Fear of Food

Just got back from a great weekend in Florida. Met up with some great people, ate big and saw a great football game…ok it was a bit of a blowout but the good guys won (go gators!)

Gators Won Big Time

At the tailgate we crushed some serious food…biscuits with sausage gravy, beef short ribs, sausages, burgers, bacon, eggs, 3 kinds of potatoes, parfait, apple pie, key lime pie, and some other stuff that I can’t remember the name of.

The point is at a tailgate it was perfectly fine to eat all of these foods and everyone was enjoying themselves.

But some of those same foods could be items that other people would literally be afraid to eat. I think some people are actually afraid of certain foods imagining that they can really do some sort of ‘damage’ to your body.

This is a misplaced fear directed a a specific food instead of a specific amount of food.

I’ve already mentioned the concept of toxic calories, and I think that the bigger danger to your longevity and health isn’t a particular food but too much total food.

The negative effects of eating excessive carbs, or excessive fat, or excessive sugar are very real, but they require you to be in a total calorie excess as well.

In other words, sugar and fat are perfectly fine to eat if you’re not over doing it with your total calories.

Most of the commentators on the evils of sugar or ‘simple carbs’ or saturated fat typically leave out the specific question ‘how much’.

More often than not you get a complex sounding (but highly over simplified) explanation of what they think the body is doing when you eat sugar or fat, and then tell you never to eat them again.

The concept of total calories or dose is rarely discussed and the cult of eating ‘healthy food’ instead of a ‘healthy AMOUNT of food’ continues.

In my opinion the best thing you can do for the look and health of your body is get a handle on your total number of calories. Once you’ve got that under control you can mix and match combination’s of food as you wish until you’ve got a routine that satisfies your appetite and your body image ideals.

JB

Posted by johnbarban in Calories, food
Tags: Calories, food, toxic calories |9 Comments

9 Responses to “Fear of Food”

  1. usernametooshortnowitstoolon Says:
    September 27th, 2010 at 12:27 pm

    I pigged out over the weekend too. Had dim sum, and anyone who’s had dim sum know it’s ALL ABOUT pigging out lol.

    Honestly, I have no idea how many calories I ate on Sunday. I just now that I ate less calories on Saturday and will be eating less as well today. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m still “over,” but this doesn’t happen often enough to even stress over. I personally like to look at caloric intake on a weekly basis, and even though that is less stressful than a daily basis, if we look at the even bigger picture, e.g. on a monthly or even yearly basis, 1 week of overeating is not worth stressing over. I totally agree that it seems that not overeating, along with reducing the stress in your life, are big contributors to a healthy and long life.

    HOWEVER, I have a question about exercise. How important to do you think it is for longevity? I think it’s clear it contributes to the QUALITY of life. Some quick Googling on centurians (admittedly, it was hard to find very many “reputable” websites) suggest that exercise is also very important. If this is the case, there probably is an amount that gives you diminishing returns. I say this because if you exercise a LOT, you’ll also be required to eat more, and eating more may lead to a shorter life (according to our current research). John, what are your thoughts on how exercise and the calories required to maintain an active lifestyle affect longevity?

    By the way, I spoke to my sister-in-law who is a dietician for a hospital, and without telling her our views on nutrition, I was surprised by how much she is in agreement with us and how much she is in disagreement with the mainstream (this is not a “me against the world” rant, by the way – it’s just the reality of the information out there). My brother has a traditionally “unhealthy” diet, and she does most of the cooking in the house, so she basically lets him eat and drink whatever he wants as long as he eats his vegetables and doesn’t overeat. That last part is really all it comes down to if someone wants to know how to eat “healthy.”

  2. Longevity: The effect exercise has on it AND the extra calories required to maintain Says:
    September 27th, 2010 at 1:02 pm

    [...] the extra calories required to maintain I'm lazy so I'm going to copy and paste my comment on JB's blog: Originally Posted by usernametooshortnowitstoolon I have a question about exercise. How [...]

  3. steve.philp Says:
    September 28th, 2010 at 2:31 am

    John, you’ve written a lot recently about social over-eating and i agree it can be unavoidable. I followed your blog last fall/winter where you lost a lot of weight. If you don’t mind me asking, what are your stats now?

