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The problem with a fast rise of blood sugar and insulin is not that it tells our body to start storing fat!
Whatever we eat and don't burn up eventually gets turned into fat anyway.
The bigger concern is that an insulin surge causes too much blood sugar to be transported out of the blood and this results in our blood sugar levels dropping below normal. This leaves us feeling tired and hungry and wanting to eat more.
Now, there are two important things to consider:
- Not all carbs raise the blood sugar levels equally fast.
A low glycemic index (GI) indicates slow rise of blood sugar.
Note that fructose (!) has a low GI while white bread has a high GI.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycemic_index
- Dietary fiber increases food volume without increasing caloric content.
We are satisfied much easier and have less appetite.
By eating food rich in dietary fiber, you can eat as much as you want and still lose weight.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_fiber
Note that fruits and vegetables fulfill both criteria.
They have a low glycemic index and they are rich in dietary fiber.
Also note that sports and exercise drop our blood sugar levels in a similar fashion.
Which is why people tend to gain weight when they are doing sports because of overeating afterwards.
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Dietary fiber also reduces cholesterol levels and hence gets rid of excess estrogen.
Low GI foods are excellent to keep your body awake throughout the day.
If you consume too many high GI carbs like white bread, white rice, etc you will doze off easily due to the spike in blood sugar which quickly plunges after 1-2 hours.
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On June 24 2014 14:13 dRaW wrote:
I don't care about the obese people but it shouldn't be a diagnosed disease because it's eating up health care costs. If you smoke or eat your body to death then you shouldn't get benefits from health care.
It seems there's no way around that. For example risks for heart attacks and strokes can be managed through medication. Even if it's not really a disease, from the point of view of health care work, there's things that need to be done on the person and you need to budget for that and stuff, so in practice it's exactly like working on someone with a disease.
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On June 24 2014 11:24 dudeman001 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2014 10:10 IgnE wrote:
There have been a bunch of posts over the last several pages, Nyxisto, asserting that it doesn't matter what you eat as long as you count the calories. Along with that, either explicitly or implicitly, there have been a number of posts saying, since that is the case, this simply a problem of willpower: no one wants to count their calories. So I have been addressing those arguments. Clearly everybody does not know that not all food calories are created equal. What IgnE said. Yes, a calorie is a standard unit of energy. However, the food the calorie came from can have a dramatically different process for how it's processed by the body. For a simplified example: Human A eats 2000 calories of meat, veggies and fruit. This food is low in sugar and is slowly metabolized throughout the day, gradually feeding the body the (assumed) 2000 it needs. All is well in this situation. Human B eats 2000 calories of bread, soda, and other carbohydrate-rich foods. This food is quickly metabolized into blood sugar. Now, blood sugar has to be very highly regulated because high blood sugar is toxic and WILL kill you. So the body produces insulin, which is a chemical hormone that forces that blood sugar into fat cells. Insulin literally creates an environment where it forces your blood's fuel into fat cells to keep the body from dying. This creates a problem, because suddenly those 2000 calories human B ate aren't feeding the body, and the body gets hungry. The body will become so hungry that it produces more and more hormones to drive the brain to find food. People overeat, metabolism slows down (changing the daily required calories from 2000 to less) and this is what drives obesity. Furthermore, cells become damaged - essentially - as they become resistant to hormones such as insulin and leptin. This breaks the system down even further in an environment overloaded with carbohydrates. (I'm going to plug my own post because the youtube series in the spoilers I posted explains this much more eloquently: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/451503-obesity-now-a-global-issue?page=13#258 ) A calorie is a unit of energy. But the calorie isn't the problem. The calorie has never been the problem. It's what the actually food does to your body on the CHEMICAL level, not on the physical level.
Wow that's a really enlightening post.
