
Calories in, calories out - spudlyo
http://possiblywrong.wordpress.com/2014/10/21/calories-in-calories-out/
======
grecy
This has been a very hot topic on HN in the past, so I suspect the comments
section will soon blow up.

I've always though of the "calories in vs calories out" technique for weight
loss to be the _starting point_ for the majority of people trying to lose
weight. Reign in how many calories you're eating, start burning a few more
(even just walking a block or two for most people is a great start) and you'll
see significant weight loss over a long period of time.

Don't beat yourself up when you have a "bad" day, because the success of this
technique is not measured in days. It's not even measured in weeks or months,
it's measured in a unit of "the rest of your life".

After many months tending to years of this, and many pounds lost, the approach
can be fine tuned and _what_ is being eaten can be examined in slightly more
detail.

Once you've mastered crawling, you can move onto walking and running, but it's
simply too difficult to jump straight into running where there are so many
gains to be made from simple crawling.

~~~
jafaku
I have never been fat but as a sports guy I have read a lot about the subject
and I'm pretty sure the best first step (as opposed to running, not as opposed
to controlling your calories) is to start lifting weights if you are a guy.
The more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn passively (at rest).
And once you are done losing weight you will be ripped. It's like what people
do in a bulk + cut cycle, but skipping the bulk phase.

~~~
aantix
Coming from Lyle McDonald, one of the most respected trainers in the
industry..

"Some of this also comes from the still gross misconception that ‘muscle burns
a ton of calories’ (a myth I took apart in Dissecting the Energy Needs of the
Body – Research Review). That is, they hope to jack up metabolic rate by
increasing muscle mass. Which is a futile activity because the effect is
minimal (on top of the fact that the obese are already carrying extra muscle
mass). A pound of muscle burns about 6 calories at rest, you have to add a ton
to impact on metabolic rate (see also the next issue I discuss, low metabolic
rate isn’t a problem). And that takes a lot of time, time better spent
focusing on active fat loss."

[http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-
review/dissecting-...](http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-
review/dissecting-the-energy-needs-of-the-body-research-review.html)

~~~
stephen
> on top of the fact that the obese are already carrying extra muscle mass

Huh...I follow Lyle, but I've read the exact opposite in Body by Science: in
cross-sectional views of obese people (CT scans), their muscles are small,
weak, and atrophied.

IIRC, Body by Science makes the assertion that their muscles are essentially
starved, because the metabolic system/insulin insensitivity/etc. are shunting
energy primarily into fat cells.

And, with strength training, you can turn the metabolic tide back into energy
getting into/being used by the muscles.

Disclaimer: It's been awhile since I read the book, and I might mistakenly
being integrating ideas I'd read elsewhere.

Hrm, no pictures (which IIRC are convincing), but here's an article:

[http://www.bodybyscience.net/home.html/?page_id=57](http://www.bodybyscience.net/home.html/?page_id=57)

------
MicroBerto
We deal with this all the time when recommending diet supplements at my
startup. When it comes to losing __weight __, yes, calories in vs. calories
out is the most important step to start with.

Sure, protein has a higher TEF (thermic effect of food), and yadda yadda yadda
there are some other minor things involved, but they're just not enough for
you to discredit the calorie situation.

However, when it comes to burning _fat_ , the next most important thing (after
you have determined a reasonable caloric deficit) is to maintain a "high"
level of __protein. __

Too low of protein, and you 're going to lose too much muscle mass.
Ultimately, this is what's leading to so many "skinny fat" dieters. You get a
lot of it from people who do nothing but cardio cardio cardio.

It turns out that all the low-fat vs. low-carb wars are really meaningless,
because most of those studies don't control protein - which is MORE important!
That last low-fat vs. low-carb study that came out was miserably guilty of
this, because protein intake has actually been shown to be _more_ significant
than carb or fat control[1].

After you've situated your calories, then your protein (and you are consistent
about it), then you choose your carbs and fats however it pleases you. There
are extremes on both sides.

What's important is you find something that you can be successful with, and
keep that protein number up. Lest you be skinny fat, which I personally feel
is worse than being "muscular fat".

In the bodybuilding community, some people have taken this to extremes with
Flexible Dieting, or "IIFYM" (If it Fits Your Macros...). Basically, the idea
that proper quantities (as discussed above and below) are more important than
food _quality_. I will err on that side of the argument, but the truth likely
lies somewhere in the middle when attempting to achieve overall health.

Finally, it's worth noting that while total caloric intake and macronutrients
are most important when it comes to _weight_ and _aesthetics_ , please eat
some damned vegetables too. And corn is not a vegetable.

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22935440](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22935440)

~~~
bokonist
I had great success starting from a strict calories in vs. calories out diet,
and then iterating on what I ate to make myself the most satiated per calorie
eaten. Turns out that the diet that solves for satiation ends up being a lot
of plain chicken and meat, beans, roasted veggies, modest amounts of starch,
and no sugar. (Eating a handful of jelly beans would make be starving 30
minutes later).

