Want to Gain Weight? Keep Counting Calories To Get Fatter
The concept of food as “fuel” like gasoline and the body as an internal combustion engine dates to the 19th century
I completed the Zoe Nutrition program in May. Toward the end, I stopped meticulously logging what I ate. Since then, I’ve continued to eat mostly plants and modest amounts of protein. Every week I grow leaner and lighter.
I now weigh less and am much fitter than when I met Bruce at LAX January 2, 2014.
For several years, I’ve eschewed bread and baked goods in favor of vegetables and protein.
This morning I might eat some pancakes — or I might not.
After the past five years of daily wellness/fitness work following a lifetime of disordered eating, calorie counting, and “dieting,” I’m convinced that calorie counting for weight loss has probably added at least 10 pounds, more likely 20, to my frame — and also to every other overweight person who has done it.
Our human metabolisms are designed to keep us alive and well. We are built to be able to eat and digest a huge range of foods. We can even, on the occasion, eat and metabolize a Snickers or a stale Dunkin Donut Munchkin.
Here’s what Garmin told me about how many “calories” I “burned” last week.
As you can see, I increased my activity levels significantly. Yet I “burned” slightly fewer calories on average.
Oh, how is this so, Professors of CICO (Calories In — Calories Out)? Is it because I am “so sedentary” and “an older woman”? I hope people know how much work it is for a woman of my age to not just get in shape, but stay in shape.
This is what our bodies are designed to do. I’m at a healthy weight right now and my body wants me to be fit, not emaciated. I ate normally during the past week; it really didn’t matter that my — most likely accurate — Garmin fitness tracker told me I had a slightly lower calorie burn on average.
I have some good news for everyone: once you do the real work, it gets a lot easier. I might eat some of those whole grain pancakes this morning: haven’t yet decided.
Less? Sure — eat less non-nutritious food (try to reduce to zero until you’re confident and understand your body better). Eat more nutritious food.
“Have you tried eating real food”? That’s what everyone needs to do who is trending toward Type 2 Diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and all the other ailments which are brought on by the horrible SAD (Standard American Diet).
Calories and Calorie Counting are a Sales Tool
The article that I linked in the picture caption confidently states that calorie restriction is the only way to lose weight. The author’s “evidence”? 33 studies! Of what quality and import?
One study abstract that the author asserts will “prove” that energy balance in the form of calories in-calories out is the only source of weight loss or gain covered fewer than 300 people. The abstract doesn’t say that energy balance is the only source of weight loss or gain. It says the opposite, and suggests that more research is needed to uncover why there are differences in resting metabolic rates among otherwise similar individuals.
Calorie counts are printed on food labels and are highly standardized. We may think this is because the law governing food labeling is designed to help inform us.
It’s becoming more like “Designed to help sell foods to us.”
As I was writing, I realized I had two packaged foods at hand — two different brands and flavors of “organic granola.” I use the term organic loosely because these products are sourced from many places and it’s almost impossible for them to be truly “organic.” But that’s not the only issue. I know that by law, they can have a 20% variation (high or low) in their actual calorie count. That means that the granola on the left might contain as many as 180 calories per 1/4 cup or 30-gram serving, and the granola on the right might contain as few as 114 calories per 1/3 cup or 30-gram serving.
I have just weighed the servings for each package using a good food scale: both weigh 8 percent more than the package says for the volume of serving, including the 1/4 cup option.
Millions of people measure and count their food every day down to the last calorie. But by law, there could be as much as 30% variance in calorie count from what they believe they are consuming.
I’ve previously written about Wilbur Atwater, who invented the concept of human energy consumption and expenditure as “calories” back in the 19th century. Atwater’s original 19th century calorimeter measurements derived from burning food types are still used today. They form the basis for the mathematical calculations used to create printed calorie count labels on all products. A few companies provide directories of food calories and prepare the labels for food manufacturers. This article from 2011 discusses the rickety, poorly thought-out, and unreliable strategies used to “measure” and “count” food calories. I had to use the cached copy to read the article — the original has been removed from Scientific American’s website. Another SciAm article from 2006 makes the level of caloric count accuracy and processes clear: if we had this level of accuracy in our bank statements, we would all be broke.
You might think we’d have more reliable, correct information about something that is so foundational to people’s lives … but …
Let’s review the facts about calories, nutrition, and you
Calorie counts on nutrition labels can legally be off by 20%: high or low. It’s clear from serving sizes on labels that weight in grams or ounces is more reliable than by measure (i.e. cup/liter/milliliter/quart).
Nutrition labels include both macro- and micro-nutrients, but as can be seen in the above granola labels, even products marketed as “healthy” may have few to no micronutrients. The “whole grains” in both products are processed rolled oats. I know from consuming regular oatmeal made from rolled oats while I wore a blood glucose monitor that my blood sugar spiked highest of any foods after eating it. Rolled oats are moderately processed and the law apparently allows them to be called a “whole grain.” Steel-cut oatmeal is pretty close to a whole grain; rolled oats aren’t.
The entire food industry is designed to direct you into buying and consuming industrially-processed foods. And, the foods that are being marketed most heavily right now are using the terminology of health and nutrition while delivering low-quality, low-nutrition imitation food.
Neither you, nor I, need to consume 2,000 calories a day of “food” to maintain our health and homeostasis.
We need to consume sufficient nutrition to keep ourselves alive and well.
We need to do this primarily through real food, not imitation food.
Processed food labels are not only inaccurate — and allowed to be that way by law — they conceal the important nutrition information that every dietician or nutritionist learns.
Which fruits and vegetables contain which types of nutrition, from vitamins and minerals to fiber. Which types of grain contain which types of nutrition. Which types of protein contain which types of nutrition.
It isn’t just the omnipresence of excessive salt, sugar, and fat in all processed foods, it’s the absence of nutrition.
Until people switch to eating actual food: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and limited protein, as little-processed as possible, they can’t know what their own best diet will be.
Counting calories using any of today’s money-making food logging programs, printed nutrition labels, and a calories-in/calories-out approach is like working an hourly-wage job and letting your employer “guess” how many hours you actually worked and pay you based on a “guesstimate” that is allowed by law to be 20% off from the hours you actually worked.
That’s up to one day less per week.
Now do you see why you should count nutrition and learn reasonable portions and find your own best mealtimes, not count calories?