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On June 24 2014 11:24 dudeman001 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2014 10:10 IgnE wrote:
There have been a bunch of posts over the last several pages, Nyxisto, asserting that it doesn't matter what you eat as long as you count the calories. Along with that, either explicitly or implicitly, there have been a number of posts saying, since that is the case, this simply a problem of willpower: no one wants to count their calories. So I have been addressing those arguments. Clearly everybody does not know that not all food calories are created equal. What IgnE said. Yes, a calorie is a standard unit of energy. However, the food the calorie came from can have a dramatically different process for how it's processed by the body. For a simplified example: Human A eats 2000 calories of meat, veggies and fruit. This food is low in sugar and is slowly metabolized throughout the day, gradually feeding the body the (assumed) 2000 it needs. All is well in this situation. Human B eats 2000 calories of bread, soda, and other carbohydrate-rich foods. This food is quickly metabolized into blood sugar. Now, blood sugar has to be very highly regulated because high blood sugar is toxic and WILL kill you. So the body produces insulin, which is a chemical hormone that forces that blood sugar into fat cells. Insulin literally creates an environment where it forces your blood's fuel into fat cells to keep the body from dying. This creates a problem, because suddenly those 2000 calories human B ate aren't feeding the body, and the body gets hungry. The body will become so hungry that it produces more and more hormones to drive the brain to find food. People overeat, metabolism slows down (changing the daily required calories from 2000 to less) and this is what drives obesity. Furthermore, cells become damaged - essentially - as they become resistant to hormones such as insulin and leptin. This breaks the system down even further in an environment overloaded with carbohydrates. (I'm going to plug my own post because the youtube series in the spoilers I posted explains this much more eloquently: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/451503-obesity-now-a-global-issue?page=13#258 ) A calorie is a unit of energy. But the calorie isn't the problem. The calorie has never been the problem. It's what the actually food does to your body on the CHEMICAL level, not on the physical level.
I thought a good bit about your post. I think what's irking me is that the Human B example of yours would in practice not exist like you imagine. The kind of carbs in that diet you think of for B will behave exactly like you describe, and that means a real person would actually suffer if eating on the same schedule as in the Human A example. Because of this suffering, feeling weak etc., B would start eating snacks. If B snacks a lot, but still stays in the 2000 kcal limit, this means that problem you think of will not occur like you describe. The real person B would eat tiny meals and a lot of snacks, and the blood sugar levels wouldn't be that different from what happens to A.
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
so you're randomly changing the premise for no reason to fit into your preconceived notions, is what I'm getting from that
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On June 24 2014 21:30 marvellosity wrote:
so you're randomly changing the premise for no reason to fit into your preconceived notions, is what I'm getting from that
No, think about what's described. A 2000 kcal diet of soda and other stuff like that. If that person for example drinks 2 liters of cola a day, that's 800 kcal right there. That's a real issue for staying inside a 2000 kcal limit.
I suspect that Human B would not exist in practice. The issues that are described are what happens to someone obese with a 3000-4000 kcal diet.
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United Kingdom36161 Posts
On June 24 2014 21:33 Ropid wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2014 21:30 marvellosity wrote:
so you're randomly changing the premise for no reason to fit into your preconceived notions, is what I'm getting from that No, think about what's described. A 2000 kcal diet of soda and other stuff like that. If that person for example drinks 2 liters of cola a day, that's 800 kcal right there. That's a real issue for staying inside a 2000 kcal limit. I suspect that Human B would not exist in practice. The issues that are described are what happens to someone obese with a 3000-4000 kcal diet.
What he's demonstrating is that 2k calories is not necessarily the same as 2k calories. Saying example B "does not exist in practice" does not in any way change what he said/argued.