The other thing I found, is that I had to avoid foods that tasted too good.
Basically any food that combines fat, simple starches, and a sweet sauce will
taste too good and give you an overwhelming urge to overeat. If I wanted to
eat a burrito for lunch, I would cut it in half, put the other half in the
fridge, and save it for dinner, before I even started to eat my lunch.
Burritos are quite satiating, and you actually diet while eating them, you
just have to portion control, and will yourself past the ten minutes when you
are done with the first half and so tempted to eat the other half.

I've wondered if the reason why so many diet strategies succeed in the short
run, but fail in the long run, is because they are all hacks to make you eat
less tasty food. If you just eat fat, or just eat carbs, or just eat whole
wheat, or whatever, your food will be less tasty. In the long run though,
people like eating tasty food, and so they keep making exceptions to the diet
in the name of taste, and they are back to their normal eating habits.

~~~
MicroBerto
That's actually a great point, and something I've told friends in a
"broscience" fashion: There is nearly _nothing_ in nature that combines fats
and carbs. It's almost like you need to choose one or the other - balance is
how you get into trouble, because then you think everything is legal.

Take, for instance, potato chips -- and not the low-fat Baked Lay's or Quest
Chips kind. If you're on a "balanced diet", they're legal. But good luck
measuring them and not eating the entire bag.

It sounds like your success was mainly in portion control. Eating standing up
helps you get full faster too, as does focusing on chewing a lot (also
prevents choking and other benefits).

The biggest problem I forgot to mention above, however, is that people will
read all sorts of literature, but when it comes to actually _weighing_ their
food with a food scale (costs literally $20) and counting their calories and
macros, they _all_ fail. Yes, it's a pain in the arse, but you learn so much
by recording everything you eat. But people simply don't want to do it, and it
drives me nuts.

This also leads me to believe that there's a massive business opportunity
somewhere in there to make it easier to do (I have ideas but am too busy).

~~~
e12e
> The biggest problem I forgot to mention above, however, is that people will
> read all sorts of literature, but when it comes to actually weighing their
> food with a food scale (costs literally $20) and counting their calories and
> macros, they all fail.

There recently was a story in Norwegian media about a person that had gone
down some X kgs (basically from overweight to more healthy) -- by eating a
strict diet of ready-made meals (heat in the microwave type stuff). The reason
behind this anecdote? They all list calorie content. No need to measure
(again). Is it a healthy diet? Probably not (high salt, high fat, low
vitamins, little variation... the list goes on).

But it's _easy_ to then try and follow up on calorie count.

~~~
saalweachter
This is basically how Nutrisystem works. They send you prepackaged meals, and
you supplement them with fresh fruits and vegetables. (It's really hard to
overeat fresh fruits and vegetables, even with poor measuring.)

------
ghshephard
"That is, even two different people of exactly the same weight, height, age,
gender, and activity level do not necessarily burn calories at the same rate."
The AJCN (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition), has _tons_ of paper on
these types of topics, and one of the clever things they do is use isotopes of
hydrogen and oxygen (Doubly Labeled Water, DLW), to get an _exact_ measurement
of a persons metabolic rate.

They then use those exact measurements to do things like calculate how much
the various activities like sitting, walking, typing, reading, running,
sleeping, lying down quietly, etc... consume in terms of calories.

What's nifty (and surprising to me), is that for most people, the standard
models that are based on age, weight, height, and gender are pretty good
predictors as to how much energy you will consume doing a particularly
activity.

~~~
nl
You can also do New Leaf testing which measures your caloric burn rate[1].
It's more for optimising nutrition for endurance sports than for weight loss
though. Once it is done Garmin devices can load a New Leaf profile and tell
you when you need calories (if you are doing an Ironman or something).

