Originally Posted by
AlmostTrick
Agreed. The typical American diet is not a healthy one.
Agreed. With the abundance of cheap, calorie/fat dense foods at our disposal it is quiet easy to eat more calories than moderate exercise can burn off.
Do you really believe more than a tiny amount of the over weight persons in our modern society have cut fat out of their diets for any substantial period? Heck no. The junk foods most eat are quite high in fat... and often high in "bad" carbs too, as you point out. "Good" slower burning carbs do not make one fat.
Just as fat was given a bad name many years ago, now carbs have. Yet there are more overweight people, including kids, than ever before. Our bodies need carbs, and fats, and other nutrients. The key to maintaining proper weight is eating a wide variety of healthy choices... and limiting the unhealthy ones.
From my observation the formula calories in and energy expended is not all what can make weight go up or down. I believe the environment can cause psychological effects which causes physical effects - weight gain or loss. Then there is the change in the time fat is present in the blood - aerobic exercise greatly shortens the time, like by 90%. So it has nothing to do with total calories in and energy expenditure but rather aerobic energy expenditure causing the fat levels to drop very significantly.