[Closed] Explain like I'm 5: Calorie tracking for summer chub emergency

If you are eating generally go9od food can you not just sack off the cakes and excercise portion control?

sack off some of the cycling and do some running, I believe the current thing is very short very hard or extended very gentle.

Personal experience only, but I used weigh****chers, it is a pain when it's home made food, but you start to get a feel for what counts and what doesn't. It is at cost and points not calorie based, paying for it made me commit to it more than MFPal.

I spent 6 months tracking using their app, I dropped 15kg and 2 years later have kept all but 2 of them off (includes going from 15 miles a day bike commute to almost never riding, cos needy dog, wfh and general laziness).

1kg a week will be hard to maintain after the intial drop, but it's not impossible based on how much you have to lose overall.

So do I need to weigh everything I eat?

Pretty much yes.

Before or after cooking?

I do before, but often the app has differing values depending on cooking method (e.g. Roast Potatoes vs Boiled)

What app is best in the UK for homemade food?

Myfitnesspal has worked for me. (33kg lost overall, 5.4 kg this year, 15 ish last year10 ish in the 18 months before that)

You calorie requirements are based on your weight and activity level. I'm on 500 less cals per day than I was when I started.

I have days where I'm over the limit, days where I'm under - I try to keep my weekly rolling average under the limit (2150 for a fairly sedantary 100kg man).

1kg per week is definitely doable.

For homemade meals, I tend to do a search on myfitnesspal for an equivalent if I haven't cooked it. If I am cooking, I tend to weigh everything anyway and then save it as a meal in MFP, especially if it's something I might have regularly. Lots of websites that I get the recipe ideas from also have a the nutritional values with the recipe now too, so I can just enter that straight in and save as a meal.

I kind of agree with Josh - but I am always surprised when I actually track calories (using My Fitness Pal). However good I think I am being, by spending a couple of days religiously tracking every last mouthful...it's surprising how fast the calories add up.

MFP is free for what you need, there is a handy barcode scanner so it's really straightforward. Perhaps track for a day to get a feel for what x000 calories is.

Or you could go full iDave and send me £100 for a personalised plan...

For clarity I'm not remotely suggesting that tracking doesn't work or that it is as simple as "just eat less". Just that if you are generally cooking from scratch you probably have a good idea whats in your food.

I find its the "this is healthy when I make it" processed food that can get you. And crisps obviously because I have needs.

Run!

It's the only thing that keeps weight off for me. I don't want to be a calorie watcher and like beer too much to knock that on the head.

Just cut out some crap, run - then run a bit more!

I never found cycling helped with weight-loss even when I was a 200 mile per week rider.

When you say ditching weight do you mean ditching fat?

You can lose weight really easily by cutting carbs. Unscientific answer is carbs are stored with water, cut carbs you roughly double the weight loss in a very short period. It is why people doing diets that reduce carb intake see amazing results for a short time then slower results after.

Cutting fat is more about lifestyle. Unscientifically again you want a net calorie deficit (of course you don't just use calories when you exercise, more muscle means more calorie use all of the time, and more exercise raises your resting metabolic rate.
It is then about what you put in, fatty calorie dense foods will always put you prone to putting on fat.

Easiest approach I found is to look at everything before you choose to eat it, ask yourself is it good for you, should you be eating it? The challenge then is filling yourself up. Pre-cooked turkey steaks are a winner there.

I listened to a nutrition podcast last week so started weighing and logging all meals, just be honest with what you actually eat.

So that's the intake, then diarise the exercise and burn rates.

My mate lost loads of weight by writing his weight down and posting it on the fridge as a reminder every time he felt hungry. I just keep a paper diary so I can see how I m doing.

Good luck btw

74 pounds lost in the last 2 years. I used MyFitnessPal and was religiously measuring everything, but after a few months of that I knew what to cook and how much.

Now, I'm cutting back a bit more because I found in the last few months I'd plateau'd due to working from home and access to the biscuit tin. More biscuits than fruit but "couldn't understand why I wasn't losing weight" - also due to the bike packing in, I got out of cycling every lunchtime. Back on it and bought a nutribullet to try and get more fruit in my system.

It's all about less in move more for me that worked, no gimmicks and keeping under a reasonable amount of calories a day. The App told me 2200 was fine to lose a pound a week, I aimed for 1800, now I'm aiming for 1500

+1 MFP - makes you think about what you're eating too. It's not massively accurate for home-cooked food even if you weigh the portions etc, but keeping a track and trying not to go over your 'target' intake means at the least you're reflecting on food intake vs exercise.

I know I need to track calories to ditch the weight – but how do you actually do this? I don’t eat that much-packaged food, just too much homemade stuff.

Homemade or not, I'm assuming you know the difference between 'good' foods (leanish meats, veg, pulses etc) and 'bad' (sugary, fatty, and especially sugary-fatty) foods, so you can probably achieve what you want through a detailed look at what you eat and some portion-control, rather than fannying around with the intricacies of calorie-control. If what you're eating now is predominantly 'good', just eat less of it. If there's quite a lot of 'bad', then eat a lot less of that.

Definitely achievable. 11kg down since 1st March, including a wobble in May when my girlfriend and I broke up. Over half way to my target (started from a bad place). What I've learned you need a plan that works for you and your lifestyle (obvious I know).

1st Month I concentrated on diet and came up with this variation on 5:2 -
Mon, Wed, Fri - 500 calorie deficit using MFP - now I just eat pretty much the same stuff
Tues, Thu - partial fast - only eat evening meal
Sat, Sun - don't be silly

Once gyms reopened I got back into going 4-5 times a week, probably means I eat a bit more, but the weight loss has continued and I can have a beer a couple of nights. Fitness and strength have improved too.

