Ahhh, you quoted the bit where I said it worked for weight loss. How would that, as a result, “bother me”?
I’m just pointing out that people continually insisting that it “works” are usually doing so in relation to a very narrow and - for most people, because they don’t have brains that are weirdly wired in that fashion - completely useless definition of “works.” (Not you Doug, speaking more generally here.) Yeah, you can do that if all you want to do is argue a corner. If you want healthy people? No, not so much.
If you want to be healthy however, you can’t take shortcuts like that. You have to do it slowly and manage your diet and exercise routines. That’s why keto works. That’s why I’m doing it.
I guess I was wrong in assuming that you knew when I said “works” I meant works for me in what I was trying to accomplish. Not works for you or anyone else in what they are trying to accomplish. My goals are now different, luckily, but in the post that began this convo I meant that WOE “worked” for getting the job done. It didn’t work from a keto standpoint, but again, I wasn’t doing keto at the time. I was indulging in my ED, so restricting 100% “worked” to accomplish weight loss for me.
But anyway, we have totally gotten off on the wrong foot. I’m pretty sure we both have the same goals currently. Mine is to get healthy, stay healthy, meet my macros everyday, and be an example of how keto can and does work. I don’t want to bring negativity here, and without keto I don’t believe I would be able to recover from my ED, honestly. So it may truly be saving my life in many ways. Not only because it’s a healthy WOE nutritionally, but because it has mentally shown me that food is ok. And eating is possible without getting “fat”. So I’m more than thankful to have found my way here.
The point I am making is every BODY is different and I can gain 3.8 pounds in a night and hold on to for two weeks if I ‘overeat’ for my body. I consumed massive amounts of calories that day perhaps it was enough to trigger too much insulin despite my keeping within the carbohydrate restriction, and I stored some fat. Obviously I didn’t eat 3500 X 3.8 calories. So that’s where the standard calories in calories out is a mess. Just because using a bunson burner had nutritional scientist determining that an excess of 3500 calories equals a pound of fat for some fictional human doesn’t mean that it does for all or even most humans. I am a tracker, the only way I lose, despite being in Ketosis is for me to not exceed 2000 calories in a day. I have successfully lost almost 100 pounds now. What I am doing is working and I have figured out what works for me. I have approached this through rigorous observation over time.
That it took me TWO weeks to get back to where I was means it wasn’t water and it wasn’t the weight of the meal. Last night I had 8 oz of dry red wine but my total calorie intake for the day was 1900. I didn’t gain an ounce.
I may be wrong, but the pattern I’m seeing is a new or newish forum member who jumps into the middle of a spirited debate and drops an irrelevant or mainstream SAD POV into the middle of it. Therein the regulars strongly react to that, and the moderators shut the thread down.
My recommendation? When someone drops a SAD POV on you, school ’em with an animated gif.
You don’t need to. Search works great for this. I wish more people used it here. This forum software is wonderfully mature.
@juice may be laconic, but if you spend time here, you’ll find he’s thoughtful and has a bead on the conversation in the thread. I didn’t find his observation “snarky,” for that matter.
That said, this thread is nearly ready to become its own forum.
I’d like to backup to first principals. What is a calorie? I hope we can agree to let Scientific American to provide us with a definition we can agree to:
A calorie is a unit that is used to measure energy. The Calorie you see on a food package is actually a kilocalorie, or 1,000 calories. A Calorie (kcal) is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius. Sometimes the energy content of food is expressed in kilojoules (kj), a metric unit. One kcal equals 4.184 kj. So the Calorie on a food package is 1,000 times larger than the calorie used in chemistry and physics.
How does the food industry determine its measurements?
most of the calorie values in the USDA and industry food tables are based on an indirect calorie estimation made using the so-called Atwater system. In this system, calories are not determined directly by burning the foods. Instead, the total caloric value is calculated by adding up the calories provided by the energy-containing nutrients: protein, carbohydrate, fat and alcohol. Because carbohydrates contain some fiber that is not digested and utilized by the body, the fiber component is usually subtracted from the total carbohydrate before calculating the calories.
