Why “Calories in, Calories out” is Broken

We’ve been told for decades to eat less and move more. This is the caloric deficit paradigm, and I’d argue it’s not the best way to lose weight. Although it does work, it requires the tedious task of counting calories and leads to a lot of hunger. If our bodies were as basic as an automobile, it would make some sense. But we are much more complicated than a car. The good news is there is a better way that doesn’t require calorie counting. 

Here’s the problem: we’ve been told to eat a diet rich in complex carbohydrates 6 times a day. Then we have to work out to a point where we’ve burned more than we’ve consumed. Well if you’ve had starches and carbs 6 times a day, you are constantly spiking your insulin levels. Insulin removes glucose (carbs) from your bloodstream. So every time you eat a carb rich diet, your pancreas floods the body with insulin. And I’m talking not only about rice and pasta, but also fruits and vegetables. This potent hormone has many roles, and one of them is to build. It can build muscle tissue, fatty acids in the liver, and it builds adipocytes, or fat cells. So when insulin is secreted, the body's ability to burn fat is suppressed. 

Calories in, calories out can work, but the real reason it is broken is that it places to blame on the individual. It requires a lot of exercise, and being in a near constant state of hunger. Hunger is one of our prime drivers, and unless you have extreme will power, hunger will win. So the person that has difficulty losing weight with this paradigm feels guilty that they can’t control their very normal instinct for hunger. 

Luckily, our body can utilize two fuel sources; carbs and fats. If we stop spiking our insulin levels, it allows for fats to be burned. You can do this with an animal-based diet, or by intermittently fasting. Fasting triggers ketosis which is the process of burning fats. Additionally, it encourages our body to be metabolically flexible as I explain in this article. If you try one of these methods, you will lose weight. If you plateau and still want to lose more weight, then you can look at your calories to see if there is a surplus. The best part of this strategy is that you rarely go hungry as our fat storages are far greater than our carb storages. 

I want to be clear that I do not think that carbs are the devil, but there are many benefits to allowing your body to occasionally burn fats rather than carbs. Additionally, insulin resistance is at epidemic levels, and part of the reason for this is that we continue to pump carbs into our bodies.