I’ve seen a number of repeated comments I’d like to address so I don’t have to keep replying individually: *1. Digestion of food differs.* (17:20 - 17:51) Yes, foods are digested differently, some being absorbed less fully (fiber rich, as one example), some requiring more caloric input to break down the food (protein, for example). As I mentioned near the end of the video, there are many considerations to getting nutrients past the intestines into the blood stream, and while these considerations are important, they complicate the message of the video (calories are all equal) as they discuss nutrient differences, not calories. *2. The health of food differs.* (11:57 , 12:39, 15:52) Again, I mentioned this multiple times in the video (11:57 , 12:39, 15:52) - this is a discussion of the biochemistry and physiology of calories, not of nutrients, although they are closely related. We need to separate the nutrient from the calorie for us to have a discussion about each. I acknowledge that consuming certain foods (made of set nutrients) can worsen or better health in the context of the totality of a diet; however, this is again extending the video message beyond what it is - this is also why I added a mention that this isn’t an all-encompassing education on nutrients, I’m simply trying to extract the definition of “calorie” from the concept of “nutrients”. *3. If calories matter, why are there calories in wood, motor oil, etc.?* All things have calories, but only a certain subset of things in this world can we extract the calories through our bodily metabolic processes. If you consume motor oil, other than the fact that you will die, you will also not absorb said motor oil, so it will not end up at the site of cellular absorption (beyond the intestine) - additionally, even if it did, your cells have no metabolic systems to extract the calories (by turning motor oil into ATP) like they do for carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins. *4. Are you saying calorie counting is the superior way to diet?* (12:30 - 13:23) No. I'm saying a calorie deficit is foundational to fat loss, but there are many ways to achieve that calorie deficit that could have more or less merit for you (i.e. a diet that is more satiating at the same calorie deficit, etc.). *5. X diet is better for satiety and X diet sucks.* (12:30 - 13:23 , 15:52) All well and good, but these are matters of nutrients, not calories. They matter, but they aren't the point of this particular video. *6. Nutrition labels and Calories.* I've seen some people mention that nutrition label calories (calories in food) are determined by burning the food and therefor do not represent what happens in the body. Food calories are determined by a bomb calorimeter, where scientists input a known amount of heat and then measure the difference in heat output - it is a highly controlled circumstance. Obviously, this invites the idea that it doesn't apply to us, but in reality, scientists do the same thing with humans - we don't burn them alive, but we put a person in an insulated room that is sensitive to heat changes through the conductance in an intricate water system surrounding the room; the difference in heat between the person not being in the room (baseline) and the person being in the room (quietly, usually lying down) is a direct measure of resting metabolism and is known as 'direct calorimetry'. So, while not all of the food may be absorbed exactly as its packaged, we tend to absorb a vast majority of the nutrients (90% or more) we consume (except in special circumstances, like fiber), and therefor we utilize those nutrients to generate similar amounts of energy/calories.
"1. Digestion of food differs. Yes, foods are digested differently, some being absorbed less fully (fiber rich, as one example), some requiring more caloric input to break down the food (protein, for example). As I mentioned near the end of the video, there are many considerations to getting nutrients past the intestines into the blood stream, and while these considerations are important, they complicate the message of the video (calories are all equal) as they discuss nutrient differences, not calories. " and that where you are wrong, it's BECAUSE of that that 'Calories sources' are not EQUAL in the metabolism. They don't 'complicate' the message, they EXPLAIN why the messages is USELESS, might as well be FALSE. That like saying "the Density make thing float or sink, therefore nothing heavier than air can fly"... you would start to talk about aerodynamism of airplane and I would reply, "that only complicate thing, density is all that matter in the message, therefore Plane is not a thing !
If you don't put misleading titles on things you won't have to keep addressing the same points. I live in Australia, if all calories were equal I'd make my fortune with 'the beer only diet'. So make the title "biochemically all calories are equal - and this offers no guidance to what you should eat".
Thank you for the education. From my personal experience I have lost weight from calorie counting and there is no doubt that if you burn more calories than you consume you will lose weight, wherever those calories come from. But for me it only really worked when I started to find out what effect different foods had on me and adjusted my diet accordingly. Rather than just thinking “if I cut my calories I’ll lose weight” and within 2 weeks I was so hungry I’d eat anything you put in front of me. I changed my diet to whole foods, less carbs and cut out nearly all sugar. I found it really curbed my hunger and I could sustainably lose weight and keep it off. So I agree all calories are equal but what you actually eat makes a massive difference to how you feel.
Absolutely, Roboo. No doubt one needs to find the foods that agree with them best, even if taking calories into account.
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Exactly, you have to look at the bigger picture. I also only lost weight when I counted calories, because it became more obvious what I could eat and not eat and still reach my goal.
@@Physionic "...one needs to find the foods that agree with them best..." That sounds reasonable - until you give it some thought. Sure, "everyone's different", but everyone's not THAT different. Robo tended toward carb restriction before his calorie restriction began to work for him. My guess is that his carb restriction got his insulin under better control, which fixed his hunger/craving problem. These principles are well understood (at least in practice), so there's no need to spend one's life trying to "find the foods that agree with them best".
how are you "burning calories" your body doesn't burn calories. and even if it did how would you measure the calories actually being burned. You say you changed your diet to have less sugar. THATS why you lost weight. You consumed lesss food that causes your insulin to spike which meant you lost weight. It has NOTHING to do with the calories in the food.
@@Physionic why would you take calories into account when he said he eats almost no sugar? its the not eating the sugar that is causing him to lose the weight. not the calories in the food items he's consuming.
It is just a heuristic for the concept that two 500-calorie *meals* are not equal, in terms of their effect on the body: nutrition, satiety, blood glucose, sustained energy, etc. 1200 calories of chips and candy is miserable compared to 1200 calories of real food. We would all agree that a kilowatt generated by a tire fire is the same as a kilowatt generated by a windmill. We would also agree that this doesn't mean there is nothing to choose between them.
If only people defined how they speak like you did, Jessica. People who are discussing nutrients should say the word nutrients and not calories (they are often interchanged, incorrectly, and lead to significant confusion).
Very well put, Jessica. I really like Nicolas. I also like the people that he has a pet peeve about. They are benefiting society as does Nicolas. I hope for all of them to keep up the good work.
@@Physionic and that's the problem with the calorie in = calorie out people, they tell you cut your calorie and you will lose weight.. no matter the nutrient. Fung and other say, select your calorie type and you will do BETTER.
@@moestietabarnak Fung is not as respectful about it, in my opinion. He's called calorie counting stupid and other childish words. He and others imply that people who don't agree with them are idiots, or that it is actually impossible to lose weight while eating often because of the insulin. That is so easy to disprove! I guarantee you if all you eat is 100 calories of pure sugar 5x a day, unless you are a petite woman, you will lose weight. Might you lose more with no carb? Yes, but that doesn't negate the deficit issue. BTW, I will point out that in Obesity Code, Fung's book,(independently reviewed for scientific accuracy of 31%) he has a 3-meal structure as the between-fasts routine. But so many of his followers talk like that's crazy. Even though Italy and France used to eat like that before American snacking habits invaded. And they eat bread and pasta and potatoes. Used to be two of the slimmest countries in Europe. Other countries were also slim eating snacks and starch aplenty. But a lot fewer calories overall than we eat. However, I acknowledge that Fung can excite people enough that they can finally eat in a way that creates enough of a DEFICIT to lose. If he can point to any of his patients who ate the same number of calories over a week or month's time while following his fasting protocol and still lost weight and reversed their diabetes, I bet it wouldn't account for more than 5%. But I guess if it takes partial truths to get people motivated enough to affect their health, it's better than leaving them wallowing in heavy truth.
@@oolala53 there is a couple of really good studies that show 3 meals a day with no snacks actually improve blood pressure, insulin resistance and some other stuff with no relation to what you are eating, so it might be that the 3-meal structure was doing good regardless of whatever other thing he was recommending
I remember seeing a Dr Fung video and he said that calories are important but they are of secondary importance and not of primary importance. The hormonal response that those different nutrients elicits is primary. As a type one diabetic that was just at Disney World this past weekend, I can keenly attest to the marked effect of carbohydrates on my physiology. 😅
I don't think anyone is disputing that carbohydrates have an effect on a type 1 diabetic. Or type 2. Fung's claims have been that CICO isn't applicable to weight loss, and that just isn't true. But different foods may affect CO.
@@canesugar911that's not how diabetes works... The problem is that your body does process carbs, but then can't lower blood glucose through insulin...
When you explained that calories are the heat released from the phosphate molecule separating from the Adenosine molecule, it all made sense for me. Nice job ✓ This is what has been missing from this whole discussion in the nutrition space I also appreciate the highly relevant point you made about how nutrients vary widely on human biochemistry via different hormonal responses etc.. 👍
@Physionic yea people can lose weight by counting "calories" that's totally true, but I think the point these doctors were trying to make is just because foods have the same number of "calories" doesn't make the foods the same!!! So 500 calories of some nutrient dense food isn't gonna be handled by your body the same way as 500 calories of some ultra processed food regardless of if you lose weight on the scale
@@Physionicso yes calories are equal (in a vacum) but human being aren't a vacuum!!! Who's to say that just because you had 100 calories of broccoli that all the down on the molecular level your gonna get the same number of atp as 100 calories of sugar or any other processed food! So again just because something says 100 calories on the label doesn't even actually mean that your body is gonna absorb all 100 calories of said food so in that context calories are irrelevant
Okay, I'm starting to see where you're coming from. Dr. Fung's point about a block of wood stuck with me. Yeah, it might have a hundred calories but you're not going to pull them out through digestion. Your points are foundational though like in philosophy. We can't have a discussion until we're both on the same page about what we're debating. "This therefore that" doesn't work unless we're talking about the same thing. Usually it's stuff like truth and meaning instead of cookies and hotdogs but I guess it applies to everything...lol
I think Dr. Fung is right on that one. I've eaten over 5,000 calories a day (of clean whole foods) and had minimal weight gain. According to calorie calculators I was 2-2500 calories in a surplus. I've been tested for GI problems like celiacs etc and I'm good. I guess my body says no thanks and passes them? From personal experience, CICO is bullshit. Unless you get into semantics and say I'm just burning them off into heat energy or some crap, but if that's the case, what's the point of CICO...
If you're diabetic or prediabetic, I'd still want to get most of my calories from proteins and fats and I find hard to believe that if you're in a surplus of 1000 calories, that you'd put on same amount amount of fat if those surplus calories came from either sugar or protein.
Let's rather talk about energy, which is what calories measure, instead of calories. You'll put on the same amount of weight as long as you are in a caloric surplus. Test it out. Track everything you eat and track all your gross motor movements.
Calories are not equal only in respect of how mush are absorbed (piece of wood vs spoonful of sugar, for average human), and more importantly - how much energy (calories) is takes to break down the food molecules to access their calories.
Yes, a calorie is a calorie, but only AFTER it is absorbed from the digestive tract. I think this point is the key reason for the ongoing disagreement: we are comparing apples to oranges-pun intended 😂
One correction: Breaking bonds does not release energy it requires energy. It is when chemical bonds are made that energy is released. Biologists often make this mistake.
I wanted to test this for myself. I ate only a junk food diet for over 6 months at the exact same calories. My weight and physiology stayed exactly the same. Did I feel like crap and was I hungry a lot of the time, yes, but it proved to me that a calorie is just a calorie. I am not saying just calories matter because if I ate to satiety in my experiment above I would have over consumed calories.
@@jaghad Didn’t measure the mass. The difference was enough to see that the volume of food each day was much less and I hated that and wanted to stop the experiment many times.
Dr. Fung is looking at it through the lens of insulin resistance and diabetes. The cookies spike insulin and in diabetic's (type 2) the spike is bigger and lasts longer. The fat stores stay closed. So if I ate 100 calories of cookies only, it could be hours before my body would be able to pull from my fat stores to make up the difference. If I ate more cookies later before the spike ends then I'll be blocked for even more hours, never losing weight. If I ate 100 calories of chicken or broccoli I would have little or no insulin spike and I would start burning fat to make up for the restriction. I understand It is different for someone healthy trying to lose fat and not insulin resistant, but he is working with a group that has different problems. Still, I love your content, keep it up!
