What About Calories?

Weight loss schemes have nearly always been based on calorie-oriented brute force dieting.  In other words, starvation.  Restrict how much you eat, and your body will shrink, just as if you stuff your face, you will get fat...  right?  It turns out that this is generally NOT right.  Calorie restricted diets just don't work for the vast majority of people, because:
  • they leave you hungry all the time
  • no one can tolerate hunger for a long period of time
  • they ignore the effect that certain foods have on the processes taking place in the body that cause weight gain and loss
  • nobody has unlimited willpower
  • the foods involved are usually carbohydrates that actually increase your sense of hunger
  • the quantities of food generally leave you hungry and unsatisfied all the time

Calorie restriction is based on the assumption that all foods have the exact same impact on the body, and that quantity is responsible for weight gain. It is also based on the assumption that everyone's body reacts to those foods in exactly the same way.  Neither of these assumptions is valid.

The body is not a simple machine.  It is an extremely complex system.  Everything that is ingested into the body causes very complex results.  Certain foods actually promote hunger, while others satisfy it.  Certain foods raise the body's metabolic rate, while others suppress it.  Certain foods promote the storage of energy as fat, while others promote the conversion of fat to energy.  To make this situation even more complex, we cannot assume that each food has the exact same effect on you as it has on me, or any one else.  This effect may be generally similar from person to person, but in specifics it can vary widely.  For those of us who are diagnosed Diabetic, the effects of certain foods - the carbohydrates - are exceptionally profound.

In general, carbohydrates cause Insulin secretion, and insulin is the engine behind hunger, high blood pressure, and weight gain, plus many other largely bad things.  At the same time if you did not secrete insulin you would die relatively quickly without intervention... so the trick is to get the body to only produce the minimum amount required.  We do that by restricting carbohydrate consumption.

In general, protein consumption stimulates the release of the opposite hormone to Insulin, called glucagon.  It literally does the opposite to what Insulin does, stimulating the burning of excess energy rather than its storage, and promoting the consumption of body fat stores rather than their creation.

In general, fat consumption does not stimulate either of these hormones of weight management at all.

By now you are probably thinking 'What the heck is this?'.  Calories have always been the measuring stick of energy consumption and weight gain.  Do you actually know what a 'calorie' in a food context is????

The nutritional Calorie is actually a kilocalorie, and it represents the amount of energy that is released when a certain quantity of a food is burned in a crucible by a flame. Fats in this context are calorie-dense and produce a lot of energy when burned.  Flour based products would produce comparatively little energy.  Proteins, because they are fat-laden, would be in between.

Does this sound like the way YOUR stomach works?  Not hardly.  Not even close.

When we eat, the food we consume is ground up by the teeth and tongue, and mixed with saliva, and when swallowed is then torn apart by the digestive juices of the stomach.  The food is separated into its biological constituents and absorbed in the digestive tract into the bloodstream.  Proteins are used as raw materials for the repair and growth of tissues.  Fats are used in part as solvents for fat-soluble nutrients, and provide transportation for these into the body.  Fats are also used to build and maintain many cells (including the cells of the brain).  Carbohydrates are converted into glucose, for the express purpose of being burned as fuel.  Fuel can also come from proteins and fats if required, but glucose is burned preferentially.

In evaluating the role of a food in the body, how does this compare with burning a food in a crucible with a flame, and measuring its energy output?  It doesn't!

The concept of food energy measured by Calories is severely flawed. It takes none of the true purpose of a food in the body into account.  Eating provides energy, but it provides a great deal more.  To sort out how particular foods affect weight gain and loss we have to have a much more profound understanding of the mechanics of the body and how things work in order to properly assess what role the food has.  Burning it in a crucible assumes that the only purpose of food in the body is as fuel - which is just plain wrong.

So, since I promote severely reducing carbohydrates in the diet, where does the person get their energy from?  AREN'T YOU TRYING TO LOSE FAT WEIGHT?  Stored body fat is consumed when the Insulin level falls low, and the body understands that it must consume its fat stores.  Stored fats are broken down into Ketone bodies.  Ketone bodies, in this circumstance, become the fuel that the body uses to keep the muscles functioning and the brain working.  GLUCOSE IS NOT NECESSARY as a food.  What little glucose the body needs can be manufactured in the body from proteins and fats, through a process called gluconeogenesis.