>"The only thing you really need to know is that you should be eating fewer calories than your body burns everyday. If you do this, you will lose weight – it’s science. Nothing else matters for weight loss. The magnitude of the caloric difference will regulate how quickly or slowly you lose the weight.
[...]
I naturally started eating healthy foods because I could eat more of them. If you eat a chocolate bar, you will still be hungry. For the same amount of calories, you could eat a few bowls of vegetables and be full.
[...]
Somewhere along the journey I picked up intermittent fasting. I like it but it’s also not necessary. I found that it helped reduce my appetite which means I can eat fewer calories."
I don't really think this is consistent. Basically yes if you eat less calories than are used you must lose weight, but the ease of doing this depends on what you are eating.
The biggest challenges I've observed with people trying to lose weight with CICO (calories in, calories out) it getting a reliable estimate of how much your eating and how many calories your body is truly burning. Being off by 100 calories translates into roughly 12 pounds per year.
I know you can use a food scale to get a more accurate estimate of calories in but I'm still at a loss to determine an accurate estimate of calories out.
I've done calorie counting a while back. It does not have to be very accurate. Getting more accurate is easier and more efficient after you do it for a while.
I realized that what I eat is fairly stable. There may be 20 different things I eat regularly. Eventually, I started memorizing the most often used ones.
I noticed that there is a pattern to which types of foods have what amounts of calories. For example, fresh fruit and many non-starchy veggies tend to be at around 50kcal/100gr. Starchy veggies got for about 100kcal/100gr. Meats are at around 250kcal/100gr. And so on. Using this, I was able to get estimates for things I don't eat often without needing to Google everything. I did look up things I ate a few times in order to test my estimates.
It is not super-accurate. However, writing it down is more important that writing it down accurately to the last calories.
Many parts of this process were not accurate. I weighed things roughly using an analog scale. I often estimated portion size by eye, as I got a sense of how much 200grams of meat is. I counted the calories using estimates a lot of time. It worked nonetheless.
After 6 months, my weight loss vs. estimated weight loss from calories spreadsheet was within 1kg! I was blown away by how close this was. It makes sense since things like your base metabolic rate and actual calories expenditure also varies, so super-accurate record keeping of food-in was not necessary.
You're right that being off by 100 calories systematically will force a bias. The trick is to be off in one direction one day, and in the other the other day. This way, the error mostly cancels out.
It's really not that complicated. If after some amount of time you're not losing/gaining what you expect per your numbers you tweak said numbers a bit. That's all. You don't need to be accurate to the calorie, or even to ~100. If you're on a deficit most days you will absolutely lose weight.
Calorie counting works and eating fewer calories than you burn is the only way to lose weight. Far too many people start exercising a bit, continue to eat in the manner they've become accustomed to, and wonder why they don't lose weight. It's not rocket science; you just need to eat less and (probably) eat better.
It's not so simple. What you eat and your hormones determine the fat storage on your body. 1 calorie of carbs is different to 1 calorie of fat and 1 calorie of protein. Just because they give the same amount of energy, your body uses them in different ways and required different hormones (like insulin) to regulate the consumption of them. It's like saying electric energy is the same as mechanical energy, they produce energy but we consume them in different ways.
Counting calories doesn't really work. What's working is restricting insulin in your system which allows your body to burn fat. When you have insulin it's impossible to burn fat.
>It's not so simple. What you eat and your hormones determine the fat storage on your body.
It is, for the most part, but you're right; insulin spikes are a problem and you should not be gorging yourself on simple carbohydrates when on a diet. Of course, protein and fats can also contribute (ask any keto fan), so you have to eat in moderation and be mindful of your macros.
>Counting calories doesn't really work
Utter and complete nonsense. I have been actively monitoring and modifying my weight via calorie counting for more than two decades. I started boxing at 10, playing football and wrestling at 13, and to this day I still count calories and strength train at an intermediate competitive level ('competitive' in terms of what I lift in the big three at my weight, not to imply that I actually compete.)
I have helped many other people lose weight via calorie counting. It works, and to claim otherwise is simply ignorant. Of course quality of food is the next subject you broach with anyone trying to lose weight. No one should expect to lose weight and be healthy by eating 1200 calories of cake and another 500 in potato chips each day.
When you eat good food (increase your fat and protein as a % of your macros, stay away from processed sugars/carbs, increase your intake of vegetables, etc.) and limit calorie intake you lose weight. Speaking to most people in terms of insulin is a waste of time. They have no simple way to measure that, but if they eat under maintenance and eat generally good food they _will_ lose fat, and that's the goal.
I've tested eating 3lbs of meat and cheese, and had no change in blood sugar or ketones. I don't have the ability to check my insulin, but blood sugar is a good proxy.
Well we agree that eating the right food makes the biggest difference. If you eat the right food you don't need to count calories though. The thinking that counting calories matter might help you, but ultimately it's wrong. But just like thinking the earth was flat, maps still worked.
It works though. I don't think we disagree much on the principles, but the two concepts are intertwined. If you sit down and stuff your face with e.g. sausage and cheese you will still get an insulin response and you will absolutely gain weight. If you eat well beyond your daily maintenance, I don't care what you're eating, you're going to gain weight.
