Confused...too much vegan info

[Dream Sphere]

You should really not include "calories out-calories in" in there.
That is a fact and above reproach .

What do you mean by "calories out-calories in" being incorrect as you seem to imply, and what exactly are you referring to with the quoted phrase? If you could explain it, I may be able to understand how it's a fact, as you claim it to be.

It has nothing to do with overall health only with weight gain or weight loss.
It's physics, not medicine or ethics.
This is a huge pet peeve for me.

IF you doubt it, that means your body is the manifestation of Perpetual Motion. This means people with this magical genetics could be put on hamster wheels and be a net producer of energy and launch us into a new age....

Doesn't excessive weight gain increase the likelihood of adverse health conditions, like diabetes?

I'm unsure of who exactly you were responding to, so maybe what I'm saying doesn't relate to what you had an issue with, but... When I was talking about finding foods with good calorie to nutrient ratios (more nutrients for each calorie being better) that's because I assume that the person wanted some different things, those being; to reach their recommended levels for all of the essential nutrients, and to do that without going over the range of calories that they would want to eat in a day as to maintain their weight, as I assumed they weren't interested in gaining weight or having to do a lot of exercise to compensate for surplus calories.

Likewise, I would also apply a similar recommendation with regards to the amount of volume which someone as an individual could eat in a day. Since it may be difficult to eat enough broccoli (if you were to only eat it) to get enough particular nutrients, then I would recommend eating foods which take up less volume but are nutritionally dense. Like, broccoli has a great calorie to nutrient ratio, but the volume to (some of) the nutrients isn't so good. If they could only eat 400 calories worth of broccoli as it takes up so much room in their stomach, then that would be a case to recommend alternative foods to balance their diet with, since a 400 calorie diet for an individual whose metabolism burns an average 2000 calories a day would lead to them losing too much weight over a stretch of time to the point where it could be quite unhealthy along with how 400 calories of broccoli wouldn't meet certain nutrient requirements.

(Edit: for anyone who may have seen earlier, I realize that the initial caloric amount of broccoli I originally put down (900 cals, lol) would be an insane amount of volume, and actually would be excellent nutritionally, I mean 680 cals would be approximately 2 kilograms according to wikipedia, so I've adjusted the numbers to better reflect the point I was trying to make.)

I intended for that part of my first post here to be about better utilizing the capacity in which they want to consume foods, for them to better realize their nutritional and other diet related goals (within the realms of what seems practical to me,) it does not need to be just in regards to calories, although I realize that I mostly focused on that.

I'm also not sure where the perpetual motion machine reference fits in there. I wasn't saying that a person just eats 2000 calories once and somehow manages to maintain themselves just on those. I was referring to the average amount that a person would need to eat on a daily basis to maintain their weight, as they do burn through that energy of course. I just meant to recommend against eating 3000 calories every day to get the adequate amounts of essential nutrients as that would require a high metabolism/exercise for the person to maintain their weight.

So, as I said earlier, I'm certainly not an expert, and am posting this more as getting my understanding out there as to hopefully learn something from what others have to say, and hopefully contribute to helping whoever (including the OP of course) may be reading this through the discussion that's had.


Edit: I don't want to make this go very off-topic, so maybe this would be better to discuss in some other thread, but...

I clearly remember Dr. Michael Greger referencing a study on obesity where they even controlled for the amounts of calories consumed, and Vegans even still had lower body mass indexes when compared to others eating the same amount of calories. Although, he touched on how that may be from a virus in chicken which had something to do with that. This is just a guess of mine, but would it be from how the virus may effect the person's metabolism and that being why? If anyone knows more about this, I would be interested in learning more because of how even when they controlled for calories and other factors like exercise and such that there was still a BMI discrepancy. (I should get into the habit of looking into this stuff on a more frequent basis by myself, so I'll do a little research on this too.)

[brimstoneSalad]

You will gain weight if you consume more calories than you burn, and lose if you burn more than you eat. The latter is more reliable, because consumption isn't always efficient (we poop out some calories).

But there's more to the picture too:

Some foods may slow the metabolism, reducing the amount of calories burnt, while others may promote a faster metabolism and increase the rate at which calories are burnt.

This metabolic effect isn't as strong, though, so it's not always noticeable or very statistically significant unless you're studying certain foods in a tightly controlled context.
Such as, calories from nuts are apparently better than calories from processed sugar, since nuts may have some things in them that increase metabolism to burn off the extra faster.

[Dream Sphere]

Is it that a calorie as a unit is always the same value, just the foods providing the calories/energy may also come with things which speed up or slow down the metabolism and how it processes the calories?

Seeing as how it seems that broccoli could provide adequate amounts of nutrition for most (if not all?) of the nutrients that wouldn't just be supplemented (like b12 and d3) but has well below 2000 calories in that amount. Would it be important to make sure that your calories are within a particular range as to not be lacking energy, despite already having consumed a recommended amount of protein and other nutrients from the broccoli? (Although the amount of polyunsaturated fat may be lacking still, I'm not sure.) Basically, would it be wise to try to eat more after all that broccoli to just get more calories, since they provide energy, despite the broccoli having great amounts of so many nutrients, would just getting like 1000 calories worth each day (for a person who would normally be maintained on a 2000 cal diet) result in a lack of energy and lead to having not enough fat/glycogen being in the person's body?

