
Counting Calories Is Not the Key to Weight Loss, New Study Finds - YeGoblynQueenne
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/well/eat/counting-calories-weight-loss-diet-dieting-low-carb-low-fat.html
======
sunsunsunsun
_But a new study, published Tuesday in JAMA, may turn that advice on its head.
It found that people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and highly
processed foods while concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables and whole
foods — without worrying about counting calories or limiting portion sizes —
lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a year._

Maybe I missed it in the article but this just seems like calorie restriction
to me. Its much harder to eat a large amount of calories if its just meat and
vegetables.

~~~
btilly
Obviously all diets have to be LIMO - Less In, More Out. But the question is
how you get there.

Eating vegetables and whole foods without worrying about counting calories or
limiting portion sizes doesn't feel like effort. You don't WANT to eat more.
And your body becomes happier about burning fat rather than demanding that you
eat.

Counting calories explicitly is a lot of work and a lot of self control. Few
people can succeed at that.

Personally I follow the former strategy using
[http://www.weightgrapher.com/](http://www.weightgrapher.com/) to keep myself
honest. About 15 years ago I decided to lose 20 pounds, and kept it off for
close to a decade. Then I let my weight get away from me, because life got
complicated. This time around I've decided to get back to that weight again,
and I know it is sustainable. I'm not aiming for fast weight loss, I've been
going at a comfortable pace for 3 months and expect to be dieting another 6
months to reach my target. But I know that I'll be able to get there and stay
for years without a lot of willpower. Partly luck of genetics/gut biome.
Partly because I'm doing it in a mentally easy way.

~~~
zoul
_Obviously all diets have to be LIMO - Less In, More Out._

Do they? What exactly does it mean? I had the impression that eating a lot of
calories doesn’t mean keeping them – that it depends on what source they come
from (fats/proteins/carbs).

~~~
LargeWu
A calorie is a measure of engery. The laws of physics say that if you consumer
fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight, because your body needs
fuel to operate.

Now, your body might try to compensate and change metabolism in response to
this, so that you unwittingly burn fewer calories than you consume. And yes,
the types of food you're eating can affect this. But ultimately, our bodies
are not perpetual motion machines, and cannot expend more energy than they
take in as fuel, over the long term.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
This has been a long-standing theme in this forum (HN). I've participated
myself.

Of course the arguments to physics are true. But they are largely irrelevant.
Its not the truth that's going to help people.

People eat too much, not because they don't know better (and physics! will
teach them), but because they have some behavioral issue that prevents them
from doing the good actions repeatedly.

It always ends up here: "Just don't put the calories in your mouth. That's all
you need to do." Which would be true, if food and eating were entirely
volitional. But its an emotional need, a very fundamental one.

Imagine saying "Just put the gun to your head and pull the trigger. That's all
you need to do." While its undeniably easy, most of us, because of emotional
needs to survive and avoid pain, would find it very, very hard to accomplish.
(Not saying a gun-to-the-head loses weight; just comparing an easy instruction
with the accompanying difficulty in performing it).

~~~
snowwrestler
It's true that bare thermodynamics is not great practical lifestyle advice,
but it's also true that a lot of people really, truly, do not know the basics
of what calories are and what they mean for weight.

I agree that no one should use thermodynamics as an excuse to be judgmental or
dismissive toward people who are having trouble managing their weight.

But I also think that when people directly ask about calories (as the GP zoul
did), it's worth being clear and unambiguous about the basic science.

------
acconrad
The true key to weight loss is compliance. Your body doesn't care if you're
adhering to keto or intermittent fasting or paleo or whatever is en vogue
right now. Even if you lose 50 lbs and get amazing results, if you can't stick
with that diet forever (and you likely can't, because diets by definition are
restrictive), the evidence overwhelmingly suggests you will gain it all back,
and possibly more.

Your best bet is to focus on plants (fruits/veggies), nuts/seeds, legumes,
whole grains, and animals (if you choose to eat them). If you love dairy, or
chocolate, or cookies... _have them_. Better you have a little every day or
every so often, knowing it, in moderation, will not lead to weight gain. What
will lead to weight gain will be a masochistic devotion to avoiding those
things, and then the eventual and complete eroding of your constitution which
will bring a painful and guilt-ridden rebound that will take a psychological
and physical toll on yourself.

