If you're tracking calories...PLEASE buy/use a food scale

#41

I measure and weigh and I don’t necessarily do it for calories but for correctly gauging my carb content. An avocado isn’t a universal unit of measurement, but a gram is. So instead of tracking “1/2 an avocado”, I do the measurements. It’s a really great idea and it may help some people who aren’t having the same results as the others that don’t need to be as vigilant. I assume one day I might not need to, but for now it’s pretty important for me to measure and keep track of what’s going in my body.

#42

THIS! 100% I lost 100lbs not counting calories and it worked out great, then it didn’t. My satiety had me under eating and between the muscle I was working for, but wasn’t getting and the left over body fat I couldn’t shed, my BMR slowed down and stalled me indefinitely. It took tracking macros again to make sure I was eating MORE on a regular basis and also getting in a lot more protein than I previously was. After a week or two of that it started to become noticeable and the progress stall broke.

(Windmill Tilter) #43

Absolutely. Each of is entitled to their opinion.

His title says, “If you’re tracking calories…”. He pretty clearly wanted to discuss the value of food scales for those of us who do track calories. That’s the topic of the thread.

When a chorus of people explicitly excluded from the topic pop in to contradict the OP, and make discussion of the actual topic impossible, what term do you use to describe that?

How might we describe it if say, a chorus of vegan ketonians derailed a thread entitled, “If you’re eating carnivore, please watch out for dextrose in cured meats!” by moralizing about the perils of killing and eating animal flesh. Threadjacking? Voicing their opinions?

I’m not saying that the OP is correct, just that he should have the right to post a thread topic that specifically excludes those who don’t track calories, and expect that his right to do so will largely be respected by a tolerant forum that appreciates that there are many valid approaches to a ketogenic diet.

(Liz Ellen) #44

Congrats on hitting your goal weight! That’s awesome! Just wondering how many carbs you shoot for now that you’re in maintenance? How many did you eat when losing? Do you track total or net carbs and why?

(Alec) #45

How do you measure your calories out?

This is the funamdental problem with using CICO as a method to lose weight. You have control over calories in, but you have no control over calories out. Your body manages calories out on autopilot based on hormonal response to calories in. They are not independent of each other.

To be clear I do not argue whatsoever with the statement if you take in more calories than you spend over a period of time you will gain weight. The problem is this statement is just not useful for those of us who want to lose weight long term when we cannot control calories out.

I have my own free calorie counter. It’s called hunger.

(Liz Ellen) #46

For whatever it’s worth, I learned how to keto largely by watching Eric Westman videos. (The hucksterism around keto made me nervous and getting tips from a medical doctor from Duke University who’s been successfully putting people on keto diets for 20 years was comforting to me.) Dr. Westman said in one video that he believes (or research has shown?) that the metabolic advantage of eating keto is modest, I believe he said eating keto burns like 100 or 200 extra calories a day vs. SAD. While I don’t count calories usually, what I personally believe it the “keto advantage” isn’t changing the nature of energy density but rather changing my appetite (and allowing my body to access body fat as energy when needed). I know for certain that I am consuming much less simply because when I keep my carbs low, my appetite is blunted. And it’s not just appetite in the most primal way – stomach is growling therefore I must fill it. It’s appetite an imagination. I spend SO MUCH LESS TIME thinking and fantasizing about food. I personally buy what Dr. Westman said: I don’t think it’s that calories don’t matter; it’s that my entire relationship with food has changed. Food has become much more akin to fuel for me. I still enjoy what I eat, but I am not a slave to my cravings. I feel like what I imagine people who don’t have weight issues feel like. Food doesn’t control me; I control what I choose to eat.

(Jane) #47

I tracked net carbs because it worked ok for me. < 20 g carbs while losing. I lost 25 lbs then stalled for almost 2 months. I was about 8 months in and decided to try some extended fasting. Never did it up until then.

I dropped the last 10 over a month and it stayed off. Now when I fast whatever I lose comes back when I refeed. I guess I am at the weight my body wants to be at and I’m happy with the way I look.

