One of the most common ways to track our food intake is the "Calories in Calories out" method. We track how much we burn with apps and devices such as Apple Watch, then we track how many calories we put in with Nutritional Information found on packets. But this is stupid for two reasons:
- Fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat have no nutritional information on them so it's next to impossible to track this
- The way calories are measured does not correlate to the way we "burn" them.
Let's look at each point and see why calorie counting is stupid.
Point 1: Nutritional information is lacking
Let's start with defining a calorie because a calorie in food is NOT the same as a calorie in energy. A food calorie is actually a Kilocalorie. This means 1 food calorie is actually 1000 calories. It's one of the reasons why I prefer to use Kilojoules as a measurement for energy rather than calories... that and the fact I use metric.
So we look on the packets of foods and we see "Average per Serving" and "Average per 100(ml/g)" etc. It's best to go off the per 100 details then multiply by the serving size rather than the serving size itself.
All of this information is great stuff and you can get a good picture of how much you're consuming except you can't.
We're constantly told to avoid junk food and eat more natural food. But have you looked at a packet of potatoes or a packet of apples and seen nutritional information? How about butcher beef or lamb? It's not there. Why?
I have a conspiratorial theory in that the health experts don't want you finding out because then they can't push the "Calories in Calories out" dieting rubbish. But that's all it is, a theory.
I did find some info about NZ Beef on the NZ Beef and Lamb website which I did find interesting. So average per 100g of NZ Beef is 787Kj so less than a can of tuna but more than a serving of chips (crisps not fries). This is important to note because when you see how much calories are in something “healthy” then you realise that using calories as a measure of health is stupid.
Point 2: We don’t burn calories the same as calories are measured
There are two methods of determining the calorie content of food. Both of which are shown in this video:
Both are flawed. For instance the Bomb Calorimeter, as stated in this video, measures the calories of everything that's in that food. As stated this is problematic as food has non-digestable material which means we can't access those calories. This would makes sense why fruit and vegetables don't have calorie labels as we can't actually digest most of them anyway, especially fibrous foods like celery.
The second problem comes with the Atwater System. You might remember in my post Diets, the old new scam, I mentioned how many so-called scientific studies don't meet scientific criteria? Well, guess what? Atwater did a very small study on only one race all of who were male. You and I process food different from each other and so whereas I might be super-efficient at digesting food (higher metabolism), you might be less efficient (lower metabolism). So I'm going to get more energy from food than you would. Atwater's system doesn't allow for any variences and so it is scientifically inaccurate.
It's also too simplistic. Here's how you can calculate the amount of energy for each food.
- Protein: x 4
- Fat: x 9
- Carbohydrates: x 4
You then add them up. So let's look at an example using Continental Classics - Pepper Steak & Mushroom Soup. Protein/100g is 0.4, Fat/100g is 1.4, and Carbohydrates/100g is 7.1. So we have:
- Protein: 1.6
- Fat: 12.6
- Carbohydrate: 28.4
Add together and round up and you get 43 calories. If you're like me and work in metric you'd multiply by 0.0041868 then by 1000. Oh yeah, did I mention that a food calorie is actually 1000 calories?
But both the Bomb Calirometer and the Atwater System required at least in part burning food, we have to realise one important issue with these systems. There's no furnace inside our bodies. Let me explain.
In my post Let’s get moving, I explained how fat is broken down in our bodies. Enzymes go to the muscles that are being worked, break apart the bonds holding the fats together, forming free floating atoms. These atoms are unstable in that their electron rings aren't full and so they will join to other atoms to become stable. The resulting chemical reaction creates heat which is what powers our muscles.
So energy is created in our bodies using chemical reactions caused by floating atoms. These are triggered by enzymes and not another heat source like in the Bomb Calorimeter. So using the Bomb Calorimeter or the Atwater System which is based on information from a Bomb Calorimeter gives an incorrect idea of how calories are created in our body.
Conclusion
So in reality we need to stop using calories to tell us how to lose fat. Yes, the eat less part of the "Eat Less Move More" equation does in some way mean we eat less calories but should just simply reduce our intake rather than eat based on calorific values.
For example. I love pies. I have no doubt that my pie eating has played a role in my larger gut. So instead of me eating two pies, each around 2000Kj I simply should eat only one. Instead of consuming 4000Kj I’m consuming 2000Kj but I didn’t need to look at the label to do that.
This is where will power comes in more than anything because we need to stop our bodies needing to fill that extra pie. The truth is that we don’t need that extra pie we want that extra pie.
In my next post I’ll look at ways we can stop consuming so much food.
In the meantime check out these videos for some extra information on why counting calories is stupid.
How a Bomb Calorimeter works:
Why counting calories is stupid: