Check out my comment I made at KetoCon2019

science

(bulkbiker) #13

But you are making the same mistake that all CICO-paths make…

That a pound of body fat which is weight has a “calorific” value that is the same as a pound of dietary fat… ?

Has anyone ever burned a pound of body fat in a bomb calorimeter to see how many calories it contains?

Edit to add calories are a unit of energy… I don’t weigh myself in calories just like I don’t eat them… I eat food and weigh in pounds.


(Bunny) #14

I was thinking about this more and I was reading about ATP Synthase and ‘Proton Leaks’ (somewhere); that not all ____ goes through ATP synthase. I want to look at this more.

References:

[1] “…However, protons can migrate to the matrix independent of ATP synthase , a process known as “ proton leak ”. Proton leak can also be defined as the dissipation of ΔP in the presence of ATP synthase inhibitor Oligomycin in both isolated mitochondria and intact cells. …” …More

[2] Mitochondrial proton and electron leaks: “…This coupling of ATP synthesis and substrate oxidation is not complete, as protons can return to the matrix independently of ATP synthase. …” …More

[3] “…Mitochondria couple respiration to ATP synthesis through an electrochemical proton gradient. Proton leak across the inner membrane allows adjustment of the coupling efficiency. The aim of this review is threefold: 1) introduce the unfamiliar reader to proton leak and its physiological significance, 2) review the role and regulation of uncoupling proteins, and 3) outline the prospects of proton leak as an avenue to treat obesity, diabetes, and age-related disease. …” …More

[4] Contribution of proton leak to oxygen consumption in skeletal muscle during intense exercise is very low despite large contribution at rest

[5] Mitochondrial Proton Leak Compensates for Reduced Oxidative Power during Frequent Hypothermic Events in a Protoendothermic Mammal, Echinops telfairi

[6] Active proton leak in mitochondria: A new way to regulate substrate oxidation

[7] Mitochondrial F-ATP Synthase and Its Transition into an Energy-Dissipating Molecular Machine

[8] Scientists discover that cells contain mitochondria specialized to build fats

[9] Your mitochondria are what you eat: a high‐fat or a high‐sucrose diet eliminates metabolic flexibility in isolated mitochondria from rat skeletal muscle


(Doug) #15

:smile: That’s a good one, Mark.

I think CICO gets a bad rap - it’s saying “Take in less than you expend if you want to lose weight.” Then - as Bob refers to, above -

So people start looking daggers at CICO, but CICO says, “Well good grief - you didn’t do the program…”

No, did not say that, and I specifically mentioned that there’s a difference between the digestibility and availability of things. In practice, the pound of body fat will have more available calories than a pound of dietary fat (barring some very substantial difference in caloric density - I’m not even sure that’s possible); the body fat is all available to us. Aside from this consideration, we are still just talking about different weights - if we can agree that a gram of fat has ~9 calories, then why would we disagree about a pound of fat?

Not that I know of. However, I think the poor old ‘bomb calorimeter’ also frequently is the object of scorn and derision, while it’s actually very accurate.

It is not that people simply take the bomb calorimeter figures and declare that a given substance has X amount of calories in it for humans. Digestibility and availability are also taken into consideration (they were thinking about this stuff more than a hundred years ago) - this goes back to Wilbur Atwater and the ‘Atwater System’ which is still largely in use today. It’s not perfect, but It’s pretty darn good.

If anything, in practice foods will often have more calories that what is claimed. The current incentive for food producers to understate things is obvious, and the same for restaurants, probably compounded by human error:

That doesn’t affect what we’re talking about here - it all goes to ATP, etc., as Paul mentioned, above. We eat something - we use it, store it or excrete it, nothing else goes on and there’s no ‘magic’ involved - we’re still only talking about molecules, atoms and their location and energy state.

Sure, weight and energy are not “the same,” per se. But if we want to lose that pound of body weight, there needs to be an inducement for the body to require the energy it will get from it, and to take it out of storage.

