Counting Calories Is A Waste Of Time and Dangerous. Here’s What To Do Instead

12 (2)


Because the definition of a healthy lifestyle is different for everyone, there's no one size fits all, cookie cutter package that works for everyone when it comes to weight loss and health. So finding the right balance of healthy habits that work well for you and your personality will probably take some trial and error.

Focusing on the habits and practices that you should avoid is a good place to start. You probably already know that eating a nutritious diet with lots of whole foods like fruits and vegetables is of the utmost importance for getting fit and healthy, and it's no secret that exercising is also an integral part of the whole picture too.

Unfortunately too often, these simple concepts are clouded with a number on the scale or whether we went over our calorie limit for the day. When it comes to getting in shape, reducing stress is a component that's often overlooked, and that includes eliminating anxiety about food, your body and even whether or not you're working out enough. Skip the stress and get in shape for good by avoiding these common habits that are really just a waste of time.

The vast majority of conventional doctors and nutritionists pretty much have it wrong when it comes to weight loss, and if you think about it, if the advice they give us were good and doable, almost everyone would be thin and healthy by now. However, mainstream media messages often confuse things even more, as their information is basically based on “food lies."

This is why the medical profession, nutritionists, the government, the food industry, and the media are all still actively promoting a lot of outdated, scientifically disproven ideas that calories are created equal. The notion that as long as you burn more calories than you consume, you will lose weight is wrong.

Differences In Calories

In a laboratory, 1,000 calories of broccoli and 1,000 calories of soda are the same, because when burned in a laboratory setting, 1,000 calories of broccoli and 1,000 calories of soda would release the same amount of energy.  But this law of thermodynamics doesn’t apply to what goes on in our digesting systems. This is because when you eat food, part of the equation goes out the window, as food interacts with our biology, which is a complex system that instantly transforms every bite.

If you take 750 calories of soda (the amount in a Double Gulp from 7-Eleven, which is 100% sugar and contains 186 grams, or 46 teaspoons, of sugar) and 750 calories of broccoli once they enter your body, your gut quickly absorbs the fiber-free sugars in the soda. The glucose spikes your blood sugar, starting a domino effect of high insulin and a host of hormonal responses that kicks bad biochemistry into gear. High insulin increases storage of belly fat, increases inflammation, raises triglycerides and lowers HDL (good cholesterol), raises blood pressure, lowers testosterone in men, and contributes to infertility in women.

Appetite will increase because of insulin’s effect on our brain chemistry, and it also blocks leptin, which is our appetite-control hormone. When people become leptin resistant, the brain doesn't get the “full” signal, so it reacts like you are starving. Then, the "pleasure" reward center is triggered, causing you to consume more sugar to start fueling an addiction.

Fructose can make things worse. It goes right to the liver, where it starts making fat that triggers more insulin resistance and causes chronically elevated blood insulin levels, that causes the body to store everything you eat as belly fat. This also causes fatty liver, which generates more inflammation that causes more weight gain and "diabesity." Basically anything that causes inflammation will worsen insulin resistance. Another issue with fructose is that it doesn’t send information back to the brain, to signal that a load of calories just entered the body. It also doesn't reduce ghrelin, which is the appetite hormone that is usually reduced when you eat "real food."

Just 750 calories of soda can easily create biochemical chaos because it doesn't contain fiber, vitamins, minerals, or phytonutrients to help you process the calories you are consuming. These are known as “empty” calories because they are devoid of any nutritional value. The body doesn’t register soda as food, which makes us eat more all day, and it will hijack our taste buds get, causing anything that is not super-sweet, to not taste very good.

A new study by nutrition researchers found that nearly 20% of restaurant dishes have at least 100 more calories than what the restaurant states. These underestimated foods came from a number of chains, including Chipotle Mexican Grill, Olive Garden, Boston Market and Outback Steakhouse. According to CNN:


Nearly 1 out of 5 fast-food and sit-down restaurant dishes contains at least 100 calories more than the restaurant's online menu. Not surprisingly, sit-down restaurants were more inaccurate than fast-food menu items, which tend to be more standardized.

The Major Flaw With Counting Calories for Weight Loss

I'm an advocate against counting calories unless you are counting them to make sure you eat enough protein to avoid losing muscle mass, much like body builders do.

The way the body processes food varies greatly from one individual to another, and health and fitness isn’t just about how much you eat, but the quality of your food. For example, if you’ve heard that one pound is equal to 3,500 calories, I can tell you that this is true in theory, but one study that overfed 16 male and female subjects by 1,000 calories for eight weeks should have led each subject to gain 16 pounds. However, it resulted in entirely different weight gain amounts for each of the participants. The point is made that calories are NOT created equal, and will not have identical effects your weight or health. Also, you do not get fat because you eat too many calories and don't exercise enough, you get fat because you eat the wrong kind of calories.

So, while keeping track of calories may be helpful for some, for many it's a source of anxiety, that causes a feeling of being deprived if you’re still hungry after hitting your limit for the day. Worrying or obsessing over the quantity of your food puts a strain on enjoying everything you eat.

At the end of the day, the real remedy for health and weight loss is not better calorie reporting and tracking, but rather to go into your kitchen and embrace your own home cooking, that uses fresh, preferably local grown and organic ingredients. By avoiding processed convenience foods, including the vast majority of fast-food items and many meals in certain restaurants, you can avoid the primary culprit of weight gain which is sugar that's hidden in most processed foods, including foods you wouldn't expect would have a sweetener added to them.

We must learn to strive for a diet of 90% non-processed food and only 10% from other sources. Sure, this is a commitment, but it's a truly important one and it CAN be done.  It takes a little more time and energy to follow an individualized nutrition plan than to eat fast food, but doing so will help you lose weight, add years to your lifespan, increase your energy levels, and help you avoid diseases like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis.

Leave a Reply
