[redwood]

I think what's misleading is not the guidance of this article: but rather the idea that calories are calories.

We've been told calories are calories are calories so many times.

BUT

Calories are clearly not treated the same way by different people: two people can eat the same thing, and live the same lifestyle, and one will be overweight. Should we really assume that the same notion can't apply to an individual who treats themselves differently?

What's the elephant in the room? Metabolism!! And whether your body wants to store weight.

What you eat affects both metabolism and whether your body wants to store weight. Sure, everyone's going to be require their own unique mix.

BUT the important point is that what you eat has reflexive impact on how your body uses what you eat and thus on whether you'll be overweight.

So calories are not the only thing. And thus it's entirely possible that a calorie-free substance, which has impacts on metabolism and how your body decides what to store, can impact weight gain.

[mzarate06]

Research has shown metabolism doesn't have the affect on weight loss as many believe it to have. Case in point, weight loss can be achieved eating 1 big meal a day vs. 6 smaller meals a day (where the latter is often hyped b/c it "revs" your metabolism). Your body adjusts.

The true formula for weight loss is simple and well understood: consume less calories than your body requires. When you create a caloric deficit, you'll drop weight, certainly. Focusing on metabolism is a red herring.

What's more, is that your body doesn't care how the deficit is achieved. I'm eating fast food, sweets, and consuming diet soda more often then when I was a "healthy" eater ... you wouldn't guess that I've since dropped 30 lbs. All while getting stronger, and only eating 1 - 2 meals a day. Who cares what my metabolism is, or what I'm eating? The bottom line is that I'm consuming amounts that adhere to a caloric deficit, so I'm leaning down.

So for weight loss, how much you eat will always trump what you eat. Consuming more calories than your body needs will always lead to weight gain, even if they're "clean" calories that come from lean meats and veggies.

I'd encourage you to read Eat Stop Eat: http://www.eatstopeat.com/ (warning, the site looks spammy, but you won't be dissatisfied w/the book)

It's a great read on intermittent fasting that presents a lot of research that debunks metabolism and other hype factors the fitness industry relies on to complicate how simple weight loss really is.

[alok-g]

Newbie question: I find zero-fat food that is very high in protein and reasonable in sugar. Such food also is high on calories. Is food with 230 calories (zero from fat) the same as 230 calories (120 from fat, zero grams protein) in terms of weight loss? I am avoiding the latter, do I need to avoid the former too?

[mzarate06]

If you want to lose weight, the type of calories don't matter as much as quantity. So in regard to the 2 230 calorie amounts you've cited, they'll both contribute to weight loss, or weight gain, equally, depending on what side of a daily or weekly caloric budget they land on.

Consider this:

A popular belief is that 1 lb. of fat contains about 3500 calories. [1] By that measure, and assuming you regularly eat at maintenance calorie level each week, eating 3500 calories below what will result in about a 1 lb. reduction in body weight that week. (which realistically turns out to be mostly fat, but can also include small amounts of lean muscle, too).

Whether you create that deficit from removing sugar, fat, carbs, or protien doesn't matter.

But that's solely for weight loss. When you simultaneously want to increase lean muscle, exercise and protein become more important. Also consider medical conditions that require adhering to certain diet regimen.

So I'm not saying that, globally, what you eat doesn't matter, only that weight loss primarily comes down to maintaining a caloric deficit. To supplement, of all the diet programs out there ... Atkins, South Beach, and even intermittent fasting ... the one thing they all have in common is that they promote a caloric deficit, somehow. And they have to, other wise they wouldn't work!

[1] Some argue the 3500 calories = 1 lb. of fat is bs. All I can say is that I've based my caloric deficit on it and it seems to hold true. I dropped my weekly caloric budget by 7k calories, and have been losing about 2 lbs. a week.

[alok-g]

This helps. This understanding is what I was looking for. Thanks!

Seems to fit my case too. I am cutting down by about 400-600 calories per day and have been loosing at about 4-5 lb per month. I am intending to loose another 10 lb while building some muscle, and got confused by some articles I came across online which talked about increasing protein intake significantly.

[wavesounds]

Your body does not digest fat and turn you into fat, just like it does not digest broccoli and turn you into broccoli. Whats actually important is carbs vs protein. You wan't to eat things that are high in protein and low in carbs, theres many schools of thought that say fat doesn't matter at all anymore. You can learn more by searching for Paleo and Ketosis on Google or Reddit. Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor or dietitian just sharing whats worked for me.

