# DEATH OF THE CALORIE



## HermitJohn

https://www.1843magazine.com/features/death-of-the-calorie

Long article debating accuracy and usefulness of calorie counting. Here is video embedded in article.


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## Alice In TX/MO

Outstanding article. Thank you.


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## Terri

"For different people, food can take between 8 and 80 hours to travel from dinner plate to toilet bowl".

I love that statement.


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## NRA_guy

I have long said that it's not about calories or what we eat---it's about quantity.

I was born and raised in a poor, rural, agricultural area in Mississippi. NOBODY we knew was fat, but everybody ate 3 meals a day.

But we had no between meals snacks. 

We ate meat, home grown vegetables, fruit in season, bread, and occasional sweets like homemade cookies. Sodas were simply not available. We drank sweet tea at lunch and supper.

A typical meal was fried fish or chicken, corn bread, snap beans, squash, tomatoes, and greens. You just could not eat 3 pieces of fried chicken because it was not there. 

Breakfast was typically homemade biscuits, eggs, bacon and syrup chased with whole milk. But again, the quantity was limited.

Mama and daddy typically only bought groceries once a month and what they brought home would be in 3 or 4 paper sacks. And it had to last until the next month.

In school, the one or two kids who were labeled "fat" would not even stand out at Walmart today. 

And I don't believe that one can exercise his way to a lower weight. (The main benefit of exercise seems to be that a person cannot eat WHILE he is exercising.)


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## Wolf mom

A black/white argument that's sadly lacking. As NRA_guy said, it's about quantity. Well, partially. 
First, Atwater developed this theory in the late 1800's. Today we have a lot more information about food and how it correlates to weight loss or gain. None of that is developed in this video. 
Second, "it's all about quantity" - One can gain weight on any diet. So yes, it is about portion control. Today we know the health benefits of less sugar and fat in a diet, but how about adding nutrient dense foods to this discussion? Can we eat more if the food is nutrient dense (more healthy)? 
What easier/better way to have portion control than by counting the amount of calories in a cup, teaspoonful or....The "why" of measuring.
My belief is that counting calories, combined with the knowledge of nutrient dense foods, watching sugars and fats, knowing your own body, along with having a healthy regard for hype is a easy, balanced way of eating.


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## NRA_guy

My wife and I were living in an "empty house" after the children all moved out. We were both slim and trim. We ate small portions and only had a sandwich at lunch and 2 or 3 dishes at supper time.

Then one adult child moved back in with a small child of her own and lived with us for several years. We suddenly had 4 or 5 course lunches and 5 or 6 courses plus dessert for supper every day.

I gained weight from 140 lbs to 170 lbs.

My wife gained even more.

After the kids moved back out, we signed up for Nutrisystem. They shipped us all our meals and snacks, but we were free to eat all the salad we wanted. My allotted intake was like 1500 calories per day and my wife's was like 1200.

In about 4 months my weight dropped back down to 140 lbs where it has remained for the past 14 years. (I am 5 feet - 10 inches tall.)

My wife never lost much weight at all, if any, and it frustrated her immensely.

I have been told that women have more difficulty losing weight than men do.

Nutrisystem is not bad tasting, and we never felt hungry---but it was not great tasting and we never felt stuffed.


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## light rain

Thank you for sharing the article HJ. 

Just to comment on one or two points, plain cooked potatoes have been maligned for the last 30 years. When I ate potatoes 4 x a week I felt better and weighed less. I eat the skin too. For people living in colder areas it provides nourishment, minerals and vitamin c. It had been a part of my ancestors' diets for over a hundred years.

While I haven't given up meat and animal protein I have reduced it by about 70%. I really look forward to warmer weather and more greens and other vegetables and fruit. In times past we didn't have the abundance of food and accessibility. My family didn't keep soda in the house until the middle 60's. Probably just to shut up a whiney teenager... But tv advertizing was coming into it's heyday and I soaked up everything that was projected.

People that had physically demanding jobs in times past ate well but couldn't sit down and eat a huge meal and then go work outdoors for 6 more hours, imo. We have stretched our stomachs along with our waistlines with supersize portions combined with less physical activity. I bet a lot of people have watched the 600 lb. show and say "how could anyone let themselves get in that condition" but bristle or attack anyone that says "maybe you need to look at your diet". 

There is not one restaurant in our area that makes it easy for a person on a low salt/low carb diet to enjoy a nice meal. Seems like there would be a market there... As a result we pretty much just eat at home.


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## HermitJohn

light rain said:


> Thank you for sharing the article HJ.
> 
> Just to comment on one or two points, plain cooked potatoes have been maligned for the last 30 years. When I ate potatoes 4 x a week I felt better and weighed less. I eat the skin too. For people living in colder areas it provides nourishment, minerals and vitamin c. It had been a part of my ancestors' diets for over a hundred years.
> 
> While I haven't given up meat and animal protein I have reduced it by about 70%. I really look forward to warmer weather and more greens and other vegetables and fruit. In times past we didn't have the abundance of food and accessibility. My family didn't keep soda in the house until the middle 60's. Probably just to shut up a whiney teenager... But tv advertizing was coming into it's heyday and I soaked up everything that was projected.
> 
> People that had physically demanding jobs in times past ate well but couldn't sit down and eat a huge meal and then go work outdoors for 6 more hours, imo. We have stretched our stomachs along with our waistlines with supersize portions combined with less physical activity. I bet a lot of people have watched the 600 lb. show and say "how could anyone let themselves get in that condition" but bristle or attack anyone that says "maybe you need to look at your diet".
> 
> There is not one restaurant in our area that makes it easy for a person on a low salt/low carb diet to enjoy a nice meal. Seems like there would be a market there... As a result we pretty much just eat at home.


After the diabetes, nothing shoot my blood sugar up faster than either brown rice or cooked irish potato. Raw irish potato by the way wont budge blood sugar. Human body simply cant digest it. When I read that had to try it, sure enough I could eat a raw potato with no effect on my blood sugar. Too bad its not exactly what I would call tasty. And for sure there have been both South Americans and Irish that basically lived on potato diet. But gotta remember in situations like these, lot physical activity and just getting enough calories of any kind was biggest challenge. I have a great great grandmother that was refugee from Irish potato famine.

Mom used to keep 7up in the house "for medicinal purposes". That was it, no other soda pop. Now before the switch, Dad would occasionally let me get one of those little glass bottles soda out of the vending machines. Cant remember were those 8oz or 10oz? Just little bottles. So get a Grape Nehi or root beer or something as treat once in a while. I got real lucky, they timed the switch from cane sugar in soda pop to HFCS in 60s where I was disgusted and could definitely tell difference. I gave up soda pop. I no doubt probably got addicted to the stuff if they had stuck to cane sugar.

And yea, high carb foods/ingredients are cheap and profitable. you wont find many restaurants that dont use the cheapest most profitable foods they can find. Especially the low end or family restaurants.


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## light rain

HermitJohn said:


> After the diabetes, nothing shoot my blood sugar up faster than either brown rice or cooked irish potato. Raw irish potato by the way wont budge blood sugar. Human body simply cant digest it. When I read that had to try it, sure enough I could eat a raw potato with no effect on my blood sugar. Too bad its not exactly what I would call tasty. And for sure there have been both South Americans and Irish that basically lived on potato diet. But gotta remember in situations like these, lot physical activity and just getting enough calories of any kind was biggest challenge. I have a great great grandmother that was refugee from Irish potato famine.
> 
> Mom used to keep 7up in the house "for medicinal purposes". That was it, no other soda pop. Now before the switch, Dad would occasionally let me get one of those little glass bottles soda out of the vending machines. Cant remember were those 8oz or 10oz? Just little bottles. So get a Grape Nehi or root beer or something as treat once in a while. I got real lucky, they timed the switch from cane sugar in soda pop to HFCS in 60s where I was disgusted and could definitely tell difference. I gave up soda pop. I no doubt probably got addicted to the stuff if they had stuck to cane sugar.
> 
> And yea, high carb foods/ingredients are cheap and profitable. you wont find many restaurants that dont use the cheapest most profitable foods they can find. Especially the low end or family restaurants.


What do think of the premise that if you cook a potato and then refrigerate it and then use it in potato salad the cooling changes the starch in it to less digestible. Supposedly this will not boost the bs the way a cooked and then eaten potato will.


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## HermitJohn

I have no idea on the pre-cooked cold potato having less available starch. I guess I am just not curious enough to try it though love to hear of others experiments. I am to where I much rather have an extra piece raw fruit than potatoes or grain.


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## light rain

HermitJohn said:


> I have no idea on the pre-cooked cold potato having less available starch. I guess I am just not curious enough to try it though love to hear of others experiments. I am to where I much rather have an extra piece raw fruit than potatoes or grain.


In the next couple of months we'll keep track when I make potato salad I'll comment. I don't know it for fact, just read about it...


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## reneedarley

I will try it too. My problem is that I am allergic to potatoes.When I was younger it was only new potatoes but now it everything. oh how I miss my fish n chips.


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## NRA_guy

light rain said:


> In the next couple of months we'll keep track when I make potato salad I'll comment. I don't know it for fact, just read about it...


In our house, potato salad contains a lots of stuff besides potatoes.


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## HermitJohn

NRA_guy said:


> In our house, potato salad contains a lots of stuff besides potatoes.


Yea heard some states have legalized such things.....


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## light rain

NRA_guy said:


> In our house, potato salad contains a lots of stuff besides potatoes.


Ours too. Usually some boiled eggs, mayo, dill, vinegar, onions, black pepper, very little salt, pickles and a tad of honey or sugar. Your point is well taken. Maybe we'll do the test with just 3 oz. of cooked potato one day and 3 oz. of cooked & cooled the next day. Easier to control and limit other ingredients... Without any other ingredients it will have to be russets. To me they beat most other spuds in flavor hands down.


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## light rain

reneedarley said:


> I will try it too. My problem is that I am allergic to potatoes.When I was younger it was only new potatoes but now it everything. oh how I miss my fish n chips.


If you are truly allergic I would reconsider...
It really isn't worth it.


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## barnbilder

Fast guts. Slow guts. Calorically dense foods, bulky foods. Yeah, there are minute differences. Hardly a viable argument against the effectiveness of reducing calories as a weight loss tool. (The only real effective weight loss tool.) 

Eat the foods that you commonly eat, that agree with you, that are available, etc. Track the calories. Adjust until you find the level of calories that doesn't make the scale go up or down, when looked at as a trend over a month period. Might take a while, unless you use a calculator that will get you real close. Once you have found something very close to your maintenance calories, drop them by about 300 to 500 a day. 

You can do this by increasing activity, or reducing consumption. Just know that you have to increase activity by a lot to make much difference that way, and that if you lose weight, you need to progressively increase activity levels to make up for the decreased caloric burn that comes from not carrying the weight around. Adding a backpack with how ever much weight you have lost would do it.

Most people find it easier to just reduce calories. You burn calories when you are asleep, mountain biking does not increase caloric burn nearly as much as people think.Drop 500 calories from the diet, and you will lose weight, if you can stick to it. Replace calories with things that slow your guts down, and yeah, you might not lose weight. Eat somebody with a faster gut's calories, and yeah, you might not lose weight. But if you determine what your maintenance calories are, based on the foods you normally eat, and your normal activity levels, and then drop those calories, you will lose weight.

If you chase fad diets, and eat from lists of foods, without measuring those foods, you might initially lose weight, but as you become more accustomed to those foods, learn more sources, and ways to prepare them, and your body adjusts to eating them, you might gain back whatever you lost. Because you never bothered establishing your base caloric needs with a stable diet and exercise level. And then you didn't track your input.

But that there are those that will use a few extrapolated scientific facts on a youtube video to argue against math and physics. All you can do is let them.


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## Alice In TX/MO

The point of the research is to determine if the “facts” that we believe are valid. 

I enjoy discovery and civil discussion.


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## light rain

Alice In TX/MO said:


> The point of the research is to determine if the “facts” that we believe are valid.
> 
> I enjoy discovery and civil discussion.


I knew a woman, a good friend of mine, who was told by her obgyn (while pregnant) in the 1950's go ahead and smoke a few cigarettes, it will relieve the stress. She suffered terribly in the last couple of years of her life from COPD. 

It is always good to seek out the truth.


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## HermitJohn

barnbilder said:


> Fast guts. Slow guts. Calorically dense foods, bulky foods. Yeah, there are minute differences. Hardly a viable argument against the effectiveness of reducing calories as a weight loss tool. (The only real effective weight loss tool.)
> 
> Eat the foods that you commonly eat, that agree with you, that are available, etc. Track the calories. Adjust until you find the level of calories that doesn't make the scale go up or down, when looked at as a trend over a month period. Might take a while, unless you use a calculator that will get you real close. Once you have found something very close to your maintenance calories, drop them by about 300 to 500 a day.
> 
> You can do this by increasing activity, or reducing consumption. Just know that you have to increase activity by a lot to make much difference that way, and that if you lose weight, you need to progressively increase activity levels to make up for the decreased caloric burn that comes from not carrying the weight around. Adding a backpack with how ever much weight you have lost would do it.
> 
> Most people find it easier to just reduce calories. You burn calories when you are asleep, mountain biking does not increase caloric burn nearly as much as people think.Drop 500 calories from the diet, and you will lose weight, if you can stick to it. Replace calories with things that slow your guts down, and yeah, you might not lose weight. Eat somebody with a faster gut's calories, and yeah, you might not lose weight. But if you determine what your maintenance calories are, based on the foods you normally eat, and your normal activity levels, and then drop those calories, you will lose weight.
> 
> If you chase fad diets, and eat from lists of foods, without measuring those foods, you might initially lose weight, but as you become more accustomed to those foods, learn more sources, and ways to prepare them, and your body adjusts to eating them, you might gain back whatever you lost. Because you never bothered establishing your base caloric needs with a stable diet and exercise level. And then you didn't track your input.
> 
> But that there are those that will use a few extrapolated scientific facts on a youtube video to argue against math and physics. All you can do is let them.