I say this as someone who placed in a bodybuilding competition last year while
eating pizza, cookies, cheesecake, and whatever "dirty" food you can imagine.

~~~
paulshapiro
^this. I lost >160 lbs (and have kept it off for years) by counting calories.
My wife has lost 50 lbs by count calories. I have another relative who lost
175 lbs by keeping a strict keto diet. She's kept the wait off for years. I
have yet another relative who lost ~70 lbs eating something akin to a whole
food diet, and has put all the weight back on. My takeaway is that all of
these diets work, but it comes down to compliance and sustainability. So do
whatever you'd like as long as you can adhere to it, and keep at it. A lot of
people are able to lose weight, and then gain it all back shortly afterwards.

~~~
johnkpaul
Have you joined the National Weight Control Registry?
[http://www.nwcr.ws/](http://www.nwcr.ws/)

------
ravitation
This title is probably going to pull the pseudoscience out of the woodwork...

The title can easily be misread... It means that _the act_ of counting
calories is not key to weight loss - i.e. calories can also be reduced by a
more tangible diet (like a low-fat or a low-carbohydrate diet) without
explicitly counting calories... It _does not say_ that caloric restriction
isn't the most important part of a weight loss diet, it still is...

Considering that the paper itself isn't even meant to address the
effectiveness of "counting calories" vs. "not counting calories", this title
is extremely _clickbait-y_...

~~~
themoat
Yeah, I really feel like the spirit of the article is summed up by the final
paragraph

“I think one place we go wrong is telling people to figure out how many
calories they eat and then telling them to cut back on 500 calories, which
makes them miserable,” he said. “We really need to focus on that foundational
diet, which is more vegetables, more whole foods, less added sugar and less
refined grains.”

The long term solution is really what he's talking about, right? The long term
solution to weight struggles is really transforming your eating habits and
gravitating towards more nutritious foods.

------
berdon
I disagree with the article title - counting calories _is_ the key to weight
loss. Aside from gut flora and the random virus that increases your body's
propensity for storing fat - your body's only source of fuel is food. Calories
are a simplistic, yet generally close enough, approximation of a normalized
quantifier for food. Drop the calories and you drop the fat.

The title should be "Counting calories is not the key to sustaining motivation
for weight loss".

My source, albeit biased, is my own experiences losing weight. I started
counting calories 10 years ago and lost ~120 lbs. Over the last 10 years I've
put on ~40 lb bringing my 6'4 frame to 200 lbs while going to the gym and
counting calories.

------
QuantumAphid
For those who believe that it's a simple as "move more, eat less", consider
that the Biggest Loser contestants weren't able to keep their weight off long-
term. This approach also damaged their metabolisms-- their resting metabolic
rates were 400-600 calories lower than when they started their program, even 6
years after the fact.

[https://idmprogram.com/biggest-loser-diet-
explained/](https://idmprogram.com/biggest-loser-diet-explained/)

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Regardless of whatever metabolic damage may have been caused, the biggest
loser is a bad approach to weight loss, as well as a bad case for trying to
see if a weight loss approach works. It's like an addict taking a 3 month
detox and then throwing them right back into a pile of needles. They are
divorced from every trigger they have in their everyday lives and forced to
exercise and restrict, and when they get out, there's the cash prize to try
and keep their weight loss until the final episode. After that these people
don't have any healthy, sustainable habits, just insane routines and rules.
Given how warped their initial approach to food and diet was before the show,
it's no wonder they revert to form given enough time.

~~~
QuantumAphid
I think the metabolism damage is the greater danger here. These are people who
had some of the most intensive training available to learn how to eat healthy
and exercise.

And yet having your _resting_ metabolism driven downwards 400-600 calories
virtually guarantees that you will yo-yo. Every calorie above your low limit
will erode any gains you've made.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Having your metabolism drop should mean that the individual can adjust their
eating / activity levels to compensate, but only if they are paying attention
and NOT falling back into old habits. I'll bet they aren't. The article says
that Sean Algaeir put back on all the weight he lost (~170 lbs). That's not
yo-yo weight. That's return to normal behavior weight.

