Calories and Natural Weight Loss

"Calories as they relate to weight loss
are very misunderstood."

I am asked on a regular basis questions like:

• Will a restricted calorie diet help me live longer or lose weight?
  
  
• My wife is wanting to lose weight and she saw how many calories she was eating and decided to cut that down to 2,000 calories a day. Is 2,000 calories a good amount?
  
  
• Is is okay if I drink this zero calorie soft drink?
  
  
• I have been on diets that cut my calorie amount and they work for a while but then they stop working so I never reach my goal. Is there something wrong with my body?
  

A lot of these questions come from ads they read like "Zero Calorie!" or "1/2 the calories", little snippets from the news like "Doctors have found ...". These are all generalizations. There are very little specifics.

I also ask, just like I asked people about metabolism, what they believe the definition of calorie is. Everyone gave the wrong answer.

There are as many myths surrounding the concept of calories as there are with the concept of metabolism. And these myths are incredibly silly. These calorie myths are making people fat, sick and tired. And I am getting sick and tired of seeing this go on.

I want to give you the history of the word "Calorie." First, here's the definition:

So calories are essentially the estimated measure of how much heat energy can be generated by a certain amount of a food. The word was used in the study of mechanical combustion that uses heat to create motion.

One of the earliest uses of the word calorie was as a unit of measure in a series of lectures given by Nicholas Clement between 1819-1824. These lectures on the use of heat engines introduced the word to the scientific community.

At a certain point when the world scientific community began to organize systems of measurement the word "calorie" as originally used in machines was changed to "Joule". Joule is now the term to define the measurement of energy.

But the word calorie got attached to food and then someone in government put it in the nutritional guide for Americans.

How Is The Calorie Measurement Derived?

A device called a calorimeter is used to arrive at the numbers we have today for food calories. Different foods are burned and the heat released from different foods are measured by these calorimeters.

This is very useful if you use the model of a combustion engine like in a car. Gasoline has a caloric amount. Is can be measured and used to determine how much heat can be produced by it. This heat is then used to move the pistons in your car. Water and coal also have calorie values and these values are very helpful in predicting how much is needed to create a specific amount of heat and thus engines can be designed with greater efficiency.

But when it comes to the human body, heat is not used to create energy. Donuts and beer for example have an incredibly high amount of calories per weight. But when you eat them, you body temperature does not rise dramatically.

There are no combustions. And you will not feel energetic for any extended period of time which you should expect based on the amount of "energy" that is supposed to be in a donut. This is where the mechanical combustion model that uses heat as a measure of energy begins to fall apart.

The human body is more complex and sophisticated. For example, vegetables have very low calories and vitamins and minerals have none. But with all things equal they produce more energy for the body because they provide the nutrients the body needs, they contain enzymes and also need a little energy to process them. Because they are alive, they also have life-energy that directly transfers to the human body without any processing needed.

If you eat nothing but McDonalds Big Mac's, French Fries, milk shakes 6 times a day, you will be wiped out. I see people everyday eating and drinking extremely high calorie foods and drinks like soda. And they are not energetic at all. They are tired, they have poor skin tone, their eyes look dry and sunken. There are dark line under their eyes, they move slowly and yes they are overweight.

The Zero-Calorie, Zero-Sugar Myth

The subject of calories in the American culture, for me is frustrating enough but this goes beyond frustration. I sometimes think the concept of calories have been the best friend of the Health and Fitness and Food and Beverage industries.

The zero-calorie myth takes illogic to a new level. If calorie is defined as the energy derived from food, and a soft drink is zero-calorie, then there is no energy to be derived from the drink? The argument is that by taking sugar away you take the "calories" associated with sugar away. But if you take sugar away, you take the "sweet" away. So synthetic chemicals (that are non-nutrients for the cells of the human body) are put in to give the taste of "sweet".

So if this chemical is not a nutrient, this becomes a waste product once it enters the body. Right there it becomes hard to lose fat by putting a waste product into your system. But there is another more important factor.

