Calorie counting has been an integral part of weight loss programs since they were invented. However, there are a number of problems with the whole concept. Firstly, there is the assumption that they are of great importance. They are important but certainly not critical. As previously discussed in other presentations, in particular the one entitled “What Causes Obesity”, the amount of food that we consume is of relatively low importance in the development of obesity.
Of much more importance is the type of food that we consume and of critical importance is when we consume it. The other main reason why calories are not as important as we have been led to believe is because a calorie is specifically a unit of heat energy and is that amount of energy that is required to raise 1ml of water through 1°C. So, this is a physical property and to relate a physical property to a biological process is fundamentally flawed.
Another reason for putting calories on the backburner is that when it comes to the effect of food on the body a calorie is simply not a calorie. A set amount of carbohydrate, which contains a certain number of calories, has a completely different effect on the body compared to an equal amount of protein, which will have a different number of calories and importantly will have a completely different effect on the body. Exactly the same principle can be applied to fat.
Probably the most important reason however why we should be very sceptical about calorie counting is that it introduces a very unhealthy psychological relationship with food. If you are looking at every single piece of food in every meal and trying to work out how many calories there are in that meal and whether you are allowed to have them makes you very unhappy about the whole business of eating. So instead of seeing food as a reward and as a celebration you see it as your enemy and this is completely the wrong approach to take with regard to eating and weight management.
As discussed in the presentation entitled “calorie restricted diets”, the conventional wisdom in nearly every diet, namely to restrict calorie intake, is simply wrong and explains why all calorie restricted diets are highly likely to fail in the long term. The main reason why they fail is because if you suddenly limit calorie intake, the body senses this automatically and makes fairly dramatic adjustments, in particular it reduces its basal metabolic rate, or BMR, to match the intake.
As a consequence, you feel tired, cold, hungry and simply miserable. Whilst you will lose some weight initially, the weight loss plateaus because the BMR has now dropped down to the restricted calorie intake level. You therefore become disillusioned and what do you do? – you start eating again. The weight goes back on and in fact you rebound higher than where you started.
The Nysteia Formula is the most efficient, and biologically proven, method of achieving and maintaining your BOW. There are a number of really good things about the Nysteia Formula but the best part probably is that you don’t need to calorie restrict and therefore you don’t need to calorie count. In fact, with an optimal feeding window of 6 hours you are actually hard pushed to get in anything more than your daily requirement which for most men is 2,500 calories and for most women is 2,000 calories. So, the take home message is forget calorie counting.