I've tried loads of things over the years (WW, free iDave, 5:2) with varying degrees of success, I needed something that works with my autism so I don't catastrophise and give up as soon as I have one bad day.

I weigh myself daily, so I can try and fix a bad day, but look at the weekly trend (compare Wed with Wed etc.).

Hadn't ridden my bike for five weeks, went out on Sunday and was amazed at the difference losing some weight and the fitness work has made. Even the ex-gf has commented on it (not my motivation, but nice).

Good luck!

edit - I have looked at what I eat and modified it slightly, there is a lot I could improve nutrition wise, at the moment I need to enjoy what I eat, so that's something I'm looking to improve gradually. I'm the sort of person that when I feel "deprived" I subconciously fight against it and sabotage myself.

I weighed things religiously to begin with, just to get a ballpark idea of calories in each meal/snack, but then just went 'approximate' because as I understand it most 'stated' calorie contents, even for raw ingredients, can be quite approximate. Don't quote me but I'm sure I read up to 20% out on nutrition lables.

Dylan Johnson had a good approach in a YouTube video. Stop counting calories but focus on low calorie density foods which fill you up but which the body either can't process very well or which are mostly water anyway, e.g. unprocessed fruit and veg etc. My lunches now are usually those wee pre-packaged snacky veg packets from the Co-Op lunch aisle, e.g. a wee tub of carrot sticks, half a bag of sugar snap peas, some celery sticks with peanut butter (although PB is high calorie density) and maybe some cooked chicken or turkey.

I still think 1kg a week is ambitious after the initial water weight loss mentioned above...

what @boombang said.

If you're serious about losing weight cut out the processed carbs, starches and added sugar. Go low carb high fat. Sounds counter intuitive but it works (I lost 3.5 stone following the Michael Mosley Blood Sugar Diet - and kept it off by sticking to the principles).

Basically there is a feedback loop between foods that up your blood sugar (sugar, processed carbs, starches), insulin spikes and being unable to burn your fat reserves. Which eventually leads to T2 diabetes.

You can go boot camp 800 cals a day and see some pretty miraculous weight loss (and surprisingly not be that hungry). Or just stick to the principles of the LCHF diet and watch the weight come down more slowly.

I know I need to track calories to ditch the weight – but how do you actually do this?

It's not the best way to do it. Sorry to do this, but there is lots of evidence that what we used to think is wrong.

Basically foods that have high sugar or starch content get digested very quickly, which means a) their energy gets turned to fat quickly and b) they make you more hungry. A far better option than counting calories is to simply avoid sugary and starchy foods.

Sugar is easy to identify, but in this case starchy foods means potatoes, rice, pasta, and grains and flour. Wholemeal flour is not as bad as the rest, but still worse than other things.

So basically fill up on vegetables with normal amounts of meat and fish. If you want to go better, also avoid fruit (it's sugary), dairy (it stimulates insulin release); if you haven't the commitment and willpower to avoid all the starchy foods then have a bit of wholemeal bread. This does need some creative cooking ideas but it's not that hard once you create a menu you like, but it does generally mean more actual cooking.

Don't avoid fat either, it really helps fill you up and won't make you crave more. But fat AND sugar does, of course.

I can't restrict calories too much as it doesn't actually result in weight loss, it just slows me down and ruins my bike performance. I can actually lose weight by eating a bit more than minimum. If I don't eat enough and continue exercise then the cravings get so bad (understandably so) that eventually it collapses.

Portion control and being honest with yourself will make a big impact. I've had a fair few arguments with the other half about portion size, basically blaming her for putting too much on the plate and therefore I "must" eat it all. Reality is, it's down to me to show restraint and not eat all of it on the plate or not be lazy and dish it up myself in the first place. I have stopped adding sugar or sweeteners to my coffee and drink a lot more water and have a flavoured squash as a treat rather than drinking all the time. Keep sugar to a minimum to stop the cravings to have more. I can binge a lot when the mood takes me, so another thing I have tried to stop and so far for the last few weeks, managed to do. I used to live by exercise exercise exercise. Nowadays I try to get out on the bike when I can, which is not as often as I'd like, even with an ebike.

It's the cakes. I'm lucky in that I have never had to watch my weight. However in the few weeks following retirement even I lost about half a stone. It was clear to me it was down to the sudden reduction in Greggs bacon barms, Coop cakes and pints after work.

Cut those out for the period you want to lose weight and providing the rest of your diet is a healthy one you will lose weight.

A kilo a week is a lot. General advice is to aim for half of that

the key thing here is you do not need a "diet" You need a lifestyle change to "eat less move more"

A "diet" leads to yo yo weight. the lifestyle change means you keep it off and a more gradual reduction also makes it easier to keep the weight off

Avoid any advice from a "nutritionist". Its a totally unregulated label and I have seen so much bizzare and frankly dangerous advice from them. ( there may be good people working under that label but I have never seen any - its a charletans label.) You need a dietician

Basically foods that have high sugar or starch content get digested very quickly, which means a) their energy gets turned to fat quickly and b) they make you more hungry. A far better option than counting calories is to simply avoid sugary and starchy foods.

Dude - crap advice - carbs run from extremely quick to be digested to very slow. Oats for example do not give the effect you desribe. short chain carbs do, long chain do not

However in the few weeks following retirement evenmonths following the enforced Covid WFH I lost about half a stone. It was clear to me it was down to the sudden reduction in Greggs bacon barms, Coop cakes and pints afterbirthday cakes and/or holiday sweets that were typically available on any given day on the end of a filing cabinet work.

Yup. Cut the crap, and the weight will follow.

Just to add - the medical consensus is changing from fat being the enemy to sugar particularly fructose. Watch out for hidden sugar. a can of coke contains 35 grammes!

Don't worry about counting calories. Calorie deficit diets do not work long term. Reducing carbohydrates/sugar is the best and safest way of losing weight for good.

