Lose Weight Program > The Truth About Calories

Principles of losing weight have not changed since the origin of the human race. There is no reason to expect that they ever will change.

One of the unchanging aspects of weight control which tends to confuse the us is the issue of calories.

Your body reflects balances between intake and output of energies. Biological energies are measured in heat-units known as calories. A calorie is always a calorie, whatever food or fuel provides it - just as an inch is always an inch, regardless of what you are measuring.

If you consistently take in more calories than you get rid of by body activities, the surplus calories stick with you in the form of body fat. On the other hand, burn up more calories than you obtain from food, and weight loss is inevitable. The deficit has to be made good by calories withdrawn from store houses of body fat. You've probably heard this all before. The dirty truth about weight loss is that you either need to eat less or exercise more to lose weight. Unfortunately, most of us actually have to eat much less and exercise much more than we want to.

You can, of course, abolish calories from your mental concepts - if you wish. You can also do away with the inch as a measuring unit. The circumference of your waistline will remain the same. So it is with calories, whether you calculate them or not. They always stand up to be counted in one way or another. That is the heart of the matter.

How is it then that endless varieties of faddist diets that appear to repeal long-established medical principles of weight reduction in dozens of fascinating ways come and go in such rapid succession?

One reason is that overweight people naturally crave some miraculous product, exotic supplement, food combination, or gimmick that promises to melt off fat all by itself, by abolishing laws of physiology, or at least implying that such laws are suspended.

This craving for a "magic" reducing method which does all the work while you eat your head off is nothing to be ashamed of, but to be wary of. It's healthy to have a good appetite and to love to eat. Unfortunately, the gimmick approach to reducing usually fails in a short time, because the reducer gets sick and tired of buying expensive "magic" products and supplements or of limiting meals to a few monotonous foods. He tends to fall off his diet wagon and to thumb a ride on the next one that comes along.

The essence of weight reduction is limitation of calories or greater expenditure of energy or both. It is perfectly true that you do not have to count calories in order to reduce. This does not mean that the calories you consume are not counted. They always are. Your body does it infallibly. If a diet does slim you over a period of time, you can be sure of one thing. It has somehow reduced your calorie intake below your levels of calorie expenditure.

Any diet will reduce you if it is sufficiently restricted in calories. To be sure, the diet may not make a big thing of calorie limitation, or even mention it. But if it is not so limited, it will not reduce you. A diet does not have to be medically sound, or to operate according to theories of its advocates, to reduce you.

You could, for instance, lose weight on a diet limited exclusively to butter (or cheese and meat, like Atkins). Or any other oil or fat. You wouldn't even have to count calories. Your metabolism would do that for you. You can stomach only so much fat without gagging. This puts a brake on your fat intake and restricts calories automatically.


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