"The formula for weight loss sounds simple: You need to burn more calories than you take in. That usually means moving more and eating less. But does the thought of cutting back on what you eat leave you, well ... hungry?"
This is a direct quote from an email I recently received from my insurance company, accompanied by an article explaining that reducing my caloric intake by just a few hundred calories a day will help me lose those unwanted extra pounds. Oh, really? - well, it depends. . . My insurance company is not the only one bringing up calories in recent months; Mark's Daily Apple had a great post about 7 Common Calorie Myths We Should All Stop Believing and just today, a post on Robb Wolf's site asks, Do Calories Even Matter? And, for a not so recent post about the almighty calorie, Gary Taubes' post, What would happen if. . . ? Thoughts (and thought experiments) on the calorie issue.
Look, it IS true that reducing calories (see the Twinkie Diet), or tons of exercise, or both (see Biggest Loser) can reduce your 'weight', but what happens when you can't fight your body's need for 'food' any longer, or when you have health conditions that preclude hours of vigorous exercise (or, you know, you work for a living instead of living at the Biggest Loser enclave)? And what kind of 'weight' are you losing? Many conventional weight loss plans often reduce muscle mass right along with fat mass - maybe not such a good idea. And what happens when you go back to eating (and exercising) in the way you always have? Aaaaand, while dropping some weight may reduce the stress on your arthritic joints, if your focus is exclusively on counting calories, are you getting the nutrition to build healthier joints?
People like to measure things - how cold (or hot) is it today? How many miles to grandma's house? How much money is in the bank? How many calories are there in this meal? But we need some context in what we measure - If it's 35 degrees outside, am I dressed appropriately? Am I just standing around or am I doing vigorous exercise? Am I walking to grandma's house? Or am I driving there? Flying? Did I just deposit my paycheck in the bank? Or did I just pay all my bills? The same context is important when it comes to calories; it is too simplistic to reduce calories in/calories out (CICO) to a simple mathematical equation.
I recently read a discussion on a cycling forum about weight loss. It was interesting (and occasionally highly entertaining) to read through the opinions of a diverse group of people whose only common denominator is their obsession with two wheels (and if you think that a group of people whose hobby directly relates to physical activity don't struggle with their weight, think again!). There were a number of proponents of the conventional calories in/calories out weight loss model (cycle more, eat less!!), and a surprising number (at least to me), that advocated for a 'paleo diet', as well a few people who claimed weight loss success using supplements (or thought some illicit drugs might be in order). There were a couple of real gems, in my humble opinion; below is one, paraphrased for context. . .
"Calories are a unit of energy, just like a joule is.
As such calories are not ingested, processed and stored. A vast array of simple and complex compounds are ingested and metabolized and each of these have an associated energy gain which can simplistically be related to the caloric value of the food. It is massively simplistic and in some cases not at all relevant, hence the discussion here and how different foods will aid weight loss better, but it's been taken as a standard because the concept is easy for people to understand and generally is applicable when deciding total amounts of food to eat.
It seems a nit-picking point, but it isn't. Two foods with the same caloric value can be metabolized in a vastly different way and have a very different impact on the body.
As for metabolism being a simple concept. Errr... No."
To repeat, 'as for metabolism being a simple concept, errr. . . No'. Below is a 'simple' diagram of metabolism (woe-is-me, I remember memorizing some of these pathways in college). Please note, the word 'calorie' is not in there. . .
If this diagram seems complicated, think of all the complex structures you body is busily building and rebuilding, over and over and over, ad nauseam. To quote Taubes, "the mantra that ‘a calorie is a calorie is a calorie' serves only to direct attention away from the meaningful characteristics of the macronutrients in our diets...". What is the purpose of eating after all? To keep the number of calories under an arbitrary number based on your size, sex and amount of physical activity, or to provide your body with the nutrients it needs to maintain a fully functioning h. sapiens sapiens?
So, what has/is working for me?
A low calorie/high exercise regimen worked to get my weight down to around 115 in my twenties. Of course, by my thirties I had rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, cystic acne and my weight had ballooned to about 190, so I guess maybe rice cakes and jogging (and later biking), wasn't entirely. . . optimal. As the weight piled on, I tried. I really tried; over the years, more biking, stair-master, aerobics, low-fat, low-cal, vegetarian. Getting 'the shakes' and brain fog, signs of blood sugar dysregulation, was an almost daily occurrence. I'd lose a few pounds, gain back those and five more. It was maddening, and I felt like such a failure. Flash forward to the adoption of a paleo/primal diet and intermittent fasting, combined with moderate weight lifting. Over a period of years, my rheumatoid arthritis and IBS improved and my weight dropped to around 125 (based on the scale at the doctor's office, as I didn't own a scale at this time). No over night magic, but steady progress. I didn't count calories. I didn't count carbs. I ate nutrient dense meals of meat/fish/fowl and vegetables; no processed food, no grains, no legumes. Regularly planned 'cheat' meals. Sometimes my workouts were gung-ho, sometimes they were half-assed. Nonetheless, I had life changing results.
Having achieved these life changing results, I got a bit cocky. I began mountain biking, stopped using intermittent fasting and became less stringent with my paleo/primal food template . . . and over a period of years, I regained around fifteen pounds (evidence, if I needed it, that up to two hours of vigorous 'cardio' four days a week, plus some weight lifting, won't do a darn thing to keep my weight stable) and I began having more significant trouble with my IBS (I also attribute this to a bout of severe food poisoning and antibiotic treatment). So, I bought a scale and rededicated myself to quality paleo food and. . . nothing happened; I could NOT make a single pound budge. Maybe because I'm now in my forties, maybe because my gut flora got all out of whack, maybe because the stars were no longer aligned; I just don't know. What I DO know is that by switching to a ketogenic paleo template with a daily (most of the time) 16 hour fast (Wahls Paleo Plus ring a bell?), I've gone back down eleven pounds (only four more to get (back) to 125). Not such a big change really; slightly (very slightly) less protein and slightly more fat (think avocado, macadamias, coconut oil) in my basic no grains, no legumes, no processed food, nutrient dense meat/fish/fowl and vegetables meal plan. Again, I'm not counting calories, or carbs, or for that matter, grams of fat (although I do confirm ketosis with urine test strips); sometimes my work outs are gung-ho, sometimes they're half-assed, and now that it's winter, I miss more days mountain biking than not. . . the body is a living system, not a static machine and I'm still learning.
A final thoughtful gem from the cycling forum:
"You've still missed the point. "Weight loss" is what? The loss of fat? The loss of muscle? Both? Going to the toilet? Sweating?
Weight gain is what? Adding fat, adding muscle, ingesting food/water?"
It's all about context. . .
Weight gain is what? Adding fat, adding muscle, ingesting food/water?"
It's all about context. . .
In honor of Old Man Winter, and the snow currently falling outside my window, some pictures from the winters I've spent here in Missouri.
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