[1] [http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/01/look-at-testing-with-
new-...](http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/01/look-at-testing-with-new-leaf-
fitness.html)

------
throwaway283719
There's a fun piece of math you can do with this model. Given the relation

    
    
      w[t+1] = w[t] + (c[t] - alpha * w[t] - beta * d[t] * w[t]) / 3500
    

and assuming c, d are both constant (i.e. assume they are your long-run
average of calories consumed and exercise done) you can solve to get

    
    
      w[t] = c / (alpha + beta * d) + const * (phi ** t)
    

where phi is a number smaller than 1, and const is some constant that depends
on your initial weight. Over time, the phi __t term decays away, and you are
left with your long-term stable weight,

    
    
      w = c / (alpha + beta * d)
    

Using c = 2000, alpha = 12.5, beta = 0.63 and d = 0 you get a long-run stable
weight of

    
    
      w = 2000 / 12.5 = 160 lb
    

On the other hand, if you eat 2500 calories per day but run five miles, you
get

    
    
      w = 2500 / (12.5 + 0.63 * 5) = 160 lb
    

so if you want to eat an extra 500 calories per day, you should run 5 miles
per day.

It'd be interesting to see how accurate this is.

~~~
koobz
As you gain weight, you burn more calories passively. I'm 155lbs and could
imagine it being difficult walking around with what amounts to nearly a
barbell and two 35lb plates should I be in the extremely obese range for a man
my size.

Assuming no lifestyle changes - I might be less excited to ride my bike with a
115 lb bag on my back - you should reach some sort of thickquilibrium.

------
rdlecler1
Nice work. Your predicted result gives you a nice hypothesis to test the
calorie in calorie out model. Surprisingly accurate! It was also interesting
that the prediction tended to overstimate the weight loss. Something
systematic that needs adjusting?

I'd love for someone to do this with beer.

~~~
spudlyo
I would love to see him repeat this two more times, once eating nothing but
white rice, and once eating nothing but cooked chicken. I'd be willing to bet
that all three scatter plots would be largely indistinguishable from one
another.

~~~
iopq
The problem is that eating white rice is low in protein, and you'll lose body
tissue that's not fat. Eating just chicken you'll lose glycogen which is 80%
water, so you'll lose more weight, while losing the same amount of fat.

So when you go into extreme diets, there is a problem with measuring exactly
what is going on if all you use is a scale.

------
nkozyra
I've often wondered how we've come to the consensus of:

carbohydrate = 4 kilocalories protein = 4 kilocalories fat = 9 kilocalories
alcohol = 7 kilocalories

It seems difficult to quantify this accurately without fully understanding
human metabolism and how it utilizes energy sources.

------
johnward
The biggest problems for me having nothing to do with science and everything
to do with social pressures / self control. I was on a keto diet (low
carb/high fat) and lost about 45 pounds. Then I started having to travel for
work and giving into going out to lunch because I don't want to appear anti-
social. For a while I was able to make low carb choice but some places just
don't have that option. Also have been skipping the gym because of money
(can't afford a second membership) and time constraints (work 8-6, drive back
to the hotel to be on calls until bed time) on the project. I put all of the
weight back on. Within about 18 months I lost and gained 45lbs.

------
paulsutter
Great work, but I’d propose that percent bodyfat is a better “north star”
metric for health than weight itself. I’d like to have more muscle and less
fat, and I think that’s true of most men. Focus on weight loss is one of the
strangest widespread beliefs. Easy to test, ask a panel of women what male
bodies are most attractive, and check the results against bodyfat and weight.

My own experience is that calories in/out controls weight, yes.

But I’ve only been able to lose fat and gain muscle by eating a diet that
keeps my blood sugar stable. I think this is the real benefit of avoiding
high-glycemic carbs, not some magical exemption from thermodynamics.

I’d be interested to help test this.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> I’d propose that percent bodyfat is a better “north star” metric for health
> than weight itself. I’d like to have more muscle and less fat, and I think
> that’s true of most men

That depends on the goals you have for your metric. % fat by weight is
probably a better fit than total weight for describing body image, but there
are two issues that help the viability of total weight:

1\. There's not so much variation in % body fat by weight, which means
confounding "amount of weight that is fat" with "amount of weight that is
anything" doesn't lose you much in practice.

2\. Total weight is extremely easy to measure, always desirable in a metric.

And, as you note, while replacing fat mass with muscle mass generally makes
men more attractive, the same is not true for women, who are in my experience
the vast majority of the "worried about their weight" audience.

~~~
iopq
You can lose water weight to the tune of 10 pounds and conclude that a low
carb diet is superior. But of course, once you lost those ten pounds and start
eating carbs again you'll regain them as your body replaces that glycogen and
conclude that carbs are the devil.

Just pinching your belly fat with a caliper every week and seeing the numbers
go down is much more accurate. It doesn't matter what your body fat IS or how
much it went down, as long as your caliper measurements decrease.

For the record, my caliper measurements were something like 25/14/27
(belly/chest/thigh) at a high body fat (maybe 18%?) and more like 17/6/18 in
the low teens.

