losing fat, and building strength. I write
fitness books in my nights and weekends (no link provided).

I'll try to give the briefest of summaries, though I know it is going to be
challenging. If I didn't summarize something well enough or if it is unclear,
let me know and I can try to do a better job.

 _1\. Calories vs Macros also known as Weight vs Composition_

Calories matter for losing and gaining weight, but they don't tell the whole
story. If the only thing you know about are calories, you can't lose weight or
gain weight intelligently (ie. lose fat and gain muscle). You can do it by
accident, but you certainly can't do it optimally.

But, I'll offer this, if the only thing you care about is the number on the
scale, you can safely just track calories and eat in a deficit. You'll lose
weight.

Macros, or macronutrients, are important to understand so you can achieve the
goal you actually care about. Most people say "lose weight" and mean "lose
fat". "Gain weight" actually means "gain lean muscle".

If that is true of you, you need to understand and track macros. And, no, you
do not need to track both macros and calories. Macros are just fine.

 _2\. Gaining Muscle_

I wrote an entire book on gaining lean muscle mass complete with 3 workouts,
nutrition info and a diet. I'm going to do my best to summarize it here as
quickly as possible.

A. Workout with heavy weights (see workouts below). B. Spike insulin after a
workout (more on this in a sec). C. Cycle your days.

Recommend: For C, cycle your food in the following manner:

Workout days: 1g protein/desired lean bodyweight. Even simpler (if you hate
math), just 1g protein/desired bodyweight. 1-2g carbs (post workout
only)/desired lean bodyweight (this is more important to nail 100%), .5g
fat(before workout only)/desired lean bodyweight.

Non-workout days: 1g protein/desired lean bodyweight. Even simpler (if you
hate math), just 1g protein/desired bodyweight. 0-30g MAX carbs, .5g
fat(before workout only)/desired lean bodyweight.

For B, you can see above that I'm recommending carbs post workout. The goal
with the carbs is two fold: to replenish glycogen stores and to spike insulin.
If you are diabetic or for some other reason can't eat carbs, you can still
spike insulin, though not as fast and not as high. If no carbs, do the
following: protein shake with creatine, leucine (5-10g) and MCT oil (prefer
straight MCT, but coconut oil will do as well). (Note: this is the same shake
I use in the 'lose fat' below to still build some muscle while losing fat).

 _3\. Losing Fat_

Again, I wrote an entire book on this, so I'll do my best to summarize.
Remember, lose fat probably means 'lose fat and maintain whatever lean muscle
mass I currently have' .

A. Workout with heavy weights (preferred, mostly to maintain your muscle
mass...need to continue to stimulate the body), sprints/HIIT, or very low
intensity walking (mid-level cardio, i.e. running is bad for this goal, just
FYI). B. Spike insulin without carbs post heavy weight workout. If HIIT or low
intensity cardio, NO insulin spike. C. Carbs once a week.

For A, I prefer people to continue to workout with heavy weights simply to
make sure they can maintain their muscle, or even pack a bit more on.

For B, just use the same post workout shake above. Again, if workout was HIIT
or low-intensity cardio, don't do this.

And for C, follow "non-workout day" above and go ultra low carb for 5-6 days a
week (in a row). Then carb-refeed (also called carbing up) once or twice a
week. I highly recommend you start out with this approach: 6.5 days ultra low
carb (less than 30g/day) and then on the 7th night, have a 6 hour window where
you eat basically whatever carbs you want. On the order of 300-700g of carbs
in that window. The next day you are going to feel pretty bloated and you'll
gain weight (water), but in 2-3 days all that is gone and you are back to
losing fat. The reason for the .5 days of carbs is hormonal adjustment.

I initially intended to write much more, but this is already getting too long
for a HN post. It is really hard to summarize everything down to the barest of
essentials, so I hope I did an adequate enough job for people to get a start.

~~~
kafkaesque
Thank you for this, fingerprinter.

I follow something similar to what you say and can attest that it has been
working for me for over a year, with slight variations and tailoring it to my
day-to-day life, since I am first and foremost a runner. However, I still
weight train (heavy weights), so going back and forth from the "runner's
world" to a "weight-trainer's world" are two different beasts, but I am too
stubborn to give up one for the other and seek a balanced approach that seems
to be working for me.

The only thing I must say is that because I am so active, I eat an incredible
amount of foods that everyone around me remains in awe. The problem is that it
can get very expensive! Especially when trying to have a clean diet.

~~~
fingerprinter
Thought you would like this backstory a bit.

My co-author for my book on gaining muscle is a runner (and trainer etc).
Loves running, marathons, ragnar, the whole lot etc.

Before we started writing, I finally convinced him to give the program a shot,
eat the way I recommended and workout with weights the way I recommended. He
put on over 10 pounds of muscle and never felt better. His marathon time
dropped, his 5k/10k was faster and he has 6-pack abs. He's a convert.

Now, he still runs but he works with weights with equal intensity and he runs
much, much less than he did previously. And since his diet changed, he is able
to maintain the muscle and leanness.

------
boothead
What... balsamic vinegar is more calorie dense that Coca Cola?! Surely this
must be diet coke right...?

~~~
ihsw
Balsamic vinegar is a reduction of wine, usually, so it's almost entirely
sugary syrup.

~~~
kbutler
Soda without as much water...

------
andygcook
Without the full shot of the plate or another object as a frame of reference,
it's hard to tell how much volume each portion of food represents.

The imgur gallery makes it easier to gauge the portion size in my opinion.

<http://imgur.com/gallery/w9nHF>

~~~
juan_juarez
The page only shows thumbnails. You can click on the image to get the full
picture.

------
mapt
Appears to be in the same vein as this:
<http://www.healthassist.net/food/300kcal/300.shtml>

which offers more items, better size comparisons, and a rough price

------
plg
Bacon FTW

------
csmeder
This page says:

Brown Sugar

53 grams = 200 Calories

Splenda Artifical Sweetener

50 grams = 200 Calories

I don't understand?

~~~
Mitt
Both numbers are totally wrong. Because both should be closer to a quarter
million, and not 200. Even one gram of sugar already has over 4000 calories.

But besides that, and this is probably your question: you only need a tiny
amount of artificial sweetener, to get the same sweetness that you would get
with sugar. For example Aspartam is about 200x as sweet as sugar, but it
contains a very similar amount of energy. Sugar has ca. 16.8 kJ/g and Aspartam
more like 17 kJ/g.

~~~
fr0sty
To your first point: 1 Calorie = 1 Kilo-calorie = 4184 Joules

so 200Calories actually _is_ close to a quarter-million calories (small c)

------
qompiler
Canola oil sounds frightening!

~~~
driverdan
All oils are calorie dense, not just canola.

~~~
muxxa
Also, Canola oil (aka Rapeseed oil) is possibly the best oil you can use.

If you eat a lot of good fats (good = monounsaturated, e.g. olive oil,
avocados, peanuts), then it reduces cravings for bad fats (fried foods,
butter, animal fat etc.).

A rule of thumb is that any fat that it is liquid at room temperature is
'good'.

~~~
tbrownaw
_Also, Canola oil (aka Rapeseed oil) is possibly the best oil you can use._

It's the best, except when it doesn't agree with you. In which case it's
rather annoying, since it's so very popular.

------
nakedrobot2
note: the pictures obviously have nothing to do with the "200 calories" part.
for eggs, 3 eggs are shown with "150 grams" under it....

~~~
bkanber
Are you maybe confusing "grams" for calories in your statement? 150 grams of
eggs is approximately 200 calories.

