Hey everyone, hope you’re all well. I had a few quick questions regarding nutrition that I was hoping someone could enlighten me on. First of all, what exactly causes one to gain weight? The way I’ve heard it, if you consume more calories than you burn, you’ll gain weight. That confuses me. Where do sugar and saturated fats come into all of this? If you consume 100g of a chocolate bar, you absorb 550 calories, compared to 600 calories in 100g of peanut butter. In other words, chocolate has less calories than peanut butter. I’m aware that the latter is full of good fats, protein & fiber, which helps you gain muscle, but purely from a fat gain perspective. Yes, peanut butter will leave you feeling fuller, but theoretically speaking let’s say you were to content yourself with the chocolate bar. I guess what Im trying to say is, which are more detrimental? Calories, or sugar/saturated fats? I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question, I’m not too knowledgeable in the field of nutrition and am really curious as to how exactly the process works. Thanks!
Not a stupid question! Nutrition is a big topic.
tl;dr, calories are the unit of measure we use to label food with their energy output.
The calorie is then broken down into macro-nutrients: carbs, fat, and protein.
Within food are also micronutrients: vitamins and minerals
I made a more detailed post about this over here you might find interesting! I detail in an easy to understand way of this exact question but using ice cream instead of chocolate.
“Calories” are just our measurement of energy in the body. Everything you eat (except fiber, causey you don’t digest it) can be broken down into energy.
Those energy amounts differ depending on what you’re eating. You have 3 big nutrient groups (or “macro” nutrients), which are your fats, carbs, and proteins. These make up the majority of the calories you consume. Carbs and proteins give ~4 calories per gram while fats give ~9 calories per gram. So in terms of bang-for-buck, fats knock it out of the park when you’re trying to put on calories. This is why peanut butter, high in fat, has more calories than a chocolate bar made of sugar/carbs. Side note, alcohol is ~7 calories per gram, something to keep in mind when you’re 5 beers deep on a sat night.
In terms of weight loss, you want to rephrase that in your mind to be “fat/energy” loss. How do you lose energy from a powerbank when it’s full? Gotta use it up. Your body works in the same way. Body fat is just long term stored energy. You can either burn it through exercise and/or maintain a caloric deficit (consuming less than you use on a daily basis) to slowly burn through that excess bank of energy in your body. Most people find a combination of exercise paired with a slight caloric deficit to be the most effective and easiest to stick to. There’s a good saying in the fitness community “you can’t outrun a bad diet”. If you’re diet is shit, no matter how much exercise you’re doing, you’re not going to see the best results you can.
So what should you do? What exercises are the most “fat burning”? What is the best diet to lose weight ASAP?? These kinds of questions are how fitness “gurus” sell their bs products and shit to you. At the end of the day, the best diet is the one that you can stick to in the long term, that has a good balance of all food groups (protein, carbs, fats, and plenty of fruits and vegetables), that can provide you energy through the day and fuel your workouts. And again, the best workout to do is the one that you can stick to. If you don’t enjoy going to the gym, then don’t. Go for a run, bike, swim, go rock climbing, hiking, etc.
This is a great article I remember reading a while back that explains the basics of macronutrients and how to use them to calculate your caloric deficit for fat loss: https://physiqonomics.com/fat-loss/.
Strictly speaking, calories in < calories out is the golden rule for weight loss. You can stop right there if weight loss is your only goal and you want to keep things as simple as possible.
That said, the nutrition of those calories (500 calories of ice cream vs 500 calories of vegetables) will have varying impacts on your body: how full you feel, your energy levels, your mood, skin, etc. Water weight retention is a thing too- so be wary of frequent visits to the scale, because in my experience that can be detrimental and a real motivation killer. Dieting is a marathon, not a sprint.
These other commenters are providing good info about macronutrients, which is the next level you’d want to drill down into to be aware of the beneficial or adverse affects of the calories you do decide to take in. Good luck!
Eating unnatural things out of circadian time makes everyone gain weight or have health problems. As much as possible, we must consume the nutrients which are mostly raw and coming directly from the nature, with the right amount-that body needs, at the right times-that sun moves and with “joy”.
>First of all, what exactly causes one to gain weight?
Food has weight. The moment you put that food in your mouth, you’ve gained that much weight.
People talk about calories because a calorie is a unit of energy, extra energy is mostly stored as fat, and fat has weight. Energy and weight are not the same thing, though. You can gain weight by increasing your bone mass, without changing your fat content. The fundamental thing that causes weight gain is mass entering your body faster than it is excreted.