The True Definition of Calories i.e. "Why what you believe is extremist BS" page 45

[Iron Will]

There is a line drawn in the sand that separates hormones and calories. And it's not a fine line. It's the size of the Great Wall of China. You have too many preconceived notions, and they've forced you to never actually read one of my posts.

Choco I do read your posts. I have enough respect for you to do so. The problem with your posts are they seem to jump from one side of the line to the other indiscriminately depending on what you want to argue on that paricular day.

[Iron Fireling]

I don't know if it's been mentioned... but while I agree with CICO to a certain extent (well obviously you have to keep your calories under control or you WILL put on weight), the composition of the foods you eat is still super important.

I was reading "Primal Body, Primal Mind" the other day, and it mentioned the results of a 1956 experiment where overweight people were put on varying diets of just 1000 calories a day (so obviously it was calorie restricted for ALL people and all macronutrient ratios). 1/3 of the people ate 90% carbs, 1/3 of the people ate 90% protein, and 1/3 ate 90% fat. Those on the carb diet actually GAINED an average of 0.24lbs a day, those on protein lost 0.6lbs a day and those on fat lost 0.9lbs a day.

Again, all very low calorie diets, but WHAT they ate seemed to be the key to how much they lost. To be honest, I'd like to see the results in people eating more than 1000 calories a day. That's too little for most people, obviously. And I'm not suggesting that all those who struggle to lose weight despite doing the "right" things should suddenly go on a 90% fat diet of 1000 calories.

So yeah, haven't read the entire thread (hell, it's pretty long and I read the first 13 or so pages and the last couple), but I thought this was something worth pointing out. It can't just be a matter of calorie counting, but ALSO considering the macronutrient ratios.

I've actually had a good long think about this thread overnight, because I'm afraid I was slipping into more of the mindset that if I just eat paleo/primal then my weight will start magically dropping off... but I'm one of those women who has struggled with weight for a long time, yo-yo'd etc. etc. so I'm starting to think this isn't going to be the case for me. Obviously I'll have to watch my calories, especially if I plateau... but I'm also looking at WHAT I'm eating and the effect it potentially has on me. If I have to stop eating fruit for awhile... I'll do it (not something I would consider doing FOREVER, but temporarily, yes).

Oh, I'm also extremely short so that doesn't help... an ideal weight for my height is about 100lbs... I obviously won't ever be able to eat as much as a normal sized person (woman or man!). I tend to put on muscle fairly easily (I haven't worked out in a gym for a few years now... being as it wasn't financially feasible, but just lifting heavy boxes of wood and doing push ups for roller derby training has made my arm muscles surprisingly large... and I haven't been doing it THAT long, I'm pretty sure if I were to get into it more seriously I'd get even more muscle... to the point where I'd look funny ). Soooo... this may mean I'm not estrogen dominant, as I must have enough testosterone to actually be able to build muscle with relative ease (of course, I know very little about the topic).

I figured I'll stick with what I'm doing right now for a month and see what the results are. If nothing much happens, I'll start switching things around a bit. I think given that we're all different (and it's annoying as hell that some people seem to think that if everyone did the SAME THING they'd all be the SAME when this is quite clearly not the case) we all have to experiment with ourselves to find out what works. Even given our personal preferences, some diets will work better than others because we'll be able to stick with them better. If you're never, ever able to eat foods you enjoy, you'll struggle to lose weight because it's just soooo bloody hard to do. If you're able to eat food you enjoy every day, it's not going to be as much of a trial. Yes, there will probably always be some stuff you love but can't eat... you just have to focus on the stuff you CAN eat and enjoy.

So that's where I'm at now, after just a few weeks into a primal eating plan (before which I was following more WAPF guidelines and loving my "properly prepared" grains... it wasn't helping my weight...). I actually found it easier than expected to dump the grains (I really just miss brown rice and occasional oatmeal... I go okay without bread... although if my kid wants Pizza Hut on his birthday I'm really going to struggle! It's one thing to avoid food when it's not in front of you, another entirely to sit around hungry when everyone else is eating).

