Is a calorie just a calorie?

[atypical1]

I've read this on this site several times. "Eat 4000 kcals of broccoli and you'll get just as fat as if you ate 4000 kcals of McDonalds" (not an exact quote) is something I read in the forum within the past couple of days. I've also read that weight loss is as simple as "calories in < calories burned". Superficially these seem to be fairly intuitive, but are they correct?

Before we even begin this discussion I'm going to caution everyone to keep things at least partially scientific. This means that you can either quote studies or you can relate to direct personal experience. But please don't go off on tangents during this discussion. I have my opinion which is that a calorie does not just equal a calorie but I'm still open to other ideas as I'm not 100% sold. That is to say that if there's scientific evidence that shows there is then I'm absolutely open to it.

I've got three quick points to make. The first is that 4000 kcals of broccoli doesn't have the same make up of 4000 kcals of McDonalds. That is to say both the chemical composition of the two and the macronutrient composition of both are different. Let's take out the discussion about preservatives, artificial coloring and the fake meat as it's not part of my point. The McDonalds meal is going to be pretty high in carbohydrates and in particular sugars (to a large degree HFCS -55). What if your body processes those types of calories differently than it processes others? What if your body is more apt to turn the simple sugars into fat than the complex ones? My experience in eating high protein, high fat and low carb was that I was able to lose body fat and body weight really quickly by omitting all forms of carbohydrates out of my diet. If a calorie was a calorie then I wouldn't necessarily expect to see that dramatic of a change in my body composition by eating that way. I mean I ate the fat on meat, I ate a lot of butter and other oil and at a lot of nuts which are things that we are told not to do.

Point two is that we see a high rate of obesity in the poor. If a calorie was just a calorie then I would not expect to see such a disparity. I earn a good living and can afford to provide my family with fresh meat, veggies and fruit. We don't have to eat anything canned and we can buy these items as needed. Do the poor have the same choices that I do? The dollar menu at McDonalds is a viable option for the poor and those on a tight budget because it's cheap. Now, looking at a McDonalds hamburger I see that it has 250 kcals of which 81 kcals are from fat, 120 are from carbs and 48 are from protein. The steak I had last night had 755 kcals of which 513 are from fat, 0 are from carbs and 200 are from protein (I know these numbers don't add up but I pulled the nutritional content from another site and used 9 kcals per gram for fat and 4 kcals per gram for carb and protein). Last night was a fairly typical meal for me so the percentage of calories that I get from fat and protein are substantially different from someone on a limited budget would get. I can afford the high fat, high protein foods whereas if I were on a budget I'd be buying many more starches than I'm getting currently. I also don't eat foods that contain HFCS-55. But foods that don't contain those are more expensive and are therefore pretty inaccessible to those on a tight budget.

My third observation is also from personal experience. When I first went on a low carb lifestyle I didn't change my activity level. In fact my activity level went down but I was still able to lose bodyfat. Why is that? Why could I become more sedentary, eat more fat and lose weight when all the time I was eating carbs I couldn't? I used to try all sorts of cardio and nothing impacted my body fat like diet did. If a "calorie is a calorie is a calorie" then I would not expect to have that same experience.

OK, so those are my three points. What say the rest of you?

james

[muddy]

I completely agree with you, for the same reasons, so I've nothing to add to the discussion except for a great video where Gary Taubes gives an overview of his "Good Calories, Bad Calories" thesis. It's 1 hour 11 minutes, but worth it in my view:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 661765149#

[atypical1]

I'll have to check that out. I've yet to read the book but it's on my list. I live in an Hispanic area and many of them are pretty large and when I look at their diet I see a lot of fat and a lot of carbs (especially simple carbs). If fat's not causing the obesity (it's not making me obese) then I suspect it has to be the carbs.

This is 180 degrees from how I thought in college though. I fell right into the "fat is evil" trap and did my best to avoid it. Luckily I was young and really, really active (I used to run 10k races so I was running around 6 miles a day). I was hesitant to try to eat high fat low carb at first and was really strict about taking measurements and having blood work done beforehand.

james

[lcjackson17]

I am a biochemistry/molecular biology student and while I'm certainly no nutrition expert I do not agree with the "a calorie is a calorie" especially when it comes fatloss. Insulin levels play a HUGE part in the bodies metabolism.

Also, our body can only make a certain number of the 20 amino acids so we must get the other from our diet.

