I don't buy this at all. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. You just have to restrict your total cal intake sufficiently to get down single digit body fat to have the 6-pack abs. Given that Hosszu is prob burning around 6000 cal/day, if not more, it really would not require too much caloric restriction. If she were to literally eat nothing but lean chicken and non-starchy vegetables, she would prob have a hard time even eating enough to maintain her weight. Some concentrated sources of carbs and fat are needed when training 5-6 hr/day:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

1000 calories of celery
1000 calories of pure processed sugar
1000 calories of gravel rocks

will all give similar effect? (energy, composition, etc) no. if you burn 100 calories in will your blood boil? Calories is just for general approximation

AFAIK, gravel rocks have zero calories. To eat 1000 cal of mixed salad would require 20 lbs since the 1 lb bags at my groc are 50 cal/lb. Eating 1000 cal of pure processed sugar is not too hard if you drink lemonade, coke, etc. Also, please note that i simply said "some concentrated sources of carbs and fats if you're training 5-6 hr/day", and i did not say that you should just eat sugar and lard. My point stands in regard to weight loss; certainly the published caloric content of various foods are approx but, if you always err on eating too few cals, you will lose weight. In fact, if you were to just eat say 500 cal/day, eventually you'd lose so much weight that you would die. This is what happens to anorexics as i'm sure you are aware:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I think any dominant champion in any sport is going to be suspect for using PEDs. My opinion is founded on the supposition that no sport is entirely clean, and that the use of PEDs gives one a definite advantage possibly on the order of 10% -20% over natural ability, as has been claimed by some cyclists. To be dominant and natural in a sport where other top level competitors are using PEDs, would mean you are an extreme outlier, not impossible, but also highly unlikely. The rewards are too great and the risks (getting caught and subsequent punishment) are very low. Ben Johnson was tested many times previous to his failed test and was 'clean', also Lance never 'failed' a drug test, the number of 'passed' tests by athletes subsequently busted must be in the thousands.

If a sense of 'bitterness' is detected in my comments it is most likely due to my background in bodybuilding. To this day I can not read an article by a professional BB regarding diet, training, routines, etc. and not think that it's absolute BS from someone with no credibility (not to mention that I own a bunch of the Carmichael Cycling videos that supposedly were the training programs that Lance used to win his 7 tours). So I believe the article in the magazine on the Iron Lady is on the mark, and professional (collegiate and even HS for that matter) sports need to go a long way to clean up, or every star athlete will continue to be thought of as a very accomplished doper.

I was speaking for middle aged women who, thanks to metabolic and hormonal shifts, carry fat on their belly, making it harder to look ripped, not Hosszu, whose metabolism is of a whole different order. In any case I'm not talking about total carb restriction, just floury sugary ones.

And what exactly do you base that distinction on? (I think that was Eric's point as well).

Cheers,
malte

That's certainly a valid observation. We're probably in agreement then that a calorie is a calorie, but some dietary choices make it easier to stick to a caloric restriction plan (by avoiding blood sugar spikes, for instance).

Cheers,
malte

A calorie is a calorie? So why are some people quite big despite eating small. Never seen a woman who seems to eat just salad and still can't lose a single pound.

I strongly believe there is much more than calories in, calories out. First, everyone is different. Why could I eat three portions for lunch with two slices of cake when I was a teenager and still didn't gain weight? I was one of the smallest of my friends and ate probably the most (about same activity level).

As well was this, I think healthy natural food is more likely to be of good use. It gives you energy or builds muscles or lets you recover. Whereas the fastfood stuff is more likely to make you sleepy, tired and more hungry.

Just my opinion based on experience

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10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

Yes. By definition.


"seems" is the operative word here.


I don't know. What's your take? Did the nature of the calories from cakes change since you were a teenager? Or could it be that your basal levels of metabolic activity changed since you were a teenager?


We were discussing weight loss/weight maintenance. In essence that's an easy principle: if you burn more calories than you take in, you lose weight. (I already acknowledged that smart dietary choices make that task much easier than crappy diets (e.g. by avoiding blood sugar spikes)). Now you're opening up a whole new can of worms. There's no question that not all food choices are smart in every situation. I wouldn't down a McD's happy meal immediately before the start of a 10k race, for example. That's not necessarily a question of "natural" vs. "processed" food, though. (What counts as "natural", anyway? Nearly nothing that we eat today would have been found in nature in that form 1000 years ago). There's also no question, though, that some industrially produced food can barely be considered fit for human consumption.


