Is a Calorie a Calorie?

This is a debate that's been going on for ages, and while I do believe a calorie is a calorie, I don't take someone's healthy weight level as an indicator of health. What I mean is that just because someone dropped weight down to what's considered healthy for their height, age, etc., the way they do it is ultimately what matters. I wouldn't advise someone to starve themselves to lose weight if it comes at the expense of their health.

Fad diets are extremely common these days. Almost every magazine you see will have some sort of claim on the front cover about some new way to lose 800 pounds in 5 minutes or something absurd like that. While these diets do tend to work for what they are in the end, they all play around the laws of thermodynamics. Not to mention that they will more than likely cause a rebound in weight gain.

If they tell you that you can eat what you want and still lose weight, it's true, but only because you're eating them in smaller portions without realizing. Or if they tell you to have a small breakfast then pig out at dinner (and magically lose weight), it's because you're at a net caloric deficit by the end of the day since you didn't overdo it at breakfast (again, without realizing). That's just an example of the idea behind them all. The average consumer doesn't understand (or know) the energy equation, so to them these diets all seem revolutionary once they start to see the weight come off.

In this article a professor of nutrition went on a mainly Twinkie diet and lost 27 pounds. Bottom line, putting health aside he proved his point. From a calorie perspective, weight loss only requires that you be in a deficit of calories. This really only goes so far and eventually things like hormones, hunger, mood swings etc will start to kick in and can determine how far someone's willing to take their diet.

Here's the article:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/professor-loses-27-lbs-on-twinkie-diet/article1791760/

I'm in no way qualified to make any sort of argument here, mostly becuase I just don't know enough, but I'll offer my input regardless. Basically what he did worked. A pound of fat is roughly 3500 calories, so if you do the math that means to lose 1 pound of body mass a week you should eat 500 less calories a day than your body requires. Real life is much more messy than that, but this gives you an idea of how to work with numbers if you count calories. It's not hard to cut out 500 calories a day from your diet if your goal is slow and steady weight loss. That's roughly 2 slices of bread or 2 cups of pasta or a few tablespoons of olive oil. Remember that fats carry 9 calories per gram (more than carbs or protein), but fats themselves have lots of health benefits, so if you're trying to cut calories then dropping fats slightly will help, but not at the expense of protein. I would replace processed carbs for fats and keep fruits, veggies and protein high.