Not counting calories
01/02/16 05:27
I live a fairly active lifestyle. My library is in the basement of my home and I make many trips each day up and down the stairs. I do quite a bit of walking from the parking lot and up and down the halls in the church. I often take the stairs instead of riding the elevators in public buildings and some days I get in as many as ten flights of stairs in a single hospital visit. Many days I take a walk in the woods or row or paddle. In the winter when the ice is on the lake, I have a rowing machine that gets a half hour workout many evenings. I rowed five days in the last week. Yesterday I didn’t row, but loaded over 3/4 of a cord of firewood into my pickup by myself, which includes climbing up into the pickup box several times in addition to carrying the wood.
For the most part, I am careful about what I eat. I enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables. I pay attention to portion size. I have a basic understanding of carbohydrates and sugars. I’m pretty good about not snacking, though I certainly don’t have a perfect record in that category. I try to keep carrots, celery, dried fruit and nuts on hand for snacking so that I stay away from higher fat content snacks. I eat fast food only on rare occasions.
I try to keep myself educated about health and to make decisions that promote a healthy lifestyle. I do not, however, count calories. I don’t wear a fitness device. I don’t record the “calories burned” from the meter on my rowing machine. I often read food labels and am aware of the reported calories of something I eat and I know the number of recommended calories for a normal person’s day, but I don’t keep a running total of the number of calories I consume.
You’d think, from reading articles on food and fitness that it is a simple matter of mathematics. A calorie is a measurement unit for energy. Food contains calories. We expend calories by physical activity. If the number of calories in exceeds the number of calories expended, a person gains weight. If the number of calories expended exceeds the number of calories taken in, a person loses weight. That’s basically true, but the process is filled with variables and is far less precise than we might be led to believe.
Back in the 1780’s a French chemist named Antoine Lavoisier made a triple-walled metal canister large enough to hold a guinea pig. Inside the walls was a layer of ice. Lavoisier knew how much energy was required to melt ice, so he could estimate the heat the animal emitted by measuring the amount of water that dripped from the canister. A calorie is the heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius.
Scientists these days don’t put people into ice filled canisters to measure calories. Rather they have calculated the amount of energy used during metabolic processes that create the carbon dioxide we breathe out. Then they measure the amount of carbon dioxide one exhales to determine the number of calories used. The formula is 15 liters of carbon dioxide equals 94 calories of energy.
Fitness devices, such as a fitbit or the meter on my rowing machine aren’t measuring how much carbon dioxide we exhale. They are simply measuring motion and using averages to estimate the number of calories based on what other people have consumed. We humans aren’t all the same and the measurements are imprecise at best.
On the other side of the formula, the number of calories in food varies greatly. In 1848, Irish chemist Thomas Andrews developed a method for measuring calories in food by burning the food in a chamber and measuring the temperature change in water from the fire. There are, however, other methods of measuring calories. The FDA allows for five different methods for companies to use in measuring the calories in a portion of their food. Those measurements are not precise, either. A recent study found that a measured serving of spaghetti from the same source could vary by as much as 10 calories. Serving sizes vary. Restaurants, for example, don’t weight all of the food they put onto a plats. A Tufts university study checked 40 US chain restaurants and found that a dish listed as carrying 500 calories could have as many as 800 because local chefs might add a bit more sauce or a few extra french fries.
Even if we had a method for accurately counting calories, not every person extracts the same number of calories from food. It takes calories to extract nutrition from food. We use muscles to chew and other metabolic processes to digest our food. In general cooked food requires fewer calories to digest than uncooked food. A rare steak yields fewer net calories than a well done one. Our bodies sometimes do a better job of breaking down the cell walls of our food than others. The same person will not extract the same number of calories from the same portion of food each time it is eaten.
Differences in height, body fat, liver size, and levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and gut microbes can influence the amount of energy required by a person. In one study two people of the same sex, weight and age varied by as much as 600 calories per day. That’s more than 25% of the recommended intake.
All of this is to say that the process of counting calories is far less precise than the labels on food packages might indicate.
