A Calorie is NOT a Calorie

The subjects were hypocaloric for five years? That sounds specious. Self-reporting is a notoriously inaccurate method of assessing caloric intake…

Where was this study published? I can’t find it.

I agree that all of the points above have some effect, but basically you just have to be in a caloric deficit to lose fat (resistance training and reasonable protein intake will prevent muscle loss). That means if you’re gaining or not losing fat, bottom line either you jack your expenditure up or reduce your intake, or both, over a term. Everything else is just tweaking the equation slightly. You can make it sound as complicated as you want, but basically that’s it, and anyone who’s successfully lost fat can probably vouch for that.

Hi Joel

I’ve just read this blog with a lot of interest. It makes sense to me but contradicts what others (Tom Venuto for example) are saying as they claim it is a simple matter of less calories going in than coming out. The proof that was offered was the nutrition expert who ate only Twinkies but measured his caloric intake very carefully and lost a lot of weight on his Twinkies diet, thereby proving it was not the type of calories but rather the amount in versus out. So what is the right answer? – I tend to agree with you as my experience is rather it matters what you eat, not just how much.

Hi Joel. This is fantastic. At last somebody who tells really valuable things. I would add that there are those people who seemingly can get away with eating anything they want and stay lean because of a high somatotropine (growth hormone) levels – it blocks insulin from fat storing and gets it to protein synthesis.

Also, it doesn’t really matter how much food is digested and got into bloodstream – it really matters how much of a fat, carbohydrates and protein can get into the cells. The big insuline effect is that it greatly enhances permiability of cells for all nutrients including fat.

Thank you very much for this post, the more info like that, the better.

That all makes sense and I hope its true cause I like to believe it but truth is you can’t avoid the deficit even if you want to turn it into a hormonal battle
…but then comes along the Twinkie Diet Experiment and blows stuff like that out of the water.
I believe quality of food with overall calorie deficit is the way to lose fat for the long term.
Raymond

Thank you for the science behind some of the weight loss tips. It is very obvious to a growing number of people, pardon the pun, that it is not just a matter of callories in callories out for many people. Maybe that works for some, but the world is getting a lot more complicated than even this lesson for today. With increasing pollution, increasing amounts of disease, and increasing obesity everywhere, it is good you are going to help some people to get the truth about weight loss. But even all this information is not the complete answer to all of these complex problems. But thank you for putting out some of the science…

Hi Joel!

You said that when carbs and fat are consumed together they promote the greatest fat storage. So in that case should we consume fats separately from all carbs or just the high glycemic ones?

Thanks, Joel! Very interesting, as the most of your posts!

Godzilla, the web link for the abstract of the research is this:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10838463

I think that it makes a lot of sense and applaud Joel’s blog for helping to make people more aware of what they are eating and for reading all the research to evidence the facts.

@ Neil:
Hi,
I guess the type of calorie modifies how many calories are getting into which cells. So it is nonetheless valid that calories in vs. out determine weight gain or loss, the type of the calorie just mediates how this works, such as high GI foods > more insulin > less calories out; high protein foods > higher thermic effect > more calories out; high fiber foods > less calories into the cells, more undigested calories out, etc. These foods provide some mediation for the basic rule, but calories in vs. out is still the cornerstone. And choosing the right foods also helps lose fat and not lean mass.

So the study says that it is possible to remove more than you put in and still accumulate???? For five years???? Makes no sense. First how did they measure the outtake? Second, they gained weight in the past 5 years, how precise can they be in five years about someone’s food intake? They were obviously eating more than using.

Wow! Now I know what I am doing wrong! More on Macronutrients and the sizes and frequency of meals!

Ok this al sound pretty sciencetific to me…so to lose fat than what do you suggest should be the calorie intake and can you give me a description of what small meal day should be like?

Joel,
Fantastic article! I didn’t know about thermic effcts before today and will certainly be giving more consideration to fibre content in the foods I’m eating. Love the fact that you cite your sources! Keep it coming,
Chelsey

I have recently purchased some whole wheat wraps which they claim are high fiber and low carbohydrate. The carbs are listed as 18g and the fiber is 12g. They are claiming that the effective carbohydrate level is 6g. They are offsetting the carb grams with the fiber grams. Is this a technically “legal” way of looking at some of the nutrient levels in some of our foods?