To be clear, although the chemical processes for absorbing 500kcal of broccoli and 500kcal of sugar are completely different, AND the resulting ATP is indistinguishable, are both processes equally _efficient_? In other words, is the same percentage of the measured calories of both examples ultimately turned into ATP?
Dear Nicolas, with all due respect that is the wrong side of the calorie efficiency equation. Different fuels have different efficiencies and different chemical ratios of byproducts from their combustion. The metabolism of any organism is an "internal combustion engine" and the efficiency of that engine is different from its design and type of fuel. The calorific value of hydrogen is 150 kJ/g, where as diesel is 45 kJ/g of energy output over mass. Also, the "engine types" to burn these fuels have their own efficiencies. Hydrogen engines are at best around 45 percent thermal efficiency with current technology and diesel engines are about 35 percent thermal efficiency. It also takes energy from other machinery to put any fuel into a usable form. The human body produces heat so therefore some of the energy is lost to that inefficiency. Breaking down carbohydrates requires less energy than breaking down proteins or fats; and the enzymes that do so are different "machines" and have different efficiencies. Each type of metabolic fuel will have a different efficiency chemical chain of reactions to get it in the usable form of ATP. Ketogenesis, fructolysis, glycolysis, and gluconeogenesis require different enzymatic reactions (machinery) that each have different efficiencies. In other words, different sources of food conversion will take differing amounts of energy used by the body to convert them to ATP, thus differing amounts of calories for carbohydrate, protein, or fat to produce useable metabolic energy. I have never seen that side of the calorie efficiency equation (enzymatic engines) worked out. Maybe you can be the first !!
While I agree, that's all beside the point, as I explained near the end - these are different conversations that confuse the foundation of what calories are.
@@Physionic Yes, I agree with the physics of your analysis and the thoughtfulness you put into your videos. Also, I believe that calorie-in verse calorie-out is the most important metric for not storing excess energy on our bodies as excess fat. I would, however, enjoy seeing one example of the energy required to convert one short chain fat to glucose and the same for converting one simple protein to glucose.
Nicely done. There is no weight loss without Calorie deficit but also there is a difference from a health standpoint between 2000 Calories of Fructose vs 2000 Calories of Broccoli. Something that should be made clear by nutrition pundits.
It's not just a health standpoint. It is true that the body may expend more calories (CO) when eating a fibrous food vs a completely processed one. Maybe that's what you meant by health.
@@PablumMcDump Would be chewing all day! And a portion of those calories wouldn't be used for energy. It makes sense that humans need a core of dense calories from some combo of protein, fat and dense carbs; less dense carbs can play a role when in such a calorie-rich environment.
Dr. Bikman has a talk entitled "The Metabolic Advantage" in which he refers to the fact that an individual in ketosis will be wasting ketones from the body during breathing. Of course those lost calories are in some sense -- very definitely your sense too -- if those calories were directly from dietary fat, then they were not fully consumed in the sense of cellular respiration, though they probably did incur a slight metabolic energy deficit. But there are so many individual factors involved that you can't say, for instance, that 50g of dietary fat will never produce its full caloric energy value. Neither can you say it will always produce that value.
Dietary fat does produce its full energic value other than perhaps a small amount not absorbed. About 3% of fat is used directly as heat when you eat it (thermogenic effect of food). With carbs its 5-10% and protein about 25%. That's "the meat sweats" Calories are still foundational.
Calories are still foundational to what? 🤔 I find it interesting when CICO points are brought up that take a helpful conversation about health, macronutrient food choices and weight loss, and in comes a scientist that says, "a pound is a pound is a pound!". Yep, 1+1=2 is certainly true, but it seems to be a point bereft of context. Then the CICO scientist says, "Of course macronutrients matter, as does timing of meals, and different food's impact on hormone levels, but those are beside the point that I, a scientist, am trying to make." Yeah, you just interrupted these other scientists focused on those other topics that are driving better understanding and decisions on foods to eat, with a mostly pointless argument that nobody is really arguing. 😂 Moving on.
I think Bikman's point is that caloric fat intake in excess of expenditure need not be stored, whereas a similar excess taken in carbs will always be stored. The metabolic effects downstream of that are of course not to be casually disregarded.
As a recovering physicist, the argument that "calories are a physics concept, not a physiology one" never fails to give me a good chuckle. If anyone thinks they have found a mechanism that breaks the laws of physics, please report to your nearest Nobel foundation for a chance at a million+ dollar prize.
I come here because I feel like you're presenting real information. Frequently you present what must be stupifyingly complex subjects and reduce it to moderately challenging. This one topic deserves an epic of videos. Do something on weightloss without hunger. Also, when "experts" villify sugar, which form of sugar do they hate? If I recall from org chem, it's not like there's only one. You do the world a favor. Thank you.
If I reduce the number of calories in my food, exercising the same, I lose weight. If I increase exercise, ceteris paribus , same thing. Or I can increase calories or decrease exercise and get the opposite effect. My measurement instruments are somewhat crude - data from MyFitnessPal and readings from my Fitbit smartwatch - but the measurements are pretty consistent and long usage has taught me how to adjust. I keep good records, going back years.. This is just the way it works. For an amateur bodybuilder like me, it’s just axiomatic. I’m 76, btw, so I’ve clocked some mileage on this issue. Thanks for your presentations, Nick. You’re one of my go-to guys.🙏
What is the caloric difference between 100 calories of olive oil and 100 calories of motor oil? Same amount of energy, but the second option possibly impairs the future energy production by human body. Similarly, drinking one shot of 3000 calories from concentrated glucose drink will have different effect than 3000 calories from the same glucose but slowly ingested through the whole day. In the first case, the system is overloaded, so the excess glucose must be immediately converted to a storage form. Damages to the system caused by high glucose concentration and effectiveness of storing and releasing the energy from the storage were not considered in the talk. Surprisingly, I do agree with J. Fung and with Physionic at the same time (apart from the tile). Simply, I applied different assumptions, which for better understanding should be expressed explicitly.
This was an excellent and very thoughtful video on this topic. It is not easy in our ego controlled world to make a case/stance about something while simultaneously agreeing with all the key counter arguments. Calories are in a large sense all created equal; it may not matter for the vast majority of people looking to gain or lose weight, but it still seems to be true. Perspective and narrative are everything.
Analogy: KiloWatts-hours can be generated by many different ways, Hydro, Solar, Fossil fuels, but KiloWatts-hours are KiloWatts-hours. They are a unit of measure we use to allow comparisons of electrical energy.
Why not consume both types of information? . Dr. Fung seems to be highly regarded by the scientific & research community. However, a deeper and more complex explanation of the physiology involved is also very useful. I am subscribed to both of these scientists. 🎆
For Fung, it depends on the community whether he is well-respected. I suspect that some doctors are just amazed that he can get people to go 36 hours (yes, and more) without eating.
Some foods are more addictive than others. Ultra-processed foods are highly palatable and so people tend to eat more. These may have the same calories per ounce as a broccoli salad, but they are easier to overconsume. The food industry loves the saying a calorie is a calorie, which is correct but how it affects hunger is huge, at least for me.
@@Physionic sure you are right but they are confounded in those of us that eat. Highly processed foods freely fed tend to be over consumed. The food industry is in part responsible. I cannot trust myself around some foods at all.
@@Physionic my daughter is an obesity medicine doctor. She just attended a conference in NYC where the ultra-processed food evidence was discussed. I think that is a wonderful topic to discuss. 👍
@@RandomGuy-qg9xf every one is different. I find controlling my pantry helps me stay fit. The food industry does target palatability when creating new foods. Addiction is hard to measure but if you cannot stop eating certain foods, there is a problem.
Thanks again for this video, I keep coming back to it, when people completely deny calories in vs calories out.. On other notes, I really love people that give up and say "I'm just in my set point", Like once they reach adulthood that their fat is now dormant and can't be used and eating less doesn't matter.
Does this mean that when we are in a calorie deficit that serum lipid levels will rise because they are being used for metabolic purposes? And if you take a lipid blood test during lower caloric intake periods one will show elevated triglycerides LDL HDL etc? I agree with you 100% when it comes to being precise about definitions this is a problem in all Fields social, scientific at the everyday level. It's counterproductive.
Well, it really depends on what you mean. Physically a calorie is a calorie, so from that perspective they are indeed all the same. But the same amount of calories can have very different effects on things like blood sugar, cholesterol, satiety, etc. For example 100 calories of fat or protein would be much more filling than 100 calories of carbs (because they digest more slowly) so you'd be less likely to eat more. So from an energy standpoint all calories are equal, but not really from a health standpoint.
I feel like one of the biggest considerations for people who want to follow a calories in calories out approach to dieting would be protein. Its metabolism into sugars is itself expensive and happens conditionally when total energy is quite low or when protein ratio is overwhelmingly high.
100 cal of protein vs 100 cal of carb will produce different amounts of ATP no ? Therefore they are not equal and what use is this heat produced in the breaking of the bonds ? ( beyond the important task of keeping you warm)
The amino acids could go towards protein synthesis in the body, which believe it or not requires ATP. In cases of excess protein there are ketogenic and glucogenic amino acids, which ultimately end up producing ATP. This is a longer process than either glucose or lipid metabolism though and you'd use those before protein. Protein metabolism is also the most energetically demanding and you gain only about 75% of the consumed calories.
I've tried many diets and it always comes down to controlling appetite. Whether I eat too many carbs or protein or fat doesn't matter (or don't exercise enough to compensate). If I'm not in a deficit I'm not losing weight. Tough struggle for many of us and probably why the newer anti-appetite drugs like Mounjaro are becoming so popular.
@@rachelbrondel5858 I wish I had the answers Rachel but I don't. I'm T2 with an A1c over 7 so right now my immediate goals are get under 7 so low carb/low sugar and try to stay in a deficit for weight loss. I think extra protein helps but you have to be careful as calories add up fast.
@@rachelbrondel5858I eat raw kidney fat. It gives me wonderful 💩💩💩 AND lots of energy AND it is satiating AF. I eat two meals a day. No need for a third meal because I'm just not hungry.
@@rachelbrondel5858 Meat, butter, full fat dairy, eggs cause satiety. Anything with fructose triggers the 'more' impulse. Having choffles (egg with equal mozzarella cheese in a mini waffle maker) with butter has helped me eat less. They are my bread substitute and seem to keep my carb cravings at bay.
@@lindabirmingham603 Seconding this. Meat, dairy, eggs, good fats, even have some veggies if you like them. If you cut out 99% of sugar that's a start. Carnivore base will absolutely smash that fat. Tie in some extended fasting and OMAD or 2MAD and it will occur even faster. You HAVE to exercise though! Eat your bodyweight in grams of protein. So if you're 180, get 180-200g to build/preserve muscle.
Great man, as always. And as you said I agree there's space for another video showing how "all the roads lead to Rome", it will be nice to show how the lipid transforms into energy, which is the base for keto diets. It would also be nice to know how much energy is lost in storing and restoring glucose from triglycerides vs the amount of energy loss during the transformation of lipids into energy.
I agree with everything you have said in this video, but, I have seen many videos by Dr. Fung and read in his book were he states that you can’t loose weight without following the rules of thermodynamics, that the amount of calories does in fact matter, it’s just that if you ignore the hormone reactions your missing a large portion of the process out, and that is why fasting is so beneficial. Taken by just this video it seems like he doesn’t believe calories matter, but other videos do. Am I missing a something? ( not trying to be rude, I’m truly curious because I am trying to lose baby weight by intermittent fasting, thank you)
Thank you for the great content. What is the mechanism by which (anecdotal - in my experience) a calorie deficit (say, from 2500 kcal / day to 1500 kcal / day results in weight loss at first but then slows and weight plateaus at the new lower calorie number.
This is such an important distinction. I was keto and carnivore for 6 years, but only recently gained a good understanding of the vital importance of micro nutrients. That has changed the game in my health journey. My main focus is on maximizing vital nutrients now.
@@esther.f.g absolutely not. Keto and carnivore helped my body heal from a myriad of food allergies, leaky gut, ibs, join pain, etc., that I had suffered with since birth. I'm still fairly low carb, but my diet now is about 80% plants, 80% raw and no dairy. The fruits are cleansing my body systems and micronutrients are repairing my body.
