Calories

There has been debate over whether or not calories are a useful tool in determining whether one will gain weight or not. The prevailing idea is that if one consumes more energy than one expends, one will gain weight. The measure of this energy has been calories (interestingly though now that I am in Australia all the food labels measure every thing in Joules). One can estimate the number of calories one needs per day based on gender, height, weight, muscle content, etc. This gives the bmi, or the basal amount of calories needed for basic life every day. To loose a pound of fat most estimate that you need to burn 3000-3500 calories. Many in the low carb camp think that the calorie idea is a myth. It will be interesting to explore the derivation of what a calorie is in a future post, but at this point I want to find evidence that simple calories in, calories out is flawed. I think I have found two studies which show this. The first was done with rats. The reference is J Nutr 2004, 134 (10):2646-2652. They showed that rats fed a high fat diet with no carbs gained less weight than rats fed an equal amount of calories on a high fat diet that included carbs. The second study (reference: Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 2007, AR Kennedy et al.) showed that a low carb (ketogenic) diet in rats could reverse obesity that was caused by a high fat diet that included carbohydrates in the form of sucrose. So very quickly I have found two scientific studies that show that eating carbs and eating things other than carbs is not the same metabolically. Obviously it is not a clear cut case. The studies were done in rats, not humans. There also has to be some truth to the fact that ingesting more energy than you should will catch up to you sooner or later. For example, I bet rats fed 10,000 calories a day on a high fat diet with no carbs still gain weight as compared to those on 1000 calories (the rat equivalent number of calories, not sure what that is so I used human numbers in the example). However, I am glad I found this information and will strive to find more and perhaps answers as to why this is. It makes sense to me though. Fatty acids and sugar are metabolized through very different pathways in the human body so it makes sense that when ingested they will lead to different end points. As for me, I am still in the grumpy induction phase of my low carbing. I had to endure watching my family eating McDonalds in front of me and not have any. I had the usual eggs with cheese for breakfast and then taco salad for dinner. I weighed in at 132.4kg this morning (it was 132.7kg yesterday). So I must have really been retaining water before I started the diet. I was unusually grumpy today. This reminds me of when I quit smoking. My blood sugar must really be out of whack. (It's been 4 and a half years now without any nicotine by the way!).