Many here slate a ketogenic or low carb way of eating but it works and is perfectly safe.

Check out either or both; Keto UK Community and Low Carb UK Community pages on Facebook packed full of free info. I've been low carb for nearly 2 years. Have lost 3 stone in weight and kept it off. Never felt healthier.

Dude – crap advice – carbs run from extremely quick to be digested to very slow. Oats for example do not give the effect you desribe. short chain carbs do, long chain do not

Ookay.

Firstly the glycaemic index of even wholegrain is still in the middle of the range, it's not that low.

Secondly, the insulin response is related to the glycaemic load which is quite high for grain based products. GI is calculated on an amount of the food that contains the same amount of carbohydrate as 100g of glucose, but GL is calculated on a typical portion size that you'd actually eat. This is important because the insulin response is related to both the speed of absorbtion AND the amount there is. So one wine gum produces a lower insulin response than half a loaf of wholemeal bread.

The point about starchy foods is that whilst some of them have middling GI they all have high GL because you can very easily eat a lot of them, and it is in fact normal to do so. A pasta meal for example has a moderate GI but a pretty high GL. As for it being crap advice - I'm not telling you what to eat, I'm giving science-based suggestions and you will need to experiment to find out what works.

For the folks on this forum, you may find (depending on your genes) that cutting out all the starchy foods does not provide enough fuel for the amount and intensity of riding you want to do. So if you want to introduce more carbs you have two options - either introduce things like wholemeal bread, OR supplement your riding with carbs during and immediately afterwards. What seems to work for me is supplementing a modest amount of carbs around the riding or other exercise, and avoiding starchy foods the rest of the time. If I don't have enough carbs to supplement the riding then I don't recover and feel crappy all the time as well as being miserably hungry. But others seem to manage fine. It seems to be about how well you can adapt to fuelling your exercise via lipolysis which is partly circumstantial and partly genetic.

Watch out for hidden sugar. a can of coke contains 35 grammes!

Coke isn't exactly hidden sugar, is it?

Hidden sugar in things like 'healthy' muesli, healthy sounding low fat yoghurts, or ready-meals and sauces.

Dude - please read up on this stuff before making definitive statements. You are simply wrong on the carbs, Oats for example actually smooth out peaks and troughs in your blood sugar

You are the man who was eating half a kilo at least of refined sugars a week and getting insulin spikes and crashes as a result - from what you described

providing the rest of your diet is a healthy one you will lose weight.

You’d be surprised how much any agreed definition of ‘healthy diet’ is in contention/confusion.

Mum thinks that living on chips, battered fish, cheese, crisps, sugary yoghurts and ‘Granary’ bread is a healthy diet because she’s eating ‘granary’ and yoghurt so it must be offsetting all the bacon and sausage.

OP, I inherited the family eating disorder until April this year decided enough was enough. I’m so seriously overweight that I chose to lose 2lbs a week until I reach my acceptable BMI and ‘normal’ weight.

First of all I used the NHS BMI calculator. Then chose target weight. Then created a free profile on My Fitness Pal and punched in the target weight and 2lbs a week weight loss.

Now all I really have to do is enter what I eat in the My Fitness Pal food diary and weigh in (I choose to weigh in/record progress once a week)

I've done a fair bit of label reading this past 8 weeks to double-check the MFP food item/calorie stats. It’s funny to realise how little variety is in your diet when you soon twig to the fact that you’re mostly recording the same entries week after week 🤣

Oh yeah, I cut out bread and chips and biscuits and milk chocolate, then adjusted this to the exception of very occasional handful of chips no more than once a week because I’m weak. Need to fix that. Still, have lost 16lbs in 8 weeks, have more energy, sleeping better, so…

Mum thinks that living on chips, battered fish, cheese, crisps, sugary yoghurts and ‘Granary’ bread is a healthy diet

sounds bloody fantastic where do I sign up?

@joshvegas

where do I sign up?

Just any day-chair and hospital within chauffeuring distance!

Each less each day than the previous day.

At some point you'll realise that you can eat the same as the previous day.

Dude – please read up on this stuff before making definitive statements. You are simply wrong on the carbs, Oats for example actually smooth out peaks and troughs in your blood sugar

I've read a shitload. Did you think I made up this stuff about GI and GL?

Whole grains are among the lowest GL of starchy foods, but still higher than pulses and vegetables. As I said, if you can do without the starch in whatever form you'll do better but if you find you need to eat more carbohydrate then whole grains are your best option, along side sweet potatoes.

You are the man who was eating half a kilo at least of refined sugars a week and getting insulin spikes and crashes as a result – from what you described

No, not in the least, I tried to explain this to you at the time and you wilfully ignored me and refused to discuss properly so I'm not gonna try again, it's pointless.

Back in the day the SW "green" plan was something like
- as much fruit and veg as you like
- ditto plain boiled rice/pasta
- a certain amount of lean protein without "it counting" including beans
- careful control of fat (so if you make pasta with tomato and bean sauce, the main thing you'd do is carefully measure the olive oil)
- a certain amount of low-fat dairy "for free"
- careful control of bread, cake, pies, booze etc

Suited me as it meant I sacked off the toast and just ate lots of healthy stuffsoup, salads, pasta'n'sauce, curry, stew etc

PS exercise is important
- controls mood & sleep => better food choices
- builds muscle => better metabolism
- o yes does burn some calories
- can be down with a buddy in lockdown => more socialization => better mood => better food choices

Exercise is good yes but high intensity exercise can drive hunger which can wreck your weight loss. Lots of people think yay healthy and they slash calories and smash the exercise and don't lose weight. You need the right diet and the right exercise in combination if you want to lose weight.

Basically if you are cutting calories and/or carbs don't ride too hard. I find short rides are ok at reasonable pace though, like 1hr or there abouts.