From personal experience, I've been "off" starchy carbs for about two weeks now and I'm already noticing a difference in my body composition. I've been eating about 2800 kcal 40 percent protein, 40 fat, 20 percent carbs. I ate about 3/4 lb (before cooking) of bacon this morning which is better than eating the same amount of calories in pancakes. The protein will be broken down into amino acids and used to repair damaged muscle cells while the fat can be used for many things, including testosterone. The pancakes would just cause an insulin spike.

[Bman1]

Good topic James. I noted the brocolli-McD's comment and kind of laughed to myself as well. While obviously calories in-calories out is the overriding factor in weigh gain/loss, I think if you tried to eat 4000 calorie from brocolli in a day, most of those calories would be coming right out the back door (so to speak). In other words, they never really get in.

In a broad sense, I don't think saying "calories in < calories burned" is necessarily the same as saying a calorie is just a calorie. Furthermore, I think people would be well-advised to move away from simplistic positions at either end of the spectrum, neither "total calories is all that counts" nor "calories don't count, it all depends on your macro intake" is a scientifically valid position.

First off, just because a calorie passes your lips, doesn't necessarily make it a "calorie in" in terms of the the above equation. To count as a "calorie in", it needs to be absorbed into the body. In the broccoli example, while insoluble fibers will be included in the "calorie total" (as determined by a bomb caloriemeter), they are not absorbed. Another example would be protein in raw eggs. A variety of studies have shown that only about 50% of the protein in raw eggs is aborbed into the body and the rest is pooped out. Cook that egg and the protein absorption jumps to about 90%. Further, on an individual basis, we may absorb different macronutrients with differing efficiencies depending on a variety of factors, such as the combination of foods eaten, the biotic makeup of the gut, or use of differing medications (e.g., proto-pump inhibitors to reduce stomach acid). So maybe I digest and absorb carbs at nearly 100% efficiency, but only absorb protein at 85% efficiency since I use Prilosec to reduce stomach acid formation and stomach acid is critical for the breakdown of protein into amino acids to allow absorption through the small intestine. Or maybe because I ate a huge amount of insoluble fiber with my baked potato, I don't absorb as much of the carbs as I would have if I ate the potato by itself. So as a first cut, what really matters is not just calories in but really calories absorbed. In my opinion, this difference in calorie absorption at least in part accounts for why people of seemingly the same height, weight, and activity level may have vastly different calorie needs to either gain or lose weight.

Now we can't say a calorie is just a calorie because of (1) how your body responds to it's introduction to the system and (2) how the different macronutrients can be used by the system. For example, both carbs and proteins trigger some level of insulin response, while fat by itself doesn't. However, some studies suggest that certain combinations, e.g., high fat/high carb ala McDonalds, actually result in a magnified hormonal response. Your body's hormonal response obviously affects your metabolism and ultimately your body composition.

Finally, we need to consider what can be done by the body with each type of macronutrient calorie. Carbs can only be used either for short-term energy or stored as body fat. Fat is primarily used for energy or is stored as body fat, but is also important in buiding things such as cell wals or in the body's production of varius hormaones and enymes. Finally protein can either be used for building lean body mass and in the production of varoius homrones and enzyemes, converted to glucose for energy, or converted to fats for storage as body fat. Clearly, based on the different uses of each macronutrient, it is silly to argue that all calories are equal.

Given the above, I think it is clear that while we can say that ultimate calories absorbed must be less than/greater than calores burned for weight loss or gain, we also need to recognize that all calories are not equal and the ratio of carbs/protein/fat we intake will also play a role in our body compostion.

[GraySheep]

I don't agree at all with the "a calorie is a calorie" mentality at all. For the sake of argument, let's just consider a high fat, high protein diet and a high carb, high protein diet. For an extremely active individual (i.e. intense strength training, the high carb, high protein diet would probably allow them to perform at a high standard by ensuring their glycogen stores are full all the time. I'd also bet that these folks wouldn't gain too much bodyfat either, as there's a consistent depletion of glycogen before they have to re-fill them. On the other hand, an extremely sedentary individual has no need for full glycogen stores 24/7. For survival, the brain isn't picky like muscles and will happily use ketones when glucose is unavailable. So they would be totally fine eating a high fat diet, and probably wouldn't suffer any ill effects of it because.....