~ I like how Nicholas stays with scientific facts and does not over analyze everything. Nice 👌 • Who said this ? " Calories count - but don't count calories. "
Its possible to lose bodyfat and just lose omega 3, and increase fat stored in the liver. Combine that with large loss of lean muscle mass, its a worry. Metabolism adapts, and the person is in a far worse off situation than prior to fat loss. Then they put the weight back on and die. Changing lifestyle to quality food, increasing muscle to fat ratio is much more important than worrying about calories in, calories out.
1. We don't have receptors for calories. Do we have receptors for other units, like degrees Celsius, Newtons, then? No, so clearly when someone puts you in an oven or squashes you in a compacter you will not be affected. 2. Calories comes from physics so they do not apply. Sooo....we must live outside of physical space and time then. I never knew. Or maybe they mean that the second law of thermodynamics does not apply to human beings, because we are not closed systems. I guess we cannot apply the second law of thermodynamics to the sun and earth then either and must concluded that in these systems energy CAN be freely created and destroyed, because they are both not closed systems. 3. Different foods have different hormonal reactions. Clearly this proves calories do not influence hormones at all, not one bit. Replace your water with molten butter people. Calories do not matter, because hormones are influenced only by WHAT (and when) you eat and not at all by calories. Oh yeah, obviously this last statement proves that sugars, in any form, are evil and only low-carb diets work. Though, in every low-carb and TRE study were calories are not restricted there are always some subjects that did not loss weight or even gained weight, but never mind that. That proves nothing.
I think you are arguing against an imaginary straw man. Way back in the early 1960s, a book came out called, "Calories Don't Count". It advocated, basically, a ketogenic diet. What the title implied was that counting calories is unnecessary if you go on the prescribed diet. All the author meant was that there is a better, more effective thing to focus on than calories. People have been purposely misinterpreting him ever since to cast doubt on the efficacy of the diet.
If I am in a calorie deficit will I lose more weight if i am consuming unhealthy food because my body has to pull more nutrients from my fat to make up for the unhealthy food i am eating vs the same calorie deficit using healthy food?
Way better than all those "doctors" and carnivores who just look like narcissistic exhibitionists. My rebuttal to them would be the likes of Maggie Q (vegan), Maye Musk (Mediterranean), Mika Takishima (balanced soy and plant dominant with chicken and fish), et al. You provide very good explanations in this video.
Thank you for the lesson, Nic! You've changed my mind, despite much anecdata I've heard that contradicts all calories being equal. Is it fair to value food on a nutrient density or satoety per calorie basis? What's the relationship between nutrients and satiety? I.e. ketones/MCT oil and hunger suppression? Confused. Thanks again!
Hey! I applaud your disagreement with a fairly popular scientific model. Also, kudos for the clear presentation, accuracy and relevance! And yes, I agree with you that this topic is not about semantics. Bravo! :)
I am grateful for your content. It is rare to find someone like you. Even handed, very knowledgeable and showing stats and studies to back up your conclusions. Thank you very much for taking complex subject matter and making it simple enough for people like myself. In a sea of misinformation and disinformation your a light in the darkness.
@Axileus Would you buy any product if you knew that only the positive testimonials were ever shown? Even pseudo-scientific detox clinics have many positive testimonials. Does that make these clinics scientific?
I'm a scientist, not a coach. I don't need to be ruler of all domains to have a good point - I'll stick to what I'm best in and leave the coaching for people who are better at it than I am. However, I will say - I did coach for a year and my clients were quite happy. Additionally, I use these principles on myself and you're welcome to see my recent video on muscle mass where I show you my results.
So if lets say I buy some kind of food, that it listed at 100 calories. Does that mean these calories are part of the food itself, or are they a product of what happens in our body? In other words, are calories calculated outside or inside our bodies? Some sources say they burn a steak in a lab and messure energy, but you're saying its the amount of energy that food adds to the ATP thingy? I'm a bit confused on how calories are ascribed to a certain foods. And how does pooping relate to all that? Do we poop any calories out? Are there any calories in poop? Do you absorb anything if you ingest poop?
I always said the hormone model of obesity incorporates the calories in/out model, aka the calories in/out model is an oversimplification. Of course even the hormonal model is an over simplification, but alightly more accurate. Since you are familiar with mitochondria, I'd be curious to know is your thoughts about the F/N ratio on mitochondria and cellular signaling, as spoken of on the hyperlipid blog.
Ketones are a store of energy. Ketone's are expelled thru breath, urine, fecal matter and sweat. Also, they are used to produce heat in the brown fat. These account for the loss of calories. Therefore a diet that produces ketones can induce weight loss at the same level of calories in.
Dr. Fung is right and you are right as well Nic. That is why they say that if you want to lose 1lb of fat you have to burn 3500 calories. Please correct me if I am wrong.
hehe, on the 0:47th second I stopped the video, gave it a like, and, writing this comment now.. It's a topic that is too confusing for many people, but you are right! Can't wait to see the rest of the video
It now makes sense why I didn't lose weight without drastically eating less. Even when doing omad. My issue was always being fearful of not eating enough, which I could never figure out, since all I ever heard was if you restrict calories too much, ones metabolism slows down. Very confusing. It led me to wonder - how do bariatric surgery patients lose so much weight? Does their metabolism slow down too? This video did help me immensely. But the mtabolism issue still confounds me. If I truly know what to do, I'll do it. Im tired of being fat!!
If you eat less, a variety of metabolic shifts occur leading you to burn fewer calories. Essentially you will become more efficient at using calories in light of the deficit. But you will still lose weight. In other words your calories out will decline by some (probably small) amount, but never as much as your calories in are falling. Is that helpful?
Also, your metabolism slows with weight loss BECAUSE YOU HAVE LESS MASS TO MAINTAIN. My sedentary TDEE dropped almost 300 calories per day, not because I “broke” my metabolism by eating at too high of a deficit, but because I lost 50 pounds and consequently burn less per day due to reduced mass. A consistent, steady 500cal deficit/day is sustainable and will get you to your weight loss goals. Make sure to use your *sedentary* tdee, because people overestimate their movement dramatically. Log it separately and don’t eat back more than 50% of exercise calories (to account for overestimated burn).
Thoughts on how toxins can make fat loss extremely difficult as they hold on to fat or slow the fat loss ? This is why many people having toxins exposure are not able to loose fat despite caloric deficit.
By definition if someone is not losing or gaining weight then they are eating their maintenance calories. If they are gaining weight then they are eating what is called a calorie surplus, and if they are losing weight then that is called a calorie deficit. So by the very definitions of the terms, one can not be in a significant calorie deficit for an extended period of time, and not lose weight. So, if someone is capable of maintaining their weight for long periods of time while eating significantly fewer calories than the calculations suggest, then one of two situations exist. Either 1). that person's body is more efficient at converting food into usable energy than most other people, which begs the question, what kind of "toxins" are these people taking to become more efficient than the rest of us? And of course the follow on questions like, where can we get these "toxins?" Couldn't we end world hunger by shipping these "toxins" along with the wheat and rice? Would these "toxins" be considered performance enhancers by sports organizations? And should things that make us more efficient really be considered "toxins?" So many?????? Or 2). Their ability to account for their intake / expenditure and understand the calculations is roughly the same as their understanding of definitions such as "calorie deficit" and "toxins."
@@Logan4661 That's a really interesting idea and a new way to look at this. I'm gathering evidence on how endocrine disruptors can make you fatter or other toxins. Basically, they are slowing down your metabolism and it's not necessary that this energy-efficient state is the most optimal state for humans to be in, the state that you're referring to with toxins. I'll get back to you with some evidence of it.
I think the reason people say they are not the same is because 100 calorie broccoli will make you feel full while 100 calorie pure white table sugar won't make you feel full. Same with eating protein and fat, if you eat the same amount of calorie in white bread, you will become hungry sooner after white bread consumption compared to protein and fat consumption. I notice from own experience, when I eat white bread with my dinner, I eat more and I become hungry again sooner.
Thank you for this. You do a great job in explaining and are extremely clear. Unfortunately, the degree of mis-education and mis-understanding out there is staggering. As soon as we accept certain facts, we realize we have agency over our bodies. A lot of people would prefer a world where this is all a mystery and we have no control, and thus no accountability.
The problem with CICO approach and why it generally fails in the long term is it ignores the elephant in the room, which is satiety/hunger. The SAD that includes UPF concocted using highly processed starches, added oils, and sugar are engineered to override natural hormonal feedback loops that keep caloric intake in check. It also biases the system to store excess energy as fat rather than burn it.
Thanks for the great explanation of the relationship between calories consumed and calories used for production of ATP. Also the excess of calories consumed stored in fat cells explains were the excess caloric energy goes.
Sure, calories ARE calories, and that’s why they literally don’t matter. I ate 3000 calories yesterday and lost 2lbs but only walked 6k steps (bad weather). I wonder why someone who supposedly needs to eat 1400 calories / day or less to lose weight can do that?
The issue is that people are often literal about it. Yes, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie as a calorie is just a measure of energy. But, foods act differently in the body. Example - eat a little too much fat and your body might want to store it as the fats are easily converted into body fat. Eat a little too much carbs, carb to fat conversion is inefficient so your body might rev up your metabolism a little to try to get rid of the energy that way. Or, 100 calories of refined white bread is not the same in your body as 100 calories of high fiber beans. From the absolute definition of calorie, the energy units in the food is the same but how they act in your body is not the same, thus in your body a calorie is not always a calorie.
Some gut hormones are released in response to non-specific calories, or the absence of calories. Ghrelin for example is released by the absence of calories.
Ignorant question. Wasn't there a Randall cycle where mitochondria can't utilise simultaneously sugar and fat and there happens something as jamming of mitochondria and no gear engine state when energy is used up for heat? my question probably is if if there is that other way of spending energy instead of storing it
The Randle Cycle simply illustrates the metabolic flexibility of substrate (glucose or fat), but it doesn't say that mitochondria *can't* use one substrate or another - just that at any given moment, if the mitochondria is using one substrate, it necessitates a reduction in the use of the opposite substrate.
Thanks for this. I used to wonder why, when I would do Atkins I could not lose weight. I’m close to goal. What I was doing, was staying low carb but eating too many (low carb) calories overall. I updated, did low carb but watched the overall intake ((calories) with an eye on nutrition and the weight came off efficiently and comfortably. (no hunger). I just had to fine tune. I have tried the starch diet. Disaster for me. The low carb keeps me satisfied and allows the lower calorie count. Your video gives me the clarity to fine tune. In my situation, that is important.
Probably the best attempt out-there to try saving private CICO. I completely agree with you about the fact that semantics is foundational to any scientific statement. I also agree with you that, from a thermochemistry standpoint, the energy released by breaking the bonds of an ATP molecule can be measured in terms of calories. The very same calories used in a bomb calorimeter for food. Where I disagree is that CICO appears to me as 1) either wrong if "storage" is to be interpreted solely as "fat mass" or if one states that "either food is stored or food is burnt" because there could be also that "food simply passes through" or "food is used as replacement pieces" 2) or mostly vacuous in the sense that it actually does not make any truly quantitative prediction for anyone. That is because: 2.a: As you have already replied in the comments, the calories measurement given on food packaging has very little to do with the actual amount of calories that a given individual will be able to utilise (even if it can be boiled down to some time, diet and individual-dependent proportionality coefficient). For example, somebody gulping lbs of fat will likely find most of it in the toilet, as many who start a carnivore diet can testify, because they do not have enough bile to process that amount of fat...and sometimes for few months. Thus, the energy availability is going to be both person-dependent AND diet composition dependent. 2.b: There is no really any way of measuring energy expenditure which could be both reliable and practical. You provided already some form of reply to this by stating that we could use 'direct calorimetry' to measure one's basic metabolic rate. Let's be charitable and admit that these measurements do provide an accurate read of someone's true metabolic rate at a given moment. How is a regular person to get such a measurement on themselves? How do these measurements change if one is simply going with their daily life? From what I could read in the literature, most energy measurements during exercises require a vast amount of quantitative theoretical assumptions and mostly apply to aerobic physical activity. Is that really reliable and, again, who would have access to such measurements? 2.c: It also neglects the ability of the body to shut down physiological processes to down-regulate metabolism over few weeks.Therefore, a maintained low caloric intake for the purpose of weight loss can lead to a starvation state. It is not clear that down-regulation changes are easily reversible. Often, they tend to have a hysteresis shape in terms of the signals that govern their switch-on and -off activity. So, how do people swearing only by CICO, and who manage to modify their body composition -- allegedly at will --, actually do it? Well, from my experience, people track what they are eating, obtain a CI estimate from their food tracker. Then, they have an activity tracker from which they obtain their CO estimate and, crucial step, they modulate the amount of food ingested (therefore affecting calories) and amount of activity and see how they fare in terms of fat percentage over a period of weeks at a time. If they gain fat or stay at the same fat percentage, they dial down on food intake or up their exercise level and see how that goes. They continue this routine until they reach their goal. The actual numbers provided by the trackers don't matter. Only their variation matters. And if the diet composition is kept fixed (SAD, "healthy", keto, carnivore, paleo, mediteranean, etc...), then CI becomes just a proxy for the total amount of food ingested (assuming the individual is 'adapted' to their diet). That is why I find CICO to be vacuous. I mean, if the statement by CICO is that "you may utilise fats if you increase your physical activity", then, yes it is somewhat informative (in the sense that it imparts physiological knowledge) but a pretty useless piece of advice too. To be honest, all-in-all, because most people cannot increase their physical activity and workout all day, they just end-up eating less food and the famous CICO balance equation becomes an almost complete tautology "eat less food to lose mass"; and some people unfortunately often end-up with a broken metabolism and various nutrient deficiencies as a result. As I have said probably one or two years ago or so on the same subject in a comment to one of your videos, I think that CICO can be used as a proxy to alter body fat at fixed diet composition, but it is a pretty useless quantitative theory.