Do you honestly know anybody that actually measures and counts calories long term. I never met anybody that could do it more than two or three weeks before giving up. Its like trying to remember to breathe. If I tell you to only take so many breaths per hour, are you really going to sit there counting your breaths?

People eat far more carbs than they did even half century ago. Body doesnt regulate intake of carbs that well. Just try overeating fat (just fat not fat plus sugar or fat plus flour) You cant. Your body will simply stop being interested in eating any more. You would have to hire some guy to hold your mouth open and another guy to shovel it in for you.

But if you want to count breaths and steps and calories and all that nonsense, be my guest. Just be honest with yourself when you find you cant keep it up long term. Its lot simpler to just eat a diet that your body recognizes and is able to regulate.


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## Irish Pixie

I have an app on my iPhone that counts calories for me. Is it exact? Probably not, but it's in the ballpark. I also keep track of carbs, protein, and how much water I drink. I've done for years, it's not hard at all. 

Burning more calories than I consume, and to some extent limiting carbs, works best for me.


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## barnbilder

I count calories. Have for several years now. It's incredibly easy.I've lost several hundred pounds. The initial weight loss, from back when I decided to try something different than all of the keto, whole foods, natural foods, clean foods and all the other garbage ideas that left me fatter than ever. Then all of the weight I have lost after periods of purposeful gaining. I can weigh exactly what I want to weigh. And look exactly how I want to look. Granted, adding muscle is much harder work than losing fat, but it's all a constant fitness journey.

My wife "counts calories" as well. We call it "tracking". We have met a lot of people that do. We have also met a lot of people that want to know our secret. When we tell them, most of them look at us, blink their eyes like a pigeon that just had a blanket pulled off it's cage, and then say "I think I'm going to try Keto" or tell us about their gym membership plans. A lot of them start into a list of excuses about why they could never do what we do. A few start listing the ways that they are so unique that their bodies defy all logical constraints of human biology and laws of math and physics.

It's hard work. It takes dedication. That is the secret. You don't have to count every calorie of every meal. But after a couple months of weighing all of your food on a gram scale and figuring out what you can fit in and what you can't, you get pretty good at eyeballing portion sizes of various foods, and recognizing what you should probably order in a restaurant. You also realize that most restaurants don't have much of anything that is really going to work out all that well more than about once a month, unless you skip a couple meals to make room. So beyond the drudgery of attaining goals with hard work and math and physics, you learn healthy lifestyle choices that will help you for the rest of your life. It is so empowering to know that you can eat a slice of cherry pie with ice cream on top, and know that it is not going to cause you to get fat, and that even if it did, you can zap that fat right off on demand.

I saw a discussion a while back. It was about why fit people act so stuck up. A good explanation is that most of them know what kind of work it took to get there. You can't inherit it. You can't buy it. You can't borrow it. You can't steal it You must work for it. There is no other way. It comes down to choices. Tracking calories is my choice. Because it's sustainable. It is easy for me to do for the rest of my life. There is no better time to live in than right now, as far as diet goes. We have the technology in the palm of our hand to make exactly the right choices every day for the rest of our lives. No better time than the time we live in. It bears repeating.


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## Irish Pixie

I concur on the weighing of food until you can figure out the amount by eyeballing it. We have an extremely easy to use (and affordable) scale from Pampered Chef.

There are more and more restaurants that are offering low calorie options. Chili's margarita chicken is a great option, I usually only eat half to three quarters), it's 400 calories and tasty. Mr. Pixie orders the grilled chicken salad (430) a lot too. Their tex mex shrimp bowl is excellent, and around 800 calories. TGIF's lunch cobb salad is very good, go easy on the dressing and it's 480 calories.

ETA: I have to be careful with salt, and restaurant food is notoriously high in it.


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## barnbilder

Irish Pixie said:


> I have an app on my iPhone that counts calories for me. Is it exact? Probably not, but it's in the ballpark. I also keep track of carbs, protein, and how much water I drink. I've done for years, it's not hard at all.
> 
> Burning more calories than I consume, and to some extent limiting carbs, works best for me.


I find that I tend to limit carbs when I am in a cut cycle, by default, in order to maintain my protein, fat level staying constant. When I am in a bulk cycle, I simply add back some carbs.
You using MFP or MM+? I stick with MFP just because I am used to it, but here nothing but how great MM+ is from friends. Continuously amazed with some of the weird food I eat that it is always on their, some other weirdo has already tracked it and it's in the database.

One of the greatest benefits of the apps is your recipes. Ever make something that turned out delish, and you can't remember what you put in it? We have records of the recipes we track, and you can tweak as needed to get it perfect. And no sink full of dirty measuring cups, just use one big mixing bowl, gram scale, and add ingredients as needed.


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## barnbilder

The missus and I are in constant competition to do things like call out a weight in grams, cut a slice of home made bread, or plop some food in a bowl and then weigh it. She is better than me, but the margins are small. She usually gets within a gram, I am usually within two or three. Sometimes we go a step farther and ask how many calories of something you need, and then get ballpark close. That just goes to show how good you get at eyeballing things. Which is a very important skill to have at a picnic with pumpkin pie on the desert table. Doesn't take much knife angle to stack up some serious calories in a hurry.


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## Irish Pixie

I use Lose It! because I'm used to it, but I'm interested in MFP and MM+. What are the names of the apps? 

I'm amazed too. I looked up something today that wasn't listed, a marinated flank steak from Sam's Club, but it's not common to have to enter the information.


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## barnbilder

My fitness pal is what we use, and my macros+ is what several friends use. MFP is sometimes a little glitchym site goes down or something, MM+ is not supposed to be as bad. I downloaded it but it just wasn't familiar.


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## barnbilder

My Fitness Pal had a six ounce marinated flank steak from Sam's Club at 270 calories with 14 grams of fat and 36 grams of protein. That is from manually entering into the search bar as I didn't have the bar code here. I shop at an international market, they have these little tinned eels that I just love, scan the bar code and it comes up in some squiggly alphabet but the macros are right there. Their kimchi is the same way.


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## barnbilder

Wait that was a different one, Sam's 4 OZ marinated flank steak was 180 calories 2 g carbs 8 g fat and 22 g protein. That sounds more in line to me. Neither is verified. MFP puts a little green check mark if somebody checks someone elses entry and "verifies" it. You have to be careful on there people will put down anything with some of the stuff. That is where the practice comes in. You learn to look at the food and say to yourself, that is not right. It is having learned those quirks that makes me reluctant to use another app.

Speaking of apps, I'm hungry. I need to check my app and see what second supper is looking like tonight. As I recall, I'm pretty good on protein, might need to check the freezer and see if the kids ate all the ice cream.


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## HermitJohn

Each to their own, since the diabetes, I simply cut WAY back on carbs. No apps needed, no calorie counting, I lost LOT weight cause my body took over and automatically said "hey stupid, your are full, stop eating". Imagine that, no counting anything, body just automatically regulates food intake with no conscious effort on my part! I have Mr. Diabetes to keep me on straight and narrow in world where carbs are added to EVERYTHING in one way or another cause its cheap and profitable for those selling. And to break the carb addiction and it is an addiction. I can actually thank Mr. Diabetes for breaking my addiction.

CArbs taste good and the human body doesnt really regulate their intake very well. Carb heavy diets are a human invention when people started living in large groups without electricity and without refrigeration, and farming grain was only convenient way to feed them. However at that time economics were such that people simply couldnt afford enough to overeat and everything was manual labor so dawn to dusk manual labor for peasant class, and most were peasant class. We are still living in large groups and grain is still cheapest way to feed people, we have just developed more profitable ways to process and doctor it and make it appealing to the taste buds. Manual labor is now discouraged and even third world countries are mechanized for all but poorest rural peasants who are small minority. And more money means the one luxury people can definitely afford is MORE food and guess what, processed carbs are tasty and most affordable. We still havent evolved to where high carb diet is a healthy diet for humans, its just a cheap convenient tasty addictive one.


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## painterswife

Barnbilder, I get you believe what you believe. It is just sad that you have to keep destroying discussions about other ideas with regards to how our bodies might work.


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## barnbilder

When I started tracking I found out there are a lot of carbs in a lot of places that you wouldn't really suspect. I just find it a lot easier than trusting my body to know when it has had enough, because it was pretty obvious that my body had no concept of that.

I also found out how many fat calories are in a lot of things. Like nuts. Granola. Milk, milk is full of fat and sugar. I used to just drink a glass of milk instead of eating something, and thought it was a healthy plan. Might as well have eaten a candy bar. No wonder I had man boobs back then. Now I can have exactly how many candy bars, glasses of milk, nuts, or whatever I want and still reach my dietary goals. I am in complete control of my diet.

Plenty of people that are tracking that have Hashimoto's, Diabetes and all sorts of things. I am on several fitness groups on facebook, you see people come into the tracking fold and they are just overjoyed at being able to finally control their body and their disease. If carbs are bad for you, then you can control exactly how many carbs you are eating. Without relying on your body's ability to tell you how many carbs you have had. For most people, their bodies suck at that. Mine does, or else I would never have had to diet. The beauty of tracking is, you can tailor it exactly to your needs and your metabolism. And personal preferences. If you can't stick to a diet devoid of ice cream, you can eat the ice cream. But you know how much ice cream is going to fit and what kind of ramifications a double serving is going to cause. Might cause you to peruse different types of ice cream.

Sure, I can eyeball portions and guesstimate calories at a restaurant now, but it took a good six months of tracking to even begin that, and didn't get real good for a couple years. And there is some stuff that I will avoid all together, because I know there is no guessing. Many times that involves salad dressing or something with a sauce that looks cheesy. 

It's not the evil coprorations, modern agriculture, or any of those things that make people fat. Sure, they make it easy, but they can't do it unless you put the stuff in your mouth. You can swear off soft drinks, and that wouldn't be a bad thing for anybody, but if you turn around and buy a bunch of fruit, depending on what kind, you can be doing pretty much the same thing. It can even be organic fruit, sustainably harvested heirloom organic fruit, and it's just an expensive soft drink with some fiber and a few vitamins. You can eat seeds and nuts and pretty much have a fast food cheese burger that wasn't as filling for three times the price. Tracking let's you know these things. But it's hard work and requires dedication, and most people aren't really into hard work and dedication, and you can tell that a lot of times. People want a magic pill, or a magical list of foods prescribed by a guru, and then they just eat however much of them they want, as long as they stick to that list. Buying foods from a list is easy, everybody does it virtually every time they go to the store. What's hard is looking up packaging and nutritional information and measuring out portions for every meal, and creating a healthy eating plan that is sustainable for the rest of their lives regardless of what medical condition arises or metabolic condition manifests itself.


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## painterswife

Calories are only one small part of the intricate system that supports our bodies. Satiation, hormones, disease, bacteria all play important parts in the way your body is using those calories.

Discussions like these are about the factors other than just calories that make you healthy and happy or satiated. Boiling it down to calories every single time when others want to investigate the other mechanisms gets very tiring and destroys the conversation.


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## barnbilder

painterswife said:


> Barnbilder, I get you believe what you believe. It is just sad that you have to keep destroying discussions about other ideas with regards to how our bodies might work.


How am I destroying a discussion? By interjecting scientific fact? If you don't like sugar, don't eat sugar. If you don't like tomatoes, don't eat tomatoes. It's simple. Eat what you want, what doesn't make you sick, what doesn't trigger diet breakthroughs. Never have I advised against those things. But if you want to lose weight, and you aren't tracking your macros, you have a very tough row to hoe. You would be trusting your body's instincts to know how much of something you need to eat, when in fact your body's instincts are telling you to eat all of the food available, all the time. I have learned not to trust my body's instincts. I trust knowledge. I know that if I find my maintenance calorie level I can reach fitness goals with just a little simple math. I also know that anyone who has honestly and accurately done the same has been able to do the same thing.

Track three days and go to a barmitzva and eat the entire cake, no, it won't work. Track all week and pig out on booze and junk food all weekend, no, it won't work. Track for two weeks and see the scale go up because of hormone induced water retention and give up and eat an entire jar of peanut butter with a spoon and no, it won't work. Use a calorie calculator and input "moderate" activity level because of the two hours of cardio you do a week, and no, it won't work. Set your calories at a ridiculously low level so that you create metabolic deficiencies and struggle with diet adherence and no, it won't work. But if you do it honestly and completely, it will work, every time, and has for lots of people, regardless of their individual conditions. 

It will work so well that people are shocked and amazed at how wrong they had been for so long. It's a recurring theme on the facebook group that I belong to with 80,000 members that have every metabolic nuance of the entire human populace. Shocked family members, asking for secrets, and then coming up with lists of reasons why it won't work for them as well. It is saddening, and gets discussed at length there. "My mother in law says that it won't work for her because X" then 50 people that have the exact same condition chime in and post pictures of their transformation. 

It's always the simplest answers that are the hardest to hear. Maybe some calories work differently in some people, sure, there is a lot of science that will definitely substantiate that, but if you are fat, and don't want to be, you need less calories. To deny that is to deny the known bounds of math and physics.


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## Terri

Unexplained weight loss or gain is a valuable diagnostic tool for a host of ailments. This is because how well your body absorbs and uses the food that you eat is dependent on how well your body is functioning. 

Those of us who have bodies that are no longer functioning perfectly might or might not find that all calories are created equal. Calories still count, of course, but a person might have trouble digesting and using some foods, and there are other potential problems as well

Which does not change the fact that Barnbilders diet is a great one for most people


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## Terri

barnbilder said:


> How am I destroying a discussion? By interjecting scientific fact? If you don't like sugar, don't eat sugar. If you don't like tomatoes, don't eat tomatoes. It's simple. Eat what you want, what doesn't make you sick, what doesn't trigger diet breakthroughs. Never have I advised against those things.


BINGO ! AT LAST!

I think that tidbit is what folks were wanting you to say: that not all weight loss is a matter of the number of calories consumed.


