Focus on WHAT you Eat vs Crazy Calorie Counting

Introduction

Table of Contents

Despite the fact that every lasting healthy lifestyle (whole foods, paleo, vegetarian, low-carb, low-glycemic, Mediterranean, etc.) focuses on what we eat rather than how muchwe eat, the mainstream still seems to insist that if we just counted our calories more conservatively, we could end the obesity epidemic. The proven fact is that calorie-counting approaches fail 95.4% of the time. That’s a higher failure rate than quitting smoking cold turkey. [1 – 4]

Focus on WHAT you Eat

Just Breathe Less

Blindly eating less to cure obesity is like breathing less to cure allergies. It may offer temporary “relief” but ultimately fails because it is masking symptoms rather than fixing causes. Will eating only 1,200 of anything cause you to lose weight? Yes. So will cutting off your leg. That doesn’t mean either is a good idea. Counting calories is a euphemism for starvation. It’s the definition of an eating disorder. [5] And the sooner you are able to free yourself from oppressive calorie myths, and instead enjoy eating more—but higher-quality food—the sooner you will live your best life. Shifting our focus from calorie quantity to food quality is easier said than done considering the constant barrage of calorie myths we’re hit with daily. To help you free yourself from disproven calorie math, here are more of my favorite common sense reasons calorie counting cannot be required for long term health and fitness.
Nobody Knew What A Calorie Was BEFORE the Obesity Epidemic

If we need to constantly count calories to avoid obesity, then how did we have about ten times less obesity before anyone knew what a calorie was, let alone count them? [6 – 8]
Every Other Species Avoids Obesity Without Counting Calories

If we need to constantly count calories to avoid obesity, how does every other animal on the planet avoid obesity even though they cannot count?
We Don’t Need to Count Anything Else We Eat

If we need to constantly count calories to avoid obesity, why don’t we need to count everything else? What about Vitamin C in and Vitamin C out? How about Zinc in and Zinc out? And what about counting the other 18 minerals, 12 vitamins, 9 essential amino acids, 8 conditionally essential amino acids, and the 2 essential fatty acids?
No Other Life Sustaining Bodily Function Needs to Be Counted

If we need to constantly count calories to avoid obesity, then why don’t we need to “count” blood sugar to avoid diabetes? Or what about “counting” blood pressure to avoid hypertension? And how is it that when we take more water in, more water out happens unconsciously?
6

It Is Impossible to Count Calories In

The only way to actually count calories in the real world would be to only eat food that has nutrition facts labels on them. Even in this impossible case, these labels have a 10% margin of error. [9] While this may not seem like a big deal, considering that the average person eats about a million calories per year, and 10% of a million is 100,000 calories margin of error, which translates into 30 lbs. worth of body fat, couldn’t we each gain 30 lbs. of fat per year even after counting every calorie we ate due to measurement error?
It Is Impossible to Count Calories Out

If we need to constantly count calories to avoid obesity, then how do we accurately account for the 400 to 700 calories our liver burns daily? Or what about the 200 to 400 calories we burn digesting food daily? And how do we count the 100 to 700 calories we burn per day building and repairing bodily tissue? 75% of the calories we burn every day have nothing to do with exercise, walking, or anything measured by any expensive fitness gadget, so how are we supposed to accurately and practically keep track of these? [10 – 12]
The Flat Earth Theory of Weight Loss

Counting calories is the flat earth theory of weight loss. It’s reasonable. It’s intuitive. But it is wrong once we understand modern science. The research is clear and the common sense is undeniable. Every single society and species that ever existed that focused foods found directly in nature—vs. processed low-calorie edible products—stayed slim without counting calories. Similarly, when cultures or creatures start eating processed edible products, they start seeing increasing rates of obesity and diabetes.
Just Frown Less and Smile More

Ending obesity is not about eating less or exercising more just like ending depression is not about frowning less and smiling more. Both health and happiness are about quality, not quantity. They are about filling ourselves with so much good that we don’t have room for bad. It’s what we did prior to the obesity and diabetes epidemics, and it’s what we’ll do to end them. No math needed.
Food Is More Delicious Then Math

