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Comment by apl | Hacker News Reader

  > We should eat well balanced diets that are tailored to
  > each of us as individuals.

vs.

  > What I found is that low carb diets are a big sham.

?

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by "low carb diet" I am specifically referring to carb-restriction type diets like atkins that advocate eating an extraordinarily low amount of carbohydrates.

carbohydrates are an important macronutrient. the problem is not with carbs, but with bad carbs.

go visit some third world countries where they eat primarily carbs and find me the obese people. (hint: you won't find any)

The problem isn't with carbs, protein, fat or subcategories of those, the problem is with more calories being eaten than calories being burned.

caloric intake > caloric burn -> weight gain

caloric intake = caloric burn -> weight stabilises

caloric intake < caloric burn -> weight loss

You can alter your caloric intake by changing the amount and type of food you eat. You can alter your caloric burn by changing the amount of exercise / labor you perform.

I absolutely agree that weight is regulated by calories consumed vs calories burned.

In practice though, trying to say that is the only important aspect is complete bull. Try getting all your calories from wood chips and let me know how that work.

In order for consistent weight loss to occur, we need to eat healthy foods so that we feel good. Feeling lousy will cause you to overeat. Eating bad foods could also make you sick.

Well yes, of course your diet should be well-rounded and contain all the necessary vitamins, fibers, protein your body needs.

My comment was more a reaction to all the different kinds of diets, and how they're supposedly a better way to lose weight than the previous diet. If you want to lose weight, and you already have a varied diet that meets your body's daily intake requirements, it can be useful to calculate your calorie consumption and burn rate and try to tweak both of those so that you end up with a caloric deficit.

Of course this only directly affects your weight, and you need to also take care of your body's general health. I would hope it's obvious to most that you shouldn't start a wood chip diet.

Those formulas have the appeal of simplicity, but it's more complicated than that. For starters, caloric burn is highly correlated with caloric intake. They're not independent variables by a long shot. Consume less and your metabolism will actually shift down to burn less. Burn more by exercise and your appetite will increase to partially compensate.

Also, exercise is actually a low load on our body calorically (for most types of exercise). The overwhelming majority of calories burnt are for maintaining homeostasis, and have nothing to do with aerobic exercise.

Here's an example that shows how people are deceived. If you're an average male, and you start using a high-tech treadmill, the calories/hour measure might say something like "120 calories/hour". Sounds great, right? Well, what it doesn't say is that 100 calories of that measurement are just due to your basal metabolic rate, the amount you would burn just sitting in a chair. Running (possibly the most efficient exercise) itself only burnt 20 calories an hour. A carrot is sufficient to cover that.

Plus, exercise is not the only output. Heat production is an even better one. The amount of calories expended in maintaining body temperature is way higher than exercise. There's also excretion, but luckily, nobody's advocating laxatives as a weight-loss regimen yet. :)

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