Does it matter WHAT the calories are? (as long as you're in deficit)

[SteveOtter]

Hi,

If I am in deficit with my calories I should lose weight but...

Does it matter what that calories I have consumed are?

For example if a dieter decides to have a bottle of wine one day and they allow for its 550 calories on their daily allowance of 2000, is that ok?

Another example if a dieter has half of his 2000 daily allowance filled with junk food like chocolate bars, is that ok?

My question is... Is is it not only the amount of calories, but the type of calories too, that is important for weight loss, or is it only the fact that one is in deficit that matters?

[Dominique]

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@SteveOtter wrote:

Another example if a dieter has half of his 2000 daily allowance filled with junk food like chocolate bars, is that ok?

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It’s not OK in the sense you wouldn’t get a lot of important micronutrients, fiber etc. But strictly from a weight-loss point of view, it would be "OK", in the sense your weight would come down.

You may have heard of the professor who lost 27 pounds in 10 weeks on a (totally "unhealthy") diet of Twinkies:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/

or of the pizza chef who lost 100 lbs eating pizza everyday:

http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/29/chef-loses-almost-seven-stone-in-a-year-on-the-pizza-diet-5651020/

As long as you’re in a caloric deficit, your weight will come down. Of course, you would want your diet to be as nutritious as possible, with a sufficient amount of protein, essential fats, vitamins, fiber etc., but it’s not an absolute must. In fact, it can be a good idea (from a psychological point of view) to make room in your diet for "unhealthy" food you like, because it’s far easier to adhere to a diet that does not exclude your favorite food items completely. Successful weight loss is not about perfection (eating 100% "healthy" or "clean"), it’s about consistency. 

[divedragon]

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@SteveOtter wrote:

Hi,

If I am in deficit with my calories I should lose weight but...

Does it matter what that calories I have consumed are?

For example if a dieter decides to have a bottle of wine one day and they allow for its 550 calories on their daily allowance of 2000, is that ok?

Another example if a dieter has half of his 2000 daily allowance filled with junk food like chocolate bars, is that ok?

My question is... Is is it not only the amount of calories, but the type of calories too, that is important for weight loss, or is it only the fact that one is in deficit that matters?

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@SteveOtter

While no doubted others will disagree, new studies do indicate a calorie is not just a calorie.  A new index is being developed called the insulin index.  We've had the glycemic index for some time now and the thought behind that was that the higher a food spikes our blood sugar, the more will get stored as fat as we will have more blood sugar than we need.  More recent studies show only a 23 % correlation between a foods glycemic index and the amount of insulin that is produced.  Insulin is the hormone responsible for controlling blood sugar by removing it from the blood and storing it as fat in the cells.

In this new index it turns out there are some things expected, but some that are not.  Carbs have a very high insulin index and they tend to have a high glycemic index as well.  Protien, on the other hand has a low glycemic index, but a realitively high insulin index.  Fat's have the lowest insulin response of any food category.

Alcohol is an entirely different animal.  It does not get converted to blood glucose, but is shunted directly to the liver to be metabolized.  The body sees it as a poison and puts the priority on getting rid of it.  There is one study that suggest light to moderate alcohol can enhance insulin sensitivty (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16047538).  However; Experimental evidence from several metabolic studies showed a suppression of lipid oxidation by alcohol and thus the enhancement of a positive fat balance.  Also, when we eat a certain amount of energy is expended to digest that food.  This is known as thermogenisis and Alcohol-induced thermogenesis is approximately 20% in healthy nonalcoholic subjects as compared to other forms of calories.  It's not clear, but probably some alcohol will not stall weight loss and potentially may even help.

It is suggested that by eating something like chocolate bars, or high sugar, we spike both our blood sugar and our insulin response.  Insulin sees how much glycogen is in the system and starts to clear it out by converting it to fat.  Once stored as fat, it won't come back out again until you've depleated the glycose stored in blood and liver.  These sugary calories are digested much faster and the eater will feel hungry sooner.  This tends to lead to overeating.

Along with this phenomenom are mitigating factors that include fat and fiber.  The reason we can eat veggies and not gain a lot of weight, even though they tend to be higher in carbs is they also have a lot of fiber.  Fiber helps us feel full longer and it slows the digestive process both in the stomach and in the intestines.  This slows the insulin and blood glucose response.  Protien are typcially consumed in the form of meat which is associate with fat.  Both fat and protien digest slowly and make us feel full longer.

Pure calorie restriction over time will result in a slower metabolism.  The body adjusts and begins to converve energy.  If you stick with calorie restriction for long enough and consistently, that will become your maintenance and then each time you go over that, excess is stored as fat even if for a day or two.  Then return to that number, the excess you stored won't be burned.

I know this doesn't directly answer your questions because it just isn't that simple.  Calorie restriction, regardless of what you eat will work for a while, but not for long term.  You have to consider macro and micro nutrients as well.  Reduction in the insulin response will help you convert fat to and from eaiser by keeping your cells sensitive to it's effects.  One thought is to cycle your calories from low to maintenance and focus on the foods that keep the insulin response low and you should see long term weight loss. 

[awood08]

It's all a math game, yes if you are in a deficit you will lose weight. But ultimately the quality of your food will affect your body and weight loss. I find it harder now to lose as much weight as I did before now that I'm 10 pounds from my goal weight if I have anything considered unhealthy. When I stick to my whole grains, fresh and organic, and lean meats I have no trouble dropping 2 pounds or more a week. But when I want to splurge a little (still stay within my calorie goal) but opt for a less than healthy option my weight will not barely or not drop at all. I also feel alot different, sluggish, not as full from my meals, etc.