I can’t restrict calories too much as it doesn’t actually result in weight loss, it just slows me down and ruins my bike performance. I can actually lose weight by eating a bit more than minimum.

Who/what is defining this minimum?

Who/what is defining this minimum?

It's entirely personal, and you can only establish it through experience.

My problem is that I constantly end up riding too hard. I did pretty well in winter because Zwift races are short, but I can't stay inside in weather like this!

Don’t worry about counting calories. Calorie deficit diets do not work long term. Reducing carbohydrates/sugar is the best and safest way of losing weight for good.

Reducing carbs/sugars is an absolutely fantastic way to reduce lots of calories. The end result is the same - less carbs/sugars = less calories = eating at a calorie deficit.

Its physics end of the day. Energy (calories) in - energy used = deficit or surplus.

Deficit you lose weight
Surplus you gain weight.

That's all there is to it! Simples.

Where people lose their way is not understanding calories are estimates and even calculating your your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is not an exact science. If you're not losing weight, drop your daily calories by 200 and then see if you start to lose weight again. Continue until you're at your goal!

Lots of people think yay healthy and they slash calories and smash the exercise and don’t lose weight. You need the right diet and the right exercise in combination if you want to lose weight.

I figured this and for me it’s been relatively easy to use MFP food diary/daily calorie target with the included exercise diary.

ie yesterday I was about 300 calories over daily allowance thanks to overindulging in baked potatoes, and so reigned it back with an hour long drum-practice of varying intensity. This brought me back down close enough to the daily target/calorie-deficit for my plan.

Its physics end of the day. Energy (calories) in – energy used = deficit or surplus.

It's not simple physics, not at all. It's biology and it's very complicate and still not fully understood by science. Because your body's not a simple heat engine, it's not like a car. The food you eat doesn't get magically converted to fat and then get stored. Lots of things have to happen for fat to get created or metabolised, and it's governed by hormones. The levels of those hormones produced and your response to them varies quite a bit.

Ultimately, the fat you store is *related* to the calories you eat but it's not as simple as you say. Otherwise, everyone with even a slight calorie surplus (which is most people) would continue getting fatter and fatter all their lives til they died weighing hundreds of kilos. Likewise anyone with a slight deficit would eventually die emaciated. This clearly doesn't happen.

There are studies showing that diets containing the exact same calories but consisting of different ratios of fat/protein/carbs produce different weight gain/loss results. Fat is laid down in response to insulin being produced, and eating high carb and high GI foods results in much more insulin being produced, even if the total calories are the same.

Where people lose their way is not understanding calories are estimates and even calculating your your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) is not an exact science.

Also, doing exercise isn't the only way for energy to leave your body.

Its physics end of the day. Energy (calories) in – energy used = deficit or surplus.

This is good enough for most people until it isn't (as molgrips describes).

Try it first and see how you get on. MFP will guess at how much you're on track to lose.

MFPal and a lot of honesty about what I was actually eating and I've lost 14kg over three years, then the hard part, I've kept it off. Have the odd day where i treat myself but then get back on it again. Helps I do a lot of cycling but Strava seems a bit more stingy than Endomondo did on calories burnt.....

Another fan of MyFitnessPal - even if you only use it for a week or two, to get an better understanding of your calorie intake.

I've found it very accurate on food values, but it seems overstate the effect of exerccise.

And yes, it's worth measuring everything, at least in the early days.

the key thing here is you do not need a “diet” You need a lifestyle change to “eat less move more”

The most sensible advice thus far.

To lose weight you must be in a calorie deficit. Fact.

There are many different ways to achieve a calorie deficit. Keto is one way of restricting calories that works for some people but it’s not a magic bullet and by no means the only solution. I hate low carb. It doesn’t work for me.

You can achieve a calorie deficit through diet alone or in combination with exercise. The more exercise you do the more you will need to eat to fuel and recover. We all know exercise is good for you so the days you do exercise you do need to eat more - it’s a fine balance that’s hard to wing.

It is perfectly possible to achieve a calorie deficit whilst eating a normal balanced diet. There is no need to restrict specific food, categories of food or whole macronutrients. I dropped 12 kg early this year and I ate loads of carbs during the process - biscuits, bagels, fruit, cereal bars etc. (to fuel exercise) Sugar is not inherently bad but it’s very easy to eat a bit too much.

It is important to understand how much food you need for your lifestyle. There are lots of online tools to help you calculate your daily requirements- based on things like the Harris-Benedict equation. .

Once you know your daily requirements

Work out your (rough) daily calorie requirement and aim for a 500kcal deficit for sustainable weight loss. More than this for too long and you risk burning muscle mass too (a bit). Depending on what I do my daily intake can vary by 1500kcal (even during periods of weight loss).

As a guide each day aim for 0.8 to 1g of protein per lb of body weight, 0.5g to 2g of carbs per lb of body weight depending on exercise intensity, and top up the rest of calories with healthy fats (1g of fat = 9kcal).

As others have mentioned using something like MyFitnessPal and tracking your meals and drinks (all of them) is a great way to develop an understanding of what and how much you are putting in your body. It’s so easy to overeat even when eating healthy foods. Liquid calories can be a killer too and add up if not kept in check.

It’s a bit of a faff but it works. Once you’ve done it a while and you get a sense of portions you can chill out with the weighing.

Eating less and moving more sounds like common sense but it’s actually quite hard to do it consistently and sufficiently systematically to ensure desired body composition change.

In my experience you need to take a bit more of a deliberate approach to ensure long term results, and if necessary be prepared to break some long term habits.

Also - If you do serious prolonged endurance exercise efforts you will need even more carbs - c. 70g to 90g per hour.