Cheers,
malte

I have a 400 pound relative.

She will eat a salad while out to eat with us. Talk a lot about her weight. She just eats salads and lean chicken, she is so mad her metabolism is slow and she can't lose weight.

Then went to take out her trash while visiting. 10 empty ice cream containers in it.

The fact of the matter is, eat less then you burn, and you WILL lose weight. Does food have an emotional pull to many of us? Yes. Is it hard to limit? Yes. Can it be done? Sure. But many people choose to be fat over fit.

It does have calories, you just need to raise it to the temp of molten lava to burn it. Now in the stomach of a human, it will pass through the digestive system and not give you 1000 calories of energy. The point of the celery is that the digestion process to extract its energy will gain you a net loss of usable calories.

we know scientifically that indeed a calorie is not a calorie and in a complex human body, the net result of calories of various sources have different effects on metabolism, body composition, weight, etc

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

Ummm, last time i checked my thermodynamics text, 1 calorie = 1 calorie (actually kilocalories to be exact, but over the years the "kilo" has been dropped in common parlance) regardless of whether it came from lettuce or lard. Certainly, there are small effects in terms of metabolism but still, in the final analysis and in the "big picture", if you consistently eat fewer calories than you are burning, then you will lose weight. It simply can not be otherwise, or else no one would ever die of starvation.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

human metabolism is a lot more complicated. you cannot explain it with simple thermodynamics/physics of the calorie content itself.


http://nyti.ms/1kWNyse

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

This example is what I have always said about folks. I am amazed at some in my family who push back like they cannot help it. It is IMPOSSIBLE to be fat without eating tons of food/ junk food in any case I have seen or heard about.
Just do not understand how they want such a poor quality of life.

.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

Ummm, yeah, i've only read around 100 articles on metabolism. You know, I have this same conversation about 1000 times. In fact, in your link, at the end, the counterpoint to the "all calories are not equal" argument by the Harvard guy cites a Columbia prof's study which actually says that a calorie is a calorie, as far as weight control is concerned:

"But Marianne Smith Edge of the International Food Information Council, an industry-financed group that published a review of “Fed Up,” said the film overstates data on how much sugar Americans are consuming and wrongly portrays sugar as a lone dietary villain, much as dietary fat was vilified in decades past. Just as research in the last few years has vindicated some fats and shown them to be beneficial, she said, the science on sugar is evolving as well.
“I think the focus on particular nutrients doesn’t tell you the true story,” she said. “It really is about overall calorie consumption and reduced physical activity.”
Ms. Smith Edge, who is a registered dietitian, cited a 2012 study by Y. Claire Wang of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, which showed that the average child must eliminate 64 calories a day in order for the childhood obesity rate to fall to 14.6 percent by 2020, a goal set by the federal government.
In an interview, Dr. Wang said that for the most part, “if we’re just talking about body weight and obesity, the evidence seems to point in the direction that calories are calories.”
Dr. Wang said that studies consistently show that sugary beverages, potato chips and other high-glycemic foods are indeed associated with weight gain. But this is because they are rapidly digested and easy to consume in large amounts, “not because they bypass our energy balance.”
Dr. Wang said, however, that reducing calories should not be the sole focus of obesity prevention programs. Studies show, for example, that sugary beverages are linked to an increased risk of diabetes and other chronic diseases, but their impact on body weight explains only half of the increased risk, Dr. Wang said.
“These foods mess up our insulin regulation system and affect other inflammatory pathways,” she said. “And that has nothing to do with how they affect body weight.”

Cheers,

Eric

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

So the type of calorie has variable health/metabolic effects because of things other than the actual thermodynamic calorie, as pointed out by your bolded quotations (i.e. the ultimate effects of drinking 1 tablespoon of soda is not the same as chewing 1 cup of spinach.)

