We have known as far back as 1982 that tracking calories, food logging is inaccurate & doesn’t predict weight loss
10.1093/ajcn/35.4.727.
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Meta-analysis in 2008 by Harnack and French, then follow-up in 2014 from Eblel, Kiszko reviews and assesses the evidence on the effectiveness of calorie labeling at the point of purchase
"Concerns on the effectiveness of calorie labeling policies"
10.1007/s10900-014-9876-0
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Less than 0.1% of people getting fast food actually care about calories...
10.2105/AJPH.2008.136457
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Men actually INCREASE intake with calorie information
10.1186/1479-5868-5-63
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nutritional labeling in a college setting caused some people to eat more....
10.1016/0271-5317(95)02001-C
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dietitians miscalculate calories by 10-20%, lay people around 20-30% and some patients with obesity up to 50%
10.1016/s0002-8223(02)90316-0
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Head to head, calorie counting performs worse than EVEN the low fat diet (the diet that failed the last half century)
10.1136/bmj.314.7073.29
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There are millions of people with access to calorie information with no END in sight to the obesity pandemic
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Many patients actually DONT like tracking or counting calories
10.1016/j.invent.2016.12.003
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There's more
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SUMMARY:
Calorie estimation for both intake & expenditure are inaccurate, even for orthorexic dietitians/trainers
Several real-world examples from NYC, college cafeterias, menus etc have shown that calorie information has no clear positive impact on food intake
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Educating patients on calories has been an overall disastrous experiment with no signs of real world improvement
Calorie counting and point tracking diets HAVE never been shown to be superior to ANY approach
Consider stopping the bullshit & actually helping people instead
/end
If you want to hear me lecture on this join me this Saturday for a Grand Rounds for @TheSMHP@DougieReynolds
We will discuss why calories NEVER mattered and the history & importance of glycemic variability...
Many patients ask me about exercise for weight loss, and getting toned.
We are often advised to exercise, however, if we are severely overweight this can be quite challenging.
I typically advise patients to focus on fixing the diet first and forgo exercise for the first 6-8 weeks of any weight loss plan. if your diet isn’t in order & your appetite isn’t controlled, exercise will increase appetite and likely stall weight loss.
While it is true that over a long enough time, patients may experience changes in body composition (ie getting toned) they won’t see the scale move and the process will be slow and this can be discouraging to patients.
After helping thousands of patients lose weight, here’s my advice for those looking for lifelong, sustainable life changes. These are the “5 MUSTS” anyone trying to lose weight lifelong NEEDS to do.
🧵/Thread
Before you understand my “5 musts”, simply ask yourself -what are the side effects of your prior weight loss attempts- NOT your reasons, NOT what you want to happen, what went wrong, what made you stop?
The 5 Musts: #1 HUNGER
Most people quit diets because they feel low energy, tired & hungry. Your weight loss attempt will need to manage HUNGER. Are food choices making you full, or are they leaving you craving more a couple of hours later? Stick to:: 🐠🥩🍳🍗🍖🍤🫑🥑🥬🥦
Summary:
Poorly calculated
Don’t quantify hormonal effects on appetite
Labels/Tracking don’t effect intake
Worse outcomes vs. dieting
Follow along with this fully cited thread 1/n
We have known as far back as 1982 that tracking calories, food logging is inaccurate & doesn’t predict weight loss
10.1093/ajcn/35.4.727
Meta-analysis in 2008 by Harnack and French, then follow-up in 2014 from Eblel, Kiszko reviews and assesses the evidence on the effectiveness of calorie labeling at the point of purchase
"Concerns on the effectiveness of calorie labeling policies"
I have a serious problem with the term “pre-diabetes.”
The prefix “pre” is used to describe what comes before something.
In reality, “pre”-diabetes is actually AFTER or “post” 15 years of the high insulin levels & inflammation associated with the modern lifestyle.
Prediabetes is usually diagnosed by checking an a1c level, which is the percentage of hemoglobin that binds to sugar as a percentage of normal hemoglobin.
If you a1c is between 5.7 and 6.4, you are considered to have “pre-diabetes”
To achieve this level of pre-diabetes, you must sustain enough carbohydrate/glycemic excursions & weight gain where your average glucose rises sufficiently above normal levels.
The a1c describes your speed, your are past your speed limit.
How statisticians and researchers arrived at the conclusion that the BlueZones are a FRAUD. 🤔
🔑 Thread with key excerpts
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“When these states transition to state-wide birth registration, the number of supercentenarians falls by 80% per year“
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“The US data support the hypothesis that improved vital registration should reduce the number of supercentenarians, and be associated with changing patterns of old-age survival, by reducing age-coding error rates.”
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