Posted on 11/09/2009 3:53:21 PM PST by Feline_AIDS
You aren't what you eat. You're how much.
That's the message from a two-year National Institutes of Health-funded study that assigned 811 overweight people to one of four reduced-calorie diets and found that all trimmed pounds just the same. It didn't matter what foods participants ate, but rather how many calories they consumed.
An intense debate has long raged over which dieting regimen is best. Low carb? High protein? Low fat? But the federal study, one of the longest of its kind, "really goes against the idea that certain foods are the key to weight loss," says Frank Sacks, principal investigator and a professor of cardiovascular-disease prevention at Harvard School of Public Health. "This is a pretty positive message. It gives people a lot of choices to find a diet they can stick with."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Yes, but it’s not as fun as eating a bag of chips or a whole box of cookies. Or, worse yet, watching your overweight friends eat a whole pizza & complain about how skinny you with your No Breads diet are.
This illustrates the two “McDonalds” movies - Super Size Me and the rebuttal one, I forgot what it was called.
The guy in “Super Size Me” gained a lot of weight over the one month he ate nothing but McDs. But he picked the high cal stuff and super sized whenever it was suggested.
The rebuttal movie showed the person losing weight on a month of nothing but McDonalds. But he or she chose better foods there and didn’t Supersize.
So it’s not McDonalds doing it. It’s how much McDonalds.
Tell that to a diabetic.
Calories in vs calories burned. That’s the only way that has worked for me.
DUH!!!!!!!! Energy in needs to be less than energy out. Thermodynamics. You must either eat less calories or exercise and burn off the calories. It has always been simple science. It is not what you eat but the amount of calories. YOU MUST COUNT calories. EVERYDAY. You will then learn what to eat so you will not be hungry.
What's gonna happen if I don't? ;-)
I also find daily weigh-ins and keeping a food diary help me out quite a bit. When I see the morning number, I know what my food choices for the day are. Helps me avoid those “how did I gain five pounds?” situations.
Thank you!!!!!!!! We should not generalize about anyone, this includes overwieght people. Perhaps the majority of overweight people eat too much, but there are other reasons people put on weight. (diabetes, thyriod, metabolic syndrome, glandular disorders, etc)
no. Whatever the excuse is, if you take in more than you use, you gain weight. I does not work differently. It cannot work differently. Sorry
You will go to prison and be raped.
Are you a doctor?
If someone eats refined sugar, saturated fat and white flour with no veggies they will hold weight at 1800 calories.
The same 1800 calories of whole grains, veggies and lean protein will have weight loss.
This whole calorie in, calorie out is silly. It’s been proven many a time by the Atkins people and the doctors treating Diabetic patients that the theory is wrong.
>>It cannot work differently. Sorry<<
It does. Sorry.
Watch a person put on steroids for any reason.
A dear friend of mine had a ten year old with a brain tumor. She ate no more than her sister. The sister was just as inactive because she would not leave her sister’s side, reading to her and making friendship bracelets. The girl on steroids was 30 pounds larger when she died.
That’s just one case.
nope. are you?
I completely agree!! I have a problem with sugar/ carbs too. I started a regimen that is more calories than I am used to, but with no white flour or grains of any kind and the weight is just falling off. I am eating MORE calories, alot more. It causes me to drop weight. I lost a pound per day for the last 20 days with no exercise. According to this article, it’s impossible.
Because some sugars trigger insulin production and some don’t. It’s not magic, it’s how your pancreas works. Do some research on diabetic diets. Kids with type one Diabetes will go into shock from too many carbs. Yet can eat maltose until they turn blue with no fluctuation in insulin levels.
Not all sugars are equal.
“Perhaps the majority of overweight people eat too much, but there are other reasons people put on weight. (diabetes, thyriod, metabolic syndrome, glandular disorders, etc)”
Not true... It is all about consumed calories.
if she gained weight truly gained weight eating exactly he same thing as before, than her body needed fewer calories to maintain itself. happens to a lot of us when we get older. But still, if you need 2000 or 1700 to maintain yourself, and you eat more, you gain weight. your needs can change (and does with exercise or lack thereof) but there is no magic bullet
Oh Good for you!!!!
We all need to find our own secrets to weigh loss.
I am not. I can only speak of my personal experince. That personal experience and many others that are being posted say you are wrong. Sorry.
>>f she gained weight truly gained weight eating exactly he same thing as before, than her body needed fewer calories to maintain itself. happens to a lot of us when we get older.<<
Um, I said, she was 10.
You need to do some research on steroids.
And a bit on diabetic diets.
I’ve lost 55 pounds and kept it off for several years now following a simple equation...
Eat less, move around more.
You’ll never convince those who believe the 1970’s ideas of weight loss.
Remember the High Carb/Low Fat diets? Those were the worst things they could recommend to us.
I think you are absolutely correct.
Thank you!!! I have a hard time understanding why it is acceptable to lump all overweight people into one category and assume they are all overweight for the same reason. It’s wrong, and it’s unfair to people struggling with this.
and the steriod changed how many calories her body needed to maintain.
I happen to agree with you. I decided a long time ago that I wanted to eat what I wanted to eat. Since I don’t want to be overweight I decided my “magic bullet” was to work off the calories I eat. I don’t eat tons of food but what I eat is not what you’d call “healthy food”. I enjoy myself and as a 52 year old female with a body fat of only 15% I’d say I’m doing pretty good.
Anyway, I’ve always believed it’s calories in calories out.
This is the only research I will do for you.
