Calories.

It is one of the most heard words in the fitness industry. 

“When you’re about to buy food, look at the CALORIES!”

“To lose weight, you must be in a CALORIC deficit!”

Whenever people buy food from supermarkets, they look at the nutritional label so often that they forget to read the INGREDIENTS LIST.

And that’s where the food companies catch YOU out.

Why are calories important?

Calories are the energy released when your body breaks down (digests and absorbs) food. The more calories you consume, the more energy it can provide to your body.

Therefore, you NEED calories to function properly.

How do macronutrients and micronutrients play a role in energy provision?

Macronutrients are needed in large quantities for us to function properly. The main macronutrients: protein, carbs and fats, can all provide us with energy and have their unique roles.

I’ll give you an overview of each one.

Protein

Your body needs protein for general growth and maintenance of tissues. Antibodies are proteins in your blood that help protect your body from harmful invaders like bacteria and viruses.

Lack protein and your body will break down your fat and also amino acids from your skeletal tissue if your carb storage is low.

This proves that a calorie deficit isn’t the best way to lose fat because you lose muscle also.

A good thing about protein is that it doesn’t directly raise your blood sugar.

After you finish reading this article, know about these top protein sources you should be eating: The Best Protein Sources for Building Muscle

Carbohydrates

They provide your body with energy.

Most carbohydrates in your foods are digested and broken down into glucose before entering the bloodstream.

Higher glycaemic carbs provide energy too quickly, therefore your body has to store it for later use, which results in fat gain. (the glycaemic index is a figure representing the relative ability of a carbohydrate food to increase the level of glucose in the blood).

When you finish reading this article, read about these healthy carbs you can eat: Top Carbohydrate Sources

Fats

This is a demonized and underrated macronutrient, and I’ll explain why.

We NEED fat to have correct brain function. Our brain is based on fat (60%), therefore it fancies the healthy fats you consume to increase performance.

Here are the fat sources you should be eating: The Healthiest Fats You Can Eat

They also help with nutrient absorption, insulation and organ protection. Fat has the most energy of all the macronutrients; it has 9 calories per gram, more than double that of carbs and protein, and it doesn’t directly raise your blood sugar.

Why am I telling you this? Because all people look at nowadays is the nutritional labels, which show the quantity of each macronutrient in that food. 

For example, if there was an ultra-processed protein source that had 20g grams of protein and 50 calories in each portion, you would think it’s healthy, right?

And it’s a straight no.

Ultra-processed foods are foods that have been stripped of their essential micronutrients. They have low-quality vitamins (these are vitamins that have high glycemic sugars with them) to trick you into thinking it’s healthy.

It’s smart from them, but not smart enough if you know that for your body to get energy, it needs the macronutrients converted by micronutrients.

What are micronutrients?

Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals needed by the body in small amounts. They play critical roles in normal growth, development, and overall health. 

How energy conversion works

Eating food doesn’t automatically turn it into usable energy for your body; it needs micronutrients to convert them.

That’s why it’s important that the foods you eat are whole and that they have micronutrients that come with them.

Micronutrients act as coenzymes and cofactors in the metabolic pathways that transform carbohydrates, fats, and proteins into cellular energy in the form of ATP.

For example, B Vitamins assist in metabolising glucose, fat, and protein, and are crucial for synthesizing molecules like RNA, DNA, and ATP1.

Minerals like iodine, copper, zinc, manganese, chromium, and molybdenum play roles in metabolism and the synthesis of important biomolecules

Although they don’t provide energy directly, as they don’t contain calories, they are vital for extracting energy from food and supporting bodily processes.

How does this prove calorie counting to be useless?

No matter where you get your calories from, whether it’s from a 50-calorie bagel or 200-calorie potato, if there are not enough high-quality and proper micronutrients (this means micronutrients from whole foods that came from an animal or the ground) it will NOT be able to convert it into energy.

This causes a negative cycle because your body will have to take micronutrients from itself to convert that food into energy, which will weaken your immune system and cause all sorts of diseases and conditions, and because your body doesn’t recognise that food, it treats it as sugar, and stores it on you as excess energy (fat). 

It also messes up your hormones, like insulin, which is crucial for deciding whether to store the energy to use straight away or for later use after you’ve eaten a meal, and ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone.

