The best one that destroys the woo-y history of calorie (and fat) obsessed health science (or lack of science) is the book “The Case for Keto” by the author who wrote “The Case Against Sugar” and “Good Calorie Bad Calorie”.
Saying 'the science got it all wrong!' while citing pop-sci books from Amazon is a bit ironic.
Or is this just a pithy attack on reading books by journalists who summarizes scientific research?
I’m always open to be shown wrong. Otherwise I don’t really care about defending this specific author. I found his to be the best summary on the subject among multiple books, articles, and studies.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19246357/
> Results: At 6 months, participants assigned to each diet had lost an average of 6 kg, which represented 7% of their initial weight; they began to regain weight after 12 months. By 2 years, weight loss remained similar in those who were assigned to a diet with 15% protein and those assigned to a diet with 25% protein (3.0 and 3.6 kg, respectively); in those assigned to a diet with 20% fat and those assigned to a diet with 40% fat (3.3 kg for both groups); and in those assigned to a diet with 65% carbohydrates and those assigned to a diet with 35% carbohydrates (2.9 and 3.4 kg, respectively) (P>0.20 for all comparisons). Among the 80% of participants who completed the trial, the average weight loss was 4 kg; 14 to 15% of the participants had a reduction of at least 10% of their initial body weight. Satiety, hunger, satisfaction with the diet, and attendance at group sessions were similar for all diets; attendance was strongly associated with weight loss (0.2 kg per session attended). The diets improved lipid-related risk factors and fasting insulin levels.
This is just one example, there's a lot more (you can start from looking at related studies on the linked page, for example https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15181047/). The first big study was already done in 60s and it was never refuted AFAIK: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/002604...
But the findings aren't fashionable or convenient, so people tend to ignore them and cherry-pick any study that has more convenient results with miracle diets.
- "The four diets [1] also allowed for a dose–response test of carbohydrate intake that ranged from 35 to 65% of energy."
A keto diet is "5-10%" carbs, so that's a very significant difference. I doubt you could get into ketosis with a 35% carb diet and they didnt even bother measuring ketosis since there wasn't actually a specific low-carb group.
- "Carbohydrate-rich foods with a low glycemic index were recommended in each diet."
Always good but a recommendation is super difficult to do in practice unless you rigidly sequester carbs youre going to fail. Other keto studies provided the actual food, these people were just given percentages.
Finally the low fat vs high fat not making a difference is actually still in line with Keto diets. The idea is you shouldn't overly worry about fat content. So even if high fat did nothing for weight loss that's not a problem.
[1] The diet groups (note how none are low carb):
- Low-Fat, Average- Protein Group (N = 204) = 65% carbs
- Low-Fat, High-Protein Group (N = 202) = 55% carbs
- High-Fat, Average- Protein Group (N = 204) = 45% carbs
- High-Fat, High-Protein Group (N = 201) = 35% carbs
CICO, or "calories in, calories out", is obviously real.
If you don't eat food, you will lose weight and eventually starve to death.
A can of Coke doesn’t satiate your, but it’s almost 300 calories with almost no nutritional value, so you’re going to consume more calories than you otherwise would.
(p.s. they say it's 140)
This isn't "crank science". This is just lack of knowledge. High fibre "carbs" have a lower glycemic index. Fats have essentially none, and protein is low.
Food -> glucose -> insulin release -> glycogen update by liver/muscles -> leptin release for satiety
Simultaneously:
lower blood sugar -> ghrelin release -> hunger
This is just the difference between burning gunpowder and charcoal.
But it's a very bad proxy for anything related to weight. Water is 8.8lbs per gallon and yet has 0 calories so you ignore your entire water maintenance cycle in the accounting. It also assumes that every single molecule of calorie-bearing food is metabolized homogeneously in your body which isn't the case. Your digestive system will happily pass unwanted calories without absorption (especially fat) and tends to store extra water along with carbohydrates (4x by weight).
It's a very simplistic idea that is only true in absolutes. It's a restatement of the 2nd law of thermodynamics which applies to literally everything and is so general and vague as to be useless.
If dieting works in controlled environments, the obvious conclusion is that dieting does not work in uncontrolled environment precisely because of the poor food choices, and because we, as humans, tend to discount the amount of calories in small things through out the day, nor do we rigorously measure.
All a "NEAT decrease" is saying is "people are more lethargic when dieting". It would be unsurprising if this were due to crash dieting, but this cannot "negate" a diet. Reduce calories further until the scale starts to move. Or be more active, despite lethargy.
It does not assume that every molecule is metabolized homogenously, nor that your body is perfectly efficient, and not even that everyone's body has the same level of efficiency.
It more or less means "track how many calories you are eating to get a baseline number. If you want to lose weight, decrease that number. If you want to gain weight, increase that number. Continue tracking until you establish a baseline number for whatever weight you wantwhen you have reached it".
Your digestive system generally does NOT "happily pass unwanted calories without absorption". Ingested fat is broken down into long chain fatty acids, which can be stored directly in adipose tissue with no further metabolic changes. If you consume a ton of fats at one time, there flat-out may not be enough bile salts released to emulsify it all down, and/or not enough pancreatic lipase released to turn all of the emulsified fats into fatty acids, and/or not enough time for them all to be absorbed in your small intestine. Statements like that are more or less like saying "Battletoads players will happily smash into barriers on bikes/surfboards/planes/clinger-winger", or "internal combustion engines will happily pass unburned fuel". It's a system in motion with a limited point of insertion (the common bile duct at the beginning of the duodenum), and hopefully long enough to finish the job. The fact that this is not always true just means that the system has been overloaded.
Gluconeogenesis from proteins is such a metabolically expensive process that your body does actually try to avoid that one, but it will if it has to, which is why rabbit starvation is true.
This post is peak overconfidence based on an amazingly shallow depth of knowledge.
So, for example, the protein from eggs vs the protein from oatmeal have different coefficients for the resulting kcals. [2:p25]
Of course, there's individual factors that matter and if you alter the food (cook it) you can also change digestibility and thus available calories. [3]
But I would think, based on how the USDA reference reads, that the disparity in digestibility between carbs and fats is somewhat accounted for?
[1] https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400535/DATA/sr13/sr1...
[2] https://www.ars.usda.gov/ARSUserFiles/80400525/Data/Classics...
E.g. "I'm eating fewer calories but in an unhealthy fashion and am now tired all the time and so I'm more sedentary" sorta things.
Is there a really reliable way of estimating total calories burned in a day that's based on direct individual observation vs averages and such?
Individual metabolism makes a difference here, as does body composition.
Meanwhile, in my own anecdotal, completely unscientific personal study, I went to eating one meal a day 6 weeks ago and have lost 10 pounds, despite eating all sorts of stuff you are not supposed to eat (sugar) during that one meal each day.