Calories in - Calories out = ∆ Body Weight?

Nutrition has always been an interesting topic to me. One of the biggest reasons I find it so fascinating is because we are still learning so much about it. The nutrition textbooks will likely be rewritten several times within the next 50 years.

A seemingly simple concept that most nutritionalists, dietitians, physicians, physiologists, etc. tend to agree on is: caloric intake minus caloric expenditure equals change in body weight. However, there are some glaring problems with this theory. For starters, body weight is typically measured in pounds or kilograms...so, mass. Calories, on the other hand, are measured as energy.

Seeing this, it already seems a little silly but we'll go with it. So, we can put one pound of fat in a bomb calorimeter and it come out to equal 3500 calories. Therefore, if I cut out 500 calories per day for seven days I should lose one pound of fat in a week! Simple! Wrong. This has not once... not even one time, been demonstrated in a human trial. In fact, out of all of the studies done to try and prove this concept, zero of the subjects achieved predicted weight loss. Of course, the scientists running the studies accused the subjects of "not following protocol." Out of the dozens of tests with large sample sizes, somehow everyone managed to find subjects who were absolutely determined not to comply. …Right.

Another issue with this theory is the fact that we use a bomb calorimeter to support our values. An Atwater bomb calorimeter is a device used to measure calorimetry (basically, the heat of physical changes or chemical reactions, or heat energy). It is a closed system that always reaches equilibrium. What's wrong with that? The human body is an open system that never reaches equilibrium. Nothing would be wrong with the model given by the bomb calorimeter if the human body was 100% efficient. However, it's not. We are not perfect. The same way gasoline works in a car engine, there is some amount of energy that is dissipated in an inefficient way.

Calories may not be the culprit for the obesity epidemic. Likely, it's not fat either. A large reason might just be what MyPyramid and physicians are telling us to eat: grains and other high-glycemic, processed and fortified foods that are making us hyperinsulinemic and sick. Physicians are paid to know anything and everything about medications, not food. Doctors are very good at making you better once you're sick, but may not be so great at preventing the sickness. Of course, it is not just one thing causing the problem. If that were the case, it would be an easy solution.

I am not saying that your quantity of food does not matter. It obviously does. What I am arguing is that it is much more complex than just calories in vs. calories out. Important questions to ask yourself concerning your diet may include: What kind of carbs am I eating? Are they low glycemic? Are they fortified or do I get my nutrients from what God put in them? How many ingredients? What kind of fats? How balanced is my diet?

Here's an easy way to make sure you're eating a good diet… Take it or leave it.
Eat all of and nothing but: LEAN MEATS, VEGETABLES, NUTS AND SEEDS, SOME FRUIT, and LITTLE STARCH…refined sugar free, gluten free, dairy free. To simplify it even further, if you cannot hunt it down and kill it or grow it in a garden, don't eat it (no you can't grow pasta in a garden). This is also known as the Paleolithic Diet. Put it to the test!

My Resources: The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain, PHD; research done by Dr. Scott Connelly; research done by Eric Schlosser