Where do I even begin? Calories are some of my oldest demons that still haunt me. They're the enemy I've come to know so well, and have gradually been trying to learn how to live with, because I know they'll never really go away. And that's okay!
Like many, I began counting calories the moment I started paying more attention to my body, putting most of my energy toward striving to achieve a certain image. A look dictated mostly by Western capitalist beauty standards. And the most straightforward, marketable way to achieve said look was to start tracking calorie consumption.
Now, I'm all for health and fitness journeys and the tracking of progress / actionable takeaways that come along with that. It's important to take note of what you are putting into your body, how much of it, how it makes you feel, and how your body responds over time. This is usually the best way to get to know yourself and what works best for your body. Emphasis here on what works best for your body.
Something that my nutrition program has consistently stressed is the concept of bio-individuality. In the case of calories, this means the bio-individuality of energy needs. When it comes to weight management, we have to match our calories to our needs.
Let's quickly break it down. What even is a calorie?
A calorie = a unit of energy supplied by food, no matter the source.
What I've come to learn over time is that the importance here is to focus more on dietary quality and something called calorie density.
Calorie density = number of calories per pound for each food
Calorie density is lowest in unprocessed plant foods, as they contain fewer calories per volume. Foods of a higher calorie density value contain more calories in a smaller amount of food. Focusing on eating foods with lower calorie densities may naturally "crowd out" less favorable food choices.
Another thing to note is that the number of calories calculated does not always match the number of calories listed on the label. In the U.S. there is a 20% margin of error allowed between stated value and actual value of nutrients.
And so why is it difficult to determine nutritional content of our food?
It comes down to the method of determining calories. Values determined using a tool called a calorimeter in labs tend to be more accurate than values calculated by multiplying the appropriate number of calories by grams of contained macronutrients. The latter is of course, less expensive.
Variations in preparation also come into play. When a food company tests the calories of a particular food, there may be slight variations in how the food is actually prepared each time.
So for mathematical ease, the FDA allows companies to round off the nutritional content of their products.
In terms of weight gain related to calories, the traditional baseline is such that if you are consuming more calories than your body is using, those extra calories are stored as fat, which leads to weight gain.
Of course, not everyone is trying to lose weight; people monitor their caloric intake for different reasons. Weight maintenance, for example, requires a caloric balance. Consuming approximately the same amount of calories that the body is using will result in a stable weight. Weight loss is caused by a caloric deficit. When you are consuming fewer calories than the body is using, the body turns to its fat stores for energy and you lose weight.
Keep in mind that a person's behavior, environment, and genetic makeup all play a part in weight management. Based on food journalist Gary Taubes's research, it's important to consider bio-individuality at every step.
With that, an individual's need may not match the general recommendations doled out to the general public:
Average height and weight used in calculation does not accurately represent each individual
Broad interpretation of physical activity levels — sedentary, moderate, active
Desire to lose, maintain, or gain weight affects caloric requirement
General estimates for females do not include women who are pregnant/breast-feeding
People metabolize food differently, some metabolize quickly and need more calories; others metabolize more slowly and require less calories
Doesn't reflect individual's current state of health; individuals who are ill may require more calories
So why do we get fat? The obvious answer, per the above breakdown, is that obesity occurs when a person consumes more calories from food than he or she burns. In fact, obesity rates started going up in the 60's because of "increased prosperity" — more of everything in an increasingly toxic environment.
Perhaps a more efficient approach to calories is focusing more on energy balance and considering exactly what it is that genes control. This includes how we partition what we eat, which we can look at as our fuel. So it's not so much how much we eat and take in, but how we use that fuel.
Here's an interesting metaphor that for me, helped illustrate energy balance and distribution as related to calories and weight gain. We start by asking the simple question: why is it that when there are more people, there is more energy in the room? We observe that there are more people that entered the room than there are people who have left the room; in fact, this actually tells us nothing. The question to ask is: what are the conditions that are making people enter the room?
In other words, what regulates fat accumulation? We eat because we grow. The casualty is reversed. Overeating is the effect.
You can be starving, but fat tissue doesn't care. Here's a little "Regulation of Fat / Adiposity 101:
Lesson 1: fat is stored as triglycerides
fatty acids burned for fuel
fat enters and exits fat cells as fatty acids
inside the fat cell, fatty acids continually cycle into triglycerides and back out again
we need to move fatty acids out of fat cells
Lesson 2: hormonal regulation
insulin is principal regulator of fat metabolism
release of fatty acids from fat cells requires only the negative stimulus of insulin deficiency
Lesson 3: bottom line
when insulin is secreted/chronically elevated, fat accumulates in fat tissue
when insulin levels drop, fat escapes from fat tissue and fat deposits shrink
we secrete insulin primarily in response to the carbohydrates in our diet
"carbohydrate is driving insulin is driving fat"
So why does excess fat cause us to overeat rather than just use that fat as fuel? Basically, we secrete insulin in response to carbohydrates. Insulin works to fix fat in fat cells and tells lean tissue cells to burn carbs, not fat. So we burn carbs first, and then store the fat. If insulin stays elevated, as will happen if we're insulin resistant, we may never get around to burning all the fat we stored with the meal, so the fat accumulates.
Other hormones also play a role — estrogen, testosterone, stress hormones. Stress is actually a huge factor in fat accumulation. More on that in another blog post.
The main takeaway when it comes to counting calories? Not all calories are equal, so it's important to consider the nutritional value of the foods we're putting into our bodies. It may seem like a given when broken down, but you'd be surprised at how convincing and tempting a nicely packaged 100-calorie dessert can seem paired next to a 100-calorie apple.
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