References
1. Crawford D, Jeffery RW, French SA. Can anyone successfully control their weight? Findings of a three year community-based study of men and women. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2000 Sep;24(9):1107-10. PubMed PMID: 11033978.
2. Summerbell CD, Cameron C, Glasziou PP. WITHDRAWN: Advice on low-fat diets for obesity. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2008 Jul 16;(3):CD003640. Review. PubMed PMID: 18646093.
3. Pirozzo S, Summerbell C, Cameron C, Glasziou P. Should we recommend low-fat diets for obesity? Obes Rev. 2003 May;4(2):83-90. Review. Erratum in: Obes Rev. 2003 Aug;4(3):185. PubMed PMID: 12760443.
4. ” A word about quitting success rates .” American Cancer Society :: Information and Resources for Cancer: Breast, Colon, Prostate, Lung and Other Forms. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Jan. 2011.
5. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-5.. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Association, 2013. Print.
6. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en
7.http://www.prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx
8. http://www.google.com/publicdata/directory
9. Urban LE, Dallal GE, Robinson LM, Ausman LM, Saltzman E, Roberts SB. The accuracy of stated energy contents of reduced-energy, commercially prepared foods. J Am Diet Assoc. 2010 Jan;110(1):116-23. PubMed PMID: 20102837; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2838242.
10. Wang Z, Heshka S, Zhang K, Boozer CN, Heymsfield SB. Resting energy expenditure: systematic organization and critique of prediction methods. Obes Res. 2001 May;9(5):331-6. Review. PubMed PMID: 11346676.
11. 1998: Poehlman E T; Melby C Resistance training and energy balance. International journal of sport nutrition 1998;8(2):143-59
12. Whitehead, Saffron A.; Nussey, Stephen (2001). Endocrinology: an integrated approach. Oxford: BIOS. pp. 122. ISBN 1-85996-252-1.

2015-09-16/0 Comments/by SANE

SANE Drinking and Living – Alcohol, Water, Green Tea, and Goals

SANE Science

2015-09-15/0 Comments/by SANE

Bottom Line: A Calorie is NOT A Calorie In Real Life

Eat SANE

A Calorie is NOT A Calorie Big Ideas

Table of Contents

A Calorie is Not a Calorie

“Attacking the obesity epidemic will involve giving up many old ideas that have not been productive. ‘A calorie is a calorie’ might be a good place to start.” – R.D. Feinman, State University of New York

Beyond battling our basic biology, calorie balancing is bound to fail us because a calorie is not a calorie. The difference in calorie quality is really important. That’s because the quality of the calories we eat influences our hormones. Those in turn determine our set-point. We can control our weight, just not the way you have been led to believe.

The Calories In – Calories Out theory of weight control depends on the assumption that our bodies work like balance scales. Balance scales do not measure quality. On a balance scale, a pound of feathers weighs the same as a pound of lead. Quality is irrelevant. So on a balance scale, 300 calories of vegetables is the same as 300 calories of pasta. The only problem is that the body is not a balance scale.

Let’s look at the issue another way. Breathing in smoke-filled air for thirty years does something different to our respiratory system than breathing in the same quantity of fresh air. In the same fashion, putting 2,000 calories of low-quality food into our fat metabolism system does something different than putting in the same quantity of high-quality food. Quality counts. Our bodies do not work like balance scales.
Introducing the SANE Solution

The quality of calories depends on four fascinating factors:

1. Satiety – How quickly calories fill us up and how long they keep us full
2. Aggression – How likely calories are to be stored as body fat
3. Nutrition – How many nutrients—aka protein, vitamins, minerals, etc.—calories provide
4. Efficiency – How many calories can be stored as body fat
SANE vs. inSANE

The more Satisfying, unAggressive, Nutritious, and inEfficienct a calorie is, the higher its quality. The more SANE it is. The more body-fat-burning hormones it triggers. The more it unclogs our metabolism and prevents overeating.

The more unSatisfying, Aggressive, not Nutritious, and Efficient a calorie is, the lower its quality. The more inSANE it is. The more body-fat-storing hormones it triggers. The more it clogs our metabolism and encourages overeating.
It’s SANE to Eat Large Amounts of the Right Food

The more we understand the four calorie-quality factors, the more clearly we will see how eating more high-quality SANE food is the only practical way to burn body fat long term. When you stay full of SANE food, you will not have any room for clog-causing inSANE calories. When we are totally full from a super-sized SANE supper, skipping the sundae after isn’t a burden. It’s a blessing in disguise. By staying full of SANE calories, we clear our clog, drop our set-point, and enable our fat metabolism system to burn body fat for us automatically.

