Common Calorie Myths We Should All Stop Believing. Many people think weight loss is simply about cutting calories. They believe that to lose weight, you must reduce calories (either eat less or burn more), to gain weight you must add calories, and to maintain weight you keep calories constant. To these folks, calories in, calories out is the only thing that matters. ![]() ![]()
![]() ![]() They usually oppose the Primal Blueprint because they assume that we “deny” the importance of calories in weight loss. Well, they’re wrong. I don’t deny the importance of calories. ![]() Calories absolutely count. And if someone has lost weight, they have necessarily expended more calories than they consumed. That said, there are some major misconceptions about calories, body weight, fat loss, and health. These calorie myths are often rooted in truth but presented in black- or- white terms that are useless at best, harmful at worst, and do little to help the average person lose body fat. Let’s dig right in. Calories in, calories out is all you need to know. Simple is nice. But overly simple is dangerously inaccurate, so let’s break this statement down. What does “calories in” refer to? Calories in . We can’t metabolize sunlight or oxygen. We can’t feast on the souls of the damned. The food we eat determines “calories in” entirely. Simple.“Calories out” is where it gets confusing. There are several components to “calories out”: Resting energy expenditure ? There are a lot more variables to consider. Oh, and about those variables. You could drop energy intake and maintain your resting metabolic rate while burning the same amount of energy digesting food (even though you’re eating less of it) and working out. The fat would melt off at a predictable, constant rate. Anyone with basic arithmetic skills (or a calculator) could become a successful weight loss coach and very few people would be overweight. In reality, the amount. To keep weight loss going, you often have to lower food intake even more (to counteract the reduced metabolic rate) and remind yourself to fidget, tap your feet, twiddle your thumbs, and shiver (to recreate the missing spontaneous movement). And you have to do it again when the body readjusts. Patient Education PO Box 1120 Danville, VA 24543 1-877-846-8930 www.gatewayhealth.com Low Cholesterol Diet Purpose Fat is a major energy source for the body. Calculate your daily energy expenditure. Each Gerber tool comes loaded with numerous features The materials employed in making. Ectomorph + Fat = The Hardgainer. The best example I can give you of what I mean revolves around the word An example of a 2000 calorie diet plan. This diet plan is based on three normal meals plus two small snacks. We prefer a balanced macronutrient plan of around 30%. ![]() Calories: How Many Calories Equals One Pound? Written by Diet Bites. Energy equals calories equals pounds. Whole foods take more energy to process and digest than processed foods. In one example, subjects either ate a “whole food” sandwich (multigrain bread with cheddar cheese) or a “processed food” sandwich (white bread with cheese product). Both meals were isocaloric (same number of calories) and featured roughly identical macronutrient (protein, fat, carb) ratios. Those eating the multigrain sandwiches expended 1. The white bread group expended only 7. Protein takes more energy to process and digest than other macronutrients. Compared to a low- fat, high- carb diet, a high- protein diet increased postprandial energy expenditure by 1. ![]() And in both obese and lean adults, eating a high- protein meal was far more energetically costly (by almost 3- fold) than eating a high- fat meal. Calories in affects calories out. The two variables are anything but independent of each other. Weight gain is caused by eating more calories than you expend. Calorie fetishists. That is, everyone who gains weight necessarily ate more calories than they expended. We’ve established that everyone agrees on this. It doesn’t tell us anything new or useful. It’s merely descriptive, not explanatory. To show you what I mean, let’s do the same thing with other phenomena. Why was Martin Luther King Jr.? Because someone pointed a sniper rifle at him and fired it. Why did Usain Bolt win the 1. Beijing Olympics? Because he crossed the finish line first. Why is the restaurant so crowded? Because more people entered than left. These are technically true, but they ignore the ultimate causes. In King’s case, they fail to discuss racism, the civil rights movement, or the motivation of the shooter. They don’t mention Bolt’s training, genetics, or his childhood. They don’t discuss why the restaurant has attracted so many customers ? They simply restate the original statement using different words. They just describe what happened. I’m interested in what truly causes us to eat more than we expend and/or expend less than we eat. I don’t care to merely describe weight gain because that doesn’t help anyone. A calorie is a calorie. Look. Like everyone else, I got chills when he’d wax poetic about our place in the universe and our shared origins as “star- stuff.” But just because steak comes from the same star- stuff as a baked potato, isocaloric amounts of each do not have identical metabolic fates in our bodies when consumed. We even have a study that examined this. For two weeks, participants either supplemented their diets with isocaloric amounts of. This was added to their regular diet. After two weeks, researchers found that body weight, waist circumference, LDL, and Apo. B (a rough measure of LDL particle number) were highest in the candy group, indicating increased fat mass and worsening metabolic health. Since the peanut group’s metabolic rate increased, they expended more calories. And studies indicate that the macronutrient composition can differentially affect whether the weight lost is fat. It’s not just about total calories. Take the 2. 