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> How am I destroying a discussion? By interjecting scientific fact? If you don't like sugar, don't eat sugar. If you don't like tomatoes, don't eat tomatoes. It's simple. Eat what you want, what doesn't make you sick, what doesn't trigger diet breakthroughs. Never have I advised against those things. But if you want to lose weight, and you aren't tracking your macros, you have a very tough row to hoe. You would be trusting your body's instincts to know how much of something you need to eat, when in fact your body's instincts are telling you to eat all of the food available, all the time. I have learned not to trust my body's instincts. I trust knowledge. I know that if I find my maintenance calorie level I can reach fitness goals with just a little simple math. I also know that anyone who has honestly and accurately done the same has been able to do the same thing.
> 
> Track three days and go to a barmitzva and eat the entire cake, no, it won't work. Track all week and pig out on booze and junk food all weekend, no, it won't work. Track for two weeks and see the scale go up because of hormone induced water retention and give up and eat an entire jar of peanut butter with a spoon and no, it won't work. Use a calorie calculator and input "moderate" activity level because of the two hours of cardio you do a week, and no, it won't work. Set your calories at a ridiculously low level so that you create metabolic deficiencies and struggle with diet adherence and no, it won't work. But if you do it honestly and completely, it will work, every time, and has for lots of people, regardless of their individual conditions.
> 
> It will work so well that people are shocked and amazed at how wrong they had been for so long. It's a recurring theme on the facebook group that I belong to with 80,000 members that have every metabolic nuance of the entire human populace. Shocked family members, asking for secrets, and then coming up with lists of reasons why it won't work for them as well. It is saddening, and gets discussed at length there. "My mother in law says that it won't work for her because X" then 50 people that have the exact same condition chime in and post pictures of their transformation.
> 
> It's always the simplest answers that are the hardest to hear. Maybe some calories work differently in some people, sure, there is a lot of science that will definitely substantiate that, but if you are fat, and don't want to be, you need less calories. To deny that is to deny the known bounds of math and physics.


Each body asks for different foods. Most bodies don't tell you to just tell you eat all the food available. Just not so. Depending on your health, your addictions, your bacteria etc. Focusing on calories because you don't trust your bodies instincts is what you do. I am working to find a way of eating that enables me to trust my bodies instincts. That means I don't focus on calories because if I am eating what works for my body, I don't need to.


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## Terri

painterswife said:


> Each body asks for different foods. Most bodies don't tell you to just tell you eat all the food available. Just not so. Depending on your health, your addictions, your bacteria etc. Focusing on calories because you don't trust your bodies instincts is what you do. I am working to find a way of eating that enables me to trust my bodies instincts. That means I don't focus on calories because if I am eating what works for my body, I don't need to.


For me, it helps if I limit the carbs but eat as much meat as I want to. Because I do not like meat enough to overeat on it. For me meat tastes good when I am hungry, but when I have had enough I have had enough!


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## painterswife

Terri said:


> For me, it helps if I limit the carbs but eat as much meat as I want to. Because I do not like meat enough to overeat on it. For me meat tastes good when I am hungry, but when I have had enough I have had enough!


For me it is high fat, medium protein and low carb. Very few processed carbs as well. I throw in some fasting for the other benifits I get, clarity and healing. The fasting also allows me to have some bad carbs and rebound from their effects. This for me lowers my cravings and I don't feel hungry or get what others call the low blood sugar shakes. This also means I don't have to count calories. 

That won't work for others that can't properly process fats or animal proteins. I get that.


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## barnbilder

Terri said:


> BINGO ! AT LAST!
> 
> I think that tidbit is what folks were wanting you to say: that not all weight loss is a matter of the number of calories consumed.


Yes. Actually weight loss is because of a reduction in the number of calories consumed. Or an increase in the number of calories burned. Those are the only two ways hat weight can be lost. If you have bacteria that cause you not to be able to digest table sugar, and you are overweight, you will need to reduce the amount of calories you are consuming or increase the number of calories you are burning, to lose weight. And you had better hope that your bacteria don't adjust themselves, if you are currently eating things that they prevent you from digesting. I don't track certain carbohydrates because my body does not produce the needed enzymes for their digestion. (Certain sugar alcohols in artificial sweeteners) But still, if I want to lose weight, I decrease my caloric intake.


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> Yes. Actually weight loss is because of a reduction in the number of calories consumed. Or an increase in the number of calories burned. Those are the only two ways hat weight can be lost. If you have bacteria that cause you not to be able to digest table sugar, and you are overweight, you will need to reduce the amount of calories you are consuming or increase the number of calories you are burning, to lose weight. And you had better hope that your bacteria don't adjust themselves, if you are currently eating things that they prevent you from digesting. I don't track certain carbohydrates because my body does not produce the needed enzymes for their digestion. (Certain sugar alcohols in artificial sweeteners) But still, if I want to lose weight, I decrease my caloric intake.


Not true. You can gain weight by eating the same calories. Different medications can do that.


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## Alice In TX/MO

If you are diabetic, your metabolism is not normal. If you are taking diabetes medication, your metabolism is not normal. If you are taking antidepressants, your metabolism is not normal. If you are taking Prednisone, your metabolism is not normal. Etc.

One solution may work wonderfully well for barnbuilder, and I admire his accomplishments with his way of eating.

Claiming that a certain way of eating works for everyone, regardless of their health and the medications they take, is not helpful.


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## barnbilder

painterswife said:


> Not true. You can gain weight by eating the same calories. Different medications can do that.


Oops. Should have said gain fat. Weight is pretty irrelevant in terms of dieting, as it fluctuates so much. The mirror is a much better gauge. If you want to loose fat, you will need to consume less calories or burn more calories.


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## barnbilder

Alice In TX/MO said:


> If you are diabetic, your metabolism is not normal. If you are taking diabetes medication, your metabolism is not normal. If you are taking antidepressants, your metabolism is not normal. If you are taking Prednisone, your metabolism is not normal. Etc.
> 
> One solution may work wonderfully well for barnbuilder, and I admire his accomplishments with his way of eating.
> .
> Claiming that a certain way of eating works for everyone, regardless of their health and the medications they take, is not helpful.


Of the 80,000 people that I connect with on a daily basis in regards to their fitness journeys, they have all of those conditions and then some. We are united in sharing the very same diet concept, one that has always been there, and that has always produced results when adhered too, however unpleasant a concept it is


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> Oops. Should have said gain fat. Weight is pretty irrelevant in terms of dieting, as it fluctuates so much. The mirror is a much better gauge. If you want to loose fat, you will need to consume less calories or burn more calories.


Again not correct. Insulin can cause you to gain or lose weight/ fat based on the amount of sugar you eat not the calories of the sugar.


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## barnbilder

painterswife said:


> Again not correct. Insulin can cause you to gain or lose weight/ fat based on the amount of sugar you eat not the calories of the sugar.


It bears repeating. Eat at a caloric deficit and you will lose body fat. Eat at a caloric surplus and you will gain body fat. Someone with insulin related issues really should try to watch their sugar intake. My app is great for that. Has it all tabulated for you, right there.


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> It bears repeating. Eat at a caloric deficit and you will lose body fat. Eat at a caloric surplus and you will gain body fat. Someone with insulin related issues really should try to watch their sugar intake. My app is great for that. Has it all tabulated for you, right there.


No, calories alone don't make you lose or gain weight. Hormones, disease, medications, metabolism, satiation and more play a part. Every time someone points out to you another thing that can change someone's weight you swerve. What works for you won't work for someone with diabetes or Cushing disease or insulin resitence. Your inability to understand that hurts the conversations that others want to explore.


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## barnbilder

What about all of the people that have those issues, got tired of using them as excuses, and use the same methods I do to control their fat? Answer: They adjusted their intake slightly, to make up for the subtle differences in their metabolisms. Please find the hormone responsible for making body fat out of thin air, put it in a bottle and send it to me. I want to give some to my cows, if it's cheaper than hay.


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## Terri

barnbilder said:


> Yes.
> 
> Actually weight loss is because of a reduction in the number of calories consumed. Or an increase in the number of calories burned.


Just of the top of my head, things that can alter the number of calories burned: 1. ADHD. The body metabolism can shift to high. 2.hyper or hypo thyroidism 3. insufficient nutrition ( this protects us from famine. Basically your body metabolism down to just high enough to keep you alive. And yes this is science, not theory) 4. ADHD 

Just off the top of my head, things that influence what calories your body can absorb !. Gall Bladder trouble: you need the bile it produces in order to digest fat 2. diabetes. Some people will make their diabetes worse in order to lose weight. This is dumb but some people do it 3. Anything that interferes with the lining of the gut. That would include a variety of ailments.

......................................

It is not all about the calories you put in your mouth


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## Terri

barnbilder said:


> What about all of the people that have those issues, got tired of using them as excuses, and use the same methods I do to control their fat? Answer: They adjusted their intake slightly, to make up for the subtle differences in their metabolisms.


Yes.

I have these issues, which is why the diet my old doctor put me on failed. I was eating it but not absorbing it and when I did absorb it I was not metabolising it properly. Instead of being burned for energy the calories were stored as fat, and I had NO energy and I felt terrible. Weak, breathless, and shaky was a way of life.

Then my doctor was too busy to see me, and the other doctor changed my diet. I was better within a few days time and I never looked back.

In other words, I changed my diet, not my caloric intake. My system simply runs a lot better if I work around what my body cannot do. And, that has nothing to do with the number of calories. I am now burning the food that I eat instead of storing it in the form of fat.

I still count calories, on again off again, but mostly not. I do not need to. I eat slightly more if I know I will be physically active, so that I have the energy to finish wheat I am doing.

Most people have a body that releases sugar into their system when they need it. My body mostly does not and so I adjust my caloric intake to how active I intend to be. That way the calories are burned in doing work


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## Terri

Barnbilder, a down and dirty explanation. I eat the food, and if I do not burn it as energy then my blood sugar goes up. My body reduces my blood sugar by forming triglycerides and my kidneys get active and rinses the sugar out of my body.

My body is SUPPOSED to store the excess sugar and then release it when I need it, but my system mostly bypasses that. Mostly. I am not as sick as some. However the part about storing excess as fat and releasing it when it is needed, for me, is not functioning properly. Instead my kidneys washes the sugar out of my system in the form of urine and triglycerides are formed
........................................................

Other people also have trouble when it is time to burn calories. It is not all about how many calories enter your mouth. One diagnostic tool for type one diabetes is weight loss even though enough calories are being consumed. One diagnostic tool for hypothyroidism is weight gain even though few calories are consumed. 

Some of us need to work our health problems into our diets. Yes calories still count, but it is not the ONLY thing that counts!


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## MichaelZ

I eat a lot. And I eat a lot of snacks. My weight does not vary hardly 2 pounds all year. But what I eat is fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, beans, olive oil, cider vinegar, almond milk. No dairy and very little meat. Limit my sugar (under 10 g at a time if at all). Prostate cancer was my motivation. Don't know if it will cure my cancer, but it sure is a good diet for making me feel well and maintaining my perfect weight effortlessly.


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> What about all of the people that have those issues, got tired of using them as excuses, and use the same methods I do to control their fat? Answer: They adjusted their intake slightly, to make up for the subtle differences in their metabolisms. Please find the hormone responsible for making body fat out of thin air, put it in a bottle and send it to me. I want to give some to my cows, if it's cheaper than hay.


Hormones, insulin and certain drugs change your metabolism. One thing affects another. They can tell you to store fat and starve your other cells. They can shut down certain processes because your other cells don't know that you have fat available to use. It is a very delicate system. Think about cancer. It is your own body cells going crazy not working properly. Your hormones can do the same thing to the proceeses that regulate how your body shuttles the fuel your cells need.

How does a woman's body know to add more fat cells to their hips and breasts and not do it to a man. Why does one woman's body get more fats cels in their body than another woman. Hormones vary those things. Why do some never gain too much and never every worry about a calorie in their life?

Each person's system is different. Age even changes things. The cells don't work as well.


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## Terri

Some people will gain weight on 1000 calories per day. It is unusual but it does happen.

My body burns more calories than that and I need to burn more calories than that, but we do not all burn calories at the same rate. And, yes, your hormones have a lot to say about how many calories are burned in your body.


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## HermitJohn

Your body sees starch and sugar as one in the same. Eating whole wheat bread or a snickers bar, is very similar. Humans simply didnt evolve to eat high amount of carbohydrates. Before city states and farming, the only concentrated carbs people ate was some ripe fruit in season and some honey they stole from wild bee hives. They didnt go out into prairies and collect grass seed! Compare that to todays consumption of huge amounts of grain and grain derived products plus lot processed sugar. Also modern fruits have been bred for maximum sugar and minimum fiber. The wild fruits our ancestors ate had lot more fiber and lot less sugar. Compare sugars in a Granny Smith apple and a Fuji apple. Or a Kieffer pear to a Bartlett pear. Most wild apples are low sugar and probably make a grocery store Granny Smith taste sweet.

Again carbs simply dont tend to trigger the satiation signal to the human body for many/most people. Always room somehow for that extra piece pie with scoop ice cream, even though it distends your belly and makes you physically uncomfortable. However you try to eat that second steak or stick of butter or a second huge bowl of broccoli and you will gag. Your body will let you know in no uncertain terms that it doesnt want it. The human body didnt evolve to deal with high carb diet so you dont get the satiated feeling from eating such.

So guess what, those selling food have already figured this out and try to add as much sugar and starch as they can. Its in their interest to sell as much product as possible and the more sugar and starch, the more addictive, and the more they sell. Its also whole lot cheaper to manufacture than fat or protein. So this govt mandate of a low fat diet gave them the green light to up sugar to the limit, any more sugar/starch and you would be eating flavored sugar cubes. Well modern snack chips and breakfast cereal, same difference, sweetened flavored starch.