I recommend getting a solid science based book like “The complete guide to sports nutrition” by Anita Bean. It’s accessible and one of the ones I used to use with my introductory students.

Good luck by the way

https://elemental.medium.com/the-calorie-myth-f9e5248daa0c

You know what you need to do, time to be honest with yourself?
Dieting isn't a hobby.
I have family who have been going to Weight Watchers for 20+ years, it's pathetic, like using crutches when you don't have anything wrong with your legs.

To lose weight you must be in a calorie deficit. Fact.

It's not a fact.

In the same way that if you place an order on a website that uses Yodel as a courier, it's not a fact that it will arrive at your house.

Also – If you do serious prolonged endurance exercise efforts you will need even more carbs – c. 70g to 90g per hour.

If you want a quick easy and to the point explanation of this with simple tables to Calculate carbs per ride, try this:

https://renaissanceperiodization.com/rp-diet-for-endurance

There’s some free blog articles on that site as well but that book is 49 pages of simple calculative fact including weight loss advice, it’s very good.

Also +1 lifestyle change as above, you're not dieting you're eating more healthy.

Molgrips does a have point to an extent, just because a food contains calories doesn't mean your body can easily get at them. Unprocessed foods are more difficult for the body to extract calories from, which is we evolved to cook things, some of the effort required to extract the calories is already done via the cooking process.

The key to any sustained weight loss is lifestyle change, any really detailed control is difficult to maintain long term, general fewer calories in vs more calories out works and is simple to follow. Combine that with less processed / reduced sugar foods and you should sustainably lose weight.

The catch is the snacking, we all do it and convince ourselves a 50g chocolate bar can't make much difference, it's tiny. It's the whiskey and wotsits diet mentality, how can you put on weight eating food that weighs so little, calorie density and ease of extracting the calories!

Anyway it's worked for me so far this year, more exercise and being more careful with the food intake, lost 10kg so far, the only record keeping I do is weighing myself each night, helps me track the trend and keeps me honest.

If you want a quick easy and to the point explanation of this with simple tables to Calculate carbs per ride, try this:

https://renaissanceperiodization.com/rp-diet-for-endurance

There’s some free blog articles on that site as well but that book is 49 pages of simple calculative fact including weight loss advice, it’s very good.

Agreed - the Renaissance Periodization resources are all very good. Many of their coaches/staff are worthwhile following on social media (if that's your thing) to help filter out all the lifestyle/diet zealotry and straight up nonsense that is so prevalent online.

I hadn't seen their Endurance e-book ( I have several of their strength/hypertrophy books and diet templates/books) and that's a bargain so I am away to get it - cheers.

It’s not simple physics, not at all. It’s biology and it’s very complicate and still not fully understood by science.

It really is though if you think about it for 5 seconds.

Whilst you're right on the biology side, ultimately it comes down to how much energy you're putting in your body. Conservation of energy/law of thermodynamics init. The lead indicator as to whether you'll gain or lose weight is the calories you consume. There is absolutely no way to escape that. There are variables once its inside your body, but your body isn't creating extra energy from nothing.

everyone with even a slight calorie surplus (which is most people) would continue getting fatter and fatter all their lives til they died weighing hundreds of kilos. Likewise anyone with a slight deficit would eventually die emaciated. This clearly doesn’t happen.

I mean, this is exactly what happens. As you get fatter your TDEE rises to sustain your added weight even though you're not any more or less active. You reach an equilibrium - you're no longer eating 'above' your calories because your baseline to sustain your weight has risen also.

Likewise, when people stop eating, they very quickly end up in a dangerous state. This is seen most often in the ill or elderly.

In my experience, anyone who is convinced they don't fit the physics of energy in = energy out is either vastly under estimating how much they eat or don't understand that calories are not exact and they should lower their intake by 200 and try again.

I once saw someone cut off a 1cm x 3cm block of cheese and woof it down whilst claiming they were calorie counting - that's 150cals right there that wasn't recorded!

Conservation of energy/law of thermodynamics init.

No, it's not, at least not in terms of exercise.

It really is though if you think about it for 5 seconds

It's obvious if you think about it for five seconds yes. However, if you think about it for much longer, many years, you realise that it's not that simple.

There are many ways for energy to leave your body. Exercise is only one of them. Some of the others aren't under your control, and others only indirectly.

Just because you eat a calorie, and don't burn it, doesn't mean it gets converted to fat. I'm fed up of trying to explain how it works cos some people just don't listen, they just bang on about 'simple physics' which is ridiculous when talking about a very complex biological system. However if you are prepared to listen I will.

There is clearly a relationship between how much you eat and how fat you are, but it is most definitely not a simple one. And yes, for most people cutting calories will result in weight loss, but likewise for most people it's not long term sustainable so most people will end up re-gaining the weight.

In short, the smart way to do it is pay attention to WHAT you eat (i.e. reduce starch especially refined starch), and the 'how much' part will look after itself.

The reason I get aerated about this is that it's giving out poor advice and then if that doesn't work it's blaming the victim which very clearly is far more damaging than helpful. Saying how simple it is to lose weight, and if you can't manage it you're either weak-willed, delusional or mentally feeble is an appalling way to treat someone who's already feeling like shit thanks to endemic fat-shaming. And saying it nicely doens't help either. YES there are many people who are delusional but giving out bad advice does not help. There's tons of research on this, go and read some before thinking this is a physics problem.

It really is though if you think about it for 5 seconds.

Like most things that are really simple if you thing about them for 5 seconds, your conclusion is so overly simplified that it can only be described as completely wrong.

If I eat 50 Mars bars today then tomorrow I'm going to be doing a highly calorific shit, not turning all 50 of those Mars bars into fat.

That is a single example of how you are wrong. There are many others because, believe it or not, the human body is actually a bit complicated.

Really just backing up Molgrips et al. It's not as simple as calories in calories out.

