What is a calorie?
A calorie, or kilocalorie, is a unit of measure. It is the energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius.
For many people though, it is that “thing” adding fat to our body!
Speaking of bodies, our body needs calories in order to live! It gets those calories by consuming the macronutrients protein, fat, and carbohydrates. Through a metabolic process, the body turns the food calories into glucose, glycogen, amino acids and fatty acids.
So, if this is a normal part of living, why the big deal about calories?
Obesity CONUNDRUM
Our problem with calories is that because of our excess consumption, we get fat. And not just fat but obese and even excessively obese. The diet industry is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. You would think that with all the money spent combatting obesity, people would be becoming less obese. That is not the case. Statistics Canada indicates that there has been a 9% increase from 2003 to 2022 in people over 18 years of age. Thirty percent of the Canadian population is considered obese.
Calories are the culprit
The “experts”, not only in Canada but also the United States, England, Australia and the majority of the Western World are alarmed.
The Danger of being fat
Obesity, being fat, means that there is an increase for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and a multitude of other ailments. Treating obesity puts a strain on our health care systems. Treating the results of obesity costs even more.
What causes people to become fat?
What causes people to be fat?
This is a great question! Too bad there is no one who is in agreement about the answer. The environment, lack of exercise, eating the wrong calories, hormones and eating too many calories are but a few of the suspects.
the environment
The increase in the use of pesticide, bad chemicals in our water, air and soil and in the material we make things with all have disrupted our environment. We are poisoning ourselves due to our advancements in industry. Our plants are different now; better! We have modified their DNA making them hardier, pest resistant and “healthier”. It seems strange how our obesity became such an issue starting around the same time that genetically modified foods came into vogue.
lack of exercise
Industrialization has affected our society. We have moved into cities and have left the country. We have cars, busses, electric bicycles and skateboards. Seldom do we walk any distance and we take elevators instead of stairs. As a nation, we are less fit due to less exercise. Thus we are burning off fewer calories than we used to.
eating the wrong food
Our modern world has made eating convenient. Our food is packaged and processed. We have “fast food” that is oversized. Our drinks are also oversized. A large burger, fries, and drink now have more calories than needed. Sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and sodium saturates our food, even “health food.”
hormones
Our hormones are not working like they used to. Some have hormone issues that will cause obesity. Hormones have been most held most of us hostage. Insulin levels have increased because we are eating processed and fast food. Diabetes and pre-diabetes are rampant, with 38.4 million with diabetes and 97.6 million with pre-diabetes in the US in 2021
insulin
Our insulin levels are high due to the excess glucose in our blood and glycogen in our muscles and liver. Insulin is the master hormone in the body and controls many different functions. Insulins’ role is to get glucose into the cells so it,, in turn, can be broken down into energy. When the cell has all it can handle though, the receptors shut down. The excess energy has to be stored somewhere. It is shunted to the fat cells which keep taking the excess. As a result we keep getting bigger!
eating too much food
Our modern lifestyle invariably leads us to eat too many calories. What does the body do with these calories? Are they used for energy, rebuilding the body or stored as fat?
calories in = calorie out
If you read government articles or nutrition articles or even fitness magazines you will see either these same words or a variation. One variation is, “you have to control you calories so you don’t get fat” or “you need to have a deficit of calories to lose weight” “eat less and exercise more”
The “Calories in Calories out” idea comes from the law of conservation of energy. The energy in a closed system can only be changed through energy entering or leaving the system.
Thus, according to this idea, if you take in 1500 calories and this is what your body needs for its metabolism then you will neither gain or lose fat. If you take in more than the needed 1500 calories then your body will store the extra calories as fat. If you take in less then the body will lose the deficit as fat.
The body is not a closed system
The second law of thermodynamics above deals with a closed system. In an open system, like our body, it is not just a simple matter of energy in and energy out. There will be energy lost plus energy used up to make energy for metabolism.
Changing Energy through metabolism
Although we eat calories in the form of macronutrients, these calories need to be broken down in order to used by our system. This takes energy.
Some of the by products, glucose, glycogen and fatty acids are either used by the body for energy or stored in the liver and muscle or in fat cells.
Protein is broken down into amino acids and used to build, repair and transport.
calories are not all equal
A gram of carbohydrate yields four calories, as does a gram of protein. Fats have nine calories. It should be noted that these are approximate numbers only. The body will use the energy from the calories as it needs them. We have three different energy systems, and the body uses different processes to feed them.
a pound of fat contains 3500 calories
This statement is a corollary to the calories in = calories out theorem. This came about through experimentation and mathematics. Basically one pound is 454 grams. A fat gram is approximately 9 calories and it was determined that fat molecule are approximately 87% lipid. The math works out to 3555 calories.
But these are all approximate. All the different attempts to determine the number of calories in a pound of fat resulted in a range from 2843 – 3762 calories! (In 1901, Max Rubner1 estimated that carbs and protein contained 4.1 calories. The fat contained 9.3 calories. In 1912, the estimation of lipids in human fat tissue was determined to be between 72 – 87%)
Following the formula to gain or lose fat
To lose one pound of fat in a week, you need to consume 3500 fewer calories. This can be achieved by eating 500 fewer calories each day, exercising more so 500 calories are burned in a day, or a combination of both.
To gain weight just means adding an extra 500 or more calories a day.
This sounds pretty straightforward and easy doesn’t it? So why have we got such an obesity epidemic?
your weight loss on the diets you undertook
Approximately 90% of us have followed a calorie reducing diet and failed. There might have been an initial weight loss. Most of that was water loss. Since the government recommended diet calls for 50 – 65% of our calories coming from carbohydrates, it is not surprising to see the water loss. We eat less carbohydrates when we reduce our calories. Each gram of carbohydrate uses three grams of water so reducing carbohydrates means three times the amount of water is not needed.
metabolic needs
Each of us needs a certain amount of calories just to maintain our weight. This is called our basic metabolic rate. When calories are reduced below this level, the body will slow down its metabolism. It will also make the body hungry, trying to get the fuel it needs. Certain metabolic functions will be shut down as the available energy will go to the most important areas, like the brain.
“Since 1917, we have known how quickly and easily calorie deficit will increase a person’s desire for energy and reduce their propensity to expend energy”2
The rebound effect after the diet
Since we are hungry, cold and lethargic while on a calorie reduced diet, they are eventually abandoned. Any weight that was lost will be regained and another 10 – 20% added on.
Metadata analysis obtained from reviewing many different calorie diets indicates that none work! What especially doesn’t work is the 3500-calorie per-pound formula.
A 36,902 calorie a day diet
A show in Britain3 features a man who weighed 672 pounds and ate 36,902 calories daily. His metabolic rate was calculated as 4500 calories a day. If the 3500 calories needed to gain one pound of fat are correct, then this man should have gained 9 pounds daily! That is 3337 pounds a year! Yet, his weight had been stable for six years.
the greatest loser
The Greatest Loser show in the States had men and women who not only were on a very calorie restrictive diet but also had personal trainers pushing them to exercise. The use of a steam chambers were also used. All of the contestants were well under the 500 calorie a day deficient. There should have been a straight downward sloping line indicating their weight loss. There wasn’t.
Why then do we hold onto these myths?
Could it be that it is not the calories in – calories out that we should be looking at the reason we as a nation are getting fatter.
Maybe, just maybe, there is something else at play.
1 Harcombe, Zoe, “The Obesity Epidemic: What Caused It? How Can We Stop It?” Columbus Publishing Ltd, London, 2010, Kindle Edition p.53
2 IBID p63
3 IBID p 66-67