It's simply a lot easier to tell someone to watch their calorie count and eat good food than it is to tell them to monitor their insulin levels. They get the second bit right if they do the first.
Perhaps "spike" was a poor choice due to connotation, but proteins and, to a lesser degree, fats, do in fact provoke an insulin response (certainly less so than carbohydrates) via gluconeogenesis[1]. I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that this is why it is important to not exceed a certain % daily intake of protein when on keto and to keep fats high (aside from fats being your primary energy source.)
AFAIK, the primary issue with too much protein on keto (gluconeogenisis) isn't the change in blood glucose, but rather that GNG blocks ketosis.
That's the opposite of the diets goals, is an easy issue for people to incur while thinking they're on track, and keto can make you more susceptible to GNG :)
Sausage and cheese is totally kosher: in moderation, ideally beside some leafy greens.
You don't need extreme precision with counting calories. 500-1000 calories is a lot of food each day as long as your rounding up you can get good enough.
The trick IMO is to simply eat the same thing every day. That way you can remove things as needed to maintain weight loss. But, also adjust based on what you actually eat not just your goals.
Losing weight is not without cost. Be it hunger, time/effort, boredom, or unmet cravings.
Everyone has the right to choose which kind of cost they are willing to endure in order to lose weight - this includes refusing to pay any cost at all (and not losing weight).
Calories out can't be directly measured, BUT you can compute it pretty accurately anyway.
Measure your weight. Track your calorie consumption for N days, then measure your weight again. Then use the 3500 calories per pound conversion to figure out what calories out must have been to cause that.
For example, if over 30 days you ate 2000 calories per day and lost 3 pounds, then you must have burned 3500 * 3 excess calories total. That averages out to 350 calorie deficit per day, so your calories out must have been 2350.
Or if you ate 2000 calories per day for 30 days and your weight remained the same, then your calories out was 2000 as well.
I've been calorie counting for a long time (initially to lose weight, now just habit), and I do this sort of calculation every month or two in order to maintain my weight within a ~5 pound range.
I’ve had the same issue and how I approached it was to watch the scale. If I wasn’t losing weight, knock another 100 calories off my diet each day. Eventually you’ll find the sweet spot.
The other challenge is estimating how many calories you burn each day. There can be a large variation in resting metabolic rate let alone how many calories you burn with exercise.
A good quality fitness tracker with a built-in heart rate monitor like a Garmin Forerunner will give you a reasonably accurate estimate of calories out. Your can also get an occasional DXA scan (low dosage x-ray) to measure body composition; the report will include an estimate of your baseline resting calorie consumption per day. Remember that as you lose weight your daily calorie consumption will also drop because you have less fat to carry around and keep alive.
> A good quality fitness tracker with a built-in heart rate monitor like a Garmin Forerunner will give you a reasonably accurate estimate of calories out.
These aren't accurate at all. How would they be? All they have to work with is height, weight, and BPM.
That's why I specified a good quality fitness tracker like a Garmin Forerunner. If you use something cheap like a Fitbit then of course it won't be accurate.
I think people who try to lose weight be serious about CICO. They do need to get a food scale and log everything they eat. It at least opens their eyes on how much they are eating and how quickly little snacks and calories can add up.
Not only is it less than you think, but it changes with consumption! CICO is true but only trivially so, the variables are dependent. You can run 3mi to burn more calories, but you get more hungry as a result.
Yep. He even mentions fasting: "Somewhere along the journey I picked up intermittent fasting. I like it but it’s also not necessary. I found that it helped reduce my appetite which means I can eat fewer calories."
I tried that too. Lost 7lbs in 7 days and then a few more. I regularly skip breakfast, but to really make it work skipping lunch and keeping eating to a 4-hour window was really effective. I need to do some more of that. And it does reduce your appetite after a few days.
Unless you were morbidly obese, 7 pounds in 7 days isn't a sustainable rate and was probably mostly water weight rather than fat. In order to burn a pound of fat you have to expend about 3500kcal more than you consume; not really possible in a day for most people.
I’ve been doing intermittent fasting (4h eating) for two months now and I’m struggling not to lose weight. It never was my goal, but now I’m actively trying to curb it, yet still shedding pounds like crazy. Especially if you try to get fibre and carbohydrates in.
I can completely believe that helped in his endeavour.
If I’m being totally honest: probably because I like trying new things and this is fun. I could retroactively justify this with stories about HGH, general alertness, longevity, health, improved eating patterns, but I’d probably be lying to myself. It’s a challenge that’s nicely orthogonal to the rest of my routine, so it’s fun.
Plus some people I trust said it was “good for your health”, so I didn’t bother to look further and just took their word for it.
If you're eating carbs and fasting it will be a struggle -- worth it or not, who knows.
Most of the intermittent fasters I've been following aren't going through some masochistic daily hunger-torture. They're just eating more "paleo" or "keto" so their diet is ripe with dietary fat. That makes going from three smaller, to two larger, or even a single huge meal a matter of habit that can be changed in a couple weeks.
It's also unproblematic to "cheat" on the fast when need arises. The idea is just to clock as much 'fasted' time as pragmatic.
I don't really think this is consistent. Basically yes if you eat less calories than are used you must lose weight, but the ease of doing this depends on what you are eating.