[Neckhammer]

Choco I do read your posts. I have enough respect for you to do so. The problem with your posts are they seem to jump from one side of the line to the other indiscriminately depending on what you want to argue on that paricular day.

The line in the sand is actually that hormones are much more relevant to health while CICO dictates only weight. You CAN be slightly pudgy and totally healthy. You CAN NOT have hormonal disarray and be healthy. Its that simple.

[paleo-bunny]

Because Staci has a healthy metabolism.

Leida, every post I've ever seen from you on this forum is about the newest way you're going to starve yourself. You'll eventually fail, break down and try to "fix yourself", which will last a week when your weight goes up 2 lbs. Then you go onto the next starvation diet. You can't get the body you want because you refuse to let yourself be healthy. You're starving yourself fat and weak.

You are ravenously hungry because you are on the Auschwitz diet plan. You don't eat enough to get the nutrition you need. Your body is in constant fear of starving to death, so any fleeting moment you have a caloric surplus, it is stored as fat. Even though you don't eat a high carb diet, you're a sugar burner because you refuse to let your body be comfortable enough to burn its stored fat. You're constantly stressed and your blood glucose isn't stable because you burn muscle tissue as energy (glucose) and not adipose tissue.

You need to get fat. Because it's the only way you'll get thin. You need to seriously get rid of your scale, because it's your biggest downfall. You will never succeed if you check your weight daily because you will not hold to a plan. You need to take the next YEAR and just eat normally. And you shouldn't weigh yourself once. Go an entire 365 days without knowing what your weight or inches are. Just fucking do it. And don't go hungry once. Don't IF, don't count calories/carbs/grams of fat, etc. Don't rinse your ground beef. Don't use the little lines on the butter sleeve to measure out how much you should be using to sear meat in. You'll probably gain 10-20 lbs. And you need to. The ONLY way you'll ever lose your body fat is if you spend a really, really long time not being hungry. It's the only way your body will figure out that it doesn't NEED to carry body fat. You've done nothing but tell it to hold onto fat and burn up your muscles for years.

The proof - you can't build muscle. No shit your lifts aren't going up. Your body is burning muscle as fuel because you're constantly starving it. You need to overeat to build muscle mass, and you need to have the hormonal signals to tell your body to store excess calories as lean tissue and not adipose tissue. You can't do that if you're starving because fat storage is far more important to survival than lean muscle.

Stop dieting. Stop weighing. Stop measuring. Just eat a lot of food and get fat. And stay fat for a really long time. If you don't, you will never exceed. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. You are by definition insane. You need to try something new because you are clearly doing it wrong.

I have to agree with this. You've clearly forced your metabolism into a downwards spiral through conventional calorie counting, Leida.

That is not primal.

[sbhikes]

If the whole CICO thing was an absolute fact, then you could just say that everybody who is 5'3" tall can consume 1300 calories a day in their CICO balance to become and maintain a size 6 (for example.) But it does not appear that you can.

What I really want is for my appetite to match what I need to eat to maintain a healthy weight. I really don't care at all what calories are in things. I just don't want to live my life hungry. That's a pretty miserable existence.

Fortunately I think I'm finding that I might be hungry often for other reasons than the quantity, composition and frequency of meals. Perhaps if I can fix whatever it is that makes me feel so hungry so often, I will be fixed: In other words, have an appetite that matches my needs. That would really be a wonderful thing.

[Paleobird]

I agree with you - in general. Most people won't have to do something like that. But I was speaking solely to the people that are so metabolically dysregulated they can't fit into the proper "calorie counting" paradigm. For the people who have TDEE's so severely different than the typical equations estimate, the only real way to find out their maintenance is to be very consistent in what they eat so they can tightly control the portions. If there is too much variety, you're not going to be able to monitor things closely enough.

I mean how accurate is Fitday, really? If you buy two different pork loins, they can vary wildly vs the predetermined Fitday value. What if one pig was 10% fatter than the other? What if the butcher trimmed one loin much better than the other? That's why I like eggs and cottage cheese for weight control. They are very consistent. Something like a ribeye steak can vary wildly where one 20oz well-marbled, grain-fed steak could have far more calories than a tougher, leaner, poorly marbled grass-fed ribeye of the same weight.

