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Comment by andrekandre | Hacker News Reader

i was under the assumption that it was simple calories such as pasta/bread/rice/candies etc

is that then not true? if not, what is the cause of weight gain?

Fat has more calories and is more easily stored by the body than carbohydrates. Processed carbs, simple sugars give a greater rise in the hormone insulin, which basically puts fat into fat cells. It is not carbs' conversion to fat which causes weight gain, but their consumption in the presence of a high-fat diet.

interesting... would that mean, it’s easier to gain fat by eating pasta + lots of olive oil vs pasta with just tomato sauce?

(i have a terrible olive oil addiction ^_^)

Yes. In case both meals are calorically equal, yes.

The excess in cals from carbs are only marginally turned into fat (lipogenesis is not something humans are good at) and thus the excess is mostly burnt up by heating your body a bit higher (forgot the scientific term for this).

So the fat you eat is pretty much the fat you wear.

If you eat fat and carbs together (almost everyone does that) then your body will choose to use the carbs energy directly and store the fat. As fat is good for long term storage (unlike carbs, that get stored as sugar for short term use in muscles and liver), and carbs not bee efficiently turned into fat (as mentioned) yet can very efficiently be stored.

i see, very interesting

so low fat, in the end is actually good for you... sometimes i really feel bounced around by all of these diets that come and go... but i’ll read up on those links and other info you shared.

thanks for the detailed reply

One can only gain weight when over eating calories.

But if one over eat calories but NEVER takes high fat foods it becomes A LOT harder to put on weight.

If one overeats but eats a lot of fats (especially saturated fats) COMBINED with sugars (the softdrink at the snack meal) and COMbINED with inflammetory foods (all animal drive foods and processed foods) then putting on weight is super easy.

Making fat out of carbs (sugars+starches), lipogenesis, is something humans are not good in. Eating low fat is healthy, but do the math because you will easily think you eat low fat without even going under 10cal% from fat (which is like the cut off value for actually a low fat diet — I dont reach that usually, but then I'm not gaining weight).

thanks for the reply

so if i wanted to prevent gaining fat, the best bet is to keep fat under 10% of carbs, then if eating carbs with say vegetables and (non fatty) meat or fish, i would not gain weight vs a carbs + fatty meat + other oils type of meal (even if calories were equal) ?

> the best bet is to keep fat under 10% of carbs

You mean cals, not carbs i guess.

If you are interested in this you may want to read "80-10-10".

> and (non fatty) meat or fish

The tiniest bit of fish/meat/oil will likely get you over 10cal% fat. Because there is a little fat in all veg/fruit/etc, which will bring you to 5+cal% without nuts/seeds/avocado. Half an avocado a day, or a small hand of nuts and you already cross the 10cal% in most diets.

You can use cronometer.com to do your research on this. It's fun and enlightening.

> The tiniest bit of fish/meat/oil will likely get you over 10cal% fat. Because there is a little fat in all veg/fruit/etc, which will bring you to 5+cal% without nuts/seeds/avocado. Half an avocado a day, or a small hand of nuts and you already cross the 10cal% in most diets.

wow, that sounds difficult!

> If you are interested in this you may want to read "80-10-10".

thanks, i’ll definitely read up on that!

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