    I dieted hard last year, 13st to 10st 6lb but from 11st 3lb, didn’t look leaner at all despite loosing more weight. I was doing bodyweight circuits/running 4-d days on between 1200-1450 cals; and did some full 24 and 36 hour fasts. Made losing ‘weight’ easy but bf became static at about 11%. I looked leaner but less muscular than your pics. I just got ‘smaller’.

    NOT LIFTING WEIGHTS AT ALL – BIG MISTAKE…

    I agree with some of your historic comments about BMR, and calorie intake but disagree with stating generally that one should eat below BMR. There’s a study stating that the MAXIMUM energy body fat can contribute towards daily energy needs is 31.4 kcals per pound.

    Clearly this allows very overweight individuals to diet hard, but as you get leaner you need to be far more aware of your daily macro’s and cals. It’s the law of diminishing returns.

    What do you think?

    Steve

  4. steve.philp Says:
    September 28th, 2010 at 2:32 am

    Please ignore my spelling mistakes!

  5. johnbarban Says:
    September 28th, 2010 at 10:55 am

    Steve,

    I’m currently around 180lbs. Not sure what you’re referring to with that research. Do you know the citation…and you stated “per pound”…of what? Body weight? lean body mass?

    I wouldn’t put much stock in that research. As for BMR…just think of energy expenditure instead. But most people don’t burn much energy past their bmr, therefore eating below bmr is critical to weight loss.

    There are definitely limits to the amount of calories we can burn in a day and there is some good research to show where these limits are…it also becomes slightly more difficult to manage it as you approach low bodyfat percentages…but in general there is really no other way to lose bodyfat besides a caloric deficit, you can choose to create that deficit with less calories or more exercise or some combo of both…it’s likely that as you get towards your lower bodyfat percentages a combo might work best.

    JB

  6. steve.philp Says:
    September 29th, 2010 at 3:11 am

    John, for you info:

    When I started dieting last summer I was about 182 lbs and 25%BF. LBM approx 139 lbs. At my leanest (early Nov) I was about 154 lbs LBM about 137lbs.

    At my smallest (late Jan) I was 146lbs LBM about 131 lbs.
    I had continued with my ‘diet’ looking to stay under 1400 kcals per day. My maintainance reqs would have been approx 2400 kcals daily so i was in a perpetual 1000 kcal daily defecit (give or take).

    At 154 lbs, my fat stores could only give up 450kcals per day, 650kcals came from elsewhere (LBM). At that rate, I’d have lost just under 1 lb per week of LBM, and just under a pound of fat – Equal losses.

    Removing the Christmas food binge (put on 3lb) and my birthday in Jan, I’d say this is pretty much an accurate equation.

    In fact I would say that as soon as someone reaches 11-12% BF, they need to be having no more than a 500 kcal deficit.

  7. johnbarban Says:
    September 29th, 2010 at 9:57 am

    Steve,

    Were you doing any weight training during this process?

    JB

  8. steve.philp Says:
    September 29th, 2010 at 10:53 am

    None at all. Body weight stuff. Craig Ballantyne’s crazy 8 body weight circuit about 4 times p/w and running twice a week. Each workout burning about 400 kcals.

    Steve

  9. johnbarban Says:
    September 29th, 2010 at 11:24 am

    Steve,

    From what I have seen in the literature it’s likely you wouldn’t have lost any (or minimal) muscle mass if you were doing heavier weights throughout your diet.

    Also keep in mind that “Lean Body Mass” does not equal “Muscle Mass”. It stands to reason that the other compartments that comprise lean body mass such as the various Gastro intestinal tissue, organ tissue and bone also experience some atrophy.

    It also appears that as people diet down they have a diminished capacity to carry/hold water. Water itself records as lean mass with any measurement you choose to use. This alone could account for some of the supposed lean mass loss.

    And as a final note food and some fecal matter also record as lean mass. If you’ve been eating low calorie for an extended period of time you’ve likely regulated down to a lower food and fecal content in your gut/bowel overall. In other words the day you took the first measurement you could simply have had a bit more food and other stuff in you (all of which records as lean mass)

    JB

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