"Mr. Cahill knew he could not maintain his finale weight of 191 pounds. He was
so mentally and physically exhausted he barely moved for two weeks after his
publicity tour ended. But he had started a new career giving motivational
speeches as the biggest loser ever, and for the next four years, he managed to
keep his weight below 255 pounds by exercising two to three hours a day. But
two years ago, he went back to his job as a surveyor, and the pounds started
coming back." <\- he went back to old habits and gained the weight back.

Like the quote from Dina Mercado says - "The cravings are there.” I'll bet
after a time they gave up and largely went back to your old habits.

~~~
QuantumAphid
Exercising for 3 hours each day isn't a sustainable habit for anyone except
perhaps Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Mr. Cahill gained close to 60 lbs over a
four year period. At that rate, it sounds like he was on his way to regaining
the weight as soon as the program was over, rather than just when he returned
to his surveyor job. When your resting metabolism is 400-600 calories too low,
the fate of your weight loss goals is pretty much sealed.

------
kevin_b_er
We could summarize this better as eating higher quality foods with lower
calorie densities and better satiating effects will lead to a reduction in
calories consumed. This could be easier on the human psyche than just calorie
counting.

After all, you can still end up feeling eternally hungry if 100% of your diet
was high fructose corn syrup liquids.

Unfortunately this article and study will likely be misconstrued as calories
not mattering to weight loss. This is a common misconception or delusion.

~~~
closetohome
I feel like the debate here is mostly between quantifiable nutritional stuff
(like CICO), and unquantifiable bits of human psychology like "satiation." The
unquantifiable stuff certainly affects the final outcome, but it's often
presented with the same certainty and blanket application as biology.

~~~
kevin_b_er
I don't think its quite quantifiable. The snack food industry knows this too.
They spend lots of money figuring out how to make foods addicting. The human
psychology to eat a calorie deficit and not feel constantly hungry is sure as
studiable as junk food addiction.

Sure it isn't quite as simple as how much energy burning food items gives off,
but it shouldn't be discounted.

------
logfromblammo
It looks increasingly like "counting calories" won't work as a weight loss
strategy until I can have an AI automatically estimate my calorie input by
watching everything that I buy, cook, and eat, and compare that against its
estimate of caloric expenditure via metabolism and physical activity.

And even then, it would be easier to have a simpler AI that can do little more
than recognize an item of junk food and shock the appetite out of me if it
detects my hand reaching for it.

Not everyone can do bomb calorimetry at home. It's rare enough that someone
can measure food portions to the nearest 10 grams. I think the entire basis of
the Weight Watchers "points" system is that the calorie number is just too
much math for most people. And then, psychologically, it isn't a matter of
"things I can eat versus things I can't eat" but "things I don't have to worry
about eating versus things I have to track in a stupid notebook". That
bypasses the stubborn counterreaction where forbidding a food only makes the
dieter want it more. You can still have it, if you really want it, but you
have to do math and accounting, so it had better be worth the hassle.

This study mildly supports my buffet theory (actually a hypothesis). My theory
is that you can avoid gaining excess weight at any buffet by following just
one rule: you can eat anything you want, as long as every plate you bring back
to the table is at least 50% filled with undressed/unsauced salad-bar
vegetables, and you eat them first. It's hard to overeat when you're eating a
half-plate of raw broccoli between each half-plate of other stuff. If you then
replace the buffet with a grocery store, you have a lifestyle strategy: eat
anything you want, as long as you have a proportional mass of salad first.

------
blunte
We would be foolish to think that all calories are equal. The body systems are
complex... chemistry is complex.

What the body does with one input versus a different input is much more
important than the quantity (caloric) of each input. If you could manage to
consume 2,000 kcal of lettuce in a day, you will almost certainly gain less
weight (or lose more weight) than if you consumed only 1,500 kcal of modern
processed American bread.

The problem we face in trying to eat better is that virtually everything you
can buy is processed. When you go into a typical American grocery store, about
25% of the outer aisles are unprocessed foods - raw meat, raw vegetables and
fruits, nuts, etc. _Everything_ in the inner aisles is processed. Even most of
the outer aisle is processed - cheeses, sandwich meats, "fruit juices", etc.

Fiber is a key component to health (and weight loss for those who do not get
enough). Raw fruits and vegetables are typically very high in fiber. Processed
foods are usually not. Fruits and vegetables are also high in water content.
Water and fiber help us feel fuller. It's a bit of an illusion, or rather it's
quite temporary because it goes out of our systems more quickly than carbs.
Fiber also aids in our gut and colon bacteria balance, and research is
beginning to recognize the many roles that bacteria play in our health
(including mental!)

The list of reasons for choosing unprocessed foods over processed foods is
very long. About the only things really negative about unprocessed foods are
their relative higher price and their lower convenience. But if you value
quality, then the price argument goes away. Likewise, there are social and
emotional benefits to food preparation and meal sharing. So "less convenient"
really is just another way of saying "better priorities".

