When it comes to weight loss, calories are king.
At least that's what most will state.
I've never been a big believer in the importance of calories, although of course they have a role to play, purely measuring your food based on calories has always seemed to lack something.
How many times have you tried to go on a diet, cut calories, started to lose a bit of weight but also lost your sanity.
Do we really have to choose between weight loss and sanity?
However, this post is not about “how to lose weight” or “the best diet is...”
I have been sitting on this thought for quite a while now and I wanted to get it out there and see if it has any merit, or maybe just gets you thinking.
Energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
We've all heard that – the first law of thermodynamics.
And proponents of the calories in vs calories out method of weight loss will espouse this principle ad nauseum as to the reason it's all that matters.
You can't argue with the fact that the energy doesn't disappear. It has to go somewhere!
But where it goes is important and has nothing to do with calories. A topic for another post...
What I've never understood is why we don't apply that same logic to weight.
Not weight loss or body weight. The weight of food!
Just like the first law of thermodynamics there is also the law of conservation of mass.
If your bodyweight is 80kg and you take in 1kg of food or liquid, it doesn't matter if it's water, potatoes, chocolate or steak – you now weigh 81kg
1kg of water (1 litre) is 0 calories. A kilogram of chocolate is 5350 calories. They couldn't be more different in calories yet you end up the same weight immediately after each.
Does this mean you can just eat whatever you want as long as you keep it to a certain weight?
Of course not.
Try eating a kilo of chocolate – I'm pretty sure you'll be sick. Or a kilo of steak. Good luck fitting that in!
Instead you could think about it this way.
You work out your basal metabolic rate and activity levels and that to maintain your weight you need to eat 2000 calories per day.
If you ate
500 grams of potatoes (385 Cal),
500 grams of bananas (210 Cal),
500 grams of pasta (655 Cal) and
400 grams of tuna (736 Cal)
across the day you would reach very close to 2000 calories and have eaten 1.9kg of food.
Now if you ate just
500 grams of tuna (920 Cal) and
400 grams of steak (1084 Cal)
for the day you would reach 2000 calories with a total of 900 grams of food.
Of course these numbers are just theory and in practice it would be hard to eat either of the above diets for one day, let alone consistently, but which one would you imagine you would lose weight on? Or would it be the same?
I'm not by any means stating that eating based on the weight of food rather than calories is the way to go, and there are many other factors such as getting enough protein, fats and carbohydrates as well as micronutrients, water and fibre. I'm just curious as to why I haven't seen anyone else put it in this way?
I'm sure someone could point out to me why it doesn't work or why calories are more important than weight and I'd be happy to hear your reasoning.
It's just a theory I've been sitting on for some time and wanted to put it out there to see if I was crazy or if it has some merit.
So what do you think?
Are you going to start weighing your food or is it just a silly idea?
