A Massive New Harvard Study Shows Which Diet Burns the Most Calories

My experience with low carb dieting is that you end up eating a lot more fat, which is more satiating -- so you naturally eat less.

> It's that I have a desire to eat dramatically fewer calories on a low-carb diet

Precisely my experience as well. While it’s true that really no one type of nutrient is universally bad or evil and technically weight loss comes down to calories in/out, there is a huge difference in how satisfied you feel after eating X amount of calories in various forms. I can eat an entire loaf of good bread or a big bag of chips without even thinking about it. Fats are tasty too but I don’t find myself wanting to gorge on them to the same extent.

you also feel more energy, less tired, less depression...I've lost 60 pounds on keto since September...

The methodology seems to be described in the linked research paper, which should be the article linked, not this lame summary: https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4583

Simple question is, "Where did the energy go?" First guess would be that the bodies of the fat eaters produced more heat, perhaps on account of a less efficient metabolism of fat. Couldn't that be measured directly with a thermometer? Other guess would be that the fat eaters were more active, producing more mechanical energy. That would be a very interesting possibility to explore. A few decades back, my reading led me to think that conventional wisdom was that fat-burning exercise was aerobic, ie requiring oxygen and breathing. Could burning fat require more exertion to acquire the oxygen?

Does the “not all calories are identical” assertion reduce to "the number of calories of heat obtained when a food is burned in a flame outside the body (the number of calories on the label) is not equal to the net number of useful calories obtained when the food is metabolized?"

250 calories per day is only about 1 kg per month of weight loss. This is not trivial compared to typical weight loss results, but it is quite a bit less than what people searching for diet advice would consider a game-changer. And it is not clear if there are other consequences of changing the composition of the diet over the long term of steady weight loss that most dieters need.

Unfortunately "calories going in" is not easily obtainable, as absorption is affected by cooking, what foods are in the gut together, individual variation, and how the foods are physically composed together (mashed, whole, blended, etc.). Unfortunately protein and carbs = 4kcal/g, fats = 9kcal/g is only useful as a rough guide in practice.

Look up studies on the accuracy of the Atwater method for more detail.

Was with you until that 3rd point. Lots of healthy foods taste plenty good.

Having lost and kept off about half my body weight, I'd say 1 is correct. The most reliable way to control your weight is calorie counting, end of story.

2 is not. No matter how much you lose, you will gain it back once you start eating more calories. In fact, it will probably take much fewer extra than it did the first time around.

3 is kinda irrelevant. "healthy" doesn't have a concrete meaning, which is why people selling things love it so much as a word. However, if you don't like the taste of what you're eating you are a lot less likely to overindulge, so there is that.

Sure #1 is what it all comes down to, but how much are you in control of the calories that you burn? You can find scientific studies as far back as the Minnesota Starvation Experiment that shows that your body tries to maintain homeostasis when calories are reduced via regular caloric restriction, or with extreme overfeeding.

Weight, like much of the bodies processes is a strictly hormonally regulated, the the biochemistry/process of fat burning is actually pretty well understood. Oxidation of fatty acids competes w/ glucose (which is generally preferred), known as the glucose-fatty acid, or Randall cycle (doi: 10.1007/s10545-010-9061-2, PMC2950079).

The easiest way to increase FAO is therefore to reduce availability of glucose (don't eat carbs, or simply don't eat). This also lowers insulin levels, which independently inhibits lipolysis. (doi: 10.2337/db08-0281)

What's also interesting is that as you fast, your ghrelin levels (hunger hormone) goes down (as does insulin, cortisol spikes) - doi: 10.1210/jc.2004-0604

I know everyone's an expert here on HN and I'm glad you were able to lose some weight, but #2 has no scientific or statistical basis, and #3 is prima facie laughable and its hard to imagine any animal surviving if that were the case. (Just stick to tasty natural, minimally processed, real food and you'll be fine).

I know #3 has no science behind it, but it's incredible how easy is to spot foods with more calories in this way. It's a good rule of thumb.

If I eat vegetables, a zucchini with no topping is ok (I really like zucchini). If I eat red beet, I like eat a lot. Check the calories of red beet and they are 3 times zucchini calories.

Same goes for squash.

Eggplant only double. Infact eggplant tastes incredibly good, but even better if you add some extra virgin olive oil.

I eat everything home cooked and a lot of raw ingredients, but you xan easily tell what things have more calories based on the flavour (regarding unprocessed food at least)

And to be fair, it does make sense in some way. Isn't your body supposed to use flavour to suggest if you are eating the right things?

I was actually just lamenting how difficult it is to get a "real" (no lettuce) salad this evening.

Making them at home isn't /really/ an option for me, not unless I want to eat it literally every day. The greens would go bad in about half a week; the other semi-perishable things would need to go shortly after.

It's so much easier to go out and get something fresh and variety from a common kitchen (restaurant) that services many others all day.

However, because carbs are cheap, and because meat is popular, those are the two things every restaurant has a focus and spin on.

Eating healthy is too expensive.

I had massive attack while reading it, ... playing in the background...