I didn't really see a point of actually trying to track my fat loss through
caliper measurements because they were exaggerated, the calculators said I was
higher bf% than I really was (19.3% but I wasn't that high), and then they
said I was lower bf% than I really was after I lost it (12.1% but I wasn't
that low). I only lost 10 lbs between a purported 7% change in BF from 200lbs
to 190lbs.

But as a measurement of "yep, losing fat", it's very accurate.

~~~
bluecalm
>>Just pinching your belly fat with a caliper every week and seeing the
numbers go down is much more accurate. It doesn't matter what your body fat IS
or how much it went down, as long as your caliper measurements decrease.

There are a lot of formulas to estimate body fat at home. Sample website I
just googled: [https://www.linear-software.com/body-fat-
calculator.html](https://www.linear-software.com/body-fat-calculator.html)

Most are caliper based but there is one based on belly/neck measurement. No
idea how accurate those are in general but they give very similar estimations
in my case.

------
gitaarik
Since nobody has mentioned it yet, there's a diet called "The Hacker's Diet"
[0] that is based upon this calorie in/out theory. The website also has a
simple webapp where you can create your own chart to track your weight.

Personally I think this is a great way to control your weight. The diet
doesn't say anything about what to eat, just how much (in calories). It
doesn't necessarily make it easier, but it does give you constant feedback,
which can help you stay motivated.

[0]
[http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/](http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/)

~~~
logfromblammo
That's great as a measurement regime and daily exercise program. But you will
also need to follow a food composition diet that helps you to keep your "eat
watch" calibrated correctly. This will vary by individual, and may require
some experimentation.

Fresh, intact fruits and vegetables are often the foods highest in satiety per
absorbed kilocalorie, but there's only one person that has your brain
connected to your guts. You may find that hard-boiled eggs do the trick for
you. Or guacamole. Or olives and feta cheese. Whatever it takes to reprogram
your "eat watch" to alert in a way that helps you shed fat instead of gaining
it.

(This post will probably only make sense after you read far enough into the
parent post's link.)

------
spo81rty
I think it is amazing how little we really know about our bodies and how they
work.

I also think it is amazing how much we do know and people simply don't give a
shit about!

Smoking is terrible for you. Sugar is terrible for you on a daily basis.
Highly processed foods are terrible for you.

Everybody knows these things... but nobody gives a shit and the obesity and
diabetes epidemic rages on.

I personally think calories are what you track when you eat processed crappy
food. Eat real raw foods, which usually have no nutrition labels, and calories
don't really matter.

------
JeremyNT
This is a really great blog post.

I've been doing something similar (but less rigorous) over the past two years.
I was obese at the start and decided to get back to my college-age weight. I
have now lost 70 pounds using "calories in / calories out" as the sole
consideration.

The challenge, as this blog post states, is knowing what calin and calout
actually _are_.

I have often wondered: how do healthy weight people seemingly know how much
they should eat to maintain weight? Many people can maintain a weight without
meticulous logging and data collection. They seem to know how to consume the
appropriate portion sizes instinctively, without having to learn the actual
numbers underneath it all.

I have come to view the ability to know "how much should I eat?" as some
combination of talent and skill. Some people seem to have much better
_intuition_ about this and need no training. Others, like myself, may live
most of our lives without such intuition. Only through extensive data
collection, observation, and analysis have I learned to approximate how much
"calin" a meal will result in.

I wonder: is there a way to _teach_ this ability to children? Is this
something that some people learn early in life, which they retain for a
lifetime? Is this an avenue that researchers are exploring?

------
raverbashing
He didn't consider two things:

\- Water. This is either in your digestive system, your bladder or "your body"
(blood plasma and also water in tissues and glycogen in muscles -
[http://8fit.com/blog/glycogen-gluconeogenesis-and-water-
weig...](http://8fit.com/blog/glycogen-gluconeogenesis-and-water-weight/) )

\- Food. You eat food, not calories. Yes, some parts are not digestible, and
some are staying in your digestive system right now

------
acconrad
Dr. Israetel does a great video series on this topic -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szzo5Uy5aQU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szzo5Uy5aQU).
Calories in/out is ultimately the foundation to weight loss/gain, but is not
the whole picture. Macronutrient arrangement, nutrient timing, and food
quality/composition also play a role in optimizing health and body
composition.

------
nl
I find this discussion very weird.

 _Of course_ calories in/calories out explains your weight loss/gain. I
haven't seen a single study that shows anything except this.

But _of course_ that isn't the whole story.

The big issue with using calorie restriction for weight loss is that it take
significant self control for long periods of time (months).