The first time I read about these was about 8 years ago and the person in the seminar said that the research have been done since before 1998. The reason why is not popular belief is because is not as easy as explaining calories.

The only reason calories are used to tell people to lose weight is because it gives them a limit and a simple explanation they can use to limit their energy intake. The problem is the innacuracy of measuring calories because the food we eat is not made of 1 single macronutrient or specific calorie and protein from chicken is not the same as protein from beef so calories are not the same either.

How many calories are in a chicken breast that was marinated and cooked in some type of oil? How about the spices we use to cook? Who measures that? I do.

A pound of broccoli doesn’t have the same calories as a pound of bread. I still have them as carbs on my book.

Maybe counting calories work only for those eating 4,000 calories per day and are obese, “just eat 2,000 now and you will lose weight”. But for those that want the fastest results and also for those with less than 20% body fat, is important to get to the next level.

Is important to understand these concepts to reach a higher level of body composition.

Counting calories is only a method for measuring how much you eat. Some people make it work some people not. I personaly think is the simplest to explain but the hardest to implement. Is not perfect, plus products are manipulating calorie content in their lables. That makes measuring a problem for most people.

Is amazing how some people come to me saying that they eat 1,800 calories per day and when we do the real numbers they are eating 2,600 calories per day.

By using these multiple weapons we can prepare a much better plan to lose body fat. Is not the simplest to explain, but when you know how to use it, is a lot more simple to implement that just couting calories.

I talk from more than 12 years studying and working with clients and over 4 years of doing research. High Fat diets have not reach the mainstream yet, but this is really going to challenge popular belief that fat is the problem. Is funny how you and mike geary have been talking about this years ago.

My advice to your readers. “Look at your daily eating and make the necesary changes to apply these concepts to your daily eating habits.”

@ Godzilla:

I can vouch for EVERYTHING you just said…deficit = loss. While the other things are important in their own right, deficit= loss is the bottom line.

Joel,
Right on!.

For years, I have disagreed with the calorie concept. The fallacy is that it assumes complete chemical reactions. (meaning that sufficient chemicals are present for ALL the chemical reactions to go to completion.) This is very unlikely.
As every high school chemistry student knows, there is something known as a “limiting reagent”

Typical quiz question:” Five grams of hydrogen is burned in an EXCESS of oxygen. How much water is produced?” Obviously, if there is insufficient oxygen, all of the hydrogen cannot react to form water.

Very interesting article. Enjoyed reading because it was simple and clear. Thanks so much for clearing some things up for me :)

I agree with everything you said. It all makes sense. I remember hearing someone say, oh as long as you eat less calories than your body burns throughout the day you will lose weight. So, go ahead and eat a donut or cookies as long as you are under the calorie amount you will be fine.

It didn’t make sense to me, and now I have the information to share and back that up. Thanks so much. I am getting started on reading your manual today. I can’t wait to start your program.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Joel,

Two points. This article was great, and now I see that the combination in pizza (fat and carbs) is literally a killer.

Second, I am a scientist, and your ice water tip is right on. That is a lot of volume, and I suggest 3 cups of ice chips to munch on during the day, same number of calories needed to melt and raise its temperature to 37C (body).

There might be yet another good reason for ice water – any evidence that it slows digestion or stomach emptying if consumed with food. There are several new diabetic drugs that slow down stomach emptying, and I would bet ice/ice water would do the same.

Nice post, Joel!

I was first introduced to these ideas by Precision Nutrition.

The longer I’ve followed them, the better I’ve looked, felt and performed. Especially the fat+carb ingestion one. This info, while surely a review for many of us, is invaluable (to say the least).

Best,

Tony

RE: Fiber

Fiber does provide some calories. Roughly 2 per gram or half as much as a normal carbohydrate.

So in your beans example, 50 calories-worth would be undigestible.

Good stuff Joel.

I like the “Brink’s law”, stated by Will Brinks, that goes something like this:
“Calories determine how much weight you loose, the type of calories determine _what_ wheight do you loose” (i.e. you would probably loose a los of muscle along with the fat on the twinkie diet). I think that is basically the aproach taught by Tom Venuto as well.