Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. Life and work have been extremely busy the last few weeks, but things should be back to a more manageable level where I can do a few updates again. In the meantime, the exertion headaches aren't gone entirely, but they're not a big factor. For the last week, the bigger impediment to lifting has been a nasty sunburn - we took our son to an amusement park the weekend before last, and while he had a great time, my aversion to sunscreen left me as burned as a lobster. Squatting with a few hundred pounds of barbell stretching across your highly-sunburned back is a pain I will be happy to never experience again. Ever. Back to the science: Discrepancy between Self-Reported and Actual Caloric Intake and Exercise in Obese SubjectsOver the years, a lot of published research on nutrition has involved studies that were not rigorously controlled - usually for cost reasons. "Metabolic ward" studies aren't nearly as common as those that rely on the subjects' self-reported food intake. This paper highlights why relying on what people say they eat, as opposed to controlling or confirming what they actually eat is a very fundamental problem for researchers. It also highlights why it's important to take "I'm eating nothing and still not losing weight!" with a large grain of salt. The researchers took a group of 16 "diet resistant" people who had claimed to be unable to lose weight despite eating fewer than 1200 calories per day, and often taking thyroid medication: " Although the subjects in group 1 had no distinct psychopathologic characteristics, they perceived a genetic cause for their obesity, used thyroid medication at a high frequency, and described their eating behavior as relatively normal." For 14 days, the subjects were instructed to record/log everything they ate, and record/log their activity level (sound familiar?). While doing this logging, the subjects were also having their actual calorie intake and daily energy expenditure (TDEE) measured with doubly-labeled water. The results speak for themselves: Quote:The energy intake reported by the subjects in group 1 during the 14-day study period was 1028±148 kcal per day, whereas their actual energy intake was 2081±522 kcal per day. Thus, these subjects significantly (P<0.05) underreported their energy intake by a group mean of 1053 kcal per day, or a mean for individual subjects of 47±16 percent (Fig. 2). Quote:The results of the evaluation of all major aspects of energy metabolism in the subjects in group 1 confirmed that substantial misreporting of food intake and physical activity accounted for the diet resistance they reported. There are, however, physiologic explanations for short-term diet resistance that should be considered in subjects with unexpectedly slow weight loss. Under certain conditions, fluid retention can mask weight loss for up to 16 days in subjects who are actually losing fat through dieting.36 After several weeks of weight loss, energy expenditure decreases and adaptive changes in protein metabolism occur, reducing the degree of negative energy and nitrogen balance and slowing the weight loss until it is almost imperceptible. Also, subjects with undiagnosed or untreated thyroid disease and those taking medications that lower energy expenditure may lose weight slowly. One subject who was logging her own daily calorie intake at around 1000 was actually eating 3000. All of this is to say that unless we're quite careful, we tend to be extremely bad at counting calories - to the point where we think we're at a starvation level of energy, but are actually overeating. And while I don't want to open the door to another low-carb/high-carb fight, this research is probably the most compelling argument in favor of a low-carb approach. Even through the research doesn't support the insulin hypothesis of obesity - it still comes down to consuming more energy than you expend - this paper shows how and why it can be extremely difficult to stay in a consistent calorie deficit. And the research is pretty consistent that as an ad libitum strategy, reducing or eliminating carbohydrate tends to keep people from overeating. Combine these two facts, and you have a recipe for eliminating the problems that so many people have while counting calories. But that's all beside the point - I'm not using this study to encourage or discourage any particular diet strategy. It's simply to highlight how bad we tend to be at estimating what we're eating and what we're burning. The next time you see a forum thread complaining about the inability to lose weight despite a 1200 calorie/day diet, the answer is very likely "You're counting badly." Whether or not actually saying that is a good idea, however, I'll leave for you to decide.
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3350 kcal
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Rasva: 113,51g | Prot: 206,69g | Hh: 422,97g.
Aamiainen: Organic Sugar Free Coconut Milk - Vanilla, broccoli & cauliflower, optimum strawberry, chobani plain nonfat, peach, strawberries, raspberries, carlson fish oil, eggland's best large. Lounas: cocoa roast almonds, spinach, meijer organics vegetable medley, strawberries, eggland's best large, tomatoes, bumble bee salmon. Päivällinen: chobani plain nonfat, eggland's best, Milk (2% Lowfat with Added Vitamin A), fiber one 80, kashi golean. Välipalat/Muut: apple cinnamon cheerios, dannon light & fit pineapple, Red Velvet Cake Ice Cream, fiber one 90, dannon light & fit blueberry, crunchmaster, meijer cottage cheese, krema, oatmeal cookie chunk, dark chocolate dreams, fiber one chewy bar, pure protein whey, blueberries, optimum casein, 2% milk, cocoa roast almonds, Extra Dessert Delights Sugarfree Gum - Mint Chocolate Chip. lisää...
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Kommentit
I soooooo.... Agree with this. If people aren't weighing /measuring and logging, as soon as they eat /before they eat, they are fooling themselves. It is all so easy, to think we have had a 'portion' of something, when in reality, it is nearer 2 portions. This is especially true of dried products eg porridge oats, nuts etc. Most people over estimate what a 'portion' looks like..... The food industry capitalises on this and states on it's packaging, "only 'x' calories per portion", dieters think "ooh, that's good.... And gaily chomp through 2 or 3 portions - thinking they are being good. My DH is a good example of this - breakfast is porridge - he bemoans, I have been so good, I just had porridge for breakfast (BUT he has about 3 portions)........ I can feel myself getting on my 'soap' box.... So better leave it there LOL
25 kesä 12 jäseneltä: Sk1nnyfuture
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@sk1nnyfuture: Yep. If you're counting calories at all, a digital food scale is a must-have. I still remember the first time I weighed out one serving of granola cereal. That cleared a lot of things up right away.
25 kesä 12 jäseneltä: Nimm
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Excellent point. The problem with a lot of studies that rely on 'self-reporting' I too recall when I measured my oatmeal for the first time. Yeah, I almost never eat 1 serving of it. Same for cereal, salad, veggies, pretzels, candy...all of it good and bad. That is shocking that one undercounted by 2000 calories!
25 kesä 12 jäseneltä: JessWhatINeeded
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Thank goodness you're still here, Nimm. How are you feeling? The sunburn sounds dreadful. Funny story about the digital scale and the granola. I'm with Pam on this. There's too much perception in estimation. I love my digital scale.
25 kesä 12 jäseneltä: Helewis
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@Helewis: Doing well overall, thanks. Had my "heavy" lifting day yesterday and it went pretty well - no aneurysms, strokes, heart attacks, sunburn lesions, rupturing stretch marks, or spontaneous combustion. So, no complaints!
26 kesä 12 jäseneltä: Nimm
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Well said, and thank you!
27 kesä 12 jäseneltä: Heidijoy
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