People take that as a moral judgement of people who don't lose weight: they
assume that it means they are mentally weak.

But the truth is that there are alternatives. The thing that most calorie
in/out advocates miss is that it's calories over time that matter. If one can
spread digestion of the same calories over a longer period of time the subject
will generally feel less hungry.

This is where high-protein, anti-processed food, anti-sugar and insulin
reaction people have a point: High protein, high fiber and unprocessed foods
generally have a high satiety index[1][2]. This means a person eating them
will feel less hungry for longer for the same amount of calories.

Naturally this links back to calories in: if someone who is trying to lose
weight doesn't feel hungry they don't have to have so much self control.

To me the low satiety index of confectioneries and soda drinks explains why
sugar is so dangerous: It's digested very quickly and contains lots of
calories, which is the worst possible combination for weight control.

I don't understand why satiety isn't discussed more in weight control, since
to me it is _the_ key factor.

(This is all from the perspective of someone who lost nearly 20kg via calorie
counting)

[1]
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7498104](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7498104)

[2]
[http://www.ernaehrungsdenkwerkstatt.de/fileadmin/user_upload...](http://www.ernaehrungsdenkwerkstatt.de/fileadmin/user_upload/EDWText/TextElemente/Ernaehrungswissenschaft/Naehrstoffe/Saettigung_Lebensmittel_Satiety_Index.pdf)

~~~
induscreep
Hmm but you can still lose weight by eating low satiety index foods, as long
as a calorie deficit is present. This means eating smaller portions of these
foods. It just takes more self control because the body "feels hungry" when in
fact it isn't.

~~~
nl
Of course. That's the point!

------
beloch
"I learned that it is really hard to accurately measure calories consumed,
even if you are trying. "

I'd just like to highlight this, because it is profoundly true. There are
probably very few people who have the patience to log everything they eat,
diet or no diet, unless they have some kind of payoff close at hand! Even if
you do log everything you eat, it's still not easy. Here are just a few
reasons why:

1\. The best foods to eat on a diet don't come in prepackaged portions with
the calorie count labelled on the back.

2\. Packaged food often does not have anywhere near the same calories as the
label claims. Food manufacturers often aren't very precise and they have an
incentive to underestimate.

3\. The ideal way to measure the absorbable caloric content of food would be
to feed it (and nothing else) to human test-subjects (other animals can
metabolize foods quite differently; e.g. grass and cows) for an extended
period of time while strictly regulating the test-subjects' physical activity.
Measure the weight change, and there you have it. Yeah... This experiment is
never going to happen. That's why we stick food in a calorimeter, burn it, and
consider the heat it provides to be a measure of its caloric content. This
crude method provides decent estimates on average, but can occasionally be
misleading.

For these reasons, I'm actually a bit surprised that the author's data matches
the theory so closely. This indicates the author scrupulously measured his
portion sizes, found accurate estimates for the caloric content of the foods
he ate, and logged _everything_. This is seriously impressive. If the author
had failed to log something as insignificant as the sugar and cream he puts in
his coffee it would have thrown his numbers way off over a period of 75 days.
Similarly, he must have scrupulously recorded his physical activities. The fit
is so perfect I actually suspect he... ah... _played_ with his data slightly
after the fact. A "fortuitous" choice for alpha is obviously helpful too.

One other thing worth pointing out is that weighing yourself daily and
plotting it on a graph like this is a _fantastic_ way to observe progress and
stay motivated to stick to your new routine. First, if you don't regularly
observe your weight then you have no feedback. If you fail to accurately
measure your caloric intake/expenditure the results might not be as desired.
Feedback is necessary. However, daily feedback can be wildly misleading if you
don't place it in context. If you look at the author's data, there are plenty
of ups and downs around the trend. For example, on day 7 he observed a large
gain and on day 8 a large loss. If the author only kept the previous day's
weight in his head he might conclude that he did poorly on day 6 and made up
for it on day 7. In reality, he might have consumed very healthy, fiber-rich
food (e.g. a lot of beans) on day 6 and a bunch of sugar-rich processed
garbage on day 7. The author might have stored away some fat on day 7 but
wound up weighing less on day 8 purely because of passing the fiber from his
meal on day 6. Pure sugar doesn't leave much behind to be passed!

