As winter turns into spring and people start to prepare for the warm weather, we start seeing all kinds of diet and exercise craziness. This morning the debate over the role of dairy in weight loss caught my eye.
The bottom line is that there is nothing about dairy products that will help you to lose weight. The 150 calories that you get in a cup of whole milk is just that, 150 calories. There’s nothing magical about milk – or any dairy product - and these calories.
The talk that calcium makes dairy a weight loss elixir isn’t backed up by research…but we’ll get back to that in a minute.
A quick aside about milk. A cup of whole milk is 148 calories; 72 are from fat, 44 are from carbs and 32 are from protein. A cup of 2% milk is 133 calories, 45 are from fat, 56 are from carbs and 32 are from protein. A cup of skim milk is 80 calories, zero from fat, 48 are carbs and 32 are from protein.
For all practical purposes, there is no difference between whole milk and 2% milk. In the course of a day 15 total calories will have no effect on anybody, regardless of the minor difference in the amount of fat.
If you enjoy milk and limit your intake to about a cup per day, there is no reason to not drink whole milk. The vast majority of us who grew up drinking real milk - and who still enjoy real milk - would rather not drink any milk, than drink skim milk.
If you believe that skim milk tastes like real milk, or close to it, I’m not going to try and argue the point. It’s like trying to debate a proponent of tofu and veggie burgers that think these substitutes taste like the real thing.
Article comments
1 - What's Next In Health
If only people could stop looking for the easy solutions to health, and see the benefits a little extra effort can give their life.
It's hard to exercise everyday, and eat 4 or 5 healthy meals everyday when people in this country work so hard, but if they try to be healthy at least most, if not all, the time, they will see a dramatic change in not only their weight, but also their overall health.
Here's another benefit to cutting calories:
"Cutting calories slightly can reduce damage from ageing"
2 - sal m
from the above mentioned link, here are the details of how this study of rats was conducted.
"In the study, which followed the rats over their lifespan, one group of animals ate as much food as they wanted and did not exercise, another group of animals exercised lightly and were fed slightly less than they would have eaten if allowed to have their fill. Liver samples from these groups were compared with samples taken from young rats."
compared to this group of total gluttonous and sedentary rats were rats that were then given 8% fewer calories and engaged in moderate exercise. the group that ate less and moved a little was "healthier."
one can hardly make the leap - from this research with rats - and issue the blanket statement that cutting calories slightly will reduce damage from aging. especially since there was no study of rats that ate as much as they wanted and exercised, and rats that ate 8% fewer calories but didn't exercise.
3 - Amita
I love your practical health advice! Your blog is excellent too. Keep up the good work.
4 - Dawn
Sal - where is the magic pill to lose weight dammit? WHERE IS IT?
5 - jo boo!
is it true that reading blog posts about calories actually helps you expend more calories than reading about anything else?
I sure hope so.
6 - Purple Tigress
I'm fascinated by the new math used in losing weight. I think it goes something like this:
If I eat a 600-1000 calorie donut and then exercise tonight and burn 150-200 calories I should be OK, right?
7 - sal m
PT:
you actually touch on a interesting point there...
another problem people create for themselves - and i'm not saying that you do this - is to use exercise to manage their weight. and by that i mean they think that if they eat X, they then have to exercise a certain amount in order to burn off a specific amount of calories. this is a recipe for failure.
8 - Hairynipples
Does it help to visit the john several times per day? This question is for a friend of mine, will call Jerry, with a certain problem.
9 - sal m
visting the john several times a day can be quite beneficial...i highly recommend it..tell dex, er i mean jerry, that he should enjoy his trips to the water closet.
10 - John
RE the above mentioned study with rats:
I did a little more digging on the site and here are a few more stories about calorie restriction. These studies were conducted with people:
Researchers study whether cutting calories may help you live longer
Caloric Restriction Appears to Prevent Primary Aging in the Heart
As mentioned in the stories, all of this needs to be researched further, but there may be something there.
11 - sal m
from a practical standpoint it is unrealistic to expect people to follow a long-term calorie restricted diet. even if this research did really show that a calorie restricted diet could provide benefits you would be hard pressed to find people with any real interest in eating this way.
with regards to these studies, while there were some positive results, the first study had only a six month duration, which is too short.
and we don't know what the effect of calorie restriction will have long term. will the benefits continue, will they level off or will the body adjust to the lower calories after a given period of time and will the supposed benefits of the calorie restriction be reversed?
we also have no information has to the health status of these subjects prior to the begining of this study.
with regards to the second study we have no knowlege of the prior physical condition of the subjects. and while there is a mention of the daily caloric intake, there is no reference to body weight. 2000 calories can be a lot for a 120 pound person, but not a lot for a 200 pounder.
the bottom line is that the calorie restriction approach is impractical at face value, and the more restrictive this diet becomes the less practical it becomes.
12 - lazur
Of course the only -cause- of weight loss is caloric deficit, but a calorie is -not- just a calorie: Some put us to sleep, others leave us alert; some make us hungry for more, others satisfy appetite for many hours.