The amount of calories in our food tends to go up over 20 years. Doing the same activities consumes the same amount of calories after 20 years.
Thus we would have more caloric surplus, and likely gain more weight than people 20 years ago with less caloric food.
Pretty simple imo.
If most Japanese citizens eat it, they will absorb calories from it.
There is a gut bacteria common in the Japanese population that extracts calories from this type of seaweed.
"calories in" is that calories that went down your throat. It is calories that your body was able to digest, and "your body" includes many types of bacteria that are unique to each person and also unique to different population groups (meaning that some populations share commonalities in gut flora).
It is possible that certain antibiotics have wipe out some types of gut flora, allowing others to proliferate more. That alone could increase calorie absorption. (Or cause a host of other problems!)
It is possible that having a diet too heavily reliant upon one type of food results in an imbalance of some type. The problem is, this is a brand new area of research and we just don't know yet.
But it is sure as heck known that it is more complicated than "calories in food down the throat".
Actual suspected caloric difference is minimal, after all, well, it is seaweed, not a very dense food stuff. :)
I'm not going to link to antibiotics causing gut flora problems, it is well known and responsible doctors actually can prescribe a nice little compact pill full of gut bacteria that replaces the ones wiped out as a side effect of antibiotics.
The stuff about a biased diet messing up gut bacteria is also hard to find research on (I've read it, but it is a PITA to find again). Basically different bacteria specialize in breaking down different types of food. If you have a diet lacking in some major food group, that stock of bacteria runs low.
Vegans can have this issue if they go back to eating meat. There is typically some tiny supply of the needed bacteria left and the population is restored after awhile, but the initial few hamburgers can be somewhat uncomfortable.
> A given person, in 2006, eating the same amount of calories, taking in the same quantities of macronutrients like protein and fat, and exercising the same amount as a person of the same age did in 1988 would have a BMI that was about 2.3 points higher.
Go figure, it appears that caloric energy balance isn't the only factor.
A: Pre-Keto, odds are you we underestimating how many calories you were eating. Unless you were tracking every single thing you ate, there is a high probability you just didn't realize how many calories you were consuming.
B: It is super hard to over eat on Keto. It is possible, take lots of liquid calories in (heavy cream can do this easily!), and there are some other real screw ups, but eating 3000 calories of steak is pretty damn hard.
C: What you are reporting is common for people who have a lot of weight to lose. At some point it becomes a lot harder, at first you just have to sort of watch things, then you eventually do have to count calories. (Especially if you want a six pack, holy crap do you have to count calories!)
Made a vichyssoise the first time a few days ago (subbed most of the potato with cauliflower and parsnips) and have to say it was about the most filling soup I've ever eaten... had trouble eating the 2-cups I usually do for a "serving" of soup.
If going a more Paleo inspired route, fruit is probably the most easy to over do. I try to stay under a GL of 100/day, being diabetic it's risky for me to stay in keto too much, ketoacidosis is not fun at all.
I'd also second that it's really hard to eat a massive amount of calories on keto. Water loss and perhaps some changes might make you leaner but most likely, over time, you're simply getting a lot less than, I dunno 3000 that isn't hard to do on a sugary diet.
Gaining muscle on keto /is/ hard. You can do it (/r/ketogains can help!) but wow you have to stuff yourself, which is sort of odd for Keto!
Also it's funny how the supplments folks are allowed to sell potassium. There's regulatory issues of having more than 99mg per pill (could damage stomachs or something). So these companies market compounds with potassium that aren't in bio-available forms.[1] "550mg!" people see, making them think they're all set (and hah, pulled one over on terrible government regulators). Nope. Same happens with magnesium. Seems rather misleading, even though they are printing the truth.
1: http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Made-Potassium-Gluconate-Tablet...
On the way out of her office I remembered I hadn't had any potassium for awhile, stopped by the grocery store, picked up some spinach, and a handful later (about a few minutes) the constant headache I'd had for a week straight went away.
So yeah, get your potassium in.
A room gets more crowded when more people enter than exit. Obviously true.
Neither of these statements tell you why that is happening though, and that is important thing. So, why are people eating more calories? Or, since the articles says they aren't, could the sources of calories matter? (They do.)
People seem to have an idea that every human body can just instantly burn however much fat it needs to burn to meet demand. It seems more likely that there's a limit to how fast the body can burn fat, which for some people is unusually low, and that if there's not enough energy available you'll be forced by thermodynamics to move less, think poorly, and produce less body heat.
So: hard problem. Not strictly a technical problem, either.
RTFA, please. Paragraph five, specifically.