Do you still think it's all about calories in vs calories out and fat people are not disciplined enough ?

[deebate]

I've been doing a lot of online research over the years around diet/ exercise and what's the answer. How can I keep fit and be healthy.

I've tried various things and I am generally a believer in calories in vs calories out. Which seems to be the favoured method on here.

If anyone complains they're struggling with losing weight, it must be because they're not counting everything etc.

In any case, I've now stumbled across a number of podcasts of different doctors and nutritionists in the field talking about gut microbes and sugar spikes etc and how actually it's really not just about calories at all.

What's the consensus on here about all this ?

YABU to believe there is a Mumsnet consensus on anything ;-)

Haha yeah

I think it's about processed food and overeating wheat.
People eat too much of it and don't realise how bad it is for us including supermarket bread.
It's also about snacking. We need to 'fast' to regulate insulin levels. People used to 'fast' between meals and still stay slim even when they were eating bacon and eggs and pie and chips.
Lots of snacking on processed food - worst thing for weight.

I totally agree. Far too much easy to eat UPF. The "food" companies are shocking and the government should really be addressing this.

I don’t believe that it is a matter of calories in and calories out. If you used that method, in theory you could live off chocolate and nothing else . Ok you might only be able to have about five bars a day, to you could still be within a calorie deficit! 😂

You're conflating two things

Calories are the thing that govern your weight, simply put. You can't gain fat if you overeat. If you rest at a calorie deficit you can't help but lose weight.

Discipline and willpower are separate. Sugar spikes and insulin resistance can affect what you want to eat making willpower much more of a problem for some people. Hrt and other things can make you hungry.

It's complicated by age, sex, race/ethnicity, genes and environment, notably in the over-developed world where inequalities remain endemic. The CICO 'measure' and BMI are pretty blunt tools now.

I think I have - objectively - pretty disordered eating, btw. But who knows, it may be on an NHS diet sheet in a few years.

You can lose weight on 5 bars of chocolate that's perfectly true and it's been proven. You might not feel fantastic though.

This does not disprove cico. I don't think you've understood it.

Bottom line is CICO.

however. Different things work best for different people. I have tried every “diet” going and the only thing that works is eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, plus a snack, watching portion sizes, lots of fibre and bulk, and counting calories. Not restricting anything. Protein makes me hungry, so I binge, fasting makes me binge, too low calorie and I binge.

other people find high protein works. Others fasting. Again both work because you are reducing the amount you eat overall.

find a “method” you can stick to and is a way of life rather than a diet. Doesn’t really matter how you do it.

Gut health is important, but that's mostly down to sufficient healthy fibre. And you can also do things to control glucose spikes, such as the order in which you eat foods. And there's some interesting research about the gut-brain link.

But it's still about calories in versus calories out. It's not an either/or.

Scientifically, it is a calorie deficit, how you achieve it is whatever works for you. Practically it is never that simple of course because of so many factors

The reasons for overweight are very complex. Very very complex.

I agree with some of that. The second part.

But I've read / heard stuff that the way different bodies use calories is also different.

So one person may be able to eat X amount of calories vs another can also eat X but will gain weight.

The question has 2 different questions and two different premises within it

Ultimately losing or gaining weight is about calorie deficit or excess

But is not about whether people who are overweight are 'disciplined' enough because some of us have reactions to certain foods which can cause hunger/cravings/tiredness etc etc

Yes the answer is to stay away from them, but humans are animals, we are designed to seek out food, lots of it, calorie dense food and we have created a society where that is cheap and plentiful. The trick to losing weight is to find a way that suits you, to eat in a calorie deficit, there are many ways of ensuring that.

If people dont agree its about calories in or calories out, why are people who are trying to gain weight advised to eat very high calorie foods?

I can't remember who said 'Move more, eat less - mostly plants' but I firmly believe it all comes down to this. If I had the will power I'd be a size 10 but I'm not so I'm a size 20 but all fancy diets are just a way of restricting calorie intake.

All things being equal it is CICO but all things are not equal. Hormones, genetics and even epi genetics are massively influential.
Thing rich people liek to believe they are that way because they are "better", not because of specific lucky breaks and that utterly self centred way of thinking explains a lot of the unempathic nonsense you see on MN.

But that exactly right. You could live off chocolate alone and still be in calorie deficit.

I don’t think it’s about food intake at all. Sure eating healthily, limiting sugar, salt, fat and so on is important, as is keeping active, but you cannot change your basic body shape and build. If you are 5’2 and cuddly, there is no point in trying to emulate someone who is 5’10 with long willowy limbs. It’s like thinking if you do exactly what someone else does, you can change your blue eyes to brown like theirs! People just need to accept themselves and others as they are.

It's a bit of both. You can definitely lose fat by reducing calories to be in a deficit. But can you keep it off if you persist in eating UPF, excess sugar and limiting fresh vegetables and fruit? Not without a hell of a lot of willpower. It's almost impossible to naturally moderate what you eat on a shitty diet and you'll be hungry and feel like crap a lot of the time. The law of thermodynamics means calories in and out is the bottom line to fat loss but all that other stuff is why we eat too many calories in the first place.
My DH is convinced that if you eat no seed oil, no processed food and no sugar you can eat what you want and not get fat 'because microbes' but he's not correct about that. But if your microbes are healthy and plentiful and your diet is good you'll find it harder to overeat.

You've just proved the point you're disagreeing with. You could lose weight eating only chocolate if you were in a calorie deficit.

I'm a size 8 and have honestly never given a second thought to calories. I have never tracked them or considered them in any way. I genuinely have no idea how many I eat in a day.

I focus on eating the right amount of healthy food and nourishing my body, drinking water and doing exercise I enjoy. I think focusing on health and it being a lifelong / enjoyable thing is much more successful than getting hung up on calories / weight loss / diet etc. Life is too short.

I believe that calories in calories out is the best way to lose weight.

But I also think there are complex emotional reasons for overeating and it's not simply a matter of "willpower" or "discipline".

Calories are at best a simplistic way of saying eat less. On the face of it that is true be it isn't really helpful as to HOW. Counting works as a tool for some but has the same problems as any other diet, its difficult to maintain long term and people often regain weight.

The important question is WHY we overeat. Animals in the wild do not become overweight. I am 3 stone overweight. I have abundant energy stored in the form of fat available to burn for energy. So why WHY is my body telling me to eat. Why can't I control these overwhelming cravings. Either there is something wrong with my biology or with my environment. People who are naturally thin, do not have these cravings. If they eat a big breakfast they won. This isn't willpower, this is hormones. A thin person won't even have to try to resist, which is why they simply don't understand why I can't control myself, why I fail to lose weight.

It’s about calories in calories out.

Diets are just different ways of achieving a calorie deficit in the least painful way, be it high protein / fasting / low gi / low ultra processed food etc.

And this is a post from a person with likely a healthy gut microbiome who doesn't have an emotional attachment to food, therefore has never struggled to moderate calorie intake. This is the ideal scenario for a human and probably where the majority of people would be if UPF didn't exist.