Calories In Calories Out vs Metabolic Adaption. Can both be true?

[arakboss]

I have had a few good weeks of success in my weight loss efforts recently. I have been averaging about 1500 calories a day. I have often wondered about the effects of restricting calories and how it may impact your metabolism after returning to a maintenance level diet. I have heard many times that restricting calories will "damage" your metabolism permanently and you will have to eat less than you did prior to restricting calories to maintain your weight.

It goes something like this. If you start restricting calories you'll lose weight at first but then your body will adjust your metabolism downwards and you will stop losing weight. Then if you further drop your calorie intake you might lose a little more weight and then your metabolism will drop down again and you will plateau again, wash, rinse and repeat.

Dr. Jason Fung also believes this works in the other direction. He believes that if you take in excess calories that your body will speed up it's metabolism so those extra calories are "burned" off. He believes the body has a set point that it will maintain regardless of calorie intake. He blames weight gain on insulin instead of extra calories.

If calories in calories out isn't valid and the body adapts to whatever calorie level you are eating to maintain the body's set point then why do we have anorexic and obese people all over this planet?

I believe that the body can and does adapt to calorie intake within a certain limited range but that ultimately physics rules out and your body can only make so much adjustment before you die from starvation or become morbidly obese. I suspect that the studies that indicated otherwise were not controlled enough to fairly compare the energy gaps in study participants.



I am mostly siding with Biolayne on this topic:

What say you?

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[Mono1]

I say Calorie Counting is everything.

I always get a kick out of the Nutrition Professor who lost 27 pounds in ten weeks eating Twinkies and Doritos. All of his numbers improved after the experiment:

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds

Twinkies. Nutty bars. Powdered donuts.

www.cnn.com

 

[arakboss]

I say Calorie Counting is everything.

I always get a kick out of the Nutrition Professor who lost 27 pounds in ten weeks eating Twinkies and Doritos. All of his numbers improved after the experiment:

Twinkie diet helps nutrition professor lose 27 pounds

Twinkies. Nutty bars. Powdered donuts.

www.cnn.com

I am on day 14 of consectutive tracking with my fitness pal app. I hate doing it but it has proven to be the only thing that works for me. An extra bite here there adds up quickly these days.

 

[arakboss]

Just weighed.

 

[monkeybutler]

Both are unforgivingly true. Especially the latter. Metabolic set point is a thing. Anyone unable to exercise regularly for whatever reason is up bubblegum creek long term.

 

[TTSX]

I think everyone's needs are different and exceeding those needs will result in a blubber belly. I also think that blaming anything/anyone other than ourselves for negative consequences is the American way

 

[arakboss]

A bit off topic but I was watching a video from a Dr. Benjamin Bikman and he was talking about what happens with excess ketones in the body. I have heard that your breath and urine can get an acetone like smell from a Keto diet. I had assumed that Keto breath and urine was a result of waste products from the ketones after they were used by the body for energy. But it turns out it is actually caused by complete excess ketones being excreted by the body. A ketone is a molecule of energy not unlike a molecule of glucose so maybe the Calories In Calories Out idea really can be hacked with a diet that puts your body into a strong state of ketosis. I am going to give the low carb diet another shot. Since my energy is already low from being in a calorie deficit, things can't get much worse.


"Only approximately 84% of the ketone bodies that are produced are oxidized; the rest are excreted in the urine or exhaled as acetone."

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/ketone-bodies

 

[bolus]

I didnt watch the first video but of course calories matter. If you eat zero calories you loose weight and die. calories always matter.

here is my experience of almost 30 years of this.

1. There is no tricks or cheats in a diet that are universal and work for everyone. If someone writes a book saying they know the secret to losing weight and it isnt one page saying "eat less, move more" then they are just selling a book
2. every fad diet fails eventually. why? because people get tired or sick of the diet and want pizza. Every version of atkins or keto or similar may help at first then after a year everyone has given up and gained all the weight back. Study after study shows this happens.
3. We are built for surviving starvation. Our body is tremendously good at taking what ever form of calories we consume to try to get us to survive winter. We have great gas mileage too. You eat a slice of cheese and it powers you for 2 hours of walking. Our brain tricks us into eating (by making us feel hungry, cranky, headaches) so that we dont start months from now. Any diet is the opposite of what your extremely efficient, very potent starvation prevention mechanism wants.
4. If you dont eat for a few days, your brain will start to happily make you crave eating bugs or roadkill or sheep eyeballs. That's a powerful mechanism to prevent starvation that you wont be able to trick easily with any diet. Worse if you are female because they have to deal with preparing for winter and being pregnant.