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
Spring Break Special: Creating an Ab Canyon
Spring Break is on the horizon and so is the ever looming question of how to get that washboard stomach. Should we do yoga? Use an Ab Lounge, Roller or Twister (?)? Do we have to do crunches till we are blue in the face or run 5 miles a day?
The answer to all of these questions is a resounding no.
Absolutely no popular belief on how to get abs is true. Trust no one, except for me of course. And Drew Baye:
"Contrary to the idiotic recommendations of most current ab training books, courses and group class instructors, it is neither necessary nor beneficial to perform dozens of high rep sets of a wide variety of abdominal exercises. You also don’t need different exercises for your lower and upper abs, and you don’t need stability balls, special slings, benches, or any other gimmicky crap. In fact, you don’t need any direct abdominal exercise at all to get ripped abs. All that is necessary is to reduce body fat to very low levels, and that has far more to do with diet than exercise."
*My Bold
Conventional wisdom on ab creation.
Popular belief holds true that we can build up our ab muscles in hopes that they will magically break through our wall of stomach fat and shine through like a beacon in the night sky.
This is called "Spot Loss". Which is a fairy tale idea that by exercising one area of the body, we will intern force that area to become thinner. I'm sorry, but this is simply untrue.
Our bodies are whole, connected systems. When we lose weight, our entire bodies are affected, not just one area.
How funny would it be to see a human being with Queen Latifa thunder thighs and a Megan Fox torso? This obviously would never happen because our bodies won't let it happen.
Many gym rats tend to think that doing 30 minutes (or more) of ab work a day is necessary for their abs to become defined. Again, wrong.
The abdominal muscles are physiologically thin. Our abs cannot be built up and our belly fat cannot be minimized simply by working our mid-sections.
Drew Baye (who I mentioned earlier), an athletic trainer in Orlando, Florida, who also runs a great fitness blog at baye.com, attacks conventional ab wisdom by arguing: "People who recommend performing long abdominal workouts involving dozens of exercises either don’t know what they’re talking about or are making things more complex for the sake of sounding more knowledgeable than they are."
The Truth
When we view abdominal definition with only a shred of common sense, we see that the reason our abs are not seen is because of the layer of blubber that insulates them. How did this fat there? By eating of course.
The creation of fat is simple. Eating the wrong kinds of foods (sugar) equals excess energy and fat storage.
OK, it's not that simple. We do however understand the underlying causes of weight gain. Or so we think.
Neglecting to do crunches your whole life is not the reason why your abs are not protruding. It has everything to do with what you ate.
Unfortunately the human body stores fat in the stomach area. This truly sucks.
A close friend brought this phenomenon to my attention. She stated that our bodies are pre-programmed to store more fat in the stomach region. Why? Because many of our most important organs are located in the abdominal region. These organs are very delicate and must be protected in case of a traumatic event. Our bodies are in effect protecting us from harm by storing fat in the belly area.
Counter Argument
The argument can be made that "Hey, I'm burning calories when I do ab work!" All I have to say is this: Anybody who honestly believes that any significant amount of energy is needed to sit on the ground and contract their mid-section, needs to stop reading Men's Health and actually LEARN about how the human body operates.
Don't eat that bag of Doritos or get a 6 inch sub instead of a foot long at Subway and you will save yourself a lot of time pretending that you are "burning off" those calories.
I use the term "burning" because that is the term that we associate with exercise and calories. In fact, no burning of any kind happens. We like to believe this because it provides a nice visual, but in truth we are wrong.
This is a topic deserves the time and attention of an entire article, but I will give a quick preview as not to leave you all in the dark.
First of all 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? Nothing.
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 product is then burned. Each degree that the thermometer rises equals a calorie!
What has the world come to?
When we exercise, we do not burn calories. We simply use ATP (all living organisms basic energy molecule) as energy. The human body does not burn anything, we digest.
Their is much more I would like to write about this process so I will save it for another article.
Now that I have strayed completely off topic.... Lets get back to ab talk.
Ab "Exercises"
For those of you who exercise on a regular basis, you already work your abs enough. This comes without conscious effort. Performing lifts such as squats, standing presses, pull ups, chin ups, and pretty much all exercises that require us to stand engages the abdominal muscles.
I understand that this may come as a shock. So next time you lift weights or workout pay special attention to your abs. You will notice that they are not relaxed.
We do not need to finish a workout with an abs circuit or any other mode of what I like to call "peace of mind" exercises. The belief that our abs even need to be exercised separately than the rest of body, proves yet again that what we deem as correct exercise is far from the way the human body actually operates.
What muscles do you think keep us standing upright while running on the treadmill? The same muscles that prevent us from tipping over when we perform a set of squats.
Final Thoughts
What we eat is far more important than how we exercise. If your looking for a quick fix in terms of ab definition, you can either 1) Not eat for a week or 2) Come to the realization that all great benefits of the human body take time, be patient and eat right.
Always remember Oscar Wilde's quote "Everything popular is wrong." I love saying the words embrace it, so I will say them again...embrace it.
-Ryan
PS. I wasn't joking when I said that Drew Baye's blog was awesome. If you want to get more real, common sense fitness advice click here.
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