Needing to count calories means something is wrong (the appetite regulation is disturbed) or the body weight goal is unnatural. We should try to fix what’s wrong and try to have healthy goals, if possible. Then there will be no need to starve.
Calorie counting is an eating disorder.
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I don't doubt that calorie counting is an eating disorder for some people. For others, it can be a tool to reestablish normal eating patterns that were disrupted for any number of reasons. In other words, it can be a method to fix what is broken.
Counting anything for a long period of time---carbs, protein, calories, hours between meals---is an eating disorder. As an acute, short-term therapy to fix a broken appetite, or as part of the training protocol of a high-level athlete, counting can be useful, and positive. But as a life-long strategy, it is neither.
There are many reasons that 90%+ of dieters regain their weight, and more. And there's little doubt that the absurdity (and impossibility) of permanently counting calories is one of them. In fact, counting anything is probably directly counter-productive: The best way to lose fat is to eat real foods, and real foods don't have labels, making calorie counting impossible.
I having a running joke with my partner (who is well-aware that I abhor the idea of calorie counting, after going from 222 to 187 lbs without ever doing it) after we finish a slow-cooked stew of beef shank and veggies, or are staring at the carcass of a grilled whole fish we just picked apart. I say "Now let's figure out how many calories that was." Good luck.
Just eat the foods that feel good in your body, eat when your hungry and stop when you are satisfied. That's what we did when we were babies!!!
You have to trust your body, it's telling you what you need.
get real.
"Lots of low carb yo-yo dieters."
...and you know this how?
The commercial weight loss industry is pure sleazy fraud. This is well known among obesity researchers.
The PIONEERING , unprecedented work of Dr. Douglas Coleman and Dr. Jeffrey Friedman showed other scientists and doctors that there is an INVOLUNTARY ROBUST system which counts calories for us and is far more accurate than ANY person could ever be- 99.6 % accuracy in fact. In a healthy person the system is amazing. Add to this fact that calorie content labels are WILDLY INACCURATE as much as 10 to 80 %
This information from Dr. Friedman's lecture completely discredits shysters like Anthony Colpo and Lyle McDonald who are nothing more than shady non-expert diet industry salesmen full of lies. They prey on a gullible public and profit. As more of the public educate themselves and have access to this video, their sales of their garbage books should PLUMETT.
(Please keep in mind Dr. Jeffrey Friedman is the man who indentified leptin in May 1994 and is one of the most renowned expert scientists on the topic of obesity in the entire world . This man is world class . He has won numerous awards. Dr. Friedman and his colleagues are advancing scientific knowledge. They actually educate OTHER scientists) .
Here is Dr. Friedman explaining it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1SbhH2WN1M
As my very intelligent budy URGELT of YouTube has told me: It is easy to recognize GENUINE scientists in the field. They acknowedge considerable uncertainty and vast unknwons. They are the OPPOSITE of poeple like Colpo and McDonald who are the ANTITHESIS to genuine science.
Please spread this video around to educate the public. Maybe then people will stop being victims of fraudulent, agenda driven shady shysters such as Colpo, McDonald and CarbSane.
Maybe the main problem with counting cals for many people is that this approach is usually myopically focused on either a decidedly non-HFLC approach, with everything low-fat, lots of grains, industrial fats, too much sugar etc, etc .. or on "nutrient agnosticism." But that doesn't mean it can't be really helpful for obese people already eating LC, nutritiously dense food.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that people who need to lose 150 pounds probably need to employ all possible helpful measures, and it seems lots of people having major loses with LC report that eventually they do need to pay attention to and track both quality and quantity.
Is an obsession with calorie counting a sign of a psychological disorder? Sure.
But is counting calories to maintain proper proportions an eating disorder? No. Not at all. In fact, it's more likely the cure to compulsive overeating rather than a disorder in itself.
I realize your site's intention is to educate people about healthier, more natural ways of eating where strict observation of caloric intake is unnecessary. You don't need to count calories on Paleo; I get it. But planting the insidious idea that counting calores at all is the sign of a disorder is irresponsible. Some readers who are generally looking for help and need a positive change are going to see this and think they're much worse off than they are.
There is NO REASON TO EVER calorie count calories. Add tot he fact CALORIE LABLE SARE ENORMOUSLY INACCURATE as much as 80 PERCENT OFF
eat NUTRIENT DENSE, honro hunger signals and get an idea of a reasonable portion. Try not to get in the way of the body's natural system and thwart it.
