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- Hey munchies, welcome to the channel!
If you're new or if you're not I'm Alyssia,
and I am so excited you're here either way.
We are fresh off the January Food Freedom course,
and we are going to be returning
to our Thursday programming as usual
with a mix of food, health and relationship
with food and health content.
I am on a mission to bridge some of the gaps in health,
and one thing that we need to talk about is calories.
A lot of experts, doctors, nutritionists,
fitness enthusiasts really believe
that the key to weight loss is calories in, calories out.
Is it true?
So, let's begin with a foundational concept
of energy balance.
Energy balance is the relationship between
energy taken in from food,
and energy that is expended
through metabolism and activities.
So, energy balance is a fundamental law of thermodynamics.
Some of you might remember from school.
The law of thermodynamics says
"Energy cannot be created or destroyed.
"It can only be transferred."
So what this means for the relationship
between energy balance and our weight, our body mass,
is if we consume, if we take in more energy
than we expend or use or excrete,
then we will gain weight.
If we take in less energy than we use,
we would lose weight,
and if we take in the same amount of energy that we use,
our weight would stay the same.
And this is true, or should be true,
no matter our macronutrient ratio, or the composition,
no matter the specific foods we choose to eat,
or the time of day we eat,
or any of those nutritional details.
But, our bodies are complex,
and so no, it's not as simple as energy in, energy out.
If it were, the weight loss industry wouldn't be a thing,
you wouldn't be watching this video,
because everyone would know
what they need to do to lose weight,
and everything that we thought should work would work,
but it doesn't work, so here we are.
The problem is both of those components,
the energy in and the energy out components
of the relationship of energy balance and weight
can be influenced by so many factors.
Okay, energy in can be effected by our hormones.
We have hormones that regulate appetite and satiety
that can affect how much of the energy we absorb.
Also the types of foods that we eat
and how processed they are,
how foods are cooked and prepared,
if they're raw or not,
how efficient we digest and absorb those foods,
our hunger, our overall macronutrient intake,
our microbiome, our energy levels,
our stress levels, our quality of sleep.
Even our emotions, our mindset,
our environmental or cultural aspects.
All of these factors can influence
how that energy is taken in from the food that we eat.
And so you can see how already
this is a very individual process
because the way that I digest certain foods
is going to be different than you
for all of those reasons.
Energy out also has many factors.
It can be affected by our basal and resting metabolic rates,
our body size and genetics, our hormones,
how our bodies produce heat, our exercise ability,
intensity, duration, frequency,
our ability to heal, our excretion, our sleep,
our stress, our macronutrient makeup,
and how processed a food is.
Okay. Now I know our human brains
want this weight loss thing
to be an even in and out balance of the scales.
But when we add so many of these confounding factors
we see it becomes a bit more arbitrary
than we'd really like.
It's not as convenient as we want it to be.
And that could be disappointing because we're like,
"Okay, what do I do then?"
But actually I encourage you
to let this bring you some relief.
Yes, there is fear in that unknown.
Okay. I don't know what to do.
I don't have any plan or direction to lose weight
but there's also relief from the judgment.
Okay. There's nothing wrong with you
if you can't lose weight.
You have been doing what you're told.
And you've been told that this weight loss thing,
this body should work like an equation.
And it just doesn't.
Actually, technically there is an equation
but the problem is that equation
is going to be different for every single human.
Not only that, every human is constantly changing.
So an equation is not pin-down-able, right?
We age, our cells die, our hormones change.
All of these things affect each of our individual equations.
Now, if you have ever put in your measurements
like sex, age, height, weight into an online calculator
that'll tell you how many calories you need to eat.
That's called a predictive equation.
And it predicts using an equation
that accounts for all of those factors
that are different for each human,
but it cannot account for all of those other factors
that we mentioned.
And that's why it's expected
that these predictive equations,
when you go online and put in all that stuff,
they are usually off by as much as 25%.
Okay. Even when two people are the exact same
weight, age and sex,
there can be up to a 30% difference
between those people and their needs
because of all those extra factors.
And so think about it okay?
If these equations that we have,
the best that we can do with our nutrition technology
for a regular day-to-day person,
who's not being measured in a lab,
the best we can do is 25 to 30% off.
That's not a great number to place your bets on.
Okay. So if I'm supposed to eat 2000 calories a day.
If an equation tells me to eat 2000 calories a day
and it's 30% off that's plus or minus 600 calories.
Okay, the range becomes 1400 to 2600 calories a day.
That's a really big difference.
Is it worth spending so much time and energy
and stress worrying about these numbers
which are essentially mostly arbitrary
and un-pin-down-able?
Okay, so it's not that calories aren't real
or that energy balance isn't real
or that the law of thermodynamics isn't real.
It's just that it's not the same for every individual.
And we don't have the ability
to measure all of those factors at once.
Now, in addition to the internal factors
that affect energy in and out, they are also external ones.
So food production, growing conditions of a crop,
harvesting, the way that foods are processed.
