How do you "prove" something?

God all this "calorie myth" stuff that blew up during the week is doing my head in. Nutrition must be the only field where literally anyone can decide they're an expert based on reading a couple of articles on the internet and maybe one of the books they refer to, also all written by self appointed experts with no qualification on the subject.

Actually climate science would be the other one, apparently. All the qualified people who have made meteorology their life's work have got it wrong, and the deniers are the ones who really know what's going on. It's all a conspiracy, innit?

SO... god help me. Everyone has their own idea or their own opinion. I suppose that's fair enough. For nutrition, everyone is entitled to make the decision to follow whatever strategy or ideal they feel is best for them. However, that doesn't give them the right to insist that their way is the "only" way that's healthy, and present their opinions as "proven facts" to convince other people. It would be fine to say "well I think this is quite sensible and it has worked out nicely for me, so I do recommend that you consider trying it".

That's never what anyone says though, is it?

So to PROVE something, what's required seems to vary on the setting.

In a court of law, if you're the prosecutor / Queen's counsel or... you know... depending on what country you're in I think they're called different titles. If you're the law talkin' guy trying to put an alleged crook away, you can't just stand out there and say "Isn't it obvious? He's responsible. Everyone knows that, the Counsel for Defence probably still thinks the Earth is flat too! lololol"

Nope that aint going to cut it. You have to present all the evidence, and then there's a highly educated expert on the law who's job is to poke holes in all of your evidence. You have to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" in order to get a conviction. The standard of proof is quite high.

In real science... I'm happy to have a real scientist correct me on any of this if I'm mistaken but my understanding is, to prove something is correct, what you actually have to do is set out to prove that it is incorrect.

For example... we have a theory that if we do AB&C, the result will be XYZ. We test that theory and as expected, the result is XYZ. Does this prove that AB&C (and only AB&C) causes XYZ? Not necessarily. To prove that this is the case, we'd have to try to re-create the same result in other ways, without success. So if you get to the point where you can say "we tried literally everything, and AB&C was the only thing that produced the result XYZ...." then what? Is it proven?

Not yet. My observation of reading a few studies is that the conclusion might be something like "the evidence suggests that XYZ is indeed caused by AB&C", which is still a safe distance from a statement more like "this is now proven and anyone who thinks otherwise is a deluded idiot". Right?

But we're still not done. Scientific method then requires a "peer review" process, where... I believe it is three other, independent scientists will review the work and see if there is anything wrong with the way the study was conducted, that would cast doubt over the results. Again, the standard of proof is really very high indeed.

Now let's get back to talking about nutrition. There is so much confusion in ideas about diet and nutrition especially related to weight loss, and it is because people are so eager to inflict their opinions on others as "indisputable facts" that only an idiot wouldn't know already. Their standard of proof is much lower.

For example "I cut out bread and lost weight. Therefore bread makes you fat, and you can't lose weight without cutting out bread". For this to be true, you'd have to ask "well, has anyone ever lost weight while still eating bread?" and of course the answer is yes. Finding more people who've cut out bread and lost weight doesn't strengthen the position. Substitute bread with whatever other supposed single culprit people like to blame, be it grains, GMOs, sugars or whatever.

The bottom line here is total calories. There are people who have lost weight by cutting out a particular food or food type, but it is not proof that this particular food choice is to blame for all cases of overweight or that cutting it out is required in order for weight loss to be successful. If removing a particular choice of foods from your daily eating habits means that you are now no longer consuming an excessive amount of calories, you'll lose weight.

Appropriate vs inappropriate total calories will always be the primary determining factor in body weight. How you arrive at an appropriate intake is up to you, although obviously I'd suggest learning your requirements and planning to meet them with your choice of foods is a better strategy than trial and error through restriction of food choices.

Whichever way you do it is up to you, and is fine. But it's not fine to present this approach as a proven "only" way of doing things, which disproves all other approaches and ideas, and it is far from OK to claim that this is "backed by science".

Another disturbing trend I (and others) have noticed recently is the claim that something is "proven by science", supported by links to research which has actually reached the opposite conclusion. You have to worry then... are these people just mistaken and lacking in some comprehension skill, or are they deliberately setting out to confuse and deceive the public?

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The problem with diets

i can't remember where i found this.
Credit goes to the creator.

All diets either work by creating a calorific deficit. Some people out there will talk a load of bollocks about how it's not the calories, it's how different foods effect your body in different ways and a whole bunch of hocus pocus science fiction type explanations... but that's ... did I mention that it's bollocks?

It comes down to calories.

If cutting out certain foods means that you end up consuming less calories over all, you'll probably lose some weight. It doesn't mean that those foods were "bad" though or that no one should consume them in any amount. It just means that you had a diet that was in excess of your requirements, and by cutting out... let's say bread... by cutting out bread you ended up with a diet that was not in excess of your requirements.

