Calories in, calories out

[unreasonableRus]

AIBU to think that if I shout loudly about calories in and calories out the overweight people will suddenly see the light and stop eating and get thin? I've been doing it for a while now, but it doesn't seem to be working.

gnome see why doesnt that come with a health warning? Its diabetes in a cup!

My one was cadburys caramel donuts, they looked a bit scrawny but they were on offer and i thought the kids would like them as a friday treat. 291 calories a pop!

But why should food need a health warning? Surely it's obvious that coffee full of milk, syrup and covered in cream and chocolate is not going to be low in calories?

YABU because it really isn't all about that. Steroids.

I'm interested in the whole gut bacteria question. Do you think one day we'll look back on our ignorance the way we do about hygiene? Surgeons used to go from dissecting bodies to the labour ward without washing their hands. They knew there were no invisible creatures crawling about on their hands causing infections, because they were men of science.

Of course there are people who haven't learned about basic nutrition, and others who don't care. But no one knows how many calories are in a kitkat better than a dieter!

Fewer numbers of children walking to school now is not necessarily the fault of the children or the parents. Rural children often have to travel a number of miles along roads that would be too dangerous for walking, city children have no guarantee of a local school, two working parents mean either a drop off on the way to work or a nursery doing drop off, which at my DD's school translates to a mini bus.

People using cars, buses and trains to travel to work isn't necessarily their fault either. The days of living and working in the same location are gone for most people. My commute is 19 miles each way, my DH's is further, which seems to be fairly normal, neither of us are going to walk or cycle those distances. In my DH's case he works long hours, which combined with the 2-3 hours spent commuting each day, so out of the house for about fifteen hours, means he simply isn't going to have the time or energy to go for a run or visit the gym.

Having sedentary jobs is not people's fault. Labouring type jobs have been largely replaced by mechanisation.

I don't know if there is a definitive answer as to whether appetite is directly attributed to activity levels but I think they are not. Loads of people report that their appetite actually decreases when they start an exercise program. I think it's going to take a few generations for appetites to reduce, hunger is one of our primal drives after all, to the level that the modern world requires.

A calorie is not a calorie! 500 calories of steak and buttery steamed veg will take a completely different metabolic pathway in the body from 500 calories of chips, cupcake & coke. The latter leads to a massive insulin spike, your body laying down layers of fat (insulin is an anabolic hormone) and your liver churning out loads of triglycerides.

Weight loss is about metabolism & biochemistry, not energy balance.

Vicky - that's the best summary I've ever read!!

I genuinely don't get the joke. It really is a case of 'calories in, calories out'. Granted not all calories are equal. Complex carbs for example are not deep fried chips.

As kids our parents shopped in local shops- there were no supermarkets. So butcher, grocer, green grocer, buying only what we needed for specific meals. We were not allowed to help ourselves to snacks. We didn't have loads of different options for meals. We didn't have a freezer full of options. We only had pocket money once a week for sweets until 14 when I got a part time job, then I no longer got pocket money.
There was one fat kid in each year on average, that's all. It was very unusual to be fat. I wasn't fat until recent years, although my weight has always yo-yo'd. As kids e played out weather permitting, all the time. There was no day time TV, no computers or video games. So it was easy to stay slim without even thinking about it.

I know vlad, I know. Perhaps if we both shout at the same time?

Thing is, some of the people who clearly can't count properly are saying that their skinny DC eats like a horse and their overweight DC does not. And some people say that despite being really well educated about food, the pressure they feel to eat when they are tired, sad, angry or surrounded by slim people eating sausage rolls overwhelms the energy available to make good choices. They find the huge energy investment in watching every morsel which passes their lips, planning, shopping, ignoring the crap their husbands put in the cupboards, leaves no room for silly distractions reading with their children, visiting their sick parents, and all the other foolishness they fill their days with.

Come one, one two three SHOUT!

Yes, that's why there are so many obese people in famine hit countries, cities besieged through war etc. Nothing at all to do with calories in/out.

Oh, wait...

Crikey! Can someone let me in on the joke? Outside of medication r.e side effects, I can't understand why anyone would be overweight other than pure greed.

Seriously though, give your head a wobble. The whole metabolism nonsense was debunked a long time ago.