~~~
ravitation
> What the body does with one input versus a different input is much more
> important than the quantity (caloric) of each input.

This is not what the study says, nor is it correct. The caloric quantity is
still the most important thing in terms of weight loss/gain...

~~~
bvinc
I won't tell you that you're wrong. I can't prove what I'm about to suggest.
But I want to suggest it as a possibility as to why you shouldn't say what you
just said so confidently.

Imagine if certain foods caused the body or brain, through a very complicated
process, in the long term, to hold on to calories and store fat. This would
end up making people feel very low energy and have strong cravings to eat
more.

And the counter to this would be that if you ate the correct foods, your body
or brain's long term energy balance will function properly and not hold on to
calories, feel energetic, burn excess fat, and not feel very hungry.

From the outside point of view, you could just look at the calories in and out
and say that it's obviously the most important factor of weight loss. You
could just blame the person for eating too much and moving too little. But if
what I described is actually happening, then that wouldn't be good advice
because that's not the root cause of the problem.

What I suggested is very possible and has not been ruled out by science.

~~~
ravitation
There are many hypotheticals that have not been ruled out by science... The
existence of a flying spaghetti monster that created the universe after
drinking heavily, for example...

There are many things that complicate simple calorie counting, and things one
can take advantage of. Liquid calories don't make you feel full in the same
way solid calories do, high fiber foods make you feel more full, drinking lots
of water can keep you feeling full without eating many calories...

But, if you want to lose weight, running a caloric deficit is required...

~~~
bvinc
I really don't feel like you understood what I was saying. I'm wasn't coming
up with anything crazy. I presented a broad category of how long term weight
management might be affected by food types. There are many different
acceptable theories that are accepted any many mainstream scientists:. Insulin
causing fat storage, or sugar blocking the brain's ability to see leptin.

But the specifics don't matter. If you're willing to accept that such a model
is possible, then that means that recommending a calorie deficit, even though
it's required for weight loss, might be really bad advice. If you tell someone
to eat less food, and they keep eating the types of food that cause their
bodies to store fat, you might be setting them up for failure.

~~~
ravitation
But if they eat less calories than they burn... They will lose weight...

------
submeta
I tend to think that weight loss (or keeping your weight) works if you follow
a set of rules (and form certain habits). - I lost twenty pounds some years
ago by following a German author's book (which is titled "Schlank im Schlaf",
or: "get lean while you're sleeping"). Basically it recommended having three
meals, not eating anything in between those meals, then: eating 100g of carbs
in the morning, 100g carbs for lunch, almost no carbs in the evening, instead
high protein for dinner. - I followed the rules very strictly. It was
basically a 2000 calories a day diet (although the author says not to count
calories). What made me lose weight was in fact self observation, getting in
control of what I eat and avoiding processed food. The first days were
extremely tough. Not eating sugary things felt like a drug addict who tries to
avoid drugs. After some time I had inner peace, felt in control, not only of
my diet. -- When I read about "do not count calories", I am skeptical because
I do observe that those who are desperately in need of a diet do not have a
notion of what kind of food has how many calories. They know almost nothing
about nutrition. Learning some about that is a good starting point. Also many
eat to compensate stress or inner voidness. And getting that straight has
nothing to do with nutrition. What they need instead is meditation,
intellectual challenges, phyical activities and some more.

