[appel_user]

That is the link from the post you are replying too it's from Harvard Medical.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/stop-counting....

""" "This idea of 'a calorie in and a calorie out' when it comes to weight loss is not only antiquated, it's just wrong," says Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an obesity specialist and assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. """

edit: | And simply saying 'Instead we should focus on daily fun movements that we like to do. So it doesn't feel like a chore and easy to maintain within your lifestyle.' is such a weird take

Did you watched youtube link provided? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWuKIlbybqY

Because after watching it, it makes allot of sense. And your points are all addressed there.

[Pius_IX]

Reply to your Edit:

'Instead we should focus on daily fun movements that we like to do. So it doesn't feel like a chore and easy to maintain within your lifestyle.' Yep, I watched the beginning of the video and totally agree with the guy. I feel like my next sentence :

'Have you ever considered that some people enjoy going to the gym? On the other hand I personally couldn't imagine anything more boring than body weight exercises. In the end it is up to the individual to chose the lifestyle that they enjoy, so please stop selling your personal favorite as if any other choices 'are large time investments that can be better spent elsewhere'. I very much enjoy my time spend at the gym, thank you very much.'

basically sums up the guys take in the video. The guy who posted the video on the other hand seemed to think (Or at least seemed to imply) that going to the gym was a waste of time and that everybody should do these 'Micro workouts'. Which is the opposite of the video guy, who expressly said that some people love power-lifting, some other stuff. And that everybody should try to find their flavor and enjoy doing that kind of exercise because doing sport is great and it helps your health in many ways.

If you still think that I wrote something that videoguy would disagree with please write again and I'll check the part of the video you mean. Because he seems like a pretty cool dude, and I certainly don't feel like I disagree with him.

[mister_mister]

The poster didn't imply that from what I understand.

It's response to links training methodologies that solely focus on the gym and calories. As such is saying "there is more then the gym and calories". and you seem to agree with that statement. that was the context of the comment, and looks like you missed it.

[Pius_IX]

Yes? And even in that article there is the following paragraph which implies that the number of calories consumed is important:

'"People who ate the ultra-processed food gained weight," says Dr. Stanford. Each group was given meals with the same number of calories and instructed to eat as much as they wanted, but when participants ate the processed foods, they ate 500 calories more each day on average. The same people's calorie intake decreased when they ate the unprocessed foods.'

I am *not* saying that 'losing weight is a matter of simple math' by counting calories as the article suggests. That is a a stupid thing to say and kind of a strawman. I am saying that 'investing time in tracking calories' (A thing the other guy implied being a waste of time) is a great tool in a tool-kit. I am also saying that eating whole foods is a great idea, but - by itself - not the ultimate solution either. I'd further say that eating healthy isn't just about losing weight, it is about a number of things for different people - some need to gain weight for example.

In addition to that, I think the article does a disservice to counting calories and is just generally written in a sloppy way. While obviously nothing it says is wrong, it also doesn't tell you a lot of other true things. For example that it can be quite easy for some people to eat enough healthy whole food to grow quite fat or at least to not lose weight (If that is the goal). It also doesn't mention that counting calories helped countless people lose a lot of weight.

But the most important flaw is that it doesn't tell you the intended target audience of the information. Do I need to eat tons of McDonalds and be way overweight? Or do pasta and pesto twice a week count while eating lots of vegetables on the other days? Will I magically lose weight if I don't eat those two meals a week? What about if I lead a very active lifestyle and work in construction? What if I am a hobby athlete and just want to lose 10kg while already eating healthy whole foods? Depending on you personally the information in this article is probably useless. I mean for gods sake, they use The biggest loser as an example, hardly relevant for most people (Outside the US? I don't know). Also note that in the 3 reasons they list, only *1* is something you are actually able to control, and that one reason breaks down to *people eat less calories*. If they want to convince me that counting calories is a bad idea they should really find better arguments.

'putting the emphasis on improving diet quality and making sustainable lifestyle improvements to achieve a healthy weight.' as described in the article is such a non-committal take. No surprise, eating good food and making livestyle improvements (Whatever that is) is a good idea.

Reality is obviously way more complicated than a small essay on the internet can do justice. As such I personally kind of despise these articles, whether they be from Harvard Medical or Mens Healthy. Especially if they don't acknowledge this and instead write the article in a way that seems to imply that it contains all the information you need.

[User23]

Losing weight isn’t even particularly desirable in itself. It’s a reduction in fat mass, especially visceral fat, that’s going to improve health. Gaining muscular and skeletal weight is going to improve most persons’ well-being.

The metric to target is body composition, not weight. And for that metric, there is a whole lot more than calories in or even nutrients in. Endocrine profile has a huge effect on nutrient partitioning, just to name one thing.

[mister_mister]

If experts from reputable sources won't change your mind, I don't think any post on HN will either. The points in the article are pretty clear. The gut biome, your metabolism, sleep, exercise , and stress all play role.

[bitexploder]

Calories in / calories out is a model. To paraphrase a famous quote: all models are bad, some are useful. You won’t find a a much simpler discipline than calorie logging. It /generally/ works, teaches people about their food habits and lets them start understanding things like macros. If you are doing it (weight loss) on your own it is an amazing starting point.

