Does Nutrition Even Matter…Isn’t a Calorie a Calorie?
Hey Team.
One question that always seems to come up when discussing fitness, wellness, or health is nutrition. But why? Why is nutrition a driving factor of our discussions when we are looking to change our fitness program, wellness, bodyweight, or wellness plan? The questions we look to answer today are: does it even matter, and if so… isn’t it as easy as tracking calories? In our 4% Club, we are advancing with in-depth nutrition programs, but I also receive many questions from our Personal Training Clients. Of course, nutrition is linked to fitness and health but to what extent?
DOES NUTRITION EVEN MATTER?
When we start a fitness program or our Virtual Personal Training Program, people will begin with high motivation. This is great! And it is natural to have a jolt of inspiration to kickstart a lifestyle change. One problem starting a nutritional program however is changing too many areas of your life and creating gross disruption. Let me explain. To start our Virtual Personal Training program, you may change: exercise days, time of day, types of exercise, how long to exercise, location to exercise, body soreness, fatigue, energy levels, etc.… These changes alone can be hard enough… but what about nutrition? With nutrition, you have so much information to consider and contemplate. Most nutrition comes down to diet (keto, intermittent fasting, low carb, Mediterranean, etc.). But it is also hard to find any level of consistency from “experts.” Much of our challenge is the uncertainty of knowing what to do at all. So the question remains… does it even matter?
When we start to look into nutrition… and not just a diet… we have to look at the source of how our food is made and how it affects our body. For example, fructose is a form of sugar found in fruit, fruit juice, and honey or combined with glucose to make table sugar. Fructose is one food we consume that has a caloric effect on our body, but our body cannot metabolize and cannot be used for energy. What is the other? Alcohol. Fructose and alcohol are both sent to the liver and are turned into fat around the liver. At this point, it cannot be used for energy and is essentially… waste. What happens when we consistently drink too much alcohol over time… fatty liver disease and eventually cirrhosis: liver failure! What happens when we overeat sugar or fructose over time…. Fatty liver disease and cirrhosis! Crazy! But mostly… this is only one example how knowing how food affects our body. In short… the choices we make with our food are 100% the deciding factor with our health. There is no single greater factor in health than nutrition when deciding overall health, metabolic health, physical health, emotional health, or wellness overall. Unfortunately, our nutrition is the catalyst for everything in our lives.
A CALORIE IS JUST A CALORIE?
We have to put this to bed quickly. The concept of a calorie is a gross misrepresentation of nutrition overall. How was a calorie ever determined in the first place? Burning a unit of food to determine the energy created and measuring this energy is essentially how a calorie is defined. Here is the problem with using calories in this capacity. Correlating the measurement of calories by being burned in a lab to how our body uses calories to create energy is inconsistent. For example, we consume a portion of food, and a percentage of this food is absorbed by our gut bacterial flora before we ever absorb this into our body. Therefore, using a calorie as a consistent measure of how much food to consume is inaccurate. Furthermore, different types of food will affect the body differently. I used fructose as one example earlier. But let’s dig deeper… One unit of sugar compared to one unit of a complex carbohydrate or one unit of protein will all create a different response on the body. Each of these will cause the body to respond differently, and the overall energy needed to utilize this nutrient is different. But mainly… one of these will raise your insulin levels dramatically compared to another. What does insulin have to do with anything? Insulin drives energy storage… and essentially increases fat storage in your body. One unit of sugar vs. one unit of protein will have two wildly different responses to the body. In essence…. A calorie is not just a calorie, and to summarize… it is an inferior way to measure nutrition.
So why do we do it? Why are calories used so prominently in fitness, workout equipment, and food boxes? Because the concept is easy to understand. Calories in vs. Calories out! It is straightforward to understand, measure, and track. You can track your exercise, the food you consume, or anything! This is the effect of multiple entities using a flawed system for their benefit. A calorie is not just a calorie, and it should never be treated as such. Frankly…it is dangerous to do so.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Over time we will continue to dig deeper into nutrition, the effect on the body, and the best way to utilize in your wellness programs. The TYPE of food one places in their body is the sole determining factor to sustainable health. But the problem lies in misinformation, misdirection, and false advertising. The overall measuring stick is our health and wellness as a country. I will leave this final thought. Why is a country with so much wealth, information on health and wellness, extensive fitness gyms across the country, and more access to knowledge than any time in history…are we the unhealthiest? Our waist size is the largest in history, with more cancer than ever, more heart disease, and more diabetes than ever? A calorie is never a calorie, and nutrition is everything!
