Why Calorie Counts Are All Wrong

Re:Why Calorie Counts Are All Wrong by jerf on Monday August 17, 2015 @11:43AM (#10073741)

That doesn't make sense. If calories are all that matter, then simple math shows that being off by 2% over the course of the years easily leads to weight loss or gains. You've seen this math numerous times in the context of "if you just didn't eat one donut hole a day you'd weight X pounds less a year". If the labels are off by 10% or 30%, then it can't be just "calories are all that matter"; you'd be losing or gaining a dozen pounds a year, unexpectedly vs. what your projections expected.

If, of course, the body is a dynamic process that reacts to what it encounters in the world, then of course the dynamic reaction is what dominates the situation, not percentages of error in calorie counting.

(The way the nutritionists managed to turn "The body reacts dynamically to incoming input" into unthinkable heresy in favor of a model in which the body is essentially modeled as a hapless passive recipient of "calories" with no feedback loop will someday be seen right up there with pholostigon theory, except less excusable. Any time you speak of a bodily process and aren't thinking about the feedback loops, you've bounded your best-case outcome to "utter failure" before taking the first step.)

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Re:Why Calorie Counts Are All Wrong by jahnu on Monday August 17, 2015 @11:51AM (#10073791)

I think the point is that if you reduce your possibly inaccurately calculated calorie intake until you start losing weight and then keep your intake steady it doesn't matter if that value is 1000 or 100,000. Over time the method will definitely work.

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Re:Why Calorie Counts Are All Wrong by nawitus on Monday August 17, 2015 @11:58AM (#10073864)

To calculate weight loss or weight gain (by counting calories) you need to know how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn. Since the latter is nearly impossible to guess, it's usually estimated with the first one and weight loss during the first month.

This automatically adjusts to any error in the calorie estimation.

Lets say someone eats 2000 kcal a day, but the "real" number is actually 1900 kcal. Lets also assume that in fact his weight maintenance level is 1900 kcal. After a month the person has neither lost nor gained any weight. This person will then incorrectly assume that his true maintenance level is actually 2000 kcal, and reduce his estimated calories to 1900 kcal, thus starting the weight loss process.

Yes, it would be nice to get perfect estimates, but it doesn't matter much in the weight loss or weight gain process. In addition, most people don't have a deficit or surplus of a mere 100 kcal, it can be 500 to 1000 kcal, which makes the error in "true" calories even less important.

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Re:Why Calorie Counts Are All Wrong by merpnderp on Monday August 17, 2015 @11:49AM (#10073778)

This x10. I lost 43 lbs in 6 months upping my calorie intake by 500-1000 calories a day. But I drastically changed what types of calories I ate. I also halved my triglycerides, and brought my HDL and LDL levels far into the healthy ranges.

All by cutting out grains and sugar and replacing them with lots and lots of vegetables and meat (I'm lying, it was mostly bacon).

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Re:Why Calorie Counts Are All Wrong by logfromblammo on Monday August 17, 2015 @01:21PM (#10074591)

To a person who vehemently believes in the thermodynamic weight loss hypothesis (calories in minus calories out!), it would be more convenient if your anecdote, and others like it, did not exist.

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