In a prior post
I wrote that "The form of the calories don’t matter that much in and of
themselves. A thousand calories of protein or fat or carbohydrates is
still a thousand calories"? In saying that I was conceding an element
of truth to a common dieting axiom: "a calorie is a calorie is a
calorie." This axiom is often used by those who tout calorie
restriction as the key to successful fat loss. These folks would say
that it doesn’t matter whether the calories you take in are in the form
of fat, carbohydrates, or protein. All that counts for losing weight is
losing calories.
But while it’s true (by definition) that one calorie represents as
much energy as another calorie, that is much more to the story than
this. As I went on to point out,
the type of calories does have an effect on the body’s
metabolism because the body has to do different things in order to burn
different macro-nutrients (i.e., protein, fat, and carbohydrates). If
you change the ratio of the macro-nutrients you are eating, your body’s
metabolism changes in order to digest and/or store them.
I’d like to document that now by citing a classic study published in
1956 by Alan Kekwick and Gaston Pawan ("Calorie Intake in Relation to
Body Weight Changes in the Obese," Lancet, July 28, 1956,
155-161). These researchers divided their test subjects into three
groups, each of which ate a thousand calories a day that were
principally composed of one of the three macronutrients. One group got
a thousand calories a day that were 90% carbohydrate calories, another
got a thousand calories a day that were 90% protein calories, and the
third group got a thousand calories a day that were 90% fat calories.
If the "a calorie is a calorie" maxim applied to weight loss, these
groups should have lost the same amount of weight–or at least
approximately the same amount of weight.
They didn’t.
The
90% protein group lost an average of .6 pounds per day of the study.
The 90% fat group lost .9 pounds per day. And the 90% carbohydrate
group actually gained .24 pounds per day.
What explains this?
The basic explanation is that your metabolism adjusts to the input
you give it. If you put in primarily fat, it triggers one set of
responses as your body gears up to utilize the fat and manage its
energy output. If you put in carbs, it triggers a different set of
respones. And if you put in protein, it triggers a third set. These
have an impact on how much weight a person will lose. As the 1956
Kekwick study showed (and as subsequent studies have reinforced), if
you give your body fat in the absence of carbohydrates then your body
will go into fat burning mode. If you give it protein in the absence of
carbohydrates then it will do the same, though the rate of fat burning
will be less efficient.
On the other hand, if you give it primarily carbohydrates then it
will slam on the brakes for fat burning and start hoarding the fat it
has, even slowing your metabolism so that it can generate excess
calories to try to hoard more nutrients since the sudden absence of fat
from your diet has convinced your body that some kind of famine is
going on and you need to go into emergency survival mode.
Subsequent studies have confirmed and amplified the Kekwick and
Pawan results, but the basics were right there in the 1956 study.
Realizing that people eat a combination of these things (even on most low-carb diets), has anyone done studies showing these effects on metabolism at varios levels of combinations of the three food types? For example at what percent of carbohydrate intake does the body flip from storing to burning?
I am one of those people “blessed” with a metabolism that, even post-40 yrs old, means I need to eat to keep weight on… I can fluctuate 5 or 10 pounds, either way, depending when i ate last. I range from thin to skinny.
In all of my “dieting” I have learned a lot of what Jimmy writes here. I found that the main thing in especially trying to lose weight, is not necessarily to count calories, but instead, to watch your protein intake.
God made our bodies to “feel full” after 20g of protein is consumed in a meal; regardless of whether the meal is 500 calories or 2500 calories.
I’ve been hearing yogurt (or a low fat milk product) a day is good for burning fat. Is it because yogurt(milk) is high in protein and can have some fat?
just for the record – high protein low fat snacks help prevent morning sickness. you need about 80 – 100 grams/protein a day.
Unfortunately, the Atkins diet is very unhealthy, and is not the way God designed human beings to eat. You lose weight in part becuase you put your body in catosis (sic). Follow the Natural Law, Jimmy 🙂
Bart, if the Atkins diet is so unhealthy, why is it that my Native American ancestors lived strictly according to the Atkins diet for thousands of years and when there was enough game to hunt, it was according to archaeologists a pretty good diet? In fact, a well-recognized problem for the Native American population today is a horrifically high diabetes rate, brought on by sugars and carbohydrates, which do *not* suit people who’ve not been eating them for thousands of years.
As for myself, carbohydrates make me feel tired and despondent, a huge problem when one is already dealing with clinical depression. I couldn’t give carbohydrates up entirely even if I thought I should, but what may be a perfectly healthy intake of carbohydrates for you may make my life a living hell.
Different people are *made* differently.
The question is, did all that weight come from their fat or their lean body mass (muscle)?
