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Burylancs

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Prof Keith Frayn has published a book taking us back to 'calories in. Calories out' as the basis of weight loss and is sceptical of all the popular diets ...

Mind you it's an article in the increasingly bizarre Daily Torygraph ...

 
Prof Keith Frayn has published a book taking us back to 'calories in. Calories out' as the basis of weight loss and is sceptical of all the popular diets ...

Mind you it's an article in the increasingly bizarre Daily Torygraph ...

It's paywalled. What does the article say about T2D?
 
Don’t shoot the messenger! I’ve just read it. it’s a diet article not a Diabetes article, so it doesn’t mention Type 2.
Basically he’s saying, the basic law of physics underpins energy in/energy out, and it’s vital to have a calorie deficit to lose weight. But he admits that your body will do everything in its power to get you to eat more, if you cut down. Hence, he says, diets such as eating a lot of fibre, or low carb ones, will work, because they help you feel fuller for longer and manage your body’s cravings for more food. But it’s the fact that you eat less on them that loses the weight, not the actual fact of eating fewer carbs. Of UPFs, he says there’s nothing in them that inherently makes you gain weight, only that they’re so tasty and so quick to eat, you will probably eat too much. He covers gut biome and exercise as well. He says exercise helps because it builds muscle, and muscle uses up more glucose.
I thought the article was well balanced. He agrees that it’s complicated, all he’s saying is the basic premise of physics, that if you take in too many calories, you will not lose weight, but agrees that it’s very difficult to do.
One interesting thing he does say, which I didn’t know, is about protein. After the body has harvested enough protein for muscle repair, etc, as we know, it breaks down to glucose for energy, But he says it does it ahead of breaking down carbs, so eating a good serving of protein may be one thing that helps weight loss because it takes more energy to convert, than converting carbs to glucose.
 
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Thank you Robin. There is evidence people eating enough protein and healthy fat, like meat and two veg, feel full sooner. So they eat less. Conversely the body has no defence against too much fat and carbs, a combination favoured by branded food manufacturers.
 
Seems eminently sensible advice. I do find the notion that "fast metabolism" is discounted by many authors (same is true in "Exercised" and "Burn") without discussion to be at odds with what one sees with heightened insulin sensitivity post-exercise, though I suppose if you're running a net energy deficit during exercise (it's quite hard to eat as much as you burn during endurance exercise) then these post-exercise effects are captured as part of the exercise when you average it all out.

It would be interesting to see what difference a similar amount of exercise (calories burned) all performed in a single session vs spread across the week actually makes. But then perhaps the needs of a diabetic wanting good BG response are not exactly aligned with the general populace's desire to prevent weight gain - it may have no effect on the latter, but a definite effect on the former (though it does feel like reducing insulin requirements for anyone and avoiding fat accumulation during the non-exercise periods would probably have the edge and be a vote in favour of doing more frequent exercise.)
 
Was it any different?

You eat less you lose weight, was trying to point this out to a member other day who's lost weight, they often eat just one meal a day but doesn't believe that a calorie deficit leads to weight loss which it obviously does.
 
Thank you Robin. There is evidence people eating enough protein and healthy fat, like meat and two veg, feel full sooner. So they eat less. Conversely the body has no defence against too much fat and carbs, a combination favoured by branded food manufacturers.
If your diet is built around beat and veg then it's likely to be in keto ranges. One of the ''advantages' of keto is that it seems to mute hunger. This is why IF and OMAD are easier for those who eat a keto diet. But it still is the case that energy balance dictates the loss/gain.
 
Low calorie diet means my heart rate slows several beats per minute, my temperature reduces, I tend to sleep more, I do less washing of clothes and other high demand housework, I leave going shopping a day or so later week on week. Not intentionally, it just happens that way.
I've been told that I should be losing X amount of weight having reduced my caloric intake by Y amount, and as I am not, that I am lying about how much I eat - the fact that my metabolism alters to reduce calories out to balance calories in seems beyond all comprehension.
 
the fact that my metabolism alters to reduce calories out to balance calories in seems beyond all comprehension.
This is exactly what has been found by Pontzer (have a look at his papers and his book "Burn".)

In serendipitous fashion, here's a video from GCN released today talking about why the general comment that exercise doesn't help weight loss (which one often reads or hears) might be true due to the difficulties of setting up research studies (and for those not doing much exercise), but doesn't agree with real life experience:

It does all come back down to: calories in < calories out = weight loss, so in agreement with the book mentioned by the OP.
 
To my mind Calories in / calories out is inevitably true, but is too often so hugely oversimplified and over systematised as to make it appear demonstrably false.

By the time you get to the ‘formula’ that there are 3500 calories in a pound of fat, so if you reduce your intake by 500 calories per day you will steadily lose 1lb of weight (in body fat) each and every week you have gone a very long way from how the body works, monitors its environment, and responds to energy deficit.

So to my mind calories in / calories out is both true, and actually fairly unhelpful at the same time.

As with a lot of diabetes management, weight loss/gain is biology not maths.
 
If my body did not slow down and refuse to work at the same rate, then it would be so easy, eat less, lose weight - job done.
I have been on so many low calorie diets - perhaps that is part of the problem - biological systems learn how to respond to altered conditions.
 
This is exactly what has been found by Pontzer (have a look at his papers and his book "Burn".)

In serendipitous fashion, here's a video from GCN released today talking about why the general comment that exercise doesn't help weight loss (which one often reads or hears) might be true due to the difficulties of setting up research studies (and for those not doing much exercise), but doesn't agree with real life experience:

It does all come back down to: calories in < calories out = weight loss, so in agreement with the book mentioned by the OP.
Indeed! And this is an excellent video!

One of the issues that isn't generally accepted or understood is that while the body will try to compensate for certain instances of deficit, in certain contexts, it can only do so much and for so long. It also seems pretty simple to avoid the issues almost entirely.

There are decades of accumulated knowledge and data on the topic of weight, activity, metabolism etc. but gurus, journalists and doctors have families to feed, so trying to re-invent the wheel has once again become de rigueur
 
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