Or so says New York Times columnist Aaron E. Carroll (Professor of Pediatrics):
We’re eating too many calories, but not necessarily in the same way. Reducing what we’re eating too much of in a balanced manner would seem like the most sensible approach.
And, superficially, it seems right: after all, we do tend to gorge. Yet, having a wife with a weight problem and having watched her not eat her head off, this is all entirely too simplistic and disappointing. Speaking as a software engineer, you can’t just measure what goes in one end and comes out the other, even making allowance multiple destinations (exercise, defecation, etc) for those calories; you have to ask if the processing is a constant or a variable, and in at least this column Carroll is treating it as a constant. Yet evidence is just beginning to accumulate that the stomach flora can influence how calories are processed (covered earlier here), and the amount of sleep can influence how your gut is working as well, discussed here (paywall) and here.
So, sure, eat less if you’re feeling tubby. But don’t expect that, or even regular exercise, to fix you up. Keep an eye on the research if this concerns you.
