Why does calorie balance fail us when applied as a weight management framework?
In other words, when we count calories in an attempt to lose weight or otherwise manage our health, why does it largely fall short?
Even more, how can it be dangerous to our health and well-being?
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Let's begin by bringing our equation back:
calories in - calories out = change in internal calories
As noted in the last lesson, if we want to address that change in internal calories term, we're going to have to manipulate the other two variables in the equation.
Let's take weight loss as the example. For weight loss, we need to create a negative (-) change in internal calories. This means we could:
- decrease calories in and/or
- increase calories out
- Let's say we decide to eat less, and to do this we simply go about our day aiming to consume fewer calories:
- Eating smaller portions
- Skipping meals
- Counting calories to ensure we are eating X fewer calories each day
Does this lead to a corresponding decrease in internal calories?
That is, did eating less cause a change in energy stored in the body? There are two possible outcomes:
- Yes, because energy expenditure didn't change, so internal calories must also decrease (as our energy balance equation tells us)
- No, because eating less caused the body to expend less energy
2. Let's say we decide to exercise more by exercising more often or working harder during our exercise sessions.
Does this lead to a corresponding decrease in internal calories? There are two possible outcomes:
- Yes, because energy intake did not change, so internal calories must also decrease (as our energy balance equation tells us)
- No, because exercising more caused us to eat more
Here's the takeaway:
We can play around manipulating calorie intake or calorie expenditure all we want, but that won't necessarily cause our desired change in internal energy.
The body is going to respond to our decisions to eat less and/or exercise more in the way that it has been programmed to respond.
- Maybe we eat fewer calories, only to have our sleep impaired and no energy to go exercise or move regularly.
- Maybe we eat fewer calories and still get ourselves to exercise regularly, but the body is burning through sugar and not fat; this may mean that we're losing muscle and other lean tissue while fat stores remain fairly constant.
- Maybe we start exercising a lot more and we're just ravenous all the time so we end up gaining weight (this one happens to be my own experience!)
The point is, we can try to play around manipulating calorie intake and calorie expenditure, but it's impossible to create our desired result (fat loss) simply by looking at the equation in this way.
Which begs these two questions:
- Is there a better way that we can use this equation to help us manage our weight?
- Is there are better approach, overall, that we could use to manage our weight and health at the same time?
Let's keep moving forward to find out!