There are believe it or not 'good calories' and 'bad calories'. Bad calories being those that spike your blood sugar, raising insulin and stopping your body access your fat reserves.

Ways to reduce blood sugar spikes. Eat less processed carbs, starches and sugars.

As in all things it's not black and white. Processed carbs are less good than unprocessed ones. So carbs in veg etc good. Carbs in white flour at the not very good end of the scale.

A bit like oats. What oats are we talking about? Pinhead / steel cut oats (probably the best from a sugar spike point of view, but not as good as carbs from veg). Jumbo oats OK, rolled oats not so good instant oats not very good at all due to the amount of processing prone to spike blood sugar higher.

Additionally snacking - time restricted eating has been proven to allow the body to access fact reserves. So don't snack between meals and leave a nice gap between evening meal and breakfast. Again allows blood sugar and insulin levels to fall and allow the body to access fat reserves.

My own personal experience is diet (not 'a' diet, a 'change' in lifestyle and diet, cut out the carbs, sugars, starches) was the key contributor in getting weight off and keeping weight off. Exercise helped for sure but massive regular bike rides wasn't a major contributor. Eating full fat foods and nuts kept me satiated for longer, hence smaller portions and not needing to snack between meals.

Oh and alcohol - beer isn't called 'liquid toast' for nothing 😛

So you're all telling me if you eat 200 calories of energy your body is going to store 250 calories of energy?

For the record, I'm not arguing the science described above. I'm arguing for the most part all you need to do is stick to the basics. Tracking your calorific intake is the simplest and most direct way to lose weight.

If I eat 50 Mars bars today then tomorrow I’m going to be doing a highly calorific shit, not turning all 50 of those Mars bars into fat.

This is simply just disingenuous to the argument and you know it.

Good calories and bad calories.... lol.

Different foods have different energy and nutritional densities/profiles but a calorie is a calorie.

I don't think framing foods as good or bad is necessarily helpful (with perhaps the exception of transfats). Most foods are fine in moderation. Sometimes refined carbs are exactly what you need and we have been eating. Flour or products with flour are not all bad.

Time restricted eating, or intermittent fasting is just another way of limiting the amount you eat (calories consumed) during the day.

If you just want to drop some bodyfat you don't really need to to get too hung up on blood glucose levels. Stick to the basics of a consistent, solid balanced diet with a slight deficit for a sustained period of time. It does take a long time to see real change if you have a bit of weight to drop.

There’s tons of research on this, go and read some before thinking this is a physics problem.

I mean - I'd love to read some research if you can share some. I do like to try and keep up with the current thinking - but I must admit the number of studies which support the below (whilst a few years old now) do tend to be numerous:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19246357/

Conclusions: Reduced-calorie diets result in clinically meaningful weight loss regardless of which macronutrients they emphasize.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1454084/

The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an abnormality in thermogenesis.

And finally;

Is a calorie a calorie?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15113737/

Evidence indicates, however, that the difference in energy expenditure is small and can potentially account for less than one-third of the differences in weight loss that have been reported between high-protein or low-carbohydrate diets and high-carbohydrate or low-fat diets. As such, a calorie is a calorie.

When I was younger I could mostly out exercise a bad diet - with an annual month of cutting out crap and alcohol to cut some weight off. I’m now 40 and this approach isn’t working. When I got married 7 years ago I weighed 11 stone 8. At the start of the 2021 I was about 13 stone 4 ish. Adding in lots of turbo got it down to 13 stone and my legs were fitter, but still carrying too much weight / flab (I’m 5’9).

I always thought running was the key to stuff - but I haven’t been able to run recently as I’ve done something to my foot and it hurts to run on. Exercise is cycling / swimming / weight training / turbo training.

I decided to download an app and try proper calories counting - it’s funny everywhere online suggest my fitness pal. I tried My Fitness Pal and didn’t like it / found it awkward to use.

I downloaded ‘Lose It’ instead - just the free version. I find it easier to get calories per thing I eat that way.

And yes, weighing stuff (especially if home cooking) is really the only way you can be pretty much sure of calories.

I’ve dropped 12 lbs in 43 days so far - and I don’t feel like I’ve had to starve myself or anything. In fact I’m snacking more.

The main things that have made a difference:

Breakfast - I hadn’t realised it was 500-600 calories what I was eating. I’ve switched to porridge - 60 grams of oats. Mostly water - but with 50ml of skimmed milk to make it taste alright. I bang in 15g of sultanas and use ‘Skinny Food Company’ syrup instead of sugar to make it taste good. Result it sub 300 calories for breakfast and I don’t feel hungry afterwards.

Lunch - I’ve really cut down on sandwiches - maybe only having them once / twice a week and eating 2 egg omelettes with a rocket salad / some lean meat on the side. Again - around 300 calories.

Cutting down on cheese and portions of carbs on evening meals. Very easy to overdo it on rice / pasta - boil in the bag rice is a good portion control.

Cider - my alcoholic drink of choice - actually nearly 250 calories a pint. Cut from 4 a week to 1 - but having spiced rum and Diet Coke instead - only 50 calories a drink 👌

but I must admit the number of studies which support the below (whilst a few years old now) do tend to be numerous:

Ah. I see the issue here. You're reading me disputing that it's simple calorie in/out equation, and you're then extrapolating and assuming that I'm saying calories in is NOT related to calories out. However, as I've repeatedly said, they ARE related but not in a simple way.

a calorie is a calorie.

I've no idea why you even think this. Fat is very different to protein is very different to carbohydrate. Why deny this? What do you think happens when you eat these things? What do you think happens when your brain tells your muscles to move?

Sometimes refined carbs are exactly what you need and we have been eating. Flour or products with flour are not all bad.

