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Comment by cageface | Hacker News Reader

Data >> anecdotes

https://www.vegkitchen.com/nutrition/do-vegans-have-a-weight...

No amount of data or ancdotes beats calories in. Fact is, not only is it possible to eat strictly vegan and get fat, it's not even difficult. If the majority of vegans avoid that, it's not simply due to being vegan.

Sure, let's get our data from "vegikitchen.com", quoting from some vegan book by nutritionist quacks.

It was what was handy on my phone. Here's a recent published NIH article:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5466941/

Yeah pedantically you can nothing but Oreos and be "vegan". But FTA:

"In a cohort of 4384 Taiwanese Buddhists, vegetarian men had approximately half of the rate of diabetes (OR: 0.49, 95% CI: 0.28–0.89), and vegetarian post-menopausal women had one-quarter the rate of diabetes (OR: 0.25, 95% CI: 0.15–0.42), compared with their omnivorous counterparts, despite statistical adjustment for body mass index and other factors. Interestingly, the omnivores in this study consumed a predominantly plant-based diet with little meat or fish, again implying that small amounts of meat contribute significantly to the development of insulin resistance"

And the idea that fat = calories in - calories burned is a simplistic view that no serious nutritionist on either side of the debate believes.

> And the idea that fat = calories in - calories burned is a simplistic view that no serious nutritionist on either side of the debate believes.

I want to preface this comment by saying I am not attempting to be rude or combative, I am genuinely curious.

If a calorie is a measure of energy contained in food, and food is the only source of energy for a body, and one mechanism by which the body uses that energy is to store fat, then a positive change in fat matter stored can maximally be the value of calorie intake converted to mass (in some discrete time).

Or, a positive change in fat stored (mass) <= calories in (again, in some discrete time).

Is this still too simplistic?

I think that saying: "A calorie is a calorie" is too simplistic because it's never just calories vs calories. 1000 calories of bananas comes with a lot of other content vs 1000 calories of ice cream. You get a lot of different nutrients, you get a lot of fiber, etc. The holistic combination of things you get in unrefined foods makes an impact on how your body processes and stores calories.

[Edit: I hope it's clear that I don't advocate eating 1000 calories of any one food. :)]

Taiwanese Buddhists. Now there's a random sampling method!

I would be amazed if you could list credible nutritionists who would claim that calorie restriction will not help you lose weight.

> No amount of data or ancdotes beats calories in

Again, no. The reason obese people are so obese is because they are never satiated. You can eat potato chips and drink soda all day, without ever feeling full. Secondly, it's an addiction to refined sugars and super simple carbs. I'm not arguing that calories aren't calories, but your body reacts differently to a Snickers bar than it does broccoli.

The thing about calories is that the high side is easier and greater than the low side. But it is easy to accumulate with excess calories. There is a severe limit on how much of a deficit you can establish relative to a baseline energy intake, but a wide-open range in the area of excess intake. Furthermore, fat is easy to store but hard to mobilize. So if you eat 15000 calories one day, then create a 1000 calorie deficit over 15 days, it won't average out to the effect of a regular intake over 16 days. The body finds ways to economize energy use and hang on to the fat.

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