Whose driving?” That’s what my mom always wanted to know before I went out with my friends after school. I didn’t understand it then, but the answer was important. What does this have to do with losing weight and controlling lifestyle diseases like diabetes and heart disease… well, a lot really.
In my mind, a few human beings were getting into a car and traveling from point A to point B. It happens a million times a day so why was it such a big deal when I was involved?
My mother wasn’t worried about the state of the car and she was well aware of the fact that a human being was required to operate it. My mother was wise to understand that what happened when one human being was driving (aka my newly licensed buddy) could be very different from what happened when another (aka my friends’ mother) was behind the wheel. It’s the same thing with food.
Did I just gain weight eating a salad?
If you’ve been around anytime in the past 40 years, chances are you’ve been exposed to the popular calories in/calories out (CICO) theory of weight management. Assuming that all calories are equal, simply subtract the calories you eat (calories in) from the calories used each day (calories out) and you have a simple formula for reaching your weight loss goals. So how do we explain the fact that my 23-year-old health coach can eat 4000 calories per day and maintain single digit body fat percentage while my 48-year-old perimenopausal patient gained 20 pounds over the past 6 months eating less than 1000 calories of salad and diet Dr. Pepper each day?
The problem with CICO is that it overgeneralizes the energy utilization process. Metabolism is the process by which we build up and break down materials inside of our body to produce energy. It is extremely complex. To get an idea of just how complex take a look at this illustration published by the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Do calories matter? Sure, they do, but in the right context. You see, just like a car needs a human to drive it, the body needs a calorie to power it. But how your body responds to a calorie of diet Coke is going to be very different from how it responds to a calorie of broccoli or a calorie of say…cyanide.
It’s NOT your fault!
Putting all the focus on calories results in an inappropriate balance of blame. Do people get fat by violating the core concepts of CICO; eating too much and not exercising enough? Did our local cardiologist summarize it correctly when he announced to a room full of overweight adults, “If you’re overweight then it all comes down to making the choice to put too many calories into your mouth?” The data points to ABSOLUTELY NOT! If you get nothing else from this article I hope you take away this, “IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT.” I don’t care about the dogma that supposed experts repeat without giving it a thought. It just isn’t that simple. You know it and I know it.
Listen, keep learning. You don’t need to know everything but you do need to know the things that everyone should know when it comes to these kinds of things. And that is what we will continue to focus on here at drjfab.com. Empowering you to be your own best advocate, and to be involved in decisions relating to your health and wellness. That way you can cut through all of the confusing and conflicting information being tossed around out there.
Question: Have you tried to lose weight with a CICO based program? What were the results? If you lost weight, how long did you keep it off? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
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