Nutrition is as simply as understanding ‘calories in and calories out, right?’. It’s a question that comes up over and over again with my clients along with, ‘should I be counting calories?’. My answer is always unequivocally no! I get it, I really do. The idea of counting calories has been ingrained in many of us and we’ve been made to believe that when it comes to managing our health and weight, calories are all that matter.
So what are calories? If we’re looking at it from a purely scientific angle, calories are a unit of energy. From this perspective, it would mean that one calorie of fat would in fact be the same as one calorie of carbohydrates because both be worth one unit of energy.
However, if we dive deeper and examine calories in the context of health and nutrition, calories can be very different. While calories do provide energy, they also provide information. Information that tells our bodies’ to release hormones which ultimately impact our feelings of satiety or conversely, our cravings.
For example, say for a mid afternoon snack you had the option to eat a cookie or two hard boiled eggs, both around 140 calories. If calories were all the same then it wouldn’t matter which option you chose right? Wrong! The cookie, which is made of mostly refined carbohydrates, is going to cause a big spike in blood sugar and an equally large crash. If you read my blog on blood sugar you’ll remember that that crash is what leaves us craving more processed, sugary carbohydrates. The eggs on the other hand are composed of mostly fat and protein, neither of which have much impact on our blood sugar which leads to more feelings of satiety and less cravings. When it comes to any health related goal, feeling satisfied is absolutely critical for long-term success.
Lastly, for all my calorie counters out there, remember that counting calories erodes an innate ability to decipher what our bodies’ need - be it protein, fat, or fiber, and how much. So rather than looking at food as purely numerical, look at it as information.