“…for the vast majority of people, being overweight is not caused by how much they eat but by what they eat. The idea that people get heavy because they consume a high volume of food is a myth. Eating large amounts of the right food is your key to success…” – Joel Fuhrman, Doctor and Author

Sound too good to be true?
It’s InSANE to Claim “A Calorie is a Calorie”

Whether a calorie is high-quality or low-quality depends on where it fits on the SANEity spectrum.

High-quality calories are on the healthy end of the SANEity spectrum. They areSatisfying, unAggressive, Nutritious, and inEfficient. They fill us up quickly and keep us full for a long time. They provide a lot of nutrients, and few of them can be converted into body fat. Even better, they trigger the release of body-fat-burning hormones, clear clogs, and lower our set-point. In short, they are SANE.

Low-quality calories are just the opposite. They are on the unhealthy end of the SANEity spectrum. They are unSatisfying, Aggressive, non-Nutritious, andEfficient. They trigger the release of body-fat-storing hormones, cause clogs, and raise our set-point. In short, they are inSANE.
Eat SANE and Lose Fat
In all of the studies that follow, everyone ate the exact same quantity of calories, but one group’s calories were of much higher quality (were much more SANE) than the other groups’:
- University of Florida researcher J.W. Krieger analyzed eighty-seven studies and found that those people who ate SANE calories lost an average of twelve more pounds of body fat compared to those who ate an equal quantity of inSANE calories.
- C.M. Young at Cornell University split people into three groups, each eating 1,800 calories per day, but at different levels of SANEity. The most SANE group lost 86.5% more body fat than the least SANE group.
- In the Annals of Internal Medicine, F.L. Benoît compared a reduced-calorie inSANE diet to a reduced-calorie SANE diet. After ten days the SANE diet burned twice as much body fat.
- Additional studies by researchers U. Rabast (1978,1981), P. Greene (2003), N.H. Baba (1999), A. Golay (1996), M.E. Lean (1997), C.M. Young (1971), and D.K. Layman (2003) all show that people who ate SANE calories lost an average of 22% more weight than those who ate the exact same quantity of inSANE calories.
Calories Aren’t All that Matter… Ask Anyone Taking Insulin
“Insulin has profound metabolic effects in the determination of body weight…” – B. Dokken, University of Arizona

The critical effect hormones have on body fat has been well known in scientific circles for a long time. Especially the hormone insulin. Three quick examples:
- A study in the journal Diabetic Medicine found that giving patients the hormone insulin “is associated with weight gain,” specifically, “an increase in trunk [belly] fat mass.
- The journal Diabetes and Metabolism reports: “Most studies report an average 13.2 lb. weight gain during the first year following the initiation of insulin therapy.” The journal went on to conclude that when it comes to taking shots of the hormone insulin “weight gain seems mandatory.”
- In the journal Diabetes an aptly title study “Intensive Insulin Therapy and Weight Gain in IDDM (type 1 diabetes)” revealed that after only two months, “Body weight increased ~6 lbs. with intensive insulin therapy as a result of an increase in fat mass.”
But Are You Exercising Enough?

Note that there’s no mention of “eating too much” or “exercising too little.” That’s because calories aren’t all that matter. Hormones matter a lot. Hundreds of millions of diabetics have proven this for years. And that’s why long-term fat loss and robust health isn’t about eating less of a hormonally-poor traditional diet and doing more hormonally-irrelevant traditional exercise. These techniques may mask our hormonal breakdown, but they do not fix it.
Forget It

Forget counting calories. Long-term fat loss and robust health isn’t about eating less of a hormonally-poor traditional diet and doing more hormonally-irrelevant traditional exercise.
Remember It

Focus on eating more hormonally-helpful SANE foods, and doing less, but hormonally-helpful eccentric exercise. Eat more and exercising less–smarter. Sure that seems like the opposite of what we’ve been told to do, but isn’t it about time to get the opposite of what we’ve gotten?

