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 ?

Great post @athingofbeauty !

I listened to a podcast yesterday and they talked about the super low levels of obesity in Japan compared to the UK and the USA.

The podcast was a Steve Bartlett one about a guy who has used ozempic to lose 3 stone and has written a book called The Magic Pill - there was so much information in that podcast about weight gain and loss generally, blew my mind and I thought I knew all there was to know about dieting.

Worth a listen

I do think that alcohol plays a huge role in people becoming OW over time. It's so calorific, plus it's an appetite stimulant to boot. Two large pub glasses of white wine is the same as eating two chunky kit kats or two dairy milk bars. I think it's really easy to overlook calories from alcohol, but quitting booze is the quickest way to drop a few pounds, the rest of your diet being equal.

It is not about calories because calories in different foods are totally different from each other.

If you eat a donught with the same calories as an avocado, the calories in the avocado will react differently in your body.

Also generally with more comfortable lifestyles, people don't have lean muscle mass like before. Unless they have physocal job or do weight training. Makes massive difference to how much one burns

I have to agree that in its most basic form what you say is true. If you use more energy than you take in, you'll lose weight. If you eat more in energy than you use, you'll gain weight.

All the stuff about avocados having the same calories as doughnuts but being "better", and good fats/bad fats, reducing carbs, keto or whatever is just fluff and detail. Ways of helping you achieve the same end goal which is taking in less energy than you expend.

Some people find a specific form of weightloss works better for them, but just because intermittent fasting works for me as i'm never hungry in the morning anyway, that doesn't mean it'll work for someone who has a big breakfast and going without would mean reaching for the biscuits at 10am.

I did similar and lost weight. Basically just ate low calorie ice cream and mini flakes for a while. 1 pot of the low cal ice cream is usually 400-500 calories, 3 of those a day (which is actually more than you want to eat).

If you're in a deficit you're in a deficit.

Of course it's not healthy for your body, but you still lose weight.

Actually finding something you can maintain is the problem, because you want more calories from habit.

Growing up in the 60s/70s eating between meals wasn’t a thing (now it seems more like eating meals between snacking). We were always well fed at home (poor, working class, but all meals fresh and cooked from scratch), and I remember always being ‘starving’ until mealtime (when it’s going to be ready mum, I’m starving). We also weren’t given carte blanche to the food cupboard and fridge. I was slim up until my fifties as I snack far too much myself now and really need to get back that 70s mindset.

There was a study years ago on Atkins diet, and whether is did actually change your metabolism as claimed.

people put in chambers to measure energy output etc.

outcome was people on the diet got so sick of bacon they stopped eating so much.

in my initial ED phase I lost weight by eating a large bag of a certain type of crisps for lunch. When you eat a lot of the same food you can’t eat so much, and stop. I reduced my lunchtime calories from 5-600 (sandwich, small bag of crisps, mini mars or similar) to 2-300 doing that.

Pre DD I worked out a lot at the gym, HIIT classes, bikes, bodypump. I was fitter for sure but I don't think there was any major weight loss going on, because as the phrase goes, you can't outrun a bad diet.

I've lost over a stone so far (I'd crept up to 12st but at at 5"2) and it was mainly through intermittent fasting and some calorie deficit. I can never stick to fad diets, so this method works for me. I'm not completely regimented about it and if I go over calories or out the eating window one day it's not the end of the world.

I've rejoined the gym, hoping to get some more toning going on as well and get back to where I was fitness wise.

Of course you’d lose weight if you were in calorie deficit no matter what you eat! I watched a programme once where an overweight person and an underweight person swapped lives. The guy that was underweight literally ate a few snickers bars a day and that was it.

There was a documentary on this many years ago. The took a group of people and fed them a strict calorie control diet. One of the most interesting findings was a Japanese man who was fed 5000 calories a day for a month or so and didn't put on a single pound. So people's metabolism can vary hugely in how they process calories and lay down fat.

it is calories out/calories in.

but changing habits and losing weight is bloody hard. without major help, medically and/or psycologically, it is near impossible.
I don't blame anyone who is overweight.

