THE 3500 CALORIE MYTH

This was part of an interesting article that I found on WebMD.com.  I actually had thought that the 3500 calorie rule was 'settled science'  (you know, like global warming....)

OK, I am absolutely not being serious here.... THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS SETTLED SCIENCE.  Unless, your scientific beliefs are based on some kind of quasi religion, science is never settled. (If you think science can be settled, go back to your 9th grade general science textbook and look up how many planets there were back in the old days - a book published today will give a different answer.  SPOILER ALERT: Although the new settled science will list one planet less, no planets were destroyed by the Borg or Darth Vader's Death Star.) As new discoveries, are made, so-called settled science can become quite unsettled.  If anyone argues a scientific point and uses as their argument that the science is settled - you can be sure that you are talking to Al Gore or a left-wing college professor or someone equally ignorant. The most agreed upon scientific theories are born from research not self-important guru politicians or polls. The next time someone tries to prove a point advising you that 97% of scientists agree on anything - just know that you are talking to someone who does not know the first thing about science. Science is determined by hypothesis, and experimentation - not the editorial page of the New York Times. That is way more pontificating than necessary for today... Today, I am going to discuss something that I admit I did think was settled science - and like much of settled science - research has unsettled it.

NEWS FLASH....FROM WebMD (I have reproduced just the beginning of the article from their website)
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Do You Have to Cut 3,500 Calories to Lose a Pound?
The idea that dieters need to cut this many calories -- with diet, exercise or both -- to lose 1 pound of weight comes from an influential scientific paper published in 1958. Max Wishnofsky, MD, a doctor who lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., tried to sum up everything we knew about how calories are stored by the body. He concluded that when the body is in a steady caloric state -- meaning it isn’t fasting or starving -- extra calories will be stored as fat, and it would take 3,500 extra calories to create a pound of fat. In that same steady state, he also said it would take a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose a pound of weight. For decades, the “Wishnofsky Rule” has been math that determined dieters live by.

The trouble is that it’s wrong.

The 3,500-calorie rule doesn’t work because the body adjusts to weight loss. It quickly decreases the number of calories it needs to maintain its new, lighter size, says Corby Martin, PhD, director of the Ingestive Behavior Laboratory at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA. That means weight loss slows down over time. People who expect to drop a pound for every 3,500 calories they cut will soon become frustrated when the scale doesn’t cooperate.

Let’s say a dieter knows they need to eat 2,500 calories a day to maintain their current weight. But they want to slim down. So they decide to shave 500 calories off their daily intake. According to the Wishnofsky Rule, after about a week of doing that, they should lose a pound.

“For the first week or two, the 3,500 calorie-per-pound rule kind of works, roughly, but after the first couple of weeks it doesn’t work,” Martin says.

Here’s why: In 3 or 4 weeks, you need less food to maintain that new, svelter shape.

The good news is that researchers have been working hard to update Wishnofsky’s formula. There are new calculators, like the Body Weight Planner available from the NIH and the Weight Loss Predictor from Pennington. Give them a few key details, like your sex, age, weight, height, activity level, and the date you want to hit your goal, and they’ll give you a more realistic daily calorie goal to get you there.

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In the next couple of days we are going to explore the BODY WEIGHT PLANNER from NIH as well as the WEIGHT LOSS PREDICTOR from Pennington.
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The studies that prove that 3500 calories do not always result in a net gain or loss remind me of a comment that I have heard Dennis Prager, radio host, columnist and book author, say many times on the radio.  "Ever since I attended college, I have been convinced that either “studies” confirm what common sense suggests or that they are mistaken."  Most of us already knew that the 3500 calorie rule could not have been exactly right.  Common sense should have told us, as so many of us already knew from our own experiences, that the 3500 calorie rule was simply was not completely true.
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Your Food Diary For:

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
Safeway Eating Right - Granola Cereal, 1.0 cup	330	66	4	8	300	21
Malt O Meal - Honey Nut Scooters, 150 g	600	120	8	15	1,050	45
	930	186	11	23	1,350	66
L U N C H
American Cheese - Kraft Single Milk..mine, 2 slice (21g)	140	4	9	8	440	2
Eggs - Grade A Large, 3 egg (50g)	210	0	15	18	210	0
Kroger - Deli Sliced Ham, 3 slices	45	2	2	8	488	2
S. Rosen's - 100% Whole Wheat Bread, 1 slice	100	19	1	5	190	3
	495	25	27	39	1,328	7
D I N N E R
Doctor Kracker - Pumpkin Seed Cheddar Crisp Bread, 8 Piece	800	104	36	32	1,200	0
Campbells Home Style Soup - Italian Wedding Soup, 2.5 cup	250	33	6	15	1,025	10
	1,050	137	42	47	2,225	10
S N A C K S
ROBERTO - GRISSINI TORINESI (BREADSTICKS), 16 BREADSTICKS	140	22	3	4	280	0
the Fresh Market - Cranberry Oat Sweet & Savory Crisps, 40 -10 crisp	400	80	8	10	575	30
	540	102	11	14	855	30
Totals	3,015	450	91	122	5,758	113
Your Daily Goal	2,564	320	85	129	2,300	96
Remaining	-451	-129	-5	7	-3,457	-17
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
	*You've earned 634 extra calories from exercise today

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Your Exercise Diary for:

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
MATRIX TREADMILL	75	730
MFP iOS calorie adjustment	N/A	-96
Daily Total / Goal	76 / 30	634 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	261 / 210	4,739 / 4,130

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total calories consumed 3015 calories

total calories (75 minutes treadmill) 730 calories

total net calories 2285 calories

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fitbit day 124

14747 steps
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