Why I don’t like calorie counting.
Last week in the UK, it was announced that restaurants, cafés and takeaways employing 250+ staff now have to display their calorie information on their menus. The government created this new rule “as part of its drive to improve the nation’s health and tackle obesity levels”. The Public Health Minister says that their aim is to “make it easier for people to make healthier food choices”.
While I appreciate that the government is trying to help people eat better, I do have a few issues with this new measure:
All calories are not equal. One calorie (the one we measure in food) is defined as the amount of energy it would take to raise the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1°C. Everything we eat or drink contains an amount of calories or energy, and we use this energy:
to digest this particular food or drink
for the normal functioning of our body organs and tissues
for physical activity
But the thing is, the calorie count on the label of the food doesn’t actually tell us how much energy we can get out of the food. Some foods like a steak will take us a lot of time and energy to digest unlike a cookie or a sweet soft drink. And the nutrient content of each food is also different. An egg will contain far more healthy protein, essential fats, and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) than a packaged cookie which will be high in fat and simple carbohydrates. This is where we find that a lot of obese or overweight people are often found to be undernourished even though they are eating vast quantities of energy or calories.
In addition, our gut bacteria and digestive enzymes, as well as the length of our intestines will also impact how much energy we are able to extract from that food we eat.
“Our body doesn't “care” about calories” (Dr. Jason Fung). What is important is our hormones. Food not only contains calories or energy, but also information on what to do with this energy (which is the hormonal response). Different foods will have different hormonal effects. Consider 300 calories coming from two different foods; a packaged cookie and broccoli. What is going on in the body after we eat them?
with the cookie: your blood sugar will rise, your hormone insulin will spike and tell your body to store the energy directly as body fat.
with the brocoli: your hormone insulin will go up too but not as high as for the cookie, and the instructions for your body will be to burn the energy and use it straight away.
So the key if you want to lose weight is not to focus on calories but on managing insulin levels. Calorie restriction might work in the short term but likely not in a sustainable manner. There are various ways to keep insulin levels low including intermittent fasting and low-carbohydrates diets.
My advice: focus on the type, quality and nutritional value of the food you eat, not on its amount of calories.
Sources
Dr. Mark Hyman. 2022. Why Focusing on Calories Misses the Bigger Picture for Your Weight and Health - Dr. Mark Hyman. [online] Available at: <https://drhyman.com/blog/2015/02/13/focusing-calories-misses-bigger-picture-weight-health/> [Accessed 14 April 2022].
Fung, J., 2022. [online] The Fasting Method. Available at: <https://www.thefastingmethod.com/blog/2021/11/22/weight-loss-hormones-vs-calorie-counting-> [Accessed 14 April 2022]
GOV.UK. 2022. New calorie labelling rules come into force to improve nation’s health. [online] Available at: <https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-calorie-labelling-rules-come-into-force-to-improve-nations-health> [Accessed 14 April 2022].
The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Volume 114, Issue 6, December 2021, Pages 1873–1885, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/nqab270