Could You please refer to question how kcal content in food is established? By assessing how many ATP high energy bounds may be charged by 100 grams of e.g. steak or by burning it?
Interesting video, but I believe this message is of lesser importance for someone trying to improve their metabolic health. One question though, in 'direct calorimetry' testing do all of the following produce the same result over a 24-hour test? 1. 2000 calories of protein. 2. 2000 calories of fat 3. 2000 calories of carbohydrates 4. 2000 calories of glucose 5. 2000 calories of fructose 6. 2000 calories of ethanol Would there be any differences in the type of protein or fat consumed as I suspect they may be for fructose and ethanol?
Since I found this channel the frequency at which I watch videos of other channels of the subject decreased progressively until zero. Now you are my only source of nutrition information. Please don't change. Your work is the best by far. I can't think of how it could be improved.
That’s really kind of you, Gustavo, but there are others that are worthwhile to listen to, as well. I may make a video soon recommending some others. I appreciate the kind words, however.
Fung says in that interview (or another) that you can’t get away from the physics ie., it’s correct - you need to create a deficit. Whatyou have presented very well just supports what Fung says imho.
What weighs more, a pond of feathers or a pound of lead? It’s the same argument. A pound is a pound regardless of the mass being weighed. A calorie is a calorie.
There can be a disconnect of reason when one eats fewer calories but doesn't see a weight loss. Are there other critical elements like water and gases that might not be in enough available abundance to restrict fat loss despite an energy deficit?
I tend to follow your arguments but I have one question. How do we measure the calories contained in Food? If we just burn the foods in an oven and measure the energy I would assume that this result is different from the energy Our metabolism is deriving from the same food, right? So, wenn we say 100ml of olive oil has x calories is that really equal to the energy Our body derives from it Wien digested?
It's not heated in an oven, it's shocked and heats up water. All evidence points to the fact that we use calories in a similar way and a 3500 calorie deficit will lead to a lose of one body of body fat, whether your diet is carbs, fats, protein, or nothing. Look up calorimeter here on YT about a christmas dinner.
this video doesnt explain what happen to the lipid molecule when you overconsume fat but zero/low carb thus low insulin response are they stored in the fat cells too? or the body suddenly raise the BMR because there' s suddenly a surge of energy available? I rarely heard people talking about that :|
i would appreciate a video about methylane blue Dr Mobeen has a video on it's mechanics in cell also touching on mitochondria and autophagy so may be in scope of your interests
I've read some articles of a bodybuilder that tried Carnivore for a while and could not gain any weight on a calorie surplus so he added carbs and gained 22 pounds with the same length of time on each diet. He was also on steroids.
What about resistant starch which is not digested and therefore passes through the digestive tract without releasing many calories , or am I missing something 😟
Do this test 1. In the morning eat 2 bananas and 1 hour later measure blood glucose. next day (try to do the same day routine) 2. In the morning eat salad first + 2 the same bananas, 1 hour later measure blood glucose. It's most likely you will measure less glucose in 2nd case (with salad) even when you eaten more calories. Reason? Salad blocks absorption in your guts + leftover sugar is eaten by gut microbiota which btw has everyone different.
1. You’re testing nutrients, not calories. 2. You’re making some incorrect assumptions with your test, so the experiment doesn’t test what you want it to test.
Dr. John Berardi (Co-Founder of Precision Nutrition) once had a podcast and started to interview folks like Dr. Fung. That's, people he disagrees with, because he wanted to have these kinds of discussions, question them, find out why/what/how. He asked him several times whether he thinks CiCo works or not, and eventually Dr. Fung admitted that CiCo works. In other podcasts he'd say that it doesn't work, that people who count calories are stupid, that it's all about hormones and insulin and whatnot. So frustrating, especially when you meet people irl who want to lose weight, start to exercise and improve their health, and then they have to face all that misinformation and conflicting information.
Great Krebs cycle summary and overview. Just one very important point, when you see the Calorie number on a packet of a bag of almonds, it will also specify the breakdown between the grams of fiber and sugars/other carbs in the nut. You have to subtract the grams fiber calories from the calorie equation. When manufacturers calculate "calories" they burn the whole mass to produce heat to come up with the thermodynamic number and do not take out the fiber - but we humans cannot digest them (only bacteria can digest soluble fiber and convert them to other metabolites while insoluble fiber gets passed into your intestines for excretion). So that is the reason why (calculated) "calories" from say a fibrous vegetable broccoli is not the same as a donut. That's getting granular but I believe that is important to note - and which is why people are getting confused.
US Manufacturers/Labelers are allowed to subtract ingestible fiber from their posted total calories. I'll keep an eye open to see how often it is actually done. I was under the impression that they commonly subtract indigestible fiber from posted calories to make foods reflect lower calories.
On my packets of nuts they specify that you need to subtract them. For stuff like vegetables they will usually not subtract them. Please also note they never ever specify the difference between soluble and insoluble fiber either but either way, neither are burned by our bodies. Only bacteria will ferment the soluble stuff so they get the energy.
Thats why I kept telling people there's no need to count calories. Just rhat I couldn't explain it well enough. But now I think I can, tnx to you. I've lost 20kg in less then 6 months by implementing autophagy, supplements & lighter diet (less junk food). So no need for counting calories or using a kitchen scale.
Also, the effect of the Gut Microbiome. These have been show to raise or lower BMR and promote or retard fat gain from the same ingested calories. So, foods that benefit or degrade the gut microbiome can have you gain weight or lose weight from identical number of calories. I'm in the "energy is not weight" camp. Every time you breathe in you "ingest" a load of Oxygen. When you breathe out you lose a load of CO2 and water and Ketones. You sweat, wee and poo. The amount of food you eat has to fit into this complex equation.
Practicing doctors like Jason Fung, Berry have learned via theur onw experience and in practice. What they do works and for the majority, more effective long term.
The flag of the united diet industry should have on it "Calories do not matter!" Do please notice the difference between "Calories do not matter" vs "You have to count calories."
There was no mention of Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), the amount of energy you expend when doing nothing. This is the majority of energy that you expend. We know that reducing calories in leads to a lowering of your BMR, which is why the weight loss in most calories reduction diets stalls after a few months. But, some foods have the same metabolic slowing effect. Fructose (50% of sucrose) gets converted to fat via de novo lipogenesis if your other calorie needs are met. This should get moved to the skin, but can remain in the liver and gum up the processing. Raised insulin from glucose consumption retains the weight of fat, in the skin fat cells, so their potential energy is never released. Calories are a good approximation as to whether you might be "over eating" but the effect on your weight cannot be calculated because of the variables concerning your metabolism. If we consider E=Mc² every gram of food contains approximately 900,000,000,000 calories, so its no wonder we're putting on weight.
Each gram of food can release 900,000,000,000 calories IF it comes into contact with a gram of the same food consisting of anti-particles (positrons and anti protons). That's more energy than even exploding 1 gram of food if you could turn it into a thermonuclear bomb somehow. Your body does not use the food in a matter/anti matter destruction or even as nuclear energy. It uses mostly the energy in stored chemical bonds which is much less efficient. Example: if you burn a log in the fire place, you're not turning much of the log itself into energy, you're just liberating the chemical bonds in the wood. This is why a log burning releases a fuckton less energy than an equivalent mass of uranium or plutonium in a fission bomb. Same goes for when your car burns diesel fuel, alcohol, or gasoline. It's not destroing the fuel, it's just liberating the chemical bonds. Those atoms are all still there. Your BMR goes down as you diet because it drops as you weigh less. The less weight you weigh, the less metabolic needs your body has. If you were to exactly eat the same caloies every day and do the same amount of exercise every single day, your weight would asymptotically get close to a certain weight without ever reaching it. Of course, such things never happen in the real world. Even if you ordered the same fast food meal every day to make it easy the calories would vary in the meals slightly (larger pieces of chicken, more french fries, etc.) and you would never get exactly the same amount of exercise in a given day. Even if you religiously followed it and IDK, walked for 16 hours straight and slept exactly 8 hours, temperature variations would also change your calories consumed.
This is off topic to the video but I wondered if you had any insight. I have inherited a copy of APOE-e4 from each parent and look for nutrition advice online but find contradictory information about low fat vs. Keto diet for this. Can you discuss or make a video?
Question: how many ATP molecules per Calorie? Looking that up 1 ATP = 7.3 kcals. 1 ATP I believe = 1 electron exchange (T or F ?), which would mean that there are 137 ATP molecules per Calorie (1000 kcal), and by extension the body runs on 3000 X 137 electrons per day ? , or 411,000 electrons per day. That can’t be right, it should be orders of magnitude greater. Where have I gone wrong?
A doctor giving a regular interview and another doctor talking in regular youtube video. These are two situations where there is no reason to make things more complicated in such cases knowing that the audience that watches them consists mainly of average people with average knowledge on the subject. I think "They are wrong" is an overstatement.
![The Easiest Way to Lose Body Fat [Study 242]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/GcaQiFhTd2A/mqdefault.jpg)
I’ve seen a number of repeated comments I’d like to address so I don’t have to keep replying individually:
*1. Digestion of food differs.* (17:20 - 17:51)
Yes, foods are digested differently, some being absorbed less fully (fiber rich, as one example), some requiring more caloric input to break down the food (protein, for example). As I mentioned near the end of the video, there are many considerations to getting nutrients past the intestines into the blood stream, and while these considerations are important, they complicate the message of the video (calories are all equal) as they discuss nutrient differences, not calories.
*2. The health of food differs.* (11:57 , 12:39, 15:52)
Again, I mentioned this multiple times in the video (11:57 , 12:39, 15:52) - this is a discussion of the biochemistry and physiology of calories, not of nutrients, although they are closely related. We need to separate the nutrient from the calorie for us to have a discussion about each. I acknowledge that consuming certain foods (made of set nutrients) can worsen or better health in the context of the totality of a diet; however, this is again extending the video message beyond what it is - this is also why I added a mention that this isn’t an all-encompassing education on nutrients, I’m simply trying to extract the definition of “calorie” from the concept of “nutrients”.
*3. If calories matter, why are there calories in wood, motor oil, etc.?*
All things have calories, but only a certain subset of things in this world can we extract the calories through our bodily metabolic processes. If you consume motor oil, other than the fact that you will die, you will also not absorb said motor oil, so it will not end up at the site of cellular absorption (beyond the intestine) - additionally, even if it did, your cells have no metabolic systems to extract the calories (by turning motor oil into ATP) like they do for carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins.
*4. Are you saying calorie counting is the superior way to diet?* (12:30 - 13:23)
No. I'm saying a calorie deficit is foundational to fat loss, but there are many ways to achieve that calorie deficit that could have more or less merit for you (i.e. a diet that is more satiating at the same calorie deficit, etc.).
*5. X diet is better for satiety and X diet sucks.* (12:30 - 13:23 , 15:52)
All well and good, but these are matters of nutrients, not calories. They matter, but they aren't the point of this particular video.