Indeed, that's what I've been saying all along. Please try and pay attention instead of just spoiling for an internet argument. I have not come out and said 'carbs are bad mkay' cos it's not true.

Different foods have different effects on your body. Some foods - those rich in easily absorbed carbohydrates - can promote the conversion of blood glucose to fat.

Claiming it's all about thermodynamics is stupid. As said, diesel contains a lot of calories, but nothing we can use. Grass contains enough calories and protein to grow a cow in a year, however as humans we can't get anything out of it. Digestion is very complicated. It's NOT just a little furnace that burns what you put in and produces heat like a steam engine.

This is simply just disingenuous to the argument and you know it.

Actually it's not. It's evidence that all calories are not processed the same way by the body.

Another example - general advice is that your gut can only absorb about 70-90g of simple carbs per hour when racing. But it is possible to eat significantly more than that. So what happens to the rest?

Why deny this?

Not denying there are difference between macronutrients. Don't think I said that anywhere. What I'm saying is, in the concept of weight loss macronutrients play much less of a part that you're suggesting - as backed up by this white paper:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15113737/

Evidence indicates, however, that the difference in energy expenditure is small and can potentially account for less than one-third of the differences in weight loss that have been reported between high-protein or low-carbohydrate diets and high-carbohydrate or low-fat diets. As such, a calorie is a calorie.

It's like that chap who lost a tonne of weight eating nothing but McDonalds - shit loads of sugar, processed carbs, sat fats - but he lost weight. Why? Because he was eating at a deficit:

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-lose-weight-eating-only-mcdonalds-2015-10?r=US&IR=T

Claiming it’s all about thermodynamics is stupid. As said, diesel contains a lot of calories, but nothing we can use. Grass contains enough calories and protein to grow a cow in a year, however as humans we can’t get anything out of it.

Not sure I follow this argument - this would support the concept that calories are all you need to track. If there are some calories if food you cannot convert to energy - you don't need to worry about them...! That's an added brucey bonus that will accelerate your weight loss if you eat within a deficit.

Actually it’s not. It’s evidence that all calories are not processed the same way by the body.

Well really it's evidence that the body only takes in a certain limit of anything before its excreted as waste. Which is really what's going on here - not really much to do with the conversation we're having. If you eat 50 mars bars most of that is ending up in the toilet. I don't think anyone would argue that.

general advice is that your gut can only absorb about 70-90g of simple carbs per hour when racing. But it is possible to eat significantly more than that. So what happens to the rest?

No idea - I'd love to know (sincerely). I would assume it sits in your intestine to get absorbed over the following hours. 90g carbs is about 360 calories which isn't anything wild.

If there are some calories if food you cannot convert to energy – you don’t need to worry about them…!

Ah.. so some calories cannot be converted to energy. But other calories may or may not be converted to the form of energy you may or may not need at the time.

Well really it’s evidence that the body only takes in a certain limit of anything before its excreted as waste. Which is really what’s going on here – not really much to do with the conversation we’re having

No it is. The point is that not everything you eat ends up as usable energy and therefore not everything you eat is going to become fat if you don't burn it. The question is - what governs what happens to the calories you eat?

Your body isn't a computer that calculates the optimum thing to do with all the food. If you eat high GI foods, it stimulates the production of insulin. This promotes your cells and liver to take up the energy from the food. If you've been exercising hard and the energy stores in your liver and cells are low, then this is a good thing because it means your cells are able to get back on with synthesising ATP as quickly as possible.

However, if your muscle energy stores are full, insulin also stimulates fat cells to absorb the glucose from your blood and convert it to fat. So if you haven't been exercising it can help to minimise the production of insulin. In practice, this means reducing foods that have a high GI i.e. are absorbed quickly when you're not exercising.

If you eat fewer calories but they have a high GI you'll still get insulin released, and this will cause the glucose in your blood to be converted into fat thus lowering your blood sugar, making you more hungry a short time later. However, foods that have a low GI such as vegetables don't result in the production of insulin and release the energy over a long period from further down your gut. So your blood sugar is more consistent and you are much less likely to feel hungry.

On top of that, it is very easy to eat a lot of carbohydrate (and calories) from starchy food and especially sugary food. If you cut these out you will indeed consume less calories but you'll ALSO be less hungry and more able to deal with it than if you eat the same number of calories but from starchy food. But if you are eating starchy foods you're probably consuming more calories by default AND converting more of it to fat. And lastly starchy food is very tasty which can leave you wanting more all the time.

All these factors though are highly individual. If you are a slow burn rider and you like riding at a steady pace, then you will be burning more fat whilst riding and depleting carb stores less. If however you are a power rider and smash it everywhere, you'll be depleting glycogen stores which means you'll need carbs to recover. It also depends where you live - if you ride road in the Thames valley you're probably doing steady rides by default because the terrain's flat.

So given all that, I suggested to the OP that they try reducing or cutting out starchy food, and see how they get on. And if they find they can't manage their riding, introduce some medium GI starchy foods. I don't think this is incompatible with what anyone else is saying, but this is the reasoning behind the idea that not all calories are the same. And there are studies that demonstrate this (as well as ones that don't) but I'm not going to dig them out now.

As I've always said, the only thing you can do is try the different approaches and see how you get on. Some folk have fantastic results cutting out all starchy food, some don't have good results at all and find they have no energy to ride. And others can't adapt to the required cooking changes - it's not easy. And we are all coming from a different place - we have different histories, different bodies (yes, we do), different gut flora and we ride differently due to the aforementioned different bodies, which is related to our different preferences and even where we live.

I would assume it sits in your intestine to get absorbed over the following hours.

