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Nutrition and weight loss are rare industries that thrive with a low single-digit success rate.
The Very Definition of Insanity.
Albert Einstein, arguably one of the most brilliant scientists in history, often quipped the old witticism: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." It's hard to think of a better example of this witticism than counting calories to lose weight. The physics is correct, but the accounting is wrong.
The Laws of Thermodynamics are the most fundamental laws of physics. The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can be converted from one form to another, but energy cannot, under any circumstances, be created or destroyed. This can be simplified to say that the energy put into a system must balance the energy going out of a system. Otherwise, energy is being created or destroyed.
The Physics Is Correct, But...
The Laws of Thermodynamics are the most fundamental laws of physics. The First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can be converted from one form to another, but energy cannot, under any circumstances, be created or destroyed. This can be simplified to say that the energy put into a system must balance the energy going out of a system. Otherwise, energy is being created or destroyed.
Like everything else physical, the human body is such a system where the First Law of Thermodynamics most certainly applies. We all know food contains energy and work consumes energy, so it makes sense the food energy going into the body as food calories must match the energy leaving the body as work calories. The truth is often simplified into the mantra, "calories in must match calories out."
This is known as the "Calories In Calories Out" model of nutrition. It's wonderfully simple and easy to explain. Put more food calories in than work calories out, and you will store the excess energy as fat and gain weight. Put more calories out as work than you put in as food, and then you lose weight by reducing fat. What could be simpler? And it's based on one of the most fundamental laws of existence!
So, it's a small wonder that virtually the entire trillion-dollar weight control, health & wellness, and fitness industries are laser-focused on programs, systems, software, hardware, devices, and products to help you balance calories in with calories out, or more often, temporarily put them out of balance for a weight control goal.
The only problem is, if the goal is permanent weight control and improved health and wellness, Calories In Calories Out almost always does not work without extreme measures such as lifelong medications and major surgery. We'll skip the voluminous data and evidence here because you already know this to be true, or you would not be here. But if the physics is correct, but the model that applies the physics doesn't work, what's wrong?
So, Whose Fault Is It Anyway?
Before we answer what's wrong with Calories In Calories Out, we must first answer why something that so clearly doesn't work thrives as the dominant approach to a severe life-threatening problem. It is hard to imagine another trillion-dollar industry that delivers on its promises less than 10% of the time. It's not about providing results or value.
The Calories In Calories Out model's persistence has to do with who's to blame for the obesity and metabolic disease crisis. Fault matters, especially where trillions of dollars and millions of harmed people are concerned.
If you believe in the Calories In Calories Out model, the fault of obesity and metabolic disease lies with the person who fails to maintain the calorie balance. And that's the same person who can also not sustain the programmed imbalance needed to correct past failures to maintain balance. It's your fault. Of course, it is; who else can be responsible? After all, you chose to put that food in your mouth, and you can't argue with the Laws of Physics, right?
Further, since obesity typically appears before metabolic disease, logic suggests obesity causes metabolic disease. Therefore, if you're at fault for being obese, and being obese causes metabolic disease, then the metabolic disease is your fault, too. It's simple logic.
Now we have the Laws of Physics AND the Laws of Logic, both saying it's your fault. And if it's your fault, it can't be someone else's fault. That's another conclusion driven by the Laws of Logic. Clearly, that's settled. It's your fault.
So, it may come as no surprise that another party that could be at fault spends fortunes to keep the Calories In Calories Out model alive and well. Chris van Tulleken reports that most research and studies supporting Calories In Calories Out are funded by organizations primarily funded by the factory food industry.
To the factory food industry's executives, owners, and stakeholders, the importance of blame is not speculation. This is precisely what happened with the tobacco industry over the past 50 years. If it were proved that you are not to blame and the factory food industry is to blame, then it is massive litigation and settlement time all over again.