*6. Nutrition labels and Calories.*
I've seen some people mention that nutrition label calories (calories in food) are determined by burning the food and therefor do not represent what happens in the body. Food calories are determined by a bomb calorimeter, where scientists input a known amount of heat and then measure the difference in heat output - it is a highly controlled circumstance. Obviously, this invites the idea that it doesn't apply to us, but in reality, scientists do the same thing with humans - we don't burn them alive, but we put a person in an insulated room that is sensitive to heat changes through the conductance in an intricate water system surrounding the room; the difference in heat between the person not being in the room (baseline) and the person being in the room (quietly, usually lying down) is a direct measure of resting metabolism and is known as 'direct calorimetry'. So, while not all of the food may be absorbed exactly as its packaged, we tend to absorb a vast majority of the nutrients (90% or more) we consume (except in special circumstances, like fiber), and therefor we utilize those nutrients to generate similar amounts of energy/calories.
thank You. can You please made a video about all the hormones that are stimulated by fat-consumption? regards.
"1. Digestion of food differs.
Yes, foods are digested differently, some being absorbed less fully (fiber rich, as one example), some requiring more caloric input to break down the food (protein, for example). As I mentioned near the end of the video, there are many considerations to getting nutrients past the intestines into the blood stream, and while these considerations are important, they complicate the message of the video (calories are all equal) as they discuss nutrient differences, not calories. "
and that where you are wrong, it's BECAUSE of that that 'Calories sources' are not EQUAL in the metabolism. They don't 'complicate' the message, they EXPLAIN why the messages is USELESS, might as well be FALSE.
That like saying "the Density make thing float or sink, therefore nothing heavier than air can fly"... you would start to talk about aerodynamism of airplane and I would reply, "that only complicate thing, density is all that matter in the message, therefore Plane is not a thing !
Well - that's the end of my SAE30 motor oil salad dressing 🥴🚫
If you don't put misleading titles on things you won't have to keep addressing the same points. I live in Australia, if all calories were equal I'd make my fortune with 'the beer only diet'. So make the title "biochemically all calories are equal - and this offers no guidance to what you should eat".
@@evanhadkins5532 - I did the Beer Diet for a while ... 🍺🥴
Thank you for the education. From my personal experience I have lost weight from calorie counting and there is no doubt that if you burn more calories than you consume you will lose weight, wherever those calories come from. But for me it only really worked when I started to find out what effect different foods had on me and adjusted my diet accordingly. Rather than just thinking “if I cut my calories I’ll lose weight” and within 2 weeks I was so hungry I’d eat anything you put in front of me. I changed my diet to whole foods, less carbs and cut out nearly all sugar. I found it really curbed my hunger and I could sustainably lose weight and keep it off. So I agree all calories are equal but what you actually eat makes a massive difference to how you feel.
Absolutely, Roboo. No doubt one needs to find the foods that agree with them best, even if taking calories into account.
Exactly, you have to look at the bigger picture. I also only lost weight when I counted calories, because it became more obvious what I could eat and not eat and still reach my goal.
@@Physionic "...one needs to find the foods that agree with them best..." That sounds reasonable - until you give it some thought. Sure, "everyone's different", but everyone's not THAT different. Robo tended toward carb restriction before his calorie restriction began to work for him. My guess is that his carb restriction got his insulin under better control, which fixed his hunger/craving problem.
These principles are well understood (at least in practice), so there's no need to spend one's life trying to "find the foods that agree with them best".
how are you "burning calories" your body doesn't burn calories. and even if it did how would you measure the calories actually being burned.
You say you changed your diet to have less sugar. THATS why you lost weight. You consumed lesss food that causes your insulin to spike which meant you lost weight. It has NOTHING to do with the calories in the food.
@@Physionic why would you take calories into account when he said he eats almost no sugar? its the not eating the sugar that is causing him to lose the weight. not the calories in the food items he's consuming.
It is just a heuristic for the concept that two 500-calorie *meals* are not equal, in terms of their effect on the body: nutrition, satiety, blood glucose, sustained energy, etc.
1200 calories of chips and candy is miserable compared to 1200 calories of real food.
We would all agree that a kilowatt generated by a tire fire is the same as a kilowatt generated by a windmill. We would also agree that this doesn't mean there is nothing to choose between them.
If only people defined how they speak like you did, Jessica. People who are discussing nutrients should say the word nutrients and not calories (they are often interchanged, incorrectly, and lead to significant confusion).
Very well put, Jessica. I really like Nicolas. I also like the people that he has a pet peeve about. They are benefiting society as does Nicolas. I hope for all of them to keep up the good work.
@@Physionic and that's the problem with the calorie in = calorie out people, they tell you cut your calorie and you will lose weight.. no matter the nutrient.
Fung and other say, select your calorie type and you will do BETTER.
@@moestietabarnak Fung is not as respectful about it, in my opinion. He's called calorie counting stupid and other childish words. He and others imply that people who don't agree with them are idiots, or that it is actually impossible to lose weight while eating often because of the insulin. That is so easy to disprove! I guarantee you if all you eat is 100 calories of pure sugar 5x a day, unless you are a petite woman, you will lose weight. Might you lose more with no carb? Yes, but that doesn't negate the deficit issue. BTW, I will point out that in Obesity Code, Fung's book,(independently reviewed for scientific accuracy of 31%) he has a 3-meal structure as the between-fasts routine. But so many of his followers talk like that's crazy. Even though Italy and France used to eat like that before American snacking habits invaded. And they eat bread and pasta and potatoes. Used to be two of the slimmest countries in Europe. Other countries were also slim eating snacks and starch aplenty. But a lot fewer calories overall than we eat. However, I acknowledge that Fung can excite people enough that they can finally eat in a way that creates enough of a DEFICIT to lose. If he can point to any of his patients who ate the same number of calories over a week or month's time while following his fasting protocol and still lost weight and reversed their diabetes, I bet it wouldn't account for more than 5%. But I guess if it takes partial truths to get people motivated enough to affect their health, it's better than leaving them wallowing in heavy truth.
@@oolala53 there is a couple of really good studies that show 3 meals a day with no snacks actually improve blood pressure, insulin resistance and some other stuff with no relation to what you are eating, so it might be that the 3-meal structure was doing good regardless of whatever other thing he was recommending
I remember seeing a Dr Fung video and he said that calories are important but they are of secondary importance and not of primary importance. The hormonal response that those different nutrients elicits is primary. As a type one diabetic that was just at Disney World this past weekend, I can keenly attest to the marked effect of carbohydrates on my physiology. 😅
HA ! Disneyland will do that ...
I don't think anyone is disputing that carbohydrates have an effect on a type 1 diabetic. Or type 2. Fung's claims have been that CICO isn't applicable to weight loss, and that just isn't true. But different foods may affect CO.
Carbohydrates don't affect your physiology, your body has an inability to process and utilize carbohydrates.
@@canesugar911 What is your evidence for such statements?
@@canesugar911that's not how diabetes works... The problem is that your body does process carbs, but then can't lower blood glucose through insulin...
When you explained that calories are the heat released from the phosphate molecule separating from the Adenosine molecule, it all made sense for me. Nice job ✓
This is what has been missing from this whole discussion in the nutrition space
I also appreciate the highly relevant point you made about how nutrients vary widely on human biochemistry via different hormonal responses etc.. 👍
Thanks, XP1!
@@Physionic 😘😘😘😘😘
@Physionic yea people can lose weight by counting "calories" that's totally true, but I think the point these doctors were trying to make is just because foods have the same number of "calories" doesn't make the foods the same!!! So 500 calories of some nutrient dense food isn't gonna be handled by your body the same way as 500 calories of some ultra processed food regardless of if you lose weight on the scale
@@Physionicso yes calories are equal (in a vacum) but human being aren't a vacuum!!! Who's to say that just because you had 100 calories of broccoli that all the down on the molecular level your gonna get the same number of atp as 100 calories of sugar or any other processed food! So again just because something says 100 calories on the label doesn't even actually mean that your body is gonna absorb all 100 calories of said food so in that context calories are irrelevant
Okay, I'm starting to see where you're coming from. Dr. Fung's point about a block of wood stuck with me. Yeah, it might have a hundred calories but you're not going to pull them out through digestion. Your points are foundational though like in philosophy. We can't have a discussion until we're both on the same page about what we're debating. "This therefore that" doesn't work unless we're talking about the same thing. Usually it's stuff like truth and meaning instead of cookies and hotdogs but I guess it applies to everything...lol
I think Dr. Fung is right on that one. I've eaten over 5,000 calories a day (of clean whole foods) and had minimal weight gain. According to calorie calculators I was 2-2500 calories in a surplus. I've been tested for GI problems like celiacs etc and I'm good. I guess my body says no thanks and passes them? From personal experience, CICO is bullshit. Unless you get into semantics and say I'm just burning them off into heat energy or some crap, but if that's the case, what's the point of CICO...
If you're diabetic or prediabetic, I'd still want to get most of my calories from proteins and fats and I find hard to believe that if you're in a surplus of 1000 calories, that you'd put on same amount amount of fat if those surplus calories came from either sugar or protein.
Fair point, Rico.
It would be super hard to eat 1000kcals of proteins 🤣🥲 I have a hard time finishing 650 and I can eat quite a lot 🤣🥲
Let's rather talk about energy, which is what calories measure, instead of calories.
You'll put on the same amount of weight as long as you are in a caloric surplus.
Test it out. Track everything you eat and track all your gross motor movements.
@@Rafael-ly7hrI can eat 1500 cal of protein and fats with ease.. sadly.. lol
Calories are not equal only in respect of how mush are absorbed (piece of wood vs spoonful of sugar, for average human), and more importantly - how much energy (calories) is takes to break down the food molecules to access their calories.
Yes, a calorie is a calorie, but only AFTER it is absorbed from the digestive tract. I think this point is the key reason for the ongoing disagreement: we are comparing apples to oranges-pun intended 😂
😫 Especially when it's absorbed by our belly ...
Calories are the same, but the way foods impact us are different.
Thank you - you nailed it, mardiov.
One correction: Breaking bonds does not release energy it requires energy. It is when chemical bonds are made that energy is released. Biologists often make this mistake.
I wanted to test this for myself. I ate only a junk food diet for over 6 months at the exact same calories. My weight and physiology stayed exactly the same. Did I feel like crap and was I hungry a lot of the time, yes, but it proved to me that a calorie is just a calorie.
I am not saying just calories matter because if I ate to satiety in my experiment above I would have over consumed calories.
@@jaghad Didn’t measure the mass. The difference was enough to see that the volume of food each day was much less and I hated that and wanted to stop the experiment many times.
Thank you for your sacrifice for science. Invite me next time. 😉
Dr. Fung is looking at it through the lens of insulin resistance and diabetes. The cookies spike insulin and in diabetic's (type 2) the spike is bigger and lasts longer. The fat stores stay closed. So if I ate 100 calories of cookies only, it could be hours before my body would be able to pull from my fat stores to make up the difference. If I ate more cookies later before the spike ends then I'll be blocked for even more hours, never losing weight. If I ate 100 calories of chicken or broccoli I would have little or no insulin spike and I would start burning fat to make up for the restriction.
I understand It is different for someone healthy trying to lose fat and not insulin resistant, but he is working with a group that has different problems.
Still, I love your content, keep it up!
To be clear, although the chemical processes for absorbing 500kcal of broccoli and 500kcal of sugar are completely different, AND the resulting ATP is indistinguishable, are both processes equally _efficient_? In other words, is the same percentage of the measured calories of both examples ultimately turned into ATP?
Dear Nicolas, with all due respect that is the wrong side of the calorie efficiency equation. Different fuels have different efficiencies and different chemical ratios of byproducts from their combustion. The metabolism of any organism is an "internal combustion engine" and the efficiency of that engine is different from its design and type of fuel. The calorific value of hydrogen is 150 kJ/g, where as diesel is 45 kJ/g of energy output over mass. Also, the "engine types" to burn these fuels have their own efficiencies. Hydrogen engines are at best around 45 percent thermal efficiency with current technology and diesel engines are about 35 percent thermal efficiency. It also takes energy from other machinery to put any fuel into a usable form. The human body produces heat so therefore some of the energy is lost to that inefficiency. Breaking down carbohydrates requires less energy than breaking down proteins or fats; and the enzymes that do so are different "machines" and have different efficiencies. Each type of metabolic fuel will have a different efficiency chemical chain of reactions to get it in the usable form of ATP. Ketogenesis, fructolysis, glycolysis, and gluconeogenesis require different enzymatic reactions (machinery) that each have different efficiencies. In other words, different sources of food conversion will take differing amounts of energy used by the body to convert them to ATP, thus differing amounts of calories for carbohydrate, protein, or fat to produce useable metabolic energy.