I do question the worth of calculating your caloric deficit. It's simply too
hard to get an accurate measure of consumption. However, measuring your weight
regularly and plotting it so you can observe the larger trend is _invaluable_.
About five years ago I dropped 60 pounds (it's still off, and I've gained lean
muscle mass). I didn't count calories. I simply measured my weight regularly
and plotted it on a graph similar to the author. I looked at the larger trend
and made small adjustments gradually to keep it going in the right direction.
If you don't weigh yourself regularly you can undo months worth of progress
with one new bad habit. If you don't place your weight in context you'll have
difficulty identifying habits that are a problem. Finally, watching that line
steadily come down is a fantastic way to stay motivated.

~~~
hueving
>Packaged food often does not have anywhere near the same calories as the
label claims. Food manufacturers often aren't very precise and they have an
incentive to underestimate.

Source? If they aren't within 20% they can be shut down by the FDA. Not
exactly something you would want to risk.

~~~
x0x0
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/calorie-
detective....](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/calorie-
detective.html)

* bodega muffin. 640 claimed, 735 actual

* starbucks pretend coffee. 370 claimed, 393 actual

* chipotle burrito. 1175 claimed, 10% over

* some veggie sandwich. 228 claimed, 100% over

* subway sandwich. came in under

4/5 of tested food underestimated, some wildly

~~~
Retric
Those where not pre packaged.

------
darkxanthos
The question of "...is what you eat more important than how much?" Went
unanswered it appears. Essentially, what if he ate the same calories each day
but improved the number of calories he burned per pound of body weight? A
hypothesis I've seen scattered around the t00b lands is eating sugar
effectively lowers that value (I think it's alpha in his analysis). I wonder
how much one can change that and how so.

------
bdaw11
Conversely, if you're done with losing fat and wish to add some muscle I would
recommend the High Intensity Training technique, described in e.g. the book
High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way. The basic idea is to train once
or twice a week for around 30 minutes, send as big a signal as possible to
your body that your muscles are inadequate, and then recover until the next
session.

~~~
CuriouslyC
Not to be a downer, but I have spent a lot of time in
powerlifting/bodybuilding circles, and I've never met anyone with an advanced
physique that told me that type of training worked for them.

I've also tried training that way, and didn't see good results.

------
iopq
As a 6'4", 200lbs male my maintenance calories going to the gym 2.5 times a
week (5 times every 2 weeks) was 2700. But once you get thinner, the weight
loss slows because of slowing metabolism, so under 190lbs (and under 15% bf)
my maintenance probably decreased by a lot because my weight loss slowed
considerably.

------
annnnd
> I learned that a chicken thigh loses over 40% of its weight from grilling...

Wow, seriously? Does that depend on whether the chicken is raised on farm (in
open spaces, with enough room to run around) versus in battery cage? I would
expect it matters a lot (the taste is _very_ different to me).

~~~
kyllo
Supermarket chicken is injected with saline solution to make it look more
plump and appealing. This solution, as well as much of the water that was
inside the meat to begin with, evaporates during cooking.

------
induscreep
Anyone have insight on how "my thyroid" affects weight gain/loss? As in, does
TDEE decrease when something is wrong with the thyroid? If a typical TDEE is
2200 calories, then with thyroid problems, will it go down to 1500, or is 2100
a more likely figure?

------
dgerges
Just eat normally (fruits, vegetables, meat/fish from time to time, not too
much bread...) for a long period of time and you'll get to your normal weight.
All the rest is bullshit.

~~~
johnward
The problem is for many people eating "normal" is what caused them to get so
big in the first place. Most people in the US don't seem to see their diet as
out of the ordinary even if they hit fast-food joints for every meal.

~~~
dgerges
Seen like that my reaction was a bit too simplistic :)

------
ragecore
In bodybuilding terms, "cutting" is being under calorie deficit. It can wreak
havoc with your mood systems and that's why people can't keep it up. Start
small.

~~~
tachyonbeam
It's not just moods, it's also hunger. AFAIK, fMRI studies have shown that in
morbidly obese people, the hunger part of their brain is constantly activated.
They're actually hungry all the time, they have an irresistible urge to eat.
I'm sure the large majority of them wish they were thinner, but to them, it's
a painful struggle against biological urges.

I used to be overweight, lost weight, but it's a constant struggle for me to
keep a normal weight. I've spoken to some very thin people, and they don't
seem to experience hunger in the same way I do. These people forget to eat,
get full very quickly, and when they get full, they lose all of the sense of
pleasure they get from eating, they immediately want to stop. Me? I have an
urge to eat quickly and I can eat way past "enough". I'm pretty sure I could
eat 2000 calories for dinner if I didn't stop myself, but the reasonable mark
is at about 900. I can never "forget" to eat, my body/brain doesn't let me.