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On June 24 2014 21:22 Ropid wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2014 11:24 dudeman001 wrote:On June 24 2014 10:10 IgnE wrote:
There have been a bunch of posts over the last several pages, Nyxisto, asserting that it doesn't matter what you eat as long as you count the calories. Along with that, either explicitly or implicitly, there have been a number of posts saying, since that is the case, this simply a problem of willpower: no one wants to count their calories. So I have been addressing those arguments. Clearly everybody does not know that not all food calories are created equal. What IgnE said. Yes, a calorie is a standard unit of energy. However, the food the calorie came from can have a dramatically different process for how it's processed by the body. For a simplified example: Human A eats 2000 calories of meat, veggies and fruit. This food is low in sugar and is slowly metabolized throughout the day, gradually feeding the body the (assumed) 2000 it needs. All is well in this situation. Human B eats 2000 calories of bread, soda, and other carbohydrate-rich foods. This food is quickly metabolized into blood sugar. Now, blood sugar has to be very highly regulated because high blood sugar is toxic and WILL kill you. So the body produces insulin, which is a chemical hormone that forces that blood sugar into fat cells. Insulin literally creates an environment where it forces your blood's fuel into fat cells to keep the body from dying. This creates a problem, because suddenly those 2000 calories human B ate aren't feeding the body, and the body gets hungry. The body will become so hungry that it produces more and more hormones to drive the brain to find food. People overeat, metabolism slows down (changing the daily required calories from 2000 to less) and this is what drives obesity. Furthermore, cells become damaged - essentially - as they become resistant to hormones such as insulin and leptin. This breaks the system down even further in an environment overloaded with carbohydrates. (I'm going to plug my own post because the youtube series in the spoilers I posted explains this much more eloquently: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/451503-obesity-now-a-global-issue?page=13#258 ) A calorie is a unit of energy. But the calorie isn't the problem. The calorie has never been the problem. It's what the actually food does to your body on the CHEMICAL level, not on the physical level. I thought a good bit about your post. I think what's irking me is that the Human B example of yours would in practice not exist like you imagine. The kind of carbs in that diet you think of for B will behave exactly like you describe, and that means a real person would actually suffer if eating on the same schedule as in the Human A example. Because of this suffering, feeling weak etc., B would start eating snacks. If B snacks a lot, but still stays in the 2000 kcal limit, this means that problem you think of will not occur like you describe. The real person B would eat tiny meals and a lot of snacks, and the blood sugar levels wouldn't be that different from what happens to A.
Yes, this is how proponents of the high-carb diet would argue.
Keep the insulin levels low by eating small amounts often in a day.
What people don't realize is that doing it this way is a lot harder than eating low glycemic food in the first place.
Eating high glycemic food is a psychological uphill battle that you cannot win over time.
You would need to eat the exact same amount of snacks every day so that your blood sugar doesn't rise.
No more going out for dinner, no more binging, nor more skipping snacks.
You skip one snack and the hunger creeps in. You overeat once and you are already gaining weight.
Nobody can hold that up over time.
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On June 24 2014 21:35 marvellosity wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2014 21:33 Ropid wrote:On June 24 2014 21:30 marvellosity wrote:
so you're randomly changing the premise for no reason to fit into your preconceived notions, is what I'm getting from that No, think about what's described. A 2000 kcal diet of soda and other stuff like that. If that person for example drinks 2 liters of cola a day, that's 800 kcal right there. That's a real issue for staying inside a 2000 kcal limit. I suspect that Human B would not exist in practice. The issues that are described are what happens to someone obese with a 3000-4000 kcal diet. What he's demonstrating is that 2k calories is not necessarily the same as 2k calories. Saying example B "does not exist in practice" does not in any way change what he said/argued.
If you want to stay inside the experiment, not change it at all, then I'd say that what's described is simply wrong. He misunderstood how that will work out with the insulin and whatnot for B. There would be absolutely no issues like what he describes. Human B would feel totally fine and would have no problems.
Human B would be pretty much that professor with his Twinkie Diet case study he did on himself. The guy ate one can of green beans for minerals and other stuff against cramps and whatnot, took multivitamins, drank protein powder shakes. Nearly all of his calories came from Twinkies, and it was 1800 kcal. He snacked on those Twinkies all day. He did not suffer, and his blood work actually improved through the course of his experiment.
So it obviously seems to work just fine. The body's system for managing the levels of carbs and fats works just fine if you count calories and make sure to not gain weight over time. You can then probably eat whatever amount of "evil" carbs you want without worry.
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I feel that this image belongs in any discussion on BMI. I will allow you to draw your own conclusions from it
There has been a rather intensive discussion on nutrition.
