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We've gone over this before, but yes, the quantity of calories is all but irrelevant, relative to the quality of the calories

Read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Taubes

In nutrition terms, the word calorie is commonly used to refer to a unit of food energy. (The word calorie is used instead of the more precise scientific term kilocalorie.) Technically, however, this common usage of the word calorie of food energy is understood to refer to a kilocalorie (and actually represents, therefore, 1000 true calories of energy).

Whether they're good or bad, kilocalories or calories--it's interesting that we can't really measure the amount of energy that will be released from the food we eat. At least not very accurately.

tatupu70 says

Whether they're good or bad, kilocalories or calories--it's interesting that we can't really measure the amount of energy that will be released from the food we eat. At least not very accurately.

Has anyone tried measuring accurately?

Obligatory:

Blame that on our Orwellian mangling of the language. I wouldn't call the majority of the crap people eat, food.

And I wouldn't say "the amount of energy released ", rather, " the amount of energy harnessed" by the food we consume.

It is quite the complex process, but the information is out there, if you're open minded enough to sift thru the crap to find the good info.

Some people just get more miles per burger (proverbially). They need to exercise more and/or eat less.

Most attempts at weight loss via exercise more/ eat less, end up with failure, and often times, more weight gain.

Why, you ask, does yet another incident of Conventional Wisdom, yield polar opposite outcome?

Exercising makes you hungry
Eating less makes you hungry

So it's easy to see, that making oneself hungry all the time, isn't a good recipe for weight loss

The key to weight loss is satiety, parlayed with the knowledge of what is a good calorie vs what is a bad calorie (wrt fat storage)

Personally, I look to stop exercising, in order to cut body fat. Much easier to remain satiated

errc says

Most attempts at weight loss via exercise more/ eat less, end up with failure, and often times, more weight gain.

Corrected:
Most attempts at weight loss end up with failure.

errc says

Why, you ask, does yet another incident of Conventional Wisdom, yield polar opposite outcome?

Exercising makes you hungry

Eating less makes you hungry

So it's easy to see, that making oneself hungry all the time, isn't a good recipe for weight loss

The key to weight loss is satiety, parlayed with the knowledge of what is a good calorie vs what is a bad calorie (wrt fat storage)

OK, but you make it sound like not being fat is impossible. Look at some old group pictures and you should notice that fat people were rare. It's easy enough to blame fast / processed / cheap foods, but IMO, there that's only part of it. For example, even today you don't see a lot of fat people using bicycles as transportation. I use stairs instead of the elevator, and even little things like normal handheld screwdrivers (non motorized). These things add up.

zzyzzx says

Corrected:

Most attempts at weight loss end up with failure.

I agree. If people change their lifestyle to eat better/eat less, and exercise--the attempts succeed. When people stop exercising and eating better/less, then they gain weight.

Most people think of it as a short term process rather than a lifestyle change.

How did i make it sound like not being fat is impossible?

I lost ~ 80lbs 4-5 years ago, quite easily

Now, armed with better information, i'd say it's easier (and more natural) to have a "normal" body composition, then it is to be fat.

It all boils down to fat storage. It's a biological mechanism imperative to our survival, to be able to easily store fat, and then to turn around and easily call on said fat stores in times of food(energy) scarcity, as fuel.

Once you understand your own body and how this process is regulated, it's quite simple to manipulate it in either direction.

Exercise doesn't play nearly the role that nutrition does. Exercises' main role is to break down and build muscle. Sure, it does have a minor role in fat storage, but it's so minor to the point that it doesn't have to matter. I walk, work, and fuck enough that I don't need to bother with a gym, or ditching my power tools. One can simply ditch sugar (carbohydrates) and up their fat and protein intake to realize satiety, and rapidly shed excess fat.

Not nearly as amazing as what sucking cock after cock does for your oral hygiene!!!