------
meuk
Well, I would argue that eating less calories definitely help. But sugar
doesn't stop the hunger, and you need a certain amount of vitamin, protein,
and fibers as well. My mom calls food with just sugar 'empty calories', a term
that covers the load pretty well, I think.

I find that fat, proteins, and carbs help me to feel full. I can eat four
donuts and still feel like I barely ate something. But one egg and I'm good to
go for another hour.

~~~
mingabunga
empty calories = "calories without the nutrition" is another good way to
explain it

------
Retric
Single studies relating to weight loss are practically meaningless.
Replication is a massive issue as is long term results.

~~~
x1798DE
I would also say that any competent reporting on a topic like this would
include whether the trial and data analysis methods were pre-registered and if
there were other pre-registered trials on this or similar topics and what
their results were.

The pervasive problems with study design and publication incentives have been
known about for a while, it's irresponsible to pretend that each new study is
the newest version of the truth.

------
exolymph
Counting calories doesn't work for people who find it unsustainable (yes, this
is somewhat of a tautology). But if you're able to treat it as a lifestyle
change, ideally adding exercise on top, or if you're able to permanently
correct your portion instincts, then counting calories is a fantastic tool.
I've used it to lose 40 pounds over the past nine months or so. That said, of
course counting calories isn't the only way to lose weight. Whatever you can
figure out that results in you burning more energy than you consume will be
effective, as long as you pick something psychologically sustainable.

~~~
adventured
I agree. It's extraordinarily useful in the process of changing your life. I
used it to to drop about 30 pounds over a year. It becomes entirely
unnecessary once you alter your lifestyle and build new habits. The counting
acts as an enforcer to assist in behavioral change and help you track and
identify _all_ bad dietary habits.

The anti-calorie counting argument ignores that calorie counting is strictly
an assistant, a tool, not a primary dietary method. Calorie counting should be
a mandatory requirement of all significant dietary & lifestyle changes as it
pertains to seeking to lose weight. It's the sole means available to most
people to identify with any precision what their resting calorie burn rate is:
how many calories can you consume before you begin to gain weight.

------
csours
I have no problems cutting out sodas, but I still love dessert. Suggestions?

I'm doing a little better about portion control, but whenever I think about
never eating dessert again, I just want more dessert... thanks brain.

~~~
eridius
Don't cut out dessert entirely. Here's three suggestions:

1\. Eat half the portion you would have otherwise. Just eat smaller bites and
savor it. You'll still get the same enjoyment. If you're eating out, split
your dessert with someone else (because I know it's hard to leave food on the
plate).

2\. Find desserts that are less caloric. If the dessert has fewer calories,
you can eat the same amount that you used to and you'll still be doing better.

3\. Turn it into a treat rather than an every day occurrence. Maybe eat it
every other day instead of every day. Maybe only eat it if you cook a healthy
meal (and skip it when you go eat that burger from In-n-out).

Going cold turkey is really hard, and not at all required, unless you have
impulse control problems (e.g. many people have "trigger" foods, which they
should stay away from entirely if they can).

~~~
jandrese
This sounds obvious: but don't keep those foods in the house. It's stupidly
easy to go off the diet if those chips are just there and you're hungry
because you only ate half a dinner. If they aren't there you won't be tempted.

Of course this can involve getting everybody in your house on your diet.
That's not and easy thing to do.

------
mjal
I think this is a really clickbaity title - it implies that a caloric deficit
via keeping track of what you eat isn't a path to weight loss, despite the
article itself stating that that is not the case.

------
mancerayder
Okay, what's the new Key to reading posted articles if I don't pay for the NYT
(because I pay for other news already), and I've reached my miserly monthly
article limit?

~~~
shadschoenke
Try this [https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/counting-
calories-...](https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/counting-calories-not-
key-to-weight-loss-study-finds/)

------
handbanana
I can't access the full text of the study, but it would be interesting to find
out how many calories the participants reduced in their diet by making the
changes outlined. I would imagine most overweight individuals make more bad
dietary choices and so simply cutting out added sugars etc reduces their
calorie intake significant enough to produce weight loss.

Its sort of misleading, even though not counting calories the participants
were still likely reducing them...

------
aaxe
Actually if anything this study DID show calories mattered.