You eat food, sure, but as it relates to body weight it almost entirely comes down to just a few elements - carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. When we’re talking about body fat or dietary fat or carbohydrates, that’s all there is. Protein is ~1/6 nitrogen but nitrogen is not involved in ATP production like C, H, and O are.


(bulkbiker) #16

Yes indeed but there is zero evidence that reducing what I eat by a notional 500 “calories” daily over a week will mean I lose a pound of body fat… and if any of these mathematical equations work (which of course they don’t because its far more complicated) then that has to be the case or the hypothesis is false and you have your black swan.

This is exactly why “calories” is rubbish…


(Doug) #17

Paul, could there be a density difference between fat and ketones, there? I looked around the internet and can’t find any density figures for ketones. :neutral_face: I’m wondering if 1 gram of body fat means 1 gram of ketones after it’s broken down - it would alter things if it’s not so. Never thought about this before - it just seems like losing 2 out of 9 calories is awfully inefficient, while most times our bodies are disappointingly efficient, from a weight-loss point of view, when it comes to using energy and avoiding starvation - that old evolutionary ‘fear’ our bodies have, if anything.

Yes - there will be some amount of ‘loss’ every step of the way (but I fear it’s not much at all :slightly_frowning_face::wink:).

ATP is amazing - if we’re just a little bit active, we recycle all the ATP in our bodies about every 2 minutes, and we can go through our body weight of it in one day.


(Bunny) #18

But also you forget how much your moving, you have to exhale a certain number of times for that to occur? If your a certain number of breaths behind which could be in the thousands then you may not see the results.

Variations in physical activity is key and muscle volume to adipose ratio is crucial.

All the nay sayers about CICO simply have not explored it deep enough and simply don’t understand what they are looking at.

You can only eat as much; as much as the amount your mitochondria you have to work with and type of mitochondria ect.


A Calorie is Not A Calorie - A Discussion of Thermodynamics
(Doug) #19

But nobody is claiming that. Granted that there are hormonal issues, metabolic differences between people, etc. - this forum is chock-full of this stuff. I totally agree that before the fact there is no way to necessarily predict what will happen to body weight for a given person - we don’t have sufficient information.

There are calorimeters large enough to have a person inside them - this is the best way to find one’s metabolic rate. (Indirect calorimetry is cheaper and usually faster, but it’s not as good.)

If we take your metabolic rate and find that you have been taking in ~500 calories less per day than what you expended, then you will lose close to a pound of body fat in a week. This is after the fact, not before. A big difference because now we know that the caloric deficit actually occurred. In practice it can be affected by the amount of non-fat tissue consumed by the body, but the principle is the same - there is an overall energy balance that is always at work, and there is no way to get around that fact.

The equations always work - we are talking about physical reality, those ‘laws of the universe’ which on our Newtonian world we have no rational reason to doubt. We’re not talking about nuclear reactions where matter and energy are somewhat interchangeable. The laws of conservation of mass and energy apply.

What’s “rubbish” is to deny the premise. Again, we’re really just talking about carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. If enough of those go out, versus coming in, then weight will be lost. It’s ‘magical thinking’ to suggest otherwise.

‘CICO’ in effect says, “Do this and you will lose weight.”

Person (does not follow the instructions yet says), “You’re wrong, CICO!”

The logical disconnect is obvious.


(Doug) #20

So much of this type of discussion is aimed at losing body fat. We want to lose body fat - if there are reasons why we can’t access it, like high insulin, then we need to address them. Once that’s taken care of, there still needs to be a reason for the body to use that fat…


(bulkbiker) #21

TO be honest Bunny I’m a fairly sedentary person who walks the dog twice daily and that’s it.
I lead a very organised and repetitive life.
And yes I have explored CICO and found it very wanting as have many others so please don’t accuse me of “not having explored it deeply enough” I’ve lived it day and night up until about 5 years ago when I realised it was complete bunkum.


