[OT] Rethinking the Calorie

[Karthick Gururaj]

An article that goes into some details of calorie measurement and why the weight loss formula, "burn more energy than you consume" may be flawed

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/what-does-a-calorie-measure/427089/

There is an other quote that my wife forwarded me from Daniel (fitnessbelder), which is also relevant:

I wish i could give you links to research to clearly back up our theory that we base our diet and training style on but it comes from a combination of years of hands on experience with nutrition counseling and personal training thousands of clients combined with scientific research found while getting my degree in food and nutrition. In short the theory runs like this: When the body receives fewer calories than it needs it pushes into "Starvation Mode" where it drops its BMR (Basil Metabolic Rate) down to conserve energy. This can happen from not enough food while sedentary or from burning too many calories through exercise without replacing them with more food. On top of this activities like steady state cardio when done at a level of anything above 4-6 miles per day (depending on the person) can cause an increase in stress hormones that also cause fat retention or gain. That is why we suggest HIIT, and Strength Training. It takes less time then steady state cardio (less stress hormones released) and burns more calories overall after you take in the metabolic disturbance they provide. From a diet stand point if you only eat two or three meals a day (especially if only one of them is a large meal as most people do) then you can get into a system of needing your fat stores to get form one meal to the next which makes you body fight to keep fat tissue when trying to lose weight. So, Many people can actually work out harder and eat less and still not see a change in the scale. It is a multi faceted system that responds best to short bursts of intense exercise, frequent small meals, and overall stress reduction

- Karthick

[Opendro]

Weight loss and calorie! This debate is not going to settle for years to come.

For some, just being healthy and long life might be the goal. For others, strength and living with full of fun and activities might be the goal. There will be others who just want to enjoy the taste buds till the furthest point pharma companies can keep them alive. Then, there will be others who want a combination of two or more. For example, I want to live healthy, but give more importance to strength and fun while I also want to enjoy food (we all can train our taste buds to like what is beneficial to us).

Also note that I gain weight when I do more workouts - upto 62 kgs at times. Then when I don't do any workout and add more fat to the belly, I lose weight - upto 58 kg. When I train to run 10K races, I stay at 60 kg.

Whatever people/research says, if you don't know what hunger is, the chances are that you are not living healthy. Personally, I hate eating without a feeling of hunger. I will rather stay without food and water for 24 hours than eating without the feeling of hunger.

Mayank shared this theory of no-breakfast in a wellness group : https://groups.google.com/d/msg/wellnessunlimited/QVxRKaN2WBo/l_HtUQYjCQAJ

I agree with that. If you can live with two meals, nothing in between, it is very unlikely that you will gain massive weight. I live with mostly two, or rarely one or three meals a day. Weight is never a concern with this. I had tried breakfast over a month, on multiple attempts and it just feels sick unless I'm training for some endurance sport.

I still believe that hunger is a good feeling and eating only after hunger is the key to good health. If you want to know what hunger feels like, try staying away from food/water for minimum 24 hours with regular physical activities. That is the easiest way to experience hunger if you never had the feeling.