Stop counting calories!

In The China Study, Dr Campbell talks about weight loss, and the benefits of the vegetarian diet he supports. He describes how if you're eating the right foods, you don't need to worry about counting calories. He wrote,

"These studies document the fact that vegetarians consume the same amount or even significantly more calories than their meat-eating counterparts, and yet are still slimmer."

Now, basic physics dictates that if you consume more calories than you burn, you will gain weight; consume less than you burn, you will lose weight. So there must be some mitigating factors to this study. Most likely, it would be this: the subjects who participated were more health conscious, and so were doing other things than just having a good diet to help themselves, like exercise more. Dr Campbell does than go on after that paragraph to describe the importance of exercise to help a diet for weight loss.

What his real point with this was that meat eaters will be taking in more fat, which will not get burned at or near the time of ingestion, and will get stored (once fat is stored it is harder to get rid of than dietary fat).

The studies referred to in the above quote:

• Appleby et al (1998) Low body mas index in non-meat eaters; The possible role of animal fat, dietary fibre, and alcohol. Int. J Obes 22: 454-460
• Levin et al. (1986) Energy intake and body weight in ovo-lacto vegetarians. J Clin Gastroenterol 8: 451-453
• Cmapbell (1999) Energy balance: interpretation of data from rural China. Toxicological Sciences 52: 87-94