Outside of medication r.e side effects, I can't understand why anyone would be overweight other than pure greed.

So, that would include people who are ill would it? You know, the binge eaters, the over eaters who eat because they don't have the right help to beat this, those who eat for comfort, or out of fear? Those in abusive relationships? Or is it just those with anorexia that elicit your sympathy?

One thing that has always puzzled me: if it can feed a family of 4 for a week, how many calories are in a Mumsnet chicken?

It's not as simple as calories in - calories out, though the principle is the right one. And eating less (and moving more) works for weight loss for everyone who does not have a metabolic disorder or some other medical condition.

But why not as simple? Because there is enough evidence to show that not all calories are created equal. There was a thoroughly reputable study (published either late 90s or early 00s) looking at heart disease, and the role of dietary fat in furring up arteries. They divided a matched cohort of men into two groups, controlled diet to same number of calories (and monitored as well as is ever possible when self-reporting, that they stuck more or less to it) and the difference was the types of fat.

As well as their heart/circulation related findings, they also noticed a difference in weight. Those in the 'healthy fat' group lost weight, those eating the same number of calories in the 'any fat' group styled the same. Remember that this was a study in which every variable was considered, this was nit what they set up the study to investigate, and they were not looking for this effect it just jumped out at them.

So calories might not all be 'equal' in the body (which is, after all a little more complex than the internal combustion engine where the in/out theory works perfectly) and quality of fuel does appear to have a role.

That's not a licence to pig out. But is what lies behind the advice to avoid/reduce certain fats and processed ready meals in general, and is evidence why the Mediterranean diet works for wider health and weight reasons.

Anyone quoting thermodynamics doesn't really understand how calories are used by our body.

If you earn 20k a year and you spend 20k a year then your wages go down to 10k you don't continue to spend 20k....our body are the same. You easily expend 1200 calories just living - heat, circulation, respiration etc. A calorie deficit will just decrease the basal metabolic rate. Eventually after an initial loss you plateau.

Sugar is why everyone is fat.

dawn Those situations you've described equate to over-eating. In other words yes - they've eaten more calories than they are expending.

VladimirsPoutine characterising over eating as pure greed ignores the huge central place food has in many people's emotional lives. We celebrate, commiserate, comfort, express love through food.

It isn't a new phenomenon but the extent to which it happens is modern and directly linked to advertising.

Advertising is very hard to resist if it has been aimed at you. Resistance is hard work especially if you are already at a low ebb.

Thanks for that. So anorexics get sympathy, somebody equally ill doesn't. Apart from the fact that I don't understand that, I think putting it down to greed is trite, simplistic and plain fucking nasty, Vladimir.

gnome I get what you are saying but at the most basic level - illness or not, the fact is more calories in than out equals fatness. That's just how it is. I agree that there are mitigating circumstances which would lead to weight-gain, but these are not surprises. It simply is more calories in than out.

Vladmirs that's a gross simplification.

Obesity is a hormonal disorder. What makes you think that weight is the only function in the body that isn't controlled by anything other than what you put in your mouth. Weight is controlled by a sophisticated system of hormonal reactions the principle one being insulin. The science is there for anyone willing to research. Google calories in calories out myth or have a look at any of the videos by well know respected scientists on YouTube. I challenge you to really research what your current belief is.

Thanks fueled but I stand by what I said. I don't disregard that weight gain has many causal factors like bereavement, celebration etc. But at the most basic level if you eat more than you are expending then you will gain weight - regardless of what got you there to begin with.

I'm going to repost this as no one replied the first time I did.

For those saying fat people are fat because they overeat - yes, but that is a tautology and tells us nothing. Why do they overeat?

In the same way, consider a growing child. He is adding weight in the form of bone, muscle, fat, and so on, and he is eating more to allow this. Is he growing because he overeats? No, he is overeating because he is growing - hormones are acting on his body to make him grow, and they increase his hunger / desire to eat to support this.

In the same way, Gary Taubes would argue that carbs (and particularly sugar) act on our bodies producing an excess of hormones that make us grow (lay down fat) and increase hunger and desire to eat to support this.

(And of course there are other disorders which act in a similar way, without the need for excess sugar.)

So I do think there is an element of control (cut down those carbs!) - but it's not as simple as just eating less.

Obesity is a hormonal disorder.