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## barnbilder

HermitJohn said:


> Your body sees starch and sugar as one in the same. Eating whole wheat bread or a snickers bar, is very similar. Humans simply didnt evolve to eat high amount of carbohydrates. Before city states and farming, the only concentrated carbs people ate was some ripe fruit in season and some honey they stole from wild bee hives. They didnt go out into prairies and collect grass seed! Compare that to todays consumption of huge amounts of grain and grain derived products plus lot processed sugar. Also modern fruits have been bred for maximum sugar and minimum fiber. The wild fruits our ancestors ate had lot more fiber and lot less sugar. Compare sugars in a Granny Smith apple and a Fuji apple. Or a Kieffer pear to a Bartlett pear. Most wild apples are low sugar and probably make a grocery store Granny Smith taste sweet.
> 
> Again carbs simply dont tend to trigger the satiation signal to the human body for many/most people. Always room somehow for that extra piece pie with scoop ice cream, even though it distends your belly and makes you physically uncomfortable. However you try to eat that second steak or stick of butter or a second huge bowl of broccoli and you will gag. Your body will let you know in no uncertain terms that it doesnt want it. The human body didnt evolve to deal with high carb diet so you dont get the satiated feeling from eating such.
> 
> So guess what, those selling food have already figured this out and try to add as much sugar and starch as they can. Its in their interest to sell as much product as possible and the more sugar and starch, the more addictive, and the more they sell. Its also whole lot cheaper to manufacture than fat or protein. So this govt mandate of a low fat diet gave them the green light to up sugar to the limit, any more sugar/starch and you would be eating flavored sugar cubes. Well modern snack chips and breakfast cereal, same difference, sweetened flavored starch.


Native Americans in the northern stayed and Canada harvest manomin to this very day. As they have for millenia. As simple as pushing a raft through the water and poking it with sticks. You get literally boat loads of it with only primitive tools and minimal effort. Preschoolers will instinctively pull seed heads off of ripe grass as they walk through it. There is no carbohydrate difference between Granny Smith and fugi apples the same size. Granted any green skinned apple will have more fiber than sugar, but there is two gram difference in sugar between the two. Honey, Maple sap, milk, there are countless sugar sources that have always been available. We have eaten carbs for as long as we have had flat molars. Apples and other fruits have evolved to produce sugar so that humans and other frugivores would eat them and pass their seeds.

Refined sugar, easily available sugar, and cheap sugar are fairly recent things, and it hasn't worked well for a lot of us. If you track your calories, you will grow to be very careful with sugar. No matter if it is in a glass of milk, on a Twinkie, honey in tea it all can add calories very quickly.

I don't have diabetes. If I did, I am pretty sure I would track calories and pay a lot more attention to how many carbs I was eating especially in the form of sugar. At present I trade off fats and carbs while maintaining a constant calorie level and trying to get ballpark close on protein, with no effect on long term goals.


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## HermitJohn

barnbilder said:


> Native Americans in the northern stayed and Canada harvest manomin to this very day. As they have for millenia. As simple as pushing a raft through the water and poking it with sticks. You get literally boat loads of it with only primitive tools and minimal effort. Preschoolers will instinctively pull seed heads off of ripe grass as they walk through it. There is no carbohydrate difference between Granny Smith and fugi apples the same size. Granted any green skinned apple will have more fiber than sugar, but there is two gram difference in sugar between the two. Honey, Maple sap, milk, there are countless sugar sources that have always been available. We have eaten carbs for as long as we have had flat molars. Apples and other fruits have evolved to produce sugar so that humans and other frugivores would eat them and pass their seeds.
> 
> Refined sugar, easily available sugar, and cheap sugar are fairly recent things, and it hasn't worked well for a lot of us. If you track your calories, you will grow to be very careful with sugar. No matter if it is in a glass of milk, on a Twinkie, honey in tea it all can add calories very quickly.
> 
> I don't have diabetes. If I did, I am pretty sure I would track calories and pay a lot more attention to how many carbs I was eating especially in the form of sugar. At present I trade off fats and carbs while maintaining a constant calorie level and trying to get ballpark close on protein, with no effect on long term goals.


Your scientific study showing same carbohydrates in a Fuji and Granny Smith apples are the same? Or are you referring to some chart that just generalizes all apples or all of something as being same when it isnt. You know without actual testing! Or are you just pulling stuff out your black hole? Seriously more SUGAR, more carbs! Modern dessert apples have MORE SUGAR, they are bred for MORE SUGAR. Thats the way it works! Granny Smith apple didnt affect my blood sugar when I was super sensitive just off insulin, like any of the dessert apples did. I know the differences. I was down to basically living on raw salad and nuts for six months as my body regained some ability to deal with blood sugar. I was looking for whatever I could find that didnt jack around my blood sugar. Seriously was hard to believe how easily those salad and nut meals filled me. Wouldnt believe it considering how much greater quantities of carb heavy foods didnt.

And hey you want to play counting games instead of eating a diet where your body does it automatically for you, be my guest. I tend to find when I try to out think nature, I am just fooling myself. But you do as you wish, its your time being wasted. Remember to count how many breaths you take in an hour, every hour.... I got better things to do, I let my body control how much I eat and avoid carbs as much as possible so as not to confuse it.

Starchy grain has been around centuries, actually millenia . Starch is same as cane sugar far as your body is concerned, sometimes it will spike your blood sugar faster than spoonful table sugar.

Native Americans werent even in North America when humans started eating grain. So big whoop that Native Americans ate some wild grain. **** sapiens been around about 300,000 years, only have eaten farm raised grain few thousand years. Other human ancestors lot older than that. Humans were traditionally nomadic and didnt stay in one place until permanent cities and stable farming in areas surrounding those cities were established. All humans originated out of Africa, whole lot water under the proverbial bridge by time they dispersed around the globe and made it to the Americas.

Diabetes and obesity were rich man diseases for most part until post WWII and better life through chemistry crap. Meaning large surpluses of food available, higher incomes, and people both less physically active and eating far more carbohydrates.


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## barnbilder

I happened to be in the grocery store when I read your last post. I pulled up my tracking ap, scanned a granny smith medium and scanned a fuji medium. Two grams difference in sugar. Same total carbs, because fiber counts as a carb.


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## Ziptie

I think what everyone is trying to say here is that we are similar, but some people's bodies are tweaked a little different. Which for some people can have a big impact. 

I tried the low carb diet in Jan...things went very very bad for me to the point they thought I was having cardiac failure. So HermitJohn way does not work for me

Did the calorie thing-worked with a nutritionist/some kind of exorcise physiologists(something like that). She told me something was wrong go see a doctor-so barnbilder way does not work for me either

Neither of them are wrong, just not right for me and thats ok. I hope some might try their approach and have get luck. 

I think one point they both agree on it has to be a program that you will have to stick with for the rest of your life.


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## Terri

I think that our bodies can work like cars: some cars are designed to run well on unleaded and other cars are designed to run well on premium gas. 

Ziptie, I hope that have made that appointment with a doctor. Because life is too short to put up with a body that is mot running properly


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## barnbilder

My "way" can work for anyone, since it can be specifically tailored to each individual's minor metabolic differences, or what in most cases are personal preferences. Has worked for anyone that has ever done it properly.


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## Alice In TX/MO

I think you should write a book. 

Chapter One - barnbuilder’s way of eating

Chapters Two through Ten - how to tweak barnbuilder’s way of eating for various metabolic conditions


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## painterswife

It has not worked for me. I can't deal with the hunger of only counting calories. I have to lower carbs and raise fat. Otherwise I have a cravings that I can't handle and health problems from to many carbs.

Your sweeping statements work for some not everyone.


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## HermitJohn

barnbilder said:


> I happened to be in the grocery store when I read your last post. I pulled up my tracking ap, scanned a granny smith medium and scanned a fuji medium. Two grams difference in sugar. Same total carbs, because fiber counts as a carb.


Fiber is NOT a dietary carb, fiber is NOT digestible by the human body. Thats like saying wood pulp is a carb and yea there used to be some diet bread with actual wood fiber in it (maybe still is?). So it has been used as food additive/ingredient. But you know the reason they added the wood fiber? Because its not digestable thus added no carbs to the content of the bread. There are no calories to be gained from consuming it. Its non-digestible filler material. But yet you put it in a bomb calorimeter and sure there is definitely calories of energy there.


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## Alice In TX/MO

Bomb?


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## barnbilder

HermitJohn said:


> Fiber is NOT a dietary carb, fiber is NOT digestible by the human body. Thats like saying wood pulp is a carb and yea there used to be some diet bread with actual wood fiber in it (maybe still is?). So it has been used as food additive/ingredient. But you know the reason they added the wood fiber? Because its not digestable thus added no carbs to the content of the bread. There are no calories to be gained from consuming it. Its non-digestible filler material. But yet you put it in a bomb calorimeter and sure there is definitely calories of energy there.


Yep. And there is exactly 8 calories of difference in sugar energy between Granny Smiths and fugis. Not enough to make or break anybody.


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## barnbilder

I 


Alice In TX/MO said:


> I think you should write a book.
> 
> Chapter One - barnbuilder’s way of eating
> 
> Chapters Two through Ten - how to tweak barnbuilder’s way of eating for various metabolic conditions


I don't really think you understand how simple it is to follow the same general plan that millions of successful weight losers and gainers have followed. Scared of carbs, you don't have to eat them. Ok with carbs but don't like specifically sugar carbs, my plan works perfectly for that. Want to totally eliminate carbs and get all your energy from fat and protein, well it can do that too. Perfectly and exactly, every time it is used. But there is effort involved, honestly not very much, and that scares most people.


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## Alice In TX/MO

I do understand, but 50% of the population is of below average intelligence, and there is money to be made by writing diet books. 

You seem to enjoy writing about food and your way of eating. Make money!!


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## barnbilder

painterswife said:


> It has not worked for me. I can't deal with the hunger of only counting calories. I have to lower carbs and raise fat. Otherwise I have a cravings that I can't handle and health problems from to many carbs.
> 
> Your sweeping statements work for some not everyone.


I don't only count calories. I count fat calories, carb calories, and protein calories. I can tailor and adjust as needed for my own personal needs or preferences. I have records to go by, all really easy to get to, I can look at auto populated graphics with pie charts showing me exactly how many carbs I have consumed for the last year. I can look at weight trends, compare loss and gain with different calorie levels, different carb to fat ratios with a simple click. All I have to do is input data.


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> I don't only count calories. I count fat calories, carb calories, and protein calories. I can tailor and adjust as needed for my own personal needs or preferences. I have records to go by, all really easy to get to, I can look at auto populated graphics with pie charts showing me exactly how many carbs I have consumed for the last year. I can look at weight trends, compare loss and gain with different calorie levels, different carb to fat ratios with a simple click. All I have to do is input data.


There you go swerving again.


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## barnbilder

Alice In TX/MO said:


> I do understand, but 50% of the population is of below average intelligence, and there is money to be made by writing diet books.
> 
> You seem to enjoy writing about food and your way of eating. Make money!!


Yes, and that is really sad. There are so many lost people. The tools they need don't cost a dime and they could have the body fat level that they desire, yet they waste money on fancy meal plans, books, and waste hours on YouTube looking for anyone that will tell them that there is an easier way.


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## barnbilder

painterswife said:


> There you go swerving again.


No swerving. You can do all those things. For the average human being there will be absolutely no extra fat loss from consuming more or less carbs or fats while staying in an overall calorie defecit, but if it makes them happy, go for it. I don't even care about anything beyond total calories and protein per day, but all of the other information is at my fingertips if I need it.


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> No swerving. You can do all those things. For the average human being there will be absolutely no extra fat loss from consuming more or less carbs or fats while staying in an overall calorie defecit, but if it makes them happy, go for it. I don't even care about anything beyond total calories and protein per day, but all of the other information is at my fingertips if I need it.


Guess what. I do track my fat, protien and carbs. Calories are tracked because the app does that. I also track my blood sugar and blood pressure.

The difference is I don't use it to maintain a caloric deficit. I do it to understand when I am satiated, my blood sugar is good, my blood pressure is good and what the different foods do to my health and my daily happiness.

You do care enough to preach to the rest of us trying to learn about our health that your way is the way and every one can do it. We'll guess what you are wrong. The diet business proves you wrong. The millions of people that fail just counting calories prove you wrong. Your premise of only counting calories does not work for millions even billions of people. They want a way of eating that enables them not to count calories, feel satiated and healthy because of what the right food is doing to make that possible.


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## barnbilder

I don't count calories. I track macros. Sounds like you do too. So we agree that you can track macros, and tailor a diet plan that meets your specific metabolic needs, and achieve fitness goals?


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> I don't count calories. I track macros. Sounds like you do too. So we agree that you can track macros, and tailor a diet plan that meets your specific metabolic needs, and achieve fitness goals?


Tracking macros is a huge difference than tracking calories as you go on about. The difference is I don't only track macros. I also use blood sugar as a way to know what certain foods do to me. Hermit John also does this. I track macros and note what levels of fat and protein keep me satiated and hold down or eliminate cravings. My goal is not to be hungry and to be eating foods that keep my mind clear and my body healthy. 

You keep swerving from your tired old line that tracking calories and eating a deficit is the only way.


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## barnbilder

I've never counted calories. Don't imagine it would work out very well for anyone that did. I have a metabolic condition, so I track macros. But calories do matter. If I get too many calories from my macros, it will cause me to gain body fat. If I pay attention to the calories that are coming from my macros, I can reach fitness goals. If I track macros, I am, by default, tracking calories, so it is pretty easy to see the effects of calories.


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> I've never counted calories[/B]. Don't imagine it would work out very well for anyone that did. I have a metabolic condition, so I track macros. But calories do matter. *If I get too many calories from my macros*, it will cause me to gain body fat. If I pay attention to the calories that are coming from my macros, I can reach fitness goals. If I track macros, I am, by default, tracking calories, so it is pretty easy to see the effects of calories.


You must be getting dizzy.


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## barnbilder

Nope. No dizziness here. Had adequate calories from the right macros.


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## painterswife

Yeah, now you are using macros when earlier in this thread is what tracking calories. You swerve when ever you get called on your calorie restriction is the only way.


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## Alice In TX/MO

I am totally dizzy.