[mister_mister]

Except that body is unable to sense calories, but it's capable of sensing protein and blood sugar levels. but calories can works as a proxy, "more calories" == "more food" but calories are not all the same.

[halfmatthalfcat]

A calorie derived from a carbohydrate is the exact same as a calorie derived from protein. Are you talking about more caloric densities of different macronutrients? Aka, there's more caloric density in fatty foods vs proteins, for instance?

[bitexploder]

Kinda like with running. Our hearts have no pedometer. It just works however hard it needs to for however long. The numbers, paces and such are things we add to gain insight into what that performance means. Calorie counting is often also the first introduction many people have to what their macros are like. And there is some wisdom here, around individuals and “calorie quality”, but you can ultimately still use calorie and macro counting as a baseline measurement to start understanding your body. I should caveat, when I say calorie counting I mean, tracking key macros too: protein, carbs, fat, fiber, etc.

[mister_mister]

Yeah, It's starting point. if it would lead into Macro and micro nutrients that would be great.

[Spoom]

FWIW the calorie counting model has worked well for me where others have failed. Anecdata, of course. But counting calories, as well as making some general, loosely-held shifts of what I eat (near zero liquid calories, minimize sugar, more fruits and veggies, max one fist-sized portion of meat per meal) have gotten my weight down significantly, and it feels easier than other methods I've tried.

[bena]

He's got a valid criticism though. The article says one thing and then contradicts itself. Most of the advice is of the nature "This causes people to eat more".

Being stressed causes you to eat more. Poor sleep causes you to eat more.

There is some variance, but it's nowhere near significant enough to really matter in the face of the largest contributor: the number of calories you consume.

[mister_mister]

The criticism comes from someone who not a expert or even basic knowlegde of role of hormones in the body. Such as insulin on cells or thyriod t3 hormone on metabolism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3830935/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4044302/

[Pius_IX]

Maybe I didn't explain myself very well, if so I am very sorry. English is obviously not my first language.

The gut biome, your metabolism, sleep, exercise , and stress all play role.

Yep. You can't control your gut biome and your metabolism as far as I know so while interesting, those are irrelevant for most people. Everybody will tell you that no stress, sleep and exercise are great. Combine all of these if you want to live a good, healthy life - great, but you probably didn't need an article for that. But wait, there are lots of people who do all those things (Whole food, no/little stress, sleep, exercise) and still don't lose weight.

There are tons of reasons for that. Maybe they still eat way more than they should - people are horrible at estimating how many calories a meal has. Maybe they are sick, either in mind or body. Maybe they don't train as well as they think (A lot of people think that jogging for half an hour equals a whole meal, instead of one slice of bread). Maybe there is another reason out of the myriad of reasons that exist.

But this article makes it seem like the most important thing is Put the focus on food quality and healthy lifestyle practices to attain a healthy weight. By the way, here are other 'experts from reputable sources' (The same journal) who pretty much say the same thing I do:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/calorie-count... (Explains how to count)

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/counting-on-c... (Describes how many you probably need)

https://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/dont-count-calorie... (This one says exactly what I say - they aren't the only thing that counts, but you still better are aware of them.)

https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/counting-calorie... (This one for whatever reason claims it keeps your heart young. I don't care enough to research that one)

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/simple-math-e... (And this one is so badly written and claims the exact opposite as far as I can tell, that I very much doubt this is a 'reputable source').

Don't always believe what a single, hastily written and completely non-sourced (Not a single source/quotation in that article!!! How is that reputable??) in a weird online magazine claims. Even if the print Harvard on the top.

[mister_mister]

"You can't control your gut biome and your metabolism as far as I know"

that is incorrect, and shows that your level of understanding doesn't warrant the certainty of your comments about weight loss.

[Pius_IX]

Oh please. To quote your much loved Harvard Medical Journal (https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/do-gut-bacter...): 'We are just beginning to understand the role of gut bacteria in obesity, and the science hasn't led yet to treatments that will make it easier to lose weight. However, I believe that day is coming.'

And to quote it again (https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-truth-abo...): 'How fast your metabolism works is determined mostly by your genes.' and also saying: 'But you can't entirely blame a sluggish metabolism for weight gain, says Dr. Lee. "The reality is that metabolism often plays a minor role," he says. "The greatest factors as you age are often poor diet and inactivity."'. Sure, they then list a number of ways to 'boost it', but they all come back to the exact same tune I have been talking about. Exercise and food (And apparently Green tea. Huh, a 100 cal a day isn't great but isn't horrible either).

So if you know of some great way to control either of them, please link me a journal or paper, I would love to learn more.

[mister_mister]

The links to research about changing your metabolism. one google search away.

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4044302/ 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3830935/ 3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21311363/

Here research on the gut biome and link with food. 1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6950569/ 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5385025/ 3. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/10/study-finds-g...

This is what the lastest science is pointing to. We are currently in obesity epidemic, how long have we counting calories? Calories are measurement for steam engines. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and...