I want to weigh in and say that nutrition is a very complex science dealing with an array of biochemical interactions. The data points are quite limited due to the difficulty of accurately tracking precise nutritional input over any long period of time. I am quite leery of any example of nutritional advice based on specific biochemical pathways (for instance, the poster claiming that eating carbs instead of other macro nutrients will cause fat to be formed is not an assertion based on solid science). Any advice on specific timing of when to eat, how often to eat, etc also should be taken with a grain of salt (though really you should try to limit your salt intake)
The only facts which are certain in nutrition is that limiting calories compared to your metabolic output will cause you to lose weight, and eating more will cause you to gain. Also that the body thrives on a variety of nutrients, and there is nothing healthier to eat than fresh vegetables. It is also probably that simple sugars in excess are a factor (though more due to ready available and lack of other nutritional value, rather than elaborate claims that sugar creates some horrible chain reaction in the body)
In the end, best to focus on number of calories and eating as much fresh vegetables and fruit when it comes to losing weight. Worrying about specific nutrients or following any specific fad diet isn't necessary
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On June 24 2014 18:23 Zandar wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2014 11:24 dudeman001 wrote:On June 24 2014 10:10 IgnE wrote:
There have been a bunch of posts over the last several pages, Nyxisto, asserting that it doesn't matter what you eat as long as you count the calories. Along with that, either explicitly or implicitly, there have been a number of posts saying, since that is the case, this simply a problem of willpower: no one wants to count their calories. So I have been addressing those arguments. Clearly everybody does not know that not all food calories are created equal. What IgnE said. Yes, a calorie is a standard unit of energy. However, the food the calorie came from can have a dramatically different process for how it's processed by the body. For a simplified example: Human A eats 2000 calories of meat, veggies and fruit. This food is low in sugar and is slowly metabolized throughout the day, gradually feeding the body the (assumed) 2000 it needs. All is well in this situation. Human B eats 2000 calories of bread, soda, and other carbohydrate-rich foods. This food is quickly metabolized into blood sugar. Now, blood sugar has to be very highly regulated because high blood sugar is toxic and WILL kill you. So the body produces insulin, which is a chemical hormone that forces that blood sugar into fat cells. Insulin literally creates an environment where it forces your blood's fuel into fat cells to keep the body from dying. This creates a problem, because suddenly those 2000 calories human B ate aren't feeding the body, and the body gets hungry. The body will become so hungry that it produces more and more hormones to drive the brain to find food. People overeat, metabolism slows down (changing the daily required calories from 2000 to less) and this is what drives obesity. Furthermore, cells become damaged - essentially - as they become resistant to hormones such as insulin and leptin. This breaks the system down even further in an environment overloaded with carbohydrates. (I'm going to plug my own post because the youtube series in the spoilers I posted explains this much more eloquently: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/451503-obesity-now-a-global-issue?page=13#258 ) A calorie is a unit of energy. But the calorie isn't the problem. The calorie has never been the problem. It's what the actually food does to your body on the CHEMICAL level, not on the physical level. Wow that's a really enlightening post.
Although if Human B in this scenario was disciplined, they would stop eating after 2k calories (and do something like drink tea or water, or eat stuff like carrot / celery sticks which is great at making people forget they're hungry) and let the body turn that fat back into glucose and thus not get fat.
Or they continue to eat food with "empty calories", which they obviously already are, but then not eat more, knowing they will feel less hungry in 30-60 mins time.
I also think any discussion about weight gain / loss using biochemistry pathways is flawed. It's great and interesting to explain what happens when people exceed intakes of xyz (in this case calories), or what can cause people to over eat (i.e. empty calories), but actually these pathways are activated because of excess of total intake rather than the composition of the intake. Although certain compositions of food make it much more likely for the ignorant to overeat.
Now do you think it's easier to teach Human B how to cook and buy sensible food or to make them eat less? (I actually think both won't work with is why there's so many fatties around). I'm more interested in peoples thoughts on Public Health promotion or incentives rather than everyone playing "I'm a biochemist".
It's like how people can go at great lengths to explain why people run into debt, but ultimately it boils down to a simple lack of incoming / outgoing balance.
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I'm easily willing to accept that it's easier to overeat on unhealthy food than on healthy (especially not "caloric dense") food. However I seriously doubt that there is compelling evidence that it makes a difference to your body weight if you're eating 2000 kcals of candy or 2000 kcals of appels.