Fat is the primary high energy source being put in the body. As were the carbs in the active individual. The trouble exists when you have people that mix saturated fat and simple carbs (Consider the macronutrient breakdown of that McDonalds burger...it has near a 1:1 ratio of Sat.Fat and simple carbs!). Two high energy sources being present in a body that doesn't expend a lot of energy is a recipe for obesity... for example poor people who have a main concern of working 80 hour weeks to get the next meal to feed their 3 kids. No time for gym in that recipe.

There is no 'inherently evil' calorie, apart from Trans Fat and HFCS... notice both are man-made creations. They all have positives, negatives, and are suited for different people/different activities. That's why the Cyclical Ketogenic Diet exists... to attempt to maximize the fat loss benefits of lo-carb/hi-fat and the lifting power of hi-carb/lo-fat.

To recap -> Lots of Saturated Fat + Lots of Starchy/Simple Carbs = Terrible idea in the long term, great for weight gain, but weight gain could be swung either way (either get really fat or really muscular) -> (GOMAD?)
Lots of Saturated Fat + Not a lot of Starchy/Simple Carbs = Good idea for inactive people (Atkins?)
Not a lot of Sat. Fat + Lots of Starchy/Simple Carbs = Good idea for highly active people (40 40 20 diet?)
Lots of Sat. Fat + Controlled Carb-Up on weekend/midweek = Good idea for highly active people with concerns about BF %, but also performance in the gym. (CKD/Anabolic Diet)

After reading a lot of literature on nutrition, that's pretty much how I see it.

As a side note, do you do a CKD/Anabolic diet type of thing James? I'm pretty curious because I'm trying to gain a bit of muscular weight at the moment (I'm 6'0 with 10-12% BF... 163lbs now, trying to get to 175-180), while minimizing fat. I haven't been doing full GOMAD, but instead supplementing with milk to get to my caloric needs. Check out my diet!

http://www.fitday.com/fitness/PublicJou ... noldPalmer

-GraySheep

[mjh]

Great thread James, and others who have posted.

I've always found "a calorie is a calorie" to be as absurd as saying "a gram of beef = a gram of lettuce". A calorie is a unit of measurement that says very little about the actual nutritional quality of the food in question. Anything can be measured in calories.

[tenkev]

If you are worried about how much you actually weigh, a calorie is just a calorie, with the caveat that a calorie of carbs is going to make you hungry sooner than a calorie of fat.

If, on the other hand, you are worried about more reasonable* goals like body composition, health, athletic performance, etc. obviously there is a huge difference.

*More reasonable unless you are a human cannonball or something else where your exact weight matters.

[legendcouture]

I like this thread, this is exactly what I'm trying to get my head round at the moment. I hope a couple of questions are ok & don't take the thread off on a tangent as James warned against...

1. James, how long have you been doing the low carb thing & how highly do you recommend it? Do you think you have lost any strength because of this diet?

2. Graysheep, am I correct that you are stating that basically you need to pick low carb or low fat & not combine the two? And that for active lifters (i.e. those following SL) high carb/low fat is better than high fat/low carb?

[mastrbrewr]

It has all been said. If you are referring to merely the energy capacity of food then a calorie is a calorie. It is when you get into the nutrients and digestability that differences become apparent. The original post also mentioned economics of eating at McDonalds. My family of 4 eats whole, home baked food on 100 per week. If we ate off the dollar menu at McD's it would cost 300 per week. Sorry but I don't see the economics of it.

[GraySheep]

I like this thread, this is exactly what I'm trying to get my head round at the moment. I hope a couple of questions are ok & don't take the thread off on a tangent as James warned against...

1. James, how long have you been doing the low carb thing & how highly do you recommend it? Do you think you have lost any strength because of this diet?

2. Graysheep, am I correct that you are stating that basically you need to pick low carb or low fat & not combine the two? And that for active lifters (i.e. those following SL) high carb/low fat is better than high fat/low carb?

Yep. The idea is to pick one main source of high energy (carbs or fat), and stick to that as your primary source (along with protein, of course... protein is excellent with both). From researching it/experimenting on my own, high carb/low fat is optimal for active lifters, because of the plain and simple fact that your glycogen is getting replenished on a consistent basis. As a corollary to this, a lot of people seem to have luck lifting heavy with a cyclical ketogenic diet/the Anabolic Diet, so you may want to take a look at that as well.

