When it comes to weight loss, there’s a fact out there that is very pervasive. In fact, we all know this little tidbit, even if we don’t follow all of the advice in all the magazines. However, the fact in and of itself isn’t the whole story.
That fact is contained in this sentence: “It’s all about calories in, calories out.”
First off, let’s explain a calorie. One food calorie is technically a kilocalorie (kcal). An actual Calorie is much, much larger. However, for simplicity’s sake, we’re going to say calories and mean kcals, because I hate getting complicated and confused. A food calorie is measured this way: how much heat energy it takes to heat 1 gram of the substance 1 degree Celsius. It’s all very scientific, done in a lab with some neat equipment, and beyond the smell, it’s actually fun to do.
So, with this fun equipment, it’s been found that 1 gram of carbohydrate (sugar) and 1 gram of protein (steak) has four calories. 1 gram of fat (butter or olive oil) contains 9 calories.
Well, that’s all fine and dandy! If losing weight is all about calories in, calories out, and fat has 9 calories vs 4 calories per gram, that should mean all we need to do is cut our fat intake, right?
Hold your horses, cowboy. It seems like it doesn’t work like that. There are several reasons, which all deserve their own blog post, but we’ll put down this food for thought (pardon the pun): there is “good fat” and there is “bad fat.” Some fats actually help the body get rid of its fat stores, believe it or not (a famous one is the fats found in fish oil). So, if you cut down your fats, you may actually be preventing weight loss. Now this doesn’t give you free reign to just go gobble a full meal of burger, fries, and milkshake, but it does say that having an intake of high-quality fat can help weight loss efforts.
So then, it becomes less clear: how, in all that’s healthy and holy, can a person lose weight if they can’t just cut down on fats? I know! Let’s cut out carbs, every single one!
Eh, wrong answer. Carbohydrates are fuel. Your body, brain, and spirit depend on carbs for quick sources of energy. Strangely enough, 98% of vitamins, minerals, and fiber is also contained in carbs. So carbs are needed, and preferably lots of them. Here though, is another distinction: there are carbs you want and carbs you don’t want.
The carbs you want are nutrient-dense, which really means that if you were to take the sum total of the vitamins, minerals, and fiber and divide that by the amount of calories contained in that food, you would come up with a very small number. If you’re saying, HUH? to that, then think of it this way: a bowl of romaine lettuce has somewhere in the realm of 120% of your daily recommended intake of Vitamin A and only 50 calories (give or take 30 calories, depending on how big your bowl is). A bowl of rice puffs, on the other hand, has somewhere in the realm of 50% of your recommended intake of Vitamin A and 120 calories (no milk or sugar added, but if you look at the ingredients list, you’ll notice that the Vitamins had to be ADDED IN in the first place). Whether those numbers are exact are of little consequence, I’m teaching a lesson here. Now, if you were to take the calories and divide it by the Vitamin A, what kind of number would you come up with? Oh, you don’t even need to do the math, you can see it by looking at it. Which food is more nutrient-dense, the lettuce or the cereal (you mean you’re saying you knew that all along? Well then, why are you still here?)? So that’s nutrient density in a very non-scientific nutshell. Which means, for carbohydrates, we get “more bank for our buck” when we eat a food that is high in nutrients and low in calories. These are the types of carbs we want to eat if we’re looking to lose weight.
So then, we don’t need to do anything about protein?
Reign in that horse again, you little whipper-snapper. Proteins are important too, although they’re a little more complicated. The thing about proteins is that they are high in quality, and low in quality (think pork loin versus bacon, and pork loin versus salmon). If you think hard, what do you think the difference is? It’s actually how the protein profile is built. You see, a protein is actually a gathering of amino acids. There are 8 amino acids that our body cannot produce, so they’re essential for life (and consequently called “essential amino acids”). Now when a protein enters the body, it gets broken down into amino acids and ushered into the cells for further processing. A high-quality protein (one that provides the essential amino acids) gets built back into a protein again. A non-quality protein, or one that doesn’t provide essential amino acids (which also happens when more protein than necessary for life is ingested), will usually get broken down into fats and carbohydrates and used for energy. If you understand that, then you’ll understand why vegetarians need to eat a variety of plant foods to get their full protein requirements, since many vegetables and grains provide most, but not all, of the amino acids required. And if you eat a variety, it ends up creating a full amino acid profile that the body can use.
So now that I’ve lost you, here’s the key to knowing about protein: you can get it from many, many different places. Meat and dairy contain complete amino acid profiles (a complete protein), while vegetables and grains provide incomplete amino acid profiles (an “incomplete” protein). Meat is the protein we generally focus on, because it’s pretty much all complete protein, all the time. We don’t need to do that, we just need to eat a variety of protein-containing foods. By doing that, we’ll provide all the amino acids our body needs, plus some energy the body can use when it’s low on carbohydrate sources.
So, after learning all this, do you believe that weight loss is only found in the sentence “Calories in, calories out?” See tomorrow’s article for more discussion on this important issue, including a groundbreaking study!
MAR