Body weight regulations systems operate L O N G T E R M- YEARS. It's not meal to meal or day to day or even month to month. It's a year to YEARS.
This is all well known among genuine scientiosts in the field such Dr. Michael Rosenbaum, Dr.Douglas Coleman ( retired) Dr. Rudolph Liebel and Jeffrey Friedman .
Science has found the situation is much more like the hellaciously voracious defense of a heightened fat mass .
Your body does not sit there and take it. it ADAPTS and ADJUSTS and RESPONDS to EVERYTHING you do in weight loss attempts.
A person who was 300 pounds and gets down to 250 experiences a 25 % DROP in metabolsim- far exceeding what would be expected from only the weight loss.
Your body FIGHTS things you do.
The body has ALL sorts of tricks to keep you where it wants.
In the obese, they are fighting a hellacious biological battle.
Even when yuo are "counting claories" you're not. The labels are so off and your body does a better more accurtae job in a healthy person. As Dr. Friedman pointed out:
MOST people ( not actively trying to chnage their weight) remain remarkably weight stable over a decade. THis is well confirmed in studies from all over the world.
A CURE for obesity may take more than a lifetime.
If it works for you, great.
I do Ironmans, based on Crossfit Endurance training, am lean and healthy for the first time in my 40 years of life, by just listening to my body!! Calorie counting for me let to starving/binging. One day I need 3000 calories, and the next 2000.
What works for one person, doesn't need to work for the other. Same with foods. THERE IS NO COOKY CUTTER DIET.
But, if you trust your body, it will tell you what it needs!
The formal way to phrase this would be as follows: 80 to 90 % of the variance in obesity can be ascribed to genetic factors.
The highest quality science ( from some the best obesity researchers in the world) supports this.
Any person who is actually intelligent would know and understand that the approach to obesity SHOULD be the same scientific approach we use for all other diseases:
*Define molecular components of the pathways that regulate body weight.
*Define molecular defects in abnormal states/obesity.
*Identify effects of environmental factors on these pathways: hormones, diet, lifestyle, other.
*Develop rational treatments
This is a 21st century medical science approach. "Eat less, move more" is NOT science. It's a belief based nostrum.Genuine obesity researchers have discarded this as a solution to obesity.
NOTHING Anthony Colpo, CarbSane or Lyle McDonald promotes for solving obesity is based on science. It's all based on information discarded by obesity researchers. It is nothing more than extremely shady Internet diet shysters in action - peddling misinformation to a gullible and desperate public.
Protect yourselves from Internet scammer by watching this video from my buddy Urgelt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec72CMCbCuQ
Carbsane has very ugly comments of anti-Christian site, yet Razwell is supposedly some bad guy?
I found this site because of looking for anti-cancer diet info, and saw CBN mentioned. Until today I was thinking that all nutrition sites hate Christians.
Razvelt banned from the Carbsane blog because he is a christian is the most absurd thing I ever read! He was just calling her names in caps letters, and never said anything about his religion! BTW, I am a LC eater and not a christian. Why to mix diet and religion ?
Good point.
CarbSane banned me because I gave many links such as this one:
http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2012/11/fitzgerald/
And the fact I mentioned there are at least 4 other studies ( ScienceDaily) which show the same type of things- making mice obese WITHOUT the consumption of more calories.
Garret Fitzgerald is one of the very best biomedical researchers out there. This study is very important. And the same type of result has been found many times and confirmed by other mouse studies.
Shyster Anthony Colpo INSTANTLY deletes this study when I post it at his facebook site. It is gone within an hour.
Just like Muata Kamdibe, Lyle McDonald and Anthony Colpo, CarbSane cannot accept that the claoric hypothesis is a dead horse in the world of genuine obesity science. It is moving in the direction of fat cell regulation/disregulation.
Their tactics are to make me look bad and morally attack me. My style is a bit enthusiatic at times, but those shysters are making up lies about me, false accusations and phony emails.
They desperately do not want my info getting out to the public because their sales would go down the tubes.
My buddy Urgelt warned me back in 2009 that they are all systers and I should not engage with scammers at all. I should have listened to him.
Here is Urgelt's obesity video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Zv-W7Oh40
Feel fee to have a look at the comments. His comments are exceptional.
