Why calorie counters are confused

We’ve all been misled about calories.
A few years ago I believed it myself. Losing weight was exclusively about “consuming less calories than you expend”. The mantra was: “eat less, run more”.
Fat people’s problems – I believed – came from them eating more calories than they expended. They were gluttonous and slothful; they lacked strength of character, which meant that thin people like me had such strength of character. This was uplifting news to me, if a bit prejudiced.
This way of looking at things seemed so obvious and simple. Today however, more and more people realizing how inane it is. Soon we’ll look back and laugh at the silliness.
The mistake
The following explanation may be difficult to understand if you’ve been confused with the “calorie in, calorie out” logic. It takes time to digest the concept (it did for me, too).
Here’s what’s wrong with calorie obsession: It’s absolutely meaningless as helpful advice. It may seem logical and smart, but in fact, it doesn’t help people lose weight.
A typical example:
This sounds plausible, sure. But what does it really tell us? The fact that an excess of calories will cause weight gain is obvious. Really, it’s obvious to the point of the two things actually being one and the same. An excess of calories is simply the same thing as weight gain. When you realise this, you realise how the statement loses all substance:
This is plainly meaningless. It may be true, sure, but it’s devoid of any valuable information. It doesn’t say anything about the real causes of obesity.
Other generic statements from calorie fundamentalists include:
As a calorie deficit is equivalent to weight loss, we can expose this flawed proposition as well:
Again: a statement so obvious it becomes useless.
Comedy or tragedy?
This brainwashing would have been comical, had it not been for the tragic consequences. When a person with weight issues seeks the professional help of calorie experts today, they often end up hearing the following:
“Now now. There are many ideas about diets, fad diets and other things, but it’s really very simple. There is only one way. Forget everything else – there are no shortcuts. It doesn’t matter what you eat. Let me tell you: the only thing you need to focus on if you want to be thinner… Is to lose weight.”
Finally
Here’s what it would look like if people solved their maths problems by applying the same thought patterns as calorie believers do:
A little too simple, you’ll surely agree! This is as gross a simplification as believing that obesity simply results from excess calories.
Although many people are now realizing that the calorie paradigm being fed to us is meaningless, there’s still a long way to go. The believers are so convinced that they can’t see how redundant the reasoning is. The problem is they’re still misunderstanding the practical impact.
A better way
Here’s better (free) advice on losing weight. No calorie counting or hunger needed!
68 comments
Another experience was when living with the Inuit in Northern Canada: although they now "enjoy" many of our Western Industrialised Foods, many of those where I stayed still also "live off the land"... seals, arctic char, caribou, ptarmigan, even polar bears on occasion!
Before any extended trip out in the cold of winter, they would be sure to eat their own "country food" as they called it, rather than the store-bought stuff... as they had found it was only this country food which kept them warm and full of energy when out in frigid temperatures.
Well my experience has been quite different than yours. I have always been physically active, but needed to lose some weight in order to perform better in my athletic endeavours. The problem for me has always been binge eating whenever I exercise. So I went very low carb for a while. I suddenly had better control over my eating and lost a good amount of weight. But let me tell you this had ZERO effect on my energy levels and ZERO effect on my overall daily calorie demands. In other words it appeared the only difference VLC made is that I sponteanously reduced my calorie intake. However after a while I started eating more again and gain a few pounds back. That's when I abanded the carb-insulin hypothesis. Instead I think my body's long-term homeostatic system kicked in and adapted to this change in diet, and ultimately wanted to drive me back up to my set point.
Anyways my belief is that the people who have more success on LC diets are those who have more drastically changed their lifestyle. If you went from obese, sedentary, and eating pure junk to exercising moderately with a LC diet, you are going to feel much better/different than someone like me who was already physically active and only modestly overweight.
Calorie off by as much as 80 % They are enormously innaccurate
Nobody could consciously match the 12 MILLION or so calories ingested to expended over a decade, YET the BODY does it FOR US and far more accurately.
Research from all over the world shows that people ( not actively trying to alter their weight) remain remarkably weight stable over a decade.
Even when you are " counting calories " YOU'RE NOT.
And its a garbage diagnose altso.. if they dont know way you have high cholesterol they say.. it must be geneticaly!
Its quit simpel to find out if its thruth, by your self.. becuse then one or both of your parents have the same condition.
If they dont have this.. its probably the more common, metabolic syndrome.
I got this diagnosis to.. but its not that, becuse my cholesterole levels have droped from deadly high to nearly normal on a high fat diet!
But in the begining it rised.. and first after 4 years it droped.
Soo.. first.. do your parents have this.. did some of them die in there middel age from it.. and ask the doctor wich sort of it they think you have!
And if one have the deadly sort.. one have high cholesteroles the whole life.. even as a kid!
Soo.. you have to sort it out.
Thank you in comment 47 for finally clarifying what you mean, because you had me really confused. I get the argument for argument's sake and see your point about being sold ideas that are meaningless, and changing the world one thought process at a time; however, at the end of the day the bottom line (and we Yanks Love the bottom line) is eat fewer calories than you burn if you want to lose weight.
I have excellent reading comprehension and critical thinking skills, yet I had to scour this whole site looking for that simple statement.
Good. Glad that's settled. I think it would be helpful to put that statement at the top of the article. Call it a caveat if you want, but the argument tends to obfuscate that which you later state is obvious and I don't think that's your goal. And perhaps highlight that it's not being aware of how many calories one consumes that is the problem, but that to rely on numbers rather than natural signals is. Otherwise I'm right there with you on all other points.
I thank you kindly for generously bringing all of your research to us. It has already helped me tremendously. Keep up the good work!
Its this new low fat, low calorie, dogma that is totaly wrong.. it confuse people.. when healt and normal weight is more about eating whole real home cocked food.. frome the best groceries one can bye!
And that every calorie affects your body in a different way!
Also try to employ one night refeed (carbs) a week...why the heck no one is considering leptin as a problem in his situation?! Dietdoctor anything to say about leptin resistance?!
If there is any wrong doing there is in the past?
The first weight loss is often easy.
It looks more to me that you need a rebuilding of your body.. more muscles and less fat?
I dont know that.. but thats a comon problem of a sedentary life style!
Its easy to drop some extra kilos in the begining.. it take years to build a fit body!
And on top of that.. you have now learned that calories is not the only thing thats count!
There are no wrong to check the calories, it says something, but seldome the whole truth!
Its as good as checking ketones, it says another thing!
And both are markers, not the whole truth, and not a goal per se!
correct, yet it tell us nothing.
Excess calories are the cause of muscle growth.
If you have big muscles, you've eaten more than you've spent. Period.
Talking about calories is moronic.