A Chemical Hunger: Mysteries

>I take great issue with you saying 'they claim to starve themselves'.

I'm being pretty overt that when people make that claim they are often being dishonest. They know they are eating too much. There are psychological issues underlying this, but if someone tells you how little they eat yet they're gaining weight, they're likely lying.

> And, despite your claim, there are also demonstrable differences in the base metabolic rate between people.

Nowhere did I contest this. Men have more muscle mass than women and are generally larger. But between people otherwise equal, claims about varying metabolisms are largely bullshit. It is magnitudes less of an influence than it is held as.

I've been cited as a "fast metabolism" examples many times in my life. I skip meals constantly, can manage to go through a movie without eating a bucket of butter-soaked popcorn and a jug of coke, etc. I eschew all of those things. Then there's a bbq and I eat two burgers and the upper BMI people all gather around to tell the tale about how easy it is for me, what with my "fast metabolism". It's horseshit. It's destructive, self-enabling nonsense.

Another guy mentioned that when his belt size starts getting tight he knows it's time to cut back. Precisely my tactic. There have been a few times where suddenly slacks are a little tight and it isn't a signal that I need to buy new clothes or go to the next rung, but instead means it's time that I skip the occasional snack.

Weighing of components. Keep digital kitchen scales on the table and use them all the time. E.g. if you eat breakfast cereal, put the bowl on scales, press button, put in cereal, remember the weight, press button, pour milk, remember the weight. The same for everything you put on a pan. Don't forget to include the cooking oil, it makes a surprisingly large contribution to the total calories of the meal. If you're sharing meals, then you know the "total calories" you put in it, weigh the final product (it generally will be significantly different than what you put in) and weigh what's on your plate - so you know that you ate e.g. 40% of the total. It doesn't take much time (unless your scales suck), but it does take much attention and looks weird. It's a pain in the ass when starting out, but becomes easier when I can just reuse the numbers from when I made the same thing last week.

Some types of meals are easier than others, though - e.g. if you make a large pot of "non-uniform" soup for the whole family for multiple meals, then it's going to be an estimate. It's socially inappropriate to do it at some situations (e.g. if you're visiting your grandma who's providing a meal), but on most days you should be able to track how much calories you got on that single day.

Some restaurants will provide numbers for their dishes, some won't. For takeaway/home orders weighing gives a good estimate - if you don't have the numbers for some kebab or sushi or pizza, then you can assume that it's going to be the same per unit of weight as someone else's similar product, what matters is how much of double cheese pepperoni pizza you eat, not the particular pizza maker.

I oversimplified but yes almost.

> Determining whether or not fiber calories should “count” depends on context and requires some background. Calories are a basic unit of energy that measure, among other things, how much burning power they provide to the body. Fats, proteins, carbohydrates and alcohol provide the body with energy or calories. The traditional estimates are that 1 gram of fat provides 9 calories, each gram of either proteins and carbohydrates provide 4 calories, and a gram of alcohol provides 7 calories. However, this doesn’t account for differences in how well food is digested and the nutrients available to the body. Poorly digested foods may not release as much energy for the body to use. This is particularly important in the case of fibers.

> Dietary fibers are complex carbohydrates, so some people estimate that they provide 4 calories per gram just like any other carbohydrate. However, others say that calories from fiber don’t count since your body’s digestive enzymes can’t break down fiber. However, fibers differ in how well they are digested or how much energy is available to the body. Some fibers, called soluble fibers, either absorb water and become gels or dissolve in water and reach the intestine where they are digested by bacteria. As they are digested by bacteria, soluble fibers produce short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that provide your body energy. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that fibers fermented by bacteria provide about 2 calories per gram of fiber. Insoluble fibers travel to the intestine with very little change. Instead of being digested, insoluble fibers increase bulk, soften stool, and shorten transit time through the gastro-intestinal tract. Because these fibers are not digested at all, the FDA estimates that insoluble fibers do not contribute any calories.

I didn’t refer to sucrose. I said starches which are popular alternative carbohydrate sources to sugar. As far as sugars go, dextrose and maltose are much more easily digested than fructose.

> I'm being pretty overt that when people make that claim they are often being dishonest. They know they are eating too much. There are psychological issues underlying this, but if someone tells you how little they eat yet they're gaining weight, they're likely lying.

The fact that they are overeating doesn't mean that they aren't also feeling very hungry, truthfully. And again, neither you nor I know if it's a psychological issue or metabolic or endocrine or anything else (or a combination).

These are the two key facts that the article is discussing and you are completely ignoring in favor of feeling superior about your self control ("I can go through a movie without eating a bucket of butter-filled popcorn").