The Calorie Confessions

Confession: I love to eat, I love to cook, I love to bake. And for the past 18 months, during a stint of life requiring no acting auditions or size 6 costumes, I seem to have grown hungrier. Actually, just knowing I don’t need to be 10 pounds underweight makes me hungry.

Still, whether it’s vanity, habit, or health that motivates the feeling: I don’t like carrying “an extra five pounds,” even if mine is an average weight for most Americans. So, I decided to start exercising again, and I really enjoy it. But I haven’t lost a single pound of the 15 that I allowed myself to gain!

Nine months into the habit of regular exercise, I decided to dig deeper into the question of “Why?” After minutes of soul-searching, I arrived at this conclusion: Calories are masters of the metabolic universe.

So What Is A Calorie?

A calorie is a unit of energy; specifically, the amount of heat required to raise 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius. (Cognitive Connection: Depending upon your age and physical composition, your body consists of approximately 55% to 75% water.) As it turns out, the Calories most people refer to in their diet and on food packaging are actually Kilocalories (= 1000 calories). You can distinguish between the two by noting that calorie with a capital C stands for Kilocalorie.

There are three general categories of calories that people consume when they eat. These are proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. “Food is a compilation of these three building blocks. So, if you know how many carbohydrates, fats, and proteins are in any given food, you know how many calories, or how much energy, that food contains.” (Howstuffworks.com)

Beyond the generality of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, the quality of the calories you consume is at least as important to your overall health as the number. While some people will be blessed with good health whether they eat Doritos or carrots for their daily snack, most of us need to be careful about what we eat because of the long-term impact food consumption has on our health.

It really is rational to compare eating at fast food restaurants over the course of one’s lifetime equivalent to smoking cigarettes. Most parents would never think of popping a cancer stick in their kid’s mouth and lighting the match; but to take the children to the playground at McDonald’s is one of the most “All-American” things you can do. And just like with cigarettes, the younger a person is when s/he starts eating fast food, the more likely s/he is to become addicted to this chemical-laden fare.

Are You Sure You Want To Eat That?

If it contains “meat” and you can buy it at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Sonic, Burger King, Taco Bell, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Jack in the Box, Carl’s Jr., White Castle or Krystal: The answer is resoundingly, “No.” If you need proof, start by reading Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation or watching the movie based on it. Also know that, while French fries and apple pies are tempting alternatives, FDCFuschia#187WTF?! is no good for you, either.Speaking of apple pies, if you’re going to eat sweets, try to make them yourself whenever possible, using whole grain flours and the least refined sugars you can find.

The most understandable explanation I can recall about what whole grains are and why they are important can be found in an old paperback book called Lazy Person’s Guide to Better Nutrition by Gordon Tessler, PhD. To paraphrase, a whole grain has four layers: From outermost to innermost, they are the hull, bran, germ, and endosperm. Although we almost never eat a grain’s hull, together in their natural state, the other three elements are rich in B-vitamins, Vitamin E, fatty acids, trace minerals and fiber. During refinement, however, the bran and germ are stripped away; synthetic vitamins and minerals are then added back into the food (as with most store-bought breads and pastas) through a chemical process.

In general, the closer foods are to their natural state, the easier it is for your body to metabolize calories from those foods and absorb their nutrients. Conversely, the more chemical additives a food contains, the more nutrients go wasted; oftentimes, these chemicals additives are left behind to “swim” around in the blood stream or stow away in the body’s fat cells, which can lead to future health problems. So, the more artificial additives a food contains, the less frequently you should choose to eat it.

Truth Be Told

When I first started to write this post, it was meant to a funny reflection on the difficulties of dieting. Then, while writing, I remembered a promise I made myself long ago: That I would love my body, no matter what state of too curvy or too skinny it was in at any given moment.

On its own, this post became an opportunity to talk to you about food – and a reminder to us both to let that which we eat reflect that which we believe.