Calories ?!

Lately, there was a discussion regarding calories and realized how people were lead strayed about the calorie concept. So, this post is for those who count and calculate calories, either to lose weight or to maintain. This post focuses the term calorie in biological point of view.

The calorie story beings in 1825, A French Professor Nicolas Clément defined the Calorie as the quantity of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 kg of water from 0 to 1°C. (Calorie originated in studies concerning fuel efficiency for the steam engine)

In 1887, nutrition expert Wilbur O. Atwater translated the steam engine-inspired idea of the calorie for the food research community and started to use the “term” calories in his articles. Therefore, the Calorie became the “preferred” unit of potential energy in nutrition science and dietetics.

The term “calories” was displaced when the joule, g-calorie and kcal were introduced. Later, the “original” calorie usurped in 1948, during the period of international standardization. As a result, no form of the calorie is recognized as an SI unit.

Since from 1970, nutrition scientists made the transition from calories to kcal. (1kcal =100 calories and 1 kcal = 4.186 kJ) However, according to the Department of Foods and Nutrition, it’s believed, “the calorie of present food labels is similar to the original French definition of 1825.” !!! And the problem begins……..

Complex Metabolic Pathways........

From the above its pretty clear that, calorie is not a biological term. Energy in biology is not the same as energy from steam engine. In other words, human body is not powered by steam engine! Our energy production, from food (metabolism) is much more complex chemical process than steam engine. Our metabolism extract far more than heat-based energy from food.

It’s quite unfortunate that based on this “calorie” haphazard, the other calorie theories were built. The beginning of era of metabolic disorders!

The concept of "Calorie In, Calorie Out” (CICO) is frequently referenced by the nutrition’s and dieticians in the weight loss program. CICO must be derived from Energy In equal to energy out (calorie is the unit of energy and law of thermodynamics)

As per the first law of thermodynamics dictates that body mass remains constant when caloric intake equals caloric expenditure. If intake more than the expenditure, weight gain and if intake less than the expenditure weight loss occurs. Again, metabolic process is not as simple as thermodynamics. Our body process, different calories in different way.

Different foods go through different metabolic pathways. Some foods can cause hormone changes that encourage weight gain, while other foods can increase satiety and boost the metabolic rate. In high carb meal, hormone insulin dominates and in high fat meal hormone glucagon dominates. Also the other hormones, like Leptin and Ghrelin behaviors differently in high carb vs high fat meal. (Refer : Obesity) Hence, generalizing the calorie is a calorie is a fundamentally flawed view in biology.

CICO was famously supported by Fred Stare, Founder of Harvard University of Nutrition Department, who believed that: “Calories are all alike, whether they come from beef or bourbon, from sugar or starch, or from cheese and crackers. Too many calories are just too many calories.” But, in reality calories from Carb and calories from fat are not the same. The calorie source plays a major role here……different macro nutrition’s are metabolized differently and triggers different hormones and enzymes. Again, metabolic process is not as simple as thermodynamics.

The Quality and Type of the Calories Matters Not the Amount.  As per the CICO, 250 ml of diet cola (claims zero cal) and 250 ml of water is same! Is that make any sense?

Let see in more depth…..

In 1944 Ancel Keys (yes, the same person who classified fat as the villain with blemished data. Later, will write a separate post on Ancel key and his flawed study) did a long-term study of starvation on Eastern European population (Reference : The Great Starvation Experiment: Ancel Keys and the Men Who Starved for Science) and 36 young healthy, normal weight male volunteers had been chosen and fed with energy intake of 1570 calories per day. I.e. Protein 100 gm, fat 30 gm, and carbohydrate 225 gm.  

After twenty-four weeks of the study, the subjects have not only lost a considerable percentage of their body weight, but also suffered a number of problems. They became lethargic, they were cold all the time, they became depressed, they developed bleeding disorders, their ankles became edematous and some developed more serious psychological disorders.

 

After 25 years of the Ancel Keys long-term starvation study, In 1960 John Yudkin (Author of Pure, White and Deadly, the book that changed my life! You can see on the left side of my blog at top position) conducted the study to treat obesity in low carb diet which in in view of the Keys’ semi-starvation study.

 

Dr. J.Yudkin’s objective is to determine the dietary intake of the essential nutrients in the low-carb diet to see if there were inadequacies. Eleven subjects of aged 21-51 years were selected for the study and fed with 83 grams of protein, 105 grams of fat and 67 grams of carbohydrate, which constitutes 1560 calories per day.

At the end of the study, none of the subjects were complained of hunger or any other ill effect. And they had an increased feeling of well-being and decreased lassitude.

Yes, in both studies, the intake of energy (calories) per day is almost the same. But, with huge differences in outcome. 

This is the clear evidence to say "A Calorie" is not equal to "A Calorie". In other words, it’s not the number of calories that makes the difference, but the composition of the calories instead.

Since, the scope of this post is only about the calorie, I am not going in depth with low carb high fat diet benefits now and will see later.

Now, the second part……..Often, nutrition’s and dieticians give calories based diet like 2200 calorie diet. They used to arrive these magical number by basal metabolic rate calculations (BMR). There are many different BMR equations (mathematically derived by using certain constants) available by different authors.

Again, our body is not a Math equation. Metabolism is very complex chemical process, it’s not as simple as to find the area of circle or triangle. It’s almost impossible to bring all the different variables of metabolism into an equation (formula) form.

That’s the reason, I always say do not go behind the calorie based diet. In HFLC, there is no calorie restriction. Eat until your body feels full and satisfied. Let your body decides how much calories it requires. You can’t drive the calorie requirement outside the body. 

Our body has two special hormones (Leptin and Ghrelin) to control your food intake. All you need to do is your carb count. Do not exceed more than 50g of carb per day. If you are diabetic, 20g per day.  With adequate amount of protein (from animal source) 1g per kg (of body weight) is the minimum requirement for normal. Also, metabolism is a self-regulating process, it slows down, when fed with less calorie and vice versa.  

Finally, calorie counting on food (on food labels) is also not accurate. Different food companies uses different methods (up to 5 different methods are available with 20% tolerance) In general, however, bomb calorimeter is widely used to measure the amount of energy (calorie) contained in the food.  Unfortunately, body is not an incinerator like bomb calorimeter, it doesn’t burn the food rather it process the food (bio-chemically) to extract energy.

We don’t absorb all calories we consume, our body absorbs the energy from different food differently. Food preparation method’s greatly alters the energy absorption. Individuals absorb energy from food uniquely and variably, also burn the energy uniquely and variably and different people measure their portion differently.

Hence, all theory’s based on calorie is baseless and flaw. So why these theories were promoted? Food manufacturing and processing companies, want us to believe it’s all about calories and that their low calorie products are the best choice in order to keep calories down and lose weight. The mass-media and the medical associations are join hands with food companies and keep the truth under wraps, in order to protect their business.

You need to take control of your food choices and chose the food that your body prefer and keep the blood sugar and other vitals in normal range. (refer: Normal vs Abnormal ) Do not allow the food companies to dictate what to eat and what not to eat. Eat the food that your body capable to understand and process.