Do Calories Matter?
Do Calories matter?
In last week’s blog post I wrote about why calories don’t matter and why you should focus less on number of calories and more on quality of calories. I followed up with five superior ways to make sure you won’t ever need to worry about calories.
But are there situations where calories do matter? You betcha. In this post, I’m going to cover three scenarios in which calories absolutely do matter.
Calories do matter in specific situations
1. Counting calories is important for athletes who need to assure they are getting enough calories to fuel activity and recovery. We frequently focus on people who are eating too many calories. But in certain instances, the focus needs to shift to getting enough. An athlete who isn’t eating enough will begin to experience problems with body composition, recurring injuries, hormone disruption, and fatigue.
2. Calories matter when the goal is to get unnaturally lean. If you are competing in a body building competition and need to get “cut”, then tracking, weighing, and counting calories becomes essential. It should be pointed out here that getting ultra-lean is not healthy for the body or sustainable. This is why it requires such strict counting and control.
3. Counting calories is important if you are eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) of processed, packaged, convenience foods. Sixty percent of the average American’s diet is processed. SIXTY PERCENT! And since this is the cause of the obesity crisis and most of the chronic disease we experience in the western world, this is the one I’ll focus on for the remainder of this blog post.
Yes, calories matter: The processed food conundrum.
You’ve likely heard of these n=1 experiments where people who feel the need to prove the calorie theory of weight loss will lose weight eating only Twinkies by counting calories. The part they don’t tell you about is how hungry they are all the time, constantly fighting cravings, and just generally feel like garbage. Yay! Good for them.
Yes, you can lose weight by counting calories. And count calories you will need to if you’re going to eat Twinkies and other garbage. Here’s why (and this goes for all processed foods, not just Twinkies)…
Processed foods are calorie-dense, and nutrient-poor. Your body will continually scream for food when its macro and micro requirements are not being met. Your hunger literally never shuts off. This is how an obese person eating 10,000 calories per day can actually be considered malnourished.
Processed foods are calorie-dense, and nutrient-poor part two. Consider this: standard nutrition advice is for a woman to eat around 1500 calories per day to lose weight. Let’s take my absolute favorite junk food, cream-filled Krispy Kreme donuts. One donut contains 340 calories. For me to lose weight on the Krispy Kreme diet, I would be allowed to have just over 4 donuts a day. I can eat four donuts in a single sitting, easy. And probably still be hungry for more. Whether I eat my 4.25-donut allotment in one sitting, or split them up into several meals…I will be hungry. All. Day. Long.
Processed foods affect our hormones differently than real food. When you eat a Twinkie, it causes a dramatic rise in blood glucose, which causes a dramatic rise in insulin. This a.) tells your body to store fat, and, b.) causes a consequent crash of blood sugar, leading to hunger and cravings in a short time. Eventually this constant spike and crash causes obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes. Try this experiment some time. Eat a Twinkie for breakfast. Note how quickly you get hungry. The next day eat two eggs for breakfast. See what happens.
Processed foods are chemically engineered to cause addiction and overeating. Yes, you read that right. Food companies hire neuroscientists who know which combinations of salt, sugar, and fat light up the pleasure centers of our brain. This is why it’s easy to stop eating a plain baked potato, but very hard to stop popping potato chips! The chips have the perfect combination of carbs, fat, and salt, leading us to overeat them every time…and continue to crave them long after we’ve finished the entire can.
Processed foods don’t have a lot of bulk. Think about how easy it is to down three donuts or three slices of pizza. Pretty damn easy, right? Now consider the same number of calories of broccoli. Can you imagine how much broccoli that would be? Impossible to eat that much broccoli in three days, let alone one sitting! That’s because broccoli is low in calories, high in nutrient content, water, and fiber, and is bulky. That is, calorie for calorie, it takes up a lot of space in your stomach. Fibrous, bulky, water-dense foods stretch the stomach, prompting the brain to send out the “stop eating” signal.
Calories don’t matter when you’re doing things right and nourishing your body with healthy foods!
Your lifestyle determines whether or not calories matter
Bottom line, if you focus on good nutrition most of the time, your hunger hormones will regulate naturally and you simply won’t overeat. So, there will be no need to count calories.
I’m a big proponent of the 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of your diet should be unprocessed, nutrient-dense, life-sustaining foods. Most of that should be plants, with occasional doses of meat, seafood, and healthy fats. The rest of the time (20%) is what I call “recreational eating”: eating for fun and pure pleasure.
But if you plan to eat the standard American diet where 60% or more of your diet comes from highly processed and hyper-palatable foods, then, yes, absolutely you will need to count calories to lose and/or maintain weight. It’s simply too easy to overeat those foods, and continue to crave and crave and crave to eat more. And we all know how short-lived willpower can be when there’s a package of Oreos sitting in the cabinet.
Thank you for reading!
Blog Author: Kelly Bailey, IIN certified holistic nutrition coach, and NPTI certified personal trainer
Learn more about the author here.