Here's a full in-depth analysis, including a Q&A with the lead author and
graphing each individual's weight loss and gain:
[https://examine.com/nutrition/low-fat-vs-low-carb-for-
weight...](https://examine.com/nutrition/low-fat-vs-low-carb-for-weight-loss/)

------
krzat
There are many ways to lose weight. All of them are based on CI < CO. That's
why it the key.

~~~
Nomentatus
I wouldn't say "based on", CI < CO can be well downstream, in my experience.

And as I've said above CI has to be defined - if it means "eaten", that's
probably false or at least imprecise.

------
codemac
Does anyone have a link to the full paper? When I read the abstract, it
doesn't even mention the word calorie.

------
loteck
Sure! Doing calorie math doesn't have anything to do with your weight.
However, _actually reducing calories_ still seems to be the way to lose
weight:

 _Dr. Gardner said it is not that calories don’t matter. After all, both
groups ultimately ended up consuming fewer calories on average by the end of
the study, even though they weren’t conscious of it. The point is that they
did this by focusing on nutritious whole foods that satisfied their hunger._

~~~
HiroshiSan
It's interesting how obvious this seems now, was this ever counterintuitive or
unobvious?

~~~
jandrese
I think it comes from the desire to be scientific about the weight loss. To
count the ins and outs and do the balance sheet at the end of the day. This
was also pushed by companies like Weight Watchers that could sell products
specifically coded with the nutritional information at a nice markup.

For the most part people know how to lose weight, it's not difficult. The
difficult part is keeping to a diet that is not fun and at times inconvenient
for the rest of your life.

------
newnewpdro
Isn't it already well understood by now that energy storage is controlled by
hormones and _what_ we eat directly influences the presence and quantity of
those hormones circulating through our bodies?

As long as insulin levels are kept in check, energy storage is as well.
Avoiding sweets and simple carbs while having plenty of fiber in your diet is
an effective means of achieving that. It's not necessarily calorie restricted,
calories are somewhat orthogonal.

There's a story Gary Taubes tells about Oskar Minkowski's [1] discovery of the
Pancreas' role in insulin production. I found it quite illuminating when
trying to better understand nutrition and will paraphrase it here. The guy was
experimenting with dogs and removed the pancreas from some dogs, buttoning
them back up and letting them continue to live normally. He observed they
lived normal lives as if nothing changed, but no matter how much food they ate
- they kept losing weight. They would eventually die from the weight loss. He
had noticed that flies were attracted to the urine of the pancreas-free dogs,
and being a scientist, he tasted the urine and observed it was exceptionally
sweet. Not having insulin in the blood, this stuff just came out in the urine
rather than being stored in the fat, because fat cells need to be instructed
to steal excess energy and store it, otherwise it just passes through.

Hence if there are foods we can eat which cause the pancreas to behave
anomalously for extended periods, our energy storage will follow suit.

There's another story Taubes tells, I think these were from Good Calorie, Bad
Calorie but I've read so many things on the topic it's a blur. It's about a
woman who had a small tumor removed from her brain, the tumor was next to I
believe it was the Pituitary gland. After the succcessful removal, she began
gaining weight uncontrollably. Her diet/lifestyle was unchanged from before
the surgery, and no matter what they did to her diet to try fix this, she
gained more weight, eventually becoming obese. It turned out a part of the
brain affected by the surgery controlled the hormones related to energy
storage. This woman's body was internally starving itself by erroneously
instructing the fat to continuously store energy. If memory serves this story
had a good ending though, they discovered a medication to get the hormone
production back to normal levels and her weight normalized.

These two anecdotes are important. Any engineering-minded person who has done
troubleshooting of comple systems, root-causing of difficult problems,
understands the tremendous value in observing how systems fail.

The stories demonstrate a total decoupling of Caloric intake/physical activity
to energy storage. Stop fixating on calories, we need to eat foods that keep
the energy system functioning properly in the first place.

I don't think it's surprising that we find the more a diet is composed of
intact, naturally-occurring foods, having little processing/preparation
(including cooking), the more health tends to generally improve. Unless you're
steeped in religious beliefs to the contrary, you probably understand and
accept humans evolved over a long period of time. Our bodies are still suited
to the foods we evolved around, so when we eat things like refined
carbohydrates, stuff that requires machinations and technology to create,
we're exposing the body to essentially unexpected inputs. So we should at
least expect bad results to be more likely when consuming such things.

