The other night, I hopped on my soap box – much to the dismay of the person sitting next to me on the sofa – as I was reading an article by Dr. Mark Hyman about what he calls “skinny fat people,” people of normal weight who still have cardiovascular risk factors like high blood pressure, diabetes, or elevated cholesterol. According to the recent study he sites, 37% of normal weight kids in the U.S have one or more of these risk factors. And 40% of normal weight people – adults included – have pre-diabetes or diabetes.
What set me off wasn’t surprise (sadly) at anything I read. It was frustration at the very real need to explain what, to me, is a rather self-evident fact: All calories are NOT created equal.
I’m not a scientist or a doctor, to be sure; but I am a pretty common sense kind of gal. It just doesn’t make sense that a calorie from a Twinkie is the same as a calorie from an apple (or even from a home-baked cookie made with whole grains and unrefined sugar). How is it that conventional wisdom about weight loss has, for decades, contended that the way to manage weight comes down to a simple matter of calories in must equal calories out?
I – and people much smarter and more informed than I – are finally calling BS.
Here’s what I found when I dug into this issue a little more:
- Physics is great, but the laws of thermodynamics don’t work out so well when you add the complicated biology of metabolism into the mix. And don’t forget that, as Dr. Hyman puts it, “food contains not just calories but…[also] information that controls dozens of hormones, thousands of genes and tens of thousands of protein networks that control everything from your appetite to the rate of fat burning or storage to cholesterol synthesis and more.”
- Most of us don’t exercise nearly enough to burn the calories we consume in a day, let alone MORE than we consume.Take a look at this chart comparing weekly caloric intake to calories burned by average workout routines. Even intense workout sessions don’t do the trick. The science is shown here, and I’ve seen it many times with clients and friends: Exercise is only part of the picture (albeit an important part).
- Quality of food is more important than quantity. Upping the quality of food/calories causes weight loss EVERY TIME…before you even begin paying attention to portion sizes. A client’s recent experience with Clean – one of the few nutritional “cleanses” I recommend to those interested in experimenting with cleansing – tells the story: “I ate MORE food than I usually do and still lost 15 pounds.” This experience is backed up by the findings of a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine: “Consumption of starches and refined grains may be less satiating, increasing subsequent hunger signals and total caloric intake, as compared with equivalent numbers of calories obtained from less processed, higher-fiber foods that also contain healthy fats and protein. Consumption of processed foods that are higher in starches, refined grains, fats, and sugars can increase weight gain.” Simply increasing your intake of whole grains, vegetables, fruit, and other unprocessed foods may set you up for sustainable weight loss.
These things only scratch the surface of a particularly complex issue. What do you think? Does the “a calorie is a calorie is a calorie” theory make sense to you? Has increasing the quality of your food choices helped you manage your weight?