Urgelt is a very bright individual- far smarter than the attackers of Gary Taubes. He truly amazes me. Urghelt gave me several extremely detailed reasons why he does not think neutrinos traveled faster than light that were incredibly insightful . It turns out Einstein was right and CERN scientists made mistakes. Urgelt was correct in his assesment.
Both Urgelt and myself respect Gary Taubes and commend him for his efforts to get the ball rolling away from the caloric hypothesis.
Urgelt also knows physics fairly well for a layman and told me these shysters misuse ( to sound scientific and sell books) it in a way Einstein would not forgive.
Urgelt is the anitdote to shady agenda driven, scientifically illiterate SHYSTERS like CarbSane and Colpo.
Best Wishes,
Raz
Neither carbSane nor Colpo understand even the most basic thing about the essence of science.
RICHARD PHILIPS FEYNMAN DID.
Simple as that.
No I recollect that some people thought that being a member of Evangelist church and to follow the Paleo movement ( in the root of paleo is the claim that as a result of EVOLUTION people were not adapted for eating grains) for Jimmy should be awkward because it contradicted his religious believes . I didn't criticized him for that. Faith allows add logic thinking.
"let me ask you something, is measuring your blood ketones every day an eating disorder? (1) how about counting carbs? (2) how about wondering if an apple is going to make you fat?"(3)
(1) Unless you do it for a science evaluation like Jimmy Moore did, I am sure it is a disorder!
But know that ketone metering we discuss is not about measuring every day, never!
It is a very important tuning tool. After having used my ketone meter for over two months I am now into my 2nd packet, 10/pack. 1.4 test sticks/week on average. In the beginning more, then none until something happens and a quick answer can be got, that is the way it works for me.
There are excellent reasons to measure ketones, mainly to find the right COMPOSITION of a low carb diet. Once the ketones show up the composition can be fine tuned and the calories are then looking after themselves. That's the whole idea with LCHF, it is what makes the difference between LCHF and silly calorie counting just infinite!
Once used to ketosis verified by the meter one can guess within a unit current reading, a good reason to NOT measure every day. A tool to back to nature in a way!
(2) Counting carbs: Ok, but try to stick to the green ones. Use the meter if you feel something is not what you expected. Anything in a pack reads something on the label that may have applied when the first batch was tested. So when you count, what do you really count?
Ketones are important measure of IF long term fasting insulin is increasing or dropping. Wow!
These studies show just that correlation:
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/132/7/1879.full#T2 showed a 30%
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/pdf/1743-7075-3-7.pdf 33% fasting insulin
What can this be used for?
Heart disease, DB2, obesity and other health issues, Syndrome-X, correlates with elevated fasting insulin. Yes, elevated insulin levels are the prime suspected cause!
Ketone metering hence become a tool to correct these diseases .
Here study about heart disease and fasting insulin. Awful reading that frees LDL, triglycerides, BMI, etc., etc, for non-diabetic women. So not for men???? Hardly.
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pm...
A study that needs to be studied more, from 2007.
(3) Regarding the apple, you could always get a ketone meter and check.... A little bit of different berries with a lot of cream I have no problem with, but modern apples are so much sweeter now than when we grew up in the 50's
Fruits are praised for Vit-C but there are many veggies with higher Vit-C and much lower sugar. Broccoli, Peppers... and I can give you a long list if you want!
The body weight goal is unnatural only when we live in an extraordinarily obesogenic, unnatural environment.
I'll avoid eating termites, coffee, snake, cilantro, monkey brains, and a few other foods for the rest of my life.
Does that mean I have an eating disorder?
If one understands the reasons for their nutrition choices, I don't believe that in itself constitutes an eating disorder.
Can we get back to some rational discussion, please?
Just because a person does what they have to to make the best of the situation does not make it natural.
For those who think they are starving themselves on low calorie but not low carb, you would be wrong. Low carb diets, when they work, reduce calorie intake such that the body defends its fat stores. That is why people stall, because they hit a point where the body has adjusted its calorie intake to meet its demands. Leptin and the hypothalamus are the regulators of body fat and largely dictate the success of a low-carb diet at the end of the day.
My son who is 22, lean, healthy and of course shares my genes, does not have to restrict carbohydrates per se and hopefully he never will. So far as possible he eats a diet of real whole food, locally sourced and home prepared. He is at University so of course on occasion he has beer and pizza but that is not his staple diet.