That all affects how much energy
and nutrients those foods contain.
In fact, the amount that's listed on labels
it's not particularly reliable.
Some studies have shown up to 25% difference
in food labels or nutrient databases
when it's tested in a lab.
A study showed frozen foods contain 8%
more calories than the package lists.
And some restaurants have contained 18%
more calories than they claim.
Now are these restaurants and companies lying to us?
I mean, maybe.
Maybe they want you to think you're eating less calories
so that you eat the food, but probably no.
Probably it's just that they're humans.
And so they are inherently flawed like all of us.
A human is not a robot.
Is not a robot.
A chef is not in the back of the restaurant,
measuring the food on a scale
when they put it on your plate.
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So when we try to count calories and macros
and we try to measure everything so specifically,
I know I did it for years, I know how it feels.
It's comfort.
It's a mental comfort that I'm doing right by my body.
And I'm doing right by my health goals.
But what really is the point, if it's all arbitrary
and if you're doing it and it's not serving you?
What I found in my experience and what I now believe
is the stress that I was building,
I talked about this all last month,
the stress I was building up
to try to do everything healthy,
the stress was doing more harm to my body
and yeah my emotional and mental bodies,
but I'm talking my physical body was so taxed
by the stress over being healthy
that it didn't matter how many calories I ate.
You know, I couldn't lose weight
whether I ate 400 calories or 4000 calories a day
it didn't matter because stress is a factor,
a huge factor that affects the way
we consume and metabolize food.
So what do we do?
You know, I'm sitting here telling you
everything you thought you knew is a lie,
but don't worry, it's a good thing.
Lean into the unknown.
And you're like, "Yeah, she's psychotic."
I'm not, hear me out.
Okay. What you do is you focus on what you can know
through your direct experience.
Okay, so calories, macros, dieting, it's all outer wisdom.
Do you remember inner and outer wisdom from last month?
Remember outer wisdom tools are just that.
They're tools, they can be helpful.
Inner wisdom is our inner attunement to ourselves.
Knowing our bodies, knowing how to listen.
What it means when we say listen to our body,
do you know what that means?
Being connected to ourselves,
being able to regulate our stress and emotions.
It's emotional intelligence, it's mindfulness.
It's not just about being a calm, relaxed person.
You know, there's nothing necessarily spiritual about it.
It's physiologically, our bodies and minds are connected
and inner wisdom is acknowledging that.
So what do we do?
Instead of focusing on the outer wisdom
we focus on the inner wisdom.
We focus on learning to manage our emotions,
manage our stress, learning to listen to our bodies
understand our physiological signals of hunger and fullness.
The more that we build up that inner wisdom
you'll remember the analogy of the structure of the cake.
Watch that video if you don't know what I'm talking about.
I will link it below.
But once we have the foundation of the inner wisdom
then we can let the outer wisdom frosting serve us more.
Once we regulate some of those factors on the scale
that are affecting the energy in and out,
the outer wisdom will actually serve us more.
It will mean more.
We'll be able to absorb nutrients better
because our bodies aren't secreting stress hormones
trying to constantly balance out an internal wreck.
I'm actually not here to tell you
to reject dieting or the wisdom
that comes from nutrition or nutritional science.
Reject diet culture, yes,
but I think the reason diets are getting such backlash
is because they're not used wisely
from a foundation of inner wisdom,
which I believe is essential first.
So are the experts, right?
Yeah. Calories and energy balance are real.
Calories in, calories out makes sense
through a reductionist lens, right?
Where we look at humans as machines,
but looking at humans as integrated beings
that have stress, emotions, thoughts
and very different environments,
we can't take calories, in calories out as direct truth.
It's not seeing clearly,
it's just making ourselves feel better mentally
to believe we have this kind of control
and really technology.
The truth is we know a lot less
about nutrition science than people think.
It's 2021 and we think we should know everything by now,
but we don't.
So rather than getting hung up, beating yourself up
because you think that there's something wrong with you
and there's not, perhaps shift the perspective
and embrace the fact that you are
an organic integrated being and that you are
not ever going to be completely figure-out-able.
And this is what makes you interesting.
I love this about you.
All I want is for people to not be
so stressed out about health
because the stress isn't helping.
Heads up, I wanted to cut in and let you know
I hosted my first live zoom get together last month
where some community members and I
did a meditation together.
And this month I'll be doing another,
this time with an inner wisdom workshop.
It is free.
If you want to sign up or get info
use the link in the description, hope to see you there.
So if you took something, anything from this video
I hope you will share it with someone.
Subscribe if you want more content like this.
If you do like this kind of content
be sure to go through my Food Freedom course,
linked below, it's completely free.
And let's connect in the comments too.
Let me know what your experience
with calorie counting has been.
Talk about inner and outer wisdom,
stress, health, let's discuss.
And please be kind and curious, of course.
So thank you so much for being here.
There's more coming next week and remember
it's all a matter of mind over munch.
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