In other words, the calculation is based on guesses, not something as hard as the “law of gravity.” As we’ve seen, nutritional guessing is still nascent and error-prone.
Since we’ve been stumbling on broken presumptions about metabolism, we find ourselves in the situation, highlighted by @devhammer in a previous post:
Read the article, there, it’s quite good on how problematic “calories” are.
In other words, we’re arguing about how far the jello someone else nailed to the wall has moved.
I see value in limiting quantity not calories. Quantity definitely matters. In the meanwhile, I hope we determine a better system for determining a measure of consumed energy.
Screenack, that was quoted a bit out of context. I hate the term “calorie” because there are SO many variables to weight loss that I think it’s worthless. So I totally agree with your jello on the wall analogy. I do, however, accept that to lose weight, we can’t eat an unlimited supply of fats or protein.
I know, right? It seems kind of crazy to me to say something works when it’s temporary or life-threatening. Kind of like an alcoholic getting home after drinking and saying “Hey, it was fine, I made it home!”
It’s not calories, there, that are to blame. It’s - in my opinion - mostly electrolyte balance (salts) and water. Long and long ago I ate a LOT of pretzels, and literally swelled up - I could almost see my fingers swelling throughout the day. Did not weigh myself at the time, but later calculated that to maintain the normal salt concentration in the body, I would need to retain 18 pounds of water. Yes, was a lot of salt.
“Overeating” - if it includes substantial carbohydrates - has an additional factor, that of each carb molecule binding to three water molecules. Again, not really a “calorie” thing but rather water-related.
EDIT: Not to belittle the hormonal factors and how they relate to carb consumption and weight - for years, before I got diabetic and really insulin-resistant - I ate a LOT, including obscene, gratuitous, ludicrous, over-the-top amounts of carbs, and only gained per year, on average, what many individual weeks should have had me gain.
UAs I have been reading CICO still will affect your weight loss progress. Eating fats give you a long energy source where sugar and carbs are more quickly used up and you get the lather, rinse, repeat patterns going. After a couple of months on keto I have started to be ok without food for a much longer period of time. While calories do matter if you’re not overeating you probably don’t need to count. Eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re not anymore. Don’t stress the calories and vary your diet so you’re not inadvertently eating more of something than you should like cheese or protein foods. Lots of low carb veggies with moderate protein and generous fat calories is the ticket
I think that, in general, it’s a lot harder to overeat on protein and fat than it is carbs. That vicious carb/insulin/hunger cycle means that a person can pack away a LOT of excess nutrients. Once you’re fat-adapted and eating more protein/fat, it’s much harder to eat to excess. Hunger signals are dampened, etc.
I do think that those people who are intentionally adding fat in NON eating ways (BPC, MCT added etc) probably CAN get excessive amounts of fat (right, @gabe? :D). It’s better to eat WHOLE foods anyway, so if someone sticks to that plan (again, except those who can eat butter by the spoonful…shudder…), it’s a non-issue.
gabe
(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” )
#159
What part of “calories do count, but don’t count calories” (per Eric westman) would make you think I have at any point advocated counting calories?!
gabe
(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” )
#160
It’s amazing to me that basic laws of physics and biochemistry are controversial because people think the word “calories” means “eat to the food pyramid” or something.
Do you guys understand that you’re driving people away with this science-denying stuff? I get private messages all the time about this kind of thing. And some people have stopped posting in the public topics and switched to talking via group DMs just to avoid this insanity, so they can (for instance) freely mention the word “calorie” in peace or admit that they eat the occasional sweet potato and still remain in ketosis without being attacked by dogma!
I hate the term “calorie” because there are SO many variables to weight loss that I think it’s worthless. So I totally agree with your jello on the wall analogy. I do, however, accept that to lose weight, we can’t eat an unlimited supply of fats or protein.