As for maintenance I can go up to 50 g carbs in a day, but not every day. I still eat around 20 carbs most days because I got used to eating this way and don’t have to track. My husband (lucky stiff) can have up to 100 g on maintenance. I would not be in ketosis and start gaining weight. He doesn’t do 100 every day, either. Some days he’s very low carb.

(Scott) #48

Title was correct but as the thread continues each comment adds a new twist.

(CharleyD) #49

I like how Cate Shanahan put it in Deep Nutrition, food is information for your DNA. It’s the only way it knows what’s going on outside. The decisions it makes, methylation of certain genes, can have a large impact on how our metabolisms either ramp up or down depending on the foods you take in.

My horrible anthropomorphism is this:

If it thinks the ‘hunt’ is good, by bringing in quality food, it won’t be stressed out and try to tuck stuff away for winter. It will be profligate with the metabolism like the grasshopper in spring.

If you’re eating either meagerly, or poor quality (think subsistence food, starches, grains, and/or low calorie grazing as opposed to fasting, huge difference remember) it will think the ‘hunt’ is going badly and will try to save for later by lowering BMR and you’ll pack on fat through DNL.

This way of thinking has served me well in making decisions about what to eat. :sunglasses:

(Karim Wassef) #50

Pulling up my shorts and wading in…

Tracking calories is a pain and inaccurate - both on the in and the out.

Keto encompasses CICO but the mechanism is hormonal. The difference is that Keto unlocks the body’s willingness to use body fat while being satiated by less dietary sources of energy.

So traditional CICO says eat less fat so your calories in is less than you need… and your body is forced to use its fat…

Translation: your metabolic rate is 2000. Eat 1800 and the body will be forced to use 200 from your body. Unfortunately, in a carb adapted body, the majority of this comes from lean mass… which compromises metabolic rate… then your rate becomes 1800, and CICO says eat 1600… repeat until you’re weak with a low metabolic rate.

Keto instead says replace your carb calories with fat calories to substantially limit your insulin unlocking your body fat.

Translation: your metabolic rate is 2000. You eat fat and are satiated at 1800. The body chooses to seek the balance from body fat. This is easy because low insulin and high glucagon hormonally triggers this access to body fat. The result is that the body gets its full need without being starved… so metabolic rate stays high… fat continues to go. It drops a little bit and some lean mass is still lost, but it’s a small secondary effect.

So in both cases, CICO is true. The difference is that calorie restriction consumes lean mass primarily and Keto consumes fat primarily. The lever is hormonal. Another difference is that calorie restriction forces the body to accept reduced dietary calories. Keto allows the body to choose to work and be satiated with reduced dietary calories.

So why track? If you want to be sure you’re doing Keto right, measuring macros matters.

Also, if you over-consume protein, you can also trigger insulin. And while it’s very hard to do, over consuming fat (much beyond satiation) will cause weight and even fat gain while on Keto. I tried this and managed to do it. It was very uncomfortable and I don’t recommend it but it is possible.

So if you are interested in gauging your metabolic macros and the associated calories in contrast to your metabolic rate, then getting a scale is probably advisable.

:smiley:

(Windmill Tilter) #51

That’s a fair point. Once somebody admits they believe energy balance matters during weight loss, things go sideways quickly, and that’s probably not unreasonable. It’s like someone standing up in bible study and proclaiming “We evolved from monkeys!”. Whatever the topic was originally was, it goes out the window. It’s a direct affront to a bedrock article of faith and shit gets real.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #52

Just to extend the parallel:

The result of shouting “we evolved from monkeys” in your Bible study depends on the denomination you belong to. I belong to a Christian denomination that is well able to handle the notion that God’s creation of the human race was performed by using evolution (and noting that evolutionary theory would prefer the phrase “we and monkeys evolved from a common ancestor”), whereas other denominations have decided to double down on the literalism of Scripture as a reaction to the Enlightenment. Either proposition is debatable, and the conclusion you reach depends on which principles of your faith you wish to emphasize.