The benefits of high fat/low carb are:
1. You're not hungry as much
2. Saturated fat does wonders for hormone production that is essential to building muscle
3. Bodyfat is almost never an issue at all.

Downsides?
1. If you're not doing refeeds of carbs every week, your lifts are going to start to suffer.
2. There's a transition period where you feel like garbage while your body is adapting.
3. You have the potential to start getting depressed because of low serotonin levels (due to no carbs). Some L-Tryptophan or 5-HTP pre-bed can generally fix this though.

The benefits of high carb/low fat are:
1. You feel like a beast in the gym and have great lifts.
2. Carbs are very tasty and easy to consume.
3. You can sustain strength gains because of your increased ability in the gym.

Downsides?
1. Bodyfat tends to be a problem for some people. This is where insulin sensitivity/carb tolerance plays a huge role.
2. High carb meals tend to make some people sleepy (serotonin strikes once again!)
3. You get hungry a LOT faster than on high fat/lo-carb.

This is just what i've noticed through my own experimentation with both diets.

-GraySheep

[GraySheep]

It has all been said. If you are referring to merely the energy capacity of food then a calorie is a calorie. It is when you get into the nutrients and digestability that differences become apparent. The original post also mentioned economics of eating at McDonalds. My family of 4 eats whole, home baked food on 100 per week. If we ate off the dollar menu at McD's it would cost 300 per week. Sorry but I don't see the economics of it.

Sorry for the double post. Not to sound self-righteous, but in this society, time is money. A single mom that works 80 hour weeks to support her 4 kids is going to hardly have time to shop for, let alone cook a home baked meal. She's too busy trying to make money so they have shoes to go to school with. That's where the economics come into play.

-GraySheep

[kali]

we have different body types, naturally adapted for different environments. people who genetically come from cold windy dry places traditionally ate fat and meat, they naturally are larger and fatter, but would get out of control fat on carbs. people from low sea level humid and hot places are naturally skinnier, and eat carbs and dont get fat.
moreover, people who genetically come form agrarian races digest carbs really well, those from hunter gatherer genetics digest meat really well. this has also to do with blood type.
examples: tibetans thrive on meat and fat, bengalis love rice and stay thin.
mongolians thrive on meat and fat, southern chinese love rice, and are thin.

@James: you are genetically from northern europe, large boned with a body that is adapted to a harsher northern climate, and you genetically come from a hunter gatherer blood type, most likely, so carbs are not easy to assimilate, and dont work for fat loss.
native mexicans you mentioned from the high desert also come from similar existential conditions and genetically are best suited for fat/protein, but not so the mexicans from the low-land jungle south.
same with the thais, who can remain skinny on carbs, and who also genetically come from long-time agrarian societies of hot humid places, and thus have small frames.

also, hydrogenated vegetable oils, processed white flour, (and i would imagine processed white sugar as well?), fuck up a lot in our bodies, and cause obesity especially in those who are predisposed to having more body fat in general.

[atypical1]

I've been doing low carb for a couple of years now. I took a bit of a break and went lax in order to get my calories up. But I've recently got back to eating high fat, low carb and I feel a lot better for it. I don't feel as if I've lost any strength and my stats have moved up consistently even though I've cut my carbs way back. But I do make sure I get my calories in.

Kali, let's keep this scientific please. I don't think it can be scientifically proven that where we come from dictates what kind of food we could or should eat.

james

[knoted]

I'm still of the opinion that to lose weight, calories in < calories out, and to gain weight, calories in > calories out. In the grand scheme of things, I believe that still holds true. However.

There are certainly a lot of things that can fudge the equation quite majorly. High Protein / Fat + Low Carb, Carb cycling, fasting, all serve to increase the body's ability to burn fat. As has been pretty clearly demonstrated by the response to my post, there are a lot of people with enough understanding to ignore my comment.

My post was trying to emphasize, in support of the OP of that thread, that to get bigger you need to eat more. For a beginning young guy trying to put on weight, it really doesn't matter where it comes from, as long as there's enough protein, more calories are better.

Note : I recommend still eating lots of vegies just for the vitamins and minerals and all that good stuff.

I understand my comment was pretty broad, I'll refrain in the future from making such broad generalisations.


So, is a calorie a calorie? If you are trying to bulk, who gives a shit, keep eating. If you are worried about your body fat at all, then most definitely it does matter where it comes from.