The True Definition of Calories i.e. "Why what you believe is extremist BS" page 34

[magnolia1973]

So that is a doughnut, with egg, cheese product, ham and is the bottom layer pre-formed chicken patty?

[Leida]

It also seems really odd that it's in fashion to declare "I'm not paleo anymore. I hate paleo." If that's what people want to do that's fine, but I love paleo. I love the food, I love how it makes me feel, I love the positive health results I've had, I love the simplicity of cooking, I love that my food doesn't sit in a pantry growing moth larva. I love that when I'm hiking in the mountains the food I see is greens, mushrooms and moose and when I go home and open my fridge I see greens, mushrooms and meat.

I wish I was more like you. I abandoned paleo, but I love paleo. I wish I had the chops to eat just meat and vegetables and be happy. I readily admit that it is me who is flawed, not paleo.

So that is a doughnut, with egg, cheese product, ham and is the bottom layer pre-formed chicken patty?

Eww.

[ChocoTaco369]

okay, there is a loooot of different arguments happening on this thread that are marked deviations from what the OP was about.

People are talking about health effects, mental effects, performance effects and sustainability effects. I believe that the main argument that was being purported by Choco was that for MOST people from a PURE WEIGHT LOSS PERSPECTIVE the determinative factor IS calories in vs. calories out. Not, performance, health, mental etc, just from a pure weight loss perspective. Anyone who is NOT losing weight with the CICO paradigm is because they have not yet discovered the amount of calories needed for their TDEE or are using some arbitrary online calculator.

Exactly. If it were possible to be more than 100% correct, you would have achieved that. CICO is infallible. You MUST have an energy deficit to lose "weight." It's the methods of calculating calories that fail. Our foods aren't measured properly, the equations are imperfect and have big variances just between each other, people don't track properly, hormonal imbalances can make your maintenance calories massively higher or lower than what the equations show...this is where self-experimentation comes in. However, CICO is fact.

I was wondering how alcohol might affect this CICO paradigm. Will drinking 500 calories of alcohol and then eating 500 calories have the same weight loss effects than eating just 1000 calories? or does alcohol infact impair whatever metabolic advantage there is, if any?

I hate to do this to you, but you should read this link:

The truth about alcohol, fat loss and muscle growth | Intermittent fasting diet for fat loss, muscle gain and health

Alcohol doesn't really fit into the paradigm because the body lacks an efficient metabolic pathway to store acetates as fat, according to Martin Berkhan anyway. So, essentially, if you're drinking pure alcohol (say 100% agave tequila and club soda), you're only drinking alcohol calories. The theory is that if you've only eaten protein throughout the day in a quantity that will not exceed your body's ability to outpace muscle tissue synthesis (~2g/lbm for heavy lifters and ~1g/lbm for sedentary people) and you don't consume more carbohydrate than would exhaust your glycogen storage, you wouldn't store fat. However, if you eclipse glycogen storage from carbs or eat ANY dietary fat alongside the alcohol, you're not going to get fat drinking. So basically...

If you're fairly glycogen depleted and you're hammering vodka and cranberries, you won't store any fat as the cranberry juice is being partitioned to empty glycogen stores and the alcohol can't really be converted into fat efficiently. If you're eating a burger with alcohol, then you're storing all that fat and your fat metabolism is put on hold until you burn the acetates in the alcohol. Similarly, if you're glycogen replete and eating bread or drinking sugary mixers, you'll convert those excess carbs into fat as well. If you absolutely "need" to eat while you're drinking (and c'mon we've all had the drunk munchies before), stick to a high protein meal that's low to moderate in carbs and very, very low fat. I'm not sure that's feasible, but something like chicken breast, white rice and veggies would be ideal.

Yea, you're getting wings and ice cream I know. But it's interesting to know that if you're pretty well fasted all day and you consume zero calories from protein/carbs/fats along with the alcohol, you can pretty much session drink without "getting fat." You'll just completely shut down your fat metabolism and stall.

[ChocoTaco369]

So that is a doughnut, with egg, cheese product, ham and is the bottom layer pre-formed chicken patty?

Yes. You forgot the lunchmeat ham.

[Neckhammer]

Exactly. If it were possible to be more than 100% correct, you would have achieved that. CICO is infallible. You MUST have an energy deficit to lose "weight." It's the methods of calculating calories that fail. Our foods aren't measured properly, the equations are imperfect and have big variances just between each other, people don't track properly, hormonal imbalances can make your maintenance calories massively higher or lower than what the equations show...this is where self-experimentation comes in. However, CICO is fact.

Hence why I found this thread completely useless....maybe frustrating is a better word.

Everyone on here who thought you could eat more than what you expend and lose weight raise your hand (I see no hands).

Now everyone who believes that the make up of your diet effects hormonal changes that could make weight loss easier and/or can contribute to helping preserve lean mass and selectively burn fat raise your hand (I'm guessing we got some takers here). And this is where interesting things are actually still being debated and learned.