Fitday sucks as far as accuracy goes. Their suggested numbers don't even match packaged foods' labels. I found that livestrong.com has some good info about grass fed meats which can be very different from grain fed. One way to improve consistency in tracking is to always measure by weight not volume and grams are a lot more precise than ounces. That is one of the reasons I like Sparkpeople. They have a lot of European members who input things in grams.

But I do get where you are coming from on finding perfectly consistent numbers. I just don't think many people need to go that far.
Even eggs can vary from batch to batch. But you are just as likely to err on the plus or the minus side so this all comes out in the wash.

[magicmerl]

If the whole CICO thing was an absolute fact, then you could just say that everybody who is 5'3" tall can consume 1300 calories a day in their CICO balance to become and maintain a size 6 (for example.) But it does not appear that you can.

That's because the equation actually is

Calories In + Fat From Body = Base Energy Expenditure (BEE) + Exercise + Fat Stored

The problem is that as you cut Calories, your BEE also decreases (as your body tries to protect you from starving to death).

The 'trick' to easy weight loss is to maintain your BEE so that you use more body stores. It's normal and natural for your body to slow down fat loss as you use your reserves up, since you don't have as much to spare.

What I really want is for my appetite to match what I need to eat to maintain a healthy weight. I really don't care at all what calories are in things. I just don't want to live my life hungry. That's a pretty miserable existence.

Fortunately I think I'm finding that I might be hungry often for other reasons than the quantity, composition and frequency of meals. Perhaps if I can fix whatever it is that makes me feel so hungry so often, I will be fixed: In other words, have an appetite that matches my needs. That would really be a wonderful thing.

Sounds great. If the goal is health though, shouldn't weight be only incidental?

The line in the sand is actually that hormones are much more relevant to health while CICO dictates only weight. You CAN be slightly pudgy and totally healthy. You CAN NOT have hormonal disarray and be healthy. Its that simple.

Agreed. Weight <> Health (unless you are on the road to diabetes-ville).

[ChocoTaco369]

Trust me, Choco, there were months in my life when I ate whatever I wanted, and every time I ended up fat, even freezing to death in the oilfields of Alberta running with the men with pipes in a highly stressful grind

I don't trust you. And I never said eat whatever you want. That's the last thing I'd suggest. Eat real food. I don't want to hear about the 3 months you gave up starvation dieting and binged on bad food. I want to see you go an entire year eating real, whole foods. No vegetable oils, no refined sugar, no grains. Just meat, vegetables, fruits, tubers, nuts and saturated animal-based oils in the quantity your hunger desires. I bet you've never done that.

[ChocoTaco369]

If the whole CICO thing was an absolute fact, then you could just say that everybody who is 5'3" tall can consume 1300 calories a day in their CICO balance to become and maintain a size 6 (for example.) But it does not appear that you can.

No, that is a straw man. You cannot say that at all. CICO states that in order to lose weight, you have to consume less calories than your body burns. At no point does CICO theory ever say two people of the same height and weight have the same basal metabolic rate or the same TDEE. Two people that are both 5'3" have absolutely nothing in common but their height.

[ChocoTaco369]

Fitday sucks as far as accuracy goes. Their suggested numbers don't even match packaged foods' labels. I found that livestrong.com has some good info about grass fed meats which can be very different from grain fed. One way to improve consistency in tracking is to always measure by weight not volume and grams are a lot more precise than ounces. That is one of the reasons I like Sparkpeople. They have a lot of European members who input things in grams.

Eh, Fitday was an example. All those programs are wildly inaccurate. They're precision tools, not accuracy tools, and precision tools only work if you're consistent. Most people that have issues losing weight have issues with food and are not willing to be very restrictive with their food choices. That's a big reason why they can't lose weight - they can't live without a highly varied diet and get bored without choices, so they lack consistency.