2015-09-15/0 Comments/by SANE

How Isocaloric Studies Can Change Your Life

Get Eccentric

Isocaloric Studies The Top 10 Big Ideas

Table of Contents

Low Quality vs. High Quality

“[We found] highly significant inverse correlations between food energy intake and adiposity [body fat].” – H. Keen, King’s College LondonEating more low-quality food causes us to gain body fat. But that does not mean eating more food produces the same result. Interestingly enough, eating more high-quality food has been clinically proven to cause body fat to be burned.
Isocaloric Studies The Research is Clear
The research on this topic comes from all over:
- J. Volek’s Study at the University of Connecticut: People in the eat-more-high-quality-food group ate 300 more calories per day and burned more body fat.
- F.F. Samaha’s Study at the University of Pennsylvania: People in the eat-more-high-quality-food group ate a total of 9,500 more calories and lost 200% more weight.
- P. Green’s Study from Obesity Research: People in the eat-more-high-quality-food group ate a total of 25,000 more calories without gaining any additional weight.
- S. Sondike’s Study from the Journal of Adolescent Health: People in the eat-more-high-quality-food group ate a total of 65,000 more calories and lost 141% more weight.
It’s Not about the Calories

How are these results possible? Research reveals two main reasons: First, a calorie is not a calorie. Second, an unclogged fat metabolism system burns excess calories instead of storing them. The next section will cover why a calorie is not a calorie, so let’s turn first to how unclogging enables our body to burn—instead of store—excess calories.
Mayo Study (Not the Condiment, The Clinic)

In a Mayo Clinic study, researchers fed people 1,000 extra calories per day for eight weeks. A thousand extra calories per day for eight weeks totals 56,000 extra calories. Everyone gained sixteen pounds—56,000 calories worth—of body fat, right?Nope.
The Real Results

Nobody gained sixteen pounds. The most anyone gained was a little over half that. The least anyone gained was basically nothing—less than a pound. How could that be true? People are eating 56,000 extra calories and gaining basically no body fat? How can 56,000 extra calories add up to nothing?
Once Again, It’s Not about the Calories

That’s because extra calories don’t have to turn into body fat. They could turn into heat. They could be burned off automatically. Researcher D.M. Lyon in the medical journal QJM reported: “Food in excess of immediate requirements…can easily be disposed of, being burnt up and dissipated as heat. Did this capacity not exist, obesity would be almost universal.”
The Metabolism Trifecta

Eating more and gaining less is possible because an unclogged metabolism has all sorts of under appreciated ways to process excess calories other than storing them as body fat. In the Mayo Clinic study, researchers measured three of them:1. Increase the amount of calories burned daily.
2. Increase the amount of calories burned digesting food.
3. Increase the amount calories burned via unconscious activity.
Metabolism Magic

So how did some people ate 56,000 extra calories and gain essentially nothing? Instead of storing the excess calories as body fat, their unclogged metabolisms automatically increased the base amount of calories they burned.
Eat More, Burn More

On the surface this study seems shocking, but we have all seen examples of “eat more, burn more” in our day-to-day lives. Think about naturally thin people you know who eat a lot, exercise a little, and stay slim. They eat more and burn more. Just as eating less causes the fat metabolism system to slow down, eating more causes an unclogged metabolism to speed up.
Fix Your Metabolism for Optimal Fat Loss

The key to long-term fat loss isn’t eating less or exercising more. It’s getting our metabolism to burn rather than to store excess calories.

2015-09-14/1 Comment/by SANE

How to Exercise Less To Burn Fat & Boost Health (Part 2)

Get Eccentric

The Top 10 Big Ideas

Table of Contents

What Does the Data Say?

“It is reasonable to assume that persons with relatively high daily energy expenditures would be less likely to gain weight over time compared with those who have low energy expenditures. So far, data to support this hypothesis are not particularly compelling.” – American Heart Association
BIG FAT MYTH

The idea that we have an obesity epidemic because people are not exercising enough is a myth. Saffron A. Whitehead at St. George’s University of London reported: “Most studies show that the obese do about the same physical activity as [the] lean.”
Outdated Aerobics

Common sense tells us that if exercising less is the cause of our collective weight issues, we must be collectively exercising less. Are we?

Not even close.

