Do Calories Matter?
credit: TheTruthAbout...
I am always preaching to take your health into your own hands. I practice what I preach. So I asked myself "What is a calorie and how is relevant to nutrition and exercise?" As I have never been one to count calories and always wondered why people stress over such things.
The following article is a culmination of my research and my current stance on the calorie counting debate.
Why we have embraced the calorie
I laugh when I use the term believe in calorie counting, like it is some form of religious belief that one is awakened to. If calories in +calories out = weight loss or weight gain, then nobody would have to believe it. We would all know it.
Our bodies are much more complex than this system makes them out to be. I think that we have dumbed down how our bodies gain and lose weight in order to fit our want of a simple solution to why we have love handles and multiple chins.
Our bodies are not that simple and require much more than a 3 step equation (calories in + calories out= weight loss/gain to explain how we gain and lose weight.
Here is the real low down on how our bodies use food why the calorie is simply a way to heat up water.
So what is a calorie?
"The energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius." According to my MacBook dictionary. What the hell does this have to do with nutrition and exercise?
Ever wonder how the amount of calories in food are determined? A machine called a calorimeter is used. A food product is placed in this machine along with a thermometer and proportionate amounts of water. The water is heated by the burning of the food product. Each degree that the thermometer rises equals a calorie.
This is pretty ingenious and a really good idea if the goal of eating was to heat up the water in our bodies to the lowest degree possible.
Conventional Belief and What the Body Really Does
Many of us have blindly believed that calories in + calories out = weight gain or loss. When asked why, the common response is "it makes sense". Well yes it makes sense. So does communism and the idea that the world is flat.
When calories are determined, the process mentioned above is conducted in a closed environment. Meaning, all the factors that play into why the thermometer goes up are taken into consideration. From the amount of food to the amount of water in the machine.
Our bodies are not closed systems, they are open systems. When we eat food, it does not simply fall into an energy pit that immediately burns calories for energy, and if the pit is full, then the extras end up stored as fat. I wish it were that simple.
When we eat, countless processes are taking place. The simple extraction of nutrients and the pushing of wastes out of our bodies (otherwise known as digestion) takes place. Countless hormones and enzymes flood our body to aide in the digestion of the food we have eaten. The processes of muscle repair, fat creation and energy storage are happening all the time. How can we even keep track of the calories that we eat? Half of them may go to one process while 1/8 of them may go to another.
Even the idea of calories has forced us to believe that the only processes occurring in the body are meeting our energy needs and fat storage. This is very far from the truth and has mistakenly led us all down a road paved with low calorie snack packs and programs that promise weight loss.
When thinking about what a calorie is ("The energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius" if you missed it 
) and how it relates to exercise is truly mind boggling
How can the amount of energy that it takes a food item to reach a certain temperature have anything to do with exercising? Well nothing of course. I honestly have no idea how calories even fit into the exercise conversation.
We do not use calories for anything, there is no system in the human body that uses a calorie for energy or any purpose what so ever.
Lets go through what actually happens when we exercise:
When we exercise we need energy in order to continue exercising. This energy is used by the body in the form of ATP (a molecule that derives from glucose (sugar) and is the energy form of all life on earth). When we work our muscles we are not burning away any calories, we are simply producing and using more energy (ATP).
This energy can come from the food that is in our stomachs or energy from fat stored in our body.
The calorie plays absolutely no role in the energy making process. What does play a role in this process is the transportation of oxygen, the creation of lactic acid, the Krebs cycle and countless other cycles and systems. All of which are fueled by ATP, not calories.
Final Thoughts
I would like to make clear that a calorie is a real unit of measure, I'm not condoning its existence. I am simply arguing that it has no place in the diet and exercise debate.
I would like to acknowledge that yes, some people lose weight by going on a low calorie diet. Let me explain why.
This has to do with where our energy comes from. When our daily energy requirements are not met by the food that we eat, we must get it from somewhere. That somewhere is in our fat stores. And when we consistently lower our availability of food as energy we use our fat to provide our bodies with energy. After a period of time, enough fat is used for energy that we see a drop in weight on the scale. The calorie does not fit in anywhere, it is simply an easy way to keep track of the amounts of food that we eat.
The kinds of foods we eat are much, much more important than the amounts of food that we eat. Fat, cholesterol, protein and carbohydrates have set pathways in which they are digested in the body. We know what these pathways are and how they work (for the most part). Some promote fat storage, while others improve muscle repair and countless other bodily functions.
For example, eating 3,000 calories of protein will not prompt the body to store any excess as fat. That is not how protein digestion works. This goes for fat, in some cases and cholesterol.
Sugar on the other hand does just that. Once our glucose needs are met for the day, any excess will be stored as energy in the form of fat.
What we eat is much more important than how much of it we consume.
Till next time,
Ryan
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