Anytime. Just please keep your stories of you blowing dudes to yourself. Not that there's anything wrong with that

errc says

(The word calorie is used instead of the more precise scientific term kilocalorie.) Technically, however, this common usage of the word calorie of food energy is understood to refer to a kilocalorie (and actually represents, therefore, 1000 true calories of energy).

That's a clearer explanation than most can give. Whenever asked to define a calorie, I reply with math: "a calorie is either one calorie, a thousand calories, or a thousandth of a calorie, but a calorie can never be a million calories." I literally cannot make it any clearer, and that isn't entirely my fault.

Most people don't understand math all that well, either.

It took a simple conversation with my youngest sister, to realize where the great disconnect lies for your average person, wrt understanding calories.

She spoke of calories as if they were an actual thing contained in food/drinks, rather than the unit of measurement that ghey are.

Food consists of three components:

Fat
Protein
Carbohydrates

Those are the numbers that you need to be aware of , and they are measured in grams, which is a unit of measurement most should have a better grasp of.

Perhaps food should be labeled in terms of how many miles you will have to walk in order to work it off.

errc says

(The word calorie is used instead of the more precise scientific term kilocalorie.)

This bit is semantics. Technically, there is a gram calorie and a kilogram calorie, which is the same as 1000 gram calories. A kilogram calorie should be written as Calorie or abbreviated as Cal to avoid confusion. Whenever someone in nutrition speaks of a Calorie, there is no doubt which Calorie they are talking about. There are also gram moles and kg moles to describe quantities of molecules. Generally, when people say mole, they are referring to gram moles or gmol.

The thing is that Calories are very useful for understanding a whole lot about nutrition. Counting them as a means to weight loss on the other hand is too hard for most people to do. You can lose weight by limiting Calories though, as shown by a KSU professor with his twinkie diet: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/.

errc says

Food consists of three components:

Fat

Protein

Carbohydrates

Those are the 3 macronutrients, which provide energy. There are of course many other components of food. The most important is probably fiber in all of its varieties.

Calorie density is a concept that is great for helping with satiety on what would be . Foods that have low Calorie density and high fiber contents, e.g. veggies and root vegetables and whole grains, generally lead to weight loss. So, it's pretty easy to tune your diet for weight loss using that principle without going against the recommendations of most nutrition researchers, most health organizations (cancer institutes, diabetes association, etc), and most government bodies.

YesYNot says

This bit is semantics. Technically, there is a gram calorie and a kilogram calorie, which is the same as 1000 gram calories. A kilogram calorie should be written as Calorie or abbreviated as Cal to avoid confusion. Whenever someone in nutrition speaks of a Calorie, there is no doubt which Calorie they are talking about. There are also gram moles and kg moles to describe quantities of molecules. Generally, when people say mole, they are referring to gram moles or gmol.

It is a sad irony of science that a discipline requiring precision and replicability of results cannot agree on clearly distinguishable terms. If scientists can define "planet" in such a way as to exclude Pluto, then they ought also to define "calorie" and "mole" intelligibly. "Generally," they mean whatever they choose to mean:

Fiber is a type of carbohydrate

That doesn't even make sense

You fail, AGAIN!!!

errc says

Fiber is a type of carbohydrate

While technically true, fiber is cellulosic, and is not digested by humans. Some of it is converted by microbes to butyric acid in your intestines, and this contributes to gut health and provides a source of energy many hours after eating your food. This is very different from free sugars or starches. Limiting your fiber in an effort to reduce carbs is idiotic, and equating fiber to sugar by classifying both as carbohydrates is idiotic. I don't know if that is what you meant when you said 'ditch sugar (carbohydrates)...'. Excess protein is converted to sugar (and ammonia), so it could be said to be closer to sugar than fiber.

curious2 says

It is a sad irony of science that a discipline requiring precision and replicability of results cannot agree on clearly distinguishable terms.

This is an issue of nomenclature and is a simple nuisance to people in the field. In any language, there are confusing words with multiple meanings, multiple spellings of words, and multiple words that are nearly synonyms. There are three definitions of the measure ton. There's a short ton, long ton, and metric 'tonne.' This is a nuisance, but doesn't reflect in any way on people using tons in the quality or reproducibility of their work.