I would say the type of calories are just as important as how many. You wouldn't want to put the lowest quality gasoline in a your brand new Porsche would you? 🙂

[LedMatrix]

@I echo @Dominique's comment. I use MyFitnessPal to help me get a good idea of well well i'm balancing my macros. Pretty handy tool. Consume fewer calories than you burn, eat healthy and try to get some exercise. That's help me lose 30lbs and I have energy, feel good and don't feel persistent hunger.

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@SteveOtter wrote:

Hi,

If I am in deficit with my calories I should lose weight but...

Does it matter what that calories I have consumed are?

For example if a dieter decides to have a bottle of wine one day and they allow for its 550 calories on their daily allowance of 2000, is that ok?

Another example if a dieter has half of his 2000 daily allowance filled with junk food like chocolate bars, is that ok?

My question is... Is is it not only the amount of calories, but the type of calories too, that is important for weight loss, or is it only the fact that one is in deficit that matters?

---

[DominicJ]

For weght loss, calories are all that matters, anyone who thinks you will gain weight if you eat 1500calories of butter and burn 2000 calories, because hormones, is mistaken.

A calorie is a unit of energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed.  Its like the first rule of physics.

"Insulin Response" is garbage

Sorry, it is.

"These sugary calories are digested much faster and the eater will feel hungry sooner.  This tends to lead to overeating."

Because it ignores the question.

The question is, "if I eat 1500calories of white sugar and do 2000calories of excercise, will I lose weight", the answer is yes

The answer is not, "no, because you will be hungry and eat 10,000 calories of sugar.", it might be true (in some cases), but it ignores the question that was actually asked.

[SunsetRunner]

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@SteveOtter wrote:

Hi,

If I am in deficit with my calories I should lose weight but...

Does it matter what that calories I have consumed are?

For example if a dieter decides to have a bottle of wine one day and they allow for its 550 calories on their daily allowance of 2000, is that ok?

Another example if a dieter has half of his 2000 daily allowance filled with junk food like chocolate bars, is that ok?

My question is... Is is it not only the amount of calories, but the type of calories too, that is important for weight loss, or is it only the fact that one is in deficit that matters?

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In my opinion the amount of one's sugar intake should be closely watched than calories.  I'm more lean when I intake less sugar.   Since I'm very active, I don't watch my calorie intake, but I also don't over eat.   

[Dominique]

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@SteveOtter wrote:

For example if a dieter decides to have a bottle of wine one day and they allow for its 550 calories on their daily allowance of 2000, is that ok?

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You have just defined flexible dieting: you can eat anything you want, including your favorite "unhealthy" foods, as long as you’ve made room for them in your diet.

[DominicJ]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@SteveOtter wrote:

For example if a dieter decides to have a bottle of wine one day and they allow for its 550 calories on their daily allowance of 2000, is that ok?

---

You have just defined flexible dieting: you can eat anything you want, including your favorite "unhealthy" foods, as long as you’ve made room for them in your diet.

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I have gone for a run so I can eat a pizza.....

[emili]

a deficit is a deficit- but your machine won't perform for you like you need it to without the good stuff.

[SunsetRunner]

Yes. At the end if the day, better food means you'll perform better and lose more weight... that being said... if you go on a run and burn around 600kcals then a slice of pizza afterwards will not cause you to gain weight. You need to be able to treat yourself after a workout without overdoing it. 

With the sugar... that's completely untrue. Sugar can bloat you (if it's refined/processed) but it's not directly linking into fat storage and fat gain. 

[norman_cates]

Ah, now theirs a fight waiting to start. Everyone will come back with different opinions on it.

Because if you ONLY look at a calorie as a calorie, then sure! You cannot create or destroy energy.

But what the calorie in-calorie out brigade ignore is that the calorie numbers on food are based on ash tests, that just burn the food and measure the calories of heat.

Our bodies do not work like that. The processes to break down food require energy (thermogenic effects of food). The processes to build that food into our bodies takes energy.

There's a lot of those processes that are accounted for in BMR...

The type of food will have a different effect that MAY result in more glycogen or fat storage depending on how it tweaks our hormone receptors and what excess there is.

Also what is rarely emphasised (because everyone wants to pretend they are an expert) is that everything is an estimate based on statistical models. Unless you are an exactly average human being, you have to test these models against your own body. 

Calorie expenditure is also an estimate because although you CAN do pretty accurate measurements of calories burned, it needs you to be hooked up to a machine that measures your CO2 output. And no one in the real world can do that. So the models are all statistical. And they may be wrong, but they are consistently wrong. So you can account for it after you do an experiment on yourself.

If you are having problems with weight (as I always have) then I suggest getting a Fitbit or similar and using MyFitnessPal to log all your food. 

Connect Fitbit to MFP and they will talk to each other (mostly. Sometimes they lose the connection for unknown reasons. So keep an eye out because you can't sync the data again.)

The run the experiment on yourself. Log EVERYTHING that goes in your mouth ACCURATELY. Weigh, measure whatever. For at least a month. 

Wear your Fitbit all the time. Let it measure everything. 

Then you will have to manually compare the calorie difference versus the weight change. (Because neither Fitbit nor MFP will show you your calorie differences on a graph. ) And you can get some idea of the offset you need to apply to yourself to get good weight change.

Maybe you can also manually graph and compare the macros and see what your weight is doing based on the macros you are eating...

PS. I only say Fitbit because they do have a good ecosystem. But try to avoid the models with the friction fit watchstraps. They delaminate quickly and start falling off.

[GZgrl]

Totally agree with you @divedragon   I know my body won't lose in deficit if I am eating processed carbs from wheat or rice. Taken 20 years to figure out what works for my body.  The type of calorie definitely counts just as much as the quantity