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On June 25 2014 01:05 MoonfireSpam wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2014 18:23 Zandar wrote:On June 24 2014 11:24 dudeman001 wrote:On June 24 2014 10:10 IgnE wrote:
There have been a bunch of posts over the last several pages, Nyxisto, asserting that it doesn't matter what you eat as long as you count the calories. Along with that, either explicitly or implicitly, there have been a number of posts saying, since that is the case, this simply a problem of willpower: no one wants to count their calories. So I have been addressing those arguments. Clearly everybody does not know that not all food calories are created equal. What IgnE said. Yes, a calorie is a standard unit of energy. However, the food the calorie came from can have a dramatically different process for how it's processed by the body. For a simplified example: Human A eats 2000 calories of meat, veggies and fruit. This food is low in sugar and is slowly metabolized throughout the day, gradually feeding the body the (assumed) 2000 it needs. All is well in this situation. Human B eats 2000 calories of bread, soda, and other carbohydrate-rich foods. This food is quickly metabolized into blood sugar. Now, blood sugar has to be very highly regulated because high blood sugar is toxic and WILL kill you. So the body produces insulin, which is a chemical hormone that forces that blood sugar into fat cells. Insulin literally creates an environment where it forces your blood's fuel into fat cells to keep the body from dying. This creates a problem, because suddenly those 2000 calories human B ate aren't feeding the body, and the body gets hungry. The body will become so hungry that it produces more and more hormones to drive the brain to find food. People overeat, metabolism slows down (changing the daily required calories from 2000 to less) and this is what drives obesity. Furthermore, cells become damaged - essentially - as they become resistant to hormones such as insulin and leptin. This breaks the system down even further in an environment overloaded with carbohydrates. (I'm going to plug my own post because the youtube series in the spoilers I posted explains this much more eloquently: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/451503-obesity-now-a-global-issue?page=13#258 ) A calorie is a unit of energy. But the calorie isn't the problem. The calorie has never been the problem. It's what the actually food does to your body on the CHEMICAL level, not on the physical level. Wow that's a really enlightening post. Although if Human B in this scenario was disciplined, they would stop eating after 2k calories (and do something like drink tea or water, or eat stuff like carrot / celery sticks which is great at making people forget they're hungry) and let the body turn that fat back into glucose and thus not get fat. Or they continue to eat food with "empty calories", which they obviously already are, but then not eat more, knowing they will feel less hungry in 30-60 mins time. I also think any discussion about weight gain / loss using biochemistry pathways is flawed. It's great and interesting to explain what happens when people exceed intakes of xyz (in this case calories), but actually these pathways are activated because of excess of total intake (calories, as above) rather than the composition of the intake. Although certain compositions of food make it much more likely for the ignorant to overeat. Now do you think it's easier to teach Human B how to cook and buy sensible food or to make them eat less? (I actually think both won't work with is why there's so many fatties around). I'm more interested in peoples thoughts on Public Health promotion or incentives rather than everyone playing "I'm a biochemist".
There's no system to turn fat back into carbs in the body. That carb to fat transformation is a one way street. It will then stay in its fatty acid form until burned like that (muscles can do that). The only thing the body has to create glucose is to break down protein, but I think that feature only kicks in after several days of starving.
To solve this problem, Nature's solution apparently was to make you feel terribly hungry if your blood sugar level is close to zero. 
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On June 25 2014 01:24 Nyxisto wrote:
I'm easily willing to accept that it's easier to overeat on unhealthy food than on healthy (especially not "caloric dense") food. However I seriously doubt that there is compelling evidence that it makes a difference to your body weight if you're eating 2000 kcals of candy or 2000 kcals of appels.
Mind that the process that converts glucose into fatty acids is very inefficient.
That means, a lot of calories from carbohydrates get lost when they are stored as fat.
So 2000 calories of beef and 2000 calories of apple are NOT the same, because the sugar cannot be stored efficiently.
Since most candies contain also a high amount of fat, your calculation is not quite correct.
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I cannot believe people are actually trying to argue that 2000 calories of food A, are the same as 2000 of calories of food B.