It's pretty clear that some people have stronger sex drives than others. I
don't understand why it's such a radical notion that some people have a
stronger sense of hunger than others. If you've never been overweight, chances
are it's not an active effort or perfect habits on your part, it's just the
way your body/brain works, it's largely genetics.

~~~
michh
Same, I lost a lot of weight a couple of years ago and it was _hard_. And it's
still difficult to keep the weight off, even though it's been 5 years since I
lost it and am on a regular exercise routine.

I've pretty much learned to accept it's something I'll have to deal with for
the rest of my life, rather than "I was fat once, I got rid of it, it's no
longer a concern, the end."

It totally pisses me off to see people who can't manage to do the same being
judged in awful ways by people who were lucky enough not to have to do it in
the first place or for whom it was apparently relatively easy and assume it'll
be just as easy for everyone else.

I count myself amongst the lucky, I'll never say "I could do it, so you can
too." It's counter productive and an awful thing to hear when you're already
really trying.

------
scythe
So, if you believe "calories in, calories out", obviously. But, if you think
that's all there is to dieting I have another question: do you believe in free
will?

~~~
laichzeit0
This has nothing to do with beliefs. It's a falsifiable statement.

~~~
scythe
Um, did you read, or try to understand, at all, thr second sentence?

------
wfjackson
Gut bacteria are a big confounder among a bunch of other things. Different
types can do a lot of things differently, like extract more calories from the
same food.

[http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/ci-
gbi091012....](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/ci-
gbi091012.php)

They can even mess with your mind to make you crave junk food.

[http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/08/116526/do-gut-bacteria-
rule...](http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/08/116526/do-gut-bacteria-rule-our-
minds)

Transplanting them from a thin human to an obese mice slimmed the mice down.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/health/gut-bacteria-
from-t...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/health/gut-bacteria-from-thin-
humans-can-slim-mice-down.html?pagewanted=all)

Jet lagged gut bacteria can contribute to obesity.

[http://www.popsci.com/article/science/jet-lagged-gut-
bacteri...](http://www.popsci.com/article/science/jet-lagged-gut-bacteria-
could-contribute-obesity)

Diet soda can alter gut bacteria to make one gain weight.

[http://www.prevention.com/health/diabetes/artificial-
sweeten...](http://www.prevention.com/health/diabetes/artificial-sweeteners-
diet-soda-affect-gut-bacteria-and-weight-gain)

There are more gut bacteria than human cells in our body, and they actually
release chemicals that affect the brain and have evolved to do that and there
are a lot of other factors that influence gut bacteria, including what got
passed on from your mother, what foods you ate during your life, what
antibiotics you took etc. etc.

And gut bacteria is just one variable among things like activity levels,
pollution levels, sleep amount and quality(not sleeping well can make you eat
about 600 calories more the next day), peers(hanging out with obese people is
likely to make you obese, obese people tend to have obese pets!), poverty, car
ownership, smoking, tastebud sensitivity, commute time(people with longer
commutes tend to be obese),genetics,water intake, muscle mass,stress levels,
food additives, pregnancy, childbirth, menopause, time of the month for women,
free time in a day(try cooking at home and exercise working 2 grueling jobs to
make ends meet), drug side effects, emotional eating, type of exercise,
micronutrients in food,portion sizes in restaurant, food advertising, food
subsidies, vitamn level, thyroid function, insulin sensitivity, liver health,
distribution of fat around body parts and inside organs,will power, processed
foods, food availability and cost etc. etc. Some of these variables affect the
others in a chaotic state machine kind of way.

It's no wonder that all these low carb, low fat, paleo, etc. diets are not
one-size-fits-all solutions and that such discussions descend into WORKED-FOR-
ME!!! Y U NO DO IT?!! platitudes. A calorie = a calorie is as true and as
useless as answering the question "Why are there so many people inside the
Super Bowl stadium during the game?" by saying "Because more people entered it
than who left, if only people didn't get in, it wouldn't be so crowded."

~~~
domdip
> There are more gut bacteria than human cells in our body

"[That] is technically true, in the sense that Vin Diesel is outnumbered by a
small bag of crickets."

[http://carcinisation.com/2014/08/14/science-journalism-
march...](http://carcinisation.com/2014/08/14/science-journalism-marches-on/)

~~~
Synaesthesia
I read somewhere the mass of gut bacteria in a persons body is about a pound.

~~~
makeset
BRB, working on the marketing copy for my Antibiotics Diet for Weight Loss
(TM).

------
stefantalpalaru
> Aside: I am intentionally sticking with U. S. customary units of pounds,
> miles, etc., to be consistent with much of the related literature.

Add to that the ridiculous habit of shortening "kilocalorie" to "calorie" when
talking to humble folk without temptation:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie)
(yeah, the wikipedia article makes it even more ridiculous with its
"small"/"large" calorie language, somewhat in the vein of "up goer five").