Anyone who thinks that being thin/ripped via just CICO and exercise automatically makes you healthy raise your hand (there is stackingplates waving in the back....probably not many others though).

My neighbor lives on Mountain Dew and cigarettes....dude is ultra ripped since thats about all he ingests. So if weight loss is the end goal I highly recommend his diet.

[Neckhammer]

I'm sorry but those still look like bagels to me. I know there's a krispy kreme shop somewhere around here because sometimes they turn up at office meetings, but I have never actually been to a krispy kreme shop myself so I guess I'm just not familiar with donuts that look like bagels.

By the way, real American cheese is really good. If you can find it.

Oh, and long ago before I adopted this diet I read Carb Sane's website because I didn't believe eating meat and fat and avoiding grains and going low carb was healthy. After reading her whole site I concluded she was a total nut case. She's disgruntled because she didn't get the weight loss she wanted. It really seems odd that so many people now just love her. It also seems really odd that it's in fashion to declare "I'm not paleo anymore. I hate paleo." If that's what people want to do that's fine, but I love paleo. I love the food, I love how it makes me feel, I love the positive health results I've had, I love the simplicity of cooking, I love that my food doesn't sit in a pantry growing moth larva. I love that when I'm hiking in the mountains the food I see is greens, mushrooms and moose and when I go home and open my fridge I see greens, mushrooms and meat. I have no intention of following the trend to love Carb Sane and that other Richard guy and the once reasonable now completely angry wack-job Dr. Harris. That's all popularity contest bull-shit. The science hasn't changed.

And LOL....I agree with simply ALL of this.

[Leida]

My neighbor lives on Mountain Dew and cigarettes....dude is ultra ripped since thats about all he ingests. So if weight loss is the end goal I highly recommend his diet.

I considered smoking for weight loss once, when I was desperate at about age 16, I believe. The trouble is that I think fat people who smoke stay fat. Thin smokers are those who has developed a habit of smoking instead of eating. I think they would actually be neurotically thin even if they do not smoke. (Sigh).

I am trying breathing exercises and various meditation techniques now to combat wanting to eat, but no matter what I do food always wins.

[ChocoTaco369]

Hence why I found this thread completely useless....maybe frustrating is a better word.

Everyone on here who thought you could eat more than what you expend and lose weight raise your hand (I see no hands).

Now everyone who believes that the make up of your diet effects hormonal changes that could make weight loss easier and/or can contribute to helping preserve lean mass and selectively burn fat raise your hand (I'm guessing we got some takers here). And this is where interesting things are actually still being debated and learned.

Anyone who thinks that being thin/ripped via just CICO and exercise automatically makes you healthy raise your hand (there is stackingplates waving in the back....probably not many others though).

My neighbor lives on Mountain Dew and cigarettes....dude is ultra ripped since thats about all he ingests. So if weight loss is the end goal I highly recommend his diet.

Many people believe that calories don't matter when restricting carbohydrate because insulin is kept low and you can't store fat without insulin. This was the belief popular for years on this forum, and this is what I was told when I joined a year and a half ago. The most given solution around here to increase weight loss was to "eat more fat." Read and understand that - the solution to break through plateaus was to eat more. Maybe you are too new to the forum to recall how things used to be, but elements of that mindset still hang til today. YOU believe calories count. A year ago, most did not. Some still hold onto this belief currently. This may be frustrating to YOU, but for others this is new information.

[ChocoTaco369]

I considered smoking for weight loss once, when I was desperate at about age 16, I believe. The trouble is that I think fat people who smoke stay fat. Thin smokers are those who has developed a habit of smoking instead of eating. I think they would actually be neurotically thin even if they do not smoke. (Sigh).

I am trying breathing exercises and various meditation techniques now to combat wanting to eat, but no matter what I do food always wins.

Because you are constantly starving yourself Leida. Can you remember the last time you haven't been on a "diet"? You can't seem to lose weight because your metabolism is probably so downregulated from a lifetime of dieting your TDEE is probably half of what it should be. You probably need to reverse-diet for an entire year. You would probably be a prime candidate for the "Ray Peat Protocol." Lots of red meat, coconut fat, milk and lots and lots of fruit. You could probably use 300g of carbs a day every single day in the form of fruit sugar with plenty of salt. And the last thing you should do is IF.

[Leida]

Yeah, I was not dieting at all since I was sick in Moscow. So far, I gained 5 or so lbs, got the first high blood sugar alert yesterday by getting a dizzy light-headed episode, and look like shit and at least regained the ability to control food intake somewhat, though I am not counting. Sugar is not something I should be consuming, even in fruit, but added sugar should be a huge no-no, or I am likely to end up diabetic. Gonna do blood sugar as a part of the yearly blood-work after I am back next week. Keeping fingers crossed I did not do lasting damage with all the ice-cream, fruit and candy of the last two weeks.