But what about big pharma and the government? They also seem to worship at the altar of Calories In Calories Out. Here, it's more about opportunity rather than blame. The weight-loss drugs in their first year are the biggest-selling drugs in history. The next generation of blockbuster drugs is already in clinical trials to treat the adverse side effects of the latest generation of weight-loss drugs. It is all upside for the government, with new jobs, increased tax revenue, reduced short-term medical costs, and not having to pay for the drugs.
The Perfect Business Model.
Calories In Calories Out also has a friend in the new economy. Doesn't it seem like everything is moving toward a subscription model? Like most big economic and social changes, it started with major new inventions. In this case, the personal computer and the Internet.
A few about-to-be huge tech companies began using these inventions to quickly become the gatekeepers for communicating with consumers. This essentially gave them control of most advertising. Naturally, advertising started to get much more expensive. Since it cost more, businesses had to get more for their advertising dollars.
Once you realize that subscriptions mean "Sell Once, Collect Revenue Forever," you can see the appeal of subscriptions; you only have to sell once, significantly reducing marketing costs. Throw in a little AI, another new invention, to reduce labor costs to support the subscription, and you've got the perfect business model.
Another way to describe a subscription is to sell the same thing repeatedly. So, the last thing you want to do with a subscription model is cure something. Therefore, Calories In Calories Out, with its dismal success rate, is the ideal justification for the perfect business model.
The Accounting Is Wrong.
If the physics is correct, how can the outcomes differ from what the physics predicts? It is because the accounting is wrong. The core of Calories In Calories Out is that when you create a calorie deficit in the balance, you will lose weight by using up more calories than you added. And this is true if you were using more calories than you added.
But, Calories In Calories Out fails because the body tricks you into thinking there is a calorie deficit when there is not one. The key to understanding how the body does this is considering the time frame of the balance. In other words, Calories In Calories Out over what time period.
The time period is critical because the new science now understands much more about how calories are balanced in the body. There is a complex hierarchy of calorie storage systems in the blood, muscles, and liver, each released and replenished over different time periods. Calories In Calories Out models typically base everything on a daily balance. This is where things go wrong.
You most likely can do an excellent job of balancing calories if you look at a daily time period. However, it's often an entirely different matter if you try balancing calories weekly, monthly, or even yearly.
Your Secret Stash Of Calories.
Daily calorie balancing would work if calories were only stored in the blood. That's because adding and removing calories from the blood takes only about 30 minutes. But calories are also stored in the muscles and the liver, each with very different rules and timelines for adding and removing calories than the rules for the blood.
To add to the complexity, calories are stored in blood and muscles as sugar, but calories are stored in the liver as fat. This affects how and when these calories are used. When calories are abundant, the body uses sugar calories for moderate activity and fat calories for intense activities. As calories get scarce, the body uses blood sugar first, then muscle sugar, and then liver fat.
This results in an enormously complex formula based on the addition and removal rate of calories, the quantity of calories needed and remaining, the type of activity, the type of calories, the size and location of calorie storage, and the covered time period. No, Virginia, there is NOT an App for that, at least not yet. But if there was, you could maintain a long-term calorie deficit at all times, Calories In Calories Out would work, and you could permanently lose weight.
Outbargaining Yourself.
But in the current world, how does being unaware of this secret stash of calories render Calories In Calories Out ineffective? Because there is another problem with Calories In Calories Out. It encourages bargaining with yourself that "cooks the books," as accountants like to say. Typically, someone on a Calories In Calories Out diet maintains the programmed calorie deficit almost every day of the week.
But one or two times, often on a weekend evening, they reward their dietary sacrifice with a calorie surplus. Some diet plans even encourage this reward behavior. And the bargaining with yourself begins. "I was really good all week so that I can have that cheeseburger with fries, a couple of pints, and maybe a shot or two." Indeed, a 200 to 400-calorie deficit six days a week can't be undone by one evening at the pub. But that's precisely what happens.
Reports of success with Calories In Calories Out come from rare incidents of absolute 24/7/365 adherence to maintaining the programmed calorie deficit, such as under the ever-watchful eye of a program like The Biggest Loser. Nevertheless, an "Absolutely No-Cheating" or "Be Forever Good" Diet is much harder to sell.
