For a long time, the general advice for weight-loss was simple: burn more calories than you take in. If the number of calories you munch down exceeds the number you use up, you're going to put on weight. If you eat fewer calories than you use, you're going to lose weight.
It sounds like a pretty solid plan. It has the ring of physics.
But what if I told you that all calories are not created equal?
Ok, so it's true that all calories have the same amount of energy; one dietary calorie contains 4184 Joules of energy. In that respect, a calorie is a calorie. But when it comes to your body, things are not that simple. Looking only at calories ignores the fact that calories from different sources are digested in different ways. So the type of calorie you eat dictates how (or if) your body can use or process energy from them.
Imagine you have a set of genetically identical twins. Twin A, let's call him Alvin (for no reason other than I was a massive Chipmunks fan) is identical to Twin B (let's call him Boris, for no reason). You would think, if you fed them the exact same number of calories, and somehow managed to ensure that they expended the exact same number of calories, that they would always stay the same weight, and maintain the same proportion of fat and muscle as one another.
What if I told you they didn't?
This is the thought experiment of Gary Taubes, an investigative science and health journalist and co-founder of the non-profit, Nutrition Science Initiative. The original experiment looked specifically at different forms of sugar (in this case, fructose and glucose) and the way the body deals with each of them in different ways (glucose, for instance, can be easily put to use by your cells, whereas fructose can't, it has to be dealt with by the liver and often stored as fat). You can read the whole thing here.
Rather than taking it down to the level of sugars however, let's look more widely at (refined) carbohydrate vs protein or fat.
So, my new experiment involves an equivalent Alvin and Boris being fed 3,000 calories a day. 2,700 of those calories are identical, but the final 300 differ. For Alvin, 300 calories are made up of refined and processed carbohydrates, for Boris, 300 calories are made up of fat (just to avoid controversy, let's use the widely termed 'good fats' of avocados, nuts etc). Over time, Boris maintains, even slightly loses weight, and becomes leaner and more energised. He springs to his exercise each morning. Alvin, however, puts on weight, and what's more, the balance shifts – this excess weight is primarily fat, and his lean mass decreases. He is tired, sluggish and finds exercise hard. How can this be?
The answer again lies in the way your body deals with refined carbohydrates.
Refined carbohydrates raise your blood sugar level much quicker than protein or fat. The resulting sugar spike triggers a rapid release of insulin (which helps cells use the useful sugar in your body for energy). If these spikes are repeated often and over a period of time, it can lead to insulin resistance, where cells no longer respond to the help of the insulin, and sugar is not taken up for use. So blood sugar remains permanently high.
High blood sugar has a series of implications: in the short term, your cells are not getting the food that they need, so you stay hungry, and lack energy (or any motivation to exercise...), and all that excess sugar your cells can’t use is likely to be stored as fat. You are also likely to eat more, move less, and feel pretty rubbish.
In the long term, elevated blood sugars can cause damage your organs, overwhelm your pancreas (which has been creating all that insulin) and can lead to type 2 diabetes.
Don't panic. This is not going to happen from the occasional cookie, and it is important to remember that all carbohydrates are not equal either. Wholegrain/unprocessed carbs are a big part of living a healthy, active life. The same goes for fructose, when it comes in the form of fruit, as fruit also contains fibre, which slows the absorption of sugars and prevents blood sugar spikes.
So what does this mean, practically?
Sadly, it means that you can't chow down 500 calories of your favourite species of donut and expect it to have the same weight-balancing effect as 500 calories of spinach. Happily though, it means that you can stop worrying about fats. Yes, fat has a higher calorie count per gram than carbohydrates. But by that thinking, it would be healthier to drink a bottle of sugary soda than to have a handful of nuts.
Fat is not the enemy, and in fact, there is a significant body of thinking (check out Harvard's research here) that the diet industry's low-fat 'health-food' obsession (in which tasty fat was replaced by masses of sugar) may have triggered our downward spiral of health and the rising obesity crisis.
Refined carbohydrates and added fructose (high fructose corn syrups and other highly concentrated syrups such as date syrup, rice syrup, yes, even agave syrup) however should be kept to a minimum (but the occasional slice of your favourite cake will not kill you).
Sadly, there is much misinformation out there, and many less-than-healthy choices are wearing the (expensive) health-food hat. So, when you're stood in Whole Foods or the health aisle of Sainsbury's, mouth agape at the price of a small, chia-seed roll, just be aware: many foods that are branded and packaged as healthy, in fact contain syrups (that sound good because they're from an exotic plant), sugars at very high levels (yes, there is even such a thing as too much coconut sugar), and even refined carbs (just because it's rice flour doesn't mean it hasn't been highly processed). I don't advise anyone become a label-studying bore, and no one should become obsessive over avoiding these things, but awareness gives you the power to choose. So if possible, when time allows, cook for yourself. Use fresh produce. From scratch. Where possible, buy wholegrain, unbleached or unprocessed, and don't be afraid of a big dollop of fat within a balanced daily diet.