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## barnbilder

painterswife said:


> Yeah, now you are using macros when earlier in this thread is what tracking calories. You swerve when ever you get called on your calorie restriction is the only way.


Calorie restriction is the only way to burn fat. You can't eat at a calorie surplus and burn fat. If you can't digest calories from certain foods, then they wouldn't count towards your calorie intake. There are calories in some artificial sweeteners, they may not be able to be converted into something your body can utilize, so they don't count towards your overall intake. Some people count all carbs, even those from sugar alcohols. I don't, I go with nutritional labeling, and don't count calories that my body can't tun into fat or use for energy. Calorie restriction can be achieved by eating less, or eating the same and doing more physical activity. Either way, you are burning more calories than you are eating, and they come from fat and muscle.


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## barnbilder

But I have always used macros. Macros=calories. Simply counting calories is destined for failure. Things like satiety affect diet adherence. If you don't adhere to the calorie restriction, you will not lose weight. If you don't adhere to the calorie surplus, you will not gain weight. If you eat at a calorie surplus with the wrong macros, you will likely not gain the type of weight you want, if you eat at a calorie deficit with the wrong macros, you might lose an alarming amount of muscle along with whatever fat you lose. Macros are important. To the majority of people, it matters very little what their fat to carb ratio is. For the majority of people that are trying to lose fat, carbs are not the enemy, calories are the enemy. If the majority of people eat too much fat they will gain weight, the same as they will gain weight with too many carbs.

Not eating as many calories as you would like is hard. Burning the extra calories needed to lose body fat without craving even more food than regularly consumed is even harder. You will most likely be hungry during any attempt at body fat loss. This is why people get angry when you suggest that there is no list of food that they can eat in any quantity they desire and no magical exercise video they can watch that will shed body fat for them. It is hard and it is unpleasant, that's why everybody doesn't do it. Breaking down the caloric deficit necessary for sustained weight loss into macro tracking makes it slightly more bearable, definitely makes it more sustainable and allows for custom tailoring for specific metabolic needs. 

Adherence is the key, and if things like satiety aren't allowed for, a diet will likely not be sustainable. Fat and protein are very important to satiety. They are important to a whole host of body functions as well. Fat is specifically important to normal hormone production. This is why it is important to eat fat. But fat contains a lot of calories. 

For some people, the claim is made that they get so satiated from fat that their bodies automatically know not to take another bite. That must be really nice. I am very careful with fat, because through tracking, I know how extremely calorically dense it is, and I know that my body doesn't really have any idea that it has eaten too much until long after the deed is done, if ever. The five hundred calorie salad comes to mind. I can eat nothing but salads and gain weight like a state fair pig, if I don't mind the dressing. Calories matter and fat has nine of them per gram, and a gram of fat is not very large.


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## Terri

Barnbilder, I think that I have identified one point of confusion. HAve you been using the word macro when you mean calories and sometimes vice versa? Because the two terms are not entirely the same. "Macronutrients" are the things your body needs in large quantities, while "calorie" is a unit of energy.

Which would be why it confuses people when you first say that you ONLY count macros but later say that you MUST count calories to lose weight

I am, by the way, one of those people who cannot overeat on fat. It is not all a bed of roses: when I was a kid I had to eat the fatty pieces of meat that my folks gave me, but the thought of eating one more bite of fat made me nauseous, and so there was scolding and repercussions that went on all the time I was growing up. My parents believed in kids clearing their plates

I really like fat, I just cannot eat too much of it. The handful of chips I ate at lunch today along with the piece of chicken went down JUST fine! But that was enough for me.

It has always been sweets that I crave, and that I cannot eat much of because of my diabetes


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## barnbilder

This is what I do. I measure my height. Then I look on a chart for what a healthy weight for that height is. I know that this is just an estimate, I have no idea what I would look like at a healthy weight according to the chart, and I know that a healthy weight for me personally might be different than what the chart says, but I don't care because I know that this is ballpark stuff and subject to tweaking later. So I take that number, my ideal healthy weight and I remember it. I will need it later. 

Then I find a calorie calculator. I fill in all of the data, and I choose "sedentary"for an activity level because even though I'm active, I don't run marathons or anything, and I want to lose weight, so If I choose sedentary I will still be in a caloric deficit that I need if I want to lose body fat. Then when the calculator gives me a number I take that number, with a grain of salt because I know everybody's metabolism and activity level is different, and start breaking down my macros.

I use my assumed ideal body weight, and a formula that I feel comfortable with that fits my goals to calculate my protein macros. When I subtract my protein calories from my total calories, the number I have left is what I have left to work with for carbs and fats, which I divide up according to my specific dietary concerns, remembering that fats have 9 calories per gram, and carbs 4. Fortunately my handy app remembers this for me, and it also subtracts calories from certain carbs that aren't digestible by humans.

Now the hard part. I scan every prepackaged snack's bar code and log it into my diary on my app. I weigh every part of every meal. I complain about it until I realize that my app can also double as a recipe book and a shopping list, and all my recipes will come out perfect every time, once they are logged in. I do this for a few weeks. In the beginning, I know I won't get it right. I try to hit my calories first, my protein second, and because I don't have diabetes and have an intact gallbladder, I don't get very concerned about fats and carbs, I leave that more to taste, but I log it all in. 

During this time I monitor my weight, with the same scale and at the same time every day, usually first thing in the morning after emptying bladder and wearing the same clothes each time. I log it. I am looking at long term trends. I don't get worked up when it goes up when I goof and eat a lot of salty or carb heavy foods, because I know that is just water. If I were female, I would know not to worry during certain hormone cycles that affect water retention. I look for an overall trend that indicates weight loss or gain, and I check my assumptions against mirror observations, made naked as possible, involving pinching up fat rolls, and pictures are real helpful. I'm looking for a healthy sustainable weight loss, knowing that too much may not be sustainable, particularly when body fat reserves get lower, and that too little will take a very long time to reach goals. I personally shoot for 2 pounds a month, If I had more to lose I might do 4 pounds a month. I know that I took decades to gain the extra body fat that I have, so I don't expect it to go away overnight. I try to keep my physical activity level constant during this time. Later, I can add a few calories during periods of higher activity, or not, depending on how I feel or my body composition at that time. But right now it is about checking my math against the actual working model.

Once I get adept at logging and tracking, and get dialed in on a sustainable loss rate, I set back and enjoy the miserable ride, not being able to eat as much as I might wish, but knowing that I'm only eating a little less than I need. After a while, once I am not worried about establishing a sustainable loss rate using scale data, I try whenever possible to live like a normal human being, practicing "memories over macros". I don't refuse to eat food at a place serving food that I'll never have a chance to eat again, if a kid has a birthday party I eat the darned cake. If a picnic or office party comes up I don't act like a freak eating only pickles or dragging along my gram scale. Because I know that one meal is not going to matter if I stick to the grindstone religiously throughout the surrounding weeks. If these events start stacking up, I try to eat intuitively, choosing low calorie foods and proper portions. But I don't act like a freak, because if I act like a freak, I might subconsciously feel like a freak, and that could cause mental processes that could later lead to adherence issues.

Then, after desired weight loss is achieved, I dial up the calories to either eat at a maintenance level with no net loss or gain, or perhaps I might want to bulk, and eat above maintenance while doing resistance exerciser to built muscle, understanding that I will gain some fat too, that will later need to be cut off. Protein levels will likely stay constant, and barring any metabolic situations most people will leave their fat alone, so the only macro that changes is the carbs. If you want to bulk, add some carbs so that you will have energy to work out. So carbs are added or taken away to achieve fitness goals. That is why doctors (who actually don't spend that much time studying nutrition) are not entirely wrong when they say "just cut back on carbs". That is what most people do, and it works splendidly, but it is not because carbs are bad, it is because of all the macros, that is the one that is easiest to manipulate up and down. Doctors often don't articulate that to the level that a dietician or even a fitness coach might. 

During this whole process, I realize that goals change, and the more goals are reached, and the easier it gets each time, the loftier new goals will be set. We are all on a fitness journey. It can be a good one or a bad one.

I hope that this clears up any misconceptions about what "I" do, (I'm far from alone), and why I throw around calorie and macro almost interchangeably. Because they are almost interchangeable. They are expressed as a unit of weight. I can't set my macros at "x" grams, because different macros have different energy outputs. That is why I set my calories at "x" and then adjust macros to yield that energy output. The calorie is the only unit of food energy measurement we have right now. It will likely be around for quite some time. Macros are just types of major nutrients and they have differing energy levels. I applaud any effort to better understand the energy output of specific macronutrients. I reject any effort to minimize the importance of recognizing energy output in food as the driving force in attaining diet goals.


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## painterswife

You count calories. You just use macros to do it.

I use macros. I use them to balance my hunger and that helps me to balance my weight. I eat high in fat, medium protein and low in carbs. If I eat that way and keep the majority of my carbs in veggies. That makes me feel healthier and naturally curbs my hunger. That means I don't overeat. As soon as I increase my carbs or even my protein, I get lethargic and my brain becomes foggy even if I am eating the same calories. I also get cravings for carbs. Food items with wheat flour and simple sugars. It is a vicious cycle. I also get more pain in my joints and my muscles if I do that. The more sugar I eat, the more sugar I want. I could, in fact, eat all my calories in sugar and never be full. That is why counting calories does not work for me. It does not control the reason I overeat.

I don't count calories. If I am eating high fat, I don't overeat. My body is getting what it wants and I am seldom hungry and the craving nosedive. The goal is to be healthy and to have my body regulate itself. There is also the hormone cycle from leptin and adiponectin and insulin as well as other hormones. Foods affect these and exacerbate the cravings and hunger cycle.

Research by doctors that understand that the calorie is not the end all in weight balance is changing what we know of how our bodies work.


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## Terri

I count carb, fat, and protein exchanges, and a carb exchange is 15 grams. I can eyeball the fat and protein exchanges but the carbs in, say, a teaspoon of sugar is a different size than the carbs in an apple so I cannot eyeball carbs

I also make sure that I eat protein 2 times a day, because my body runs at a reasonably steady state if I do. 

There are different paths to the same goal


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## Alice In TX/MO

I don’t have an engineer or accountant personality. I can’t/won’t do all that.

It’s amazing and admirable that you have found a system that works well for you.


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## Danaus29

barnbilder said:


> I count calories. Have for several years now. It's incredibly easy.
> 
> It comes down to choices. Tracking calories is my choice.





barnbilder said:


> I don't only count calories. I count fat calories, carb calories, and protein calories.





barnbilder said:


> I don't count calories. I track macros.


Just pointing out the inconsistencies in your statements. How can you coach people on how to properly maintain their diet when you keep wavering on what you track?

Any method of dieting seems to require months of tracking intake and recording your body's response. Simply counting calories cannot ever be a substitute for watching your intake and tracking how your body responds to certain foods. In the end it really works out to one simple concept, in order to lose weight and maintain that weight you need to change your diet. But life throws you curves. As people age their body and metabolism changes. You get hit with a serious illness and your metabolism changes. There is not and can never be a "one size fits all" diet. Even your own diet needs to be tweaked occasionally. You cannot simply "diet", you have to change your way of eating. What worked 10 or even 5 years ago may not work now. So it is a constant work in progress. No one is going to stick to a diet that leaves them feeling sick or hungry all the time. One person's feast may be another's poison.

I know I cannot ever eat cereal and milk. Not Special K, not Grapenuts. Oatmeal makes me queasy and hungry. However, I can eat Cream of Wheat with walnuts or bacon and eggs and feel satisfied for hours. 

Many of these discussions are centered around what people can or cannot eat to maintain their health and weight. When someone chimes in that you absolutely must count calories it does not help those that are still trying to figure out what foods do and don't work for their own individual body.


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## kinderfeld

That's one of the many nice things about the WFPB diet. Don't have to worry about this crap.


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## painterswife

kinderfeld said:


> That's one of the many nice things about the WFPB diet. Don't have to worry about this crap.


Some can't eat that way, just like some can't eat LCHF.


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## barnbilder

Calories matter. Lack thereof are what creates weight loss. Matters not if fat makes you more satisfied and you eat less, the fact that you are consuming less units of energy in your food is what makes you lose body fat. If you indeed lose body fat on a diet plan, you did so by either consuming less units of energy, or using more units of that energy than you were eating. Whether you track calories by tracking macros, as I do, or rely on your body's ability to know when you have reached that magical number, the same thing is happening. Tracking calories could allow a person to eat all of their calories in sugar, or extra virgin olive oil. Probably wouldn't be enjoyable, and therefore not sustainable. But, barring any life threatening metabolic ramifications for doing so, if one ate less calories than one was burning, in either one, that person would lose body fat. Probably lose a lot of muscle with it and get really sick in the process, but body fat would be lost.

Macros contain calories. Calories are made up of macros. The two are intertwined. The amount of energy in the food is what determines how much you should be eating to attain certain goals. If you track macros, you are by default counting calories. If you are in a caloric deficit, and you can maintain that deficit, you will lose body fat. What people are being blinded by here, is that some are discussing different ways of maintaining that deficit. That there needs to be a deficit to achieve reduction in body fat composition is not something that is open for debate, based on all known science. But the different ways people have for maintaining that deficit are quite variable from person to person. 

Most of the people that track macros find that once they start doing so, they don't have as many food hangups as they previously thought. Once they can see it they realize that it wasn't a particular food type that was making them feel a certain way, it was a portion problem or a food that contained more or less of something than they were aware. Putting it in raw numbers breaks it down for easy analysis. In many cases, carbs aren't bad because of an inherant reason, it is just that they preclude proper protein or fat consumption. Your body can crave these things, and no amount of carbs will satisfy that craving. But that doesn't make carbs inherently bad. It would be easy to draw that conclusion however. 

