Short Articles on Weight Loss

Calories are NOT "all the same" -- They Just Measure the Same Amount of Energy

Calories from different sources have different effects.

By definition, a "Calorie" from any source has the same amount of food energy as a Calorie from any other source. Unfortunately, this fact is misleading when applied to the process of dieting to lose weight. The Calories may be the same, but the sources of those Calories are not the same and your body wants to "process" these different sources in different ways -- ways which have consequences that can either help weight loss, or hinder it.

Most people know that there are four different sources of food energy (meaning Calories): These are fat, carbohydrate, protein, and alcohol.

Fat provides 9 Calories of food energy per gram; carbohydrates and proteins average 4 Calories per gram each, and alcohol has 7 Calories per gram. (Note: This article will ignore alcohol because there really isn't any known way it can help dieters lose weight; it only hinders.)

Fat, carbohydrate, and protein are all "dual-use" substances. This just means that your body can use them all for energy, if it needs to, but that they each also have other, non-energy uses, which are equally important for life and health.

Protein

Protein is the easiest to understand because most people already know that protein is used mainly for tissue maintenance and repair. Your body needs a relatively steady supply of protein for this purpose. Any extra protein you give it will probably be burned for energy, and while this is happening your body won't burn as much stored fat. Of course, that's not good if you are trying to lose weight.

The approximate amounts of protein you need for tissue maintenance are well known. (See the protein section of this website.) Of course, if you don't get enough protein you will quickly begin to experience any number of unpleasant symptoms that mean various tissues and organs are starting to have difficulty functioning properly. You will will most likely feel this as some combination of hunger, cravings, aches, pains, and low energy levels -- the very symptoms that make dieting so difficult.

Fat

Most people do not know that some kinds of fat are also "dual-use" substances -- in other words, they are used for other things than providing energy. For this reason it is very important to get enough of these kind of fat in your diet even when you are trying to lose weight.

Chemically, there are many different kinds of fats. Most of them can only be burned for energy and dieters should eliminate as much of these kinds from their diets as possible.

But two fats (and their derivatives), are critically important for life and health because they are used as "building blocks" for some tissues. These are called the "Essential Fatty Acids" (EFAs). They are used to maintain the cell walls in many tissues, particularly the brain and nervous system, and this is very important for the proper functioning of those cells.

Dieters need to get enough of these two EFAs in their diets so that their bodies can perform this essential cell maintenance, but not get so much that an excess gets stored in the fat cells, or burned for energy in place of existing stored fat.

If  you fail to get enough of the EFAs when dieting, you will probably feel the usual hunger, cravings, aches pains, low energy levels, or other unpleasant symptoms that occur when your body needs something it's not getting enough of.

EFAs are easy to handle when dieting, because there are several readily available concentrated sources of these EFAs and the amounts you need to eat to get enough are well known. (See the EFA section of this website.)

Carbohydrate

Carbohydrate is similar to protein and fat. Dieters need to eat enough carbohydrate every day to avoid unpleasant symptoms, but not so much that the excess begins to replace the burning of stored fat as a major energy source.

The reason for this is not so much the "dual-use" function of carbohydrate (which exists, but is very minor). More important is that certain tissues (mainly the nervous system) use carbohydrate almost exclusively for fuel and they produce very unpleasant symptoms like hunger, cravings, aches, pains, and low energy levels whenever they are forced to use fat instead. At best, these symptoms make dieting unnecessarily difficult . At worst, they produce overall low energy and activity levels that probably mean stored fat is not being burned even as fast as it would normally.

Summary

Successful dieters can handle fat, protein, and carbohydrate properly using the same general technique:

Eat enough of the right kind of each one every day, but not so much that it begins to replace stored fat as a main energy source; and eliminate entirely as much of the wrong kinds as possible.

This is not difficult to do. It takes "know-how" and practice, but not much "will power". Almost all of the foods you need to do it are commonly available and as close as your local supermarket. (See the food lists on this site.)