(bulkbiker) #22

Which apply to closed systems which the human body sure as hell ain’t…however much you wish it was.


(Cristian Lopez) #23

Sure thing! Be right back, gonna raid the wine cellar😝


(bulkbiker) #24

So some people don’t fast and not lose a pound?
The onus is on you to prove the hypothesis… I and many other here have shown multiple black swans… Wittrock and Feltham have too… the hypothesis is false and that’s that.

And let’s not even start down the path of maintaining weight loss…


(Doug) #25

Wrong, Mark - it applies to our entire world. Nobody is saying “closed system” for the human body - the process of life itself means that’s not going to be the case (i.e. at the least, energy is coming out) - but the fact remains that there is no “magic” going on. Matter is conserved - there’s no magic gain or loss that’s going to happen, and the same for energy.

Unfounded objections to our poor old bomb calorimeter notwithstanding, measure the energy one expends and compare it to the energy intake. If you find ~500 more calories per day on the outflow side, then you’ll note ~1 pound weight loss per week.


(bulkbiker) #26

Sigh

Try maintaining significant weight loss with extended caloric reduction…


(bulkbiker) #27

Even the Economist appears to agree…


(Doug) #28

That does not make sense. Of course some people don’t fast and not lose a pound. Hard for me to believe that’s what you meant.

If you mean people fast and don’t lose weight - then as always there is no ‘magic’ going on. Retaining enough water to counteract weight loss from fat usage sometimes happens. Heck, sometimes the day-to-day scale fluctuations not only demonstrate that, they totally swamp and overwhelm things, there. Dry fasting - not that I’m recommending it - shows that things do add up pretty well, i.e. account for ~.5 lb fat loss per day and water loss through the skin and via exhalation, and the weight of body wastes, and things work out as they should. And even with water-fasting, the average weight loss of ~.5 lb per day has been noted often, Fung et al.

You’re not bringing the hypothesis into question, there, you’re just denying the premise, and that’s illogical, as with the normal objections to CICO. That people’s metabolisms are different, and that the individual may have increases and decreases is not the issue - that is a given, but in no way does that mean that magical weight loss or gain is happening.


(Doug) #29

You’re talking about not maintaining the negative energy balance. We all (should) know that merely reducing caloric intake won’t necessarily equate to weight loss; that is a given - especially on this forum. And once again - this is not keeping the “calories out” side where it needs to be, if we are to test CICO. Denying the premise and then declaring that a hypothesis is false is illogical.


(bulkbiker) #30

You’re right it should of course have said “some people fast and don’t lose a pound”.
Which in the case of CICO should be 100% impossible as you should know.
Zero calories in has to lead to weight loss even if you lie in bed and do nothing unless you’re dead.


(bulkbiker) #31

Type 1 diabetics can shed kilos whilst eating loads… why is that?
Lack of insulin … that’s why it is one of the diagnostic tools used… excessive unintentional weight loss.


(Doug) #32

You’re forgetting about water weight. As above, it can easily counteract or even totally swamp the weight loss from fat usage in a given day.

I’m saying “the math is going to work out.” You appear to be saying that “magic happens.” Fasting without drinking anything shows very clearly that the body loses ~0.5 lb of fat (plus an average of 1.7 lbs of water through the skin and via exhalation) per day. Bigger people, especially those with lots of fat, can lose a little more; smaller people and leaner people will lose less.

Well sure - that is lots of “calories out” - coming out in the urine, even. It’s a hormonal effect, and nobody is saying those don’t matter. With Type 1 diabetics the need to get rid of sugar is often enough that the body will become dehydrated in its efforts to rid itself of sugar. There too - an obvious effect on weight. In the end, the math is still going to work out.

In the U.S. the National Institutes of Health has 3 metabolic chambers - where everything can be kept track of, even the gases the test subject is exhaling. These are whole-room calorimeters, and the math really does work out.