Well, my metabolic rate must have been 0. I had severe gastro for a week and would have been lucky to consume 200 calories a day. Lost absolutely nothing. I gained weight (and fat) in a grueling F45 8 week challenge.
Funnily enough, I now have the opposite problem. I’m losing too much weight and can’t seem to eat enough to stop it.
There are so many posts on here from women who cannot lose weight despite near starvation diets and over exercising. It would be better if rather than telling them it’s CICO and they clearly need to eat a lettuce leaf each day, that they were recommended medical intervention. There IS something wrong if someone can’t lose weight on 800 calories a day, and it’s not that they should eat 200 a day instead.

At the fundamentals yes it's calorie in calorie out.
However this doesn't factor in additional factors such as genetics, health conditions (PCOS for example), hormonal factors and age.

Also many people factor calories in on 2000 per day for women and 2500 for men. This was based on more movement and actually more sedentary roles require less and more active roles require more.

Understanding your own body is the first step in working out what works for you but also additional factors. I know for instance that my weight will always be up around ovulation and period. So for me it's best not to weigh around those times so I don't get disheartened.
My calorie requirement is actually around 1500 calories a day so I need between 1000-1200 to lose weight which is quite low. Understanding this has helped a lot.

I also changed the way I eat my food. I do easy things like freezing cooked carbs or bread reduces the sugar availability when reheated/defrosted.

I agree,with this plus "Dr" Gillian McKeith said the same thing

Eat a MacDs or chocolate and you crave more( primitive response to high fat calorific foods)
How many people binge on salad or vegetables ?

Essentially what we eat determines what we eat.
It's not willpower it's the crash in blood sugar or a natural response to high fat sugary foods ( eat, eat, eat it could be leaves and berries next week)

Trouble is those high fat,calorific food and dri nks are easily accessible now .

I don’t know the answer but I do know that I am 5ft and 13 stone.
I do not drink alcohol. I do not drink tea/coffee/fruit juice etc. I only drink water, peppermint tea and camomile tea.
I do not snack, and by that I really do mean I do not snack. At 9am I eat a 170g Greek protein yoghurt and six blueberries for breakfast (this is a recent addition, I previously did not eat breakfast at all). At 12pm I am eat salad leaves (no dressing) with a tea spoon of pumpkin seeds and some form of protein (small piece of salmon or an egg etc) then at 6pm I have a small dinner of non UPF food (ie Steamed broccoli, bulgar and chicken breast). I have an office job but do not drive, i therefore walk a fast paced 6k steps to and from work and I work out everyday either by doing an addition 10k steps (so 22k in total) or weighted Pilates or HIIT workouts.

I’ve been doing this exact routine for 10 months and I’ve not lost any weight or had ANY non scale victories.

I am not hiding anything or ‘cheating’ anywhere, I am incredibly strict.

So I don’t know what the answer is but in my case it cannot be ‘calories in vs calories out’. It’s so demoralising.

Yeah it is calories in vs calories out. Obviously calories out can vary between people based on natural metabolism, body size and how active a person is. 2,000 calories a day for one person would mean weight gain whilst for another they would maintain or even lose. Counting calories is the only way for me to lose weight. I’m trying to stick to around 1,500 and I’m slowly losing. I find it is very easy to over-eat by just a small amount and the weight will just creep on again very gradually.

Pretty much everyone I know who is obese and has been for a considerable amount of time (including myself, over the years) has a problem with food.

They (we) use it in the same way smokers/drinkers and drug users do. It's not always as simple as just being greedy - it can be a coping mechanism and also a tool of self-harm.

Add to that the socially-unacceptable nature of being fat and the self-loathing kicks in real quick. Many don't feel they are worthy of 'taking care of'. If you truly hate yourself, why take good care of yourself?

Add to that the nefarious nature of the diet industry and the big old lies we've been told over the years about which foods are 'good or bad' and, well, it's all a bit of a mess and a LOT more complicated than 'just eat less and get off your arse'.

I think Western medicine needs to take a long hard look at this problem and come up with new ways to teach our kids about health and weight. I'm amazed their aren't more therapies that deal with just weight issues, to be honest.

Weight loss absolutely is about cals in vs cals out, but there are so many things at play in terms of barriers to long-term change.