A lot of these threads seem to focus on carbs, and how the evil food companies are killing us with carbs. Yes carbs are cheap. Protein is expensive. It usually isn't as much an issue that food has too many carbs as it is an issue that food has too little protein. A lot of protein comes bundled with either fat or carbs. Adding protein usually means adding one or the other along with it. This bumps calories up. In order to hit calories and protein levels, it is often necessary to eliminate foods that are pure carb foods, like table sugar. This doesn't mean that pure table sugar is bad, it is just not a very good choice in any real quantity. Beans would be a better choice, they have some protein along with their carbs. Eggs have protein along with their fat. Meat the same way, a lot of dairy has fat and protein, milk has carbs too, nuts have both, and so on. So it's a fine balancing act, and by default it does a lot of the same things that you see discussed here, and it is all really easy to understand if you track macros.


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## painterswife

"Most of the people that track macros find that once they start doing so, they don't have as many food hangups as they previously thought. *Once they can see it they realize that it wasn't a particular food type that was making them feel a certain way, it was a portion problem or a food that contained more or less of something than they were aware*. Putting it in raw numbers breaks it down for easy analysis. In many cases, carbs aren't bad because of an inherant reason, it is just that they preclude proper protein or fat consumption. Your body can crave these things, and no amount of carbs will satisfy that craving. But that doesn't make carbs inherently bad. It would be easy to draw that conclusion however. "

You are wrong. What you are eating is way more important than the calories they provide. It is essential for your health. It can be essential to your satiation. Do you know that your body does not need carbs? It only needs fat and protein. Your body will use those two things to make ketones for energy.


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## Danaus29

It matters to me if fat makes me feel satisfied longer. I get headaches and feel like throwing up when my stomach feels empty. When my stomach starts hurting I have waited too long to eat. If I don't eat I get sick. Simply counting calories does not make me feel satisfied. Simply counting calories despite how your stomach feels will never work. When the choice is eat or get sick, you eat, sometimes to the point of overeating. That is why food that makes you feel full longer is so important. In many cases a high or medium carb diet makes a person feel hungry and not satisfied. When you don't feel satisfied you get irritable, despite the number of calories you consumed earlier. If a person can structure a diet that satisfies them and allows them to lose weight by changing the types of food they eat then that works for that person. By insisting calories are all that matters you push aside any discussion others are having about foods that let them feel satisfied. Most people feel hunger pangs, some feel them very intensely. Please allow those of us that feel hunger pangs to discuss what helps us not feel hunger pangs without interjection about counting calories. Count, plot, graph and track all you want. None of that helps at all when you are walking around looking for a taco truck to raid because your stomach hurts and you feel weak.


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## barnbilder

If you are looking for a taco truck to raid at a particular calorie level, then it is definitely worthwhile looking at where those calories are coming from. But you most likely still have some hunger to deal with, if you are to maintain a deficit, which is necessary for fat loss. 

There are definitely tricks for that that do warrant discussion. Sugar free gum, and diet soda being two that work well for me. Salads can work, lots of leafy greens and vegetables, mostly water and a very few carb calories, and you can even get a tiny bit of protein with the right vegetable. Carefully examining the previous meal to determine why it let you down is good too. Easy to do when you track it.


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## barnbilder

Alice In TX/MO said:


> I don’t have an engineer or accountant personality. I can’t/won’t do all that.
> 
> It’s amazing and admirable that you have found a system that works well for you.


What is odd is that neither do I. I have totally an agrarian background. It clicked one day. I finally asked a guy I went to school with, same age as me, the guy bikes, runs marathons, extremely fit. I got tired of asking people that were fat and perpetually on a diet for fitness advice. Though they might have a lot of experience, the information might not be the greatest, like asking someone on their eighth spouse for relationship advice, or a homeless guy for accounting advice. Might get great advice that way, but anyway, I specifically asked thisbuff friend about workout stuff. That is when I learned about tracking. Didn't do it of course but learned about it. But what finally clicked, is here I am, and I wouldn't dream of giving my laying hens or a show hog a feed that didn't have the right protein and fat content, and I am eating stuff that is natural, low carb, whatever, with no real idea how much and what percentage of what is in it. And I'm planning on being around longer than my laying hens, show hogs or whatever, so I figured why shouldn't I be as concerned about what I'm feeding me as what I am feeding my livestock?


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## 101pigs

Terri said:


> "For different people, food can take between 8 and 80 hours to travel from dinner plate to toilet bowl".
> 
> I love that statement.


My health teacher in college would say ( you are what you eat ).


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## Danaus29

Artificial sweeteners and my stomach don't play well together. I get very sick from artificial sweeteners. 



barnbilder said:


> If you are looking for a taco truck to raid at a particular calorie level, then it is definitely worthwhile looking at where those calories are coming from.


The part above is what most of us are talking about, keeping track of what we eat and how it makes us feel. To simply reduce calories without having an idea of what we can and cannot tolerate is putting the cart before the horse. Some people absolutely cannot simply reduce calories. They have to know what is filling and what leaves them starving an hour later. Eating filling meals may naturally cause a person to reduce their calorie intake while eating junk may leave them feeling like they have not eaten for a week. To those people the source of their caloric intake is extremely important. Knowing what they can eat is more important and more sustaining than simply reducing calories.


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## barnbilder

Too steep of a calorie deficit can cause the exact symptoms that have been described above, as well. I like to go around -300 to -500. Some people don't have much luck counting calories because they try to count away too many too quick. 

If you gained a pound a week that would be +50 pounds a year. Very few people gain 50 pounds in a year. More like an extra five pounds a year over ten years. It's usually barely noticeable. Granted you don't want to take 10 years to shed it, but if you did, it would probably be barely noticeable in terms of brain fog, hunger pangs, and urges. You can get away with a steeper deficit early in a weight loss journey, but if you get closer to the end, that is going to be misery. Losing a couple pounds a month at that point is a lot more bearable than trying to go steeper.

I count calories, by tracking macros, because while I want to make sure I am not getting too many, I also want to be sure I'm getting enough.


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> Too steep of a calorie deficit can cause the exact symptoms that have been described above, as well. I like to go around -300 to -500. Some people don't have much luck counting calories because they try to count away too many too quick.
> 
> If you gained a pound a week that would be +50 pounds a year. Very few people gain 50 pounds in a year. More like an extra five pounds a year over ten years. It's usually barely noticeable. Granted you don't want to take 10 years to shed it, but if you did, it would probably be barely noticeable in terms of brain fog, hunger pangs, and urges. You can get away with a steeper deficit early in a weight loss journey, but if you get closer to the end, that is going to be misery. Losing a couple pounds a month at that point is a lot more bearable than trying to go steeper.
> 
> I count calories, by tracking macros, because while I want to make sure I am not getting too many, I also want to be sure I'm getting enough.


I see a lot of supposition in that post. Luckily I have plain old experience. Your supposition is wrong for me.


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## Danaus29

Many women gain 50 pounds in less than a year. Happens quite often in pregnancy, and that isn't counting baby weight. I gained 70 pounds with the second (despite 8 months of throwing up almost daily). She weighted less than 7 lbs. I never did get back to the pre-baby weight.

Also, certain medications can cause that much of a weight gain in a very short time. It takes a long time to lose that weight.

Quick weight loss is never easy or very good for your health. I know many people lose a lot of weight after weight loss surgery but to keep that weight off they absolutely must learn to change their diet. That diet change is a long-term solution and if that person does not find a proper diet to suit their needs and keep their stomach satisfied they will never be able to keep the weight off. It's not a simple matter of calorie reduction. It's all about trying to find a diet that keeps them from feeling like they are starving but allows them to lose weight and keep the weight off. No one is going to stick long-term to any diet which gives them brain fog or feeling like they are starving.

When I was pregnant with my first child I was constantly hungry but my doctor felt I gained too much weight. He put me on a strict diet consisting of food I couldn't stand and left me ravenously hungry. That diet lasted a week before I went back to whatever filled my stomach and tasted good. I gained only 35 pounds and was wearing my pre-baby jeans within 6 weeks. 

The point is, if it doesn't taste good and keep you feeling good you simply are not going to stick to a diet long-term.


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## DisasterCupcake

light rain said:


> What do think of the premise that if you cook a potato and then refrigerate it and then use it in potato salad the cooling changes the starch in it to less digestible. Supposedly this will not boost the bs the way a cooked and then eaten potato will.





HermitJohn said:


> I have no idea on the pre-cooked cold potato having less available starch. I guess I am just not curious enough to try it though love to hear of others experiments. I am to where I much rather have an extra piece raw fruit than potatoes or grain.


It's true. White Idaho potatoes, cooked and cooled again creates a kind of resistant starch that doesn't JUST prevent those carbs from becoming calories in your gut, but also feeds your microbiome and acts like a sponge for things like bile acid (cholesterol), LPS's (toxins), and all the waste your liver excretes into the intestinal lumen to be evacuated but would otherwise be resorbed by the intestines.
The Potatoe Diet is not well known, but it is often used by those desperate for weight loss, and is infrequently recommended because it's a very boring diet, ie, difficult to adhere to. Basically, you eat nothing but cooked-and-cooled potatoes 5 days a week. AND, the more the potatoes are cooked and cooled, the more resistant starch is formed. If you cook all your potatoes at the start, warming and cooling all of it for each meal, you're getting a wollop of resistant starch by day 5.


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## HermitJohn

barnbilder said:


> Matters not if fat makes you more satisfied and you eat less, the fact that you are consuming less units of energy in your food is what makes you lose body fat. If you indeed lose body fat on a diet plan, you did so by either consuming less units of energy, or using more units of that energy than you were eating. .


If your body aint happy, you aint gonna be happy. Just facts of life. If you have to continually fight your own body's desire to EAT cause you just gotta have your Fruity Pebbles and chocolate cake, then thats going to be a miserable existance. Takes far fewer calories of FAT to satisfy your body than carbs. Your body is satiated far sooner and your belly stays full far longer, with a high fat diet than a high carb diet. But hey if you are sadomasochistic and enjoy pain and torturing yourself, hey go for it. There are people that like having a life partner that nags all the time, or guess they do, I dont. I prefer easy way of just minimalizing my intake of carbs and not fighting my own body or making my life's goal to keep track of all this trivia to the n-th degree.


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## HermitJohn

DisasterCupcake said:


> It's true. White Idaho potatoes, cooked and cooled again creates a kind of resistant starch that doesn't JUST prevent those carbs from becoming calories in your gut, but also feeds your microbiome and acts like a sponge for things like bile acid (cholesterol), LPS's (toxins), and all the waste your liver excretes into the intestinal lumen to be evacuated but would otherwise be resorbed by the intestines.
> The Potatoe Diet is not well known, but it is often used by those desperate for weight loss, and is infrequently recommended because it's a very boring diet, ie, difficult to adhere to. Basically, you eat nothing but cooked-and-cooled potatoes 5 days a week. AND, the more the potatoes are cooked and cooled, the more resistant starch is formed. If you cook all your potatoes at the start, warming and cooling all of it for each meal, you're getting a wollop of resistant starch by day 5.


Its been while since I read about this. but doesnt it end up that you have to eat cooked cold potatoes? That if you reheat them and eat them hot, you get the regular starch back? Yea imagine a cold cooked potato tastes better than a raw one, but still.... And how does this resistant starch interact with fat. I mean you dont get to just eat potato chips and cold french fries.... LOL Usually fat and concentrated starch/sugar together not healthy combo.


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## HermitJohn

Might also mention that freak of nature we all have observed at potlucks and such. That guy that can eat piles of dessert and skinny as a rail. Some people do just have very fast metabolisms. I'd still say a high carb diet not healthy for anybody but some get away with it and short of following a large group of these people over their lifetime to see if they die earlier or have other health problems, no real way to know how it affects them. I will say animals with super fast metabolisms tend not to live as long but again maybe other genetic reasons. And metabolisms change, lot people have metabolism slowdown by mid life.

Meaningful research with large sample people over long period time tends to be very expensive. Unless somebody is thinking to make a boatload money off it one way or another, it tends not to happen.


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## DisasterCupcake

HermitJohn said:


> Its been while since I read about this. but doesnt it end up that you have to eat cooked cold potatoes? That if you reheat them and eat them hot, you get the regular starch back? Yea imagine a cold cooked potato tastes better than a raw one, but still.... And how does this resistant starch interact with fat. I mean you dont get to just eat potato chips and cold french fries.... LOL Usually fat and concentrated starch/sugar together not healthy combo.


Like I said, it's not commonly employed because it's a Boring diet. No butter. No sour cream. You can, however, eat your potatoes warm if you want. The resistant starch does not revert.
However, for those adhering to the diet, I presume they'd take advantage of every heating/cooling oppourtunity and just eat cold potatoes


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## GTX63

https://www.livestrong.com/article/317493-cold-cooked-potatoes-for-weight-loss/


----------



## light rain

DisasterCupcake said:


> Like I said, it's not commonly employed because it's a Boring diet. No butter. No sour cream. You can, however, eat your potatoes warm if you want. The resistant starch does not revert.
> However, for those adhering to the diet, I presume they'd take advantage of every heating/cooling oppourtunity and just eat cold potatoes


Why does it have to be all or nothing? How about a large amt. of low carb vegetables, the heated & cooled potatoes, a little protein, either plant or fish and a small amt. of fresh or frozen fruit?

Potatoes are my favorite food but I would not want to eat potatoes exclusively. While providing vit c there are a lot of nutritional necessities they don't provide.

* Thanks DC for teaching me that the more they heat and cool the more resistant the starch becomes! Potato salad will definitely be part of our meal tomorrow!


----------



## HermitJohn

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cooling-resistant-starch#section3

I can tell you raw potato wont budge your blood sugar, cause I tried it way back, had read about it and still had some edible potatoes around from before my diabetes diagnosis. Shriveled a bit but still edible. Interesting but not practical as they are not very palatable unless you are starving and thats only thing available. I am doubting some of these other things cooked and cooled would be that resistant.... Try it in small amount and get your glucose meter ready. It may help non-diabetics that dont want to give up starchy foods but want to lower carb intake. Be very careful if you are diabetic.


