This is pseudoscience. As long as you consume a certain amount of calories and get your daily nutritions, you can eat whatever you want without getting obese. You can still become obese eating 3000 kcals of salad every day without exercising. Of course, healthy caloric intake will only ensure you don't become obese, you'll still be consuming way more fat/carbs than you should if you eat McDonalds, but it is certainly possible to create a "healthy" everyday-McDonalds diet (but you would be changing the meal to the point it won't be recognizable)
Not sure if you're being purposefully ignorant or not so I'm not going to engage this discussion, but for anyone reading, this should be basic dietary knowledge
That "calorie is a calorie", or "every calorie counts", is not a basic dietary knowledge, it's a myth/lie promoted by a food industry.
You can keep believing the ads, or just search the term in google/duckduckgo and spend 5
minutes reading different sources.
Just a few examples (first link from a search engine):
"Fiber. You eat 160 calories in almonds, but you absorb only 130. The fiber in the almonds delays absorption of calories into the bloodstream, delivering those calories to the bacteria in your intestine, which chew them up. Because a calorie is not a calorie.
Protein. When it comes to food, you have to put energy in to get energy out. You have to put twice as much energy in to metabolize protein as you do carbohydrate; this is called the thermic effect of food. So protein wastes more energy in its processing. Plus protein reduces hunger better than carbohydrate. Because a calorie is not a calorie.
Fat. All fats release nine calories per gram when burned. But omega-3 fats are heart-healthy and will save your life, while trans fats clog your arteries, leading to a heart attack. Because a calorie is not a calorie.
Sugar. This is the "big kahuna" of the "big lie." Sugar is not one chemical. It's two. Glucose is the energy of life. Every cell in every organism on the planet can burn glucose for energy. Glucose is mildly sweet, but not very interesting (think molasses). Fructose is an entirely different animal. Fructose is very sweet, the molecule we seek. Both burn at four calories per gram. If fructose were just like glucose, then sugar or high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) would be just like starch. But fructose is not glucose. Because a calorie is not a calorie."
I'm very fascinated by the idea that part of the issue with ultra-processed foods is that the calories are more bioavailable due to the lack of fiber and protein.
3000 kcals of salad is huge in terms of volume, so getting obese is practically impossible on such a diet unless it was drowned in dressing. Bodybuilders that are on a cutting phase actually consume higher volume / lower calories foods to still feel satiated.
Kale is one of the most calorie dense leafy greens and it tops out at 80 kcal per 100 grams, meaning you'd need to eat about 3.7 kilograms of kale to get 3000 kcal.
You're strawmanning here. Parent commenter clearly meant healthy as in containing only "healthy" foods. If you eat 4,000 calories of brown rice, chicken and broccoli a day you will get fat. Colloquially, though, their diet would be called healthy because of it's constituent foods.
Edit: you will get fat assuming you are like most people and do not expend greater than 4k calories / day in total
You're fat because of what you're eating, and how little your moving, sorry dude but that's 100% true. Some of that might be out of your control, but it's reality...
While those are indeed major factors, there are others that come into play. For example, a change in your thyroid behavior can cause a loss/gain in weight without changing anything else.
It was not my intent to say that it's not possible to lose weight when you have a thyroid issue. Rather, my point was that your weight loss/gain is not determined solely by the amount of food and activity in your life. You can maintain the same amount of each and suddenly start gaining/losing weight because of a thyroid issue; or some other reason. But yes, the fact that there _are_ other factors doesn't mean you can't do things to combat/mitigate them. You're right, there.
It’s still early days, but there’s very compelling research around unhealthy gut flora being a significant factor in uncontrollable weight gain. Current hypotheses are essentially that certain bacteria, given free rein in the GI tract, are able to over-signal impulses for nutrition which typically leads to low satiation and high calorie intakes. It’s also hypothesized that gut flora can play a major role in suppressing satiation.
Again, only hypotheses at this time, but the existing data is far from fluffy and there’s a lot more in the pipes.
The most compelling research I’ve seen used various semi-controlled diets (unfortunately diet was indicated but ultimately self reported by subjects, as it didn’t occur strictly in a controlled environment) with some subjects receiving fecal transplants. Those receiving diverse flora from transplants succeeded much better in losing weight and keeping it off some months later. The study needed stricter controls and more subjects, but it’s a fascinating start.
I’ll point out that the cause of the differences in results isn’t necessarily gut flora alone, too — it’s all super preliminary. This comment is mostly just to say “there are other factors, we just aren’t sure what yet but we have some interesting leads”.
The other option is run faster but intermittently.
It came as a surprise to me that many people are self-conscious about stopping to walk during running -- that's how I've always done it! I never thought anything of it because I have always been in shape as 100m / 200m sprinter... I'd encourage others to try this, because although I love running, I also could never really get into jogging.
A friend used to do ultramarathons. If we were out for a run and she didn't wish to run a hill, she would say, "ultra rules", and we would walk the hill. She covered 100 miles in less than 24 hours in one race I helped with, and she had not the least self-consciousness about walking.
American food is shit. Most people have no clue what healthy food is, even if they intend to eat a healthy diet.