If your body were a factory managed by intelligent beings, then it'd put the carbs in a warehouse until it needed them. However it's not - and your digestion doesn't slow down and keep the carbs on hold in your stomach (which is where glucose is absorbed). They just come out of the other end. Quite quickly, if you're one of those people who gets an upset stomach from too much energy drink. Or they are consumed by microbes further down your gut and then you might get the windypoos. But that doesn't happen to me, because we all have different gut flora.

.

OP. As long as calories in<calories out you will get lighter. Irrespective of the source of those calories.

maintaining that weight requires discipline.

maintaining that weight and enjoying it is something you’ll have to figure out.

some folks have suggested MyFitnessPal. This is a handy way to get honest with the in:out balance.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/all-calories-are-not-created-equal

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/6-reasons-why-a-calorie-is-not-a-calorie#TOC_TITLE_HDR_8

This is simply just disingenuous to the argument and you know it.

Can you explain why?

I did say it's a single example of how the simple calories in / calories out argument is wrong. molgrips and others have done a good job of explaining many others.

As has been said, calories in / calories out works fine until it doesn't and you have to look into things a bit more closely.

Its physics end of the day. Energy (calories) in – energy used = deficit or surplus.

But its not physics, is it? It's biology.

Molgrips and Plyphon aside; lay off the fizzy pop, cake, biscuits, beer, bread and potatos, try to cook largely from ingredients not processed food, have smaller portions, and don't sit on your arse all day.

If you use MFP (or presumably similar) and search for "home made xxxx" you'll get an idea of the sort of values. My brief experience was it was easy to lie to yourself by searching - home made lasagne and then picking the one which had the most appealing calorie data! Keep in mind that many of the people who have posted them are trying to lose weight so probably being fairly frugal on the portion size too. That said, my net conclusion was the problem is not the meals - its the snacks in between. Add that to not having a 1 mile walk to/from the train station a day and I have a problem.

I actually think 50% or more of my snacking is probably thirst not hunger, but I have to walk past the cupboard to get to the kettle/sink...

Oh, and loads of research is now concluding that if you don't want to run the risk of being a fat adult, don't be a fat child...So there's that.

Can you explain why?

You gave a ridiculous example of eating 50 mars bars in a day.

So you're talking about how much your body can absorb in a small timeframe. I would assume everyone knows here if you eat 50 mars bars, most of that will be a gigantic shit.

What we're talking about is sustained calorie surplus or deficit over a long time. Your point is just a distracting strawman 'gotcha!!' that doesn't add to the conversation.

That would be like if I said going to the dentist to get an xray is safe therefore radiation exposure must be totally fine. Totally different timeframes and contexts.

I enjoyed your post Molgrips - it was a nice read indeed. I still don't understand how that escapes the concept of calories in vs calories out. It's still limited and governed by the total amount of energy in the system - how much food you're putting in.

If you're eating at a proper deficit (200 cals or more) I'd be willing to bet the macronutrient content wouldn't offset your ability to lose weight. If you were eating at maintenance I will agree that I could see how that would result in weight gain despite not eating at a surplus. But not at a proper deficit.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/all-calories-are-not-created-equal/blockquote >

Change in total energy expenditure was 91 kcal/d (95% confidence interval −29 to 210) greater in participants assigned to the moderate carbohydrate diet and 209 kcal/d (91 to 326) greater in those assigned to the low carbohydrate diet compared with the high carbohydrate diet. In the per protocol analysis (n=120, P<0.001), the respective differences were 131 kcal/d (−6 to 267) and 278 kcal/d (144 to 411

Am I understanding this right - those one low carbs used more energy per day?

If so thats a fantastic way to accelerate your weight loss by increasing your TDEE through diet. But it still conforms to calories in > calories out.

It doesn't say anything about how it impacts those on a high carb diet in relation to losing weight by eating at a deficit.

 

Your point is just a distracting strawman ‘gotcha!!’ that doesn’t add to the conversation.

No, you said it was JUST calories in vs calories out. Now you've already accepted there are caveats to that - e.g. timeframe in this case. Well, there are more caveats that you don't know about. Calories in vs calories out is not a FUNDAMENTAL rule.

WHY can you not absorb the calories from 50 Mars bars? What's going on to prevent that? How does digestion actually work then? That's what the thought experiment is about.

What happens to the calories you eat depends a great deal on many factors other than how much exercise you do. I was thinking about analogies earlier.

Take money. If you invest money in a savings account, you get more money back. The more you put in, the more you make. It's deterministic, there aren't any other factors in play. But if you put your money in shares of a business, you are likely to make money, but you might make loads, you might make a bit, or you might lose some or a lot. What happens to your money? Well, the company takes it, invests it in business. They might buy raw materials for a production run of something. That something might end up not being made because let's say there's a fire at the factory, or they might make it and it's a flop and no-one buys it. Or someone who works there has a bad day and designs a fatal flaw in the product and it gets banned. Or the raw materials for the next batch are affected by a typhoon etc etc etc. The point is that when investing shares, your money doesn't automatically increase, it depends on loads of moving parts and interactions. It's the same with digestion. There's no magic that automatically puts food under your skin as yellow blobs. For the yellow blobs to come about requires a number of interactions to balance out. For the blobs to go away, the interactions need to balance the other way. And these interactions are affected by many factors, one of which is the nature of the food you eat.

Dude what

It’s still limited and governed by the total amount of energy in the system – how much food you’re putting in.

I'm sure we all know people who can eat what they like and stay thin. I have a mate who does a fair bit of cycling, same as me. But he's got about 8% body fat. But the thing is, he's ALWAYS had the same sort of body fat, even before he took up cycling. He can eat a cake with his coffee every day, and have dessert. I can't, if I want to get skinny. My dad was the same, he used to eat tons of food and he's a rake. I also used to know a pretty fat girl at uni, her weekly food budget in the 90s was £5 and that was healthy stuff. She hardly ate anything.

According to your logic that's not possible, but according to what I'm saying it is.