Absolutely there's something wrong if you can't lose weight on 800 calories a day. Typically something so wrong you'd be feeling unwell in other ways. Equally if you cant gain it on 3000 calories a day, huge red flag. But, thankfully both circumstances are very rare. I think the sensible advice would be...try it, properly. Do a calculator that gives you an idea of your calorie requirements and go under that by 250- 500 calories a day, while burning another 250 in additional excercise, for at least three months. If that results in no weight loss at all, or you can with all honesty say you've already been doing exactly that with no weight loss, then see a doctor.

i mean, yes, at the very basic level i do believe that weight loss is "about" calories in vs calories out, after all you can't cheat the laws of thermodynamics.

however, weight loss as a whole process is about lots more than that--what about stress (in our increasingly stressful society) and that effect on weight gain? what about food advertising, food prices, lack of time? what about things like interactions with medications? and genetic factors that influence things like appetite? and yes as in your op i think within the body there are so many different factors in how it reacts to different types of foods in different amounts, triggering it to release different hormones that interact differently with hunger cues and digestion etc.

Weight loss/gain is fundamentally about calories in vs out. That's pretty much just scientific fact.

However there are many other factors which affect how you'll feel, and how successful you'll be maintaining a healthy lower calorie diet over a long enough time to gradually lose weight.

I lost about half a stone in Japan in 3 weeks - someone up thread talking about obesity in Japan, or rather the lack of it. We walked an average of 27000 steps a day. We ate 3 meals a day, rice or noodles - mostly fish, veg. A beer or 2 a day.

We never felt hungry - the portion sizes are what you need. No low carbing or anything.

They eat much better than we do.

This basically.

Cico works for me. Always has done. Once or twice a year I 'correct' my weight with a calorie controlled eating period (diet!).

I've always exercised a lot. BUT Sometimes I get carried away with my weekend crisps, handfuls of plain cashews, too much avocado, one more egg than I need, two slices of sourdough instead of one, a larger portion of salmon than I should eat.

All good food apart from the crisps. But too much food is too much irrespective of the source. So I calorie count for a month. Lose the half a stone. And my clothes fit better again.

I don't eat as much protein when I'm on a diet but I do still eat chocolate.

I haven’t read the whole thread but in all honesty the internet is a Wild West of absolutely mind blowing misinformation and the fundamental basics is that many people do not understand how science or nutrition actually works. And they use small studies to try to prove theories and all women have been convinced that there is something metabolically wrong with them when often this is just that we are different to men, who don’t really understand how our bodies work. Most women ovulate and have hormones although a number of them have excess hormones and metabolic conditions that make weight loss harder but I don’t think that applies to everyone overweight some people just don’t make the right choices.

we are also all different body types, endomorph, ectomorph or mesomorph and you need to find what works for you.

Im tired of the orthorexia rhetoric pushed on these forums that carbs are ‘bad’ and no one should eat them and that’s why everyone is overweight when it’s not actually true

CICO is the fundamental basics with some nuances and usually what you find is people who are saying they are only eating 1200 calories are not really counting everything, or having a massive cheat day along the line which sets them back. There is a well known phenomenon of people being completely in denial of their actual eating habits and consuming wild calories they don’t count and then being bewildered as to why they aren’t losing weight and it usually turns out it’s wine and calorific coffees they are mindlessly consuming. I can tell you I have tracked my food for an entire 12 months and I vowed to never ever lie to myself and I’ve lost lots of weight through doing it, I also do not eat 1200 calories I eat more. But when I have gone through short periods of plateau it is because I got careless and was over consuming in small ways here and there or having Saturday night wine.

There have been lots of studies and with data you can manipulate it to see what you want to see, which is what all these pod casts and social media people do. So you find one you latch onto and can convince yourself that it’s not your fault, it’s not calories it’s an undiagnosed slow metabolism. Your metabolism might be slow if you are sedentary and or/starving hungry, that’s how it works. If you don’t move enough you will gain weight from even a few too many calories and if you don’t eat enough, your body will be very tired and slow down your metabolism to counter the restrictive diet.

You will feel better eating well and moving more even if you don’t lose all the weight quickly. that is anyone thing, how long do people think it takes to lose weight? If you lost 1lb a week it would take you a whole year to lose 3 and a half stone, it’s a long process people don’t find it easy to stick to