[prostoalex]

> At the end of the day it will always be calories in vs. calories out.

This is based on the assumption that all calories are digested and metabolized.

Calorie is simply a unit of energy. There are calories in paper, charcoal and wood, so taking that to the extreme would mean that one would gain the same amount of weight consuming a bunch of shredded paper as consuming, let's say, a donut, yet digestion does not work that way.

[flountown]

At that point I would imagine it's the same concept as net carbs. Obviously not all food/matter is digestible. I do think it's still safe to say calories in/calories out however since most of us aren't entering shredded paper, charcoal and wood into MFP logs.

[prostoalex]

While you can control the input, the output gets harder - one cannot just simply double/triple their defecation rate, and exercise tends to work out an appetite.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/exercising-but-gain...

Output is governed by hormones, and the only reliable hack for now seems to be significantly lowering insulin by switching to ketogenic diet (or a variation thereof, /r/zerocarb, /r/keto, Atkins, Dukan). I'd recommend this book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Calories,_Bad_Calories with understanding that a lot of nutrition and diet science is in very premature stage because of World War 2 and lack of funding thereafter.

[nazgul17]

I once read that different kinds of food deliver calories in forms with different degrees of absorb-ability.

Source: http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/why-most-food-...