They indoctrinated you with calorie counting to exploit you

The food companies and gurus were smart and knew that if you only thought about calories and “macros” when buying food, the consideration of ingredients would be rare. 

So they put “high protein” or “low fat” in bold text on the packaging to attract you into thinking it’s good, but all they are are low-quality macros (macros combined with chemicals and synthetic compounds).

But the food’s true self is exposed when you read the ingredients! These foods are known as “empty calories”.

Anyway, they also put “low calories” in big lettering on the packaging to lure you to the food item so they can make profit (especially for those trying to lose weight).

And this leads to my next point.

Excess energy can get stored in you in 2 different ways:

Consuming high glycemic foods stores more fat on you quicker than if you entered a caloric surplus. If you ate 6000 calories worth of avocados (which is very unlikely), you would barely gain any fat, but all the energy would be stored to use straight away, and whatever movements you were meant to do, all the energy would come from the avocados, rather than being stored on you for later.

Back to what I was saying, although ultra-processed food has low calories, they are not stored in a calorie surplus way, but they are mainly stored in the insulin way (what I call it).

What insulin does

These foods raise your blood sugar, so insulin solves the problem. It blocks any other form of energy being used in your body so that you can use the sugar (glucose) you have in your blood as energy.

But because of high glycaemic sugars (they can’t stay in your blood for very long because they’re toxic), insulin removes most of them from your blood quickly and stores most of them on you for later use, and that’s what causes fat gain.

That quick release causes a quick burst of energy then a “crash”, and this results in you having cravings.

Because you haven’t taught your body how to use its fat stores as energy, the fat keeps building up on you, resulting in you being fat.

But I’ll teach you how to do so, and it’s very simple.

How to teach your body to use its fat stores as energy

It’s by first cutting out ultra-processed foods, and you’ll have fewer spikes in your insulin. Then gradually cut out any sugar in your diet (like sugar in your tea), then cut out refined carbs, like white rice, and have brown or wild rice instead.

Then simultaneously bring in healthy fats, like avocadoes and eggs, and animal protein sources, like chicken, eggs, meat, and healthy carbs, like potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Here’s what happens when you do that:

  • You will have a short period of intense cravings
  • You have more energy throughout the day
  • You won’t have brain fog so you’ll be able to concentrate better
  • You gradually become fat-adapted 
  • And you’ll lose fat throughout this period

The good thing about this is that after you’re finally fat-adapted when you eat a sugary item, it will go straight to your muscles as glycogen, which is beneficial for working out. So you don’t even need pre-workout!

If you were also meant to bring in some refined carbs in your diet, they wouldn’t affect you as they did before.

But note that the less you have sugary and ultra-processed items, the better your overall health will be.

Takeaway

There’s no need to count calories, and only focusing on calories makes you vulnerable to the tricks food companies will play on you, like putting high glycaemic sugars in the foods that are low in calories and putting words like “low in calories” on the packaging to lure you to it.

At the start of your fat loss journey, I recommend you only eat whole, single-ingredient foods for at least 30 days, or until you know you’re fat-adapted.

Then, you can start reading the ingredients of other foods you may want to buy, and if you find any unusual names, like dextrose, search them on the internet and if they are sugar, avoid the food item.

People say “It’s only a bit of sugar it doesn’t matter”, but as long as you stay consistent with it, it will affect you, and your health.

Here are the bullet points that should stay in your mind:

  • Calories are needed for us to function properly, which are in macronutrients
  • Micronutrients provide us with the essential nutrients and vitamins we need but also take part in the conversion of macronutrients into energy (calories)
  • Ultra-processed foods come with little if not no high-quality vitamins, or vitamins in general
  • So when you eat them, your body steals micronutrients from itself to complete the conversion which weakens your immune system
  • When you are in a caloric deficit, your body breaks down skeletal tissue (muscle tissue) as well as fat for energy because it hasn’t been taught to solely use fat stores as energy
  • So to lose fat and become fat-adapted, the most efficient way is to cut out ultra-processed foods and refined carbs and increase your healthy fat and animal protein intake

Note

Now obviously, if you have a fast metabolism, you may not even gain fat if you eat ultra-processed foods, which is my case.

But they will bite back at you in the future and damage your health.

But people who gain fat easily in virtually all cases have a slow metabolism, so this can apply to you.

Even if you don’t, you should still follow this way, just that you don’t have to cut out refined carbohydrates (which is what I do).