Claories Calories Calories!

Oh no... The calorie! It amazes me that some people freak out and count calories for everything single thing they eat throughout their day - let alone, some going to the extremes of putting themselves on a strict caloric deficit in their diet in an attempt to lose weight. Not only are they potentially doing irreparable damage to their metabolism, they are starving themselves!

This one of the big dietary myths out there - You HAVE to count calories to lose weight! - but the scientific truth is that the calorie is completely irrelevant in human nutrition. This is a biochemical FACT!

Here's why and here's the real deal on what a calorie is:

A calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one gram of water 1 degree celsius from 14.5 degrees to 15.5 degrees. It's a quantitative heat chemists tool which they use to determine how much heat is given off when you burn something.

I don't think anyone would adhere to the reasoning that when you eat a steak it travels down into your stomach and blows up!

However, that's exactly how a calorie is determined - you'll take a piece of meat or whatever food product - you'll put it in the calorimeter and you'll burn it - you'll turn it to carbon - a heat is released into the water which raises the temperature on the thermometer. So to determine a calorie - it's nothing more than a combustion process.

What does this have to do with human nutrition? Absolutely nothing.

So my point in explaining this is it is a huge dietary myth that you HAVE to count calories to lose weight. This is absolutely false. So STOP the nonsense with the calorie counting already!

However, if we are talking about a person who is a professional bodybuilder looking to get down to a low, single digit body fat % for a competition, the story and demands of a caloric deficit do change... this is neither sustainable or healthy for any extended period of time.

For the avg. Joe (or Mary) this is doing far more harm then good. Pay attention to the types of foods you're eating and your carbohydrate intake and forget the calorie even exists.