A calorie is a calorie?

[Peachy]

I'm a little confused about a calorie in the low-carb scheme of things. Do calories count? Do you still need a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose a pound? Is low carbing just another way to cut calories? Are we supposed to get a certain number? Is too high above our BMR a problem? Too low a problem? Does protein turn into glucose (can eating too much protein keep you from losing weight?) I'm just so confused.

[Tresses]

Peachy, I'm glad you asked because I've been wondering about some of that, too. I know just enough to not really be able to answer your questions in a coherent manner. :o

[razgarcia]

As one who has tried numerous different diets over the years but not an authority on this subject I can tell you from experience and from literature I've read that, yes, calories count but not in the simplistic manner some "experts" say. In effect, there is a metabolic advantage to limiting carbohydrate intake which, from my understanding, does two things.

First, according to Dr. Mike and from my own experience, you can continue to lose weight while eating more calories (100 - 500 per day, depending on the individual) than on a conventional "cont the calories" diet, but you still need a caloric deficiency to lose weight, i.e., to draw energy from fat deposits in the adipose tissue, what is known as lipolisys (spelling?). Again, that depends on the individual.

Second, you can keep from gaining weight even while eating in excess of what is considered the break-even point of so-called calories in-calories out daily requirement (determined to be 2,000 calories a day, although I do not know who came up with this aggregate number). The reason for this is that insulin is required for storing fat in adipose tissue, what is known in the field as lipogenesis (I hope I spelled it right).

So, yes, calories count, but not in the same manner an accountant would calculate revenues and expenses. The biochemical processes taking place in our bodies are much more complex than that.

As for protein turning to glucose, my understanding is that if consumed in excess of what the body needs to build and replace tissues it could happen. But if you eat the daily amount of protein based on your lean body mass you should be fine. I'm 5'10" and estimate I have 147 pounds of LBM, so I eat about 150 grams of protein a day.

Hope this helps, but if not I'm sure someone more knowledgeable than me on this subbect will soon respond.

[laughingW]

The Protein Power books go into this a little. It's what razgarcia said.

Are you thinking to count calories? Trying to figure out portions? Trying to fill in one of those web sites where you put in food and exercise and it reports calories in/out?

Personally I think calories are so crude a measure that they are not worth paying attention to. I pay attention to "grams" of things and then see how my body responds.

I did read a lot trying to figure that calorie question before I decided it was absurd. One of my favorite head-scratching articles is from John Berardi,

"A New View of Energy Balance."
http://www.johnberardi.com/articles/nutrition/new_view.htm

[Gaelen]

Well...a really simplistic, yes/no response:


I'm a little confused about a calorie in the low-carb scheme of things.

Do calories count? not in the way that you think...and I like Razgarcia's explanation. It's not as simple as calories in = calories out kinds of equations.

Do you still need a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose a pound? If that 'deficit' thing really worked, I'd have lost a lot more weight on conventional diets than I ever did. ;) Answer from my own experience: no

Is low carbing just another way to cut calories? no...in fact, I eat MORE calories while low carbing than I was permitted while on Weight Watchers.

Are we supposed to get a certain number? yes, you have to eat enough calories to maintain your lean body mass. BTW, BMR (basal metabolic rate) is just a wild-assed guess estimate kind of thing, if you're getting it from a chart.

Is too high above our BMR a problem? Too low a problem?see previous answer...if you're getting BMR from a chart, it's just a guesstimate and not really a meaningful number on which to base anything else.

Does protein turn into glucose Protein doesn't 'turn' into glucose. Protein breaks down into ketone bodies.

(can eating too much protein keep you from losing weight?) yes, if you gorge on anything, and you don't have enough activity and lean body mass to support that intake, you can stop losing weight. But it's really hard to gorge, regularly, on straight protein. I've recently had to be on liquid and pureed foods...and I eat protein shakes when that happens. Isopure protein is 25g of protein per scoop, and I have to work HARD to get 100g of protein from a liquid diet. I know there are people out there who can eat a 48 oz. steak--but chances are they coudn't eat it every day for an extended period. One meal isn't going to qualifying as continuously gorging on protein.

[maxlharris]

I'm a little confused about a calorie in the low-carb scheme of things.

I liked Gaelen's approach to the answer, so let's use that.