I have never seen that side of the calorie efficiency equation (enzymatic engines) worked out. Maybe you can be the first !!
While I agree, that's all beside the point, as I explained near the end - these are different conversations that confuse the foundation of what calories are.
@@Physionic Yes, I agree with the physics of your analysis and the thoughtfulness you put into your videos. Also, I believe that calorie-in verse calorie-out is the most important metric for not storing excess energy on our bodies as excess fat. I would, however, enjoy seeing one example of the energy required to convert one short chain fat to glucose and the same for converting one simple protein to glucose.
Nicely done. There is no weight loss without Calorie deficit but also there is a difference from a health standpoint between 2000 Calories of Fructose vs 2000 Calories of Broccoli. Something that should be made clear by nutrition pundits.
It's not just a health standpoint. It is true that the body may expend more calories (CO) when eating a fibrous food vs a completely processed one. Maybe that's what you meant by health.
@@oolala53especially since 2000 calories of broccoli is 5.5kg.
@@PablumMcDump Would be chewing all day! And a portion of those calories wouldn't be used for energy. It makes sense that humans need a core of dense calories from some combo of protein, fat and dense carbs; less dense carbs can play a role when in such a calorie-rich environment.
Dr. Bikman has a talk entitled "The Metabolic Advantage" in which he refers to the fact that an individual in ketosis will be wasting ketones from the body during breathing. Of course those lost calories are in some sense -- very definitely your sense too -- if those calories were directly from dietary fat, then they were not fully consumed in the sense of cellular respiration, though they probably did incur a slight metabolic energy deficit.
But there are so many individual factors involved that you can't say, for instance, that 50g of dietary fat will never produce its full caloric energy value. Neither can you say it will always produce that value.
Dietary fat does produce its full energic value other than perhaps a small amount not absorbed. About 3% of fat is used directly as heat when you eat it (thermogenic effect of food). With carbs its 5-10% and protein about 25%. That's "the meat sweats"
Calories are still foundational.
Calories are still foundational to what? 🤔 I find it interesting when CICO points are brought up that take a helpful conversation about health, macronutrient food choices and weight loss, and in comes a scientist that says, "a pound is a pound is a pound!". Yep, 1+1=2 is certainly true, but it seems to be a point bereft of context. Then the CICO scientist says, "Of course macronutrients matter, as does timing of meals, and different food's impact on hormone levels, but those are beside the point that I, a scientist, am trying to make."
Yeah, you just interrupted these other scientists focused on those other topics that are driving better understanding and decisions on foods to eat, with a mostly pointless argument that nobody is really arguing. 😂
Moving on.
I think Bikman's point is that caloric fat intake in excess of expenditure need not be stored, whereas a similar excess taken in carbs will always be stored. The metabolic effects downstream of that are of course not to be casually disregarded.
I've just found your videos and am really enjoying your way of explaining how the digestive system works. It's truly amazing!
As a recovering physicist, the argument that "calories are a physics concept, not a physiology one" never fails to give me a good chuckle. If anyone thinks they have found a mechanism that breaks the laws of physics, please report to your nearest Nobel foundation for a chance at a million+ dollar prize.
Physiology isn’t a calorimeter. Whether you store fat or not depends on what molecules those calories are stored as.
I come here because I feel like you're presenting real information. Frequently you present what must be stupifyingly complex subjects and reduce it to moderately challenging. This one topic deserves an epic of videos. Do something on weightloss without hunger. Also, when "experts" villify sugar, which form of sugar do they hate? If I recall from org chem, it's not like there's only one. You do the world a favor. Thank you.
If I reduce the number of calories in my food, exercising the same, I lose weight. If I increase exercise, ceteris paribus , same thing. Or I can increase calories or decrease exercise and get the opposite effect. My measurement instruments are somewhat crude - data from MyFitnessPal and readings from my Fitbit smartwatch - but the measurements are pretty consistent and long usage has taught me how to adjust. I keep good records, going back years.. This is just the way it works. For an amateur bodybuilder like me, it’s just axiomatic. I’m 76, btw, so I’ve clocked some mileage on this issue. Thanks for your presentations, Nick. You’re one of my go-to guys.🙏
What is the caloric difference between 100 calories of olive oil and 100 calories of motor oil? Same amount of energy, but the second option possibly impairs the future energy production by human body.
Similarly, drinking one shot of 3000 calories from concentrated glucose drink will have different effect than 3000 calories from the same glucose but slowly ingested through the whole day. In the first case, the system is overloaded, so the excess glucose must be immediately converted to a storage form. Damages to the system caused by high glucose concentration and effectiveness of storing and releasing the energy from the storage were not considered in the talk.
Surprisingly, I do agree with J. Fung and with Physionic at the same time (apart from the tile). Simply, I applied different assumptions, which for better understanding should be expressed explicitly.
This was an excellent and very thoughtful video on this topic. It is not easy in our ego controlled world to make a case/stance about something while simultaneously agreeing with all the key counter arguments. Calories are in a large sense all created equal; it may not matter for the vast majority of people looking to gain or lose weight, but it still seems to be true. Perspective and narrative are everything.
Analogy: KiloWatts-hours can be generated by many different ways, Hydro, Solar, Fossil fuels, but KiloWatts-hours are KiloWatts-hours. They are a unit of measure we use to allow comparisons of electrical energy.
Why not consume both types of information? . Dr. Fung seems to be highly regarded by the scientific & research community. However, a deeper and more complex explanation of the physiology involved is also very useful. I am subscribed to both of these scientists. 🎆
Please do consume both. I'm not saying you can't listen to him. Some of his information is very valuable.
For Fung, it depends on the community whether he is well-respected. I suspect that some doctors are just amazed that he can get people to go 36 hours (yes, and more) without eating.
Prof Bart will love this
Some foods are more addictive than others. Ultra-processed foods are highly palatable and so people tend to eat more. These may have the same calories per ounce as a broccoli salad, but they are easier to overconsume. The food industry loves the saying a calorie is a calorie, which is correct but how it affects hunger is huge, at least for me.
*nutrients (not calories)
@@Physionic sure you are right but they are confounded in those of us that eat. Highly processed foods freely fed tend to be over consumed. The food industry is in part responsible. I cannot trust myself around some foods at all.
Totally fair, Mary. I plan on making content on the topic as soon as I get some other things done.
@@Physionic my daughter is an obesity medicine doctor. She just attended a conference in NYC where the ultra-processed food evidence was discussed. I think that is a wonderful topic to discuss. 👍
@@RandomGuy-qg9xf every one is different. I find controlling my pantry helps me stay fit. The food industry does target palatability when creating new foods. Addiction is hard to measure but if you cannot stop eating certain foods, there is a problem.
Thankyou.
Im grateful for your content and precision of subject matter.
It is not semantics. articulated precision is key & sorely wanted.
Thanks again for this video, I keep coming back to it, when people completely deny calories in vs calories out.. On other notes, I really love people that give up and say "I'm just in my set point", Like once they reach adulthood that their fat is now dormant and can't be used and eating less doesn't matter.
Does this mean that when we are in a calorie deficit that serum lipid levels will rise because they are being used for metabolic purposes? And if you take a lipid blood test during lower caloric intake periods one will show elevated triglycerides LDL HDL etc? I agree with you 100% when it comes to being precise about definitions this is a problem in all Fields social, scientific at the everyday level. It's counterproductive.
I think that is correct 🤔
Well, it really depends on what you mean.
Physically a calorie is a calorie, so from that perspective they are indeed all the same. But the same amount of calories can have very different effects on things like blood sugar, cholesterol, satiety, etc. For example 100 calories of fat or protein would be much more filling than 100 calories of carbs (because they digest more slowly) so you'd be less likely to eat more.
So from an energy standpoint all calories are equal, but not really from a health standpoint.
I feel like one of the biggest considerations for people who want to follow a calories in calories out approach to dieting would be protein. Its metabolism into sugars is itself expensive and happens conditionally when total energy is quite low or when protein ratio is overwhelmingly high.
Gluconeogenesis
100 cal of protein vs 100 cal of carb will produce different amounts of ATP no ? Therefore they are not equal and what use is this heat produced in the breaking of the bonds ? ( beyond the important task of keeping you warm)
The amino acids could go towards protein synthesis in the body, which believe it or not requires ATP. In cases of excess protein there are ketogenic and glucogenic amino acids, which ultimately end up producing ATP. This is a longer process than either glucose or lipid metabolism though and you'd use those before protein. Protein metabolism is also the most energetically demanding and you gain only about 75% of the consumed calories.
Thank you for giving me a much better way to explain this concept of caloric balance to my students.
Dr Berry: Engery does not have any mass that we know of
Einstein: m=E/c^2
there is no nuclear reaction in our body, only chemical one.. i think
Good points. Time well spent. Thank you 👍🏾😎🙏🏾
I've tried many diets and it always comes down to controlling appetite. Whether I eat too many carbs or protein or fat doesn't matter (or don't exercise enough to compensate). If I'm not in a deficit I'm not losing weight. Tough struggle for many of us and probably why the newer anti-appetite drugs like Mounjaro are becoming so popular.
What foods help you feel less hungry? I really struggle with my large appetite
@@rachelbrondel5858 I wish I had the answers Rachel but I don't. I'm T2 with an A1c over 7 so right now my immediate goals are get under 7 so low carb/low sugar and try to stay in a deficit for weight loss. I think extra protein helps but you have to be careful as calories add up fast.
@@rachelbrondel5858I eat raw kidney fat. It gives me wonderful 💩💩💩 AND lots of energy AND it is satiating AF. I eat two meals a day. No need for a third meal because I'm just not hungry.
@@rachelbrondel5858 Meat, butter, full fat dairy, eggs cause satiety. Anything with fructose triggers the 'more' impulse. Having choffles (egg with equal mozzarella cheese in a mini waffle maker) with butter has helped me eat less. They are my bread substitute and seem to keep my carb cravings at bay.
@@lindabirmingham603 Seconding this. Meat, dairy, eggs, good fats, even have some veggies if you like them. If you cut out 99% of sugar that's a start. Carnivore base will absolutely smash that fat. Tie in some extended fasting and OMAD or 2MAD and it will occur even faster. You HAVE to exercise though! Eat your bodyweight in grams of protein. So if you're 180, get 180-200g to build/preserve muscle.
Great man, as always. And as you said I agree there's space for another video showing how "all the roads lead to Rome", it will be nice to show how the lipid transforms into energy, which is the base for keto diets. It would also be nice to know how much energy is lost in storing and restoring glucose from triglycerides vs the amount of energy loss during the transformation of lipids into energy.
I hope to make it soon for you, Edgar. Thanks!
Brilliant explanation thank you
I agree with everything you have said in this video, but, I have seen many videos by Dr. Fung and read in his book were he states that you can’t loose weight without following the rules of thermodynamics, that the amount of calories does in fact matter, it’s just that if you ignore the hormone reactions your missing a large portion of the process out, and that is why fasting is so beneficial. Taken by just this video it seems like he doesn’t believe calories matter, but other videos do. Am I missing a something? ( not trying to be rude, I’m truly curious because I am trying to lose baby weight by intermittent fasting, thank you)
Interesting - I don't know why he contradicts himself. I just watched this video of him and went with it.
Thank you for the great content. What is the mechanism by which (anecdotal - in my experience) a calorie deficit (say, from 2500 kcal / day to 1500 kcal / day results in weight loss at first but then slows and weight plateaus at the new lower calorie number.
This is such an important distinction. I was keto and carnivore for 6 years, but only recently gained a good understanding of the vital importance of micro nutrients. That has changed the game in my health journey. My main focus is on maximizing vital nutrients now.
waou! 6 years on keto carnivore!! and what kind of foods do you eat now? did you think that it was a mistake doing keto?
@@esther.f.g absolutely not. Keto and carnivore helped my body heal from a myriad of food allergies, leaky gut, ibs, join pain, etc., that I had suffered with since birth. I'm still fairly low carb, but my diet now is about 80% plants, 80% raw and no dairy. The fruits are cleansing my body systems and micronutrients are repairing my body.