While technically true lol

I said there are three components to food

Fat
Protein
Carbohydrates

You said, yea, but there's also fiber

I said fiber is a carbohydrate

You went ahead and loaded up with other assumptions, attempting to put words in my mouth

I said, what i said, nothing more. And i meant what i said. It is all factual

The same can't be said for what you posted

"While technically true, fiber is cellulosic, and is not digested by humans"

There is insoluble fiber, and soluble fiber. Soluble fiber is digested by humans, insoluble fiber is passed through in similar form as it was ingested. Both can play a role in health.

Try to keep it simple and factual

Soluble fiber is digested by microbes, and converted primarily to butyric acid. We absorb the butyric acid. If you want to call that 'digested by humans,' then fine. It is certainly different than starches, which start getting broken down in the mouth. You can only make it so simple. Dividing things into fat, protein, and carbohydrates is an oversimplification that causes confusion rather than clarity.

Dividing things into fat, protein, and carbohydrates is an oversimplification that causes confusion rather than clarity.

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In a thread meant to realize that calories are a poor metric for healthfulness of food? Cmon, youre just pulling my leg now

(To the tune of "these are a few of my favorite things") Salt grains on French fries and corn chips with salsa; fully trimmed burgers and pizza and pasta; fast dinner packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favorite things....

When I was in my twenties, people would tell me that I'd have to start watching it in my thirties. In my thirties, people told me that I'd have to start watching it in my forties. Perhaps I'll have to start watching it after menopause. Who knows? My saving grace. Good portion control. I may not make the best food choices, but I NEVER make a pig of myself. Which probably explains why my weight has been stable since high school.

errc, don't you just wish you could suck the grease off an onion ring every once in a while? Or squeeze the sauce out of a piece of penne using your tongue? Or lick the ice cream right out of an ice cream sandwich?

curious2 says

It is a sad irony of science that a discipline requiring precision and replicability of results cannot agree on clearly distinguishable terms. If scientists can define "planet" in such a way as to exclude Pluto, then they ought also to define "calorie" and "mole" intelligibly.

Planet is not a scientific term. It's a colloquial nomenclature.

Is Pluto a planet is not a scientific question, but only a pop culture question of arbitrary classification. Nature knows no boundaries between what humans decide to call planets and what they don't. Nature simply makes objects of all sizes and does not care what humans call them.

The fact is that a scientific classification of objects can only be properly done when there is a large, representational set. That means seeing many solar systems, not just our own and inferring the existence of a few extrasolar bodies.

curious2 says

An interesting side note... Humpty Dumpty is the world.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
The world was in a precarious state.
Humpy Dumpty had a great fall.
The world shattered into many pieces, various city-states and nation-states.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
The military might of the great nations
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Could not conquer and unite the world into one people.

turtledove says

errc, don't you just wish you could suck the grease off an onion ring every once in a while? Or squeeze the sauce out of a piece of penne using your tongue? Or lick the ice cream right out of an ice cream sandwich?

Now now... There may be kids reading this.

Turtledove,,,,,im drinking a slurpee right now, it is heaven

I eat bacon and eggs every day

I made an 11lb untrimmed brisket over the weekend while the blizzard snowed us in. I finish it off by chopping a bunch of onions in the fat juices. Can drink them in the fat like a bowl of french onion soup.

Don't worry, i eat well. 80/20 is the motto, and i like to eat ice cream with jimmies on cheat days ;)

Diet is more important than exercise for keeping/losing weight, but exercise is equally important for general health. Latest research recommends a high fat, moderate protein (high protein if you do a lot of strength workouts) and low carb diet (net carb calculation subtracting fiber is fine), as well as avoiding processed foods. Occasional ketosis (very low carb days) and intemittent fasting may be beneficial as well. Also keep at the minimum 5-6 hours between meals and only eat 2-3 times a day, snack rarely and avoid snacking if you can. Grazing is for cows ;)