This bargaining with yourself is the single biggest reason Calories In Calories Out almost always fails due to misunderstanding how the body really works.
Cooking The Books.
But, how can bargaining be such a problem if the calories are mostly balanced in a Calories In Calories Out diet? But they don't balance, they only look like they do. That's what we mean by "cooking the books." To explain, we must return to how calories are stored and retrieved. It's all about the interaction between the sugar stored in the blood and the sugar stored in the muscles (if you're not frequently doing intensive exercise or extreme calorie deficits, essentially keeping the liver fat calories out of the balance).
In a Calories In Calories Out diet, each day you think you are running a deficit, that deficit is made up by drawing down calories from the muscles. And then, when you go out for your weekly reward or otherwise cheat, you replenish the storage of calories in the muscles. The result is you are not running an overall deficit at all.
Of course, some weeks, you don't cheat, and you drain some fat cells and lose weight. But as soon as you reward yourself or cheat, you eliminate the deficit or, worse, once again fill up the fat cells, which is very easy, as described in other Articles and Courses.
A Better Way Of Balancing The Books.
Becoming obese is a symptom, not a cause, of metabolic disease. Therefore, the answer is treating metabolic syndrome and disease. Still, not overeating is part of the treatment.
So, how do you not overeat? The better question is, why do you overeat? A body free of metabolic syndrome and disease is not constantly hungry, is not low energy, is not sedentary, and can eat satisfying amounts of tasty foods without gaining weight. Therefore, the answer is to treat the metabolic syndrome and disease.
But, if Dr. Lustig is correct, 80% of American adults already have some degree of metabolic syndrome or disease. In that case, what are the most likely practical first steps for treatment? Clearly, not making obesity and metabolic disease worse is an excellent place to start.
So, we're back to how we stop overeating. Well, we don't start counting calories. You learn to listen to your body when it tells you you've eaten enough. At first, the insight seems be an old familiar one, eat until you are full, but no more. But there is a new critical detail to explore: when are you full?
If you are like almost everyone and eat until you are full at the table, you will always overeat. But, if you eat an amount of food so that you are full 30 minutes after you leave the table, you will always eat just the right amount.
As you'll learn in other Articles and Courses, hunger and satisfaction (feeling full) are very complex human systems with many components and variables that are only now nearly understood. But one of the most significant determinants of feeling full is when an ideal-sized food bolus enters the bioreactor (small intestine) from the stomach. When you eat the right amount of food at the right pace, the stomach takes about 30 minutes to make the food bolus and move it into the bioreactor. That's where and when one of the most potent sensations of satisfaction occurs.
If you are still hungry after 30 minutes, eat more. If you are full in less than 30 minutes, eat less. Over time, you can figure out how to eat the amount and type of food that most effectively gives you just the right amount of satisfaction 30 minutes after you stop eating. In a few weeks, you will have this mastered, no longer enjoy the full feeling at the table, and begin seeing the evidence of not routinely overeating.
Your body can count calories much better than you ever can, so let it do it and listen when it tells you you've eaten enough.
Actionable Knowledge
- The Calories In Calories Out model persists despite its poor results to hide who's really to blame for the obesity and metabolic disease crisis. Here's a hint: it's not you. Fault matters, especially when trillions of dollars and millions of harmed people are concerned.
- Daily calorie balancing would work if calories were only stored in the blood. That's because adding and removing calories from the blood happens quickly and is easy to discern. But calories are also stored in the muscles and the liver, each with very different rules and timelines for adding and removing calories than the rules for the blood.
- The body's multiple sources and types of energy result in an enormously complex formula based on the addition and removal rate of calories, the quantity of calories needed and remaining, the type of activity, the type of calories, the size and location of calorie storage, and the covered time period. You are not likely to manage this successfully by tracking calories.
- If you are like almost everyone and eat until you are full at the table, you will always overeat. But if you eat enough food to be full 30 minutes after you leave the table, you will always eat just the right amount. Your body can count calories much better than you ever can, so let it do it and listen when it tells you you've eaten enough.
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