Toss out your calorie counter. Pay no attention to the calorie count on food labels. Counting calories is a useless and simple-minded way to decide what you eat. How come? Firstly, a calorie is a unit of heat. Heat does not directly guide metabolism. When caloric heat is released, nothing will put it back.
Scientists have a very specific definition of a calorie. The simplest one is that a calorie is the amount of heat that is required to raise a cubic centimeter (milliliter) of water one degree Celsius, at room temperature and at sea level. Saying that you can consume calories is like saying that you can eat heat.
Many experts who should know better wrongly equate food calories to metabolism. This overly simplified claim is the basis for saying that food provides metabolic energy in the form of heat. Wrong!
Now that you know what calories really are (i.e, heat), you can understand that the only thing they can do is effect temperature. They are important for maintaining body temperature, but that is all.
Do you know how we measure calories in food? We incinerate the food in an instrument called a bomb calorimeter. When a substance is completely combusted, until nothing but the charred remains are left, it has released all of the calories that it contained. A bomb calorimeter measures how much heat is released upon complete combustion, which is expressed in calories.
The maximum amount of heat released from different food groups is 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate, 4 calories per gram of protein, and 9 calories per gram of fat. It is ridiculous to think that these food groups provide you with that much heat. The maximum number of calories from foods, as measured in a bomb calorimeter, is simply useless and misleading when it comes to weight loss.
If your body was really like a furnace, then the calorie count of foods, such as on nutrition labels and in food lists, would have more meaning. Your body, however, has nothing to do with how a furnace works.
You can never, ever get all the energy out of food. At the most you might get 10 to 20 percent of the potential energy through your fuel-harvesting metabolism. You will certainly never get more than 30 percent. Sometimes you won't get any calories at all. Using a calorie counter tells you nothing about how your body will metabolize different types of food.
Consider this comparison: starch vs. cellulose. Cellulose is indigestible fiber, whereas starch is a source of food energy for humans. However, gram for gram, they both yield the same exact number of calories in a bomb calorimeter.
Furthermore, a calorimeter will measure the same number of calories from equivalent amounts of potato and celery (correcting for water content). Obviously, your body couldn't possibly do that.
Instead of comparing food metabolism to a furnace (calorimeter), it is vastly more meaningful to understand the fate of different foods upon digestion. This entails how they impact different kinds of cells and tissues, such as fat vs. muscle, and what happens to these tissues because of different foods.
For a surprising example of what this means, compare the two nearly identical sugars, glucose and fructose. Following their metabolic fate is much more meaningful regarding their roles in diet and health than just keeping track of counting calories that they yield in a bomb calorimeter. In fact, these two sugars have identical caloric potential, 4 calories per gram. However, glucose goes into many different tissues, most notably muscle and brain, and intact fructose never escapes your liver.
The consequences of these differences are that glucose serves the metabolism of your entire body, whereas fructose has to be converted to something else before you can do anything with it. That something else is largely fat. In simpler terms, fructose will make you fat much faster than glucose will. Their caloric potential is irrelevant.
By the way, once you understand how misleading the calorie count is for different foods, you will be clearer about why calories have almost nothing to do with being overweight. Now chew on that concept for a while (pardon my pun), because it is the kind of clear thinking that will help you be truly successful in whatever weight management or fitness program that will work for you for a lifetime.
Scientists have a very specific definition of a calorie. The simplest one is that a calorie is the amount of heat that is required to raise a cubic centimeter (milliliter) of water one degree Celsius, at room temperature and at sea level. Saying that you can consume calories is like saying that you can eat heat.
Many experts who should know better wrongly equate food calories to metabolism. This overly simplified claim is the basis for saying that food provides metabolic energy in the form of heat. Wrong!
Now that you know what calories really are (i.e, heat), you can understand that the only thing they can do is effect temperature. They are important for maintaining body temperature, but that is all.
Do you know how we measure calories in food? We incinerate the food in an instrument called a bomb calorimeter. When a substance is completely combusted, until nothing but the charred remains are left, it has released all of the calories that it contained. A bomb calorimeter measures how much heat is released upon complete combustion, which is expressed in calories.
The maximum amount of heat released from different food groups is 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate, 4 calories per gram of protein, and 9 calories per gram of fat. It is ridiculous to think that these food groups provide you with that much heat. The maximum number of calories from foods, as measured in a bomb calorimeter, is simply useless and misleading when it comes to weight loss.
If your body was really like a furnace, then the calorie count of foods, such as on nutrition labels and in food lists, would have more meaning. Your body, however, has nothing to do with how a furnace works.
You can never, ever get all the energy out of food. At the most you might get 10 to 20 percent of the potential energy through your fuel-harvesting metabolism. You will certainly never get more than 30 percent. Sometimes you won't get any calories at all. Using a calorie counter tells you nothing about how your body will metabolize different types of food.
Consider this comparison: starch vs. cellulose. Cellulose is indigestible fiber, whereas starch is a source of food energy for humans. However, gram for gram, they both yield the same exact number of calories in a bomb calorimeter.
Furthermore, a calorimeter will measure the same number of calories from equivalent amounts of potato and celery (correcting for water content). Obviously, your body couldn't possibly do that.
Instead of comparing food metabolism to a furnace (calorimeter), it is vastly more meaningful to understand the fate of different foods upon digestion. This entails how they impact different kinds of cells and tissues, such as fat vs. muscle, and what happens to these tissues because of different foods.
For a surprising example of what this means, compare the two nearly identical sugars, glucose and fructose. Following their metabolic fate is much more meaningful regarding their roles in diet and health than just keeping track of counting calories that they yield in a bomb calorimeter. In fact, these two sugars have identical caloric potential, 4 calories per gram. However, glucose goes into many different tissues, most notably muscle and brain, and intact fructose never escapes your liver.
The consequences of these differences are that glucose serves the metabolism of your entire body, whereas fructose has to be converted to something else before you can do anything with it. That something else is largely fat. In simpler terms, fructose will make you fat much faster than glucose will. Their caloric potential is irrelevant.
By the way, once you understand how misleading the calorie count is for different foods, you will be clearer about why calories have almost nothing to do with being overweight. Now chew on that concept for a while (pardon my pun), because it is the kind of clear thinking that will help you be truly successful in whatever weight management or fitness program that will work for you for a lifetime.
About the Author:
People who want to know how to lose belly fat can find excellent solutions online. The the best place to start is Dr. Dennis Clark's free belly fat book.
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