It is about total energy intake, and it is only about individual food choices in the context of how well they fit into eating habits that make for a not-excessive total intake. It certainly isn't about specific ingredients (fructose, gluten, aspartame and so on) in any circumstances other than due to a diagnosed medical intolerance, either.

The way I do things... it would be more correct to say "it is about total energy balance". We all know by now, just cutting calorific intake lower and lower while pushing energy expenditure higher and higher is a poor strategy that will eventually backfire. What we need to do is quite simply consume the appropriate amount of energy (in an appropriate ratio of protein to carbs to fats) to maintain our goal body weight, goal body condition (aka results from training) and adequately fuel our lifestyle and activity level.

So the problem with diets... whether that is a diet out of a book or a meal plan you might buy from a trainer on the internet or at the gym... if it's just a list of "foods to eat" and another list of "foods not to eat"... you're really not paying any attention to that balance of energy which is crucial in achieving and maintaining long term results. The foods you're supposed to eat might all be tremendously sensible, nutritious choices, but if you are still left over or under fueled you will not see results from training.

The worst danger in my experience is with the difficulty of adhering to such a strict plan, and the demonisation of different food choices. It becomes more of a matter of willpower and discipline in avoiding the banned foods, rather than just a simple matter of physiology. When people fail to see results due to being under fueled despite managing to adhere to the rules and restrictions of the diet, what option do they have? Eat even cleaner, whatever that means? Paleo harder, whatever that means? Just smaller portions of the allowed choices? All disastrous choices for someone who is already not providing significant resources for their body to function on, as evidenced by the lack of results from training.

Now, if they are not adhering to the rules and restrictions of the diet 100% of the time and not seeing results, the usual interpretation and in fact the message I have seen from various sources is that this is a personal failing of their strength of character in not being "good" enough to stick to the rules. AKA "they didn't want it bad enough".

This is offensive and incorrect. The issue is quite simply with providing sufficient resources to produce results from training at goal weight. Putting the blame on one choice of meal last Tuesday that wasn't on the "allowed" list is ridiculous and dangerous.

Eat this, don't eat that. That about describes most of the diet and weight loss plans out there, doesn't it?

That isn't what you need. At best, you're looking at an "it might work if you stick with it" plan, but there's certainly no reason to believe success is assured. There's a much greater risk of ending up under fueled, unsuccessful, and developing a bunch of negative beliefs about different food choices.

To be successful, you simply need appropriate target ranges of total calories, calories from protein, calories from fats, and calories from carbohydrates.

I say "target ranges" because you don't need to nail some specific pin-point amount. If you're overweight, you just need to make an effort get it in the ballpark as often as you can, and you'll make progress. At advanced levels more accuracy and consistency will come into it, but you'll have had lots of practice by that point and will be able to fine tune without too much fuss when the time comes.

You do not need someone to "tell you what to eat".

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All this talk about "calories aren't created equal" just sounds like a dick measuring contest to me.

Man... didn't this just blow up all over again despite being settled a billion times already.

Sometimes it is just morons with literally no idea about anything, but sometimes it is people who actually know their stuff, but they turn the issue into some kind of dick measuring contest where they want to score points like "oh but I guess you just don't know about bioavailablity and the thermal effect of food"

cue exhausted look on my face.

This is all stuff that makes at best, a fraction of a difference.

Let's take me and my imaginary identical triplet brothers. Let's say we all follow the same training program and we're all in the same lack of shape to start with.

• Triplet #1 has no calorie targets but focuses on all the "other" supposedly more important stuff. Clean eating and what not.
• Triplet #2 has appropriate calorie and macro targets and hits them with all the best choices of foods taking all that other stuff into account.
• Then there's me on exactly the same targets but completely abusing the concept like the lazy, belligerent cunt that I am with convenience foods, processed stuff and bumping up the macros with whey protein shakes.

What difference in results would you REALISTICALLY expect?

• Triplet 1... impossible to guestimate. He could still be consuming excess calories, OR (more common in my professional experience) could actually be falling way short of sufficient fueling to see results from training.
   
• Triplet 2... if trying to stick to such a rigid, strict regime doesn't send him batshit mental or make him rage quit, you'd expect very good results indeed.
   
• Triplet 3 (that'd be me) on exactly the same macro breakdown as triplet 2 but not from as "clean" sources... are you REALLY saying you'd expect significantly less visible results or reduced performance at training? Like SIGNIFICANTLY less? 

The way I often see it written up on facebook and elsewhere, it's not even just "significantly less results". It's as if they actually think "complete and utter failure to make any progress whatsoever" unless you've fine tuned all this extra stuff in at 100% accuracy.

Nonsense.

A calorie = a calorie. It is a unit of measurement.

If you're going to say "calories aren't equal" you might as well also say "inches aren't equal". Although come to think of it... if you're that concerned with trying to show off some entirely unhelpful piece of information for the sake of being more "technically correct" than the next guy like it's all a dick measuring contest to you... well.. yeah, you probably don't think an inch is an inch either.

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