----------



## DisasterCupcake

barnbilder said:


> Calories matter. Lack thereof are what creates weight loss. Matters not if fat makes you more satisfied and you eat less, the fact that you are consuming less units of energy in your food is what makes you lose body fat. If you indeed lose body fat on a diet plan, you did so by either consuming less units of energy, or using more units of that energy than you were eating. Whether you track calories by tracking macros, as I do, or rely on your body's ability to know when you have reached that magical number, the same thing is happening.


While this seems like it would be obvious and logical at the outset, it's not actually been proven to be true in the RW.
Americans have been told to consume less calories, and to cut out cholesterol, saturated fat, and even fat in general for decades. And they have complied. The resulting trend is a steady rise in obesity. Still, epidemiological data is just a trend; no real mechanism or causative factors can be teased out.
Feeding trials are filled with massive amounts of information. Factors that were never controlled for in the past are now being brought up as key variables. Such as, timing and quality of sleep, the EMF environment, your gut microbiome, the specific wavelengths of light exposure, timing of meals, whether or not you have an infection, whether or not you're exposed to mold, antibiotic exposure, etc etc etc.




painterswife said:


> What you are eating is way more important than the calories they provide. It is essential for your health. It can be essential to your satiation. Do you know that your body does not need carbs? It only needs fat and protein. Your body will use those two things to make ketones for energy.


This is an essential point; 2k calories of rice does not effect the human organism in the same way as 2k cal of vegetables. Or 2k cal of meat. Heck, it doesn't effect the same _person_ the same way in different environments.
Further, it's becoming more well known that a high-carb, _and_ high-fat diet produces compounded metabolic stress.



Danaus29 said:


> Quick weight loss is never easy or very good for your health.


I completely disagree.
I would posit that quick weight loss _can_ be a very good sign of *health*. The human body is an amazing, adaptable and malleable organism. Our physiology is possibly the most dynamic of any species; certainly humans exist and thrive in more diverse climates in more diverse diets and lifeways than any other single species I can think of.
In self-experimentation, I've been able to maintain a gain of about 20lbs. This seems to a limit for me; no matter how much I eat, I won't put on more than 20. This was experimentation involving high fat _and_ high carb.
It took 3 months to gain that. I lost it in a month. It was not difficult to lose.
We don't know whether metabolic flexibility is a long term boon (but it is suspected). There are lots of newer trials coming out that suggest very good things via longevity markers.


----------



## barnbilder

HermitJohn said:


> If your body aint happy, you aint gonna be happy. Just facts of life. If you have to continually fight your own body's desire to EAT cause you just gotta have your Fruity Pebbles and chocolate cake, then thats going to be a miserable existance. Takes far fewer calories of FAT to satisfy your body than carbs. Your body is satiated far sooner and your belly stays full far longer, with a high fat diet than a high carb diet. But hey if you are sadomasochistic and enjoy pain and torturing yourself, hey go for it. There are people that like having a life partner that nags all the time, or guess they do, I dont. I prefer easy way of just minimalizing my intake of carbs and not fighting my own body or making my life's goal to keep track of all this trivia to the n-th degree.


I've looked at some of the recipes you have posted up on here. You are not minimizing your intake of carbs. You are just being picky about what carbs you eat. And there is nothing wrong with that.


----------



## HermitJohn

barnbilder said:


> I've looked at some of the recipes you have posted up on here. You are not minimizing your intake of carbs. You are just being picky about what carbs you eat. And there is nothing wrong with that.


Recipes I posted when? As I have mentioned multiple times, I ate a heavy grain based diet much of my life. THAT IS WHAT GAVE ME DIABETES! My diet the past three or four years, whatever it is since the diabetes is NO GRAIN or GRAIN derived foods. No starchy veggies, no sugary fruits, no added sugars or sweeteners. So what exactly am I eating that you think is high carb? Oh thats right you consider INDIGESTIBLE FIBER a carb. Well sorry but you cant eat any plant based food that doesnt have fiber. And anything indigestible isnt going to affect blood sugar nor is it going to be fattening, it is simply bulk that moves the other foods through the gut. If your idea is low carb is protein and fat only then I guess we will just have to disagree. Just saying if you have no fiber in your diet, you will have a bowel movement once a month regular as clockwork and it will be right up there with giving birth far as difficulty and pain.


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## barnbilder

Not all fiber is indigestible. Some carbohydrate fibers contribute calories. Granted not at the same rate of 4 calories per gram that most carbohydrates contribute, some more like 2 per gram, but still, calories do matter. You might feel better by drinking a smoothie that has all kinds of fruits and vegetables in it, instead of a fast food milkshake, but if it is 700 calories a glass, it should make you feel pretty satisfied.


----------



## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> Not all fiber is indigestible. Some carbohydrate fibers contribute calories. Granted not at the same rate of 4 calories per gram that most carbohydrates contribute, some more like 2 per gram, but still, calories do matter. You might feel better by drinking a smoothie that has all kinds of fruits and vegetables in it, instead of a fast food milkshake, but if it is 700 calories a glass, it should make you feel pretty satisfied.


I understand that you don't get it. You also don't seem to actually read what others write. Personal experience. We already know that a milkshake or fruit smoothie will not keep us satiated the way the same amount of calories in fat will.

You keep swerving and telling others what they should experience when they already know they don't..


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## barnbilder

Just making observations on a meal plan I saw posted. A very carb and fat heavy meal plan. I'm sure it would make someone very full and satisfied. Same as a Dairy Queen milkshake would. It's a lot of calories, and calories are filling.


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> Just making observations on a meal plan I saw posted. A very carb and fat heavy meal plan. I'm sure it would make someone very full and satisfied. Same as a Dairy Queen milkshake would. It's a lot of calories, and calories are filling.


There you go again. Calories are not filling. I could easily eat all my calories in sugar and never be full.


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## barnbilder

Assuming you are somewhere around at least 1500 calories that would be 375 grams of sugar. That's around .82 pounds of sugar. My bet is that you will be full at around half that, and you won't feel like finishing the rest.


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## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> Assuming you are somewhere around at least 1500 calories that would be 375 grams of sugar. That's around .82 pounds of sugar. My bet is that you will be full at around half that, and you won't feel like finishing the rest.


You keep making assumptions that are not based in reality. I could drink a pound of sugar in a day just drinking soda. I would still be hungry.


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## Terri

painterswife said:


> You keep making assumptions that are not based in reality. I could drink a pound of sugar in a day just drinking soda. I would still be hungry.


Me, too. That is why I mostly stay away from sugar. The odd taste of it is OK, and I intend to eat a some mint M&Ms tomorrow as a snack, but the Easter dessert tomorrow will be sugar-free banana pudding


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## Alice In TX/MO

Ingredients:
Modified Cornstarch, Maltodextrin, Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate and Disodium Phosphate (for Thickening), Contains Less than 2% of Natural and Artificial Flavor, Salt, Calcium Sulfate, Xanthan Gum, Mono- and Diglycerides (Prevents Foaming), Aspartame†, and Acesulfame Potassium (Sweeteners), Tetrapotassium Pyrophosphate, Dipotassium Phosphate, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Artificial Color, BHA (Preservative). †Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine.


----------



## light rain

Alice In TX/MO said:


> Ingredients:
> Modified Cornstarch, Maltodextrin, Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate and Disodium Phosphate (for Thickening), Contains Less than 2% of Natural and Artificial Flavor, Salt, Calcium Sulfate, Xanthan Gum, Mono- and Diglycerides (Prevents Foaming), Aspartame†, and Acesulfame Potassium (Sweeteners), Tetrapotassium Pyrophosphate, Dipotassium Phosphate, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Artificial Color, BHA (Preservative). †Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine.


? What are these ingredients?


----------



## painterswife

Jello sugar free pudding


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## Alice In TX/MO

Sugar free banana pudding. Incredibly nasty stuff, in my opinion.


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## Terri

That would be the content of the sugar-free dessert I intend to eat tomorrow.

Yes, I know it is full of chemicals. Most of what I eat is food as nature intended, but I DO eat nutrasweet. I kind of hope that the natural food cancels out the unnatural food, LOL!


----------



## light rain

painterswife said:


> Jello sugar free pudding


Thanks!


----------



## barnbilder

I can eat a pound of sugar, blended with flour and lard and rolled into a crust and with some blueberries mixed in, but not all at one time. But that wasn't the statement, the statement was, I can eat all my calories in sugar and not feel full. I stand by my assertion that if someone tried to eat "all of their calories" in sugar would not only be full, they would be sick. So then the goal posts change, and it switches to "I could drink my calories in soda". Well, that would be a couple of two liters. And yeah, you probably would feel less full by drinking those calories (I try never to drink calories), I'm pretty sure if I drank two two liters at one time I would feel full to the point of sickness. I'm assuming we were talking at one setting, because that is the only context that would be relative to the discussion. Spaced out over a day anyone could eat their calories, in anything. In fact they could eat over that amount, in anything, especially if it tasted really good because it was blended with other things and offered some variety to the palate. That is the basic catalyst for body fat gain.


----------



## painterswife

barnbilder said:


> I can eat a pound of sugar, blended with flour and lard and rolled into a crust and with some blueberries mixed in, but not all at one time. But that wasn't the statement, the statement was, I can eat all my calories in sugar and not feel full. I stand by my assertion that if someone tried to eat "all of their calories" in sugar would not only be full, they would be sick. So then the goal posts change, and it switches to "I could drink my calories in soda". Well, that would be a couple of two liters. And yeah, you probably would feel less full by drinking those calories (I try never to drink calories), I'm pretty sure if I drank two two liters at one time I would feel full to the point of sickness. I'm assuming we were talking at one setting, because that is the only context that would be relative to the discussion. Spaced out over a day anyone could eat their calories, in anything. In fact they could eat over that amount, in anything, especially if it tasted really good because it was blended with other things and offered some variety to the palate. That is the basic catalyst for body fat gain.


Good job, you admitted someonecould eat all their calories in sugar. You are swerving again when you try to make it about eating instead of drinking and constraining it to one setting. You are the one who started with drinking a smoothie and also stated a daily calorie intake, not one per meal.


----------



## Alice In TX/MO

Maybe, just maybe, y’all could talk about ways of eating and take a mini vacation from nit picking. Please.


----------



## Terri

Alice In TX/MO said:


> Maybe, just maybe, y’all could talk about ways of eating and take a mini vacation from nit picking. Please.


Good point. On that note I am going to drift this thread a bit.

This is how my doctor explained what was wrong with my appetite, and why I was hungry all of the time.

Basically, when the cells of the body are not able to absorb the sugar in the blood (their natural food) they transmit the signal of "You are hungry. eat something" and most people do. However, some people are insulin resistant which means the cells have difficulty absorbing the blood sugar, and sometimes a lack of insulin can prevent the absorbtion of the blood sugar. If that case the hunger signal goes on too long and a person over eats.

In a bit, the blood sugar is raised to where it should be and the "I'm hungry" signal shuts down. But,as you may recall, this person has eaten too much because the hunger signal went on for too long. So, the blood sugar keeps going up. Now in a healthy body the blood sugar would not keep going up, but in a diabetic body or an insulin resistant body the blood sugar can and will go WAAAY up.

And there is one of the problems with appetite.

Because, when the blood sugar level is too high, the sugar molecules get very large and the cells of the body have trouble absorbing them, and because the cells are hungry they transmit "You are hungry. Go eat something".

And that is why some of us can eat a huge amount of sweets and still feel starving. IT is because we are hungry when our blood sugars get too high. In a body that functions well a person's blood sugar never gets that high, but with carb intolerance or diabetes it can.

For that reason, if I have eaten what I know is the right amount of food and I am still hungry I will take more salad or more non starchy vegetables or drink a diet soda. I know that the insulin will be in my blood stream in a bit: as a type 2 diabetic my insulin response is sluggish and it sometimes take a bit. I know if I just wait a bit there will be enough insulin in my system to get the blood sugar molecules into the cells of the body.

And, because eating pure sugar will raise my blood sugar faster than my body can release insulin, I mostly stay away from sugar. If I eat more than just a bit of sugar my blood sugar will go up quickly and get too high, and then I will be hungry even though I have eaten plenty. And, that one of the reasons that eating sugar makes ne hungry: my blood sugar goes up fast and my body is not capable of releasing insulin that quickly, and so the sugar molecules get so big that my body has trouble absorbing them. The cells of my body are then hungry and so they send out the hunger signal

This is an extremely common problem with folks who have either insulin resistance or diabetes. Or, so says the doctor who diagnosed me.


----------



## barnbilder

It's all about feeding your homeostatic hunger without catering to your hedonic hunger. But if you don't satisfy your homeostatic hunger, your hedonic hunger levels are going to go off the charts, and this is what gets people in trouble. It is possible to eat at a deficit, and fool your homeostatic hunger into thinking you are OK. But it is a fine balancing act. A task made much easier by accurate accounting of food.


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## painterswife

Accounting of the foods you eat, not the calories. You are starting to get it.


----------



## Terri

Homeostatic_=self regulating.

My body no longer self-regulates and so I changed my pattern of eating to regulate my system by conscious decision. Because my body is no longer challenged by big slugs of blood sugar, my system is now capable of releasing the correct amount of insulin (albeit releasing the insulin a bit more slowly than I would like). 

I have nibbled a little candy today but my blood sugar is within the correct parameters, because I am slowly trickling the sugar into my system. For dinner I will enjoy a hearty meal of ham, asparagus, salad, and a very small amount of stuffing. And, I CAN eat hearty because that kind of food will be digested slowly over time.

I will eat dessert when I want it and I can eat a generous portion of it, because excepting for the sliced bananas in it there will be no concentrated carbs that would challenge my system.

I simply need to time the food intake while some people do not


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## Alice In TX/MO

I can’t resist.


----------



## HermitJohn

Experiment yourself. Drink a shot glass of olive oil or a stick of butter. Yum, do you want another? Now eat a bowl of ice cream... oops where did that half gallon Rocky Road go!

