A calorie is a calorie...except when it isn't LOL

Sunday morning at the beach...perfect time to geek out on the latest nutrition research LOL

What's up first? Oh, here's a guy who did an experiment on himself. He only at cupcakes for one month and lost weight. Wow!!

His contention is that weight loss is only about calories in versus calories out. Eat fewer calories than your burn, and you are guaranteed to lose weight.

Not something I'd recommend.

Let's look at the details.

Starting with calories that you burn.

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of calories you burn while sitting completely still; think sleeping or Netflix binging here.

Then you have NEAT. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. That's calories burned during your daily activities. 

And finally EAT. Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. That's calories burned during exercise.

 For most people, when they are trying to improve their health and fitness, the first thing they do is go to the gym. And the gym is SUPER important. Think of the gym as a factory or laboratory where you are building this fine race car.

But the raw materials to build that race car is your nutrition...your food.

And actually, if you compare BMR, NEAT, and EAT in terms of calorie expenditure, you will find that BMR is by far your largest calorie burner. NEAT is by far the next largest. And your EAT is the least.

So, if you think that simply hitting the gym will help you lose weight, you will be disappointed.

To give ourselves the best chance, we need to increase our BMR and NEAT as well.

One way we help people do that is by helping them switch from processed food to whole foods.

Let me explain why...

Part of your BMR consists of energy expended in digestion. 

Very simply put, whole foods are more expensive for your body to digest.

That means that your body burns more calories digesting whole foods that it does processed food.

And we try to give people every advantage we can to help them meet their goals.

And by whole foods, I mean real food. That was grown on a farm or had a mother.

Whole foods = meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds, starches, grains. This is real food. The less factory processing the better.

Pick it off of a bush, wash it, eat it. That kind of thing.

Another way to think of it is like this...

What happens when you eat something?

The calories are used in this way:
Some are burned just keeping you alive.
Some are burned through your daily activities.
Some (or none) are burned through exercise.
Some are used to build new tissue (bone, muscle, fat tissue).
Some are pooped out.
And some are burned through digestion.

You can increased calories burned through digestion by eating mostly whole foods instead of processed foods. 

So, yes, a calorie of one food item is theoretically equivalent to a calorie from another…on paper.

But in reality, your body reacts very differently to Whole Foods vs processed foods.

And this unseen reaction is where the magic is.

And it’s also a huge stumbling block if you don’t consider this in light of your own personal fitness goals.