Calorie Misconceptions - 10/08/2011

Every time I hear anyone mention the word calorie I get that “nails down a chalk board” like cringe reaction. The simply fact is that most people have literally no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to calories, even the professionals (who should). The message I want to convey in this article is that when it comes to calories the best thing you can do is pretend they don’t exist.

What is a calorie?

A calorie is man made expression for food energy, 1 kcal is enough energy to increase the heat of 1kg of water by 1 C. At this point I think it’s important to note that this reaction takes place inside a machine called a bomb calorimeter and not a human body. In fact you could argue that this reaction is entirely different to a human metabolic reaction, mainly because human metabolism is a lot more complicated. The term “burn” is often used in relation to human metabolism, “if you do this you’ll burn more fat” etc. But the meaning is far from literal, we don’t actually ignite food upon digestion. That would be ridiculous, but apparently using results from a machine which does just that isn’t?

                                           Your metabolism, apparently.

                                

All calories are equal.

Soon after the invention of the not so brilliant bomb calorimeter it was discovered that each of the macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fat) has a definite kcal per gram value. Protein and carbohydrates each contain 4kcals per 1g, and fat contains 9kcals per 1g. Now remember what a calorie actually is (a measure of energy) and take into account the fact that of the three macronutrients only carbohydrates are used exclusively for energy. So why give protein and fat a calorie value if we don’t use them exclusively for energy? So called professionals who prescribe to this theory literally amaze me, sometimes a picture truly can say a thousand words.   

                                                               Info taken from nutritiondata.self.com. 
                                               

Calories in = Calories out.   

Nutritionists often over simplify things, and usually as a result of calorie misconceptions. The most extreme example of this is the dogmatic belief that human energy homeostasis can be described simply as “calories in = calories out”. This statement in its self isn’t actually that dangerous (or untrue), it’s the conclusions which are drawn from this that are more sinister. For example, the notion that eating less calories is the healthiest way to lose weight. There are two ways to create a calorie deficit (needed to lose weight) without increasing exercise, you can either optimise your metabolism through nutrient partitioning (see coming article). Or you can starve yourself. It’s that simple. Most nutritionist genuinely believe and preach that the second option is the healthiest.

I don’t want people to read this and think “wow, he hates nutritionists” because I don’t! I have a lot of a respect for good nutritionists, they’re just hard to find from my experience. Every industry has its good and bad practitioners, and unfortunately due to nutrition’s relatively new public involvement a lot of very bad nutritionists have made a lot of money in the past. So if you are thinking of hiring a nutritionist choose carefully, and don’t be afraid to tackle them on subjects such as calorie counting.

I have had rather a long layoff from writing but hopefully I’ll be a lot more active in the coming future. So if you have any feedback or suggestions for future articles please email them to me at lee.tailorednutrition@gmail.com.

Until next time I’ll leave you with this to think about.

The image below is a very basic model of human metabolism, demonstrating the complexity of human energy homeostasis. 

So just a tad more complicated than "calories in = calories out", sigh.

Lee A Gray