
Counting Calories? Your Weight-Loss Plan May Be Outdated - pavel
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/health/19brody.html
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robchez
I really wish the count calories, calories in = calories out, calorie is just
a calorie mantra would just go away and die.

The idea that your body has no clue as to what type (fat, protein, carb) of
you're eating is stupid.

I have advised nearly everyone in my family as well as lots of friends and
colleagues to weight loss success with the following simple rules:

1\. Get rid of grains, legumes and sugars

2\. Eat healthy fats (coconut oil, lard, tallow grass-fed butters)

3\. Eat a decent amount of protein from meat sources.

4\. Lower your carbs overall (this is sort of automatic as you will not feel
as hungry if you eat plenty of fats and protein)

5\. Eat to satiety

Also, you don't need to go for runs, or exercise to lose weight. It's great
for your overall health, but if you are overweight and the thought of exercise
is stopping you, then forget it and just change your diet.

As an aside, if anyone else wants further advice please feel free to ask.

edit: formatting

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angdis
Nah, humans can thrive with eating a huge variety of foods. The atkins-type
diets, as far as I've seen, are followed by panda-bear-shaped folks who
maintain that panda-bear-shape no matter what.

If we really understood (as a society) what truly makes for a good diet,
people would be getting slimmer and not fatter.

IMHO, the most sensible diet advice comes from Michael Pollan: "Eat real food.
Not too much. Mostly plants."

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robchez
Society doesn't understand thanks to the government pushing the food
pyramid/plate down their throats and the low-fat diet crud.

Check out a cross-fit gym anywhere and see if you can find the pand-bear-
shaped folks.

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sliverstorm
I would guess the lack of panda-bear folks at a cross-fit gym is not because
cross-fit works, but because cross-fit culls the panda-bears very quickly.

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kevin_morrill
Keep in mind observational studies like this have a very hard time proving
causation. Nothing in here sounds too far outside what I've seen documented in
randomized control trials, but it's good to be aware of this. There's a great
write up on this that's fascinating
[http://www.nytimes.com/200​7/09/16/magazine/16epidemi​ology-...](http://www.nytimes.com/200​7/09/16/magazine/16epidemi​ology-t.html?pagewanted=al​l)

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kenjackson
I found the actual study and the actual study says something quite a bit
different. It says that counting calories works, but in an indirect way:

 _Some foods — vegetables, nuts, fruits, and whole grains — were associated
with less weight gain when consumption was actually increased. Obviously, such
foods provide calories and cannot violate thermodynamic laws. Their inverse
associations with weight gain suggest that the increase in their consumption
reduced the intake of other foods to a greater (caloric) extent, decreasing
the overall amount of energy consumed._

Their view isn't that counting calories doesn't work because the science is
wrong, but because you're less inclined to follow through due to satiety
issues associated with foods. To put it another way, you can't have a bag of
chips, and counterbalance it by having a yogurt before going to bed.

To me this reporting is sloppy.

A much more accurate headline would be, "Eating the right foods will help you
stick to your calorie counting diet".

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kenjackson
This write up in the NYTimes simply was poorly done. With a title like
"Counting Calories?" -- implying counting calories doesn't work, they don't
actually dispell it at all.

Where's the data like, "People who eat fruits, veggies, and whole grains
actually ate more calories, yet lost weight". And "among those who ate lots of
french fries and potato chips, but yet fewer calories than others, gained the
most weight."

Of course I believe those who eat a lot french fries gain a lot of weight.
It's a calorie dense food. As are chips.

I'm not saying the title is inaccurate, but rather the article doesn't really
substantiate it.

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mshron
I don't think the claim is that something other than net calories are what
regulates your body fat, but instead that trying to limit intake through
calorie counting isn't the right way to do it.

That's what I took away, anyway.

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kenjackson
But they don't show that. Not even by a country mile. My general impression is
that the people in this study who lost weight probably ate fewer calories than
those who didn't. The fact that they don't even give one sentence to dispute
that statement is troubling.

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chipsy
Two easy rules I've settled on for diet, mostly revolving around GI:

1\. Regularly add vinegar(any kind) to most meals, or drink it diluted in
water. This dramatically lowers effective GI of carbs so overconsumption is
more difficult. It also has some (complex, but mostly positive) effects on
body acidity and digestion. Vinegar has been documented for its properties
since ancient Greek times, so it's one of the most proven aids around.

2\. The _context_ in which things are consumed matters more than the _amount_.
For this I mostly stick to a single rule: Meals should be either "carb meals"
or "saturated fat" meals. Preferably neither, but never both.

Saturated fat acts to raise effective GI and this is the main source of the
"badness" in meals like pizza, "super" burritos, burger+fries,
macaroni+cheese, etc. But sausage and sauerkraut, or cheese in a green salad
are relatively low-impact combinations, despite having a nominally high level
of sat-fat. Similarly, even drinking a can of Coke(massive sugar-carb dose,
the worst kind) can be OK once in a while, but if you have Coke with lard-
soaked fries or full-fat ice cream you're signing up for the sick train.

There are tons of other contextual rules you can stack on for caffeine,
gluten, the best types of fats, the best preparation methods, etc. but the
sat-fat/carb one is the biggest bang-for-buck one I've found, and combining
that with vinegar to mitigate the worst-case situations I can remain pretty
flexible about what I'm eating.

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ciupicri
I've also heard about this context rule, but what's the explanation or the
scientific study?

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russell
Cut way back on refined carbs, esp. french fries and sugar. Cut back on red
meat. I'm doing all that. I'm not losing weight, but my diabetes needs
substantially less insulin. Peanut butter is helpful or at least neutral. Yea.
Fruits and vegetables, very good. OK, I'm trying. Yogurt is good. Alas, beer
bellies have bellies and winos are skinny.

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robchez
get rid of the carbs and sugar, amp up the red meat and lose the peanut
butter. Keep fruits on the lowish side, eat whatever vegetables you want.

~~~
sliverstorm
Your advice is pretty fringe. Peanuts are great, so long as you're not eating
Sugar With Some Peanuts Butter. If you're recommending he doesn't eat fruit
due to diabetes, I'll defer to the Diabetes Association:

[http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/what-can-i-
eat...](http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/what-can-i-
eat/fruits.html)

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drdaeman
Why it's always about weight loss?

I've tried several apps from Android Market, and most of them (and, I'd say,
all of them having an usable UI where I can actually try to count something)
suggested me some sort of "low-carb" "healthy" recipes, even though my BMI is
17.6 (underweight).

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xyzzyb
Huge success using the Hackers Diet (counting calories) here. Its online
weight tracker is tops. Walker made the book available as an ePub earlier this
year: perfect for the iPad.

<http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/>

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tom_b
hmmmm . . . . does that mean I have to gain back the 50lbs I dropped counting
calories with LoseIt?

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matmann2001
What exactly about this is news?