For me, focusing on what foods make me feel satisfied is a more helpful concept. A very small slice of rich cake might be 300 calories, while a large portion of salad with nuts, olive oil, and roasted vegetables might be the same number of calories. One will leave me wanting more, the other will leave me filled up. An apple is a more satisfying snack than a cookie because it doesn’t leave me wanting more.
But then you wouldn’t want to take diet advice from me. I’m just another overweight American trying to make changes and live a healthier lifestyle.
For the most part, I am careful about what I eat. I enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables. I pay attention to portion size. I have a basic understanding of carbohydrates and sugars. I’m pretty good about not snacking, though I certainly don’t have a perfect record in that category. I try to keep carrots, celery, dried fruit and nuts on hand for snacking so that I stay away from higher fat content snacks. I eat fast food only on rare occasions.
I try to keep myself educated about health and to make decisions that promote a healthy lifestyle. I do not, however, count calories. I don’t wear a fitness device. I don’t record the “calories burned” from the meter on my rowing machine. I often read food labels and am aware of the reported calories of something I eat and I know the number of recommended calories for a normal person’s day, but I don’t keep a running total of the number of calories I consume.
You’d think, from reading articles on food and fitness that it is a simple matter of mathematics. A calorie is a measurement unit for energy. Food contains calories. We expend calories by physical activity. If the number of calories in exceeds the number of calories expended, a person gains weight. If the number of calories expended exceeds the number of calories taken in, a person loses weight. That’s basically true, but the process is filled with variables and is far less precise than we might be led to believe.
Back in the 1780’s a French chemist named Antoine Lavoisier made a triple-walled metal canister large enough to hold a guinea pig. Inside the walls was a layer of ice. Lavoisier knew how much energy was required to melt ice, so he could estimate the heat the animal emitted by measuring the amount of water that dripped from the canister. A calorie is the heat required to raise the temperature of one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius.
Scientists these days don’t put people into ice filled canisters to measure calories. Rather they have calculated the amount of energy used during metabolic processes that create the carbon dioxide we breathe out. Then they measure the amount of carbon dioxide one exhales to determine the number of calories used. The formula is 15 liters of carbon dioxide equals 94 calories of energy.
Fitness devices, such as a fitbit or the meter on my rowing machine aren’t measuring how much carbon dioxide we exhale. They are simply measuring motion and using averages to estimate the number of calories based on what other people have consumed. We humans aren’t all the same and the measurements are imprecise at best.
On the other side of the formula, the number of calories in food varies greatly. In 1848, Irish chemist Thomas Andrews developed a method for measuring calories in food by burning the food in a chamber and measuring the temperature change in water from the fire. There are, however, other methods of measuring calories. The FDA allows for five different methods for companies to use in measuring the calories in a portion of their food. Those measurements are not precise, either. A recent study found that a measured serving of spaghetti from the same source could vary by as much as 10 calories. Serving sizes vary. Restaurants, for example, don’t weight all of the food they put onto a plats. A Tufts university study checked 40 US chain restaurants and found that a dish listed as carrying 500 calories could have as many as 800 because local chefs might add a bit more sauce or a few extra french fries.
Even if we had a method for accurately counting calories, not every person extracts the same number of calories from food. It takes calories to extract nutrition from food. We use muscles to chew and other metabolic processes to digest our food. In general cooked food requires fewer calories to digest than uncooked food. A rare steak yields fewer net calories than a well done one. Our bodies sometimes do a better job of breaking down the cell walls of our food than others. The same person will not extract the same number of calories from the same portion of food each time it is eaten.
Differences in height, body fat, liver size, and levels of the stress hormone cortisol, and gut microbes can influence the amount of energy required by a person. In one study two people of the same sex, weight and age varied by as much as 600 calories per day. That’s more than 25% of the recommended intake.
All of this is to say that the process of counting calories is far less precise than the labels on food packages might indicate.
For me, focusing on what foods make me feel satisfied is a more helpful concept. A very small slice of rich cake might be 300 calories, while a large portion of salad with nuts, olive oil, and roasted vegetables might be the same number of calories. One will leave me wanting more, the other will leave me filled up. An apple is a more satisfying snack than a cookie because it doesn’t leave me wanting more.
But then you wouldn’t want to take diet advice from me. I’m just another overweight American trying to make changes and live a healthier lifestyle.