Above all, don't sweat the calorie count because ultimately, where your calories come from matters way more than the number of them you ingest.
It sounds like a pretty solid plan. It has the ring of physics.
But what if I told you that all calories are not created equal?
Ok, so it's true that all calories have the same amount of energy; one dietary calorie contains 4184 Joules of energy. In that respect, a calorie is a calorie. But when it comes to your body, things are not that simple. Looking only at calories ignores the fact that calories from different sources are digested in different ways. So the type of calorie you eat dictates how (or if) your body can use or process energy from them.
Imagine you have a set of genetically identical twins. Twin A, let's call him Alvin (for no reason other than I was a massive Chipmunks fan) is identical to Twin B (let's call him Boris, for no reason). You would think, if you fed them the exact same number of calories, and somehow managed to ensure that they expended the exact same number of calories, that they would always stay the same weight, and maintain the same proportion of fat and muscle as one another.
What if I told you they didn't?
This is the thought experiment of Gary Taubes, an investigative science and health journalist and co-founder of the non-profit, Nutrition Science Initiative. The original experiment looked specifically at different forms of sugar (in this case, fructose and glucose) and the way the body deals with each of them in different ways (glucose, for instance, can be easily put to use by your cells, whereas fructose can't, it has to be dealt with by the liver and often stored as fat). You can read the whole thing here.
Rather than taking it down to the level of sugars however, let's look more widely at (refined) carbohydrate vs protein or fat.
So, my new experiment involves an equivalent Alvin and Boris being fed 3,000 calories a day. 2,700 of those calories are identical, but the final 300 differ. For Alvin, 300 calories are made up of refined and processed carbohydrates, for Boris, 300 calories are made up of fat (just to avoid controversy, let's use the widely termed 'good fats' of avocados, nuts etc). Over time, Boris maintains, even slightly loses weight, and becomes leaner and more energised. He springs to his exercise each morning. Alvin, however, puts on weight, and what's more, the balance shifts – this excess weight is primarily fat, and his lean mass decreases. He is tired, sluggish and finds exercise hard. How can this be?
The answer again lies in the way your body deals with refined carbohydrates.
Refined carbohydrates raise your blood sugar level much quicker than protein or fat. The resulting sugar spike triggers a rapid release of insulin (which helps cells use the useful sugar in your body for energy). If these spikes are repeated often and over a period of time, it can lead to insulin resistance, where cells no longer respond to the help of the insulin, and sugar is not taken up for use. So blood sugar remains permanently high.
High blood sugar has a series of implications: in the short term, your cells are not getting the food that they need, so you stay hungry, and lack energy (or any motivation to exercise...), and all that excess sugar your cells can’t use is likely to be stored as fat. You are also likely to eat more, move less, and feel pretty rubbish.
In the long term, elevated blood sugars can cause damage your organs, overwhelm your pancreas (which has been creating all that insulin) and can lead to type 2 diabetes.
Don't panic. This is not going to happen from the occasional cookie, and it is important to remember that all carbohydrates are not equal either. Wholegrain/unprocessed carbs are a big part of living a healthy, active life. The same goes for fructose, when it comes in the form of fruit, as fruit also contains fibre, which slows the absorption of sugars and prevents blood sugar spikes.
So what does this mean, practically?
Sadly, it means that you can't chow down 500 calories of your favourite species of donut and expect it to have the same weight-balancing effect as 500 calories of spinach. Happily though, it means that you can stop worrying about fats. Yes, fat has a higher calorie count per gram than carbohydrates. But by that thinking, it would be healthier to drink a bottle of sugary soda than to have a handful of nuts.
Fat is not the enemy, and in fact, there is a significant body of thinking (check out Harvard's research here) that the diet industry's low-fat 'health-food' obsession (in which tasty fat was replaced by masses of sugar) may have triggered our downward spiral of health and the rising obesity crisis.
Refined carbohydrates and added fructose (high fructose corn syrups and other highly concentrated syrups such as date syrup, rice syrup, yes, even agave syrup) however should be kept to a minimum (but the occasional slice of your favourite cake will not kill you).
Sadly, there is much misinformation out there, and many less-than-healthy choices are wearing the (expensive) health-food hat. So, when you're stood in Whole Foods or the health aisle of Sainsbury's, mouth agape at the price of a small, chia-seed roll, just be aware: many foods that are branded and packaged as healthy, in fact contain syrups (that sound good because they're from an exotic plant), sugars at very high levels (yes, there is even such a thing as too much coconut sugar), and even refined carbs (just because it's rice flour doesn't mean it hasn't been highly processed). I don't advise anyone become a label-studying bore, and no one should become obsessive over avoiding these things, but awareness gives you the power to choose. So if possible, when time allows, cook for yourself. Use fresh produce. From scratch. Where possible, buy wholegrain, unbleached or unprocessed, and don't be afraid of a big dollop of fat within a balanced daily diet.
Above all, don't sweat the calorie count because ultimately, where your calories come from matters way more than the number of them you ingest.