@@jaghad oh look at it🙄
~ I like how Nicholas stays with scientific facts and does not over analyze everything. Nice 👌
• Who said this ? " Calories count - but don't count calories. "
Its possible to lose bodyfat and just lose omega 3, and increase fat stored in the liver. Combine that with large loss of lean muscle mass, its a worry. Metabolism adapts, and the person is in a far worse off situation than prior to fat loss. Then they put the weight back on and die. Changing lifestyle to quality food, increasing muscle to fat ratio is much more important than worrying about calories in, calories out.
1. We don't have receptors for calories.
Do we have receptors for other units, like degrees Celsius, Newtons, then? No, so clearly when someone puts you in an oven or squashes you in a compacter you will not be affected.
2. Calories comes from physics so they do not apply.
Sooo....we must live outside of physical space and time then. I never knew.
Or maybe they mean that the second law of thermodynamics does not apply to human beings, because we are not closed systems. I guess we cannot apply the second law of thermodynamics to the sun and earth then either and must concluded that in these systems energy CAN be freely created and destroyed, because they are both not closed systems.
3. Different foods have different hormonal reactions.
Clearly this proves calories do not influence hormones at all, not one bit. Replace your water with molten butter people. Calories do not matter, because hormones are influenced only by WHAT (and when) you eat and not at all by calories.
Oh yeah, obviously this last statement proves that sugars, in any form, are evil and only low-carb diets work. Though, in every low-carb and TRE study were calories are not restricted there are always some subjects that did not loss weight or even gained weight, but never mind that. That proves nothing.
I think you are arguing against an imaginary straw man. Way back in the early 1960s, a book came out called, "Calories Don't Count". It advocated, basically, a ketogenic diet. What the title implied was that counting calories is unnecessary if you go on the prescribed diet. All the author meant was that there is a better, more effective thing to focus on than calories.
People have been purposely misinterpreting him ever since to cast doubt on the efficacy of the diet.
If I am in a calorie deficit will I lose more weight if i am consuming unhealthy food because my body has to pull more nutrients from my fat to make up for the unhealthy food i am eating vs the same calorie deficit using healthy food?
Your upcoming book about this concept is going to sell 10 million copies.
you explain this in the best way possible!! impossible to not understand this!!😉👏
A huge number of people seem to be misunderstanding it, unfortunately. Haha. Thanks, Ricky.
Way better than all those "doctors" and carnivores who just look like narcissistic exhibitionists. My rebuttal to them would be the likes of Maggie Q (vegan), Maye Musk (Mediterranean), Mika Takishima (balanced soy and plant dominant with chicken and fish), et al. You provide very good explanations in this video.
Thanks, Maria!
lol
Thank you for the lesson, Nic! You've changed my mind, despite much anecdata I've heard that contradicts all calories being equal. Is it fair to value food on a nutrient density or satoety per calorie basis? What's the relationship between nutrients and satiety? I.e. ketones/MCT oil and hunger suppression? Confused. Thanks again!
I’ll need to cover those for you, then, Michael. But, yes, nutrients and nutrient density are of utmost importance.
Hey! I applaud your disagreement with a fairly popular scientific model. Also, kudos for the clear presentation, accuracy and relevance! And yes, I agree with you that this topic is not about semantics. Bravo! :)
I am grateful for your content. It is rare to find someone like you. Even handed, very knowledgeable and showing stats and studies to back up your conclusions. Thank you very much for taking complex subject matter and making it simple enough for people like myself. In a sea of misinformation and disinformation your a light in the darkness.
Thanks so much, Richard. I deeply appreciate it, especially on hot topics like this that get people pretty riled up.
@Axileus Would you buy any product if you knew that only the positive testimonials were ever shown?
Even pseudo-scientific detox clinics have many positive testimonials. Does that make these clinics scientific?
I'm a scientist, not a coach. I don't need to be ruler of all domains to have a good point - I'll stick to what I'm best in and leave the coaching for people who are better at it than I am. However, I will say - I did coach for a year and my clients were quite happy. Additionally, I use these principles on myself and you're welcome to see my recent video on muscle mass where I show you my results.
@Axileus testimonials mean nothing. He is educating us on science.
So if lets say I buy some kind of food, that it listed at 100 calories. Does that mean these calories are part of the food itself, or are they a product of what happens in our body? In other words, are calories calculated outside or inside our bodies? Some sources say they burn a steak in a lab and messure energy, but you're saying its the amount of energy that food adds to the ATP thingy? I'm a bit confused on how calories are ascribed to a certain foods.
And how does pooping relate to all that? Do we poop any calories out? Are there any calories in poop? Do you absorb anything if you ingest poop?
I always said the hormone model of obesity incorporates the calories in/out model, aka the calories in/out model is an oversimplification.
Of course even the hormonal model is an over simplification, but alightly more accurate.
Since you are familiar with mitochondria, I'd be curious to know is your thoughts about the F/N ratio on mitochondria and cellular signaling, as spoken of on the hyperlipid blog.
Ketones are a store of energy. Ketone's are expelled thru breath, urine, fecal matter and sweat. Also, they are used to produce heat in the brown fat. These account for the loss of calories. Therefore a diet that produces ketones can induce weight loss at the same level of calories in.
Dr. Fung is right and you are right as well Nic. That is why they say that if you want to lose 1lb of fat you have to burn 3500 calories. Please correct me if I am wrong.
hehe, on the 0:47th second I stopped the video, gave it a like, and, writing this comment now..
It's a topic that is too confusing for many people, but you are right! Can't wait to see the rest of the video
It now makes sense why I didn't lose weight without drastically eating less. Even when doing omad. My issue was always being fearful of not eating enough, which I could never figure out, since all I ever heard was if you restrict calories too much, ones metabolism slows down. Very confusing. It led me to wonder - how do bariatric surgery patients lose so much weight? Does their metabolism slow down too? This video did help me immensely. But the mtabolism issue still confounds me. If I truly know what to do, I'll do it. Im tired of being fat!!
If you eat less, a variety of metabolic shifts occur leading you to burn fewer calories. Essentially you will become more efficient at using calories in light of the deficit. But you will still lose weight. In other words your calories out will decline by some (probably small) amount, but never as much as your calories in are falling. Is that helpful?
Also, your metabolism slows with weight loss BECAUSE YOU HAVE LESS MASS TO MAINTAIN. My sedentary TDEE dropped almost 300 calories per day, not because I “broke” my metabolism by eating at too high of a deficit, but because I lost 50 pounds and consequently burn less per day due to reduced mass. A consistent, steady 500cal deficit/day is sustainable and will get you to your weight loss goals. Make sure to use your *sedentary* tdee, because people overestimate their movement dramatically. Log it separately and don’t eat back more than 50% of exercise calories (to account for overestimated burn).
Fabulous explanations! Thanks!
Thoughts on how toxins can make fat loss extremely difficult as they hold on to fat or slow the fat loss ? This is why many people having toxins exposure are not able to loose fat despite caloric deficit.
By definition if someone is not losing or gaining weight then they are eating their maintenance calories. If they are gaining weight then they are eating what is called a calorie surplus, and if they are losing weight then that is called a calorie deficit. So by the very definitions of the terms, one can not be in a significant calorie deficit for an extended period of time, and not lose weight.
So, if someone is capable of maintaining their weight for long periods of time while eating significantly fewer calories than the calculations suggest, then one of two situations exist. Either 1). that person's body is more efficient at converting food into usable energy than most other people, which begs the question, what kind of "toxins" are these people taking to become more efficient than the rest of us? And of course the follow on questions like, where can we get these "toxins?" Couldn't we end world hunger by shipping these "toxins" along with the wheat and rice? Would these "toxins" be considered performance enhancers by sports organizations? And should things that make us more efficient really be considered "toxins?" So many??????
Or 2). Their ability to account for their intake / expenditure and understand the calculations is roughly the same as their understanding of definitions such as "calorie deficit" and "toxins."
@@Logan4661 That's a really interesting idea and a new way to look at this. I'm gathering evidence on how endocrine disruptors can make you fatter or other toxins. Basically, they are slowing down your metabolism and it's not necessary that this energy-efficient state is the most optimal state for humans to be in, the state that you're referring to with toxins. I'll get back to you with some evidence of it.
I think the reason people say they are not the same is because 100 calorie broccoli will make you feel full while 100 calorie pure white table sugar won't make you feel full.
Same with eating protein and fat, if you eat the same amount of calorie in white bread, you will become hungry sooner after white bread consumption compared to protein and fat consumption.
I notice from own experience, when I eat white bread with my dinner, I eat more and I become hungry again sooner.
All true and fair, but that still isn't an argument over calories - that's an argument over nutrients.
The nutrients contained in a calorie is what makes the difference ergo a calorie is not a calorie.
Thank you for this. You do a great job in explaining and are extremely clear. Unfortunately, the degree of mis-education and mis-understanding out there is staggering. As soon as we accept certain facts, we realize we have agency over our bodies. A lot of people would prefer a world where this is all a mystery and we have no control, and thus no accountability.
The problem with CICO approach and why it generally fails in the long term is it ignores the elephant in the room, which is satiety/hunger. The SAD that includes UPF concocted using highly processed starches, added oils, and sugar are engineered to override natural hormonal feedback loops that keep caloric intake in check. It also biases the system to store excess energy as fat rather than burn it.
Totally get that, and I agree, but that's not the core point of the video.
Thanks for the great explanation of the relationship between calories consumed and calories used for production of ATP. Also the excess of calories consumed stored in fat cells explains were the excess caloric energy goes.
Thank you, Jerry. I appreciate it.
Except the explanation is incorrect misinformation.
Sure, calories ARE calories, and that’s why they literally don’t matter. I ate 3000 calories yesterday and lost 2lbs but only walked 6k steps (bad weather). I wonder why someone who supposedly needs to eat 1400 calories / day or less to lose weight can do that?
Weight fluctuates every day for any number of reasons. That isn’t the point here.
The issue is that people are often literal about it.
Yes, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie as a calorie is just a measure of energy. But, foods act differently in the body. Example - eat a little too much fat and your body might want to store it as the fats are easily converted into body fat. Eat a little too much carbs, carb to fat conversion is inefficient so your body might rev up your metabolism a little to try to get rid of the energy that way. Or, 100 calories of refined white bread is not the same in your body as 100 calories of high fiber beans. From the absolute definition of calorie, the energy units in the food is the same but how they act in your body is not the same, thus in your body a calorie is not always a calorie.
Some gut hormones are released in response to non-specific calories, or the absence of calories. Ghrelin for example is released by the absence of calories.
Your videos are so amazing!! Every aspect of them.
Ignorant question. Wasn't there a Randall cycle where mitochondria can't utilise simultaneously sugar and fat and there happens something as jamming of mitochondria and no gear engine state when energy is used up for heat?
my question probably is if if there is that other way of spending energy instead of storing it
The Randle Cycle simply illustrates the metabolic flexibility of substrate (glucose or fat), but it doesn't say that mitochondria *can't* use one substrate or another - just that at any given moment, if the mitochondria is using one substrate, it necessitates a reduction in the use of the opposite substrate.
Thanks for this. I used to wonder why, when I would do Atkins I could not lose weight. I’m close to goal. What I was doing, was staying low carb but eating too many (low carb) calories overall. I updated, did low carb but watched the overall intake ((calories) with an eye on nutrition and the weight came off efficiently and comfortably. (no hunger). I just had to fine tune. I have tried the starch diet. Disaster for me. The low carb keeps me satisfied and allows the lower calorie count. Your video gives me the clarity to fine tune. In my situation, that is important.
Probably the best attempt out-there to try saving private CICO.
I completely agree with you about the fact that semantics is foundational to any scientific statement. I also agree with you that, from a thermochemistry standpoint, the energy released by breaking the bonds of an ATP molecule can be measured in terms of calories. The very same calories used in a bomb calorimeter for food.
Where I disagree is that CICO appears to me as
1) either wrong if "storage" is to be interpreted solely as "fat mass" or if one states that "either food is stored or food is burnt" because there could be also that "food simply passes through" or "food is used as replacement pieces"
2) or mostly vacuous in the sense that it actually does not make any truly quantitative prediction for anyone. That is because:
2.a: As you have already replied in the comments, the calories measurement given on food packaging has very little to do with the actual amount of calories that a given individual will be able to utilise (even if it can be boiled down to some time, diet and individual-dependent proportionality coefficient). For example, somebody gulping lbs of fat will likely find most of it in the toilet, as many who start a carnivore diet can testify, because they do not have enough bile to process that amount of fat...and sometimes for few months. Thus, the energy availability is going to be both person-dependent AND diet composition dependent.
