Generally, low carb diets dont require you to keep track of caloric intake. A calorie is the energy needed to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water one degree Celsius. Your body does not literally burn foods like a calorimeter. Different macronutrients (i.e., carbohydrate, fat, and protein) have different effects on hormones, which have different effects on fat storage, and provide different amounts of energy to the body in different ways.
Youve probably been told weight loss is a simple matter of calories in minus calories out. This was proven by citing the First Law of Thermodynamics.
You were told wrong. The First Law of Thermodynamics has to do with energy balance in a CLOSED system. Your body is not a closed system, unless you figured out a way to not poop, breathe, sweat, etc. In fact, calories from macronutrients CANT be equal since a deficiency of carbs requires your body to convert protein into glucose. That process has a cost. To say calories are all equal
violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
In short, using the word calorie to connote the amount food consumed or amount of energy ingested is clumsy and inaccurate. However, its a term used throughout nutritional literature, so were stuck with it. Calorie counts can be useful rules of thumb, but always keep in mind their limitations.
Experiments have been conducted prove people respond differently to the food they consume. Either the scientists found a way to violate the laws of thermodynamics, or most peoples understanding of how the body uses food is wrong. Guess which one it is? One famous study was conducted in the
Vermont state prison where every inmate was forced to eat the same amount without exercising. The amount of weight gained varied greatly.
Fredrik Nyström conducted a
controlled experiment at Linköping University to determine the effects of an extreme high calorie diet on people who are naturally thin. He force fed the participants 6,000 calories a day, roughly double what most of the volunteers ingested normally. He discovered that their weight gains were neither predictable nor consistent within the group. After the experiment concluded, the test subjects quickly returned to their pre-test weights and eating habits.
The BBC documentary Horizon aired a documentary called
Why Are Thin People Not Fat that featured a repeated experiment in England conducted by Nyström with the same results. I found a copy of it on YouTube:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7
Claiming obesity is a product of a positive energy balance is as enlightening as saying global warming is a product of the Earth getting hotter. No sh*t, Sherlock. Its not very helpful to state the effect while ignoring the cause. We must determine how the body is processing the energy we ingest, and how it can be prevented from turning into fat. Thats where hormones come in since hormones regulate fat storage. If we can manipulate our hormones, we can change how our bodies use the calories we eat. An overweight person is not necessarily someone who overeats; their body simply may be storing an undesirable amount of fuel as fat instead of using it for energy. Likewise, a naturally skinny person may be converting their surplus fuel into energy, lean tissue growth, or heat instead of fat.
What if we restrict calories a whole lot? Wont that cause weight loss? Yes! If someone is starved of fuel, the body is forced to use those restricted calories to preserve survival. That may mean using fat stores, breaking down lean muscle tissue, lowering body temperature, lethargy, etc. Of course, this is not a desirable long term condition. The beauty of low carb diets is that they do not attempt to starve the body of energy. They attack the root of the problem: fat metabolism.
Some studies attempt to show that all diets have the same effective weight loss when strictly controlling calories. Participants are separated into different groups, each with a different predefined ratio of fat, protein, and carbs. The kinds of foods eaten by each group can differ greatly. However, the total number of calories ingested each day for each group is must be the same. The term for this kind of comparison is isocaloric. The cheat they use in these studies is that they do not allow the participants to ingest their typical amount of calories, or even the normal basal calories for their height, age, weight, and activity level. Instead, they cut their calories significantly, which puts their bodies into semi-starvation. Their bodies are now fighting to use whatever calories are available for survival. These kinds of studies dont provide a meaningful comparison of diets under normal metabolic conditions. Studies that do not force calories to be restricted usually show a significant advantage of very low carb diets over their converse.
prob won't happen but tomorrow will be the start!