00. 4 study from Volek that placed overweight men and women on one of two diets: a very low- carb ketogenic diet or a low- fat diet. The low- carb group ate more calories but lost more weight and more body fat, especially dangerous abdominal fat. Or the study from 1. Even though the high- carb group lost slightly more body weight, the high- fat group lost slightly more body fat and retained more lean mass. Just “weight” doesn’t tell us much. Are we losing/gaining fat or muscle, bone, sinew, organ? Are we increasing the robustness of our colons and the number of bacterial residents (who, though small, carry weight and occupy space) from added? These factors matter for health. I’d argue that they’re the only factors that actually matter when losing or gaining weight because they offer insight into our health and body composition. Exercise helps you lose weight only by burning calories. Most people think of exercise as a way to mechanically combust calories. And that’s true, to a point. But it does lots of other cool things to our physiology that can assist with improving body composition, too. Compared to something high intensity like burpees or something aerobic like running a 1. But it does improve insulin sensitivity, which reduces the amount of insulin we secrete for a given amount of carbohydrate and increases our ability to burn body fat. It increases muscle mass, which uses calories (protein). It strengthens connective tissue, which also uses calories. It even preserves metabolic rate during weight loss and boosts it for up to 7. All these changes affect the fate of the calories we ingest. If calories burnt were the most important factor, then the best way to lose weight would be to hammer it out with as much endurance exercise as you can withstand because that’s the most calorie intensive. But studies show that combination training . It also preferentially targets the reward regions of our brains, reducing the allure and spontaneously lowering our intake of junk food. Counting calories allows us to accurately monitor food intake. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? Most foods at the grocery store have labels. Even restaurants are beginning to emblazon menus with calorie counts for each item. As humans, we implicitly trust the printed word. Whether it’s the nutritional information provided by restaurants, the calorie counts on supposedly “low- calorie” foods, or the nutritional labels on packaged foods, calorie counts are rarely accurate. Food manufacturers can even underreport calories by 2. FDA. Maybe that’s why people have so much trouble sticking to their allotted number of calories. If only reality would bend to the will of the label! You may roll your eyes at some of these ideas because they’re so preposterous, but consider where you’re coming from, where you’re reading this. This is how the general public . Sure, not everyone immersed in conventional wisdom holds every one of these myths to be true. And when they’re actually faced with the statement, few will claim that a calorie of steak is metabolically identical to a calorie of white sugar or that weight loss is the same as fat loss. But when calories in, calories out is the first line of attack against excess body fat, these are the kind of myths that become entrenched. It’s important to take them head- on. No one wants to be fat. The obese know they’re obese. They’ve had “calories in, calories out” drummed into their heads for years. If it were really as simple as eating less and moving more, they wouldn’t be obese. That might be the biggest danger of the continued propagation of these myths . Take care and be sure to let me know what you think of these calorie myths in the comment section. I’ve got more calorie myths on the way. Prefer listening to reading? Get an audio recording of this blog post, and subscribe to the Primal Blueprint Podcast on i. Tunes for instant access to all past, present and future episodes here. Subscribe to the Newsletter. If you'd like to add. Using Reverse Dieting to Create a Potent, Fat- Burning Metabolism. Reverse dieting is the single greatest way to restore your metabolism to its fullest potential. Below you will find everything you need for incorporating reverse dieting into your nutrition program so that you can prime your metabolism for long- term fat loss. Why Should You Be Reverse Dieting? Tell me if this sounds like you: You’ve been trying to lose weight for a while now, and the weight loss starts off going really well. Eventually though, it slows down or stops altogether. So you decide to cut your calories further or do more cardio, and while that works for a little while, your progress plateaus yet again. This cycle is repeated until you are likely eating an absurdly low amount of calories and doing quite a bit of cardio. You probably feel worn down, hungry, achy, and have little energy in the gym. Both your workout progress and weight loss have stalled. The thought of cutting calories even further sounds like a nightmare. But you still have