Calories shmalories

22 October 2015 - 02:31 By Andrea Burgener

Obsessive calorie counting has been the cornerstone of almost all diets ever since most of us can remember. It's the model most of us think of as being plain logical: calories in versus calories out = your weight. Simple thermodynamics, apparently.But this wasn't always the theory behind adiposity. The counter-theory (and in fact the older one) is that it's not about the amount of calories but about how our bodies deal with them.If Gary Taubes, the American science and nutrition journalist (whose name became more well known after he had Oprah's Dr Oz in a frothy over his theories) is to be believed - and he should be - the calorie theory should be chucked out and forgotten, pronto.Critics of calorie-counting, like Taubes, point out that the law of thermodynamics only works inside a closed system, where other variables don't come into play. Obviously, this is not the case with our bodies. It's your endocrine system and genes, not thermodynamics, say Taubes and Co, which will determine whether your body uses the food you take in for energy or decides to store it away in fat cells. And not just how much but where.If the laws of thermodynamics actually governed our adiposity, we'd have to be mathematical geniuses to keep our weight stable. If the theory is correct, then over-eating by only 20 calories (that's one bite of a burger or doughnut) a day would make you 22kg heavier in 20 years. And by simply not having that one bite every day, you'd maintain your same weight for decades. Take away that one bite, and you'd be skeletal in a decade. Are the people who effortlessly maintain their weight just very good at maths? The more you read about it, the more the thermodynamic principle seems plain daft.The take-away from this is that insulin levels are what ultimately determines your fat storing. And insulin levels are all about carbohydrates. That word you're sick of seeing. Yes, I'm afraid this is the science that really proves carbs = adipose. No doubt. This may be the truth, and it's essential to know, but can we also just relax, for God's sake? Just a bit?Chickpeas are carbs but they do not have the same effect on your body as ice cream. And, unless you're diabetic, a scoop of chocolate gelato once in a while is not going to kill you. Why do we always go overboard? As one nutritionist - name forgotten in the mists - noted, sometimes it's better to eat the wrong thing with the right attitude, than the right with the wrong.Gary Taubes. Why We Get Fat: And What to do About It. 2010. Anchor Books..

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