Generally, except for those who are really overweight, you can’t lose more than two pounds of “just fat” per week. Those who did mostly protein lost would lose about 4.2 pounds per week while those who did mostly fat would lose about 6.3 pounds per week. These people were definitely losing muscle which in turn will lower their metabolism and bring back all the weight eventually and make it even harder to keep off.
Burning the Fat off > Starving the Fat off
A combination of aerobics, strength training, and a balanced diet is the way to go. I’d personally suggest 50% carbs, 30% protein, and 20% fat as a baseline, but it would really depend on the person’s body type.
Jimmy,
It just goes to show you how brainwashed our society is. They haven’t even read the Atkins book yet they are spouting off how unhealthy it is. If they would just READ the book!
All of us Pseudo- Nutritionist’s need to be careful about our claims! Here is an interesting link responding to “Atkins research”.
http://www.nealhendrickson.com/mcdougall/2004nl/040500puatkinsresearch.htm
All carbs should not be treated the same. Complex carbs (e.g. whole grains) make the body expend much more effort to break down, than simple carbs like sugar and refined/processed carbs. The problem that people would make for themselves on high-carb diets, was that they would sit down with a box of (refined) Saltines and feel free to eat them all, as long as they watched their fats.
Native Americans did eat starches and carbs. They ate corn, berries, and various fruits and vegetables. They ate them *all year round* where such things are available all year round. What they didn’t eat were things like pastries and white bread.
I’m not convinced that Atkins is not just another very restrictive diet that unnecessarily puts people through a lot of pain by going into ketosis–I tried it and it was awful and I just couldn’t do it. I’m not convinced that complex carbs, lean meats and healthy oils isn’t the most healthy and sane way to eat. I can only see diabetics benefitting from Atkins, if by “benefitting” they mean “I don’t need insulin shots anymore.” Now we have a problem with people using Atkins “in moderation”: They allow themselves refined carbs once in a while, by which I mean once or twice a day (potatoes, donuts, Frosted Flakes, saltines) and all the fatty meat they can eat–otherwise known as The Crappy Way People Already Eat, Only Worse. From that I offer this: Strict Atkins eating just doesn’t seem to be for everyone, and I’m not convinced that a normal, non-diabetic person won’t do better just eating a balanced diet that includes natural, complex carbs. An added bonus: No Ketosis Breath!
The nasty little secret of these studies is that they don’t capture the individual variations over long periods of time: this dimension remains very much an art, rather than a science. A lot depends on where you start, how frequently you have yo-yo’d in the past, what time of year you start, et cet. There are so many individually-dependent dimensions of metabolism that are rather beyond metrics that you can drive yourself crazy if you expect things to go according to a formula.
I lost a considerable amount of weight over 10 months last year. I did not diet, but I did keep a meticulous food diary and I ramped up my exercise. Then, when the depth of winter hit, my rate of loss went to about a quarter of the rate it ought (by metrics of calories in/calories out) to be at. And has been that way for 6 months now. And I have tried a variety of well-advised approaches (but no tricks) to getting the metabolism to a somewhat higher rate. Hasn’t worked. Which means the body knows better than I, even specialists concede.
And that’s how the body works. Not according to formulas.
Even the 3,500 calories=pound “formula” is an approximation assuming a given carburation, as it were, ratio of fat/glycogen. In reality, it varies by person and over time and circumstance.
My advice:
1. Know what you eat: measure it and document it. A food diary; lots of great software is available for this nowadays. If you like to cook from scratch, you can create an Excel spreadsheet with embedded formulae to compute per serving data for the diary.
2. Exercise: Do it. Do it. Do it. If you are trying to lose weight, longer is better than more intense. If you are basically inert, start with manageable activity (20 minutes of walking every other day) and ratchet up gradually but persistantly (to let’s say an hour a day), alternating higher and lower times every other day until you reach a sustainable level. If you have a Y near you, join it and swim. Swimming is a good, low impact cross training with walking. If you find swimming too much, you can probably at least do yoga in the pool, and that will help.
3. Pray. Be grateful to God for what you can do and what you can accomplish, and don’t sweat what you haven’t and can’t yet.
4. Don’t look ahead or back, else you get distracted by anxiety. Just deal with today.
i want to say ,there are a relation between diet systems and calories ,and i believe of all old theories in that field ,but i think that there are many factors in that subject:
first the way we eat.
second how much we eat.
third how many times we eat.
fourth what we eat.
last is there a balance in our food.
in my all life i kept a wisdom “Don’t eat till you feel hungry ,and when you eat ,don’t full your stomach”
untill now ,i have a good healthy body.