quite a bit of weight to lose. None of this makes sense to you because eating less and exercising more is supposed to result in weight loss. So then, why is all this hard work not getting you results? At the end of the article I’m going to give you a checklist to help you implement reverse dieting for your own situation. Keep an eye out for that. The Case for Reverse Dieting. The reason for your stalled progress is quite simple, actually. When you cut calories, however small your deficit might be, your metabolism begins to down- regulate. In an effort to conserve its energy for survival, your body begins to manufacture less metabolism- friendly hormones like thyroid, testosterone, and leptin so that your body can reach homeostasis. For a simple picture of how this happens, take a 5. This is supposed to result in about a pound of weight loss per week. But that is not going to happen forever, or you would obviously wilt to nothing. Along the way in the weight loss process your body begins to slow down its metabolism to conserve valuable energy (fat, glycogen). Eat at that original 5. Reverse dieting helps you restore your metabolism to a much higher level so that you have a better “base” to cut calories from. Starting your weight loss at 2. The former will result in slower, yet more sustained weight loss over time. The latter will likely result in fast weight loss, quickly followed by stagnation, frustration, and then a falling into the yo- yo dieting trap. How to Reverse Diet. The idea is simple and the name explains it all. What you do is slowly start adding calories back into your diet. I would recommend adding in about 5% more calories on a weekly basis. This equates to about 5. Many people immediately cringe at the thought of adding calories into their weight loss diet. They are flat out afraid of putting on weight. These people are usually the ones who are already eating very low calories, and the concept of reverse dieting (eating more to lose more) just doesn’t “click” with them. But let me tell you what you can expect, and this comes from my own personal experience as well as seeing hundreds of other people implement reverse dieting into their own nutrition. You immediately notice a boost in energy. Your motivation returns and you start looking forward to your workouts again. Your hunger decreases, and all the feelings of extreme restriction start to moderate. Your weight, surprisingly, starts to slowly decrease again – completely flying in the face of all logic. You feel warmer as you stoke your metabolic flame, and your sleep quality greatly improves. You seem to handle stress better, your mental well- being is improved, and life in general just seems a little easier to handle. Sounds pretty great, huh? The problem is that most people don’t have the patience or the courage to give reverse dieting a try. They fear weight gain and they want their results to keep moving forward. Adding calories into their diet seems to go against their goals. However, time and time again I have seen people add calories back into their diet only to see their weight loss pick right back up again. It’s one of the most exciting moments in a dieter’s life when he eats more and sees the scale tick downward. You too could share in this excitement. More Thoughts on Reverse Dieting. You likely have many questions about implementing reverse dieting, and I’ll be more than happy to answer your questions in the comment section, but before I end this article, I want to touch on a few of the intricacies of reverse dieting. Reverse dieting is a slow and methodical process. You must be patient, and you must understand that weight and fat are not always one- in- the- same. Extra calories can result in modest weight gain, but you are not going to gain fat eating under your maintenance calories. Instead, this added weight gain, if any, will be intracellular water retention – otherwise known as muscle glycogen. This is good weight. It is fuel for your muscles. It will boost your energy in the gym and help increase your strength, and it will make your muscles feel fuller. If there is an increase in weight, it usually happens the first couple of days after increasing your calories and then levels off and starts decreasing again towards the end of the week. Weigh yourself, but pay closer attention to the way you look and feel. I recommend you continue with the reverse dieting process for as long as you can handle it. Continue adding in calories (5% per week) until you notice a true weight gain over two weeks. When you finally get to that point, you will have found your true maintenance calories. You will be shocked at just how high you can go. From there, you can cut your calories by 1. One that will provide you with a great high base to cut calories from so that you can achieve sustainable long- term weight loss. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Why not give reverse dieting a try? You really have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Why not take it one step at a time and just try adding in 1. I think you’ll be surprised with the results! If you’re ready to give it a try I’ve created a 4- step checklist to ensure you’re getting started right. It will walk you through the entire reverse dieting process and will let you know when and how much you should increase your calories in order to optimize your metabolism. You can download that checklist right here.
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