[alok-g]

Oh! My understanding so far was that fat gets stored in the body as long-term energy reserve while sugars form short-term energy reserve. Proteins on the other hand make up the muscle mass. So what I have been trying for the last two months is to force my body to eliminate excess fat deposits by practically eliminating fat intake, reducing sugar intake to make the body low on energy and start digesting the fat reserves, and finally also augmenting proteins (with exercise) to build muscle mass.

Are you suggesting that I can continue to consume fat, as far as I do not increase my calorie intake (say by cutting down on carbs correspondingly)?

I'll read the reference as time permits. Thanks for the same.

[jere]

I don't doubt it's a great book, but the first sentence defies your claim that metabolism is a red herring unless you're saying this guy is selling red herrings:

>Clinical Research Proves that Eat Stop Eat will Help You Lose Weight Fast, Get Rid of Ugly Body Fat and Increase Growth Hormone in as Little as 24 Hours - all while Improving Your Metabolism and Even Building Lean Muscle

[mzarate06]

Having read his book, I can say that he's not selling red herrings.

He does make a clear, recurring, point in his book: the fitness and diet industry focuses too much on things that don't matter that much. E.g. low carb diets, avoiding "bad foods", cardio being the key to fat loss, and yes, metabolism.

My belief is that he mentions metabolism on his site to arouse curiosity, or calm worries, on one myth that fasting skeptics have: not eating frequently slows your metabolism, and to the point that it affects weight loss.

In fact, fasting doesn't affect your metabolism that much, if at all. Research shows it stays pretty steady during periods of fasting.

And through that fact, he's able to push your focus away from worrying about metabolism and on to what really matters: calorie consumption.

[kalleboo]

> What's the elephant in the room? Metabolism!!

The stuff I've seen says that metabolism can only account for about 300 kcal/day difference, until you get into extreme cases like "starvation mode" where the body starts to shutdown (women's periods stop, etc). In the end there's no way around the first law of thermodynamics.

Most anecdotes about "but he eats the same stuff I do!" are just the extremely common cases of people under and overestimating caloric value.

[dllthomas]

"In the end there's no way around the first law of thermodynamics."

The first law of thermodynamics only applies to a closed system, and doesn't automatically have much of anything to do with whether something as complex as a body stores fat or not.

[speeder]

300kcal a day is a lot...

For example my mom only managed to lose weight (and very slowly) after having a very strict diet of 1500kcal

This 300kcal for her would be 20% more than she needs.

Mind you, my mom already exercised regularly when she adopted that diet.

[joevandyk]

If I were to eat 300 extra calories a day and all that surplus was stored as fat, I'd gain 31 pounds every year.

[eric970]

I agree that calories can have different impacts on people. We all require a certain intake of calories to achieve a certain weight or build. There are a lot of different variables that make this happen, such as exercise, lifestyle, genetics, and so on.

But where is the evidence that a calorie-free beverage can have an impact on your metabolism? You're eliminating the idea of calories entirely with diet soda, so I don't see how your argument stands any ground.

[DanBC]

Bob eats more calories than Bob burns. Bob gains weight.

Ann eats more calories than Ann burns. Ann gains weight.

You can make a rough comparison between Ann and Bob - they eat extra calories, they gain weight.

There are some bugs that help people gain weight; there are some bugs that help people not gain weight. People do different amounts of exercise. People are lousy at recalling what they actually eat everyday. But, really, calories are calories.

> And thus it's entirely possible that a calorie-free substance, which has impacts on metabolism and how your body decides what to store, can impact weight gain.

I disagree, and I'd like some credible references. Unless you're talking about amphetamine sulphate.

[dllthomas]

> > And thus it's entirely possible that a calorie-free substance, which has impacts on metabolism and how your body decides what to store, can impact weight gain.

> I disagree, and I'd like some credible referenceys. Unless you're talking about amphetamine sulphate.

This seems self-defeating. Surely, for a claim that a particular substance has a particular effect, I would like to see evidence. But obviously the notion that a substance could have such an effect is well supported by the existence of amphetamine sulphate - and unless you believe amphetamine sulphate is imbued with some magical uniqueness, other substances may very well have greater or lesser effects in the same domain (though greater effects we'd probably have noticed and tested and have conclusive evidence for by this point).

[jere]

I agree, but prepare for massive down votes from the CICO believers.