Slogans Versus Nuance

All of the following things are true:

1. If your caloric intake is higher than your caloric expenditure, you will gain weight. If your caloric intake is less, you will lose weight. This simple formula, “Calories In < Calories Out = Weight Loss” is entirely and universally true.
2. Your body responds to a variety of conditions by adjusting its caloric expenditures. There are various things that make your body adjust its caloric expenditures downward as a survival mechanism. If your body thinks it’s starving, it’s an evolutionary advantage to adjust its energy expenditures downward.
3. The above means that sometimes you can start dieting but then stop losing weight, or even gaining weight.
4. That statement does not mean that the first statement was incorrect!

Here’s why I bring this up: This particular argument has really obnoxious people on both sides. Smug gym bros like to say “Calories in, calories out” as a slogan, telling anyone who hasn’t lost weight that they’re simply eating too much. And then equally obnoxious fat positivity crusaders say things like “The body doesn’t do math!”

I happened to overhear someone arguing against the “calories in/calories out” position by citing the various ways the body will respond to diets or lowered caloric intake with things like metabolic adaptation (i.e. using less of the body’s resources in response to a perceived scarcity in the environment). And like… yeah, the body does that. But that just means you have to consider both halves of the calorie equation!

In other words: it really, really is always “calories in/calories out,” and that’s sometimes hard to do because the body will respond with lower “calories in” by lowering “calories out,” and that’s really a contest between your own willpower and every evolutionary signal your body sends. So it’s simple, but not easy.

That’s the nuance. But I’ve never heard either side of this argument acknowledge the other. (For the record, I have zero dog in this fight. Unless you’re me or my children, I don’t care how much you weigh, and I never will.) But that’s because both sides are using this as a culture war fought with slogans, not a nuanced search for understanding.

And that’s the real lesson today. Virtually every argument you hear isn’t about the thing. It’s about the culture of the two sides. It’s points for your tribe. Don’t get lost in it.