[brimstoneSalad]

Is it that a calorie as a unit is always the same value, just the things providing the calories/energy may also come with things which speed up or slow down the metabolism and how it processes the calories?

Yes.

Seeing as how it seems that broccoli could provide adequate amounts of nutrition for most (if not all?) of the nutrients that wouldn't just be supplemented (like b12 and d3) but has well below 2000 calories in that amount. Would it be important to make sure that your calories are within a particular range as to not be lacking energy, despite already having consumed a recommended amount of protein and other nutrients from the broccoli?

Yes. Or you could just eat MORE broccoli, and get more than the recommended amount of nutrients. More is OK. Less is bad.

would just getting like 1000 calories worth each day (for a person who would normally be maintained on a 2000 cal diet) result in a lack of energy and lead to having not enough fat/glycogen being in the person's body?

Yes. You would eventually die. Your body would start metabolizing the protein, and then your own muscles for energy.

[ohokaythen]

All I'm saying is that calories in-calories out is physics. The energy principle. 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics. It helps you understand how calculate how to lose, maintain or gain mass. Sure it is useful in healthy living as in that you don't want to be overweight or underweight.

Thanks brimstonesalad for getting into it.

Key is; it is absolutely impossible, in the physical world that we currently occupy, to maintain or gain weight while using more calories than you consume. Anyone who claim otherwise are underestimating calories consumed and overestimating calories burned.
Disprove this and I can guarantee you a $1 million prize and a handshake with the King of Sweden

[ohokaythen]

would just getting like 1000 calories worth each day (for a person who would normally be maintained on a 2000 cal diet) result in a lack of energy and lead to having not enough fat/glycogen being in the person's body?

Layman term is starving to death.

[jraejen]

Thanks, garrethdsouza! I've known about cronometer for a while (haven't used it too much, but I'll start), but I didn't know about the other sites which sound really helpful.

Stuff to avoid is saturated fat especially coconut oil and palm oil,

Yeah, I lately I've been reading bad things about coconut oil that I didn't know about before (beforehand it was all overwhelmingly good things). I use it and cacao powder to make dark chocolate bars so guess I'll look for a sub for that.

PB is best if you're on a budget.
Otherwise, walnuts are probably the best bet

Sweet. I love walnuts as well. Gonna buy myself a good food processor so I can make my own butters.

You should really not include "calories out-calories in" in there.

Yeah, not sure if you're referencing me or not...but I was looking for arguments for/against some vegans who eat as much as they want (typically fruits) and don't care about such high caloric intakes.

Can anyone point me toward info about whole wheats/grains? I'm gonna do some searching after posting this but if anyone has info on hand it'd be appreciated.

[ohokaythen]

You should really not include "calories out-calories in" in there.

Yeah, not sure if you're referencing me or not...but I was looking for arguments for/against some vegans who eat as much as they want (typically fruits) and don't care about such high caloric intakes.

.

Right, OK. Well some people can eat a lot of calories and not gain weight because of their metabolism it "runs right through them". It does not count for much though.
Typically these people overestimates the calories they eat. I assume you get these claim from youtube frugivores etc?
My take is that they overestimate the calories they consume, at the same time typically being long distance running/cycling athletes.
Durianrider for example. Skinny as all hell yet adds refined sugar to his diet. Do note he rides extreme amount of distances each day (consume a lot of energy!)

[jraejen]

I assume you get these claim from youtube frugivores etc?

Yeah, exactly. Makes sense though. When I first heard of the limitless calories I thought it sounded stupid, but the ones promoting it look to be fairly fit/healthy so I was interested as to why

[Dream Sphere]

All I'm saying is that calories in-calories out is physics. The energy principle. 1st and 2nd law of thermodynamics. It helps you understand how calculate how to lose, maintain or gain mass. Sure it is useful in healthy living as in that you don't want to be overweight or underweight.

Thanks brimstonesalad for getting into it.

Key is; it is absolutely impossible, in the physical world that we currently occupy, to maintain or gain weight while using more calories than you consume. Anyone who claim otherwise are underestimating calories consumed and overestimating calories burned.
Disprove this and I can guarantee you a $1 million prize and a handshake with the King of Sweden

OK, yeah I agree with that. I should have thought more about what you said here since then I may have been able to figure out what you were referring to. It seems like it should've been obvious, but as with what I'll say next...

would just getting like 1000 calories worth each day (for a person who would normally be maintained on a 2000 cal diet) result in a lack of energy and lead to having not enough fat/glycogen being in the person's body?

Layman term is starving to death.

I tend to speak my mind a lot, with many half-baked thoughts. I'm going to be putting more effort into condensing my thoughts/texts and work on clearly thinking through what I'm saying and what I'm replying to as to not have this confusion again.