You body will self regulate harshly if you try to overeat unsweetened fat or protein with no starches added. It can always make room for another piece of pie. When humans evolved, carbohydrate bombs were limited to seasonal fruit and stolen wild honey. Nuts and lot of collected seeds were oily ones not starchy ones. Green plants have carbs but not enough to affect blood sugar. Not to mention until post WWII, just getting enough food of any kind was a challenge for most people.


----------



## HermitJohn

barnbilder said:


> Not all fiber is indigestible. Some carbohydrate fibers contribute calories. Granted not at the same rate of 4 calories per gram that most carbohydrates contribute, some more like 2 per gram, but still, calories do matter. You might feel better by drinking a smoothie that has all kinds of fruits and vegetables in it, instead of a fast food milkshake, but if it is 700 calories a glass, it should make you feel pretty satisfied.


Fine, buy yourself a 50 pound bag of oat bran or wheat bran or corn bran. Not bran cereal, pure unadulterated raw bran. Now eat nothing else for a month and show me how much weight you gained. You can have as much as you want, no skimping. Or for that matter pick any oily seeds, sesame, sunflower, flax or barrel of coconut oil or butter. Or wheelbarrow of almonds. Heck buy all of them and couple dead cows too, eat as much as you possibly can stuff down your throat without paying slightest attention to amounts or calories. Add all broccoli, cabbage, and greens you want. Now next month get on the scale and show me your imaginary weight gain. No fruit, no grain/flour, no beans, no starchy vegetables, no dairy, no added sugar of any kind. Thats the limitation.


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## Terri

Oh, some fiber really is digestible. I never worried about counting the calories in digestible fiber because most people do not eat too much digestible fiber. Nobody seems to want to eat too much of ANY kind of fiber


----------



## HermitJohn

Alice In TX/MO said:


> I can’t resist.


Yep, you just gotta breathe more.... who knew?


----------



## light rain

Alice In TX/MO said:


> I can’t resist.


I watched this for a LONG time and didn't see it to the end. Is HermitJohn right on his interpretation of the talk?


----------



## Terri

The gent explained that when fat is broken down it turns into gas and water. The breathing more is a bit of a joke!


----------



## light rain

Terri said:


> The gent explained that when fat is broken down it turns into gas and water. The breathing more is a bit of a joke!


Thanks!

I do wonder sometimes though, that as kids we scream and yell and run. As adults we don't participate in those activities so much. Wonder what effect that has on our oxygen and carbon dioxide levels and our metabolism in general. 

In most cultures most people danced vigorously at celebrations and festivals. All ages of people danced. Sad in America that this is not encouraged...


----------



## painterswife

A good video on insulin resistance and diabetes.


----------



## light rain

painterswife said:


> A good video on insulin resistance and diabetes.



Thank you for sharing this. I will tell others in my family about it.

I was more connected until he started crying. I thought that was theatrical. Do the speakers get paid for these talks?

After living with folks with type 2 diabetes and see food choices I believe doctors need to be totally honest with their patients. It is not JUST big pharma that extracts profits from diabetics. It is the whole medical structure...

I've also heard from a medical proffessional that the reason doctors don't exert more pressure on patients to change their diet and exercise more is that patients would leave and go to a doctor that would be more empathetic and dare I say, less honest, with them. He did this whole speech without giving an opinion on why the metabolic process is becoming more insulin resistant. Why? Maybe always leave them wanting and willing to pay for more...?


----------



## painterswife

Ted talks don't pay the speakers.

To me, the entire point of his talk is that while the medical industry thinks it has all the answers, it does not. They keep doing the same thing with certain diseases and get worse results. Diabetes for one. They treat it with drugs that are guaranteed to make it worse in the long run. They treat the symptoms not the disease. Even a doctor who is following the recommended course of treatment for weight gain finds out that calories are not the entire answer.


----------



## light rain

painterswife said:


> Ted talks don't pay the speakers.
> 
> To me, the entire point of his talk is that while the medical industry thinks it has all the answers, it does not. They keep doing the same thing with certain diseases and get worse results. Diabetes for one. They treat it with drugs that are guaranteed to make it worse in the long run. They treat the symptoms not the disease. Even a doctor who is following the recommended course of treatment for weight gain finds out that calories are not the entire answer.


If he is not practicing medicine then he has to get $$$ from somewhere...


----------



## painterswife

light rain said:


> If he is not practicing medicine then he has to get $$$ from somewhere...


Who said he was not practicing medicine?


----------



## light rain

painterswife said:


> Who said he was not practicing medicine?





painterswife said:


> Who said he was not practicing medicine?


I gathered that from something he said in his talk. Then I went to search and found conflicting info. There is a Peter Attia practicing surgery in CA for several years and a Clinic devoted to longevity that is suppose to have been started by him.

An interview with a marathon runner that was highly flattering also says he left medicine. 
So who knows what is accurate information...

I believe he is a smart man and may have some insight into current health challenges but also I would like to know more on how he generates his income...


----------



## painterswife

https://www.tedmed.com/speakers/show?id=18028

https://peterattiamd.com/about/


----------



## light rain

painterswife said:


> https://www.tedmed.com/speakers/show?id=18028
> 
> https://peterattiamd.com/about/


Impressive


----------



## Alice In TX/MO

There is a theory that Type 2 may be caused by a virus. 

I don’t think anyone really nows.


----------



## light rain

Alice In TX/MO said:


> There is a theory that Type 2 may be caused by a virus.
> 
> I don’t think anyone really nows.


If a type 2 diabetic loses excess weight and eats a restricted carb diet don't their blood sugar #'s come down to normal about 80 to 90 percent of the time?

I am not saying a virus may not be an instigator or factor but every type 2 diabetic I know, about 8, are at least 25 to 50 lbs. over weight (some 150 lbs. over weight), reluctant to change diet and sedentary. And it is frustrating and heart breaking to see the scenario play out... 

HermitJohn, you don't seem to fit this profile.


----------



## Alice In TX/MO

I did more digging. Found these. 

https://www.livescience.com/22749-type-2-diabetes-cytomegalovirus-infection.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5410031/Diabetes-triggered-virus-scientists-warn.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2570378/


----------



## Terri

It is type 1 diabetes that is often caused by a virus


----------



## HermitJohn

The only dietary advice I got from my doc was parting shot on like second visit to "knock off the sugar". No my diabetes was from a grain heavy diet (yep those nice healthy WHOLE grains that still are little carbohydrate bombs) combined for lack of activity from several years of undiagnosed Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. 20% of us dont get the spots or the fever and undiagnosed and untreated it acts more like Lyme disease and you end up a quivering lump where I was having problems just getting from house to car.

Doc had me on insulin, that stuff is EXPENSIVE. I had lot motivation to get off that quick as I possibly could. It wasnt that painful except in the pocketbook. The modern insulin needles are so small its less painful to inject insulin than to prick finger for morning blood glucose reading. Finding reliable info was the hard part. More conflicting and useless info you never saw for a disease. I think too many people looking for too much profit. When the official diabetic diet is HIGH CARB, you know somebody isnt wanting you to control through diet.


----------



## Terri

OK, I read the clip that Alice provided: I guess I should not be surprised that type 2 can be caused by it also!

Edited to add: I stopped trying to tell people that type 2 diabetes makes you fat because people just thought that I was nuts. But yes, type 2 messes with your blood sugar levels and that makes you crave sweets and also increases your appetite. Take it as you will


----------



## Alice In TX/MO

Here’s another...

https://www.medicaldaily.com/common-virus-raises-type-2-diabetes-risk-242195


----------



## HermitJohn

https://www.homesteadingtoday.com/t...nt-could-end-daily-insulin-injections.590062/

Here is another thread I started about unique treatment I ran across. Probably this treatment get buried as too many people making too much money off insulin and all the expensive wonder drugs.


----------



## newfieannie

what i have a problem with is staying regular. it's not like what HJ is saying back in post 111 where i go a month and the pain is like giving birth although at times i must say it's close.(not the month but the pain) i have always had that problem though. i take MOM but I'm trying to get away from taking it. i think i should be getting all i need from my food.

i try to eat vegetables but i don't like a lot pf them. i eat broccoli and carrots sweet pot. i can eat the turnip in hash. i do like swiss chard. winter time it's poor in the stores though. coming on now there will be lots.

i think myself it's the water. i did keep down 2 bottles today. my son tells me he has no problem and he does drink a lot of water. i think that's why the sun stroke hit me so hard last summer because i couldn't drink water. i drink tons of tea but i don't think it's the same. that's what I've been told anyway. ~Georgia


----------



## Alice In TX/MO

Water. You can’t make moist poo without water.

Prunes work.

Psyllium capsules help, but you MUST drink water, too.


----------



## light rain

HermitJohn said:


> The only dietary advice I got from my doc was parting shot on like second visit to "knock off the sugar". No my diabetes was from a grain heavy diet (yep those nice healthy WHOLE grains that still are little carbohydrate bombs) combined for lack of activity from several years of undiagnosed Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. 20% of us dont get the spots or the fever and undiagnosed and untreated it acts more like Lyme disease and you end up a quivering lump where I was having problems just getting from house to car.
> 
> Doc had me on insulin, that stuff is EXPENSIVE. I had lot motivation to get off that quick as I possibly could. It wasnt that painful except in the pocketbook. The modern insulin needles are so small its less painful to inject insulin than to prick finger for morning blood glucose reading. Finding reliable info was the hard part. More conflicting and useless info you never saw for a disease. I think too many people looking for too much profit. When the official diabetic diet is HIGH CARB, you know somebody isnt wanting you to control through diet.


My family diabetic's counseler had him oked for 150 of carbs a day. (anaplasmosis +)
Then cancelled 3 appt. in a row.
My mantra is don't trust anyone until you've known them for 5 years. (and even then go over your notes). My memory fails me at times...
* those test strips are expensive too!


----------



## HermitJohn

light rain said:


> My family diabetic had him oked for 150 of carbs a day. (anaplasmosis +)
> Then cancelled 3 appt. in a row.
> My mantra is don't trust anyone until you've known them for 5 years. (and even then go over your notes). My memory fails me at times...
> * those test strips are expensive too!


Oh the test strips are a scam. The doc prescribed me a meter, it was cheap enough, but the dang strips for it were like $1.50 each. I found I could buy meter and strips without a prescription. Got one off Amazon for $10 and strips were 10 cents each in bulk. I used both for a while and both were within specified accuracy range. None of them are anywhere near as accurate as lab test but they give good indication what is happening.


----------



## light rain

HermitJohn said:


> Oh the test strips are a scam. The doc prescribed me a meter, it was cheap enough, but the dang strips for it were like $1.50 each. I found I could buy meter and strips without a prescription. Got one off Amazon for $10 and strips were 10 cents each in bulk. I used both for a while and both were within specified accuracy range. None of them are anywhere near as accurate as lab test but they give good indication what is happening.


Thanks!


----------



## light rain

HermitJohn said:


> Oh the test strips are a scam. The doc prescribed me a meter, it was cheap enough, but the dang strips for it were like $1.50 each. I found I could buy meter and strips without a prescription. Got one off Amazon for $10 and strips were 10 cents each in bulk. I used both for a while and both were within specified accuracy range. None of them are anywhere near as accurate as lab test but they give good indication what is happening.


Here I am butting my nose again... Don't be angry.
HJ, make sure your kidneys are doing ok. Doctors don't tend to tell people that there's a problem until it is advanced. Why, I don't know...


----------



## newfieannie

nah! prunes don't work for me! I've tried everything. MOM does but I'm trying to ease off because I read it wasn't good for the kidneys. I think stuff like that might be inherited because mom and dad also had problems

the meter is free up here at least my husband got them free but the strips and needles were something else if people had to pay full price. he paid very little because of insurance.


----------



## light rain

newfieannie said:


> nah! prunes don't work for me! I've tried everything. MOM does but I'm trying to ease off because I read it wasn't good for the kidneys. I think stuff like that might be inherited because mom and dad also had problems
> 
> the meter is free up here at least my husband got them free but the strips and needles were something else if people had to pay full price. he paid very little because of insurance.


Your son is right. You need to drink more water. I drink a couple of cups a tea a day and when hot weather gets here I'll drink more ice tea. But because tea is a diuretic I'll drink more plain old water or water with lemon. 

Beans have lots of fiber and if you make bean soup you get more water in that. Avocadoes are fatty which seems to help constipation and cabbage does too... I like stewed prunes with lemon.

Long term use of milk of magnesia may not work out well.


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## newfieannie

well now perhaps a little lemon will help me keep the water down. i'll try that.


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## Alice In TX/MO

Sip water. You don’t have to chug down large amounts at one time.


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## newfieannie

in case anybody is truly interested the water does work. i kept it down with a touch of lemon.


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## painterswife

newfieannie said:


> in case anybody is truly interested the water does work. i kept it down with a touch of lemon.


Water and magnesium pills work for me. Keeps things moving and also is good for my muscles.


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## light rain

newfieannie said:


> in case anybody is truly interested the water does work. i kept it down with a touch of lemon.


I'm not crazy about plain water either (unless I'm dry) but my Dr. says yes. So water with lemon, lime or a little fruit juice it will be...


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## HermitJohn

newfieannie said:


> the meter is free up here at least my husband got them free but the strips and needles were something else if people had to pay full price. he paid very little because of insurance.


I have heard some docs down here give the meters away, they are given to them by people selling such. Or get a kickback for prescribing a certain brand and model meter, it will be meter that uses the most expensive strips. The money isnt in selling the meters. Thats a once every five year sale at best. They gladly give you a meter, or deeply discount a meter, which then locks you into buying their strips. The big profit is in selling the strips. A diabetic can go through a LOT of strips. I quickly understood, you look for the cheapest strips, then buy the meter. Full price, no insurance, no government anything, those I found on Amazon are $30 for six months worth. Even if you have pretty good insurance, after all the slight of hand, this is still cheaper buying directly out of pocket than through insurance.

Thats great example of why so much of American medical system is a for profit scam. Americans pay minimum of twice per capita on same medical care as anybody else on planet. The companies involved and their pet politicians will fight tooth and nail to protect their cash cow.


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