Of course, many Christians from the latter camp would likely say that I and my fellow-believers are not really Christians, but actually, this is a debate that goes back to the time of Augustine of Hippo (early fifth century), and my denomination hews much more closely to the official Christian line, as it was articulated down the centuries, and the literalists are the historical anomalies. Go figure!

Similarly, the debate between researchers who hold to the “eat less, move more/a calorie is just a calorie/CICO” hypothesis and those who hold to the hormonal hypothesis of weight maintenance is fueled by the different emphases and preconceptions they bring to bear on the evidence. Depends on which “church” they belong to, and the history of the debate is actually quite illuminating (though it doesn’t go back nearly as far as the religious debate, lol!).

Taubes has recorded a conversation with an endocrinologist who laid out for him the precise mechanism by which adipose tissue is stimulated by insulin to store fat and requires the lack of insulin in order to release it again—but this endocrinologist believes that although this is the mechanism at the cellular level, at the bodily level, we get fat “because we eat too damn much.” Go figure!

(Karim Wassef) #53

I think semantics matter.

I don’t call traditional “diet and exercise” CICO. It should be called “low dietary fat caloric restriction”.

CICO applies to all weight loss. It’s not really a variable or factor. It’s the output of whatever method is used and relatively meaningless… like LDL or daily weight measuring… just meaningless.

Caloric restriction by LCHF (Keto) or LFHC (low dietary fat) are hormonally very different but both end up in CICO.

(mole person) #54

A truly excellent post.

(Jay Patten) #55

Wowzers, great conversation here.

Just to add to it…

Here is why CICO isn’t a scientific reality:

If you take 2 groups of people and feed group A 2,000 calories a day with breakfast, lunch and dinner and a small snack in between meals they might lose a few pounds.

If you feed group B 2,200 calories a day, but only for dinner, they will lose much more weight than group A.

How is this even possible? Because as mentioned before, weight loss is hormonal. Feeding group B more calories but less frequently keeps insulin low, allowing the body to burn fat. Feeding group A less calories more frequently increases insulin, blocking the body from burning fat.

So CICO doesn’t mean a whole lot when it’s the actually the hormones determining the rate of fat burn.

(Karim Wassef) #56

I have to disagree. CICO is just equilibrium. It doesn’t mean any more or less than that. You can’t actually “use it” to get where you’re going.

It’s the output of what you choose to do, not the input you control.

In your example of 2000 low fat vs 2500 high fat … and both lose weight but the 2500 lose more… here’s the scenario:

Your starting RMR is 3000 (for illustration) and eating 2000 low fat causes you to lose lean mass and drops your RMR to 2100… so you deficit is 100… you are lethargic, hungry and losing weight slowly.

Or

Your starting RMR is 3000 and eating 2500 high fat kicks you into ketosis. Your fat burning continues with a 500 deficit. The increased mitochondrial activity needed for fat oxidation makes you more thermogenic and you actually burn 3200… now the deficit is 700…

So 2500 burns 700… and 2000 burns 100… so 2500 burns faster.

The body is a dynamic nonlinear iterating adapting system. CICO as used assumes a linear system. Real CICO is much more complex but it is real.

(Scott) #57

I use to mess with the guardians of CICO over at MFP and say things like “When I was doing CICO…” and it would throw them into a tizzy. “CICO is not something you do!” Once they figured out I was messing with them they reported me until I got banned. They also reused to believe that insulin plays any role in the equation.

(traci simpson) #58

I purchased a scale that has a bowl on top but it’s hard to figure out the weight because it measures oz and lbs but it’s confusing. I think I’m going to get a digital one. It will be easier for me to understand.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #59

Doesn’t your scale have a metric setting? Most do, these days.

(Scott) #60

Off topic but this makes me think back to when the US was thinking about going metric. They installed metric gas pumps at one location but then put up a sign for 5 cent cash back per gallon. The poor guy at the station had to become a math wiz.