~~~
newnewpdro
[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Minkowski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Minkowski)

Oops.

Edit won't let me do anything, can't even fix the s/comple systems/complex
systems/ typo. Size limit perhaps?

------
nabla9
>Dr. Gardner said it is not that calories don’t matter. After all, both groups
ultimately ended up consuming fewer calories on average by the end of the
study, even though they weren’t conscious of it. The point is that they did
this by focusing on nutritious whole foods that satisfied their hunger.

Of course calories matter. The weight loss problem is twofold:

1\. Calories. Counting calories is solution to this. You can lose weight by
eating junk food if you count calories.

2\. Feeling hungry and self discipline problems. Quality and composition of
the food and different ways of consuming food affects how easy it is to
consume less calories in the long term.

~~~
windexh8er
At the end of the road calorie count doesn't matter as much as the precedence
placed, quality of calories does. A calorie in a sugar packet isn't remotely
the same value as a calorie of broccoli. The focus on count in this
conversation is missing the point. And until someone goes down the path of
trying a whole foods based shift in their diet long term I fully believe that
is lost on people, unfortunately.

~~~
RealityVoid
> A calorie in a sugar packet isn't remotely the same value as a calorie of
> broccoli.

Caloric-wise it sure is. The difference is in the ability to eat the same
amount of calories in sugar and not eating more.

~~~
windexh8er
It isn't in the context of nutrition. That was my point which I failed to
convey.

The failure in the discussion is that calorie count matters in the grand
scheme. But if the focus was nutritional value per calorie that measurement
falls apart much more quickly.

------
magic_beans
This article is infuriating! Of COURSE the people who ate whole, unprocessed
foods lost more weight. Whole foods are more satiating and more filling while
being less calorie dense.

~~~
m4x
Why does that make it infuriating? Calorie counting is still considered the
true way to lose weight by most people, despite the fact that it works for
almost nobody. This article will convince a few more people that a healthy
diet is more important than explicitly counting calories.

It also found an interesting result - both low fat and low carb diets seem to
work, regardless of your insulin response.