The idea of aerobic exercise did not even exist in the mainstream until the 1968 publication of the book Aerobics by Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper. Dr. Entin, with the department of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University, explains the common view before then: “In the 1930’s and 40’s…high volume endurance training was thought to be bad for the heart. Through the ‘50’s and even ‘60’s, exercise was not thought to be useful…and endurance exercise was thought to be harmful to women.”
The Numbers Rise

During that same period the percent of obese Americans was dramatically lower than today. Nowadays, Americans exercise more than anyone else in the world and are the sixth heaviest population in the world. How could doing too little of something that we did even less of before the problem existed cause the problem?
We’re Not Just Lazy

Some people claim that we are getting heavier because we are using labor-saving devices. Yet that doesn’t make sense. The vast majority of labor-saving devices became common in households decades before obesity shot up. Use of dishwashers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and all the major labor-saving devices increased most between 1945 and 1965. However, obesity increased little during that time period.

Use of these devices increased very little between 1978 and 1998 while obesity rates shot up. So how could labor-saving devices be the cause of weight problems?
Dig Deeper

Reread the quote from the American Heart Association from Big Idea 1. Digging into the data and abandoning assumptions about our activity levels, researchers like New York University’s Marion Nestle tell us, “…the activity levels of Americans appear to have changed little, if at all, from the 1970s to the 1990s.”
TV Doesn’t Make You Fat

What about all the TV watching? That’s got to be the cause, right? That too does not correspond with the facts. Tsinghua University professor Seth Roberts determined: “Time spent watching TV increased by 45% from 1965 to 1975, yet obesity increased little over that time; from 1975 to 1995, when obesity shot up, TV watching increased only a little.”
Clogging Up the System

Eating lower-quality food creates the clog that causes chronic weight gain. People can be plenty active, and exercise for hours, but if they eat low-quality food, they will get clogged and gain body fat. Long-term weight gain is determined by food and exercise quality, not quantity.
But isn’t Jogging Good for Our Heart?

Not when compared with the smarter types of exercise we will cover later. The American Heart Association found that jogging injures more than half of the people who do it. This high injury rate is due in part to the fact that every mile we run, our feet hit the ground about 900 times. Let’s say you weigh 150 pounds. That means for every mile you run, you are smashing 135,000 pounds of force against your joints, ligaments, and every other part of your body. You could say that’s like dropping thirty-seven Toyota Camrys on yourself every time you go for a jog. Jogging is “healthy exercise” in the same way that boxing is “healthy exercise.”
Focus on the Facts!

The theory that we have an obesity epidemic because people are not exercising enough is disproved by the data. In a July 2013 report, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation found, “As physical activity increased between 2001 and 2009, so did the percentage of the population considered obese.” Other studies go on to show that obese people do about the same amount of physical activity as lean people do.

The only “weight versus activity” relationship that has been proved is that obesity may lead to inactivity. Consider the conclusion of a 2004 University of Copenhagen study: “This study did not support that physical inactivity . . . is associated with the development of obesity, but . . . that obesity may lead to physical inactivity.” More body fat may lead to less exercise, not the other way around. As Dr. Brad Metcalf, a researcher in the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the Peninsula Medical School, concluded in his 2011 study: “Physical inactivity appears to be the result of fatness rather than its cause. This reverse causality may explain why attempts to tackle childhood obesity by promoting physical activity have been largely unsuccessful.”

2015-09-12/0 Comments/by SANE

How To Exercise Less & Burn More Part 1

Get Eccentric

Top 10 Big Ideas

Table of Contents

Be on Purpose, Don’t Wander

“My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven today and we don’t know where the hell she is.” – Ellen DeGeneres
Exercise vs. Food Intake

In the same way that people drink more fluids when they exercise more, they also eat more when they exercise more. Researcher Hugo R. Rony found: “Consistently high or low energy expenditures result in consistently high or low levels of appetite. Thus men doing heavy physical work spontaneously eat more than men engaged in sedentary occupations.”
Obesity vs. Exercise

J.M. Friedman at Rockefeller University makes a similar point: “Exercise by itself has not been shown to be highly effective in treating obesity because the increased energy use from exercise is generally offset by increased caloric intake.”
Low Quality Food