The synthetic chemicals are toxic. The most common are Saccharin, Aspartame, Sucralose, Acesulfame and Neotame are examples.

Let's take sucralose. According to the book Sweet Deception, sucralose is made when sugar is treated with trityl chloride, acetic anhydride, hydrogen chlorine, thionyl chloride, and methanol in the presence of dimethylformamide, 4-methylmorpholine, toluene, methyl isobutyl ketone, acetic acid, benzyltriethlyammonium chloride, and sodium methoxide, making it unlike anything found in nature. It was discovered while trying to create a new insecticide.

Chlorine is a known carcinogen.

Toxins increase fat. They are poisons and are harmful and totally against aims of this site which is to provide the a great experience of life. Not to lessen it with toxins!

Calories to Fat Myth

Then there is the datum that excess "calories" are "stored" as fat. Since food calories are defined as the amount of energy contained in food a strange illogic is created by the above statement that excess "calories" are "stored" as fat. By this logic, over weight and especially obese people should be the most energetic people. But that is not only far from true, it is the exact opposite.

In studying certain animals it has been determined that the fat they store is used for nutrition. An example of this is the bear. Especially the polar bear. There is a period of the year where the Polar Bear spends most of his time asleep. Up to this point a lot of fat is created within the body of the bear. But during the hibernation period this amount of fat decreases as it is used as a nutrient. What is not stated though, is that muscle mass also decreases for these bears during this time. They are not used and they atrophy.

As humans, we generally don't hibernate. There are some people I've met that made me wonder, but most of us don't hibernate. We need to perform more complex tasks than hunt, kill and eat a smaller animal. We have to take care of our kids, balance our checkbooks, navigate through traffic, etc. You need more nutrients than body fat to perform your daily tasks.

Since this site is about healthy natural weight loss that involves the loss of fat and the enhancement of the rest of your body and mind, studies involving large obese animals and how they use fat are not going to be included as a basis for nutrition for individuals like you who want to be lean, fit and healthy. I will be basing my research on lean fit and healthy individuals that live like you and what their commonalties are.

The explanation that works better simply goes back to my first lesson "Role of Chemical Reactions" Fat is the result of a chemical reaction.

If a person on a high-sugar and carbohydrate diet switched the source of his calories to meats for example without changing the amount of calories, the amount of fat would decrease.

If more natural, nutrient rich foods that go directly into the cell for its use, are included into the diet WITHOUT reducing the total calories, the fat content would reduce.

So this clearly demonstrates that excess calories are not the cause of fat. It comes down to what foods, food combinations, reactions to those foods that determine the level of fat the individual has.

What Can Be Used From This Lesson:

Learn how your body works without the input of vested interests who want you to buy their products.

If you get an overweight individual, calculate the average calories he eats in a day with his usual diet. Get the equivalent caloric amount of live food and nutrients: vegetables, some low sugar fruits, vitamins, minerals, healthy fats and have this individual consume this for a while without changing anything else.

This obese person will lose his fat dramatically, his lean muscle-mass will not drop and will probably increase, the shape of his body will change into a more flattering shape, his energy will shoot through the roof and stay there. He is going to be more mentally focused and feel better emotionally as well.

But the calories are the same! This example I just outlined is not made up. It is a true example and happens everyday.

But for the purposes of this chapter, the point to be made here is that calories are very misleading and a very limited way of evaluating food choices.

The best way is to evaluate your food choices by knowing what foods most readily convert to be basic nutrients your cells need. By doing this you will attain the promise of natural weight loss.

You will be allowing the body to reach toward its optimum health and vitality. And that includes being at its optimal weight.

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Metabolism Makeover

Any exercise for natural weight loss should be used as part of a comprehensive weight loss program that focuses of restoring health first to lose weight. Know how to use it will save you time, money and hassle because you don't have anymore guess work. I lay it out for you. It is all in this book. If you are interested check out Metabolism Makeover.

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