You know, the first law of thermodynamics was discovered before special relativity.
OK, we’re not interpreting “calories in calories out” that literally, but there are non-literal interpretations of it which still are very good approximation. If you interpret it to mean “it doesn’t matter to anything at all whether you eat 2000 calories of proteins or 2000 calories of sugars” it’s false, but if you interpret it to mean “the total number of calories you eat is usually way more important than where or when you get them from in determining how much weight you’ll gain or lose, provided you’re healthy enough and your diet isn’t terribly unbalanced”¹ it is essentially true, and the main idea behind The Hacker’s Diet by John Walker. ETA: And I don’t think the next order of approximation should involve lumping wholemeal rice and high-fructose corn syrup together as “carbs” and extra-virgin olive oil and hard margarine together as “fats”.
Or, more fancily, “If you e.g. eat epsilon more calories per day from fat and epsilon fewer calories per day from carbs, or epsilon fewer calories for breakfast and epsilon more calories for dinner, all other things being equal, the change in your medium-term weight-loss rate divided by epsilon will be quite small.”
I seem to recall a study finding out that people who started out weighing the same and ate the same number of calories while doing the same things did end up still weighing the same, but among them the one who ate more proteins ended up with less body fat. If I find it again I’ll post a link to it.
You know, the first law of thermodynamics was discovered before special relativity.
Fortunately scientific principles don’t rely on human awareness to function!
Or, more fancily, “If you e.g. eat epsilon more calories per day from fat and epsilon fewer calories per day from carbs, or epsilon fewer calories for breakfast and epsilon more calories for dinner, all other things being equal, the change in your medium-term weight-loss rate divided by epsilon will be quite small.”
I wouldn’t disagree with this significantly, but with the same caveat that you mention yourself.
You know, the first law of thermodynamics was discovered before special relativity.
OK, we’re not interpreting “calories in calories out” that literally, but there are non-literal interpretations of it which still are very good approximation. If you interpret it to mean “it doesn’t matter to anything at all whether you eat 2000 calories of proteins or 2000 calories of sugars” it’s false, but if you interpret it to mean “the total number of calories you eat is usually way more important than where or when you get them from in determining how much weight you’ll gain or lose, provided you’re healthy enough and your diet isn’t terribly unbalanced”¹ it is essentially true, and the main idea behind The Hacker’s Diet by John Walker. ETA: And I don’t think the next order of approximation should involve lumping wholemeal rice and high-fructose corn syrup together as “carbs” and extra-virgin olive oil and hard margarine together as “fats”.
Or, more fancily, “If you e.g. eat epsilon more calories per day from fat and epsilon fewer calories per day from carbs, or epsilon fewer calories for breakfast and epsilon more calories for dinner, all other things being equal, the change in your medium-term weight-loss rate divided by epsilon will be quite small.”
I seem to recall a study finding out that people who started out weighing the same and ate the same number of calories while doing the same things did end up still weighing the same, but among them the one who ate more proteins ended up with less body fat. If I find it again I’ll post a link to it.
Fortunately scientific principles don’t rely on human awareness to function!
I wouldn’t disagree with this significantly, but with the same caveat that you mention yourself.