Do calories count? Yes. On the margin. And no. If you cut calories, you will lose faster. It won't necessarily be the type of loss you want or the type that is sustainable. Flipping the body to fat burning through the elimination of carbs makes the loss go easier, at any given point along a continuum of calories. Looked at the other way, if you were to eat 5000 calories on a traditional low fat diet, you would gain weight. I know several people who have eaten this level and maintained, while keeping carbs <40. You're not going to lose anything at that level, but you're not going to lay on new fat tissue, either. Similarly, without high blood sugar, it is hard to lay on fat tissue, so, in that regard, calories don't count. But on the margin, yes, they do count.
Do you still need a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose a pound? Did you ever? A pound of fat contains, by most approximations, 3500 calories of energy (remember, calories are a measure of energy). You do not need to burn all of the energy in a fat cell to mobilize everything stored within out of the fat cell. Maybe if you are doing it the hard way (caloric reduction/low fat), you do, but a ketone is a partially burned fat... It leaves with some energy intact. Ergo, 3500 is the caloric value of a pound of fat, but not the amount needed to dump a pound of fats in the form of ketones.
Is low carbing JUST another way to cut calories? The emphasis on JUST is important. Low carbing is a way to cut calories. It's considerably more than that, as well. So, I take issue with "just." Remember, you're setting your metabolism to burn fat and preserve lean body mass. That doesn't happen in calorie reducing diets that don't feature low carbohydrate consumption. Best illustration, in some instances, the best way to break a stall is to up caloric consumption. Clearly, there is something more complicated here than an accountant's T-journal.
Are we supposed to get a certain number? Who knows? Your body. If you're hungry, eat more. If you're not, well, make your own decision. I get my three a day. If I'm hungry (as opposed to bored), I will eat more. It works. If I'm not hungry, i still eat my three meals, but I don't eat until I'm full, only until I'm sated. If I haven't eaten in a while and I'm not hungry, a taste of something or the process of preparation will make me hungry.
Is too high above our BMR a problem? Define too high. If you are eating at BMR, and working out and eating protein, that's probably too low. If you're eating a multiple of your BMR, leading a sedentary life, and eating easily digestible foods with little thermic effect (hard to do on PP, but I don't rule anything out), then yeah. But, really, measurement and learning are the keys to knowing how much to eat.
Too low a problem? see above.
Does protein turn into glucose (can eating too much protein keep you from losing weight?) Yes, protein turns into glucose. And a good thing too, since the brain requires <100g of glucose a day to keep working, and you're keeping carbs below 50. The point where gluconeogenesis becomes problematic is at a protein consumption well in excess of your other protein needs. We're talking a multiple greater than 1 of your lbm. It's hard to eat that much without protein shakes.It is confusing.

[Tresses]

We're talking a multiple greater than 1 of your lbm. It's hard to eat that much without protein shakes.


Max, are you saying that someone should not eat more in protein grams than their lbm in pounds per day? In other words, a person with lbm of 100 should not eat more than 100g of protein per day?

I hope I'm misunderstanding you, as I frequently eat more (though not much more) than I should if that's the case. My lbm is only 101lbs. It's quite easy for me to get 100+ grams of protein per day without protein shakes.

[maxlharris]

I should rephrase that.

If you are working out hard, you shouldn't be doing more than 2.4g/lb of bodyweight. That's the useful maximum, at last I checked. It may have moved up. That's for someone doing hard workouts. And again, that's for bodyweight, not LBM.

It'd probably be hard for you to get 310g of protein in a day, and that's only 2*BW. 3.03*LBM. I don't know that there's a scaling guideline down. But, suffice to say, if you eat with internal cues rather than external ones (plate is empty, TV show is over, out of beverage), you'll have a hard time getting too much protein if you are keeping carbs in the right place.

[Tresses]

I can't for the life of me find my copy of PP where I worked all of this out, but I seem to recall that my protein requirements for a day were 60.6g based on my activity level. I'm definitely exceeding that. (And I'm obviously not working out hard. :o)

I did find my copy of PPLP, which suggests 81g per day at my weight. But the Eades also say that the method used in PP is more accurate, though more convoluted.

I suppose that as long as I continue to lose weight without hunger I'm doing fine. I'm also hoping that I'm building LBM with my resistance work, so at some point my protein requirements would increase anyway.

When the moon is full on the fifth Tuesday of any month ending in Y.

Yes, it is confusing. :rolleyes:

[Gaelen]

Does protein turn into glucose (can eating too much protein keep you from losing weight?) Yes, protein turns into glucose. And a good thing too, since the brain requires <100g of glucose a day to keep working, and you're keeping carbs below 50.

um...not exactly.
Carbs break down for digestion into glucose.
Fats break down into fatty acids.
Proteins break down into single amino acids.

