Originally Posted by
Heathpack
Oh sorry.
I thought you said "people" were obsessed with calories. I didn't realize by "people" you were referring to yourself.
Obviously I'm being sarcastic. But the truth is what works for people is what works. Not paying attention to calories works for you- great. For others (like myself) being mindful of calories is what works. Why label someone else as obsessed when they clearly are exhibiting nothing remotely resembling obsession?
Different things work for different people because- duh- people are different. My paradigm is different than yours- I'm trying to lose weight and build muscle in the context of not having much testosterone and a small body size dictating an overall low total daily caloric intake meaning that it behooves me to pay careful attention to what I eat to ensure I don't restrict protein or micronutrients in the context of attempting to restrict calories.
You have abundant testosterone, build muscle more readily, have an overall higher metabolic rate, and are actively training meaning that as long as your diet contains sufficient protein, you have wiggle room from a caloric perspective. Your calorie excess is more likely to wind up as metabolically-active muscle and mine as metabolically-quiet fat.
As to "studies" proving that calorie counting doesn't work, who is the subject of those studies? 50 something women actively training multiple days per week for bike racing? Probably not. Lots of studies also prove that its essentially impossible to lose weight, and we know that is not true. So: grain of salt with the results of "studies". You really have to read the full text article and see if the authors' data supports their conclusions and how widely the results can be extrapolated before applying to your own circumstances.
Did you read the conclusions of those studies? They go into how the calorie counts listed on foods aren't accurate, and yes exactly how different people burn calories at different rates, and indeed how things other than calories can cause weight gain. And on my point about why "people are obsessed with calories" (which wasn't the post you quoted), I have almost zero faith in the "calories burned" number returned by any device, not leastwise because they don't always match and some are blatantly insane. So we have inaccurate numbers on calories consumed, inaccurate numbers on calories burned, and not a study available that shows long-term weight loss via calorie restriction. And unless I miss my guess, the failures of Weight Watchers under their old calorie-based system indicates that it isn't just a thing for young men.
And FWIW, when I tried not eating as much as I wanted... my testosterone plummeted. I think the test number was 201, though it was a few years ago. I fixed it by finally giving up most grains and getting a lot more high-quality animal fat and eating until I was actually satisfied; the retest a few months later was 598.
Sir Jackie Stewart once said "you can get away with calling anyone anything except a lousy lover or a bad driver". Much like Hemingway's quote about sports and games, it's correct in concept but incomplete: no one wants to hear diet advice either, so I'll drop this back-and-forth for the sake of the thread's tone.