Seriously, I’m about to go insane over here.
I saw a quote similar to this on Facebook today:
Switch out regular milk for almond milk! It’s pretty easy to get used to and it has less [sic] calories.
This reminds me of a blimp crash because it makes me want to yell “the inanity”. A food or drink having “fewer calories” means absolutely nothing about your health or fitness goals.
Diet soda has “fewer calories” than a banana. Guess which one is healthy?
The thermodynamics isn’t wrong. It is fundamentally true that “calories in – calories out = energy balance.” And that losing weight requires “calories in” to be lower than “calories out”. The problem here is that the conventional wisdom on the topic gets the causal flow all wrong. People seem to think that eating less (and moving more) causes fat loss.
The truth is that fat loss causes eating less (and moving more).
Check It Out
This is how most people think calories and body fat interact:
- You can consciously control how many calories you eat.
- You can consciously control how many calories you burn.
- If you burn more than you eat, you’ll lose fat.
Seems simple enough. Too bad it’s fucking bullshit. Here’s how it actually works:
- You can consciously control which foods you eat.
- Your brain decides how fat it wants you to be (based on those foods).
- Your brain regulates your hunger and caloric expenditure to achieve the desired fat mass.
See the difference? You can’t lose weight by consuming fewer “calories per glass of milk-like substance” because your brain is too smart for that.
Your brain doesn’t wake up in the morning and think “today I will have 1 glass of milk-like substance.” It wakes up with a plan to get you to consume a certain number of calories, macronutrient, vitamins, and minerals – in an effort to achieve health and desired body fat level. If you consciously reduce the number of calories in your diet, your brain will catch on.
If your brain wants 200 calories of milk-like substance, and you only give it 100 calories, you put your brain in “fuck you mode”. It will make you hungrier, trying to get you to drink another glass. It will make you feel lazy and unmotivated, so you burn fewer calories.
If you decrease the calorie density of your food without changing anything else, your brain will force you to eat more food (or burn fewer calories) to make up the difference.
So How Do You Get Your Brain to Help You?
If you forget about calories altogether, and focus on eating nutrient-dense, unprocessed food, your brain will change how much fat it wants you to store. The more Real Food in your diet, the more nutrient-dense it is, the leaner your brain will want you to be.
Your brain will reduce your hunger and increase your energy levels (caloric expenditure) to cause fat loss.
Eating less doesn’t cause fat loss. Fat loss causes eating less.
Put your brain in fat loss mode, and you will lose fat without ever counting calories. Fail to get your brain on board, and fat loss simply won’t happen in any productive, long-term way.
[fitness-form]