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

If the body goes into ketosis, as during an overnight fast, the body goes into fat-burning mode. If you eat a carb-rich meal after waking, the body switches to glycolysis which brings higher levels of insulin which promotes fat storage. Turning off glycolysis and turning on the fat-burners is what happens when someone eats no carb or very low carb on a ketogenic type diet and it becomes much easier to lose weight if you substitute calorie for calorie.

While not the same as ketosis, one can become more efficient at burning fat by becoming fat-adapted. What this guy writes about here http://www.marksdailyapple.com/...apted/#axzz3bcPUxNRT has been pretty much my own experience playing around with my diet.

But isn't there the risk of messing up with your metabolism. I think I've heard about People overdoing it a bit too much with low-carb and their metabolism pretty much shut down. Meaning they were not able to get lean anymore after a while. For me, low carb doesn't make sense (at least not for everyone) in the long run.

Just my opinion.

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10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

Yes, on the other end of the spectrum of high carb vs low carb, there is risk to really messing up your metabolism by over-doing low carb too. Which just further reinforces the idea that a calorie is not a calorie in terms of weight loss or maintenance. It needs to be understood what the source of calories, whether it's fat, protein or carbs (or lack thereof), can do to your metabolic pathways over time. For quick fat loss for some people, there is no doubt that high fat/high protein/low carb works great. Once desired fat loss is achieved it makes good sense to slowly add back the complex carbs and reach a level of balance that works for the individual. I know for me personally I need to be around 130-150 grams of (complex) carbs, 90-100 grams of protein and ~60 grams of fat to maintain ~ 18% body fat (58 year old female), a consistent weight and to have enough energy to function everyday and to not feel constantly hungry. When my carb intake goes up I really notice the difference in hunger level and cravings for even more carbs. Some folks I know can get by on much higher % level of carbs in their diet. I am not one of them. It's been a couple of years of experimenting to find my right level.

I think the one thing that struck me about the way Katinka eats (as she mentions on her facebook page) and what a typical meal for her is like is that it is not a diet high in carbs like the typical swimmers diet of pasta, cereal, bread muffins etc. Her lunch was steak with spinach, asparagus, an avocado and a few grapes and berries. One can get very lean and buff by eating like that and have lots of energy for endurance and strength training. She probably consumes enough complex carbs for her needs, but I'd only be guessing.

I think she is prob understating her cal intake though, as is prob appropriate for public news, i.e. if she were absolutely honest and talked about how she eats just slightly less than Phelps's 12,000 cal/day diet, then she wouldn't be a proper role model:) Actually, Phelps prob never ate 12,000/day but I suspect he was around 8000-ish, which is a ton of lean meat and asparagus:) When in top shape, Phelps was/is very lean as well, despite large volumes of pizza:)

This discuss reminds me of a converse i had with Mike Pigg back in the early 90s, at the dawn of my tri "career". He had just finished a pre-race talk on diet to a room full of tri peeps in which he talked about how he ate a lot of salad, spinach, etc. In a private 1-on-1 converse afterwards, i asked him how he was even able to maintain his weight given his self-described low cal diet. He admitted that he ate a bunch of pop tarts, chocolate chip cookies, etc, to get suff calories but said it just would not sound good to say that to a bunch of AG-ers who train about 1/5 to 1/10 as much as he does.

Also, what about the TDF guys, i.e., their pre-race and post-race meals are all about carbs: pasta, bread, etc, at least from what i've read, and those guys are just sticks, extremely lean.

Katinka is training around 4 hr/day in the pool at high intensity, plus 1 hr/day of dryland, so i'd guess she needs around 6500-7000 cal/day just to maintain her weight. So, I still hold to my original statement: all she had to do to get lean would be to eat 500 cal/day less than she's burning for 10 wks to lose 10 lbs, or 15 lbs, or whatever the diff is between her "less buff" and "more buff" weights. At her level, there's just no doubt that her body is an extremely well-tuned calorie burning machine:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Agreed. My sole point is the part about "as far as weight control is concerned, a calorie is a calorie". Certainly, drinking a 16-oz Mtn Dew on an empty, somewhat dehydrated stomach has a very diff effect on the way you feel 10-15 min later, than does 16-oz of choc milk, Gatorade, or beer. These four choices illustrate a wide range of impact:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."