Talking about calories

Last night I was looking at some online weight loss calculators, as I often do as an ongoing training tool and gauge of how I'm doing. I came across a disclaimer on one of the calculators that read, "Humans are not calculators. Humans are not robots, and everyone will obtain individual results." So this begs the question: Why?

Now I have beat the "it's all about calories" horse to the ground but in recent weeks, as I hinted at in a previous post(s), I have come to believe differently simply because I have followed A Technical Approach, I am not underestimating my calories (if anything, I overestimate), and I haven't been losing weight when I should be losing 1-2 pounds per week according to each and every calculator.

That's why I now believe that each and every human being is wired a certain way and God controls who is fat and who is not, assuming a person is getting a full ration (please, no examples of starving people all being skinny). Now I do believe it is possible for me to lose weight and this journey is not slowing down. I just think it will be very slow and perhaps not happen at all because God wired my body to always stay at this set point. If it were true that you can "fire up your metabolism" by eating every 2-3 hours, why am I still not losing weight, and why is my colleague at work (mentioned previously), who goes hours without eating and then gorges himself, so thin? It's because of an unexplained factor that no one takes into account; a factor that gives rise to the disclaimer that humans are not calculators: there are subtleties occurring in the human existence, some physical and some spiritual, which contribute to our ability or inability to change our body type.

Other questions to ponder:

Does eating cheese and other saturated fats really make or keep you fat regardless of your other caloric intake? I'm starting to believe that it does.

Is weight loss actually more about the mind and less about the body? If you believe that you will lose weight, will you then see results?

Is the science somehow wrong? Is 3,500 calories not really a pound?
Does eating 300 calories of chocolate affect your body in a different way than eating 300 calories of asparagus? Now I'm not talking about "it makes me feel more full so I eat less later" so please don't go there. I'm talking about direct effects. Here's the thing – I don't think any of us would say that it wouldn't have a different effect. But the "it's all about calories" science would indicate that it shouldn't. What gives?

As you can see, I'm starting to ask some questions that border on conspiratorial. That shows you where I am in trying to explain away what's happening. Folks, I've been eating under 2,000 calories every day for months. I can count on one hand the days I've had a "normal 2,000 calorie day" in the past four months. To maintain my weight, I supposedly need to be eating in the mid-upper 2000s. So something has to give, right? Yes, if it were all about calories. No, if what I'm suggesting is true.

At church on Sunday, at a special Father's Day service, I walked away from donuts (all my favorite varieties), cinnamon rolls, other breakfast pastries, and biscuits and sausage gravy while everyone else ate to their heart's content, seemingly without a single thought to the fact that they likely consumed a normal breakfast that morning plus a cool 1,000 calories of breakfast pastry and gravy. Am I wrong to feel that I deserve a reward for walking away?