You get into the latest dance craze, you ride your bike, you run, you lift weights.
Or maybe all of that.
You count calories like an Enron auditor. Calories in and out. You can even use a BodyBugg or Nike FuelBand to help you out.
But your fat loss is minimal to none. Or maybe you lost something initially and now the whole process has gone neutral.
What’s up with that?
You are making the same mistake that Weight Watchers finally admitted and changed.
Calorie count.
This is what David Kirchoff, President and CEO of Weight Watchers International, had to say:
“We needed a program that recognized that calories are definitely not equal.
We knew that counting, budgeting, and planning still made fundamental sense, but we wanted a better, more accurate currency. We wanted a POINTS formula that was much more “stubborn” about food choices beyond calories.”
The problem
As Mr. Kirchoff pointed out, calories are not equal. A Snickers bar (~270 calories) and an 8-ounce grilled chicken breast have about the same number of calories. But, Snickers has 28 grams of sugar (34 grams of total carbs) and 4 grams of protein while the chicken breast has 0 sugar, 0 carbs, and 54 grams of protein.
These foods will have very different effects on your body due to their nutritional components.
The high sugar content of certain foods, such as a Snickers bar (and refined carbohydrates such as pastas, breads, cereals) spikes your blood sugar, which triggers the release of insulin to bring down the sugar content (more specifically glucose) from the blood back to normal. normal by passing it through the liver and converting the glucose into glycogen, something that the muscle cells can use for energy, and then transporting the glycogen to the cells.
The problem, however, is that many people lead a sedentary lifestyle (defined as fewer than 5,000 steps per day), so muscle cells have all the glycogen they need. Since there is no room for more glycogen, it has to go somewhere for your body to turn it into fat and then you see it in your belly, thighs, buttocks, or arms.
Contrast that scenario with what happens to the protein. Protein is also broken down into glucose, but because it takes much longer and the end result is much less glucose (about 50% less), the impact on blood sugar is minimal1 The result is an increase much lower blood glucose and therefore much less insulin is needed. Of course, if you eat a whole cow, your blood sugar level and insulin response are sure to go up and you’ll pack on the extra pounds.
It’s not just the total calories you consume that create unwanted body fat. They are the total calories and the type of calories.
math doesn’t work anymore
Many people use this equation to lose weight (i.e. fat):
Calories IN – Calories OUT = Change in body mass
But it’s not that simple.
I’ve covered the IN side of the equation, so let’s move on to the OUT side.
There are two parts to calories burned or energy expenditure (EE).
There is activity where you use energy to produce, sustain or slow down movement and there is internal energy produced in the form of heat in response to activity.
This is why it is difficult to calculate exactly how many calories you burn with an activity
For example, let’s say you spend thirty minutes on a bike or elliptical doing “cardio.” You could be reading a magazine, talking on the phone. You think you’re doing real work. You are not. The calorie burn will be perhaps 250 calories, depending on your body weight. And when you get off, that’s it.
Now if you spend those same 30 minutes kicking your own butt with High Intensity Interval Training, you’ll increase the burn to around 350 and then add another 130 overnight. That is now 480 calories.
Why is that?
Intense training creates an “afterburn” partly by creating a large oxygen debt and partly by a large increase in human growth hormone and testosterone. These two combined add up to the EE of the activity itself. And it won’t be detected on your Polar heart rate monitor.
But I can eat all the pasta I want and never gain weight.
If it’s you, you’ve been hurt. Most people can’t get away with this because the combination of a sedentary lifestyle with elevated blood glucose levels from the endless onslaught of refined carbohydrates eventually creates something known as “insulin resistance.” Your cells are less reactive to insulin, so your blood sugar stays elevated, you transport the sugar to your fat cells, and then have a hard time burning it off.
But there are people who, either because of their genetic makeup or a lifestyle of what is sometimes called “high energy flow” (think Michael Phelps, Lance Armstrong, Usain Bolt) can handle higher levels of carbohydrates.
That’s not me and probably not you either.
It’s true that everyone has a slightly different reaction to certain foods and you may need to adjust your fuel plan a bit to find what works for you. But once you do this and find the right combination, you can throw away the calculator and say goodbye to ENERGY IN – ENERGY OUT.
Bottom line
Worry less about calorie count and more about the type of calories you eat. If you want to count calories, which is sometimes useful just to get an idea of how much energy you’re using, that’s fine, but look at your fuel plan first.
Cut out sugar (soda is number one on the list) and refined carbohydrates and increase your protein and fat intake. If after this you feel like you need to count calories to be successful, your chances will be better because at least you’ll be counting calories from foods that are good for you. Find the balance that works for you. So train smart. You’ll feel better and your fat loss efforts will work.