[nsxwolf]

Frankly, this is bunk. If it's calories in and calories out, then there is an exact number of daily potato chips one can calculate for each person to achieve and maintain an ideal weight. You'll get just as fat on "real food".

[lowbloodsugar]

If you eat 200 calories of sugar, your body will turn it into fat, and you'll be hungry in 20 minutes, suffer mood swings, migraines and eventually diabetes. If you eat 200 calories of protein, fats and slow carbs, you'll be full, and you'll be able to function until the next meal.

The quality of your calories absolutely matters.

[NikolaeVarius]

It might matter to mood, but it doesn't matter in terms of weight gain/loss.

You could eat nothing but 1000 calories of pure sugar a day and still lose weight

[jogjayr]

> You could eat nothing but 1000 calories of pure sugar a day and still lose weight

Yes, if you were locked in a room and passed exactly 1000 calories of sugar cubes and water every single day. Most of us live in the real world with food all around us, easily available, and responsibilities to stay on top of. It's really easy to say "this diet is making me feel terrible, I'm just going to eat what I want so I won't be so cranky to my kids".

[lowbloodsugar]

And likewise you could take a knife and cut out belly fat. It is possible. However it has significant negatives that make it unlikely that people will follow through with the idea. I totally agree that if a person is successful at eating only 1000 calories of sugar per day then they will lose weight. But they wont be successful.

[NikolaeVarius]

You know that's a completely irrelevant comparison. There is nothing causing a person to gain back weight after losing it outside of willpower.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/

[nsxwolf]

Now if only you could put willpower in a bottle.

Calorie restriction diets feel like holding your breath for 6 months straight. Then as soon as you can't take it anymore, you exhale and instantly gain it all back. It's horrible. Nobody's will can hold out for that long.

Some people are happy eating whatever diet keeps them at an ideal weight. Some people never will be, and it's a form of torture.

[NikolaeVarius]

And yet it works. I know because I've done it and lost a TON of weight simply by not eating.

[metamet]

Willpower, hunger, and habit.

[TheCoelacanth]

This is like saying that all that matters to your bank account balance is dollars in and dollars out. It's obviously true in the most trivial sense, but it's not useful advice. There are countless other factors that affect the amount in and amount out.

If someone is trying to increase their bank balance which advice is more likely to help them: "Just increase your dollars in or decrease your dollars out" or "Get a roommate, move to a less expensive neighborhood, cook your own food instead of eating out"?

[metamet]

Of course it's about calories. But hormonal responses and insulin resistance affect how your body handles nutrition and regulates hunger.

One tends to regulate itself, while the other requires strict (and rarely followed) calorie counting.

If you eat hyper palatable food that makes you hungrier, you'll eat more. Pure and simple.

[ithinkinstereo]

That's technically true, though anecdotally, my body def responds differently to whole vs processed foods. Even if the cals and macro nutrients (Protein/Fat/Carbs) remain the same.