Compounding the problem, many people who exercise more do not eat high-quality food. The majority of people get most of their calories from low-quality starches and sweeteners. Therefore, exercising more triggers the consumption of more low-quality food. More low-quality food means less need to burn body fat, more clogging, and a higher set-point. Far from burning body fat, we burn time and build-up clogs.
The Exercise Trap

Here is one scenario for exercising more: Michelle goes for a 30-minute jog and burns 170 more calories than she would have burned by sitting at home and reading this book. She is trying hard to cut calories, so she does not drink any sugary sports drinks and fights through the hunger pangs after her jog. At dinner Michelle unconsciously drinks an extra glass of reduced-fat milk thanks to her increased thirst and hunger. The net result of her jog is thirteen more calories than if she had not exercised.

30 min. jog….…….-170 calories
12 oz. milk………..+183 calories
_______________________________
Net………….….…….+13 calories
Sweetened Power Juice

Much more commonly, people will have sweetened “power juice” while pounding it out on the treadmill. Afterward, they overeat low-quality food. The net result is more low-quality food and more clogging.

30 min. jog………………………………………………………….….-170 calories
24 oz. sports drink………………………………………..……….+189 calories
Extra half serving of Fettuccine Alfredo………….……..+390 calories
__________________________________________________________________
Net…………………………………………………………………..……+409 calories
Food Industry Trickery
The food industry is very well aware that exercising more encourages eating more low-quality food. That’s why the following corporations serve on the executive board of the American Council on Fitness and Nutrition:
- Coca-Cola Company
- PepsiCo
- Hershey Foods Corporation
- Sara Lee Corporation
- Kellogg Company
- Kraft Foods
- General Mills
- Campbell Soup Company
- ConAgra Foods
- Del Monte Foods
- Grocery Manufacturers Association
- H.J. Heinz Company
- Masterfoods USA
- National Restaurant Association
- Unilever United States
- American Association of Advertising Agencies
- American Beverage Association
- Association of National Advertisers
It’s Just Good Business

Are we told to exercise more because it is good for fat loss or because it is good for business? The National Soft Drink Association advises us to “consume at least eight glasses of fluids daily, even more when you exercise. A variety of beverages, including soft drinks, can contribute to proper hydration.”
The Big Fat Idea

But wait. If you exercise less, won’t you gain body fat? As you’ll see in future posts that depends on the type of exercise you do. In the next two posts we’ll cover how exercising less does not cause long-term fat gain and eating more does not cause long-term fat gain.
Be Active

Note: Being active is good for your health. We definitely should not sit around all day. Studies consistently show that physical activity boosts life expectancy. However, they do not show that traditional cardiovascular exercise effectively burns body fat long term.

2015-09-11/0 Comments/by SANE

114 Reasons Why Fat-Shaming and Bullying Are the Opposite of What Overweight Individuals Need

Motivation

2015-09-10/0 Comments/by SANE

How to Do Less Math and Eat More Food: Simplifying Nutrition Labels

Eat SANE

Simplifying Nutrition Labels Overview

Table of Contents

Have you ever wondered what the vitamin and mineral percentages on nutrition labels actually mean? Ten percent of vitamin A. Hmmmm. Is that good or bad? Ten percent for a child? Ten percent for an adult? Ten percent for a woman? Oh gosh, I thought I was grocery shopping not taking a math test. These are wonderful questions to ask, because otherwise we may assume double-digit percentages mean the food is nutritious, and sadly, that’s frequently false. For example, let’s say you want to mix it up a bit during your next trip to the grocery store, and are looking to boost your calcium intake. You spot some goat’s milk, and consider giving it a whirl. You grab the carton, flip it around and see this label: 30 percent calcium. Traditionally you may consider this a “good source” of calcium. But is it? Should you give the good old goat a go? Maybe.

The Top 10 Big Ideas Simplifying Nutrition Labels

How Many Calories Will I Eat Along with That Nutrition?

If I told you that 10 doughnuts are 10 times as nutritious as one doughnut, why would you think I was bonkers? Because you know that while you will get more nutrition in 10 doughnuts than you would in one, you will also get 10 times more low-quality calories, and that’s not worth it. You know that when looking at nutrition we have to also look at the number calories coming along with the nutrition.

