An ode to the calorie.
I’m going to get my ranty pants on…. Get ready! It’s not often I bring up the topic of calorie counting but let’s talk about calorie restrictive diets. I find this such an overly simplistic approach to diet and really sells us, women particularly, short when they are encouraged to pin all their hopes on an eat less (and less and less in some cases) philosophy. Sure, there is no doubt that the ongoing portion size on a plate can impact on overall nutrient intake but blaming all our troubles on the humble calorie is totally unfair. The calorie, well actually kilojoule in Australia, is a man-made currency of energy. It is how us humans measure the potential energy exchange of a food (because we’re obsessed with measuring things, right fellas?!). It says nothing of its vitamin or mineral content. It says nothing valuable of its protein, carbohydrate, fat, fibre or water content. It says absolutely zero of it’s man-made or natural chemical content. It says nothing of its value to our health on its own. It presumes all food is equal when we reduce it to lumps of protein, carb and fat in calorie form. We could therefore presume we are all created equal, just lumps of calories.
But are we? Is that fair? If indeed all we needed to do to maintain the perfect weight and therefore health we could squash all our daily calories into a single meal of a large Big Mac meal with a choccy sundae if we were feeling indulgent and call it healthy. Ummmm, sorry, but no! This is what I find so frustrating with the simplistic and outdated advice of some to just count calories and all will be well. In fact for many living in a calorie deficit will only result in the holding on of fat and in some cases putting more on.
If a person is under significant or prolonged stress the cascade of hormones that this produces is biologically designed to slow down digestion (hello indigestion and constipation) and tell the body to store, store, store to protect us against the ongoing stressor. Once upon a time the only main stressors to us were famine and the chance of something chasing us. But imagine this…. You lurch out of bed and race to get kids and yourself dressed, lunchboxes packed and rush out the door before the bell goes, arriving to work just in time, grabbing a coffee on your way in & sit down at your desk. As you start filtering through emails with requests and demands you absent-mindedly sip on your coffee (hello adrenaline spike) and start shovelling mouthfuls of toast (hello insulin spike) in to quieten the rumbling tummy but you don’t have time to stop, there’s too much work to do. Sound familiar? If you work in retail, hospitality, are a front-line health worker or some other shift worker where you’re standing for extended periods, very active and perhaps meal times are irregular, rushed and often fuelled with high energy foods to keep you going through long and demanding shifts this ‘stress/storage’ effect is compounded again. The list of stressors to the body in our modern world are countless compared to our ancestors and to the body, on a chemical and hormonal level, they are just the same as the famine or tiger chasing us.
As you can see there are so many other factors that contribute to, your ability to retain or lose weight. Don’t even get me started on the impact of reproductive hormones! So, don’t beat yourself up if you’re doing all of the things and nothing, or very little, is changing. The amount of guilt and negative self-talk I hear from women around their weight and perception of how this reflects on them as a person is honestly, heart-breaking. And besides the fact that while overall weight is a warning sign that we may have other health complications now or in the future it is not the one and only sign of health. It is more complex than just eating less will equal weighing less and therefore getting the gold star of overall health. You are more than just your weight. I’m just going to declare it now, if you want someone to count calories for you, I’m not the practitioner for you. If you’d rather look to your weight as one part of your health and approach your health from a holistic view of all the things that contribute to your wellbeing then I can definitely help you.