Like is this a joke? Do you think that putting fat, sodium, sat fats, trans fats, protein, carb, vitamins on every single food you buy is totally irrelevent, and calories is all that matters? The kind of food you eat is very important. I do believe (unlike most people), that eating smaller portions for lunch/dinner is usually more effective than switching to a healthier food diet, yet eating the same amount of calories, but by now means does that mean that the type of food you eat has no differences.
I think 99% of the people posting in this thread are too uneducated about the subject (myself included), but what I do know from a couple graduates in molecular biology, is it's not a simple thing. Hormonal imbalances in your body occur, deficiencies in specific nutrients is something your body is effected by.
It's not like the only thing that happens in your body is:
-Eat food, get glucose, amino acids, others organic molecules
-Break bonds, make new lower energy molecules
-Use that energy to make ATP, discard waste
Personaly living in Canada, I don't think Obesity is an issue in the sense that anything dramatic needs to be done. People who choose to live a healthy life can easily make those decisions, and there's lots of support if that's what you want. If you don't mind being fat, not really have much of a sexual life, be at a greater risk for disease, and not feel as good physically, then so be it. It can take some work to be healthy and change a lot of habits, that for many people aren't worth it.
Nothing wrong with living a relaxing life working an office job 9-5, watching TV to relax when you get home, go out with friends for Wing Night, play video games in free time. Take care of kid.
The one thing I notice though, because I have many international student friends, is they all say that white people (referring to western world), spend much less money on food than other races. I don't know why that is, but I also get the impression that white people (relative to brown/asian/latino), care a lot less about what they eat. None of my non-white friends (I'm white) are able to eat fast food very frequently, they just feel gross. They will much rather go to a vietnemese place which is a lot less greasy, they don't eat fries if they get a burger, and subway is especially popular among non-white races in my university.
Anyway, I went off topic quite a lot, but all I wanted to get at is I don't think it's a big issue, and the only thing I wish happened, is that there would be some shift in mentality around the western world to care what people put in their body, rather than just buying the cheapest food they can buy (which is fatty food).
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On June 25 2014 02:23 FiWiFaKi wrote:
I cannot believe people are actually trying to argue that 2000 calories of food A, are the same as 2000 of calories of food B.
Like is this a joke?
[...]
It's just that you have to take a step back and think about a real person that actually lives with a diet like proposed. It can't be something that makes you feel like shit, because no one wants to feel bad and will do changes to the diet. This means any real person that eats a 2000 kcal diet will eat something that feels alright to them. Amongst those diets that feel fine to a person, there will be close to any combination of carbs and fats you can think of. I'm just saying those combinations will all work.
There will be guys with a low-fat diet, and they will feel fine. There will be guys with a low-carb diet and they also will feel fine. You can roughly count the macro-nutrients to get to 2000 kcal and all will roughly behave the same, at least with regards to this topic which is about obesity. No idea about things like acne or cramps.
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Regarding the high fat diet. I tried this out some while ago. I got terrible skin, got bad breath and felt absolutely terrible. Would not recommend that at all. Sticking to the "mainstream advice" of eating a lot of complex carbs, many vegetables, not much red meat and moving a lot works like a charm for practical purposes.
It's a pretty interesting field theoretically, but for the average person trying to lose some pounds all this new age keto stuff is completely irrelevant.