Consider the goat’s milk. We get 30 percent calcium in 150 calories. Let’s put that into perspective in terms of nutrition per calorie. If we moved a few aisles over and picked up some collard greens, we would see that we get more than double that amount of calcium in 150 calories, plus a startling amount of other vitamins and minerals. But what about vitamin A? 150 calories of the milk gives us 10 percent. 150 calories of collard greens gives us a whopping 665 percent. Vitamin C? 150 calories of the milk equals four percent. One hundred and fifty calories of the collard greens gives us 295 percent. You can see that considering nutrition per calorie changes the game a bit.

Nutrition isn’t about the percentages you see on nutrition labels, it’s about those percentages relative to the calories in the food. That’s why 10 doughnuts aren’t more nutritious than one, and why we may now decide to go with the greens instead of the goat.
What Am I Trying to Do?

The percentages we’re talking about have to do with “Daily Values” that were developed during World War II to prevent soldiers from dying. Avoiding death is a much different goal than optimal health and fitness. Unless you are satisfied with simply dodging death, making food choices based on “percent of Daily Value” may not be particularly useful for you. A more useful approach might be to ask…
Do I Really Need a Nutrition Label to Know if I Should Eat This?

In the not too distant past nutrition labels were dramatically less common–and so was obesity, diabetes and heart disease. In fact, the most nutritious foods available frequently don’t have nutrition labels on them. For example, fresh vegetables, seafood, meat, and fruits, etc.

What if, instead of doing math, we just ate food? I’ll define food as things we find in nature. What if the primary reason nutrition labels exist is because unnatural food-like products are so far from whole food that we have no way of knowing whether they are slightly unhealthy or extremely unhealthy without doing complex math? What if we said that generally speaking, if it doesn’t exist in nature, we would be better off eating something that does exist in nature?

My vote: More real food, less complex math.
The more fiber the better

If you have two options to choose from, all other things equal, the one with more fiber will burn more fat and boost your health better than the one with less.
The more protein the better

Protein is the most satisfying of all the macronutrients and has consistently proved to be a fat-loss super star. But remember, not all sources of protein are the same. You will soon learn why and what to do about it.
The less sugar the better

Sugar is toxic. Sugar is addictive. If the word sugar, or anything like it (see below) appears on the label, run…your life and long-term happiness depend on it.
The fewer ingredients the better

Food doesn’t have ingredients. Food is an ingredient. It is a beautiful and perfect whole substance that kept us healthy and fit for the entirety of human history. If it’s not broke, let’s not break it.
The more vitamins and minerals per serving relative to calories per serving t

If we don’t eat these essential substances, we get sick. It’s a simple as that. Micronutrient sufficiency is one of the most important and least appreciated aspects of optimal health.
If it include sweeteners, hydrogenated anything, or starch, try to avoid it.

Don’t get fooled by fancy naming. Sugar by any other name is at least as harmful as sucrose (table sugar). Also, “hydrogenated” means poison. Not really, but practically 🙂
Agave Nectar
Barley Malt
Beet Sugar
Brown Sugar
Buttered Syrup
Cane Crystals
Cane Juice Crystals
Cane Sugar
Caramel Carob Syrup
Castor Sugar
Confectioner’s Sugar
Corn Sweetener
Corn Syrup
Corn Syrup Solids
Crystalline Fructose
Date Sugar
Demerara Sugar
Dextran
Dextrose
Diastatic Malt
Diatase
Ethyl Maltol
Evaporated Cane Juice
Fructose
Fruit Juice
Fruit Juice Concentrates
Galactose
Glucose
Glucose Solids
Golden Sugar
Golden Syrup
Granulated Sugar
Grape Sugar
High-Fructose Corn Syrup
Honey Icing Sugar
Invert Sugar
Lactose
Malt Syrup
Maltodextrin
Maltose
Maple Syrup
Molasses
Muscovado Sugar
Panocha
Raw Sugar
Refiner’s Syrup
Rice Syrup
Sorbitol
Sorghum Syrup
Sucrose Sugar Syrup
Treacle Turbinado Sugar
Yellow Sugar
Simplify: If You Can’t Find It Directly It Nature, Steer Clear

Doesn’t it just make sense that the only foods available for us for 99.8% of our evolutionary history are what we should be eating? Life is complex enough. Let’s simplify where we can.