It so happens that by comparison to the western industrailsed diet, what he eat comes out naturally as lower in carbohydrates -- especially low in sugars and refined starches. For a person who descended through ice age Europeans I think this could readily be described as a NORMAL carbohydrate diet.
And thanks for telling me I was wrong for all those years (decades!) when I was continually hungry on a low-fat, calories-restricted diet but that I am apparently starving (without even realising it) on what I now eat. How on earth would I even know these things without your earth-shattering insights?!?
I say "evidently" because I have been at a healthy and stable weight for over three years now.
In fact even when I was morbidly obese I was weight stable! Whaaaa?!? But surely if it was all about calories and I was just eating too damn many; I should have just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger?!?
You really need to get a copy of Dr Lustig's new book Fat Chance... he talks all about Leptin, the Hypothalamus, INSULIN and so much more besides... or you could save yourself a few dollars and just wait for one of your learned bloggers to tell you what to think about it
I'm not at all surprised when you deprive yourself of dietary fat intake that you would be hungry.
"I *don't* have to count calories because evidently my body is capable of managing my energy balance for me - quelle surprise!
I say "evidently" because I have been at a healthy and stable weight for over three years now."
So because it worked for you, does that mean it works for everybody? How else can you explain all the stalls on the LC forums?
Since daily insulin administration leads to elevated fasting insulin progression, the modern treatment is bound to accelerate heart disease since elevated fasting insulin has been shown to be a major if not the major risk factor in CVD, in at least one major prospective trial.
No surprise diabetes patients has an average of 10 year shorter life span than the rest of us and 75-80% of deaths are in heart disease.
(Today several Swedish and US individuals claim they have reversed DB2 through adherence to ketogenic diets. They went back to the old carb restriction way that were thrown out (!) in the 1950's. (Based on the worst scant evidence and corruption I ever read about! ))
My answer is hence: It is disordered
The natural solution is to remove or reduce the food that caused the disorder. We know it is carb related, and progression seems likely to be governed by some "volume * time" function, simplest expressed as the daily amounts summed up, say per decade, but little effect under some (individual) threshold, as it is well known that insulin resistance does not noticeably increase just by means of high carbs, time is needed for disease to develop, once the stages are set.
On the other hand at least two independent studies has shown that fasting insulin reduced on average 30% with a 6-8 weeks ketogenic diet.
on average 30% with a 6-8 weeks ketogenic diet."
Is this independent of weight loss? We also know that fasting insulin is tied to weight status.
If you read Jimmy Moores blogs you have the answer. People THINK they eat ketogenic and not until the test themselves they find out they are not. My DB2 friend came up with a dismal 0.2 on the keto-meter, day after day.
He still believed the breakfast, oat porridge, that spiked both blood sugar and insulin, day after day was necessary for him. Now he is switching to MBC. The jury will be out for some time!
Question to you and all others here:
Would it be a disorder for a diabetic or a heartsick person to obtain a ketone meter to enable to tune the diet into balanced ketosis, (2-3)?.
I doubt that even hard line opponents to "gadgets" disagree, but if so I am ready!
What LC forums??? Cite some examples and prove how widespread this is... because you keep throwing this assertion around as if it is an established statistic. Yes I am also aware of comments on blogs like these and diabetes forums that I frequent where some individuals have run into plateaus... not at all unusual in my experience of weight-loss but you seem to like implying it is the norm rather than the exception.
But if an n=1 (or a few) is proof for you, then I'll try to answer your next as well regarding which comes first on a ketogenic diet, the weight loss, or the reduced insulin?
Back in 2008, morbidly obese and looking at a short unhealthy life: I was using an insulin pump to control my blood glucose (BG) and have spreadsheets charting my usage going back over several years. I was eating the standard, policy-endorsed, heart-healthy diet for diabetics as recommended by dieticians and required over 130 units of insulin per day to manage my BG. As soon as I cut out all foods that listed > 1 gm of carbs per serving (initial induction phase of low-carb) I was able to cut that amount in half while STILL maintaining normal BGs. I went on to drop 25lbs in the first two months and now use only 7 units and that is chiefly to dampen down what is called dawn phenomenon where glucose is released from the liver just prior to waking each day.