[trealira]

I agree. Some people don't realize how many calories some of the things they regularly consume have, though, and I think that's why many have trouble losing weight, which is why it's important to track your calorie consumption when trying to lose weight.

[theshrike79]

People have different gut/intestinal flora which affects the amount of calories digested from different foods.

There are actual studies on this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10368799/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8291023/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7463616/

We all know that one person who can eat literally anything and is still fit and that one person who sees an ad for ice cream and gains 5 pounds (hyperbole of course). According to these studies it's the difference in gut microbiota that's the difference here.

[trealira]

Thanks for sharing; I hadn't known that there were studies that show that the microbiome affects weight gain in the body.

> We all know that one person who can eat literally anything and is still fit and that one person who sees an ad for ice cream and gains 5 pounds (hyperbole of course). According to these studies it's the difference in gut microbiota that's the difference here.

I know people who seem to eat the same amount of food but gain different amounts of weight from it, but I had always chalked it up to a combination of these factors: 1) bigger, taller people naturally burn more calories than shorter people even while sedentary; 2) people may do different amounts of activity (e.g., one person jogs 30 minutes daily and another doesn't); 3) you can't know if someone is actually eating the same food as someone else without observing all their caloric intake over an extended period of time, which only happens in scientific studies.

Now I know there are more factors. Thank you.