Perhaps before you continue to sound uninformed and generally ignorant, you should read up on the side effects of steroid treatments.
From Johns Hopkins
http://vasculitis.med.jhu.edu/treatments/prednisone.html
Weight Gain
Weight gain is usually the most dreaded side–effects of steroid use, incurred to some degree by nearly all patients who take them. The amount of weight gain varies from individual to individual. In addition to causing weight gain, prednisone leads to a redistribution of body fat to places that are undesirable, particularly the face, back of the neck, and abdomen. Pictured below is a example of redistribution of body fat to the back of the neck. Accumulation of fat in this area is sometimes referred to as a “buffalo hump”.
Hump
Another example of this “redistribution” is pictured below. Supraclavical “fat pads” are collections of fat at the base of the neck, just above the collarbones, which are common in patients on steroids. They sometimes cause concern among patients if mistaken for lymph nodes or other causes for worry, but will gradually subside as the prednisone dose is tapered to below 10 milligrams/day.
Now, I'm of the opinion I can lose weight if I take in 800 calories per day eating nothing but ice-cream.
What ice cream does to clog my arteries is another story.
sw
Look. I have eaten 500-800 calories a day for years just to maintain my weight. I gained weight anyway. I was recently diagnosed with ovarian cysts and tumors. The doctor told me that this was the reason that my body was putting on weight anyway. I am now on medication and am losing weight quite quickly eliminating sugars/starches. but, I did not gain weight due to overeating and I am losing weight despite the “calories” I eat.
Christians and the overweight.
They are acceptable prejudices.
When one has worked Psych, one sees the devastation of hurtful people insinuating that one is either weak or stupid because they have extra pounds. While that may be true for some, medications, metabolism and diseases take their toll.
He is not going to believe you.
I do.
>>I’ve lost 55 pounds and kept it off for several years now following a simple equation...
Eat less, move around more.<<
Hear hear! Lost 40 pounds the same way, and that’s exactly what I tell people when they ask me what my secret is. (I suspect a lot of them are not thrilled with the answer.)
Thank you.
Is your sister feeling better?
The whole point of this research was to test that theory. It seems as though they concluded that “calorie in, calorie out” was in fact correct.
There are exeptions to every rule, including this one.
I lost my sister in ‘97. Seems like yesterday.
Then I suppose we can conclude that you believe the first law of thermodynamics to be silly as well?
Indeed. Skepticism is the start to being a scientist.
You won’t die yet.
Pun intended. ;-]
Actually, Bencarter is correct, but I believe he is not expressing himself clearly.
Anyone will gain weight if they take in more calories than their body can use. It looks like one of the effects of the steroid treatment your friend’s daughter had was to slow her metabolism. Thus, even though the two girls were eating the same, she simply wasn’t burning the calories.
It’s sad about your friend’s daughter. I had a friend who died of a brain tumor. It’s among the deadliest of cancers.
>>Actually, Bencarter is correct, but I believe he is not expressing himself clearly.<<
Actually, no he isn’t. And you say it yourself. Metabolism.
Look up “starvation mode”. Taking in fewer calories and having your body shift down a gear.
So 1800 calories you’ll lose weight but 1000 you won’t.
Exactly.
The basic equation is that weight gain occurs when the body takes in more calories than it uses. Period. I believe that is what Bencarter said.
When the metabolism is slow, then the number of calories the body uses drops. The basic equation is still in force.
Also, I’m not completely convinced of the hypothesis that decreasing calorie intake significantly shifts metabolism. But that’s a discussion for another time and place.
>>Also, I’m not completely convinced of the hypothesis that decreasing calorie intake significantly shifts metabolism.<<
Okay, that’s the reason why research is a really good thing.
The medical profession has known about the body’s ability to go into storage mode for years.
It happens with drugs. Weight gain has nothing to do with the metabolic rate slowing. Otherwise, the heartrate and blood pressure would decrease as well. Such as the heartrate and BP increase with amphetamine.
Fat storage is based in the pancreas and also Animal studies have illustrated that the deletion of the RIP140 gene in mice by genetic knockdown results in the lack of fat accumulation, even when mice are fed a high fat diet.
Trust me, it’s not simple calorie in, calorie out. If it was, all diets would be successful if a person stuck with it.
No matter what other processes are involved, weight gain and weight loss are a matter of calories in versus calories out. (Unless you are talking about fluid retention.) I didn’t say it’s a simple formula; it’s not. Many many factors affect how much a person eats and what their metabolic rate is. One reason diets are hard to stick to is because when a person cuts back, their body inundates them with signals that it’s time to eat, and it’s very hard to ignore those signals.
I happen to know a physician who does research on obesity in adolescents. Talking to him is absolutely fascinating.
I’ve been involved in research for years, which is why I say I have doubts about the “starvation mode” mechanism of metabolic slowdown following calorie deprivation. Very often, studies are presented to the public as being the definitive information on a topic, when a careful reading of the study reveals that too much was read into the data, or the data was weak and the authors interpreted it in such a way as to support their hypothesis. If there is such a “storage mode,” then why are millions of people still starving to death? Conversely, there would be a “non-storage mode” allowing everyone to eat as much as they would like without ever gaining weight. So I’m skeptical.
Interesting about the RIP140 gene. I happened to do a bit of work with it during graduate school. The RIP140 protein is a regulator of transcription, meaning that it is not an enzyme and has no direct role in fat metabolism. For it to disrupt fat metabolism means that its plays a role in controlling the production of enzymes that ARE involved in fat metabolism.
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