> This "calories in, calories out" idea is dangerously wrong.
You don't see a lot of overweight people in famine prone areas. Calories out - calories in = your weight curve. That's the easy part for losing weight.
Sport does not burn a lot of calories. So it is better to cut on the intake. Which is the hard part: food can be a comfort drug which is easily available. Worse when your entourage is full of overweight people as crab mentality can set-in and they'll try to sabotage your weight loss.
This, unfortunately, is not true. Unfortunate cause I think great things would happen if it were that easy. It's also super simple to understand, which is at least part of why people cling to it so tightly.
There is a huge amount of scientific literature (see summaries by Gary taubes, for example) that show that calorie counting is not the whole picture when it comes to health or obesity. It's also definitely not a golden rule.
Hey, sorry I do not, but it was the first thing I saw with Gary Taubes' name on it so I figured it would probably be good. He has a few books out, and other articles online, that I recommend looking up (that does, in fact, have examples of studies that indicate that factors other than calories play a very important role in weight control)
Relevant short video from the Documentary "FatHead" that talks a little bit about what Gary Taubes is talking about in his book. The effects of carb/sugar and the insulin response that causes fat storage. https://youtu.be/mNYlIcXynwE
Not to say it's not a useful diet method. Just that there are a lot of factors that go into "calories out"-- what calories are being used for energy and what are stored as fat. How fast are you burning calories? Hormones are a big part of that. You can see this very clearly in hyper/hypo thyroid patients.
Last time I checked hormones were around the 400 calories per day level. Which is less than 2 small hamburgers.
Hormones only can not explain the percentage of overweight people in western countries. 50% of the population does not have hormones fucked up enough to not lose weight.
People in famine prone areas are considerably more sicker and live shorter (even when they don't die from famine) then western overweight people. Being overweight is healthier then living there.
Also, famine makes you passive, tired and well, less bright. There is a reason why famine prone areas dont produce tech hubs and nobel prize winners.
But you don't see a lot of overweight people there. Even if they don't do anything so don't use a lot of energy I guess calories in are less than calories out so that's why they can't store any fat.
There are other health problems due to this "extreme diet" but being overweight is not one. So if you want to lose weight do like them and eat less than what your body needs.
This is mostly due to malnutrition and not calorie restriction as far as I know. Calorie restriction has many positive health effects. Even then, comparing overweight people to famine struck people is an unfair comparison, it's like comparing a morbidly obese person to someone who is just underweight.
You don't see a lot of overweight people in famine prone areas. Calories out - calories in = your weight curve. That's the easy part for losing weight.
Sport does not burn a lot of calories. So it is better to cut on the intake. Which is the hard part: food can be a comfort drug which is easily available. Worse when your entourage is full of overweight people as crab mentality can set-in and they'll try to sabotage your weight loss.