------
nulldozer
I think you would be taken more seriously if you used the metric system.

~~~
ddt
> (Aside: I am intentionally sticking with U. S. customary units of pounds,
> miles, etc., to be consistent with much of the related literature.)

From the article, it sounds like dietary science in the US is done with
imperial units. It was written by an American for a primarily American
audience. Americans track their weight in pounds. Those seem like pretty good
reasons to not use metric to me.

------
Paul_S
You lose weight by eating less in the same way that you achieve success by
working hard. One doesn't necessarily follow the other but unless you do it
you can't possibly expect anything but more of the same.

~~~
obsurveyor
Neither of these are true. Plenty of people work hard but don't achieve
success, just the same way plenty of people eat less but don't lose weight.
The body is a wonderfully efficient and adaptable machine and its own
processes can sabotage your efforts to change it. There's also genetic
predispositions that are a factor as well.

~~~
CuriouslyC
I would rephrase his statement as:

You lose weight by having a good plan and taking consistent action to follow
it. You achieve success the same way.

I honestly believe that the problem with people who work really hard and never
achieve success is that they didn't formulate a good plan. You can be the
fastest runner in the world but you're never going to win a race if you run in
the wrong direction.

------
jsonmez
I have quite a bit of advice on this topic, targeted directly at programmers
on my podcast on fitness for software developers, Get Up and CODE:
[http://getupandcode.com](http://getupandcode.com)

------
tw04
Uhh. "Are all calories equal? I don't know, but it'd be nice to know." Why is
this even a blog post? It literally tells us nothing.

------
Cacti
It's calories in, calories out, only if you stick to specific foods.

It's well proven that raw foods, despite being slightly higher calorie content
than their cooked version, contribute significantly less calories because FAR
less is digested and absorbed.

And it's equally well proven that weight gain is significantly due to the
consumption of processed sugars (most carbohydrates that people eat these
days), as they contribute far more sugar far quicker to the blood (and hence
kick off an insulin reaction to lower the blood sugar by storing the sugar as
fat). 1000 calories of white rice will contribute far more to weight gain than
1000 calories of, say, plain chicken.

So we _know_ that it's not just calories in, calories out. It just seems that
way sometimes, because most studies don't really change the fundamental type
of food (that is, it's almost assuredly cooked food still, and at least
somewhat similar in the processing done (e.g. no candy bar but they're still
eating white bread)). Everyone's just repeating the same study over and over,
not realizing they weren't fundamentally changing the inputs.

~~~
nkozyra
> And it's equally well proven that weight gain is significantly due to the
> consumption of processed sugars (most carbohydrates that people eat these
> days), as they contribute far more sugar far quicker to the blood (and hence
> kick off an insulin reaction to lower the blood sugar by storing the sugar
> as fat). 1000 calories of white rice will contribute far more to weight gain
> than 1000 calories of, say, plain chicken.

Not to get into a pissing match, but I think "well proven" needs some citation
here.

The role of insulin does not bypass thermodynamics.

~~~
trustfundbaby
> Not to get into a pissing match, but I think "well proven" needs some
> citation here.

It just has to do with the way the body deals with sugar. Sugar produced from
the digestive process goes straight to your bloodstream as glucose if your
body needs it, but if you already have enough ... it is sent to your liver
where it is converted to glycogen. The rub is, your liver can only store so
much glycogen (about 100mg of it I think), after that ... any sugar that hits
your liver is converted to straight fat.

~~~
nkozyra
I've heard all of this before and frankly a lot of it seems anecdotal and
poorly supported.

First, we do know that simple sugars lead to insulin spikes, that's measurable
and repeatable. All carbohydrates (save cellulose) are processed into the
monosaccharide glucose at some point.

And the finite amount of glycogen the liver can store probably also could use
some attribution or citation. I haven't heard of that and I'm always very
leery about these hard-and-fast #s in terms of measurements that kick off some
process that we should expect in all humans.

~~~
iopq
fructose does not lead to an insulin spike and goes directly to the liver

~~~
nkozyra
Fructose spikes insulin, most macronutrients do. Even protein spikes insulin.
Fructose has produced _less_ of a spike than other simple sugars.

~~~
spmurrayzzz
Fructose is shunted directly to the liver. It _does_ have a glycemic index of
19, but that's on par with some sugar alcohols (which generally speaking are
thought to _not_ have an effect on blood sugar).

> Even protein spikes insulin

Can you explain this mechanism? From my research, this is a demand-driven
process via gluconeogenesis. The effect on blood sugar is so minimal here as
to suggest that insulin secretion is nominal at best.