2.b: There is no really any way of measuring energy expenditure which could be both reliable and practical. You provided already some form of reply to this by stating that we could use 'direct calorimetry' to measure one's basic metabolic rate. Let's be charitable and admit that these measurements do provide an accurate read of someone's true metabolic rate at a given moment. How is a regular person to get such a measurement on themselves? How do these measurements change if one is simply going with their daily life? From what I could read in the literature, most energy measurements during exercises require a vast amount of quantitative theoretical assumptions and mostly apply to aerobic physical activity. Is that really reliable and, again, who would have access to such measurements?
2.c: It also neglects the ability of the body to shut down physiological processes to down-regulate metabolism over few weeks.Therefore, a maintained low caloric intake for the purpose of weight loss can lead to a starvation state. It is not clear that down-regulation changes are easily reversible. Often, they tend to have a hysteresis shape in terms of the signals that govern their switch-on and -off activity.
So, how do people swearing only by CICO, and who manage to modify their body composition -- allegedly at will --, actually do it? Well, from my experience, people track what they are eating, obtain a CI estimate from their food tracker. Then, they have an activity tracker from which they obtain their CO estimate and, crucial step, they modulate the amount of food ingested (therefore affecting calories) and amount of activity and see how they fare in terms of fat percentage over a period of weeks at a time. If they gain fat or stay at the same fat percentage, they dial down on food intake or up their exercise level and see how that goes. They continue this routine until they reach their goal. The actual numbers provided by the trackers don't matter. Only their variation matters. And if the diet composition is kept fixed (SAD, "healthy", keto, carnivore, paleo, mediteranean, etc...), then CI becomes just a proxy for the total amount of food ingested (assuming the individual is 'adapted' to their diet). That is why I find CICO to be vacuous.
I mean, if the statement by CICO is that "you may utilise fats if you increase your physical activity", then, yes it is somewhat informative (in the sense that it imparts physiological knowledge) but a pretty useless piece of advice too.
To be honest, all-in-all, because most people cannot increase their physical activity and workout all day, they just end-up eating less food and the famous CICO balance equation becomes an almost complete tautology "eat less food to lose mass"; and some people unfortunately often end-up with a broken metabolism and various nutrient deficiencies as a result.
As I have said probably one or two years ago or so on the same subject in a comment to one of your videos, I think that CICO can be used as a proxy to alter body fat at fixed diet composition, but it is a pretty useless quantitative theory.
Could You please refer to question how kcal content in food is established? By assessing how many ATP high energy bounds may be charged by 100 grams of e.g. steak or by burning it?
Interesting video, but I believe this message is of lesser importance for someone trying to improve their metabolic health.
One question though, in 'direct calorimetry' testing do all of the following produce the same result over a 24-hour test?
1. 2000 calories of protein.
2. 2000 calories of fat
3. 2000 calories of carbohydrates
4. 2000 calories of glucose
5. 2000 calories of fructose
6. 2000 calories of ethanol
Would there be any differences in the type of protein or fat consumed as I suspect they may be for fructose and ethanol?
Since I found this channel the frequency at which I watch videos of other channels of the subject decreased progressively until zero. Now you are my only source of nutrition information. Please don't change. Your work is the best by far. I can't think of how it could be improved.
That’s really kind of you, Gustavo, but there are others that are worthwhile to listen to, as well. I may make a video soon recommending some others. I appreciate the kind words, however.
Fung says in that interview (or another) that you can’t get away from the physics ie., it’s correct - you need to create a deficit. Whatyou have presented very well just supports what Fung says imho.
What weighs more, a pond of feathers or a pound of lead? It’s the same argument. A pound is a pound regardless of the mass being weighed. A calorie is a calorie.
There can be a disconnect of reason when one eats fewer calories but doesn't see a weight loss. Are there other critical elements like water and gases that might not be in enough available abundance to restrict fat loss despite an energy deficit?
I tend to follow your arguments but I have one question. How do we measure the calories contained in Food? If we just burn the foods in an oven and measure the energy I would assume that this result is different from the energy Our metabolism is deriving from the same food, right? So, wenn we say 100ml of olive oil has x calories is that really equal to the energy Our body derives from it Wien digested?
It's not heated in an oven, it's shocked and heats up water.
All evidence points to the fact that we use calories in a similar way and a 3500 calorie deficit will lead to a lose of one body of body fat, whether your diet is carbs, fats, protein, or nothing.
Look up calorimeter here on YT about a christmas dinner.
this video doesnt explain what happen to the lipid molecule when you overconsume fat but zero/low carb thus low insulin response
are they stored in the fat cells too?
or the body suddenly raise the BMR because there' s suddenly a surge of energy available?
I rarely heard people talking about that :|
i would appreciate a video about methylane blue
Dr Mobeen has a video on it's mechanics in cell also touching on mitochondria and autophagy so may be in scope of your interests
What kind of T-shirt are you wearing? Where did you buy it? Thanks!
I've read some articles of a bodybuilder that tried Carnivore for a while and could not gain any weight on a calorie surplus so he added carbs and gained 22 pounds with the same length of time on each diet. He was also on steroids.
He didn't track his food accurately and/or he underestimated his energy requirements.
What about resistant starch which is not digested and therefore passes through the digestive tract without releasing many calories , or am I missing something 😟
Perfectly explained!
5:18 Dr Berry: "Does it measure energy or does it measure mass?".
Neither, a scale measures weight, not mass.
Do this test
1. In the morning eat 2 bananas and 1 hour later measure blood glucose.
next day (try to do the same day routine)
2. In the morning eat salad first + 2 the same bananas, 1 hour later measure blood glucose.
It's most likely you will measure less glucose in 2nd case (with salad) even when you eaten more calories.
Reason? Salad blocks absorption in your guts + leftover sugar is eaten by gut microbiota which btw has everyone different.
1. You’re testing nutrients, not calories.
2. You’re making some incorrect assumptions with your test, so the experiment doesn’t test what you want it to test.
Dr. John Berardi (Co-Founder of Precision Nutrition) once had a podcast and started to interview folks like Dr. Fung. That's, people he disagrees with, because he wanted to have these kinds of discussions, question them, find out why/what/how. He asked him several times whether he thinks CiCo works or not, and eventually Dr. Fung admitted that CiCo works. In other podcasts he'd say that it doesn't work, that people who count calories are stupid, that it's all about hormones and insulin and whatnot. So frustrating, especially when you meet people irl who want to lose weight, start to exercise and improve their health, and then they have to face all that misinformation and conflicting information.
Great Krebs cycle summary and overview. Just one very important point, when you see the Calorie number on a packet of a bag of almonds, it will also specify the breakdown between the grams of fiber and sugars/other carbs in the nut. You have to subtract the grams fiber calories from the calorie equation. When manufacturers calculate "calories" they burn the whole mass to produce heat to come up with the thermodynamic number and do not take out the fiber - but we humans cannot digest them (only bacteria can digest soluble fiber and convert them to other metabolites while insoluble fiber gets passed into your intestines for excretion).
So that is the reason why (calculated) "calories" from say a fibrous vegetable broccoli is not the same as a donut. That's getting granular but I believe that is important to note - and which is why people are getting confused.
US Manufacturers/Labelers are allowed to subtract ingestible fiber from their posted total calories. I'll keep an eye open to see how often it is actually done. I was under the impression that they commonly subtract indigestible fiber from posted calories to make foods reflect lower calories.
On my packets of nuts they specify that you need to subtract them. For stuff like vegetables they will usually not subtract them. Please also note they never ever specify the difference between soluble and insoluble fiber either but either way, neither are burned by our bodies. Only bacteria will ferment the soluble stuff so they get the energy.
Also, the thermic effect of protein consumption is going to alter the overall "energy" labelled as calories on the nutrient label.
Thats why I kept telling people there's no need to count calories. Just rhat I couldn't explain it well enough. But now I think I can, tnx to you.
I've lost 20kg in less then 6 months by implementing autophagy, supplements & lighter diet (less junk food). So no need for counting calories or using a kitchen scale.
I swill wonder.......what if the body decides how much to use depending on many many other factors? How do I know what goes out from the other side?
Also, the effect of the Gut Microbiome. These have been show to raise or lower BMR and promote or retard fat gain from the same ingested calories. So, foods that benefit or degrade the gut microbiome can have you gain weight or lose weight from identical number of calories. I'm in the "energy is not weight" camp. Every time you breathe in you "ingest" a load of Oxygen. When you breathe out you lose a load of CO2 and water and Ketones. You sweat, wee and poo. The amount of food you eat has to fit into this complex equation.
Practicing doctors like Jason Fung, Berry have learned via theur onw experience and in practice. What they do works and for the majority, more effective long term.
very comprehensive!
The flag of the united diet industry should have on it "Calories do not matter!" Do please notice the difference between "Calories do not matter" vs "You have to count calories."
There was no mention of Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), the amount of energy you expend when doing nothing. This is the majority of energy that you expend. We know that reducing calories in leads to a lowering of your BMR, which is why the weight loss in most calories reduction diets stalls after a few months. But, some foods have the same metabolic slowing effect. Fructose (50% of sucrose) gets converted to fat via de novo lipogenesis if your other calorie needs are met. This should get moved to the skin, but can remain in the liver and gum up the processing. Raised insulin from glucose consumption retains the weight of fat, in the skin fat cells, so their potential energy is never released. Calories are a good approximation as to whether you might be "over eating" but the effect on your weight cannot be calculated because of the variables concerning your metabolism. If we consider E=Mc² every gram of food contains approximately 900,000,000,000 calories, so its no wonder we're putting on weight.
Each gram of food can release 900,000,000,000 calories IF it comes into contact with a gram of the same food consisting of anti-particles (positrons and anti protons). That's more energy than even exploding 1 gram of food if you could turn it into a thermonuclear bomb somehow.
Your body does not use the food in a matter/anti matter destruction or even as nuclear energy. It uses mostly the energy in stored chemical bonds which is much less efficient. Example: if you burn a log in the fire place, you're not turning much of the log itself into energy, you're just liberating the chemical bonds in the wood. This is why a log burning releases a fuckton less energy than an equivalent mass of uranium or plutonium in a fission bomb. Same goes for when your car burns diesel fuel, alcohol, or gasoline. It's not destroing the fuel, it's just liberating the chemical bonds. Those atoms are all still there.
Your BMR goes down as you diet because it drops as you weigh less. The less weight you weigh, the less metabolic needs your body has. If you were to exactly eat the same caloies every day and do the same amount of exercise every single day, your weight would asymptotically get close to a certain weight without ever reaching it. Of course, such things never happen in the real world. Even if you ordered the same fast food meal every day to make it easy the calories would vary in the meals slightly (larger pieces of chicken, more french fries, etc.) and you would never get exactly the same amount of exercise in a given day. Even if you religiously followed it and IDK, walked for 16 hours straight and slept exactly 8 hours, temperature variations would also change your calories consumed.
Fiber will slow down the sugar that's why fiber is in fruits and vegetables they got a lot of sugar but they got a lot of fibers or slow it down.
This is off topic to the video but I wondered if you had any insight. I have inherited a copy of APOE-e4 from each parent and look for nutrition advice online but find contradictory information about low fat vs. Keto diet for this. Can you discuss or make a video?
So are you saying that calories are equal but NOT saying that calories in/calories out is the way to weight loss a and weight gain?
Question: how many ATP molecules per Calorie? Looking that up 1 ATP = 7.3 kcals. 1 ATP I believe = 1 electron exchange (T or F ?), which would mean that there are 137 ATP molecules per Calorie (1000 kcal), and by extension the body runs on 3000 X 137 electrons per day ? , or 411,000 electrons per day. That can’t be right, it should be orders of magnitude greater. Where have I gone wrong?
A doctor giving a regular interview and another doctor talking in regular youtube video. These are two situations where there is no reason to make things more complicated in such cases knowing that the audience that watches them consists mainly of average people with average knowledge on the subject. I think "They are wrong" is an overstatement.
Fair enough, BT.
Excellent job - both calories and nutrients matter!