Posts Tagged ‘ Calorie ’

“Don’t worry, a calorie is calorie. It doesn’t matter what you eat as long as you stay within your calorie limit.” Sadly, this is a trap that many people fall into. Even a lot of fitness professionals still believe this concept, I used to be one of them, but the idea that a calorie is a calorie is simply untrue. Eating 200 calories of ice cream versus 200 calories of vegetables isn’t even close to the same when it comes to eating healthy.

First off, if you remember talking about the glycemic index, you remember that the speed of the breakdown of a carbohydrate effects how fast your blood sugar is raised and how much insulin is released. The faster the blood sugar spike, the faster the resulting blood sugar crash and feeling of hunger. The more often you feel hungry, the more likely you’ll consume excess calories. So from this aspect alone, a low-glycemic, carbohydrate calorie is a lot more beneficial for decreased weight gain compared to a high-glycemic, carbohydrate calorie.

Another reason all calories aren’t the same has to do with the amount of fiber in the food. A high-fiber calorie promotes a faster feeling of fullness compared to a calorie that has little fiber. This means that you’ll nave some help in controlling your appetite and fighting off those unhealthy cravings. Fiber also reduces the speed at which foods are broken down, so as a result, your blood sugar won’t rise as fast and the amount of insulin released at one time will be reduced. All of this is good for weight control, as well as preventing or controlling diabetes.

As if these reasons weren’t enough for getting fiber in your diet, fiber has also been shown to lower cholesterol, reduce the risk of heart disease, and possibly reduce the risk of stroke, along with many other benefits. The recommendations for fiber are 25 grams per day per 2000-calorie diet,1 and although you can get fiber supplements, it’s always better to get your fiber in the natural form from plants because your body handles natural nutrients better than synthetic nutrients.

One final piece of information to consider when deciding which foods to eat is TEF or the thermic effect of food. The thermic effect of food is how many calories your body burns in order to digest the food you eat. The great news is, as you workout, the thermic effect of food goes up. Basically, as your metabolism goes up, so does the TEF; your body burns off more calories digesting food when you maintain a lifestyle of working out.2

Another influencer of how high the thermic effect of food is is whether or not you’re eating regular meals. It has been shown that those who don’t eat every 2 to 3 hours have a decreased TEF.3,4 Just another reason why only eating 2 to 3 times per day isn’t going to cut it; 5 meals/snacks a day is essential if you want to have the greatest potential for fat loss.

Back when I was an athlete in college, the rumor going around the cafeteria was that you actually spend more calories digesting celery than you get from eating it. Unfortunately, there’s nothing out there that really proves this about celery, but hopefully this theory helps explain the concept of the thermic effect of food.

The reason the TEF is so important is because fats, carbohydrates, and protein all have different TEFs! The body only burns off a few calories when it is digesting fat; in fact, the TEF of fat is only about 3%.5 This means that for every 100 calories of fat that you consume, 3 calories are used by your body to digest the fat to either store it as body fat, use it as energy for something else, use it for padding in the joints, etc.

When digesting carbohydrates, the TEF is 7%,5 so for every 100 calories of carbohydrates digested, 7 calories are burned off digesting it. Keep in mind, these numbers may be lower for someone who doesn’t exercise, and while it may not be too much of a difference, it’s still a difference.

Now here’s the kicker when it comes to concluding that a calorie isn’t just a calorie. The TEF of protein is a whopping 25-30%!5 This means that for every 100 calories of protein you consume, your body burns off approximately 25-30 calories just to digest the protein! So when you’re talking about fat loss, you have to make sure that you’re getting your protein because as you can see, all calories are not the same.

A 300-calorie hotdog, with ketchup, has a ratio of about 50% fat, 40% carbs, and 10% protein. This means that you would burn off about 22 calories digesting the hotdog, but take something like a 300-calorie piece of chicken where the ratios are closer to 20% fat, 0% carbs, and 80% protein. Now you’re burning off about 74 calories in order to digest the chicken! That’s a difference of 52 more calories burned off by choosing a piece of roasted chicken over a hotdog. Imagine burning off 52 more calories each day just by making better food choices. That’s 364 more calories burned off in a week and 18,928 more calories burned off in a year! That means by choosing to make healthy choices with eating, not by choosing NOT to eat, you could burn off that many more calories in a year and have the potential to lose a little over 5 more pounds of fat per year just by choosing to eat healthier foods! You’re not even changing the amount of calories you eat, and because the TEF is higher with increased meal frequency, you’re eating every 2 to 3 hours and still burning off more fat! How cool is that?!

If you’ve made a commitment to yourself that you want to lose some excess body fat, it only makes sense that you make conscious choices with the foods you eat because as you now know, all calories are not the same. I’m sure you’ve noticed that when talking about calorie burn, on top of the benefits you get from exercising, you get more “bang for your buck” when eating protein. Besides having the highest thermic effect, protein also has many other benefits that will make your weight loss efforts even more productive. That brings us to the topic for next week, the importance of protein for fat/weight loss.

References:
1 Sizer, F., & Whitney, E. (2003). Nutrition concepts and controversies, (9th ed). Belmont, Ca.: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
2 Denzer, C., & Young, J. (2003). The effect of resistance exercise on the thermic effect of food. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 13(3), 396-402.
3 Farshchi, H., Taylor, M., Macdonald, I. (2005). Beneficial metabolic effects of regular meal frequency on dietary thermogenesis, insulin sensitivity, and fasting lipid profiles in healthy obese women. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 81(1), 16-24.
4 Farshchi, H., Taylor, M., Macdonald, I. (2004). Decreased thermic effect of food after an irregular compared with a regular meal pattern in healthy lean women. International Journal of Obesity, 28(5), 653-660.
5 Lee, R. (2007). The millionaire workout, (1st ed). New Canaan, CT.: Okenzie Publishing.