Excess *dietary* protein will be converted by an efficient digestive system into sugar:
Dr. Mike's blog on Protein Sparing (http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/archives/2006/06/protein_sparing.html), this explains better why it's okay to eat more protein than you need as long as you're not also eating more carbs than you need.

And as outlined in this article, given a lack of available glucose (because the subjects were on a tightly regulated ketogenic diet), healthy brain cells will turn to metabolizing ketone bodies (which is very promising for brain cancer research.) This article is online at www.nutritionandmetabolism.com :
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/4/1/5

The digestive system can produce get all of the glucose that the brain needs from this combination of controlled carb intake + the brain's ability to convert to metabolizing ketone bodies.

If the link doesn't work, search on "brain cancer" or search for this specific title: "The calorically restricted ketogenic diet, an effective alternative therapy for malignant brain cancer," Weihua Zhou , Purna Mukherjee , Michael A Kiebish , William T Markis , John G Mantis and Thomas N Seyfried.

[Peachy]

I am trying to absorb all of this. I am so glad I have you all here to help me. What the good Dr. says in his blog about recomposition makes a lot of sense. I have to fight against many meds that have made me gain weight. That doesn't figure in the accountants way of thinking either. And if calorie restriction worked according to plan, the nutritionist I saw would have had me thin in no time. It's just a radical change in my thought process.

[Tresses]

But, suffice to say, if you eat with internal cues rather than external ones (plate is empty, TV show is over, out of beverage), you'll have a hard time getting too much protein if you are keeping carbs in the right place. Emphasis added.

Max, I want to thank you for that quote, particularly the part I bolded. I was out to dinner with my husband tonight, enjoying an 8oz grilled salmon and double side of veggies (green beans and broccoli). I was about 6oz into that salmon when all of a sudden it hit me: I'm not hungry. In fact, I'm almost full. I'd like to finish the veggies, but the rest of the salmon will make me uncomfortable. Eat with internal cues rather than external ones (plate is empty...)

So I stopped.

Normally, I would've eaten it anyway. There wasn't much left. (I even weighed it when I got home, and I was right; there was only 2oz left.) We were heading to a movie, but the weather is cold enough that I knew it would be safe in the car for a few hours. I finished my veggies and asked for a box for the salmon.

This concept is not new to me, but sometimes one needs the right words at the right time to make it all click. It clicked tonight.

:):thumbsup:

[maxlharris]

Emphasis added.

Max, I want to thank you for that quote, particularly the part I bolded. I was out to dinner with my husband tonight, enjoying an 8oz grilled salmon and double side of veggies (green beans and broccoli). I was about 6oz into that salmon when all of a sudden it hit me: I'm not hungry. In fact, I'm almost full. I'd like to finish the veggies, but the rest of the salmon will make me uncomfortable. Eat with internal cues rather than external ones (plate is empty...)

So I stopped.

Normally, I would've eaten it anyway. There wasn't much left. (I even weighed it when I got home, and I was right; there was only 2oz left.) We were heading to a movie, but the weather is cold enough that I knew it would be safe in the car for a few hours. I finished my veggies and asked for a box for the salmon.

This concept is not new to me, but sometimes one needs the right words at the right time to make it all click. It clicked tonight.

:):thumbsup:
The idea was backed by something I read today about a study comparing the eating habits of people in Paris with people in Chicago. Findings: French eat to internal cues (I'm feeling full, or sated, or whatever) Chicagoans eat to external cues (plate is empty, tv show is over, beverage is empty). Surprisingly, Chicagoans are generally heftier people than Parisians. The other thing they found. The more external cues you eat to, the more likely you are to be overweight/obese.

I've talked about internal cues for a while, but without calling it that, and without anything to differentiate it against. Now, I have the language. Hope it's useful.

Re: Gluconeogensis: I had understood that it occurs when you are low carb, regardless of whether your protein was very high or not. As some things in the brain REQUIRE glucose (not everything... ketones are preferred fuel for a lot of processes, but sugar is required for some). I had understood it to only be a problem when you achieve it to a point where it's pushing your blood sugar high.

PS- What is an amino acid? It's Carbon, Hydrogen and oxygen with a radical, generally nitrogen based. What is a carbohydrate? It's carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, same as fat. To make protein into blood sugar or fat, essentially you break down the protein to amino acids (a protein is a longer string of amino acids) and strip the exotic piece and reformat. It's not like it doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen very quickly or efficiently. At least that's my understanding.