------
Mc_Big_G
[censored]

~~~
dang
Could you please not post snarky dismissals to HN, especially of other
people's work? It breaks a number of the site guidelines at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
Specifically, this guideline:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone
says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

------
crb002
TLDR; worry about insulin stimulation not total calories.

------
adventured
I overwhelmingly disagree. Counting calories is an important key starting
ingredient to weight loss.

What's the point where your resting metabolism burns enough calories so that
you're losing weight instead of gaining or maintaining weight? There's no way
to easily figure that out without calorie counting. Further, that changes as
you age, so doing rare calorie counts is extremely valuable anyway.

My resting burn rate is substantially different from my brother's resting burn
rate. Growing up I could live off of pizza and not gain a single pound. I was
6'2" and 155 pounds at 26 years old, living off of the worst carb-heavy diet
you can imagine with zero exercise. It simply didn't matter to my weight, my
metablism was very high. My brother on the other hand, will carry dozens of
pounds more at a similar diet & calorie intake.

As I've gotten older, my metabolism has changed. At an identical diet to ten
years ago, I will now carry 20 to 25 more pounds. I have to be more careful
with what I eat now. How do you know where that calorie metabolism baseline is
if you don't occasionally count? And this is just a routine life example,
rather than a serious weight loss context (in which case calorie counting is
radically more useful).

After you establish your calorie baseline, then make adjustments to your
routine / diet / lifestyle, then you can certainly get rid of the counting.
The calorie counting is extremely useful in helping to inform and establish a
new lifestyle.

Step one is to figure out how many calories you're really taking in on a daily
and weekly basis. In my opinion, most people with serious weight problems will
significantly underestimate their calorie intake and will be surprised at how
high it is.

Calorie counting also helps to rapidly identify the primary problems in your
diet over time. For most people, they don't have 37 problems in their diet,
they have only a few (eg cutting out all soda and making pasta/pizza a rare
consumption). And if those few items are removed and replaced with superior
options, that will take care of 3/4 of the problem. While some may say that
the problem areas should be obvious, one of the reasons that people become so
overweight in the first place is that it isn't obvious to them, because their
lives become routines filled with blank spaces around what they're stuffing
into their mouths in a hurry. They literally lose track of lots of the bad
things they've consumed in a given week - the calorie counting acts as a
powerful mental enforcer, you have to write all of that shit down.

------
eridius
The second paragraph contradicts itself. Here's the first two paragraphs:

> _Anyone who has ever been on a diet knows that the standard prescription for
> weight loss is to reduce the amount of calories you consume._

> _But a new study, published Tuesday in JAMA, may turn that advice on its
> head. It found that people who cut back on added sugar, refined grains and
> highly processed foods while concentrating on eating plenty of vegetables
> and whole foods — without worrying about counting calories or limiting
> portion sizes — lost significant amounts of weight over the course of a
> year._

People who switch to plenty of vegetables and whole foods may not be counting
calories, but they're still consuming far fewer calories. Have you ever looked
at how few calories are in vegetables? Most of the calories in any vegetable
dish you consume are probably coming from added oil. And eating "whole foods"
also means avoiding the heavily-processed caloric foods you would be eating
otherwise.

Weight loss comes from calorie reduction. Exercise is really important too of
course, in particular to maintaining your weight post-loss, but all you really
need to lose weight is to reduce your calorie intake. I can personally attest
to that, having lost 75lbs in 4 months now using nothing more than calorie
restriction¹, and the program I'm doing this through has a very high success
rate (which is to say, as long as you actually stick to the program, you're
guaranteed to lose a significant amount of weight).

The overall point of the article is still fine, which is that you really don't
need to calorie-count in order to lose weight, and focusing on that can make
people unhappy. In general it's more effective to simply tailor your diet so
the foods you're eating are less caloric (and probably healthier in other ways
too). But I am disappointed that the article led with the completely incorrect
implication that weight loss does not come from reducing the calories you
consume.

¹It's a medically-managed weight loss program through Kaiser Permanente, 960
calories per day (using meal replacements) for 16 weeks with regular bloodwork
and doctor visits, then 1200 calories per day (with partial meal replacements)
for another 16 weeks (assuming you don't hit your weight goal). I'm currently
in the 1200 calorie portion.

~~~
nardi
I disagree with your characterization of the quoted text. It says the
“standard prescription” is to reduce calories, and that the new study may
change that. A prescription is an instruction from your doctor. That text is
saying that doctors may start telling you to eat more vegetables and whole
foods rather than cutting back on calories. I do not believe it is implying
that weight loss is disconnected from calories consumed. From later in the
article:

 _Dr. Gardner said it is not that calories don’t matter. After all, both
groups ultimately ended up consuming fewer calories on average by the end of
the study, even though they weren’t conscious of it. The point is that they
did this by focusing on nutritious whole foods that satisfied their hunger._

~~~
eridius
Right, the rest of the article is ok. My quibble is with the implication in
the first two paragraphs. It says the standard prescription is to reduce the
amount of calories, and then says the new study "turn(s) that advice on its
head", implying that calorie reduction isn't the solution after all. But it
still is! It's just a question of how you go about doing it. There's nothing
about "reduce the calories you consume" that means you must exercise strict
portion control and calorie-count and go to bed hungry. It just means reduce
your calorie intake. And a great way to do that is to change the types of food
you're eating.

The important takeaway from the study here is that by adjusting your diet, you
can reduce your calorie intake without feeling like you're eating less, which
is a lot more sustainable than calorie-counting (and leaves you a lot happier
too). But the key point here is still reducing your calorie intake. If you're
adjusting your diet, you need to pick a diet that does in fact result in fewer
calories. If you switch to mostly vegetables, but liberally douse your veggies
with lots of oil and butter, you're not actually reducing your calories.

~~~
msla
The article _has_ to be special to get readership. If people knew it was the
same old, same old said in a different way, nobody would care.

The problem is that CICO (Calories-In/Calories-Out) is the only possible way
to lose (or gain) weight. Literally every valid, non-pseudoscientific diet is
going to be another way to get to reduced caloric input in a _sustainable_
fashion, because _sustaining_ a caloric deficit is genuinely difficult.

