Richard Tardif
His words were strung together like a dare. Prove to me that the Calories In, Calories Out model for weight-loss is a myth? Drake, a personal fitness trainer, is a pleasant, even-keeled man who has this aura of gracefulness about him. He is a slender man of six-feet, in his fifties, and has some quick and crisp wit about him. He posed this question during one of my presentations on health and fitness. I knew I was up against a steadfast believer in the CI/CO model for weight loss.
This model for weight loss is the most pervasive myth in the fitness industry. The premise is, if you just eat less, exercise more and create a caloric deficit over a sustained period you will lose weight and therefore be healthy. And it doesn’t matter if its junk food or health food. If truthful, this would mean our bodies work on the principle of sameness, that one size fits all, and that we have unambiguous control over how our bodies use energy from the foods we eat, and all calories are equal.
We don’t have that much control. What about those other factors affecting weight loss and our health?
To name a few, genetics, sleep, smoking/alcohol consumption, medications, stress, illness, age, ageing, menopause, and in our food – like processed packaged snacks and in sugar we consume, and it’s okay to eat the toxins and chemicals in fast foods, just a little less, and of course, if you don’t understand how the human body actually works, and how physiologically and emotionally we respond to food, well, CI/CO is non-viable.
Further, the assumption that all calories are created equal is fake science. A calorie is a calorie is a calorie. Energy in an apple is not the same energy in a piece of chocolate. Tell me a piece of chocolate has the same nutritional benefits as an apple, with the same number of calories?
Some foods take longer to digest than others, which would require more energy from the digestive system, while some foods high in calories takes less time, with little digestive calorie burning activity. Your body processes different types of food differently, so if you eat different types of food in different quantities, then your body will react differently to the different intake.
And of course, starving yourself based on the idea that a starved body will burn excess fat for fuel, is dangerous.
CI/CO is based on the first law of thermodynamics. This law basically states that you can’t create or destroy energy, you can only change it. In this law if you take in more energy (calories) than you need for fuel, the energy gets converted and stored (as fat). Bottom line advice? Eat less, exercise more, and that’s what counts, right? Wrong! If we accept the law of thermodynamics as the law of laws, this would explain almost everything on this planet. It doesn’t explain much of anything when it comes to our complex bodies.
The human body is far more complex than we give it credit for. I think sometimes we try so hard to over-simplify how our bodies work, and we end up getting these ideas that don’t actually work but we cling to them.
Next Time: Four reasons why the CI/CO model doesn’t work
Richard Tardif is a personal fitness trainer, author, and an award-winning journalist writing and teaching about health and wellness. Richard’s first book Stop the Denial: A Case for Embracing the Truth about Fitness, challenges, surprises, and inspires you to embrace a fitness lifestyle that will work in achieving your goals.
Email: richard@richardtardif.com.
