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Comment by BeowulfCluster | Hacker News Reader

This is interesting, but people shouldn't be misled. Counting calories _always_ works for weight loss. If you simply eat fewer calories than your body needs each day, you will lose weight.

There was a very highly cited paper in the NEJM where they studied a group of people who believed they were "diet resistant" using a new technique--doubly labeled water--to determine how much they were really eating and exercising.

Every single person in the study--every last one of them--lied to the doctors about how many calories he or she was eating.

http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701

The last paragraph says:

"In conclusion, all the obese subjects we studied who had a history of self-reported diet resistance had appropriate energy expenditure, but they misreported their actual food intake and physical activity."

In other words: "Fatties gonna fat."

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> In other words: "Fatties gonna fat."

You can't comment like this here.

You are the best kind of correct: Technically.

Confounding factors include:

- Dietary affects on metabolic rate/'calories out'

- Digestion differences on calories in

- Food/portion affects on satiety

- Food addiction

- Long term diet maintainability

We've known about calories in vs. out for years, yet our society is not seeing the results we want. The important question is: How do we control that equation?

Your conclusion is as helpful and callous as abstinence-only sex education.

>Counting calories _always_ works for weight loss. If you simply eat fewer calories than your body needs each day, you will lose weight.

Funny you should say that when this was just published today: http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-the-calorie-is-br...

If I read that article correctly it seemed to be pointing out that sometimes calories are literally mislabeled. That is - a sandwich from a vendor may be labeled as 400 kcal but actually it turns out it was closer to 500 kcal. Casey Neistat did a special for the NYT a couple of years ago about this very problem [1]. The ArsTechnica article you linked did go into other things - but there's definitely a difficulty in dealing with things where labels say one thing and can be 10-15% wrong pretty easily.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/calorie-detective....

Funny because eating 2000 calories of a carb rich diet maintains my weight, but eating 3000 calories of a carb poor diet and I lose weight. All calories aren't the same, and your body doesn't use them the same. Why is this still controversial?

Because the much more parsimonious explanation is that you're counting calories incorrectly, instead of a wide body of literature being completely false. Put simply, without very careful weighing of everything you eat and extensive tracking, it's impossible to get an accurate assessment of calories consumed.

Eating a caloric deficit will predictably result in weight loss, but there is some feedback between diet and resting energy expenditure (REE). The macronutrient balance you eat can affect REE.

https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154#...

> Among overweight and obese young adults compared with pre–weight-loss energy expenditure, isocaloric feeding following 10% to 15% weight loss resulted in decreases in REE and TEE that were greatest with the low-fat diet, intermediate with the low–glycemic index diet, and least with the very low-carbohydrate diet.

Because diet can affect REE, you can change your diet isocalorically yet still gain or lose weight. Your particular example seems to be an example of this, but the effect is likely very exaggerated. Differences are on the order of 10%, not 30%.

TL;DR: eating less carbs makes you burn more energy.

Because people won't let go of their heuristics, and also the shame and judgement they put on people for being overweight (most of the time, originating in how people treat themselves when overweight).

if you read the article, it covers instances where foods are mislabelled; the calorie content on the back is not correct.

Regardless of the unit eating less will make you lose weight.

A caloric deficit reliably leads to a reduction in weight, but the situation is more complicated.

Diet feeds back into resting energy expenditure (REE). Namely, a low-carb diet leads to higher REE than e.g. a low-fat diet.

Effects of Dietary Composition on Energy Expenditure During Weight-Loss Maintenance https://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154#...

> Conclusion: Among overweight and obese young adults compared with pre–weight-loss energy expenditure, isocaloric feeding following 10% to 15% weight loss resulted in decreases in REE and TEE that were greatest with the low-fat diet, intermediate with the low–glycemic index diet, and least with the very low-carbohydrate diet.

This is a change of REE on the order of ~10%, so not huge, but definitely significant.

When eating a similar diet, eating less certainly works. However, affecting TDEE through diet and exercise is an important consideration as well, and may be easier and more maintainable than caloric restriction. There are also issues with satiety and diet that are important for weight loss.

Calories In -> Calories Out should only be a response to people who claim to be unable to control their weight. If they control how much they eat, they can control their weight. It does not make it helpful weight loss advice, though.

But how your body reacts to food has an effect on how hungry you get. It's easier to eat fewer calories if you aren't as hungry.

And the whole point of the article is that we differ significantly on how are bodies respond to food.

Agreed. But obese people need to understand the basics first (EAT LESS!) and then they can tweak their diets to make them more comfortable with fewer calories.

I find the exact opposite to be most effective with myself and the others I have seen in groups around me. Eat food that is nutrient dense and filling and take out empty carbs and you can succeed at eating less a whole lot easier. And that is when people who have been overweight for a long time succeed in the long term.

If it was really that simple, don't you think people would already do it? Your advice comes across as pretty sanctimonious. It's the equivalent of shouting at heroin addicts "STOP TAKING HEROIN!"

Heroin addicts don't usually go around saying that they're just as healthy and beautiful as non-addicts. And they don't promote Heroin Addiction in schools.

I think keto diets have been in most cases successful precisely because they not rely on understanding and self control, the body simply adjusts and starts feeling full faster.

It's not "feeling full faster" per se; it's more about the fact that being in ketosis has a demonstrated natural appetite-suppressing effect.

  In other words: "Fatties gonna fat.

And his lone datum is a twenty-three year old study.

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