If You’re Counting Calories, Shouldn’t You Know What They Look Like?

Identity crisis

You’d think, from all the bad press, that a calorie must look something like this – or WORSE!

Would you know a calorie if you saw one? What does it look like? Does it have a taste or a smell? How big is it? What does it act like? Is it really the “bad guy” it’s been painted to be?

Is it any relation to cellulite? Or do they just like to hang out together? Is it like the Pied Piper, marching across the landscape of our mid-sections, leading a bunch of fat cells who then never leave?

Seems calories get blamed for a lot. But are they ALL bad? Is it really all THEIR fault?

To hear the media buzz about them, it would appear that a calorie is some sort of absolute, some non-diminishable element of . . . well, a calorie.

But popular perception and reality are in this case quite different. Saying that all calories are the same is like saying that all molecules are the same. Or that all carats are the same.

Quantity vs. quality

Fact is, a “calorie” is really just a unit of measure, similar in practical terms to most any other units of measure. Calories refer to quantity rather than quality.

Cups are like calories. It's not how many, it's what they contain that matters.

Can you imagine a recipe that reads, “Combine three cups with ½ cup, blend in ¾ cup, then add ½ teaspoon and a pinch”?  You’d be wondering, cups of what? Teaspoons of what? A pinch of what?

Similarly, calories describe units of measure of “combustible” materials, things that the body can literally burn to create energy. But we need to understand that diverse materials burn at different rates, burn at differing efficiencies, give off differing wastes, and the wrong kinds of materials can even harm the system when they burn. They are definitely NOT all the same.

The DeLorean Myth

What works in the movies doesn't work for your health.

Remember the closing scene of the first Back to the Future movie? Professor Brown returns (from the future) to get Marty Fly and his girl friend to take them “back to the future” to fix a problem. But “Doc” is running low on fuel. To power up what had originally been a nuclear-energized time machine, to Marty’s surprise, “Doc” roots through a nearby garbage can for an assortment of discarded food and trash items, all of which his upgraded machine can now burn for fuel.

In the movie, at least, it looked as if any kind of combustible vegetation or material worked equally as well. But that was only in the movie.

Unfortunately, treating your body like Doc’s DeLorean can get you into health troubles. It’s a big mistake to expect your system to sort through the vast array of foods (and garbage) you take in, looking for X-number of calories’ worth of combustible materials that can be turned into forms of sugar and burned in your internal “furnace”. It can do that, but it will cost you.

Comparing foods only by calorie content is not a true comparison

It’s true that the fuel equivalency of those foods is rated in calories (quantity). You can have 2000 calories from ice cream or 2000 calories from tomatoes. But the similarities stop there. On the quality side, the rates at which they burn and the relative benefits they provide or the damage to your body they cause can vary widely.

Just as divergent grades of gasolines with their additives and/or contaminants affect the performance and longevity of a gasoline powered engine, your body will either thrive or suffer based upon the grade of the “fuel” you give it to fire its “internal combustion engine”.

Basic differences

The more natural and whole the source of calories, the more assured you can be that there are nutrients provided in the food that go beyond just the calories for fueling. By design, you can expect to find naturally occurring enzymes to aid in the digestion of the food.  And vitamins and minerals are also included to help feed and replenish your body for its many functions and activities.

Contrast that with a “food” that has been “refined”. (“Refined” is a polite way to describe completely stripping a natural food of as much of its nourishing and balancing nutrients as possible – generally to make it last longer on the shelves). The more “refined”, the less benefit there will be to the body, even though the calories of what is left may get “burned” in the body as fuel. Obviously, the same can be correctly stated for artificial “foods”, additives, and ingredients.

Regardless of the number of calories involved, "refined" sugar has no place in a healthy diet.

In fact, along with other types of long-term damage they may do, substances such as “refined” sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and the like, have been shown to strip the body of valuable nutrients and components as they burn their way through our systems. This kind of damage can and does lead to inflammation, increase in free radicals (and the accompanying acceleration of the aging process), acidifying the body, and other debilitating conditions.

But whether our culture cares to differentiate between the quality of the calories we take in, you can be sure that your BODY knows the difference between junk calories and nutritionally rich calories. And so should you.

The fact that all calories are NOT created equal is another reason for the NO COMPROMISE philosophy at LiveSmart 360. Our full and unique line of nutritional products and supplements are drawn from the most wholesome, complete, and balanced sources possible, so that you get “All of the Good and None of the Bad” while you “Live Life Better” as a LiveSmart 360 Member or Customer.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. LiveSmart 360 products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.