Lies to Adults

One of the biggest barriers I have when discussing training and nutrition is that of Calories.

In fact, let’s start out differently by laying it on the line. Calories, at least in the common usage, are a myth. This (the Calorie concept) is principally used by the weight-loss industry to keep customers locked in to a vicious cycle that only serves the bottom line; profit.

If you want to achieve any appreciable result with your body, you need to discard the concept almost entirely. Interested? read on.

To understand how the Calorie myth became accepted ‘common knowledge’, we need to quickly take a look at the way it, and other ‘not quite right’ concepts, are perpetuated.

The (common) Calorie concept is what we call a ‘Lie to Children’. ‘Lies to Children’ also go by the name of a ‘Wittgenstein’s Ladder’. A ‘Lie to Children’ is a teaching tool that simplifies a complex concept to make it easier to access and understand. However, as the name ‘Wittgenstein’s Ladder’ implies it is then meant to lead on to another step. The following steps then reveal the ‘lie’ and provide more accurate explanations of the concept(s).

The problem is most people are given a ladder with only one step. Hence ‘Lies to Children’ easily become ‘Lies to Adults’.

So the fact that we are surrounded by adults that (through no fault of their own) believe in this distorted Calorie concept, the continual ignorant usage of Calories in popular media and the food industry, and the deceitful use of it in the weight loss industry, it’s no surprise that we are in this current state of confusion.

To help you see clearly, let’s dig a little deeper. Not too deep though, as it can be a pretty deep hole.

Calories are simply the measure of heat produced by the burning (combustion) of food in a fairly basic piece of equipment called a bomb calorimeter. Now here’s the problem, the instrument cannot distinguish whether a potato is being burnt, or poo. They both give off Calorific measurements, but do you think a poo would nourish as well as a potato? I’m not sure how many WW points a poo is worth? But if the request is made, I’ll work it out.

That’s only the first step. Foods in a bomb calorimeter are burnt. We are neither a bomb calorimeter, nor do we ‘burn’ anything. The human body and the way it processes energy is only vaguely associated with the concept of Calories. This disconnect is most easily demonstrated by hospitalised obese patients who despite being fed a Calorie controlled diet (usually 1,200 Calories per day) continue to gain fat. How is this possible, when common Caloric concept says that it is quite impossible? Well, since the indisputable evidence is clearly in front of your eyes, maybe it’s time you questioned the concept.

If the human body doesn’t burn (combust) fuel, how is it able to derive energy? Well, combustion is fairly crude and inefficient means of liberating stored energy, and Nature, being the mother of efficiency, gave us a much cleaner and effective system. This system is able to harness the amazing boundless force of the Universe; light.

Our body, processes food in a number of steps which eventually, via our mitochondria, extracts the light energy from food and transfers it to a chemical called Adenosine Tri-Phosphate (ATP).

ATP, and the Solar energy it contains, powers your life.

I’m going to curtail this article here, but will show in upcoming articles, how this (essentially) processing of nuclear power can be optimised, or as has happened due to the continual and misapplied emphasis on Calories, go very, very wrong.