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On June 25 2014 01:25 Ropid wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2014 01:05 MoonfireSpam wrote:On June 24 2014 18:23 Zandar wrote:On June 24 2014 11:24 dudeman001 wrote:On June 24 2014 10:10 IgnE wrote:
There have been a bunch of posts over the last several pages, Nyxisto, asserting that it doesn't matter what you eat as long as you count the calories. Along with that, either explicitly or implicitly, there have been a number of posts saying, since that is the case, this simply a problem of willpower: no one wants to count their calories. So I have been addressing those arguments. Clearly everybody does not know that not all food calories are created equal. What IgnE said. Yes, a calorie is a standard unit of energy. However, the food the calorie came from can have a dramatically different process for how it's processed by the body. For a simplified example: Human A eats 2000 calories of meat, veggies and fruit. This food is low in sugar and is slowly metabolized throughout the day, gradually feeding the body the (assumed) 2000 it needs. All is well in this situation. Human B eats 2000 calories of bread, soda, and other carbohydrate-rich foods. This food is quickly metabolized into blood sugar. Now, blood sugar has to be very highly regulated because high blood sugar is toxic and WILL kill you. So the body produces insulin, which is a chemical hormone that forces that blood sugar into fat cells. Insulin literally creates an environment where it forces your blood's fuel into fat cells to keep the body from dying. This creates a problem, because suddenly those 2000 calories human B ate aren't feeding the body, and the body gets hungry. The body will become so hungry that it produces more and more hormones to drive the brain to find food. People overeat, metabolism slows down (changing the daily required calories from 2000 to less) and this is what drives obesity. Furthermore, cells become damaged - essentially - as they become resistant to hormones such as insulin and leptin. This breaks the system down even further in an environment overloaded with carbohydrates. (I'm going to plug my own post because the youtube series in the spoilers I posted explains this much more eloquently: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/general/451503-obesity-now-a-global-issue?page=13#258 ) A calorie is a unit of energy. But the calorie isn't the problem. The calorie has never been the problem. It's what the actually food does to your body on the CHEMICAL level, not on the physical level. Wow that's a really enlightening post. Although if Human B in this scenario was disciplined, they would stop eating after 2k calories (and do something like drink tea or water, or eat stuff like carrot / celery sticks which is great at making people forget they're hungry) and let the body turn that fat back into glucose and thus not get fat. Or they continue to eat food with "empty calories", which they obviously already are, but then not eat more, knowing they will feel less hungry in 30-60 mins time. I also think any discussion about weight gain / loss using biochemistry pathways is flawed. It's great and interesting to explain what happens when people exceed intakes of xyz (in this case calories), but actually these pathways are activated because of excess of total intake (calories, as above) rather than the composition of the intake. Although certain compositions of food make it much more likely for the ignorant to overeat. Now do you think it's easier to teach Human B how to cook and buy sensible food or to make them eat less? (I actually think both won't work with is why there's so many fatties around). I'm more interested in peoples thoughts on Public Health promotion or incentives rather than everyone playing "I'm a biochemist". There's no system to turn fat back into carbs in the body. That carb to fat transformation is a one way street. It will then stay in its fatty acid form until burned like that (muscles can do that). The only thing the body has to create glucose is to break down protein, but I think that feature only kicks in after several days of starving. To solve this problem, Nature's solution apparently was to make you feel terribly hungry if your blood sugar level is close to zero.
Fine I misphrased it, haven't looked at gluconeogenesis or metabolic pathways for about 10 years, swap out the "glucose" for "energy".
The premise is still valid that if you eat to a defecit, you shed the fat. And even if you eat more fat than the next guy, as long as the calories are ok you still shed weight. That was the whole point of that dude eating only Twinkies and managing to shed pounds.
Nobody is actually arguing that 1000 calories worth of pure sugar is metabolised the same was as 1000 calories of beef, but most of us are argueing that it's largely irrelevant since quantity > quality.
Or put another way, of you eat an excess of 1000 calories in healthy food, you'll still be obese, just as if you have 1000 calorie excess in unhealthy food. You might not be as fat, but you'll still be fat. You can change the quality of food but not necessarily the outcome. Changing the quantity is required.
Thats the whole point.
Nobody is disputing what constitutes a good diet or that Western food culture is shit (ate in Kelseys like twice when up in Canada for the ski season cos everyone else did and felt like death).
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As someone who isn't afflicted with obesity I find it difficult to care.
Since it was a BMI chart that started this discussion, I will agree that avg. BMI is up worldwide. That's a good thing afaic. More people have the power to choose between being overweight or looking after themselves, as opposed to starving. Good for us.
Let's just do what seems to be so popular these days and put a more positive spin on the acronym "BMI" - I propose that we call it the Beast Mode Index. The world is more beast than ever!
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EPT![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Correlation_between_BMI_and_Percent_Body_Fat_for_Men_in_NCHS'_NHANES_1994_Data.PNG)
